Two Books or Three?

[ochrejelly]

I offered no judgement good or bad of said corporation, that is your own inference

[Falconer]

Indeed.

What’s nice about the AD&D model is, since it’s guaranteed that you only need the three books, they’ve at least in theory thought ahead about everything that you’ll need, and packed it in the three books. That’s three books for the DM—still only one for the players.

Whereas one of the potential downsides of many a “one-book RPG” is the open-endedness of the supplements. It’s kind of hilarious if you google WEG Star Wars Essential Supplements, you’ll how often the fans can barely help themselves from naming 12 “essential” books! At least, in the case of WEG Star Wars, the supplements are rather GM-focused, and the players really still only need the one book. Those old Star Wars supplements are well-loved, of course, but honestly I would say most of them are 10% usable and 90% padding. The AD&D 3 cores by comparison are I would say 90% actual great stuff I use in my game and only 10% that I tend to ignore!

[ochrejelly]

Mar 11, 2024 19:22:16 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Indeed.

What’s nice about the AD&D model is, since it’s guaranteed that you only need the three books, they’ve at least in theory thought ahead about everything that you’ll need, and packed it in the three books. That’s three books for the DM—still only one for the players.

Whereas one of the potential downsides of many a “one-book RPG” is the open-endedness of the supplements. It’s kind of hilarious if you google WEG Star Wars Essential Supplements, you’ll how often the fans can barely help themselves from naming 12 “essential” books! At least, in the case of WEG Star Wars, the supplements are rather GM-focused, and the players really still only need the one book. Those old Star Wars supplements are well-loved, of course, but honestly I would say most of them are 10% usable and 90% padding. The AD&D 3 cores by comparison are I would say 90% actual great stuff I use in my game and only 10% that I tend to ignore!

Speaking on insane bloat, are you familiar with AD&D 2nd edition?

[Falconer]

Agree 100%! AD&D 2nd edition abandoned the 3 Core Books concept, and it led to out-of-control sprawl.

The Monstrous Manual was, notoriously, originally nonexistent, and you needed to collect multiple MCs. Even after you get the MM, you probably still need the Outer Planes Appendix, plus a source for Bahamut and Tiamat (there were at least 3 versions in different books, Monster Mythology and the Draconomicon and Polyhedron #73).

The Player’s Handbook was pretty solid, but if you wanted Half-orcs you had to get The Complete Book of Humanoids or Player’s Option: Skills & Powers, and if you wanted Monks you had to get it from another source (there were at least 4: The Complete Priest’s Handbook, Faiths & Avatars, Player’s Option: Spells & Magic, and The Scarlet Brotherhood)*. Some dungeoneering fundamentals are never explained in the PHB or DMG or anywhere else other than First Quest or its successor introductory products.

The Dungeon Master Guide was often said to be “useless” (obviously not exactly accurate—you need if for treasures and magic items), with lots of people revering instead the Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide. Artifacts were relegated to The Book of Artifacts. Encounter tables were in Monstrous Compendium Annual, Volume Two. Some other stuff (off the top of my head, holy water creation) doesn’t reappear until Dungeon Master’s Option: High-Level Campaigns.

You were also expected to pick up another supplement to flesh out the PHB’s obligatory Mythos Priests framework. There are many setting-specific options for this, and it’s understandable that this was meant to be modular, but a default pantheon in the PHB or DMG would have been of obvious utility (as 3.0 showed).


* - It’s worth noting that TSR continued to release Oriental Adventures support products well into the 2e era, so in a sense the “official Monk” of the early 2e years was the OA Monk.

[tdenmark]

Mar 12, 2024 9:19:45 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Agree 100%! AD&D 2nd edition abandoned the 3 Core Books concept, and it led to out-of-control sprawl.

The Monstrous Manual was, notoriously, originally nonexistent, and you needed to collect multiple MCs. Even after you get the MM, you probably still need the Outer Planes Appendix, plus a source for Bahamut and Tiamat (there were at least 3 versions in different books, Monster Mythology and the Draconomicon and Polyhedron #73).

The Player’s Handbook was pretty solid, but if you wanted Half-orcs you had to get The Complete Book of Humanoids or Player’s Option: Skills & Powers, and if you wanted Monks you had to get it from another source (there were at least 4: The Complete Priest’s Handbook, Faiths & Avatars, Player’s Option: Spells & Magic, and The Scarlet Brotherhood)*. Some dungeoneering fundamentals are never explained in the PHB or DMG or anywhere else other than First Quest or its successor introductory products.

The Dungeon Master Guide was often said to be “useless” (obviously not exactly accurate—you need if for treasures and magic items), with lots of people revering instead the Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide. Artifacts were relegated to The Book of Artifacts. Encounter tables were in Monstrous Compendium Annual, Volume Two.

You were also expected to pick up another supplement to flesh out the PHB’s obligatory Mythos Priests framework. There are many setting-specific options for this, and it’s understandable that this was meant to be modular, but a default pantheon in the PHB or DMG would have been of obvious utility (as 3.0 showed).


* - It’s worth noting that TSR continued to release Oriental Adventures support products well into the 2e era, so in a sense the “official Monk” of the early 2e years was the OA Monk.

And was also a financial disaster, TSR shortly went bankrupt just a few years after the launch of 2e. Sheesh did I hate the 2e DM's Guide! I felt personally insulted by it. I thought the loose-leaf monster manual was an interesting, but failed, experiment. The Monstrous Manual they eventually came out with is actually pretty good.

It is better to have a few very high quality products that sell, than a bunch of lower quality material to keep track of that sells poorly. 5e gets a lot of criticism but I'd argue it had the best DM's Guide and Monster Manual since the original AD&D. The 5e Player's Handbook though? What a mess.

[jamesmishler]

Ok, first of all, hate on 2E if you must, but it wasn't the system changes that killed TSR (2E is really nothing more than a cleaning and systematizing of 1E), or even the splat books, it was the plethora of worlds dividing up the fan base into ever smaller slices and fiscal mismanagement that really did them in.

Second, the creation of the Monstrous Compendium system was a very well meaning if misdirected attempt to enable DMs to build their own Monstrous Manual for use at the table. A series of three hole punched reference pages enabled the DM to put together a folder of monsters that was exactly what they needed, rather than have to cart around a half dozen or more books to have maybe twice as many monsters which you used in a session (3E DMs know this all too well, I expect).

Unfortunately it just didn't work out, for various reasons. But the good intentions were there.

[Falconer]

AD&D 2nd Edition was the first RPG I ever played and the first RPG I ever ran. I am exceptionally fond of it. I agree the rules are fine, and I agree the reorganization was well-meant but just in hindsight proved not the best idea. But that’s exactly what we’re trying to analyze and benefit from in this discussion.

The proliferation of Campaign Settings and the resulting fracturing of the fanbase and the marketing focus was obviously a huge problem, but not exactly relevant to the discussion. It’s a fair point, though—if the Campaign Settings were the cause of the financial failure, then the other supposed downsides under discussion might not be so significant. Other possible factors include splatbooks (player-targeted books often considered a cynical cash-grab) and the overall dearth of good adventure modules (for any and all settings). Finally, management was clearly inept, I’m sorry. Have you seen the Time of the Dragon boxed set? It includes a 112-page book, a 48-page book, 24 full-color cardstock sheets, and 4 fold-out maps… and of course the box itself. MSRP: $18. They had to be losing an insane amount of money with each unit sold!

Anyway. I eventually came to the (kind of hilarious) conclusion that the most economical way to get a complete and well-rounded set of supplements for my 2e game was to get 1e’s Three Core Books. So for a while, I used the 1e trilogy alongside the 2e PHB and a small number of 2e supplements that I really liked. Then I just began using the 2e books less than less.

[geoffrey]

Mar 12, 2024 14:21:03 GMT -6 Falconer said:

I eventually came to the (kind of hilarious) conclusion that the most economical way to get a complete and well-rounded set of supplements for my 2e game was to get 1e’s Three Core Books. So for a while, I used the 1e trilogy alongside the 2e PHB and a small number of 2e supplements that I really liked. Then I just began using the 2e books less than less.

Ha!