Hell and Climax are also cities in Michigan
(someplace I have a picture of the highway sign, "Climax 5 miles")

Quote from: cnath.rmHell and Climax are also cities in Michigan
(someplace I have a picture of the highway sign, "Climax 5 miles")

I have a snazzy (if old, I got it as a kid) Hell, MI T-shirt.  It's got the cutest little cartoon devil on it.  hehe

If you know Spanish, you'll get this one.

"Where the Jell is Jamul?"

I thought another problem with ADND2.0 was their version of Splat books. The Complete Rangers Book etc...

When you flicked through these generic pieces the ratio in the amount of gaming information to "guff" paltry.

I recall one player running a Paladin in our group buying the their book and being shocked at the amount of crap getting in the way on the gaming goodness.

Quote from: LawbagI thought another problem with ADND2.0 was their version of Splat books. The Complete Rangers Book etc...

When you flicked through these generic pieces the ratio in the amount of gaming information to "guff" paltry.

I recall one player running a Paladin in our group buying the their book and being shocked at the amount of crap getting in the way on the gaming goodness.

The PHBR books were a mess, with no consistency between them.  They all had something good to offer: the fighter book had more combat options, the thief book had great kits and equipment, the wizard book had some great spells, the priest book had...err...something good, I'm sure (it was very bland, from what I remember).  Some of the fluff material in the race books was good.  The bard book offered several new versions of the class (disguised as bard kits).

But nothing really meshed between them.  I never liked how kits were handled (I would have liked them to be more of a gradual benefit, with minor bonuses accruing every level or two of advancement, rather than the front-loaded packages they were), and if you used them, they were not balanced between classes at all.

Great ideas, but horribly mis-managed and half-baked.  Like a lot of 2e, really.

Quote from: KenHRthe priest book had...err...something good, I'm sure (it was very bland, from what I remember).

The great thing about the priest book was help in designing specialty priests.  If you had your own gods, you could tailor the priests' abilities - special power in place of turning, spell selection, weapon choices, etc.  If you weren't into that, then it didn't do much.

But yea, each book was it's own thing in terms of aim, quality, fluff to crunch ratio, and writing style/quality.

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Alberta, Canada

Thanks for the history of TSR stuff!

Quote from: Jack Spencer JrThis was meant to be the first in a series of board games and a second video, set in the Spelljammer setting, was made. The thing about it is they were also slated to make a TV called WildSpace also using this same process.

I'd heard about 'WildSpace", but not the "SpellJammer" vid.  Some day, however, I will hire a team of media retrieval specialists to snag me a copy of each from whatever corportate vault or cyberfortress in which they may reside.

Or just wait for 'em to get put on the YouTube.

Quote from: NicephorusThe great thing about the priest book was help in designing specialty priests.  If you had your own gods, you could tailor the priests' abilities - special power in place of turning, spell selection, weapon choices, etc.  If you weren't into that, then it didn't do much.

But yea, each book was it's own thing in terms of aim, quality, fluff to crunch ratio, and writing style/quality.

The concept of kits was great! The execution was... bizarrely uneven. Even the handling of "required" proficiencies was inconsistent. Some "Complete" books had them as bonus proficiencies, others had them as pre-requisites. I imposed my own order on them, and used them, but it wasn't canon. The Priest book's specialty priests meant the complete outlawing of standard clerics in my game. It just made so much more sense, and made priests a lot more interesting than generic healing machines.

-clash

The best supplement books of the 2nd Ed era, bar none, were the historical supplements - the "green cover" supplements. All of them I read were at least well done, and some rose to the level of brilliant - especially "A Mighty Fortress," which is the best quick reference on the Thirty Years War I've ever read. Unfortunately, they didn't sell well.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceThe best supplement books of the 2nd Ed era, bar none, were the historical supplements - the "green cover" supplements. All of them I read were at least well done, and some rose to the level of brilliant - especially "A Mighty Fortress," which is the best quick reference on the Thirty Years War I've ever read. Unfortunately, they didn't sell well.

Yeah, Mighty Fortress was a nice supplement, useful beyond AD&D. Shouldn't have been to expensive to produce, the art is mostly historic...

Is the one about Charlemagne any good? Interesting era, much under-represented in the RPG market...

Quote from: SosthenesYeah, Mighty Fortress was a nice supplement, useful beyond AD&D. Shouldn't have been to expensive to produce, the art is mostly historic...

Is the one about Charlemagne any good? Interesting era, much under-represented in the RPG market...

The Charlemagne and Viking books were very good - not quite up to the level of A Mighty Fortress, but still useful even now. I have used all of them over the years as references for gaming with other systems.

-clash

Quote from: NicephorusThe great thing about the priest book was help in designing specialty priests.  If you had your own gods, you could tailor the priests' abilities - special power in place of turning, spell selection, weapon choices, etc.  If you weren't into that, then it didn't do much.

Definitely it was good for that, but I ended up using the system from Skills & Powers to design specialty priests (and that - excepting one abortive campaign where we attempted to use all the PO material - was all I ever really used the book for).  The Complete Priest kits and guidelines felt like an expanded take on the PHB's "choose what's appropriate."  At the time, I guess I was expecting something a little more codified to aid in creating balanced priest classes.

I have to dig those books out of storage and take a look at them again.

Quote from: flyingmiceThe Charlemagne and Viking books were very good - not quite up to the level of A Mighty Fortress, but still useful even now. I have used all of them over the years as references for gaming with other systems.

-clash

I used the Vikings book in conjunction with the RoleMaster and RQ3 books on the same subject for a pseudo-Viking RM2 campaign a year or two back.  It was very useful when I was prepping the game.

A Mighty Fortress sounds really cool.  Gotta track that one down.

I seem to recall a 'biblical era' green AD&D book.