2e.... more flavor than 3e?

[Ranger REG]

2nd edition had better flavor and fluff, but its rules and crunchy bits stunk it up.

True, whereas 3e has great crunch but uninspiring flavor and fluff. Great for experienced rules tinkers like me, not so great for newbie gamers.

 

[Glyfair]

Was it actually second edition that caused people to leave the game or did more people just happen to leave during that period? Second edition, kept my friends and I playing AD&D a little longer than we would have. However, we were bound to leave anyway. Exposure to numerous other systems just left us jaded on the mechanical side of AD&D despite liking the settings and several supplements.

In my experience, that was part of it. I know a lot of people I gamed with were drifting to other systems and away from AD&D towards the middle and end of 1st edition. Some would have left anyway. However, some would have still played D&D (along with the other games), if the changes to 2nd edition had changed some of the things people hated about D&D (non-human level limits, for example).

Still, I don't think this had anything to do with 2E's "fluff." I don't believe the transition of fluff was intentionally part of 2E's theme, just something that evolved alongside D&D's rules evolution.

One of these days I'm going to see if I can do some research and put together a timeline of the release of D&D products through it's lifespan. Take a look at the last handful of 1E products and compare them to the first handful of 2E products.

I used to have Fate of Istus, which was both 1E & 2E, as it was one of the bridging adventures. It was pretty dense as far as information but I didn't feel the side information really added to the adventure, it rather distracted from it.

 

[Crothian]

Was it actually second edition that caused people to leave the game or did more people just happen to leave during that period? Second edition, kept my friends and I playing AD&D a little longer than we would have. However, we were bound to leave anyway. Exposure to numerous other systems just left us jaded on the mechanical side of AD&D despite liking the settings and several supplements.

Second edition at the very least gave people the excuse to leave, it was a combination of that and other games. No use leaving D&D if you don't have something to goto. Most of the people I knew that played first eidtion either never went to second eiditon or left D&D. THis includes myself.

 

[Ranger REG]

And this demonstrates my point. D&D was more successful between 1979-1989 than it ever was in the 1990s when it produced piles of fluff.

What I mean they had too much fluff back then. Now, it's too little. Kinda like with food, you eat too much, you get fat. You eat too little, you get bones.

 

[ssampier]

I like a healthy mix of fluff and crunch. I find the 3.x Wizards books to be a dull, but informative read (like my college text books), so I find myself re-reading sections. The AD&D 2nd edition books was quite easy to read, but they are "stat-less" or not playtested; best guess.

I am running an AD&D 2nd edition campaign again (since my gaming group will NOT play any 3.x/d20 game). I find the various books don't really work together, they assume they you use them excusively; I want ideas, concepts, and stats I can borrow for my homebrew AD&D game. Then the books constantly reference other book I do not have.

Overall, I wish 3.x had more flavor to keep me interested without feeling like I'm in school again, but I prefer the 3.x mechanics 10 fold over 2.0.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If the flavor in question was that artificial cheese goo you get on 7-Eleven nachos, sure. But outside of specific great settings (Complete Necromancer was an unlabelled Al-Qadim book, for instance), I found the generic 2E stuff pretty eh. Compare Complete Wizard's fluff to that in Complete Arcane, and 3.5E wins walking away.

 

[MerricB]

Since this is a "where's the fluff?" thread, what do people think of the fluffiness of...

Lords of Madness,
Sandstorm,
Heroes of Horror,
Races of Stone, and
Weapons of Legacy?

Each of those books has a mix of mechanics and fluff; some also have downright good advice.

Although I'm in agreement that the core books are pretty non-fluffy, recent Wizards books have moved much more in that direction - to the point that people are complaining about the new format for prestige classes and magic items!

Cheers!

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Absolutely.... 2E had quite a bit more flavor. All you have to do is look through the 2E Wizard Spell Compendiums. There are quite a few "Non-Combat" spells in there that make sense for a world where magic exists. For example... Bigby's Construction Crew created numerous pairs of hands outfitted with all the tools needed to duplicate the effects of an entire construction crew. The only thing required was the raw materials for the task and they could build anything. My last 2E Wizard used the spell to build his tower.

Pretty much every spell in 3.X revolves around adventuring or combat. There aren't any fluff spells that would make sense for a world where magic is fairly common.

 

[Staffan]

Not until they added kits in 2nd edition could they put out the various splat books on all the classes. Some of which were great, and some of which stunk to high heaven.

Kits were introduced in the Complete Fighter's Handbook, which was released within months of the PHB and DMG. IIRC, the Complete line was even mentioned in the intro in the PHB, so I'd say that kits were designed to be a part of 2e from the start.

 

[Caliban]

This is a comment that comes up a lot and one that I'm very curious about...

When I first started playing D&D, I started at the very tail-end of 2e, so I never really got much exposure to it until many years later and that was only to plunder it's settings. So... I never really read many of the 'Player's Options...' or 'Complete Shrub Elf' styled books or... really any of the setting generic material released during 2e. Most of what I was exposed to was setting material.

I'm curious to know if the generic setting 2e books really had more flavor than the generic setting 3e books. I'm sure if we included the campaign settings, 2e would beat 3e down with a shovel, considering that there were, what, 6 settings going at once during the reign of 2e?

2e made me lost interest in D&D until 3e came out. More crap shoved out the door as fast as possible does not equal more flavor.