1E/2E/OD&D Do you consider 2nd edition AD&D "old-school"

[Remathilis]

Second Edition is Schizophrenic; it began life tied to the mechanics of 1e (OS) but with a heart yearning for story-based heroics (NS). Each setting released for it emphasized the latter (NS) but each supplement expanded the former (OS). Eventually, The PO line tried to address the problem by updating the rules, which began to move the mechanics a bit more modern incarnation (NS) but after TSRs crash, WotC's 2e products began to harken back to 1e's "back to the dungeon" motifs (Greyhawk's "What the Hell is a Baatezu?" ad, the "Return to" modules, the merging of RL and PS into the core) (OS).

Taken as a whole, I'd say its pretty old-school. It could easily be played in that vein if you didn't use one of TSR's settings, and really only the settings/modules are anything new-school. That said, PO is an attempt to drag 2e kicking and screaming into NS rules, so I put the breakline there.

Of course, my simplistic view is "anything that uses descending AC is old-school" so by that yardstick...

[Agamon]

It came out after I had been playing the game for almost 10 years. I think of it as a sanitized version of 1e, cleaner and clearer but with less flavor. So while it has some of the old school mechanics, I can't really call it old school...at least it isn't what I refer to when I use the term. The clear majority of nostalgic memories come from my 1e and B/X games, not 2e.

[outsider]

2nd edition was probably the most poorly designed edition. The rules were oldschool D&D, but the flavour definitely was not. It was basically "Here's your rules for killing things and taking their stuff. Don't use them though. You are supposed to be making the next Lord of the Rings".

It's also not fair to call it new school. Much of 3rd edition's design was a rejection of 2nd edition. "Back to the dungeon" wasn't just a marketing motto, it was a design motto.

[Mythmere1]

Originally Posted by Obryn

Mechanically, I'd say absolutely. It's extremely faithful to and compatible with AD&D 1e.

I think it moved away from oldschool-style supplements, though. Its overall flavor wasn't old-school at all.

-O

This. It can be played in an old school style without a hitch, but if one were to follow the advice from Dragon Magazine from that era, or follow the advice in the later supplements (and even some in the core books), it leads you to something quite different from the OD&D/1e "feel" and also from the 3+ editions. It's an anomaly, not so much because of its rules but because of the changed focus/advice about how to play it.

By that, I mean the focus on exploring a character, acting in character, and acting more like a character in a novel - including the development of supplements that emphasized this with "scenes" that appeared regardless of player actions. Late 2e was the real era of railroading as a legitimate form of adventure. It's seen as a bug now, but then it was a feature.

So, with the exception of the rules RAW, which are pretty open ended, there was a very distinct feel to the 2e era. The other editions, older and newer, are more focused on the game side than on the story/exploration of character. It's one of the ways that 3e/4e can be seen as returning to an original style.

[Raven Crowking]

Originally Posted by Mythmere1

Late 2e was the real era of railroading as a legitimate form of adventure. It's seen as a bug now, but then it was a feature.

Oh, it was a bug then, too. My hat of (that part of) e02 know no limit.


RC

[rogueattorney]

I'll just echo what others have said, mechanically 2e is "old-school." The way it was presented, marketed, and the way the adventures and campaign settings were written weren't "old school." However, I don't know that I'd call it "new school" either.

There was a pretty big disjunction between the way the designers told the GM and players to play and the content of the rules, as if the designers didn't particularly like the game, but were afraid to change the rules overly much. (Which, I believe was true after reading some of the commentary on 2e's design in the contemporary Dragon issues and the later 30 year anniversary coffee table book.) I think that disjunction actually began during the late 1e days. So, I think it was more a TSR phenomenon than a 2e phenomenon.

It would be perfectly possible to play an old school game playing the 2e rules. But I don't know how someone using the 2e supplements would get there on their own.

[Odhanan]

Originally Posted by Raven Crowking

2e occupies a liminal space between old school and new school, IMHO.

RC

This.

[Talath]

IMHO, 2nd Edition is distinctly new school, as it represents a new marketing philosophy for the D&D brand. Prior to 2nd edition, the material released was meant primarily for the DM; books such as Monster Manual I and II, Fiend Folio, Gods and Demigods, and adventure modules. Then you have the few which could be construed as being useful to both DMs and Players: the Dungeoneers and Wilderness Survival Guide, and Unearthed Arcana.

Somewhere between then and early 2nd edition, they must have realized that by selling DM stuff, they were selling to 1/5 of the gaming group, so the splat books began. And why shouldn't they be popular? Players love options.

I dont.

But at any rate, there is a very visible shift in the amount of material being published, and this philosophy started in 2nd edition and continues today.

Note this is just concerned D&D; I'm not as well informed as to other RPGs and when they began the splat books, but as is popular heysay, White Wolf began the trend, if you believe the rumors.

[Umbran]

I honestly think the "new school" vs "old school" thing is a false dichotomy that does more to limit how people consider games than it does help them understand games.

[Ariosto]

Just the other night, I played 2E (core only) again for the first time in about 20 years. It definitely made a difference (from 1E) in selecting a character type. I'm not sure how the DM is handling XP, except that we were told (too late) to keep track of who slew what (for a bonus for fighters).

In actual play, though, it was not notably different mechanically. We did not use all the bells and whistles (no proficiencies, for instance). The DM had some house rules, which seems just normative for most RPGs (and a tradition in old D&D). The scenario had a "plot", but (so far) no more than was fairly common among campaign starters I recall from before 2E.

[rogueattorney]

Originally Posted by Umbran

I honestly think the "new school" vs "old school" thing is a false dichotomy that does more to limit how people consider games than it does help them understand games.

Yes. Trying to put 35 years and hundreds (thousands?) of products into 2 classes simply isn't meaningful in any productive way. The phases that D&D has gone trough is a lot more nuanced than the "old school v. new school" debate would lead anyone to believe.

[Raven Crowking]

Originally Posted by Umbran

I honestly think the "new school" vs "old school" thing is a false dichotomy that does more to limit how people consider games than it does help them understand games.

Any system of categorization runs the risk of having its users mistake general principles for absolutes. However, if you are able to avoid thinking in terms of absolutes, categorization is a useful tool.

For example, one may consider a tomato to be a fruit or a vegetable, depending upon the system of categories being used (scientific, supermarket), or as occupying some liminal space between. That shades of grey exist, however, isn't generally a real limitation when formulating a balanced diet!

Likewise, any rpg can be played in an "old school" or a "new school" way. Recognizing that some rulesets and presentations encourage a particular type of play, however, isn't limiting (esp. when one can then modify the ruleset or presentation to match what one desires). Failure to realize the same, OTOH, may be limiting in the extreme.


RC

[Sammael]

The rules of AD&D 2nd edition (up to Skills & Powers) are marginally cleaned up (sterilized, dare I say?) old-school rules. Lots of quirky little subsystems, no unified mechanics, tables a plenty, DM is the ultimate arbiter.

However, the (fantastic) flavor of AD&D 2nd edition was far more in line with "new school" RPGs of the time, such as White Wolf's World of Darkness (story-heavy, metaplot-heavy, world-shattering events).

Basically, 2nd edition tried to be a storytelling system based on a dungeon crawl rules system. This didn't work very well, so each setting had to come up with its own rules exceptions and subsystems.

Skills and Powers tried to codify everything and turn it into a point-buy system and failed (although I still enjoyed Skills and Powers - as a player - far more than vanilla 2nd edition, due to the far greater ability to customize your character).

In conclusion, 2nd edition is basically its own "school" and very much a transitive system. It did produce some of the greatest settings of all times - Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft, Al-Quadim, and Spelljammer - and 2nd edition Forgotten Realms books are still the definitive works on the setting to date (the fact that some DMs don't know how to tailor the setting to their own games and try to enforce the much-maligned canon is a problem with those DMs, not the setting itself, IMO).

[Umbran]

Originally Posted by Raven Crowking

Any system of categorization runs the risk of having its users mistake general principles for absolutes. However, if you are able to avoid thinking in terms of absolutes, categorization is a useful tool.

Small correction - accurate categorization can be a useful tool. You can have bad categories, and even if your categories are good, doesn't mean you'll get something useful out of them.

As I feel the old/new thing is a false dichotomy to start with, I find the categories to be inaccurate. I know a bunch of folks hold by them, but I don't.

Note, I feel this is different from the vegetable/fruit issue for tomatoes. In that case, the issue is imprecise categories (or alternatively, categories that mean different things in different contexts).

[Invisible Stalker]

I do think of it as "Old School." The old part of the school that got burned to the ground to make way for better things in 3e and 4e.

[Remathilis]

Originally Posted by Umbran

I honestly think the "new school" vs "old school" thing is a false dichotomy that does more to limit how people consider games than it does help them understand games.

Sigged!

[Matthew L. Martin]

[Warning: This post contains tongue-in-cheek exaggerations.]

2E can't be old school--it doesn't encourage players and DMs trying to outwit one another, the emphasis on player cunning over character traits, and the assumption that the world is a nasty, brutal, amoral place where power is the summum bonum and PCs go forth to kill, loot, plunder, pillage, ravage, ravish, trick, trap, deceive, and trade the souls of their enemies to fiends for a 20% profit margin.

Likewise, 2E can't be new school--it doesn't encourage mini-centered combat, the DM as an interface for the players to interact with the RAW Hivemind, an emphasis on system mastery, and the assumption that the world is an amoral place where power is the summum bonum and PCs go forth to kill things and take their stuff to become ever more effective at killing things and taking their stuff through acquisition of fabulous new combinations of powers.

While in rules, 2E is a cleaned-up 1E, in assumptions, 2E is probably an attempt at D&D for people who want to play Heroic High Fantasy, where the emphasis is on wonder, story, and doing the right thing, as opposed to Pulp Swords & Sorcery/Weird Fantasy, where the emphasis is on strangeness, exploration, and doing the profitable thing.

Given my sympathies with 2E's philosophy and style (although I find the rules clunky), I guess I'm not really a D&D fan.

[Aus_Snow]

Nope, it surely isn't.

[Ariosto]

I see a very meaningful distinction in the different methods of play. This was brought home the first time I played 4E, and described in-character how I was investigating a section of floor. My friend translated, "That's his old-school way of saying he wants to make a Perception check."

As the 2E line progressed, TSR pushed ever more the idea that players needed stacks of rule-books. Wizards took up where that left off. The results are pretty easy to see.

[Doug McCrae]

Originally Posted by Ariosto

described in-character how I was investigating a section of floor

That sounds very, very boring.