Fifth Element
Legend
I'm a bit late to the thread. 2E is awesome!
What was so bad about the Core 2e rules? Why is it the red-headed stepchild of D&D?
- Thread starter joethelawyer
- Start date
I think 2E was an improvement over 1E in terms of organization and rules. However, it also lost some of the Gygaxian flavor, and it was sanitized by renaming demons and devils as baatzu and tannari (or however you spell them). And, the artwork was also sanitized a bit, so the 2E succubus was not quite as memorable as the 1E one. In the long run, it was probably a good idea to clean up the artwork and make the game more welcoming to women, but I am sure I was not happy at the time.
The main problem with 2E is that classes were not balanced – why play a single-classed fighter, when you could be a fighter/mage? With the XP chart, you could be a level 7 fighter, or a level 6 fighter/level 6 mage.
Overall, it was a good system, though, and very easy to use. The transition from 1E to 2E was far easier than moving from 2E to 3E or moving from 3.5E to 4E.
2E also lost its way when WotC put out a zillion supplements with various skills & powers, kits, and alternative rules.
The main problem with 2E is that classes were not balanced – why play a single-classed fighter, when you could be a fighter/mage? With the XP chart, you could be a level 7 fighter, or a level 6 fighter/level 6 mage.
Overall, it was a good system, though, and very easy to use. The transition from 1E to 2E was far easier than moving from 2E to 3E or moving from 3.5E to 4E.
2E also lost its way when WotC put out a zillion supplements with various skills & powers, kits, and alternative rules.
I think we only had one player's character ever reach 7th level, heh. The character died shortly afterward.
Edit: Clarified that it was the character (and not the player) who died!
Remember the focus here is Core 2nd edition AD&D, not all the supplements.
SteveC
Doing the best imitation of myself
For me second edition came along at the point where there were better games (to me, anyway) that catered more to my playstyle available. I suppose it makes sense, because so many of them were created in response to D&D, but once I discovered Champions and Fantasy Hero, my days with D&D were done for a long time.
Now in college I did play some D&D, but it was a weird 1E/2E hybrid that let me keep using my old 1E books to a large extent. 3E marked my return to D&D, and I've pretty much stuck with it and it's OGL variants ever since. The fact that many of the people who wrote the games I left D&D for had returned to the fold had nothing to do with it, I'll assure you!
--Steve
Now in college I did play some D&D, but it was a weird 1E/2E hybrid that let me keep using my old 1E books to a large extent. 3E marked my return to D&D, and I've pretty much stuck with it and it's OGL variants ever since. The fact that many of the people who wrote the games I left D&D for had returned to the fold had nothing to do with it, I'll assure you!
--Steve
yup--that was my point in starting this thread. to break out what people thought sucked. i have read here so many times about 2e sucking, but then people go into things that were extraneous to the core rules. i had a theory that overall the core rules were good, and people had a problem with the direction TSR took the game while 2e was out, and people merged their dislike of all of that into a general overall "2e sucked." that theory seems to be right, in reading the responses here.
That's probably the one thing that really irritated me, and still does, about 2E. Even today, the legacy names continue to cling to the cosmology ("Nine Hells of Baator") and the fiendish races ("baatezu," "tanar'ri," "yugoloths," "tieflings"). And every time I see them, they make me twitch with annoyance. Still, with the exception of tieflings, they've receded enough into the background that one can mostly ignore them, and I've gotten used to tieflings.
Other than that, I think my only complaint about 2E as such was that it lacked some of the quirky flavor of 1E - not in the rules, but in the presentation. 1E had all those funny little cartoons in the Player's Handbook, for example. I'm sure a lot of folks remember the one with the fighter cowering in terror in the wizard's arms at the approach of a rust monster, or the one with the PCs in Mickey Mouse ears sneaking into a wererat temple.
And 1E had, for my money, the best book covers of any edition. I'm thinking of the classic Player's Handbook picture with the thieves prying the ruby eye out of the idol; the DMG with the wizard in green robes throwing open the doors; and the Manual of the Planes with the astral dreadnought reaching up out of the lunatic void.
(Of course, 1E also had the crappiest book covers of any edition. Monster Manual, I'm lookin' at you.)
This is true to some degree, but I would say the change didn't really get going until 3E. 2E still retained a lot of the medieval look and feel. It had begun to shift, but only slightly. 3E was the edition that brought in the "dungeonpunk" look and the grossly disproportionate elements.
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ExploderWizard
Hero
I loved those but they were in the 1E DMG.
The earlier printings of the DMG featured a party of PC's vs an efreet on the cover-very awesome.
The original MM cover was an inspired masterpiece. Please turn in your grognard card.
I loved those but they were in the 1E DMG.
The earlier printings of the DMG featured a party of PC's vs an efreet on the cover-very awesome.
The original MM cover was an inspired masterpiece. Please turn in your grognard card.
Yeah, well, I didn't actually play during the 1E era. I came in shortly after 2E was released, and only found out about 1E by reading old sourcebooks that some of my fellow players had lying around.
The PCs versus the efreet was cool, but I never found it as evocative as the green wizard throwing open the doors (a later printing).
My mistake on the cartoons. It's been a while.
ExploderWizard
Hero
No worries. The demand for your card was based strictly on your opinion of the MM cover BTW
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