Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
RPG published by TSR
Authors	Gary Gygax
First Publication	1977 (1st Edition) 1989 (2nd Edition)
Essential Books	Dungeon Master's Guide Player's Handbook Monster Manual

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was developed from the Dungeons & Dragons game in the late 1970s. It allowed for more versatility in making characters and more detail and depth than the basic game had.

FAGS!

AD&D 2nd Edition

This edition added a whole lot of modular rules and fluff material. The core methodology of 1E was still in place, slightly more basic in scope. It also added a huge amount of optional rules from Unearthed Arcana and the Survival Guide books. For the most part, the core books work as described above, so this is what's different:

THAC0

2E took the combat matrices and made them uniform in function. Every class or kit in the game falls under one of 4 categories, and each category has a different rate of improvement. Fighters, obviously, get the best rate, while non-physical fighters get the worst. The statistic used to implement these categories was called THAC0.

THAC0 stands for To Hit Armor Class 0 (zero); it's the minimum number you needed to roll on a d20 in order to hit something with AC 0. To handle other armor classes, you subtracted the target's AC from your character's THAC0, and then tried to roll at least this number.

Opinions of this mechanic are divided; some say it's overly complicated and non-intuitive (negative ACs being very good, for instance), while others don't think there's a problem at all.

Complete (insert something here) Handbooks

There are a lot of people who want to play something unique, detailed and some people who just want the various bits of fluff to help describe their characters. The Complete Series Brown books detailed limited aspects of the 2E game rules, added optional rules, and player kits to play specific versions of a class. Other resource books that used the same format followed, like the Arms and Equipment guide, Of Ships and the Sea, and others. The Historical Reference books (referred to as the green books) allowed players and DMs to approximate historical situations using the AD&D 2E rules.

Box Sets

Well, 1E had box sets as well, but they really became prolific in 2E. The box sets offered new worlds, new developments in some worlds, and fluff the likes of which are hard to match even today. Masque of The Red Death, Planescape, and Dark Sun are notable campaign setting box sets.

Where's the Monster Manual?

Early in the 2E cycle, TSR decided that instead of releasing book after book of monsters, they would sell a huge binder with the basic monsters in it, and sell packs of sheets to fill it with. Each box set would have sheets with monsters specific to the setting in it, and "galleries" of NPCs and special monsters. They called the binder the Monstrous Compendium, and they eventually released a second binder anyway. It was still much cheaper than publishing books. Eventually TSR would listen to demand and release a basic Monstrous Manual with the most common critters in it. After the cessation of the binder production, new printings of box sets would have little paperback supplements to the monster manuals instead of the punched sheets.

Devils and Demons

After the mess from Patricia Pulling and Jack Chick, Lorraine Williams decided to have Demons and Devils pulled from AD&D 2E. The designers snuck them back in, but changed the names to Tanar'ri and Baatezu. Most players referred to them as Demons and Devils though, until the new names gained more proliferation in TSR branded novels. (Specifically, ones about a Balor and a Gary Stu munchkined ass Drow.)

Whar da half orks?

Lorraine thought they were ugly. Seriously. Unpleasantness on the part of the player was nixed. It's the same reason the Assassin class went buh-bye.

Whoa, at least there's fluff.

If 1E lacked fluff, 2E had too much. From specific campaign setting spell books like Pages from the Mages, to the Book of Artifacts, Encyclopedia Magica and the Priest and Mage Spell Compendium series. You also had Dungeon cards, Racial supplementals, etc.

OPTION BOOKS

The Option series brought in several piecemeal procedures for character and scenario creation. Due to a no-playtesting policy at TSR, many builds under the OPTION books can be horribly broken. Allow these at your own risk DMs. OPTION Series books are often referred to as 2.5 by newbies looking for some sense of revenge after 2E fans made fun of them when Wizards released 3.5. It's not 2.5, none of the core books are invalidated or changed. The OPTIONs are broken, but they still require the 2E core books and as such are still 2E, much as it pains most fans to admit it.

Longevity and History

The game had amazing product and lots of fluff. However the business plan was pretty shit. The combination of high quality materials, low relative selling cost, the glut of settings and material for them, the broken gameplay issues later on due to the no-playtesting policy, and TSR basically wrote its own ticket to failure. Still, the game plodded on for an amazing 11 years until Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition was released.

See also

• Dungeons & Dragons
• Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition
• Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition
• Castles & Crusades - Same game, different company.