The mythical ideal of 1E?

[thecasualoblivion]

I see many people invoking a mystical ideal of 1E AD&D that seems to me far above the objective reality of how the game was actually played. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a lot of the small changes and refocusing of D&D that occured with the 2E revision a response to how most people played the game, and the most commonly used houserules? A lot of what 2E revised and/or discarded from 1E are included in this mystical ideal of 1E that gets brought up here. While the 2E revision alienated some people, the vast majority of D&D players happily converted. I think that fact gets lost in the cloud of 1E nostalgia sometimes.

 

[Serendipity]

I agree with a lot of this - my recollection is that 2e always felt like house ruled 1e...at least until all the Complete books inundated us with kits and so on. In my memory, 2e didn't really have a distinctive seperate identity from 1e until several years after it's release.

Having said that, however, when I run a 1e AD&D game, I run it pretty straight...usually not including Unearthed Arcana or anything that came after. (Why does she do this you might ask? Because for me the point of running a 1e AD&D game is because it is different than 3e or whatever.)

 

[justanobody]

I see many people invoking a mystical ideal of 1E AD&D that seems to me far above the objective reality of how the game was actually played. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a lot of the small changes and refocusing of D&D that occured with the 2E revision a response to how most people played the game, and the most commonly used houserules? A lot of what 2E revised and/or discarded from 1E are included in this mystical ideal of 1E that gets brought up here. While the 2E revision alienated some people, the vast majority of D&D players happily converted. I think that fact gets lost in the cloud of 1E nostalgia sometimes.

I think in many cases some people neglect 2nd because of Gary and how it was taken away from him pretty much.

They are very similar when you look under the hood, sort of like 3.0 to 3.5 really.

 

[jdrakeh]

I agree with a lot of this - my recollection is that 2e always felt like house ruled 1e...at least until all the Complete books inundated us with kits and so on. In my memory, 2e didn't really have a distinctive seperate identity from 1e until several years after it's release.

I agree with pretty much all of that. Out of the three core books, AD&D 2e was pretty much a cleaned up AD&D 1e minus Gygaxian colloquialisms and an across the board implementation of plain English. I did miss the Assassin class and Half-Orc race, which I recall seeing as the only really significant difference between the two editions, at the time.

 

[Obryn]

I see many people invoking a mystical ideal of 1E AD&D that seems to me far above the objective reality of how the game was actually played. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a lot of the small changes and refocusing of D&D that occured with the 2E revision a response to how most people played the game, and the most commonly used houserules? A lot of what 2E revised and/or discarded from 1E are included in this mystical ideal of 1E that gets brought up here. While the 2E revision alienated some people, the vast majority of D&D players happily converted. I think that fact gets lost in the cloud of 1E nostalgia sometimes.

I don't know that too many people played 1e close to the actual rules. Every 1e game had house rules. EGG's game had house rules.

I remember 2e much less than I remember 1e, but I specifically remember it being a lot more sterile and ... well, voice-less. It was a tighter system that seemed to have lost something in its sanitization. On the upside, it made a lot more sense and it was much easier to learn the rules. On the down-side, it wasn't quite as ... well, fantastical, for lack of a better term. Arguably, a lot of the things it fixed weren't very broken to begin with.

At any rate, I am re-learning how to run 1e, and it barely resembles the game I used to play. (Like almost everyone else, I mixed 1e, B/X, and BECMI into a self-contradictory but nevertheless fun jumble.)

-O

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I agree with pretty much all of that. Out of the three core books, AD&D 2e was pretty much a cleaned up AD&D 1e minus Gygaxian colloquialisms and an across the board implementation of plain English. I did miss the Assassin class and Half-Orc race, which I recall seeing as the only really significant difference between the two editions, at the time.

I would call the most significant changes to be the lack/easing of racial level limits and the emphasis on narrative style and DM responsibility/behavior in the DMG.

 

[Chainsaw]

I see many people invoking a mystical ideal of 1E AD&D that seems to me far above the objective reality of how the game was actually played. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't a lot of the small changes and refocusing of D&D that occured with the 2E revision a response to how most people played the game, and the most commonly used houserules? A lot of what 2E revised and/or discarded from 1E are included in this mystical ideal of 1E that gets brought up here. While the 2E revision alienated some people, the vast majority of D&D players happily converted. I think that fact gets lost in the cloud of 1E nostalgia sometimes.

I grew up on 2E and loved it, complete handbooks, settings and all (we stopped playing just before skills and powers though). We didn't have much RPG community interaction (other than maybe the letters and rules section of Dragon), so we weren't ever really exposed to any negative sentiment toward the latest product or brand direction. When I bought (er, my grandmother bought) a new book, I looked through it, kept what I liked and that was it. I relied on my own judgement about what was too powerful for my tastes. That was all there was. I stumbled onto this board back in 1999 and was amazed at all the discussion over 2E rules in the months preceding 3E's release.

Anyway, I'd actually probably be playing 2E now, since that's what I know best, but I lost all those books and now happen to have the 1E books (old gifts) and the 3E/4E books (nostalgia driven purchases). I tried to learn 3E/4E, but frankly, my eyes glazed over when I started reading about the complexities of combat. I know that probably makes me sound stupid or not-hardcore, but my best memories of playing 2E never involved complicated rules (we rarely passed 5th level) as much as colorful quests, dungeons or bad guys.

Ok, I've forgotten the topic by now. Oh yeah, superimposing artificial sentimentality. I'm sure there's a little of that. That's all I got.

Edit: I just remembered there was one AD&D guy outside our group that wanted to play with us sometimes, but when he said he wanted to be a drow assassin with a hireling pulling a wagon full of barrels of poison for his weapons, we were like... uh... how about a cleric instead? Surprisingly, he never got back to us..

 

[Obryn]

I agree with pretty much all of that. Out of the three core books, AD&D 2e was pretty much a cleaned up AD&D 1e minus Gygaxian colloquialisms and an across the board implementation of plain English. I did miss the Assassin class and Half-Orc race, which I recall seeing as the only really significant difference between the two editions, at the time.

A few biggies...

(1) Absorption of the Illusionist spells into the Magic-User list, and Druid spells into the Cleric list. The disappearance of the Illusionist as a distinct class.
(2) Specialist casters, and the newfound utility of schools/spheres of magic. (Which were mishandled for clerics, imho.)
(3) d10 individual initiative, modified by weapon speed and dexterity. No more segments.
(4) Thieving abilities are bought with points, not assigned by level.
(5) Varying XP awards to give XP bonuses to classes for doing their roles. Not balanced very well, IMHO, and a bear for bookkeeping. Removal of 1 gp = 1 xp for most classes. As a result, strangely, advancement was slower.
(6) Codification of non-weapon proficiencies. Still listed as optional, but not really optional.
(7) THAC0, not tables. Combat tables and saves actually appeared in the PHB, where they should have been from the start.
(8) Weird unarmed combat system. Still, big improvement off the 1e DMG method
(9) Removal of a lot of Gygaxian flavor, such as artifacts.

That's what I can come up with off the top of my head...

-O

 

[T. Foster]

I agree that at the time 2E AD&D was released its rules by and large represented how 1E AD&D was actually being played in RPGA tournaments and by people who responded to TSR's marketing surveys in Dragon -- a streamlined version of the game that cut out a lot of the more baroque special case rules. That said, for people who played this way and eventually grew bored with 2E, thought 3E was a breath of fresh air at first but became overwhelmed by all the detail and began looking backwards for something different, it's not really surprising that they'd be drawn to the very elements of 1E that differentiate it from what came after -- the weird rules, the specifically "Gygaxian" prose and flavor -- even if, or specifically because, that's not the way they played back in the 80s. It makes the game seem fresh and different, not just a return to the bland game that you played during the 90s and eventually got sick of, but something different and new. Sure it's a little weird, but it's weird in a cool sort of way that really draws you (by which I suppose I mean "me" ) in -- you may not want to actually use all those weird rules, but you want to capture the feel and flavor of what those rules represent -- you want to be that guy with the beard at the back of the 1E Players Handbook leaving the dungeon with a smile on his face and a sack of treasure

 

[Remathilis]

A few biggies...

(1) Absorption of the Illusionist spells into the Magic-User list, and Druid spells into the Cleric list. The disappearance of the Illusionist as a distinct class.
(2) Specialist casters, and the newfound utility of schools/spheres of magic. (Which were mishandled for clerics, imho.)
(3) d10 individual initiative, modified by weapon speed and dexterity. No more segments.
(4) Thieving abilities are bought with points, not assigned by level.
(5) Varying XP awards to give XP bonuses to classes for doing their roles. Not balanced very well, IMHO, and a bear for bookkeeping. Removal of 1 gp = 1 xp for most classes. As a result, strangely, advancement was slower.
(6) Codification of non-weapon proficiencies. Still listed as optional, but not really optional.
(7) THAC0, not tables. Combat tables and saves actually appeared in the PHB, where they should have been from the start.
(8) Weird unarmed combat system. Still, big improvement off the 1e DMG method
(9) Removal of a lot of Gygaxian flavor, such as artifacts.

That's what I can come up with off the top of my head...

-O

Your list is pretty good (well, one exception, dex didn't affect initiative. It was the most common house rule in 2e though) to add a few more.

(10) A Radically redesigned ranger and bard classes; the former emphasized scouting, tracking, dual-wielding, and nature magic, the latter was a kind of mage/thief hybrid.
(11) Dragons, and Giants received massive power boosts; demons & devils got regulated to oddball names and obscure supplements.
(12) Different Level Limits, more class/race options (but not much many).

...

A lot of times, 2e comes off as cold reading (until you get to the campaign settings, which were wonderful). While I applaud Dave (Zeb) Cook for most of his mechanical improvements, he didn't write a guide, he wrote a technical manual. Because of this and the heavy use of freelancers to handle the PHBR line (Compared, they range from excellent (bards) to dirt poor (priests) to what-the-heck-were-you-thinking? (Elves)) and little in the way of design goal than "fix 1e and profit".

2e, as a system, is probably overall equal to or better than 1e. It gets a bum rap because of TSR's management and handling of it. I think if most 1e players bothered to check it out again (esp in light of 3e or 4e) they'd be more pleasantly surprised by it than they'd think...