AD&D 2nd edition thoughts…

AD&D 2nd edition premium edition

The last few weeks I have been reading up on a game I missed entirely – AD&D 2nd edition.

We stopped playing D&D in 1988-1989 something, just before 2e hit the shelves. However, returning to D&D a few years ago I started buying some 2e stuff on the cheap, and now I have quite a collection on my shelf.

I planned to use it for our adventures, but fell into the OSR-clone marsh and scrapped 2e to be used for inspiration and to be “cannibalized” for ideas and cool stuff.

This christmas when I got D&D 5th edition a lot of people compared it with 2e and I brought out my 2e books for a more thorough reading. And I must say that I really like this version of the game.

Never being a devout fan of the high Gygaxian prose of 1e, the 2e style suits me much more, as does the form and layout of the books. Contrary to most (it seems) I definitely prefer the 1995 black edition of the books.

There’s been a lot of yapping online over demons and devils being renamed or that the assassin, monk and half-orc disappeared and other little things, but at the same time I think that 2e brings so much other cool stuff to the table, making up for those “transgressions” many times around. And they reappeared later – the monk and assassin in “The Scarlet Brotherhood” supplement and the half-orc in the “Complete Book of Humanoids”.

If I’m going to GM an advanced D&D game in the future, I will definitely try out 2e!

Also, keep an eye open for future posts here on 2e. I will write about some personal reflections from the perspective of an bx/1e GM trying out the new 2e.

And for me it IS a new game. One that I am much more exited about GM:ing than the new D&D 5e game.