For Gold & Glory vs 2e

 I’ll be honest, I don’t like the AD&D 2e core rule books. I don’t like how they’re written, how they’re organized, or that the rules are split up between three books. For Gold & Glory addresses all these issues by combining all the material into one book, reorganizing it for clarity, editing the language, and reformatting it using modern understandings of technical writing. The result is that it’s much easier to reference, easier to read plainly, and more convenient to have at the table. In fact I’d go so far as to say that FG&G is my favorite representation of the AD&D rules. 

If I had to rank the various versions of AD&D and their retroclones, it would look something like this:

For Gold & Glory 

AD&D 1e

AD&D 2e 

OSRIC

AD&D 1e’s greatest strength is the amount of content within, and the explanations and guidance on how to play the game by the author himself, written in a singular style now called “High Gygaxian”. On the other hand, the rules themselves are a mess, with plenty of internal contradictions and fiddly details that can’t be run as written and will otherwise bog down play.

AD&D 2e is a streamlined take on 1e which fixes the rules, but in the process excises most of what made the 1e DMG so good. The 2e books themselves are written in a textbook style with plenty of instructional sidebars and optional rules, but this also makes them a chore to read and actually doesn’t help when trying to reference a specific rule. Also when the player community complains about it's removed content, they bring up Half-Orcs and Demons, but I don’t care about that and what actually bothers me is that the lists of hirelings, construction costs, encounter tables, random generation and stocking tables, and other such content was removed. As such, the 2e DMG has a lot less content than its predecessor.  The rules are better still, though they tried to be more “realistic”.

OSRIC is a reference book, not a game manual. It was only written to cover copyright licenses so that third party (fourth?) publishers could release content that is compatible with AD&D. OSRIC replicates all the content from the 1e PHB but only a thin slice from the DMG, just the mechanical rules necessary to play the game. It’s fine if you just want a quick reference but you definitely won’t learn how to play from it, and it’s utility is limited. FG&G is a much more comprehensive compilation of the AD&D system.