2e DM Screen

My hunt for a good 2e DM screen has been somewhat unsatisfying. There’s the official screen which does the job, but the layout and arrangement of the tables leaves something to be desired (a criticism I extend to the books, generally). There are some fan creations online, but there’s always something about them that doesn’t quite meet my needs.

My 2e Primer’s Quick Reference has served me for many games, but it contains much information that I don’t immediately need during play, while also missing some tables that I’d like quick access to. Really, what I’d love is a DM screen that has the Primer’s information, but laid out in a condensed format, with related tables arranged near each other.

So I made one.

 

Actually, I made two: One in landscape orientation and another in portrait.

I tried to keep everything to four panels, but good lord this edition is lousy with tables. Instead, it’s five panels, but the final panel is completely monster-based and can be considered an optional loose reference sheet.

It’s been helpful in the handful of sessions in which I’ve used it, but I can’t call it battle-tested. If you find it of use in your games, or if you see errors to be corrected or additions to be made, please let me know!

2e DM Screen – Landscape

2e DM Screen – Portrait

Note: I’ve also updated the 2e Primer with additional corrections and amendments. Nothing major, just thought you should know I constantly update it to reflect any new information I find that helps illuminate the darker recesses of this edition.

[I've made some edits to the document based on feedback. Morale and surprise modifiers have been cleaned up. The Common Equipment table has been axed in favor of Turn Undead. I'll keep a version number on the document from here on, and will update based on feedback. Thanks Lord Torath and Downingman.]

Happy Christmas

I meant to have a holiday gift for you in this post, but creating it is taking a bit longer than I had estimated. So for now, I’ve got nothing, aside from seasonal greetings.

Still, I didn’t want to leave the week blank; I made a commitment to myself that I would post every Thursday for as long as possible. I’ve kept that going for five months now. It is an accomplishment of which I am quite proud. Yay me.

If you’ve been reading this blog, commenting, utilizing the 2e Primer, or are one of the kind people that threw me some change: Thank you. It’s been cool to have someone like my stuff.

I still want to give you something. I’ll make do by digging into my bookmarks folder like a panic-stricken coworker searching for a Christmas party gift in the back of his closet.

AD&D 2e Character Generator by garumoo

Enjoy making a few thousand 2e characters.

See you in the new year with a post on implementing the optional Weapon Speed rules.

What is This Blog Anyway?

The following post is self-indulgent state-of-the-blog stuff. You’ve been warned.

I wasn’t sure what this blog was going to be when I started out a few months ago; I just wanted to start writing again. I’ve tried writing fiction and short stories for some time, but it tends to end with a whimper rather than a completed work, and I always seem to come back to games.

When I really started digging into 2e, I found myself all over the web, discovering blogs, forums, and OSR hacks as I tried to better understand this unique game. Through those blogs and forums, I got the itch to write in the nerdiest way possible. Through the hacks, I knew that I wanted to tear 2e apart and put it back together again in my own image.

So I guess I really am making a game.

Since I’ve just spent the past few months ripping apart the Ability Scores and Saving Throws, let’s interlude to discuss what the goals are here. 

Planescape: Setting and System

Planescape is, by far, the most interesting fantasy world I’ve ever stumbled across. The later editions of D&D offered only the barest glimpse of this setting, with descriptions of Sigil, the City of Doors, the otherworldly Outer Planes, and the city’s enigmatic ruler The Lady of Pain.

When I finally dug deep enough into the historical strata to hit the rich vein of the mid-90s, I found a treasure trove of lore within the Planescape campaign books and accessories. TSR had invested much into their creation, detailing everything from apothecaries to crime kingpins, all wrapped in a bizarre shell of an impossible dystopian magicpunk setting. It had a feel and tone that I had only seen in novels like Perdido Street Station and Neverwhere, with a clash of cockney slang, philosophical war, and easy death. To sweeten the pot, a great deal of that lore and tone was injected into the only video game based on the setting: Planescape: Torment.

Why AD&D 2e?

Is that a zero in the word "OPP0NENT?" 

In short, I wanted to run Planescape. That’s a stupid reason to learn and run a 35 year old TTRPG from a defunct publisher, but it was the inciting incident. That initial interest in 2e was spurred on by growing dissatisfaction with WotC over the past few years, the underwhelming 5e version of Planescape, and seeing what the OSR community had to offer. The road toward cracking open the 2nd Edition AD&D core books had been laid.

Some context: I missed all of AD&D and 3rd Edition. TTRPGs weren’t in my wheelhouse during those years, and aside from having used those systems in the CRPGs from the era, they were opaque to me. I started in 2008 with 4th Edition, mostly due to the excellent podcasts WotC was putting out with the Penny-Arcade crew (they’re still online and worth a listen). Saying that you started out in this hobby with 4e is a bit like telling someone that you got into Star Wars by watching the Holiday Special, but it is what it is. We ran that edition happily for four years until going all in on the D&D Next playtest material, then lived in 5e for a solid decade. That’s all to say, I don’t have the old-school chops of the venerable grognards; I came to AD&D with a very different mindset.

The 2e Primer

If you’re here to just grab the file, it’s here.

If you’d like to understand why I made the thing, keep reading.

While this edition is better organized than the earlier games, it’s still a mess. Sometimes rules get tables, sometimes rules are buried in paragraphs, and some rules were forgotten completely, only to surface years later in an accessory book, or else are spread over multiple chapters and never reference one another.

Learning this system can be exhausting, as you can never be sure what you missed or if you’re even playing correctly. That’s not unique to this edition, even 5e has its moments of ‘oh look at this rule they tucked away,’ but in 2e it’s ever present. I was learning the system in order to teach it to a group of players whose experience with D&D goes back no further than 3.5, and I knew I would be their only lifeline to understanding its mercurial nature.

I searched the internet for a good quick guide, an overview, a cheat sheet, anything that could give me a roadmap, but there really wasn’t much out there. So I did what I usually do when learning any overly complicated and occasionally contradictory collection of information: I took notes.

Those notes eventually coalesced into a guide, and within a couple months of writing and play, I had something I found useful. I thought others might, too. I downloaded Scribus edited the thing into something readable, and now it’s The 2e Primer. If you see errors or places where improvement can be made, please share them. I’d like for this document to be the tool I couldn’t find when I was searching for help; anything you can offer toward that end would be appreciated.