This is the free preview of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition. The 32-page booklet was bundled in Dragon Magazine 142 and (maybe) Dungeon Magazine 16. Copies also turned up solo at comic and game shops in early 1989 – I vividly recall my local shop having a stack next to the monthly comic previews near the door.

I’ve mentioned before, I have a special fondness for ad materials and catalogs. Stuff like this is made to hype a thing, then be tossed. It’s cool to see it decades later, long after the thing has come and gone, to get the slightest taste of what that hype felt like.

This is half advertisement, half primer on what to expect – not unlike some material that floated around ahead of the release of both 4E and 5E. Not tremendously exciting stuff, but a nice little piece of D&D history.