Review: Dungeons and Dragons: 2nd Edition Players Handbook

After yesterday's review of the 3rd Edition Player's Handbook, I kind of dreaded posting this. I received a lot of nice replies and I really appreciate them. I'm more than a bit worried about losing my "good reviewer" reputation. This is not a nice review. It may not even be a good review. But it's honest, and some people need it. Far be it from me to withhold medicine from the sick.

Also, this is meant as a piece of humor. Maybe it's not that funny.. But--take it with a grain of salt.

Yesterday, we talked about the 3rd Edition Player's Handbook and tomorrow we're going to talk about how to convert your 2nd (or 1st) edition campaign to 3rd Edition. But, I know some of you aren't quite convinced: you're thinking, "But I have a great game! And my players shouldn't have to learn new rules. Anyway, we have house rules to smooth out bumps in AD&D--not that it has any. And why should I have to spend another $60? This is just a marketing scheme--it'll never catch on."

Two words:

Shut up.

I'm about to rip the curtain off this Wizard of Oz. It won't be pretty, but you need this.

So, time to fire up the time machine in my bedroom and go back a few years to 1989, to the release of AD&D 2nd Edition. (Actually, to 1995, because that's when the revised version of 2nd Edition came out, and that's what I have, but whatever.) I'm going to try to keep my future self, which has seen 3rd Edition, out of this, in order to keep it fair, but he might butt in a few times.

Ready? Set the dials to 95, and--

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Review: Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook, 2nd Edition, Revised

I just bought the revised edition of the AD&D Player's Handbook and am quite ready to review it for you. I'm opening it up, and... "This is not AD&D 3rd Edition!" (Future self: It should have been.) It says so right on the front page. Glad that's solved.

The best way to get a real feel for a game is often the art. Looking at the art in this book, I think, "There sure are a lot of white people." That's about the only theme I can get out of this hodge-podge. The art for the classes seemed to be pseudo-historical, except the wizard, which is the most incredibly typical wizard I've ever seen. But then, I keep flipping--bare-chested barbarian, sad man in a cape, a bunch of people with no shirts fighting a dragon, some crazy alien wizard (but hey--he's white) making some lightning rune in the air, and a unicorn.

The best I can do for a theme is "Jack Vance's Middle Earth as written by Fritz Leiber," although that sounds kind of good. At the least, art should try to be true to the game, and I just don't see it here. Why are all the fighters wearing no shirts? The fighter class in AD&D, if it wants to live, loads itself down with more metal than a '59 Impala. And the spells--the art doesn't reflect a single spell on the page it's on, and I'm not sure that it reflects any spell available to player characters.

But, that's only one flaw. Some of the best games I've played have had sad line art or no art at all, photocopied on to 20 sheets of paper. Maybe, hopefully, that's the case here.

Character creation seems straight forward. One of the major strengths of the D&D game through its incarnations has been ease of character creation, and that seems to be the case here. There's a one-page step-by-step set of instructions on how to make a character. Six races and nine character classes are available for PC's. Not all classes are available to all races, though, as explained by what seems to be a small medical chart on the page. Certain classes also have to abide by alignment restrictions.

For example, the ranger is a class that, according to its description, is "a hunter and woodsman who lives not by only by his sword, but also his wits ... The abilities of the ranger make him particulary good at tracking, woodcraft, and spying." His alignment restrictions are any good alignment. Now, there's plenty of examples of the "good ranger" out there, the first and foremost being Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings. But--what about any bounty hunter in any fantasy or fiction novel you've ever read? What about crazed bestial hunters that run with the wild things? Good people? Um--not really. If Boba Fett played D&D, he'd be a ranger--a lawful evil one, if I'm correct.

On top of that, classes have minimum ability score requirements. The most nonsensical I could find was the druid, which requires a Charisma of 15 (a relatively high score, if you're not familiar with the 3 to 18 scale used). Again--the wild man of the woods needs to have "persuasiveness, personal magnetism, and ability to lead," according to the description of Charisma provided. I can find examples--back to the Lord of the Rings, Gandalf had a bit of druid to him and had amazing Charisma, but what about the archetype of the crazy old hermit, or even the shy girl with weird powers who only talks to trees? There's no room for these characters in AD&D.

There's more, much more, but in a nutshell: the feeling I got when creating characters in AD&D is that this is the game of bad parents: never telling you what's allowed, but instead telling you what's not allowed. This continues throughout the game. There are many different mechanics for all sorts of tasks in AD&D, yet they don't cover some of the simplest of possibilities. For example, the thief class has the ability to Hide in Shadows. This is easily resolved with a percentile dice roll. If this thief's mage friend wants to hide behind him, there's no chance. None. Nothing in the rules covers a non-thief character pressing himself into a dark corner and hoping not to be seen. Omission of rules for every situation is forgivable; however, this goes further and excludes the character from doing so. This is much less forgivable.

For curiosity's sake, let's take a look at the rest of the mechanics. AD&D is built around combat, and the combat system is detailed. This is more a matter of personal taste than anything else; the steps go as follows, each round:

a) Roll initiative on a d10 for your group. There is an optional rule to roll separate initiative rolls for everyone in your group, but it's more complex by far, and is outside the scope of this review. If your group rolls lower than the adversaries, go, otherwise wait for them.

b) If you attack, roll to see your chance of hitting. All characters in AD&D have something called THAC0, which stands for "To Hit Armor Class 0". This, as it explains, is what you would have to roll on a d20 in order to hit a creature with an Armor Class (AC) of 0. In order to figure out what you have to roll to hit a creature with a different AC, subtract the AC from your THAC0, then roll over the result with a d20. This means that a negative AC gets added to your THAC0, making it harder.

c) If you hit, roll damage on whatever dice your weapon uses for damage. This also depends on the size of the creature.

You could have cast a spell or taken another action. I have to say that this doesn't sound nearly as complicated as it is. Combat tends to take rather long, without the benefits than more intensive combat systems usually have, like any sort of hit location or criticals. I'm not a huge fan of either, but if I'm going to put the effort in, I'd like something for it.

Magic is less complex. There's a rather large spell list for both wizards and clerics. Spells have no chance of failure, besides getting hit in the middle of casting one. People and creatures do have a chance to resist some spells, though, with what are called saving throws. The magic system has a unique twist in the fact that wizards forget spells as soon as they cast them. An example:

Frank the Mage: "I cast magic missile at the gnoll."

DM: "Ok--3 damage."

Frank the Mage: "I can't remember that spell. Poof! It's gone."

I'm very glad this doesn't happen everytime you introduce yourself, or do laundry or anything like that. This "instant forget" doesn't seem to make any logical sense outisde of the game mechanics, until you grasp that it is a game mechanic translation of how magic works in novels by Jack Vance--which do not resemble this setting in any way besides the magic system.

There's an optional skill system (called non-weapon proficiencies) if you want to do anything besides fight and cast spells. (Note: doing anything besides fighting and casting spells is optional in AD&D. No further comment.) It is a rather simple system, utilizing a d20 that you roll against a target number, but unlike saving throws and attack rolls in combat, you want to roll low, which can be a bit confusing. Skills (or proficiencies) are based off of your attribute scores, and chosen at first level, with advancement every three to four levels afterwards. This reflects the cruel reality that while any normal person gets better at killing or casting spells pretty often, it takes a long time to get five percent better at Etiquette. I sure can't remember which one's the salad fork, but I sure can kill with it.

It must be noted that although the system is convoluted, there are a set of very nice tables at the back of the book, and the index is excellent. I would go so far to say that the index may be the very best part of the PHB. More games should take a lesson from this incredible index, which allows you quick and easy access to a large number of rules and restrictions.

In summary, I honestly cannot recommend this game with good conscience to anybody. Long time players of the D&D and AD&D games may find it useful (or a hinderance if you play D&D or 1st Edition AD&D), but more likely, they should be admonished and sent to the hobby store to buy something else. This game is not without merit, but falls far short on execution. The complex mechanics and unnatural restrictions on PC's tarnish the interesting ideas held within. Mediocrity, AD&D be thy name. It is sad to see the game that many of us grew up with come to this level--one can only hope that the next edition of this game will be soon in coming, and much improved.