tsr products

[Amdy_vill]

what is the name of the tsr product that tells you witch books are ad&D 2e and witch are just ad&D

[knag]

The easiest answer is that 2nd Edition books all have the "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition" logo on the top of the book, where the 1st edition books just say "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons".

TSR put out a yearly product catalog, which did not have a TSR product number, but I'm not aware of any product they put out which indexes the 1st and 2nd edition products.

Luckily, others have done this for you. You can get this info by searching on rpggeek.com and rpg.net, but here's a pretty comprehensive list of exactly what you're looking for:

http://personalpages.tds.net/~jazzn2day/Collectors%20Checklist%20-%20D&D,%20AD&D%20(TSR).pdf

Also, take a look at The Acaeum (https://www.acaeum.com/), which has really the most in-depth listing of all original D&D, D&D, and 1st edition AD&D products.

[Amdy_vill]

thank you.

[LibraryOgre]

The easiest answer is that 2nd Edition books all have the "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition" logo on the top of the book, where the 1st edition books just say "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons".


This becomes less reliable in the mid-90s. Once they put out the revised 2e books, they dropped the "2nd Edition" from the cover, since 1st edition wasn't on the stage anymore.

That said, one of your best bets is actually publication date. If it was published in the 90s, it was 2e. If it was published in the early 80s, it was 1e. Only for about 1989 and 1990 does publication date not definitively tell you which way it goes.

[Scots Dragon]

This becomes less reliable in the mid-90s. Once they put out the revised 2e books, they dropped the "2nd Edition" from the cover, since 1st edition wasn't on the stage anymore.

That said, one of your best bets is actually publication date. If it was published in the 90s, it was 2e. If it was published in the early 80s, it was 1e. Only for about 1989 and 1990 does publication date not definitively tell you which way it goes.

I should add into this, most of the material is compatible with at most a small amount of fudging of the rules here and there to account for differences, and most adventures and such can be used with either edition so it doesn't really hurt much either way. The differences are about on par with the changes between D&D 3E and Pathfinder. Enough to be noticeable, but they're compatible enough that it doesn't make a huge difference.

[LibraryOgre]

I should add into this, most of the material is compatible with at most a small amount of fudging of the rules here and there to account for differences, and most adventures and such can be used with either edition so it doesn't really hurt much either way. The differences are about on par with the changes between D&D 3E and Pathfinder. Enough to be noticeable, but they're compatible enough that it doesn't make a huge difference.

I would personally saw the differences are even less than that, but agree in principle.

[Khedrac]

That said, one of your best bets is actually publication date. If it was published in the 90s, it was 2e. If it was published in the early 80s, it was 1e. Only for about 1989 and 1990 does publication date not definitively tell you which way it goes.
Just to confuse things, some of the last 1st Ed books published were deliberately forward-compatible to 2nd Ed and were effectively "both". A case in point is Greyhawk Adventures which used some of the 2nd Ed rules for clerics (which was a little confusing back in the day - I just ignored those bits until 2nd Ed came out).

[Scots Dragon]

I would personally saw the differences are even less than that, but agree in principle.

I was trying to mostly be conservative, and perhaps a better analogy would be D&D 3.0E and D&D 3.5E. The two editions have quite a few small differences, but they fit together pretty seamlessly.

Most of the big differences are in background areas rather than being front-loaded, such as rolling for initiative, the standardisation of THAC0, a few small adjustments to classes here and there, and the revamping (for the better IMO) of the spellcasting system into the schools of wizard magic and spheres of priest magic.

[Jay R]

I should add into this, most of the material is compatible with at most a small amount of fudging of the rules here and there to account for differences, ....

True. The problem is that anybody asking this question is not knowledgeable enough about the differences to make the small amount of fudging needed.