D&D 2E On AD&D 2E

[UngeheuerLich]

Maybe 1-12? That die needs some love.

I think you missed the joke, but otherwise I fully agree.

 

[annamarks]

A friend of mine asked, rather out of the blue, what edition of D&D I would use for my "last D&D campaign ever" and I answered, without hesitation, 2nd Edition AD&D. I kind of want to examine that a little bit, and thought here would eb a good place.

1. For sure there is a lot of nostalgia involved. While I was a "BECMI kid" -- we started with B and kept going knowing with nothing else for years -- it wasn't until I discovered 2nd Edition that the whole D&D thing blossomed for me. We played a tiny bit of 1E but discovered it so late that 2E was out within 6 months. Suddenly all the impenetrable esoterica of 1E was gone and the game made sense. Moreover, we could use the truly awesome bits of BECMI without any trouble at all, particularly the Domain rules and the War Machine.
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2. 2E is so broadly written that it covers almost any subgenre of fantasy you can think of. You can still 1E dungeon crawl with it, but you can also Lord of the Rings with it and Game of Throne with it.

3. THAC0 is not hard. It's subtraction. Stop it.

4. This goes back to 1 above a bit, but my longest running campaign (20 years) started with 2E and even though it went through 3E and 3.5 and even Mutants and Masterminds (when the campaign world advanced to the super hero age) it still had its heart in 2E.

5. I feel like I could bolt any system from any D&D edition or any other game onto 2E and never worry about "balance." I could add advantage/disadvantage and it would work fine. I could include item creation from 3.x. I could, as mentioned, implement the BECMI domain management and mass combat rules. People sing the praises of a integrated core mechanic, but I thing a solid game with disparate systems lends itself to infinite hacking, which is a core tenet of D&D.

6. That Monster Manual is a thing of beauty.

7. There was SO MUCH STUFF for it. I know that wasn't good for TSR, but it was freaking great for my table and campaigns.

Anyway, I just felt like articulating the things I love about 2E. Carry on.

Do not particularly miss tracking experience gains across a multiclass character with different level costs, class rewards, and prime requisite bonuses, but can't argue that it at least encouraged play beyond the three pillars of combat, combat, and combat.

 

[Kai Lord]

I read so many 2E books cover to cover

That truly is a lost joy of the TSR era of D&D IMO. Books that were equally fun to just sit down with and read as they were to use in play.

 

[R_J_K75]

That truly is a lost joy of the TSR era of D&D IMO. Books that were equally fun to just sit down with and read as they were to use in play.

Just played my first 2E game last night since the year 2000. It was fun, but a very different game. Me and a friend who I used to play with in the 90s introduced my neighbor to it last night and he got it. Hes about 10 years younger than, but he has the D&D mindset. Half the fun was us arguing and bitching about the rules when none of us bothered to read the books. I bought a PHB on ebay for the table, which to my surprise we used. Glossary in the front is great.

 

[Kai Lord]

Just played my first 2E game last night since the year 2000. It was fun, but a very different game. Me and a friend who I used to play with in the 90s introduced my neighbor to it last night and he got it. Hes about 10 years younger than, but he has the D&D mindset. Half the fun was us arguing and bitching about the rules when none of us bothered to read the books. I bought a PHB on ebay for the table, which to my surprise we used. Glossary in the front is great.

I definitely need to track down another copy of the original 2E PHB with the good art.

 

[R_J_K75]

I definitely need to track down another copy of the original 2E PHB with the good art.

Jeff Eaaley if Im correct

 

[Micah Sweet]

That truly is a lost joy of the TSR era of D&D IMO. Books that were equally fun to just sit down with and read as they were to use in play.

That is what made me fall in love with D&D in the first place, and its relative lack in current WotC productions is a big reason why I stopped buying their stuff.

 

[deganawida]

That truly is a lost joy of the TSR era of D&D IMO. Books that were equally fun to just sit down with and read as they were to use in play.

I loved the Complete books just for reading. Some of them were very well researched, and presented things that I had never considered (paladins having silverware kit, and so forth), or even known at the time.

 

[Andvari]

Jeff Eaaley if Im correct

I really loved the "realistic" style of Elmore, Easley and Clydewell. Obviously it was still fantasy, but they made it look as though the characters were real people in real environments, even if that environment had a dragon and the characters were wielding magic swords and casting spells.

 

[RuinousPowers]

Do not particularly miss tracking experience gains across a multiclass character with different level costs, class rewards, and prime requisite bonuses, but can't argue that it at least encouraged play beyond the three pillars of combat, combat, and combat.

I just added the exp from each level together (a fighter/cleric needs 3,500 exp for 2nd, 7,000 for 3rd, 14,000 for 4th, etc) and lost bonus exp for Prime Requisite.