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D&D Older Editions
[COMPLETE] Looking back at the limited series: Player's Option, Monstrous Arcana, Odyssey, and more!
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 8506076" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>Kicking things off is the first in what I’ve come to call, in my head I mean, the “expanded core” series of books: <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/116010/Legends--Lore-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Legends & Lore</em></a>.</p><p></p><p>Taking a moment to go into that particular grouping a little more, this is something I came up with because I couldn’t help but notice the symmetry between the fact that there are three titles in the traditional Core Rules (i.e. the <em>Player’s Handbook</em>, <em>Dungeon Master’s Guide</em>, and <em>Monstrous Manual</em>, since I wouldn’t go back and get the original <em>Monstrous Compendium</em> volumes until years later) and these three supplements: <em>Legends & Lore</em>, the <em>Tome of Magic</em>, and the <em>Book of Artifacts</em>.</p><p></p><p>Now, to be fair, that’s largely an issue of the trade dress more than anything else. Like the Core Rulebooks, these three were hardbacks whose spines were black with white, capital lettering (and no world logos, unlike <em><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16797/Forgotten-Realms-Adventures-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">Forgotten Realms Adventures</a></em> or <em><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17183/Dragon-Kings-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">Dragon Kings</a></em>). At a glance, they looked like they were of the same series as the Core Rulebooks, and so I couldn’t help but think of them that way. Even today, the six all sit together on my shelf, together as a greater whole.</p><p></p><p>In the case of <em>Legends & Lore</em>, the book partakes in another tradition of the Core Rulebooks: taking its name from that of an earlier-edition iteration, though in this case it’s namesake, the <em>Legends & Lore</em> book of AD&D 1E, has the dubious distinction of simply being a renamed <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/110198/Deities--Demigods-1e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Deities & Demigods</em></a> after the Cthulhu and Melnibonean mythoi were cut. Given that I already have the unexpurgated version of that work, I never saw a need to pick up the AD&D 1E L&L, since so far as I know it has no new content that makes it worth picking up (besides the new cover art).</p><p></p><p>As for the 2E L&L itself, I’ve gone <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/complete-looking-back-at-the-leatherette-series-phbr-dmgr-hr-and-more.677493/post-8172321" target="_blank">on the record</a> in my <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/complete-looking-back-at-the-leatherette-series-phbr-dmgr-hr-and-more.677493/page-10#post-8238392" target="_blank">previous look-back thread</a> about how the cultural presentations of this book’s pantheons were too strong for my tastes back when I first picked it up, and that’s true; when I first got started with D&D, I defaulted to the quasi-medieval European pastiche, but found that the various historical pantheons in this book simply had too much flavor associated with them for the bland genericness my younger self was inadvertently trying to invoke. Use the Greek pantheon, and you expect togas and fluted columns; use the Egyptian pantheon, and it’s pyramids and striped headdresses; use the Celtic pantheon, and you get druids and Braveheart quotes. All things I wanted to avoid.</p><p></p><p>But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t like what was here. Quite the contrary, I <em>poured</em> over this book, because as much as I found the various pantheons to carry too much cultural baggage (to reuse a term), it still had a lot of AD&D goodness to it.</p><p></p><p>For instance, contrary to popular belief, this book <em>did</em> have stats – or at least, guidelines for stats – for gods, as well as their avatars. It was just that these guidelines were incomplete. You wouldn’t find hit points or Armor Class listings for the actual deities, but you would find saving throws, actions per round, and magic resistance values. So while you might have a hard time trying to punch Thor in the face, your wizard could cast <em>imprisonment</em> on him and potentially succeed (though the odds were <em>seriously</em> stacked against you). Fun fact: these values received some marginal expansion in <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17569/Faiths--Avatars-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Faiths & Avatars</em></a>, which noted certain magical weapons being required to hit actual deities, certain categories of spells that they were immune to, etc.</p><p></p><p>There was also a surprising amount of player-facing content in here, despite it ostensibly being a book for DMs. New spells and magic items were a big one, with each pantheon having a couple of each; I remember being uncertain if these were allowed in campaigns that didn’t use the associated pantheons, since one thing this book didn’t have was any presentation that all of these pantheons were simultaneously present in the default AD&D multiverse. To be fair, that was because the opening presentation for each pantheon was more mythohistorical than fantastic in presentation; this book was less concerned with putting these pantheons into the context of the AD&D multiverse than it was with presenting them in their own context. Not having come across “kitchen sink” cosmologies before this, I was pretty well blown away when Planescape made it clear that <em>all</em> of these gods were sharing metaphysical real estate; needless to say, I subsequently read and reread <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/121101/On-Hallowed-Ground-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>On Hallowed Ground</em></a> many times, but <em>Legends & Lore</em> was what laid the groundwork for that.</p><p></p><p>Or at least, mostly. I do recall being distinctly irked when I realized that the Sumerian, Babylonian, and Finnish pantheons hadn’t been updated from AD&D 1E, but were still assumed to be around. That they never got converted over during AD&D 2E’s eleven-and-a-half year run still makes me frown. How did they never get an article in <em>Dragon</em> magazine? The Saxon pantheon did (issue #263), so there’s really no excuse for that oversight.</p><p></p><p>On the other hand, we did get the cast of <em>Le Morte d’Arthur</em> here, which I never knew what to do with. I mean, I don’t think anyone did, because these guys didn’t appear in any subsequent AD&D 2E materials that I’m aware of, but I guess it was nice…?</p><p></p><p>Still, one thing that section of the book did give us was a new character class: the pious knight. It was one of two new character classes – which even at the time I thought of as fun little easter eggs – the other being the ascetic, which I found far more interesting. Clerical hit points, wizard spellcasting (without a spellbook needed), advancing ability scores (albeit at the cost of Strength), and a number of special abilities as you level? Yes please!</p><p></p><p>Of course, the book really had far more than just those two character classes, since this is where the “priests of specific mythoi” mentioned in the <em>Player’s Handbook</em>, and outlined in <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16888/PHBR3-The-Complete-Priests-Handbook-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>PHBR3 The Complete Priest’s Handbook</em></a>, were presented in detail (albeit often very briefly). I read through these again and again, and today I consider specialty priests to be among the most evocative and flavorful parts of Second Edition.</p><p></p><p>Really, my only major complaint about this book is that it predated the next one in the list: the <em>Tome of Magic</em>. Since that book introduced a number of new clerical spheres (i.e. groupings of divine spells used to determine which ones you had access to) to go with all the new spells it presented, the deities here needed an update. While they technically never got one, <em>Dragon</em> magazine’s “Sage Advice” column started recommending those updates every month starting around issue #198 or so.</p><p></p><p>Overall, this book is one that I consider to be flawed, but still hits far and away more than it misses. It’s an excellent resource in terms of laying the groundwork for a lot of how the religious aspects of AD&D 2E were presented, and even if you don’t want to use anything here as-is, there’s a lot that can be cherry-picked to bring to the table. It’s definitely one of the more useful books of the expanded core, and I look back on it fondly now.</p><p></p><p><em>Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 8506076, member: 8461"] Kicking things off is the first in what I’ve come to call, in my head I mean, the “expanded core” series of books: [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/116010/Legends--Lore-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Legends & Lore[/I][/URL]. Taking a moment to go into that particular grouping a little more, this is something I came up with because I couldn’t help but notice the symmetry between the fact that there are three titles in the traditional Core Rules (i.e. the [I]Player’s Handbook[/I], [I]Dungeon Master’s Guide[/I], and [I]Monstrous Manual[/I], since I wouldn’t go back and get the original [I]Monstrous Compendium[/I] volumes until years later) and these three supplements: [I]Legends & Lore[/I], the [I]Tome of Magic[/I], and the [I]Book of Artifacts[/I]. Now, to be fair, that’s largely an issue of the trade dress more than anything else. Like the Core Rulebooks, these three were hardbacks whose spines were black with white, capital lettering (and no world logos, unlike [I][URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16797/Forgotten-Realms-Adventures-2e?affiliate_id=820']Forgotten Realms Adventures[/URL][/I] or [I][URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17183/Dragon-Kings-2e?affiliate_id=820']Dragon Kings[/URL][/I]). At a glance, they looked like they were of the same series as the Core Rulebooks, and so I couldn’t help but think of them that way. Even today, the six all sit together on my shelf, together as a greater whole. In the case of [I]Legends & Lore[/I], the book partakes in another tradition of the Core Rulebooks: taking its name from that of an earlier-edition iteration, though in this case it’s namesake, the [I]Legends & Lore[/I] book of AD&D 1E, has the dubious distinction of simply being a renamed [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/110198/Deities--Demigods-1e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Deities & Demigods[/I][/URL] after the Cthulhu and Melnibonean mythoi were cut. Given that I already have the unexpurgated version of that work, I never saw a need to pick up the AD&D 1E L&L, since so far as I know it has no new content that makes it worth picking up (besides the new cover art). As for the 2E L&L itself, I’ve gone [URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/complete-looking-back-at-the-leatherette-series-phbr-dmgr-hr-and-more.677493/post-8172321']on the record[/URL] in my [URL='https://www.enworld.org/threads/complete-looking-back-at-the-leatherette-series-phbr-dmgr-hr-and-more.677493/page-10#post-8238392']previous look-back thread[/URL] about how the cultural presentations of this book’s pantheons were too strong for my tastes back when I first picked it up, and that’s true; when I first got started with D&D, I defaulted to the quasi-medieval European pastiche, but found that the various historical pantheons in this book simply had too much flavor associated with them for the bland genericness my younger self was inadvertently trying to invoke. Use the Greek pantheon, and you expect togas and fluted columns; use the Egyptian pantheon, and it’s pyramids and striped headdresses; use the Celtic pantheon, and you get druids and Braveheart quotes. All things I wanted to avoid. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t like what was here. Quite the contrary, I [I]poured[/I] over this book, because as much as I found the various pantheons to carry too much cultural baggage (to reuse a term), it still had a lot of AD&D goodness to it. For instance, contrary to popular belief, this book [I]did[/I] have stats – or at least, guidelines for stats – for gods, as well as their avatars. It was just that these guidelines were incomplete. You wouldn’t find hit points or Armor Class listings for the actual deities, but you would find saving throws, actions per round, and magic resistance values. So while you might have a hard time trying to punch Thor in the face, your wizard could cast [I]imprisonment[/I] on him and potentially succeed (though the odds were [I]seriously[/I] stacked against you). Fun fact: these values received some marginal expansion in [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17569/Faiths--Avatars-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Faiths & Avatars[/I][/URL], which noted certain magical weapons being required to hit actual deities, certain categories of spells that they were immune to, etc. There was also a surprising amount of player-facing content in here, despite it ostensibly being a book for DMs. New spells and magic items were a big one, with each pantheon having a couple of each; I remember being uncertain if these were allowed in campaigns that didn’t use the associated pantheons, since one thing this book didn’t have was any presentation that all of these pantheons were simultaneously present in the default AD&D multiverse. To be fair, that was because the opening presentation for each pantheon was more mythohistorical than fantastic in presentation; this book was less concerned with putting these pantheons into the context of the AD&D multiverse than it was with presenting them in their own context. Not having come across “kitchen sink” cosmologies before this, I was pretty well blown away when Planescape made it clear that [I]all[/I] of these gods were sharing metaphysical real estate; needless to say, I subsequently read and reread [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/121101/On-Hallowed-Ground-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]On Hallowed Ground[/I][/URL] many times, but [I]Legends & Lore[/I] was what laid the groundwork for that. Or at least, mostly. I do recall being distinctly irked when I realized that the Sumerian, Babylonian, and Finnish pantheons hadn’t been updated from AD&D 1E, but were still assumed to be around. That they never got converted over during AD&D 2E’s eleven-and-a-half year run still makes me frown. How did they never get an article in [I]Dragon[/I] magazine? The Saxon pantheon did (issue #263), so there’s really no excuse for that oversight. On the other hand, we did get the cast of [I]Le Morte d’Arthur[/I] here, which I never knew what to do with. I mean, I don’t think anyone did, because these guys didn’t appear in any subsequent AD&D 2E materials that I’m aware of, but I guess it was nice…? Still, one thing that section of the book did give us was a new character class: the pious knight. It was one of two new character classes – which even at the time I thought of as fun little easter eggs – the other being the ascetic, which I found far more interesting. Clerical hit points, wizard spellcasting (without a spellbook needed), advancing ability scores (albeit at the cost of Strength), and a number of special abilities as you level? Yes please! Of course, the book really had far more than just those two character classes, since this is where the “priests of specific mythoi” mentioned in the [I]Player’s Handbook[/I], and outlined in [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16888/PHBR3-The-Complete-Priests-Handbook-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]PHBR3 The Complete Priest’s Handbook[/I][/URL], were presented in detail (albeit often very briefly). I read through these again and again, and today I consider specialty priests to be among the most evocative and flavorful parts of Second Edition. Really, my only major complaint about this book is that it predated the next one in the list: the [I]Tome of Magic[/I]. Since that book introduced a number of new clerical spheres (i.e. groupings of divine spells used to determine which ones you had access to) to go with all the new spells it presented, the deities here needed an update. While they technically never got one, [I]Dragon[/I] magazine’s “Sage Advice” column started recommending those updates every month starting around issue #198 or so. Overall, this book is one that I consider to be flawed, but still hits far and away more than it misses. It’s an excellent resource in terms of laying the groundwork for a lot of how the religious aspects of AD&D 2E were presented, and even if you don’t want to use anything here as-is, there’s a lot that can be cherry-picked to bring to the table. It’s definitely one of the more useful books of the expanded core, and I look back on it fondly now. [I]Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.[/I] [/QUOTE]
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