How useful was the AD&D Core Rules CD?

Allandaros · Jul 10, 2006

Seeing all this discussion of the Dragon Magazine CD Archive reminded me of the other AD&D product I had dreamed of buying at the time - the Core Rules CD. I vaguely remember that it had a bunch of the "Complete" books, including some of the rarer ones.

For an AD&D DM, is it worth it to hunt down the Core Rules CD if one already has the Big Three rulebooks in print, and most of the "Complete" books in electronic form?

Psion · Jul 10, 2006

It's a different kind of resource. Obviously, most of the game mechanical material will need porting or will be non applicable.

But the idea content of 250 issues plus of fantasy gaming magazines is of a value to a GM's font of ideas that is not to be underestimated. Monk orders, NPC attitutes, quick npc descriptions, location and culture descriptions, etc.

AKA, I read it for the articles, mang!

Henry · Jul 10, 2006

I still have it, and occasionally I STILL reference it, both at work and at home, because I participate in quite a few "older edition" discussions.

It's not worth it, however, if you had all of the books in question in PDF form, because it's nothing but the help-file-referenced text of all the books. On the other hand, I don't recall seeing all of its texts in PDF (such as Combat and Tactics, and Spells and Magic) so it still has a good bit of utility if you need the rules for the 2nd edition game.

One thing -- the 1.0 version is TERRIBLE. get the 2.0 edition if you can find it. Not denigrating the original coders, but I did not find the first one NEARLY as complete as the second one.

Voadam · Jul 10, 2006

I only got the 2.0 one with the rtfs of the 2e core books plus the dozen or so completes. It is great for searching stuff like the description of an azer from the Monstrous Manual for copying and pasting (something I did for my 3.5 game).

If you already have the books you want in pdf then not so much.

DaveMage · Jul 10, 2006

Definitely get the 2.0 version. IIRC, it also had a dungeon designer program with it that allowed you to make simple maps.

I liked it alot for 2E.

diaglo · Jul 10, 2006

Henry said:
One thing -- the 1.0 version is TERRIBLE. get the 2.0 edition if you can find it. Not denigrating the original coders, but I did not find the first one NEARLY as complete as the second one.

what Henry said.

get the 2.0 version.

i don't think the online corrections are available anyway anymore.

Arkhandus · Jul 10, 2006

Aye, the Core Rules II CD-ROM was a useful resource when I got it, along with the Expansion CD-ROM, though I was disappointed that it didn't include certain books in its files, such as the Complete Ninja's Handbook....

I preferred the simple map-maker program that was part of it rather than Campaign Cartographer 2......ugh, that CC2 was a pain in the rear to try figuring out, just to make a simple, decent map....the online tutorial was really sub-par and didn't make a lot of sense at some points. I made many good maps though with the simpler, non-CC map utility that came with the CR2 CD-ROM. If I didn't get stuck using a different computer rather abruptly, I would've copied my files from that and continued using the program on the new computer..... It'd make a good reference still, at least for stuff like monster background and whatnot, as well as equipment ideas and stuff.

EricNoah · Jul 10, 2006

I found the 2.0 version to be invaluable in my AD&D game prep, particularly for whipping up Skills & Powers PCs/NPCs and getting monster stat blocks ready. It was the thing that made me really interested in computer support for D&D 3E and beyond.

Kishin · Jul 10, 2006

I used it all the time during my AD&D days. It was simple, fast and flexible. The mapping program isn't spectacular (especially for world maps) but it gets the job done. I'd definitely recommend it.

Man, I sound so old in this post. I swear, I'm just out of college, heh.

Delta · Jul 10, 2006

I like it (again, Core Rules II). My only wish was that there was a 1st Ed. AD&D version... 2E bothers me. Some of the generators I could swallow hard and use. To this day, I really do like the simple MapMaker program it had (wilderness, town, dungeon with 3D walkthrough, real simple to use).