AD&D, looking backwards, and personal experiences

[Lanefan]

Also there didn't seem to be much point to the AD&D rules, being as they were, a hacked set of tabletop wargame rules. The game appeared to be one mostly designed for hack and slashers.

With core 1e (1979) there's some truth to this. However, it didn't take all that long for the pendulum to swing toward storytelling and setting: Dragonlance - which you mention as an example of what you want to see in D&D - came out in what, 1984?

By 2e's release (1989) storytelling and setting were prime; during the 2e era the pendulum swung a third direction (can they do that?) toward characterizations expressed more through game mechanics - more options, powers, skills, etc., leading right into 3e...which as evidenced by its "back to the dungeon" tag line was trying to swing the pendulum back toward where it started.

On the other hand you can write literally the whole of a 1e WFB character into one single line...

What is WFB?

Lanefan

 

[Shadeydm]

Seriously? AD&D was the pinnacle. I had more fun with it than any system before or since. It's all been downhill from there.

I definetly enjoyed DMing AD&D more than any other edition and ran my best and longest lasting campaigns using those rules. We used most of the rules including weapon speed which I felt did a decent job of adding incentive to using smaller faster weapons. We did skip weapons vs armor though. The wizard was never "quadratic".
I still did some DMing when 3.x came along but it started feeling alot more like work.
I play 4E and have been doing so since its release however its a system that seems to cater almost exclusivly to the super heroes with super powers playstyle (a perfectly legit style) which isn't something I can warm up to running. So while 3.x made DMing more difficult 4E is the edition that retired me from the seat behind the screen.
What excites me the most about DDN is the idea of customizing my own D&D Linux kernel cherry picking the innovations I like best from previous editions and ignoring the unappealing ones.

 

[Jack99]

With core 1e (1979) there's some truth to this. However, it didn't take all that long for the pendulum to swing toward storytelling and setting: Dragonlance - which you mention as an example of what you want to see in D&D - came out in what, 1984?

By 2e's release (1989) storytelling and setting were prime; during the 2e era the pendulum swung a third direction (can they do that?) toward characterizations expressed more through game mechanics - more options, powers, skills, etc., leading right into 3e...which as evidenced by its "back to the dungeon" tag line was trying to swing the pendulum back toward where it started.

What is WFB?

Lanefan

Warhammer Fantasy Battles

 

[Bluenose]

Seriously? AD&D was the pinnacle. I had more fun with it than any system before or since. It's all been downhill from there.

Come over here and say that!

The BECM(I) version remains my favourite.

What is WFB?

Lanefan

Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Huh, ninja'd

W40K is Warhammer 40,000, the (more popular) SF game with rather similar rules.

WAB is Warhammer Ancient Battles, the now discontinued historical version.

 

[Guest 85555]

I basically want a game that had a lot of the feel of AD&D 2E with some of the more intuitive streamining established by 3E.

My experience with the early hobby was very very different fromt he OPs. I played some 1E in the 80s (was very young though) and transitioned to 2E in 89, playing that through most of the 90s. I never felt like there was a good game burried in D&D, it was good. We also had a Gm running the rules cyclopia version for a bit which was excellent as well. I felt 3E made some improvements but it also lost something. I transitioned to 3e and didn't look back until about 2005 to 2007 when I became highly disatisfied with the material wotc was producing. The splat books and 3.5 were starting to drive me nuts. Then they released castle ravenloft in hard cover. It is the single worst module I ever played. Basically I realized they were on a completely different page from me in terms of mechanics, adventures and setting. They took what is arguably one of the best modules ever made and turned it into something awful. So I bought the 1E dmg again and gave it a read. Then I purchased all the 2E ravenloft books and 2e core books again. i ran 2e expecting to laugh at thac0 and all the "frankenstein" mechanics, but instead I found it produced superior play to 3e (much to my surprise). I had always felt something was lacking from my 3e raenloft campaigns, but I chalked it up to getting older and less inspired. But running ravenloft 2e again I realized the problem was 3E, not me.

This was my experience anyways. Since then, when I do run D&D, it is 2E.

 

[Steely_Dan]

I basically want a game that had a lot of the feel of AD&D 2E with some of the more intuitive streamining established by 3E.

My experience with the early hobby was very very different fromt he OPs. I played some 1E in the 80s (was very young though) and transitioned to 2E in 89, playing that through most of the 90s. I never felt like there was a good game burried in D&D, it was good. We also had a Gm running the rules cyclopia version for a bit which was excellent as well. I felt 3E made some improvements but it also lost something. I transitioned to 3e and didn't look back until about 2005 to 2007 when I became highly disatisfied with the material wotc was producing. The splat books and 3.5 were starting to drive me nuts. Then they released castle ravenloft in hard cover. It is the single worst module I ever played. Basically I realized they were on a completely different page from me in terms of mechanics, adventures and setting. They took what is arguably one of the best modules ever made and turned it into something awful. So I bought the 1E dmg again and gave it a read. Then I purchased all the 2E ravenloft books and 2e core books again. i ran 2e expecting to laugh at thac0 and all the "frankenstein" mechanics, but instead I found it produced superior play to 3e (much to my surprise). I had always felt something was lacking from my 3e raenloft campaigns, but I chalked it up to getting older and less inspired. But running ravenloft 2e again I realized the problem was 3E, not me.

This was my experience anyways. Since then, when I do run D&D, it is 2E.

I started playing D&D in 1986, have played all editions, my 3rd Campaign was going along fine, but after 3 years and the characters getting to the latter levels, it became too unwieldy; then we switched to 4th Ed and I became disillusioned after DMing about 10 sessions, I soon after started perusing my pre-3rd Ed goodies (with 3rd and 4th Ed's advancements, IMO).



Basic rocks.

 

[Remathilis]

I basically want a game that had a lot of the feel of AD&D 2E with some of the more intuitive streamining established by 3E.

My experience with the early hobby was very very different fromt he OPs. I played some 1E in the 80s (was very young though) and transitioned to 2E in 89, playing that through most of the 90s. I never felt like there was a good game burried in D&D, it was good. We also had a Gm running the rules cyclopia version for a bit which was excellent as well. I felt 3E made some improvements but it also lost something. I transitioned to 3e and didn't look back until about 2005 to 2007 when I became highly disatisfied with the material wotc was producing. The splat books and 3.5 were starting to drive me nuts. Then they released castle ravenloft in hard cover. It is the single worst module I ever played. Basically I realized they were on a completely different page from me in terms of mechanics, adventures and setting. They took what is arguably one of the best modules ever made and turned it into something awful. So I bought the 1E dmg again and gave it a read. Then I purchased all the 2E ravenloft books and 2e core books again. i ran 2e expecting to laugh at thac0 and all the "frankenstein" mechanics, but instead I found it produced superior play to 3e (much to my surprise). I had always felt something was lacking from my 3e raenloft campaigns, but I chalked it up to getting older and less inspired. But running ravenloft 2e again I realized the problem was 3E, not me.

This was my experience anyways. Since then, when I do run D&D, it is 2E.

Your experiences are extremely similar to mine. Except I detoured through 4e (briefly) and Pathfinder before coming home to 2e.

I was initially pleased with the D&DN playtest stuff because if felt very much like a Basic/2e Hybrid with 3e's upwards math. Spells were simple and like the RC spell list. Classes felt like their 2e versions (except the rogue, who felt more like his superior 3e version) and monsters were simple, with the "no duh" inclusion of ability scores (something I lamented in 2e not having). I'm worried again that the feedback on the classes being too "simple" will muck that up greatly.

 

[Remathilis]

Yes, 89. Though, really, it wasn't fundamentally different from 1e, just a little cleaner. I too wonder why the OP's exposure AD&D in the 90s was with the prior decade's ed...? Possibly his group included an AD&Der who still had all his old stuff and had never updated?

The fixes 2e introduced far outweigh the few things they broke in the process (spell lists for wizards and priests being the big one, the latter fixed nearly 7 years later in Spells & Magic). Some of the changes seem no-big-deal, but they are logical enough that it soothes my OCD-Virgo brain (like having Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers all share common traits like d10 HD or # attack per round rather than different ones for all classes). Additionally, the organization at least makes better sense. It also has one of the best MMs in all of D&D, even if it lacks demons/devils. All it lacked is decent artwork (either printing of 2e).

 

[Jacob Marley]

Yes, 89. Though, really, it wasn't fundamentally different from 1e, just a little cleaner. I too wonder why the OP's exposure AD&D in the 90s was with the prior decade's ed...? Possibly his group included an AD&Der who still had all his old stuff and had never updated?

Like the OP I also started playing in the 1990s (1991) with 1st Edition. We were introduced to the game by my friend's older brother. We played for three years without ever knowing there was a "2nd Edition." It was only after we started playing Magic: the Gathering (and after David got his driver's license) and going to The Source (FL*GS) that we became aware of all these other games (including 2nd Edition).

Remember, this is before the proliferation of the Internet. When we were 12/13 years old our awareness to products was limited to what was advertised on TV and what our friends owned.

* Not entirely "local," it was a 25-minute drive from my house.

 

[Mercule]

I basically want a game that had a lot of the feel of AD&D 2E with some of the more intuitive streamining established by 3E.

Yes. Absolutely and exactly.

This was my experience anyways. Since then, when I do run D&D, it is 2E.

Very similar to mine, except I've got at least one player who hates 4e but can't bring himself to play something as "old" as AD&D, so we never made it to playing it, again. The irony is that much of what that player has remarked positively on in 5e are the bits reintroduced from AD&D. If 5e 3ifies AD&D, it's a winner, in my book.

The beauty of AD&D wasn't that the rules were awesome. They clearly had flaws in them. It was actually the modularity and creativity they promoted. You could use weapon factors or not, and your game worked. You could use magic items or not, and your game worked. Okay, that one required a bit of tweaking, but it was so obvious what the impacts were that you could do it on the fly without breaking anything. I built new classes and races all the time, and they worked great. If you try any of that in 3e and 4e, it's actually work -- and it feels like work, not play. There are too many land mines to be too creative with 3e & 4e in the same way as AD&D.

I guess, in a way, AD&D was awesome because it was clear that the rules of an RPG were fundamentally different from a board or card game. The DM wasn't just there to be your door into another world. Gary calling the DM a "referee" was very meaningful. It was the DM's job to make calls on the fly and even to tweak the rules to make the game suit the group, setting, and story.