Is it possible that 2nd edition could make a very popular come back?

[MerricB]

Like I said - don't let data get in the way of an anecdote! You might be in danger of veering towards something resembling accuracy, and we wouldn't want that!

But based on anecdotes, 0% of me plays 2E. Proof!

Based on my experiences at my FLGS, AD&D is most popular, then Next, then 4e, then PF, then Rifts, and 2e and 3e aren't played at all.

Yes, Rifts is more popular than 3e! And, if I get the time, I can make TMNT more popular than all of them!

Cheers!

 

[TwoSix]

We shall see what happens.

To be fair, if there was a retroclone that folded together a lot of the Player's Options books with a lot of the kits (which are pretty much the same thing as Pathfinder archetypes), I'd buy that.

2e was a big fan of balancing mechanical abilities with roleplay restrictions, which honestly would work very well if it had more a indie-style subsystem attached to it. It could be interesting, but would take some serious design chops to make happen.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

To be fair, if there was a retroclone that folded together a lot of the Player's Options books with a lot of the kits (which are pretty much the same thing as Pathfinder archetypes), I'd buy that.

Player's Options made a lot of DMs tear their hair out. I doubt many DMs, old school or new, would want to run AD&D 2e like that... and that's a big deal, because without a DM, you don't get to play any edition of D&D.

 

[TwoSix]

Player's Options made a lot of DMs tear their hair out. I doubt many DMs, old school or new, would want to run AD&D 2e like that... and that's a big deal, because without a DM, you don't get to play any edition of D&D.

I think Combat and Tactics and Spells and Magic were both solid books. Skills and Powers was more iffy. I agree the split stats were an absolutely terrible idea that should never again see the light of day. I like the options of building your own class, but that section would obviously need a complete makeover to be close to balanced. Starting with the cleric as the base should be the starting point, and then pricing the other options correctly.

 

[Ulrick]

AD&D 2e is sort of the "forgotten" edition of D&D. By the 1990s gamers were moving on to other things.

There are people out there passionate about AD&D 2e, but they're more keen on bringing back a campaign setting, like Ravenloft or Planescape, rather than seeing an AD&D 2e resurgance.

You can see this among communities on G+: plenty of OSR communties, stuff for 4e, but those that touch upon AD&D 2e are usually based on a campaign setting. Heck, even in an edition war you hardly ever hear anybody passionately defend AD&D 2e.

I'm convinced part of this is the marketing that WotC did just when they were promoting 3e back in the day. They wanted to distance themselves as much as possible from the mistakes that TSR made. If you look at issues of Dragon Magazine at the time, you'll read over and over again how Thac0 is counter-intuitive. While Thac0 has been around since 1e, 2e used it exclusively.

Try mentioning to somebody, "hey, I'd like to run a 2e campaign." Chances are, if they know anything about the game, they'll say something like: "But that uses Thac0. Thac0 is confusing!"

End of discussion.

AD&D and OD&D (and Retroclones) have the nostalgia working for them. 3e/3.5e still have support from diehard fans, as does Pathfinder. Even 4e has its adherants.

I'd like to see a resurgence of AD&D 2e, but it'd have overcome 13 years of marketing inertia and opinions.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I think Combat and Tactics and Spells and Magic were both solid books. Skills and Powers was more iffy. I agree the split stats were an absolutely terrible idea that should never again see the light of day. I like the options of building your own class, but that section would obviously need a complete makeover to be close to balanced. Starting with the cleric as the base should be the starting point, and then pricing the other options correctly.

I recall abusing Skills and Powers with an anything-goes DM... who still banned stat splits. Despite having no real appreciation of game balance at the time, I knew to avoid that.

I think 2e's (well, OSR's) appeal is simplicity. To my mind that's a bit misplaced, the way the rules were written were really confusing, but a modern "touch up" would fix that. (That's one reason I dislike 5e's "natural language". Jargon ceases to be confusing once you've learned it... and a term like THAC0 is still jargon. Despite the math issues, I've never met anyone who played D&D and didn't understand the term.)

 

[the Jester]

In my experience and from what I've seen, you're more likely to see a resurgence of 1e or BECMI than you are to see a major renaissance of 2e.

 

[Sunseeker]

It's not readily available, support for it is low, it's generally popular with older players, not younger ones(who are going to generally be better at social networking) and there are a number of other reasons that I don't think it will see a comeback outside of dedicated gaming circles who are looking for it to have a comeback.

 

[howandwhy99]

2e has a massive amount of material. A lot of it is very interesting and useful by being in the format for early D&D statistically, but there were more problems with the game during that time than any other. The adventures and DMG are all wrong for old school as they are near the advent of when D&D wasn't trying to be a game anymore and started trying to tell stories. IOW they created Act - Scene plotlines for the PCs and settings for the novels. The settings are very inspiring and have plenty of material to steal, but I find they have a tendenty to be a bit slavish to the original classes and races and become too overly detailed to be playable (e.g. open for module insertion, discoverable by players) RPG settings. Still, tons and tons of material with little or no conversion to other early editions of the game.

 

[fjw70]

There are too many OSR options for any one of them to be a significant player.