As I previously mentioned, I’m reading through 2nd Edition as an educational exercise, and considering writing a retroclone for it titled Advanced Fantasy Dungeons. The purpose of the read through and writing the retroclone is more a design exercise as it is a necessary addition to my shelf. I’m starting with the Player’s Handbook (1989), and this is a long one so please forgive me for typos and poor editing. I’ll hit the ‘Races’ chapter in this post, as well, so content warning for racism. This is a long one, and you can just skip to the end for a summary of my thoughts. Let’s get started.

Interestingly, the Foreword actually lists the design goals for 2nd Edition:

To make it easier to find things, to make the rules easier to understand, to fix the things that did not work, to add the best new ideas from the expansions and other sources, and, most important of all, to make sure the game was still the one you knew and enjoyed.

This is valuable, because to be honest, a bunch of my previously stated design goals for this read-through match up: Simplify; Draw existing systems to their logical conclusions; Consider the role of the expanded product line; Remain in the spirit of the original. This comforts my approach to a degree: If my design goals and the designer’s match, then this effort may be less doomed.

Prior to Chapter 1, is a chapter called The Real Basics. This is the “What is a roleplaying game” chapter, and while it doesn’t knock it out of the park, it does say two interesting things.

Firstly, it defines a the essential element of a roleplaying game. I’m going to paraphrase as this section is in need of editing, but it’s something like “The player adopts the role of a character, pretends they are in the midst of an unknown or dangerous situation created by a referee, and must work their way through it”. The key interesting implication is that the game is about working your way through problems, and suggests that rolling is a last resort. As I’ve talked about Second Edition as a transitional edition, it’s notable then that subsequent editions took the optional proficiency rules in Second Edition and started to head down the ‘roll to solve the problem’ track. Second Edition aligns itself with prior editions: Player skill is as important as character skill.

Secondly, the purpose of a session: “Not to win, but to have fun while working toward a common goal.”, where that goal is defined by the adventure. This raises questions to me about the place of expectation setting and safety in the rules, because in order to have fun while working towards a common goal, that goal must be clear and agreed upon.

Chapter 1 is Player Character Ability Scores. It gives six (!) methods of rolling them, the primary being 3d6 in order, and the rest being specifically for “characters of truly heroic proportions”, including the now default method of 4d6 drop the lowest and assign as desired. The definitions of the ability scores are problematic at best, but more interestingly they all have associated statistics, that tell us a lot more about the ability scores than the definitions:

• Strength is hitting and causing damage with a melee weapon and lifting weight.
• Dexterity is about reaction speed and aiming missile attacks.
• Constitution is about surviving bodily harm like poison, petrification, and Polymorph.
• Intelligence is about capacity and opportunity to study, is about mainly magic and languages.
• Wisdom is about resisting magical effects.
• Charisma is about retainers, retainer morale, and baseline non-player character attitudes (not the ability to influence them).

All of these are implied by the associated statistics – things like “Bend bars”, “Resurrection Survival” and “Spell Immunity”. And these associated statistics are a mix of percentiles, adjustments and specific dice rolls. These are all flavourful and say a lot about what the designer thought was important, and I think should be included; but most of these subsystems – eleven in all – could be simplified and reduced, potentially into the optional proficiency system, although a few, like Charisma and Constitution, may not fit as neatly.

Chapter 2 is Player Character Races. Let’s call them Heritages instead. This whole chapter is a racist Gygaxian mess, with ability requirements and adjustments, class restrictions, and level limits, “reflecting the natural tendencies of the races”, despite not being “bound by these generalities”. The book also says these exist for ‘play balance’, because non-human heritages can also multi-class, where humans cannot. All of this needs to be scrapped, but fantasy heritages are an important part of the game, so how can Elves, Dwarves and Halflings be redeemed?

The range of abilities is quite small and overlap a lot between the different heritages: Sense Slope, Direction, Depth, or Safety of Tunnels, Sense Secret Doors, Infravision, Resistance to Sleep and Charm, Bonus to Surprise, Bonus to Attacks (either specific weapons or specific enemies), Bonus to Save vs Poison or Save vs Wands, Staves, Rods, or Save vs Spells, and Malfunctioning Magical Items. Languages are already a part of the proficiency system, the first seven abilities fit neatly into the proficiency system as well, and the others are effectively ability score bonuses (or bonuses to their associated statistics), leaving the best feature: “Dwarves cause magic items to malfunction” as the odd one out. Furthermore, a bunch of these abilities have a chance of not appearing in your character, which is an excellent choice that should never have been excised, and I think would support a picklist of heritage traits and bonuses, allowing less rigid and racist approaches.

Chapter 3 is Player Character Classes. I’m expecting this to be meaty, but I honestly remember the class handbook line better than the four classes contained here: Warrior, Wizard, Priest and Rogue. There are subclasses, although they aren’t called such: Warrior has Paladin, Fighter and Ranger, for example.

Warriors can use any weapon or armour, but can’t use all magical items or spells. They also get multi-attack.

Fighters get an experience points bonus for being strong, they can have Weapon Specialisation (part of the optional proficiency rules), and start developing a war band at 9th level.

Paladins can detect evil, all saving throw, are immune to disease, can lay on hands, can cure diseases, have an aura of protection that becomes a dispel magic field if they’re wielding a magic sword, can turn undead, devils and demons, can have a warhorse (like, it’s strange, it phrases it as “call for a warhorse” which sounds like summoning, but it also requires a quest?) and can cast priest spells. But! Paladins must act lawfully at all times or atone for their sins, and can never do evil or lose their Paladin-ness. They have a magic item limit, have to give away all their gold, don’t attract followers but can hire them but can only hire lawful good retainers.

Rangers can fight with two weapons, get tracking proficiency, can hide in shadows and move silently in natural surroundings, get bonuses against special enemies, can befriend and are otherwise “good with animals”, as well as have an effect on the baseline hostility of animals, can cast priest spells, and get animal followers. They must be good and their abilities only work in light armour, they must fight their special enemies preferentially, can’t do evil, and need to give away any treasure they can’t carry on their person.

These two, Paladins especially, are a lot. I like the idea of trade-offs being a major class feature, but I can also see the complexity that future editions foregrounded creeping in here. I’m also interested (given what Gygax has said about lawful good) in what the alignments section says about law and goodness, given how they factor in. The limitations on these classes also probably require the expanded material to make sense of, as I can see conflict being introduced from the pressure of “losing my cool abilities”, which is not a fun kind of conflict to introduce.

Wizards cast spells, use any magical item and create potions and scrolls. Spells are hard to learn, and only a limited number can be kept in memory, but you can create new ones. They can’t wear armour (“complicated gestures and weird posturing”), and can only use a few weapons. Specialty wizards have racial restrictions, can’t cast spells from “opposition schools”, but get extra spells, get bonuses to chance of learning, bonuses to saving throws. I don’t like the racial restrictions, but otherwise, specialisation is neat.

Priests have limited armour and weapon selection, limited magical items, have access to certain “spheres of influence” amongst the spell list, can turn or bind undead, can attract followers and build temples. Specialist priests get special powers, but are limited in how they act by “ethos”. Druids are a type of specialist priest, and the rules just say “make your specialist priest up but be fair about your powers”. I love it, but the idea of a “generic priest” is just so weird and protestant I can’t even.

Rogues “feel the world owes them a living”, which is the best class definition I’ve ever heard. They can be thieves or bards, but regardless can speak more languages, read magic writing sometimes, can climb, are dexterous, pick pockets, detect noise, all utilising a percentile roll.

Thieves can open locks, find and remove traps, move silently, and hide in shadows in addition, can backstab, can speak in thieves cant, can read scrolls, and can attract followers to start a gang, but have armour and weapon limitations.

Bards can use any weapon, are proficient in singing and a musical instrument, and have some random spells due to their dabbling. They can use performance to influence crowds, or inspire or rally allies, can counter magical songs, knows stuff sometimes, can use magical items from other classes, and can attract a following. But, they can’t use a shield or heavy armour, must have neutral alignment.

Interestingly, all classes stop gaining hit points in large amounts after ninth level, the level many classes gain followers. There is a distinction between class switching and multiclassing, which seems pointless and is unexplained, except perhaps as a reason to play a human? Must be a historical reason for this decision I’ll have to look into.

Chapter 4 is Alignment. I’m mainly interested in the relationship of Lawful Good to paladins, Good to rangers, and Neutral to bards, and what this means as a restriction given in exchange for additional power.

Let’s start with Lawful Good:

An orderly, strong society with a well-organized government can work to make life better for the majority of the people. Laws must be obeyed. Strive for those things that will bring the greatest benefit to the most people and cause the least harm.

Honestly, this alignment provides opportunity for a really interesting conflict for a character, if the punishment for making the wrong decision wasn’t losing all your cool stuff. What about unjust laws? Corrupt lawmakers? Who is the most people? How do we choose their benefit? What about a sliding scale, where powers came and went? Or what if a paladin was in conversation with whoever grants them power about what these things mean?

Bards being neutral do not make sense:

Foe every force in the universe, there is an opposite force somewhere. The same is true of good and evil, life and death. What is important is that all these forces remain in balance with each other.

This clashes with “the world owes me a living”, but also I just don’t feel like a bard would believe these things by default. And alignments are phrased consistently as beliefs, where perhaps that’s not what they are?

Rangers, similarly, don’t really make sense:

A good person, however, worries about his errors and normally tries to correct any damage done. Remember, however that goodness has no absolute values.

Being a ranger has nothing to do with this. Chaotic good or neutral good might make more sense, but honestly they don’t introduce any interesting internal conflicts: In which case, what’s the point of giving a character a belief system? In addition, clerics have a separate belief sub-system.

The stated goal of alignment is:

…a guide to provide a clearer idea of how the character will handle moral dilemmas. Always consider alignment is a tool…it certainly doesn’t prevent a character from changing his beliefs, acting irrationally , or behaving out of character.

But from reading the definitions, most are either amoral or don’t provide a clear decision or a clear potential for moral challenges. The goal is sound, but how can we think about these alignments in order to provide clear decision decision and conflict points.

Chapter 5 is Proficiency, and it’s technically optional, but it has so many references already in the text it’s not really optional at all. You can be proficient at weapons or non-weapons. You are bad at weapons you’re not proficient in (even if you can use them), and you need to train in proficiencies in downtime. Fighters can get double proficiency (specialisation). Proficiency checks are only done if likely to fail or difficult.

My impression here is that this is a fun and flexible system, that weapon proficiency rules should mirror non-weapon proficiency rules more (penalties to things you’re not proficient at, auto succeed when you have proficiency and it’s low risk of failure – perhaps specialisation could even auto-hit!). It’s interesting that risk of failure and not risk of consequences, which is what most modern sensibilities would emphasise.

Chapter 6 is money and equipment. The most interesting thing here on money is this:

Coins have no guaranteed value. A gold piece can buy a lot In a small village but won’t go very far in a large city. This makes other forms of wealth, land for instance, all the more valuable.

Suggesting that a subsystem around changing values would be interesting, although challenging, and is expounded on in a fair bit of detail.

Weapons have speed factor and damage large creatures differently to others; they also have neat size rules that mean a halfling can wield a long sword two-handed, but not one-handed like an elf can. Speed factor isn’t explained, but appears to factor into initiative which is fun.

Four pages are devoted to encumberance, which suggests it’s importance, but simple encumbrance rules aren’t to be seen: You must total the weight of everything you carry. It impacts movement, attack and defence though, and there are 5 encumbrance levels. I can see a slot based version of this that could maintain the impact but minimise the bookkeeping.

Chapter 7 is Magic. Spells are hard to cast, easy to interrupt and lose. Component rules are optional but haven’t changed even in fifth edition. Spell lists must be later.

Chapter 8 is Experience. It’s received for overcoming obstacles as a party, but also individually according to class: Fighters for fighting, Wizards for magical knowledge, Rogues for gold, Priests for serving their deity’s cause. This is neat.

Chapter 9 is Combat. This has so many interesting discarded ideas: Simultaneous declaration of actions. One minute rounds. Group initiative. Weapon speed modifying initiative, not dexterity. Firing into melee rules. Ability checks as Saving Throws are intentionally sidelined. “The more hit points a creature has. the harder it is to defeat.” not kill. Slow healing. Consequences for being raised from the dead.

Speed run through a few short chapters: Chapter 10 is Treasure, three pages largely spent on how to store your loot safely, which is all in-game advise and really emphasises how the rules consider not being able to build a stronghold to protect your wealth a significant negative class “feature”. Chapter 11 is Encounters. Another fun chapter. Surprise is weirdly a d10 roll, 1-3 means surprised. Chapter 12 is NPCs, but is really about hirelings, followers and henchmen, and your obligation to them. Salary, fee, share, food and board. Ransom when taken prisoner. Healing and resurrection.

Chapter 13 is Vision and Light. Even basic vision during the day is absurdly detailed here. Light sources focus on drawbacks, particularly in terms of burn rate. There are rules for fighting through a mirror! Infravision is deferred to the DMG, interestingly, anticipating how disruptive it becomes to gameplay over subsequent editions.

Chapter 14 is Time and Movement. It distinguish Game Time and Real Time, but doesn’t explain why, which is an interesting holdover from Gygaxian 50 player campaigns. Rounds are a minute, Turns are ten minutes. Outdoor movement is measured in tens of yards, weirdly, 360 feet per round for a medium creature and half that for a small one. Indoor movement is in tens of feet, again, a weird choice, 120 feet per round for a medium creature, which equates to much slower than fifth edition, which would allow 300 feet. Jogging is double speed, running is quadruple, with a rest penalty after for an equal number of rounds, and limited by Strength check. Cross country movement rates are double miles, and you can sustain that speed for 10 hours. You have swim proficiency or not; proficient swimmers are olympic-level, if you’re not you can dog-paddle. Breath holding rules, climbing rules, all take a lot of space to put up barriers only a few characters can overcome. These environmental barriers are neat in my opinion, but I think we can redeem these complex subsystems more elegantly and similarly.

That’s it for chapters! There is an important appendix, though: Spells! I’ll pick a spell at random: Wraith Form. It is a 4th level spell, has components listed, lasts rounds equal to your level (I like spells that level up with you), is flexibly (combat, social and utility) with drawbacks can’t attack. Very cool spell. What does a 1st level spell look like? Floating Disc lasts turns, moves at small creature speed, and so isn’t a reliable long-term. transport even at higher levels. Interesting. Higher level might be associated with broader utility (sleep, magic missile and spook are similarly narrow). At the other end is Wish with infinite utility at the cost of 5 years of life. That’s cool!

Summarising thoughts: Second Edition is as overwrought as I remembered, full of complex subsystems governing rare occasions. But, it reveals more about the intent than I expected: This is an overland travel to a dungeon system, where you’re expected to gain followers and build strongholds. In the Player’s Handbook, it doesn’t allude to competitive multi-party, multi-character play, but it’s clearly still possessing much of the legacy structure of Gygax’s original table. The characters are less mortal, though, with Dragonlance’s legacy of heroic play starting to manifest. These characters are too complex to die easily, and heroes in this game lead armies, but aren’t one-person armies.

In terms of design, there are a few hallmarks that I’ve identified here. Unique character skills, usually with percentile dice, I suspect to expertise. Subsystems around environmental interaction, really creating great opportunities for characters to shine in dungeon crawling and overland travel challenges. Combat is much more interesting than I expected, particularly with initiative around weapon choice and simultaneous declaration. I didn’t anticipate being potentially very cool, just in need of simplification. Classes and heritage are very different than anticipated, complex, with a lot of interesting concepts, particularly cost/benefit choices around abilities, that aren’t as expanded out or universalised as they’d benefit from being. Alignment is poorly positioned as a driver of positive conflict and character direction, but that’s its stated and implied intent, and that’s cool. Spells increase in flexibility and power with leveling up! I was honestly not expecting much, but so much cool stuff here!

Coming out of this and thinking about a retroclone, a textually faithful clone would be abysmal for me. But, taking these main themes and simplifying them, while maintaining the drama and direction, is a fascinating take on a Second Edition retroclone. I think Advanced Fantasy Dungeons (I’ll take suggestions on better names) might actually have legs, particularly if things like spell lists can remain compatible.

Let me know your thoughts (if you have any), here or on twitter. This is interesting, and I’m interested in other peoples opinions, particularly alternative readings! I’ll try to find time to read the Dungeon Masters Guide next week – the Player’s Handbook took a long time, and I suspect I’m in for a denser read!

Idle Cartulary

24th March 2022