Advanced Dungeons & Dragons™

First Roleplaying Game in the seventies, Dungeons & Dragons created the first rules for the roleplaying games with the random twenty-sided dice system. It was quickly replaced with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (best known as AD&D)

Gloryfying Heroic-fantasy by including the creatures from J.R.R. Tolkien saga,  especially Elves, Dwarves,  Hobbits (renamed Halflings to avoïd plagiarism) and Orcs. The Heroic-fantasy  and  J.R.R. Tolkien were  despised by readership because of the memories associated with this kind of literacy. Indeed, the Rhein Gold Trilogy, although coming from northern mythologies, was classified in this style which was used by Hitler for his nazi propaganda. With the end of WWII, Heroic-fantasy was plunged in darkness..

We won't describe this Roleplaying Game here, which is the  reference. We will only criticize it as objectively as possible.

Our Opinion

Advantages :

AD&D offers the most numerous  world, letting players evolve in various realms . Indeed, who remember AD&D in space? Nevertheless, AD&D has got an extension extension dedicated to space and called "Spelljammer" which link every existing universes. Furthermore, AD&D always tried to ensure the coherence of the rules and the structuresthrough it's multiple extensions, each one  enriching the basic universe with new spells, classes and species.

Defects :

The great rigidity of the proposed classes is softened in the Third Edition wholly revised and which besides has nothing common with the  previous editions! This new recast allows each character to acquire professional skills which are specific and to draw in a pool of general skills  accessible by everyone. It's main problem is also connected to it's  oldness : the 20-sided dices system that we'll comment on the webpage titled "20-sided dice System"! Furthermore, lthe Hit Points management, the armor classes and the dodging system is not "realistic" at all, since the armor is used to dodge a hit instead of protecting a Hit Points loss! The requisite presence of certain classes (cleric, thief, wizard, warrior) to succeed a scenario and also to survive  lead to uniformize the composition of a group of characters! And the aspects HitPoints Management/Optimal Action/Spells Management, AD&D is sometimes similar to a strategy game rather than a Roleplaying Game.

At last, lthe greatest problem is also the greatest quality of AD&D : the numerous universes, because numerous universes means numerous books and numerous expensive outgoings! The revision of the rules involved the obligation for an practised player to rebuy EVERYTHING and to store his old books in the toilets! This commercial method  let us think that players are Cash Cows!