Quote from: Haffrung;830008I learned without a DMG. The Holmes basic book is incredibly evocative, but it's terrible at teaching you how to actually run (or even play) D&D. So I backwards engineered how to create a dungeon based on the sample dungeon in the book, and on B1 that came in the boxed set. Add the imagination of a 10-year-old and Bob's your uncle.

Um... Apparently you missed the fact that B1 (And B2 as well) starts off with about 4 pages of "How to DM" pointers and advice.

QuoteBeginning Dungeon Masters who are not familiar with the game often ask the most common first question, "Exactly how do you referee the game?" The answer is that there is no single best way - different DM's have different styles, just as individual players do. However, there are certain guidelines which are important to follow . . .

QuoteFirst, it is crucial to keep in mind that this is a game based on player interaction and player choice. The game generally follows the course of the player's actions—if not always their plans! As moderator, you present an ever-changing situation as it occurs (sort of like an unfolding story, or even a movie, if you like to think in those terms), and the players respond pretty much as they desire.

QuoteSecond, a good DM remains "above the battle" and does not attempt to influence player actions or channel the activity in a particular direction. The Dungeon Master should do everything possible to assist players in their quest without actually providing important information unless the players themselves discover it or put the pieces of a puzzling problem together through deduction or questioning, or a combination of the two.

And so on before even getting to the modules background.

The back of the module has DM tools for making NPCs.

2E is absolutely intended to have a different playstyle to 1E. Character and story vs. high-lethality dungeon-based. You could blame in on "Zeb" Cook being part drama major as well as a wargamer and the influence of stuff like e.g. Dragonlance, or just that D&D at the time was THE roleplaying game - so it had to cater to not just the people who were enthralled by Gygax's vision of what RPGs were, but also function as a generic fantasy game for people who typically came to fantasy via a background of fantasy novels and/or movies and who wanted something like that. In practice it also made an attempt to cater to the rules lawyer crowd in the supplements, despite the disavowals of this in the original core books (Zeb may have written the PHB, but he's really a minority opinion, as evidenced by how many 18s your average FR NPC has).

I'm doubting 2E will ever have a major revival since TBH unlike AD&D, its rules never quite synched up with what it wanted to do. The people who liked it at the time, if they're not off having families or otherwise have quit gaming, are diaspora'd into any number of other systems from 3E to GURPS to story-games, or in the patched-up 'big tent' that is 5E.

Quote from: jgants;829850The Monster Manuals for 2e had a bad publishing format (the loose-leaf pages) but the actual monster entries are the best ever produced for the game.

The Monstrous Compendium was the loose leaf version. A neat idea, but not very practical. I remember putting those page reinforcement things on each sheet to keep them from tearing, and doubling the thickness of the pages where they met the binder! :eek:

The Monstrous Manual was in the conventional book format, when TSR realized the Compendium system wasn't working out so well.

QuoteSetting-wise, 2e wins hands-down over every other edition. It has more settings and ideas for settings than you could ever use in five lifetimes. My main complaint on 2e's setting would be the lack of an official 2e Oriental Adventures.

The settings were the gold. One could use another system nowadays, but back then, there was no OGL and no retroclones. And for me, since I'm quite comfortable with 2e, I don't even need a retroclone. Just a few houserules.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;830149The Monstrous Compendium was the loose leaf version. A neat idea, but not very practical.

You know, I actually think the concept was immensely practical. The execution, however, was poor. It was hampered by poor quality paper whose holes tore through, and poor planning in terms of what monsters appeared where, such that, not long after release, you couldn't add new creatures without some of them being out of order.

I've redone a similar binder off my laser printer on high-quality paper, and it's extremely useful at the table.

EDIT: Like many others in this thread, I also did my heaviest stint of playing during AD&D 2nd, and there was a lot to recommend it as an edition: the PHB, the Monstrous Manual, the Player's Handbook Reference line, the Dungeon Master's Reference line (several of which should've actually constituted the otherwise lousy 2nd edition DMG), the Historical Reference line, and, of course, the capstone of the edition, the settings! There was serious gold in a lot of the setting material that was published.

Even in an area where AD&D 2nd edition sucked compared to BECMI and AD&D, modules, there were still some gems: Night Below, Dead Gods, the Gates of Firestorm Peak, City of Skulls, Night of the Walking Dead, Under a Dark Fist... yeah, a high proportion were junk, but not all.

Back in the day, I bought some of those hole-punch reinforcements and put those on all the pages.  More recently, I bought sheet protectors and put all the pages in those.

I recommend the sheet protector route.  It saves wear and tear on the pages themselves and also prevents wear to the binder rings.  If you want to use a page, you just slip it out of the sheet protector.

After years of use, the bound book version is nicer on the shelf and looks neater, but the looseleaf binder version is much more useful to running a prepared game.

Quote from: Bobloblah;830256You know, I actually think the concept was immensely practical. The execution, however, was poor.

I've always thought a three-ring binder monster "book" could work very well.  I'd make it 5.5" x 8.5", instead of the larger size.  And I'd enforce the "one monster per page" rule, with one page being a double-sided page.  For most monsters, one side of the page would be full-sized art, and the other side would be stats and description.  If you enforced that "one double sided page per monster entry" rule, there wouldn't be any issue with inserting monster entries into the proper place, using whatever organizational approach you prefer.

Quote...a high proportion were junk, but not all.

The 2e-era products that I found worthwhile included some of the green HR books (especially the earlier ones like Vikings and Celts) and the Return to the Tomb of Horrors, which wasn't bad at all (and included a reproduction of the original monochrome module).

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;830275I've always thought a three-ring binder monster "book" could work very well.  I'd make it 5.5" x 8.5", instead of the larger size.  And I'd enforce the "one monster per page" rule, with one page being a double-sided page.  For most monsters, one side of the page would be full-sized art, and the other side would be stats and description.

Lol, reminds me a bit of the old Safari Cards:)  Actually, a rolodex of monsters would be pretty cool.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;829882The issue is many of us were just GMing for the first time when 2E came out, so we had no point of reference or road map. A seasoned GM doesn't need the DMG to tell him or her what to do. Someone who has just started running adventures, needs some kind of advice there. I loved 2E, but the DMG was sorely lacking in that respect.

I was introduced to AD&D through 2E and the DMG helped me learn to run a game. I was introduced via First Quest and picked up the black books and never had an issue learning to run the game.

Quote from: Ulairi;830287I was introduced to AD&D through 2E and the DMG helped me learn to run a game. I was introduced via First Quest and picked up the black books and never had an issue learning to run the game.

I am sure plenty of people found the 2E DMG perfectly fine. I'm sure some people just got it for whatever reason or didn't need very basic aspects of roleplaying explained to them. I just remember struggling my first couple of years GMing and when I went back and re-read the 2E DMG, it was pretty obvious why it was (it was just missing a long content you would expect it to contain on the fundamentals----like what a campaign is, how to create a setting, how to deal with particular adventure structures, etc). And my experience as far from unique at the time. There was still a lot of good stuff in there if you already knew the basics (all kinds of stuff on encounter, npcs, etc). Again, I love 2E, but I have no illusions about the DMG. the 1E and 3E DMGs are much better at giving new GMs something to hang their hat on in my view.

Now once I picked up the blue books I was fine.

Quote from: Omega;830015Um... Apparently you missed the fact that B1 (And B2 as well) starts off with about 4 pages of "How to DM" pointers and advice.

And so on before even getting to the modules background.

The back of the module has DM tools for making NPCs.

Yes, it had general advice. But so did the 2E DMG, and every other DM book released for every edition of the game. Compared to the 1E DMG (which is what the discussion was about), the Holmes Basic book offered very little practical content for a new DM to use to move forward with the game after playing out the sample adventure and B1. Almost nothing about designing dungeons, creating settlements, or creating campaigns. As a guide for someone completely new to DMing D&D, the Holmes Basic was probably the worst starting point. If you have a better candidate for worst, I'd like to hear it.

Quote from: Bobloblah;830256You know, I actually think the concept was immensely practical. The execution, however, was poor. It was hampered by poor quality paper whose holes tore through, and poor planning in terms of what monsters appeared where, such that, not long after release, you couldn't add new creatures without some of them being out of order.

I've redone a similar binder off my laser printer on high-quality paper, and it's extremely useful at the table.

If the monsters had been done 1 per physical page and on slightly better paper it would have been really awesome.

Quote from: Bobloblah;830256Even in an area where AD&D 2nd edition sucked compared to BECMI and AD&D, modules, there were still some gems: Night Below, Dead Gods, the Gates of Firestorm Peak, City of Skulls, Night of the Walking Dead, Under a Dark Fist... yeah, a high proportion were junk, but not all.

I stopped buying modules about the time the Dragonlance modules came out. (It was not a coincidence) I've been thinking about getting some of the 2nd ed modules, but they just don't get the review attention as the 1st ed stuff. (For good reason, I think.)

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;830289I am sure plenty of people found the 2E DMG perfectly fine. I'm sure some people just got it for whatever reason or didn't need very basic aspects of roleplaying explained to them. I just remember struggling my first couple of years GMing and when I went back and re-read the 2E DMG, it was pretty obvious why it was (it was just missing a long content you would expect it to contain on the fundamentals----like what a campaign is, how to create a setting, how to deal with particular adventure structures, etc). And my experience as far from unique at the time. There was still a lot of good stuff in there if you already knew the basics (all kinds of stuff on encounter, npcs, etc). Again, I love 2E, but I have no illusions about the DMG. the 1E and 3E DMGs are much better at giving new GMs something to hang their hat on in my view.

Now once I picked up the blue books I was fine.

I went over the 1e DMG last night due to this thread, and found it was pretty lacking in adventure structure guidelines too. Wilderness encounter tables and random dungeon rules, but no guide to how to put encounters together into an adventure. It's better than the 2e DMG, but not much better, IMO.

I actually think B/X and BEC of BECMI were probably the best in terms of teaching you how to actually run (and play) the game. The AD&D DMG was a great resource, but Gygax was a lousy writer, all those who fell in love with his prose notwithstanding.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;830326I went over the 1e DMG last night due to this thread, and found it was pretty lacking in adventure structure guidelines too. Wilderness encounter tables and random dungeon rules, but no guide to how to put encounters together into an adventure. It's better than the 2e DMG, but not much better, IMO.

My reaction couldn't be more opposite from this. It is pretty subjective though (though I think it is unfair to say its just a bunch of encounter tables and random dungeon rules, there is a lot more to it than just those things). But for me the 1E DMG was incredibly eye opening once I read the thing. It is geared more towards dungeons and exploration, creating and mapping  a campaign setting. I find if you read the whole thing, it is pretty useful for those things (it won't give you adventures structured around encounters like the 3E DMG does, but that wasn't one of its goals). What I would have liked to see in the 2E DMG, since there were other approaches to adventure structure emerging, was an overview that included how to do the stuff in the 1E DMG but also showed how to do the stuff they hinted at in the 2E DMG. As it was, there really wasn't much of anything. You could read it and have no idea what a campaign is, or how to go about designing a and mapping a setting.

The key for me is being specific about adventure prep and adventure structure is so helpful for many of us. I may be an outlier, but I really need to understand each step of the process before I feel comfortable and I like fairly explicit instructions, guidelines and advice. Adventure structure too is very important. By adventure structure I don't mean, module structure. I mean how you put the thing together and run it. So the advice from the 1E DMG for me would address exploration adventure structure. I felt with the 2E DMG there was a lot of specific advice for aspects of play but nothing to tie it all together for me (whereas the 1E DMG tied it all together, I read that and felt like I could easily prep and run an adventure in the style it talks about). Even if it hadn't been the same as the 1E style of play, if it at least said, here is how you build a setting and adventures for the kind of play we are talking about, that would have been fine. I just really needed something to hang my hat on as a GM, some guideline for getting a campaign off the ground (I did eventually find it in the blue books).