AD&D2E phenomenon

I tend to study AD&D2E books a lot. Why would I devote my precious time for such a tedious task? - you would ask. Well... someone has to it for you - that's for starters. Then, I enjoy it and treat it as a certain kind of an exercise in game design.

Some of you might not believe it, the WotC people might not want to admit it, but there is just so much playability in AD&D and so much of the D&D 3E in it that it's scary. My personal goal is to bring this playability out to daylight and try bringing at least some of you to reconsider this wonderful gaming system or at least muse over the glorious past of role playing games.

One aspect I have been recently focusing on is the rulebook arrangement and rules composition.

I have heard voices that AD&D2E is in fact AD&D1E with better book content composition and cosmetic changes.

Well, I claim that D&D3E is in fact AD&D2E with better book composition and cosmetic changes. And, err.. well.. some not so cosmetic - Success roll, DC (difficulty class), etc.

And that is fine. It is the point of publishing new editions, isn't it? Not just creating a completely new system and lose all the investment in a successful franchise.

That said, I really dig D&D3E and everything that happened to it.

The reason I cling to AD&D2E so desperately is that this being published in the golden age of rpgs when their fellow crpgs where a mere shadow of the real entertainment. And I dare say no further game design period was so optimistic and joyfully creative. The heirloom we have been given in terms of variety of books,  optional ideas, guides, companions, expansions etc is incomparable to anything we have now.

Yet, this also resulted in complete and utter chaos in game composition.

If you take some time to look for and recompose the various rules that are scattered around all of the manuals, you will end with a surprisingly deep and ingenious gaming system. That fits several A4 pages. And lacks all of the beautiful Larry Elmore illustrations (Larry, you deserve a recognition among the younger audience, I will see to it).

My first attempt at it was a natural consequence of re-writing the combat system in the previous posts.

How to run combat in a dynamic, yet deep and engaging way so that the modern, demanding gamers enjoy it? Well you can buy D&D4E for starters. You might also give some of my findings a try. In my next post I will present a comprehensive table (with descriptions) to handle combat and give the players (both heroes and DM) some interesting tools to have fun.

Cheers!