1e vs. 2e:

[rogueattorney]

That's the first time I've ever heard somebody say that 1e stuff is not 1e stuff.

There was a fairly large shift between the assumed play style of AD&D and consequently how it was marketed in the mid-80's. That's one of the problems with arguing, for example, that "1e adventures were this way" or that "the 1e rules were such and such."

You definitely have people who are more fans of the early stuff than the later stuff, and vice versa. And that's how it should be. Early Greyhawk stuff like the GDQ series is a pretty different beast from the Dragonlance series, for example. It's just going to follow that not everybody who likes the former will like the latter.

To me, viewing 1e as a monolithic entity is horribly over-simplifying about 12 years and hundreds of items of product with at least four major "editorial voices" concerning play style - Gygax, Hickman, Greenwood, and D. Cook.

 

[Henry]

Early Greyhawk stuff like the GDQ series is a pretty different beast from the Dragonlance series, for example. It's just going to follow that not everybody who likes the former will like the latter.

Heck, not even the GDQ series itself survived that! How many people are out there who love G123 and D12, but decry Q1's giant mechanical spider?

 

[rogueattorney]

Heck, not even the GDQ series itself survived that! How many people are out there who love G123 and D12, but decry Q1's giant mechanical spider?

Actually, Q1 is pretty significant because it's probably the first example of where Gary's lack of control over the company negatively effected the product that was produced. And putting out Q1 kind of snow-balled the problems Gary was having getting out other product. It basically necessitated the re-write of T2, in which Lolth was to be the main villain. And that re-write was never completely done, so it had to be finished by Mentzer in a form that a lot of people aren't particularly satisfied with. Unfortunately, this barely even touches the tip of the iceberg for Gygax-era 1e vaporware that we'll never see.

Re-reading the old Dragon articles about future products is just kind of sad, when you consider that much of it was lost in a power struggle that booted Gygax to L.A., and then eventually completely out the door.

Tying it back to 1e v. 2e... One of the biggest Gygax era vaporware items is his 2nd edition that he was working on with Frank Mentzer (at least according to Dragon articles). I think a lot of us were simply disappointed that 2e was not the product proposed by Gygax in Dragon during the '83/'85 time frame. And the failure to meet expectations probably forever colored our perception of that edition.

It also didn't help that there was an editorial by David Cook (2e's main designer) in Dragon in 1987 that was pretty hostile to a lot of what was in 1e. Reading the 2e design section in the 30th Anniversary book by Steve Winters confirms that Cook wasn't the only one at TSR who felt that way, and in their minds at least, the 2e transformation was a lot more radical than most fans tend to think of it. Frankly, justified or not, there was a lot of 1e bashing by people eager for a new edition that was very similar to the 2e bashing that was going on right before 3e came out.

Anyway, the point is, some of the politics and attitudes of the people harping for a new edition (and creating said new edition) certainly turned off a lot of us who were fairly happy with 1e.

 

[FireLance]

Strangely, I don't remember any good debates on 1E vs. 2E (not that I want any flame-wars here about the issue, mind you) -- most of them always seemed to center on 1E vs. 3E.

That's because we didn't have the Internet when 2e was released.

 

[hong]

2E had not enough syllables.

 

[SWBaxter]

Tying it back to 1e v. 2e... One of the biggest Gygax era vaporware items is his 2nd edition that he was working on with Frank Mentzer (at least according to Dragon articles). I think a lot of us were simply disappointed that 2e was not the product proposed by Gygax in Dragon during the '83/'85 time frame.

Eh, to each their own. After seeing Unearthed Arcana, I had no interest in any rules revisions from Gygax; loved his adventures (and generally still do), rulebooks not so much.

That's because we didn't have the Internet when 2e was released.

We had Usenet, which was if anything worse; imagine if ENWorld, RPG.net, the Forge, the White Wolf messageboards, etc. all co-existed in a single forum, and you've got an idea of what the newsgroup rec.games.frp was like c. 1989. I don't recall any huge 1e vs. 2e flamewar at the time, but it could quite possibly have existed and I just didn't notice it because of the massive *D&D vs. Everything Else flamewars that consumed all in its path.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

It also didn't help that there was an editorial by David Cook (2e's main designer) in Dragon in 1987 that was pretty hostile to a lot of what was in 1e. Reading the 2e design section in the 30th Anniversary book by Steve Winters confirms that Cook wasn't the only one at TSR who felt that way, and in their minds at least, the 2e transformation was a lot more radical than most fans tend to think of it. Frankly, justified or not, there was a lot of 1e bashing by people eager for a new edition that was very similar to the 2e bashing that was going on right before 3e came out.

What was the gist of this editorial?

 

[rogueattorney]

What was the gist of this editorial?

Y'know, let this be a lesson against allowing your perceptions of what happened nearly 20 years ago to cloud your current opinions.

I went back and tried to find the editorials by Dave Cook. The main two I was thinking of were in Dragon #118 and #121. They were entitled "Who Dies" referring to pc classes. The first was supposed to be somewhat provocative (at least according to Cook in his second editorial) call for opinions on the content of the 2e PHB. In retrospect and in light of the changes in 3e, it looks down-right conservative.

While I don't agree with the decisions the design team eventually made or even some of the basic assumptions going into the re-design, it wasn't as harsh as I remembered it. The second was answering some fan mail that was responding to the first.

Of course, at the time I was 13, and I was "like OMfG!!1!! Non-weapon profs are totally the SuXXors!!!1!!"

A line from #121 that's quite funny now:

Ultimately, there will be people out there who will be playing Version 1.0, Version 1.5, Version 2.0, and probably even Version 2.3 of the AD&D game. Perhaps we should figure out some type of numbering system like that used on computer programs!

 

[Melan]

That's the first time I've ever heard somebody say that 1e stuff is not 1e stuff.

There is currently an ongoing thread on Dragonsfoot where posters are warring over whose Basic edition's artwork is legitimately old school and which is not. Enoy:
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23031

 

[Henry]

I went back and tried to find the editorials by Dave Cook. The main two I was thinking of were in Dragon #118 and #121. They were entitled "Who Dies" referring to pc classes. The first was supposed to be somewhat provocative (at least according to Cook in his second editorial) call for opinions on the content of the 2e PHB. In retrospect and in light of the changes in 3e, it looks down-right conservative.

Yeah, I remembered reading that when I was 15-16ish, and thinking "WHAT ARE THEY DOING?!?!" But in hindsight, I realized he was just gathering opinions the quickest way he knew how.

A line from #121 that's quite funny now:

Yeah, he could see the writing on the wall even then.