What was so bad about the Core 2e rules? Why is it the red-headed stepchild of D&D?

[Pat]

Well, consider that 12 years is a hell of a long time for a single edition of a line to exist. 1e and 2e both lasted for roughly the same length of time, and that was a very, very long time by RPG design and development standards. By contrast, consider that Vampire and Shadowrun each went through three editions *during* 2e's history. GURPS went through two editions, IIRC (the second and third).

So if the longest product life of any regularly printed edition of any RPG is "failure," I hope we get more of that -- it's pretty damn good.

Sorry, but your examples are incorrect. GURPS 3E came out the year before AD&D 2E (1988), and there wasn't another edition until after D&D 3.5 was released (2004). That makes 16 years between GURPS 3E and 4E. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other examples of regularly printed games that went even longer between editions, though 12 years is still a very respectable chunk of time.

 

[eyebeams]

Sorry, but your examples are incorrect. GURPS 3E came out the year before AD&D 2E (1988), and there wasn't another edition until after D&D 3.5 was released (2004). That makes 16 years between GURPS 3E and 4E. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other examples of regularly printed games that went even longer between editions, though 12 years is still a very respectable chunk of time.

I stand corrected -- but not for the purposes of contrasting AD&D. There were *two* Third Editions of GURPS. A Revised 3rd came out in 1996. Plus of course, GURPS had the Compendiums, which were treated as core rules in a way AD&D2's Option books weren't.

 

[Pat]

I stand corrected -- but not for the purposes of contrasting AD&D. There were *two* Third Editions of GURPS. A Revised 3rd came out in 1996. Plus of course, GURPS had the Compendiums, which were treated as core rules in a way AD&D2's Option books weren't.

The revised third edition of GURPS didn't actually change any rules, text or even layout (one of the design principles was not to invalidate any previous page references); the only change was the removal of the 16-page adventure "Caravan to Ein Arris" and its replacement with miscellanea like control ratings and new advantages. The compendia were similar but more voluminous: advantages, disadvantages, new skills, optional rules, etc cetera. The core remained identical. AD&D 2E also had a "revised" set of rules in 1995. The layout and thus pagination changed, but the content that was almost entirely identical. In contrast, while not branded "core", the AD&D Option series incorporated substantial rules changes that greatly exceeded anything in the GURPS compendia.

Calling the entire swath of AD&D 2E a single edition, yet arguing that GURPS 3E is actually two separate editions seems arbitrary. While both sets of rules suffered from accretion, the core of both remained the same.

 

[eyebeams]

The revised third edition of GURPS didn't actually change any rules, text or even layout (one of the design principles was not to invalidate any previous page references); the only change was the removal of the 16-page adventure "Caravan to Ein Arris" and its replacement with miscellanea like control ratings and new advantages.

Those "miscellanea" were referred to in supplements *and* they are not that small -- they're as integral to GURPS as class design in D&D. Applying an errata =/= over a dozen pages of new content.

The compendia were similar but more voluminous: advantages, disadvantages, new skills, optional rules, etc cetera. The core remained identical. AD&D 2E also had a "revised" set of rules in 1995. The layout and thus pagination changed, but the content that was almost entirely identical. In contrast, while not branded "core", the AD&D Option series incorporated substantial rules changes that greatly exceeded anything in the GURPS compendia.

The GURPS books became required to get full use out of later supplements. It's why I got rid of GRUPS New Sun. Meanwhile, there's nothing in my 2e FR books that requires Skills and Powers or anything.

 

[Pat]

I can't agree with that, even vaguely. The appendix in GURPS 3E Revised and the contents of both the compendia were either GM guidelines, optional rules, or dealt with fringe or obscure cases. I managed to use Transhuman Space (the version without the custom version of GURPS Lite included) and GURPS Traveller, for instance, I never even read a copy of 3E Revised or either compendia. Sure, I never quite figured out what the "chummy" disadvantage really was, but it was easy enough to ignore or wing. In AD&D terms, it's more like a missing spell than something as essential as an XP chart or other part of the class design.

 

[Staffan]

Back on the original topic for a moment.

One advantage of 2nd ed was the more clarified division of "groups" and "classes" instead of "classes" and "sub-classes." In 1st ed, if a rule referred to "fighters" you couldn't really be sure if it also applied to paladins and rangers, because those were sub-classes of the fighter class. In 2e, all three are classes in the Warrior group, so it's clear that "fighter" does not include "paladin."

However, one side effect of this was the merging of spell lists - the cleric and the druid lists were merged into a general priest list, and each class got access to a subset as defined by the spheres (and similarly for the magic-user and illusionist lists being merged into the wizard list). On one hand, this made it easier to add classes - it's a lot easier to say "A Wonderbringer of Gond has major access to All, Astral, Combat, Divination, Elemental, Protection, and Sun; and minor access to Charm, Guardian, and Healing" than it is to provide a spell list taking up maybe 15 pages or more. On the other, it lead to some weird stuff, like moonbeam being a 5th level priest spell that gave weak illumination to a small area for a short time, and continual light being a 3rd level priest spell that provides very strong illumination in a huge area permanently. The reason is, of course, that moonbeam used to be a druid spell and continual light a cleric spell, but as someone who started with 2e it made no sense to me.

You had similar things happening on the wizard side. In 1e, a magic-user got phantasmal force as a 3rd level spell, while it was a 1st level spell for illusionists. In 2e, it was just a 1st level spell.

 

[AllisterH]

There were some bad placement of priest spells when the sphere system was created....

It wasn't until PO:S&M (which itself was inspired by a DRAGON article talking about the same thing) that someone actually sat down and thought, "ok, this spell does WHAT and HOW does it compare to other spells and WHO should have access to it".

2e is also partly responsible in a way for how much more versatile and powerful the 3e wizard became. When illusionists had their own separate spell lists, there was a very good mechanical reason to play an illusionist.

Not only did you get some spells sooner but you got unique spells that a generalist couldnt touch. 2E's merging of the spell lists, while great for creating new specialists was IMO a bad thing in the grand scheme of D&D.

Sure, there was still a relatively strong incentive to play a specialist in 2E, but I believe that if the 2E designers had kept spell lists separate for each specialists, we wouldn't be talking so much about how wizards were "broken" in 3E.

For example, while strong and fun classes, nobody generally considers the Dread Necromancer, Beguiler or the Warmage even on the level of the sorceror much less the wizard....

 

[Gentlegamer]

Yeah, the spell lists were a bit mangled in core 2e. I remember making extensive use of a Dragon article realigning the priest spheres so clerics and druids would have their correct spells.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, the spell lists were a bit mangled in core 2e. I remember making extensive use of a Dragon article realigning the priest spheres so clerics and druids would have their correct spells.

I remember the revised lists in PO, but does anyone remember the Dragon Issue #?

 

[M.L. Martin]

I remember the revised lists in PO, but does anyone remember the Dragon Issue #?

DRAGON #205, May 1994. I believe the article title is "Getting Back to Nature". I remember the issue largely for that article, the preview of the Revised Ravenloft Campaign Setting, and the reviews of House of Strahd and Castles Forlorn.