D&D 2E Huh. AD&D 2e is my favorite D&D

[Zardnaar]

I'm of mixed feelings on the 2E original vs. revised books. There's some art in the original I really like, but I find the formatting of the revised book more readable, especially for me olde eyes.

I just downloaded the 2E retroclone "For Gold & Glory" and I'm comparing the layout of that. I do like that it appears to have tightened up the language to make things easier to find. Haven't had enough time to see if it has changed any rules. Has anyone been using that or have we all just been relying on our old books?

Looked briefly at gold and glory but use old books.

Downside of 2E is logistics. Carrying the damn stuff.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Downside of 2E is logistics. Carrying the damn stuff.

Hear, hear. I remember seeing this ad in a Dragon Magazine and feeling it in my soul.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Hear, hear. I remember seeing this ad in a Dragon Magazine and feeling it in my soul.

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Lol. I remember that era of advertisement well. No one wants to be the jerk in the short sleeved dress shirt!

Incidentally the CD and CD-Rom stuff was pretty quirky sometimes. I remember a CD coming with Dragon that was a very awkward round table discussion with the editorial staff

 

[Bedrockgames]

Looked briefly at gold and glory but use old books.

Downside of 2E is logistics. Carrying the damn stuff.

This is why you needed to have a good bag or backpack to store your books in (and in an ideal situation if you were running the game, you were hosting too)

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I'm of mixed feelings on the 2E original vs. revised books. There's some art in the original I really like, but I find the formatting of the revised book more readable, especially for me olde eyes.

The presentation and artwork of the original 2e books just brings too much nostalgia for me - the revised books just have an uncanny valley feel for me.

Looked briefly at gold and glory but use old books.

Downside of 2E is logistics. Carrying the damn stuff.

The number of books I'd have to lug around just to run a game was ridiculous! I remember I had a backpack and a duffle bag filled with books I'd schlep to friends' places. Yes, the binder-style Monstrous Compendium made it easy to in-theory just take the monsters you needed. But then it was a pain to go put them all back where you got them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The presentation and artwork of the original 2e books just brings too much nostalgia for me - the revised books just have an uncanny valley feel for me.

100% this. The revised book, even when it first came out and had the black binding, just looked weird. I have the POD now and even the font feels off to me. But those books that came out in 89 really had a nice look to them

 

[Zardnaar]

This is why you needed to have a good bag or backpack to store your books in (and in an ideal situation if you were running the game, you were hosting too)

We have that for session 0 had 16 books.

I'll cut down the ones we don't need.

 

[Staffan]

The number of books I'd have to lug around just to run a game was ridiculous! I remember I had a backpack and a duffle bag filled with books I'd schlep to friends' places. Yes, the binder-style Monstrous Compendium made it easy to in-theory just take the monsters you needed. But then it was a pain to go put them all back where you got them.

Hmm, let me think of how many books I was bringing back in the early 90s for my Dark Sun game... PHB, DMG, Monstrous Compendium (with assorted monsters added from appendices), Dark Sun box, Dragon Kings, Complete Fighter's (for combat rules and various stuff you could do with proficiencies), Complete Wizard's (for spells), Complete Psionics, The Will & The Way, Earth Air Fire and Water, Thri-kreen of Athas, Complete Gladiator's, and likely an adventure (Dragon's Crown!) too. I don't think I had Elves of Athas or Dune Traders at the time, and Defilers & Preservers wasn't out yet.

Quite a lot to carry in a bag you put on the packet holder on your bike.

 

[cbwjm]

One of the things I liked about becmi was that I only had to take the one book into school. With 2e, I think I was taking the core 3 of PHB, MM, and DMG.

 

[Stormonu]

Hear, hear. I remember seeing this ad in a Dragon Magazine and feeling it in my soul.

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Gads, I remember the days of toting a backpack, gym bag, map case and mini's box to games and somehow was able to haul it in on one go. I want to say that I weighed the backpack in at somewhere around 35 lbs. alone.

I bought into the iPad gen 1 when it came out just to save my back, and nowadays I just haul around that tablet around (though the one I have now has a book-sized screen), dice and a small notepad. Could get by with just the iPad*, but rolling dice is just too good to leave up to electronic dice.


* I have 1E (all books), 2E (all core books & splats), 3.5E, 5E, all of D&D's various campaign worlds and my two bookshelves of other RPGs/Wargames on the thing.