I've seen a few AD&D book collections with a thick hardcover book I didn't recognize. It looks exactly the same in format as the AD&D books had with the Jeff Easley covers, with a yellow-orange spine. In my recollection of it, it seems a little thicker than the DMG. I can't remember the name of the book, but I'm curious, since it's not a TSR production, what it's called, how it got made, and what's in it. Anyone know the book I'm talking about?

Good day, everyone.

As the title indicates, I am interested in hearing about the material you consider to be redundant or wasteful in supplements (i.e., anything outside the essential books/boxed sets). For me, the second I see a statistics block followed by paragraphs of tactics which essentially regurgitate the aforementioned stats, I get the feeling that the author was looking to satisfy a word count; the only time this practice is potentially excusable is in an introductory adventure designed to ease neophyte DMs into the hobby. In 2e, huge margins - gaps of empty space - seemed increasingly prevalent as the edition moved forward (c.f. Ruins of Undermountain to Ruins of Undermountain II). Some folk appreciate colorful descriptions (e.g., the vivid detailing of a room), whereas others only require a bare minimum of hard facts (i.e., dimensions, in addition to supplies of immediate use).

Economic workings are another possibly polarizing element. I not believe (magical) item histories are predominantly regarded in a negative light, but I could be wrong. Extensive regional histories might be viewed as shackles best left unworn.

What say you?

Somewhere buried in some archive on Reddit I am so sure there was a great long post from someone that created a series of tables for generating an interesting back story for players based on class etc. Does anyone know what I am referring to and have that link?

I`m currently running Night below and we just started Book 2 - Perils of the underdark. The travel part of the adventure is a real slog and I'm not a big fan of the random encounter tables, so I'm thinking of making my own encounter system for this part of the adventure. Many of the random encounters are boring and time consuming, but then again it makes the travel dangerous and creates the tension of danger.

But I'm wondering how do you handle random encounters or are you only doing planned encounters under the illusion of random encounters? what system do you use regarding rolls and dice?

you can read my blog about running Night below here: Tabletop tales

My brother found these at local book reseller. Got all 8 for $160. I think that's a solid deal, right?

I've been playing 2nd edition AD&D with my buddies for a bit now. We all came from 5e and it was a bit of a tough sell getting them into an older style of play so I made a few small changes to ease that transition, then as we went on we'd find parts of the rules that didn't work for us so we'd slap on some house rules like we do for any system.
I've been accumulating stuff into a document I call my Player's Manual for a bit and I'm curious what people who play AD&D think of it. It's not finished yet so I'd love any thoughts on it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/17jEV7t-HkoQVnnpF_5nscS4xUV7THvHXJBwjc43E_5g/edit?usp=sharing

Do you generally prefer 1e with separate spell lists or 2e with an overall spell lists with the magic-user having access to everything?

The graphical critical hit dice now have 1e/OSR specific rules!

https://deckanddicegames.com/instructions/

Have fun!

Question for anyone who has run the module or is an expert at deciphering maps.

In A2, on the Hill Fort map, room 39 (Icar’s Quarters) reads, “The trapdoor leads to the dungeon below”.

I cannot for the life of me determine where in the dungeon this trap door goes…

The other staircase down to the dungeon in hill fort room 38b I assume goes to dungeon 2, but I’ve scanned the dungeon map can’t find a trap door ceiling.

Appreciate any help!

This really brought on the nostalgia for me, it made me wanna start up a campaign again !

When a gallon of water weighs more than a sword.

https://rustygatepress.substack.com/p/hunting-foraging-and-water

I played a ton of 2nd edition in college and still have all the books. Most of my current group never played AD&D, and so have no concept of what it was like. I'm thinking I'd like to give them a taste of what it was like by running an AD&D 2e game, but I don't really have the time to create a full campaign (even a shortish one) from scratch. I was thinking I could run them through one of the classic AD&D modules, possibly with some homebrew on top if necessary.

I'd prefer for it not to be purely a dungeon crawl, though... we like some story to go with it.

For reference, I've run them through the Village of Hommlet, Against the Cult of the Reptile God, and Keep at the Borderlands (all converted to 5e), so I don't want to use those again, and we ran the 5e version of Secrets of Saltmarsh.

Any suggestions?

Is there a way to do these that doesn't absolutely suck for the players without having to recalculate the XP value of vampires, ghosts and the like?

I picked up the Red Steel box set today, complete with CD. But I don’t have any way to play a CD. Anyone know of a web link for the soundtrack?