D&D General Behold! A mega chart of AD&D 1st and 2nd ed monster products sales!

[Stormonu]

Yikes, the MM2 sales dropped off a cliff and still sold 100K the next year!

1985 must have been the year they did the revised cover for the MM - that was around when I got my copy.

 

[darjr]

I loved the MM2, both lore wise and mechanics wise. But I realize it might have been just me.

 

[aco175]

I remember having the loose-leaf compendium and needing to get the circle protectors since the pages kept ripping. I never did just take out the monsters I was using for that night like the sales pitch said I should do to make things easier. Maybe that is why I needed to reinforce the pages.

 

[Mannahnin]

Yikes, the MM2 sales dropped off a cliff and still sold 100K the next year!

1985 must have been the year they did the revised cover for the MM - that was around when I got my copy.

I think you're right. I believe I read that the MM2 was the first orange-spined 1E hardcover Jeff Easley did the cover for, and so he did revised covers for the PH, DMG and MM after that.

 

[overgeeked]

If I remember right, 1984 was a big year for the Satanic Panic. Big stories in California of abuse in schools. Summer of ’84 was the murder in New York. I think that’s when the Panic went from a kooky sideshow to parents burning books.

 

[Shardstone]

What made Monster Manual II so bangin'?

 

[MNblockhead]

With all these TSR sales charts that have been posted recently, I can't help by whistling bomb-dropping sound effects as I look at them.

They just continue to build my awe at the stamina of 5e book sales.

 

[Jer]

Were they? My recollection is indeed that the MC1 had all the "core" common monsters, and that MC2 was much more of a supplement, with weirder stuff in it. I definitely was one of those who bought 1 but not 2.

I had to go googling to see if I could find a list of what was in the MC1 and what was in the MC2 (my own MC is mixed together because MC1 and MC2 were I think the only ones where the intermingling of pages actually worked with no monsters needing to slide in between two monsters printed back-to-back).

Found these lists: List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition monsters

Just glancing down from the top I see in the MC2 the Basilisk, the Bulette, the Doppelganger, the Dwarf, the Drow, the Ettin, the Cyclops, the Griffin, all of the Hags, the Hell Hound, the Mimic, the Rust Monster, the Shambling Mound, and the Stirge among many others that I would now consider "core" monsters but might not have at the time.

Certainly that was the case with the original Monster Manual and Monster Manual 2 for 1E.

Right - the MM2 was "here are a bunch of new monsters". But if you wanted a 2e replacement for the 1e Monster Manual with almost all of the stats in it you had to get the MC1 and the MC2. Eventually TSR either realized their mistake or the MCs got expensive to produce because they switched away from looseleafs and to actual books, and when they did IIRC the hardcover Monstrous Compendium basically had the creatures from MC1 and MC2 in it.

 

[Mezuka]

What made Monster Manual II so bangin'?

Waiting 4 years for another MM? I was very excited.

 

[Mannahnin]

I had to go googling to see if I could find a list of what was in the MC1 and what was in the MC2 (my own MC is mixed together because MC1 and MC2 were I think the only ones where the intermingling of pages actually worked with no monsters needing to slide in between two monsters printed back-to-back).

Found these lists: List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition monsters

Just glancing down from the top I see in the MC2 the Basilisk, the Bulette, the Doppelganger, the Dwarf, the Drow, the Ettin, the Cyclops, the Griffin, all of the Hags, the Hell Hound, the Mimic, the Rust Monster, the Shambling Mound, and the Stirge among many others that I would now consider "core" monsters but might not have at the time.


Right - the MM2 was "here are a bunch of new monsters". But if you wanted a 2e replacement for the 1e Monster Manual with almost all of the stats in it you had to get the MC1 and the MC2. Eventually TSR either realized their mistake or the MCs got expensive to produce because they switched away from looseleafs and to actual books, and when they did IIRC the hardcover Monstrous Compendium basically had the creatures from MC1 and MC2 in it.

Yeah, thanks for digging. I tried googling as well but hadn't found that list yet.

My memory must have been off, because I definitely had those monsters too. I must have bought both and then just consolidated them into the big MC1 binder.

I don't have it anymore because it eventually got damaged/broken moving house about 17-18 years ago, and I threw the whole thing out. I almost never throw away gaming books, but the MC binder was just so large, unwieldy and fragile that I didn't want to deal with it anymore.