AD&D 2nd Edition was our heyday for AD&D, and we had a Forgotten Realms campaign that was fun and more story-based in this world. The expanded classes, the greater focus on normal monsters, and the "story XP" brought us back into the game. The game was not "kill for treasure," and we enjoyed the more action-oriented and story-based experience.
We played the Forgotten Realms as a low-magic setting, where magic was not all that common, and the world felt grounded and realistic. This was a serious world, far removed from the science fiction of Baldur's Gate 3, and there were no Eladrin, Tieflings, Dragonborn, or any of the 4E races in the world. The world was mostly human, with a scattering of the other races represented and in their own communities.
For Gold & Glory is the OSR AD&D 2nd Edition clone, and it is a great book and game. I pulled this out recently, and it still holds up well. AD&D 2nd Edition was the high point for many with D&D, and it mirrored the rise of the novels, most of which were NYT Bestsellers through the 1990s. This was the "novelization" era of D&D, and it still amazes me that with all that success and mainstream recognition, TSR went bankrupt at the end of the decade.
It shows you how the D&D cycle rises and falls, and how fickle the mainstream audience is. I get the feeling Baldur's Gate 3 and Critical Role were this era's "D&D craze," and we are entering the post-pop bust cycle again.
Demons, having been banned from the game due to TSR's reaction to the Satanic Panic, were gone from the setting, and the renaming of them to "Baatezu" and "Tanarri" was a profane mess of a solution, meant to hide them from prying eyes like men's magazines on the top shelf. The Monstrous Manual for AD&D 2e had the Balor, Maralith, Pit Fiend, and three of the Abishai, and that is all. You had to pick up the Outer Planes Appendix for the rest of the classics.
But still, removing them felt like a surrender. The players who wanted a darker role-playing experience all went to Vampire: The Masquerade. When D&D surrenders to the outrage mob, it begins a slow death, and it falls apart in about 10 years.
That said, our version of the Forgotten Realms excluded demons, and we focused on the classic monsters instead. If they were banned, this world would not have had them, and we would have moved on and focused on other evils. Perhaps the gods found a way to banish all demons in this world, and it was more like Mystara? It did not matter to us, but I still felt something important was missing. It was like playing a console RPG, wanting to have certain monsters and options, realizing the game didn't have them, and then accepting that and moving on with other things.
FG&G has a limited selection of demons in the rules, just like AD&D 2nd Edition.
All the AD&D 2nd Edition books work seamlessly with AD&D 2nd Edition, and the rules and game are not that different from AD&D 1st Edition. This update includes a cleanup, rewrite, demon removal, and clarification of the game rules, with a few new classes and options added to the game to cover characters in the books.
So, why not play AD&D 2e on print-on-demand?
For Gold & Glory is a community-supported game with a better license. When given a choice, I will always support the community-made game. This supports a larger ecosystem of creators, allowing people to create adventures for the system, and fosters a more positive, productive, and healthy environment than merely playing a dead game.
I would rather play with others than support a system that can't be created for.
But here is the problem with FG&G. I have a game that adds classes, supports classic content, has many more options, and clarifies class abilities to a better degree than either FG&G or AD&D 2nd Edition.
Adventures Dark & Deep.
This has all the classes and options that FG&G has, but it is not a pure clone. Actual design work was done on the class options to unify the mechanics, give them some design "oomph," and make everything more straightforward and make sense. Why have a clone of the second edition, when we have a vastly improved first edition to play?
I look at the bard class in AD&D 2nd Edition, FG&G, and Adventures Dark and Deep. The ADAD bard is the best of the bunch, with the abilities all clearly laid out, the mechanics behind them all unified to a single percentage roll, and the best abilities clearly explained. There are no questions here, nor are there diverging mechanics where some abilities use saves while others use percentages.
The design flex in Adventures Dark and Deep is real, and it pays benefits.
The second edition is a clean-up of the first edition, and having a rebuilt first edition that accomplishes the added pieces of the second edition, plus gives us more, is a clear winner to me. Adventures Dark and Deep is like the second edition of the second edition.
While FG&G is cool and evocative with its art, and the best 2nd Edition retro-clone, ADAD improves the first edition so much that a second edition isn't needed.
All the classic monsters are here, the demons and devils are here, and nothing is renamed. We have the best of the best in the monster book. We have all the classics, with nothing held back. The elder demon and devil lords are all here. We get angels. We get everything.
And if we want elder gods and monsters, we get those too in an expansion. The hits keep coming here, along with a fixed and product-improved remake of the old Oriental Adventures book, in Swords of Wuxia.
FG&G is a fantastic game, the best second edition clone out there. If this is all you want, to simulate that era, use the second edition monster books and adventures, and play in that world while supporting community content - you can't go wrong here.
Adventures Dark and Deep eclipses anything else in the first edition sphere of gaming, including every edition of second edition. For me, this has it all, the most, and with a level of streamlining and design that makes everything make sense.
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