A simplified D&D? Aren't you all forgetting something...

[Johnnie Freedom!]

I hope I'm not opening up a can of worms here, but the recent thread about the need for a simplified D&D reminded me of a recent experience.

We all play 3.0, with 2 or 3 houserules taken from 3.5. The DM recently got on a nostalgia trip and said he wanted to run a one-shot in AD&D 2e.

We all cringed. Mind you, none of us had ever played 2e before, though some of the old-timers in our group had played 1st edition back in the day.

We rolled up characters and played through a modified Tomb of Horrors using basic AD&D 2e (I say "basic" as opposed to the dreadful "Player's Option" stuff that came later). Guess what? We loved it.

No AoO, no feats, no prestige classes, no insanely complex skill system with fifty million listed DC's, no Grapple, no Sunder, no Bull Rush, no...you get the point.

Combat was fast and cinematic. We didn't use miniatures (for once!) and actually had fun describing in elaborate detail what our characters were doing.

The mechanics were a bit wonky at first (roll low for one thing, high for another, etc.) but by the end of the session we were hooked.

Now get this: one guy in our group is SELLING his 3rd edition stuff to buy himself a complete set of AD&D 2e books on eBay. He's going retro, he says.

Our DM still prefers 3.0, but he's wanting to run dual campaigns (one 2e, one 3.0) if time permits.

The rest of the guys are undecided, but we were all impressed with how rules-lite AD&D 2e actually is. (The guy who's selling off his 3.0 stuff told us that one of his strict AD&D 2e house rules will be NO PLAYER'S OPTION MATERIAL).

It's true that some of the restrictions in 2e seem silly and need to be house-ruled (such as race/class restrictions), but what system doesn't have players adding house rules?

Anyway, just some rambling thoughts.

 

[Grayhawk]

Back when I played 2e, my group never got around to using the Skills and Options thingy, so our game remained pretty simple as well.

It sounds like you just had the exact same experience that I remeber so fondly and am trying to recreate.

'So why not just stay with 2e?'

A valid question, but I actually like a great deal about 3e, especially the added character customization provided by feats and the whole freshness by a 'new' system. (It's still new to me and my group.)

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

You might want to give Rules Cyclopedia basic D&D a shot. Aside from the races-as-classes silliness, it's arguably a smoother, simpler and more cinematic system than 2e.

Of course, I say that as a person who loathed AD&D mechanics in general and 2e in particular, loves 3.5 in all its complexity, and converts 2e Spelljammer material to everything from basic D&D to 3.5e to d20 Modern to Warhammer Skirmish, so your mileage may vary.

 

[Maliki]

Me too, I like many of the changes that they made in 3.0/3.5, but I have yet in the four years of playing since third edition had as much fun as I did playing 2nd(tried Players Option books and hated them). I'm waiting for Castle and Crusades from TLG, if that doesn't bring back the fun I think I'll retro back to second edition.

 

[Remathilis]

While it might be faster, smoother, and more "cinematic" than 3.0, it also has more than a few worms in the apple

1.) Classes with absolutely no balance, making mages poor at low levels, thieves pointless at high levels.
2.) Uber-elfs, even without Mein Alf
3.) Level Limits, Prime requisites, racial maximums, and 15 is the base for bonuses.
4.) Cha-Useless
5.) Druids that are worthless, and have to fight to remain useless.
6.) Humans with no racial abilities
7.) Fractional attack Rates
8.) Thac0-math.

Start trying to fix those, and you'll have lots of house-rules, and lots of complexity built right back into the system again.

Personally, I'd go with MoogleEmpMog, get the cyclopedia. Faster, more cinematic, and a bit better balanced IMHO. They even give you the rules for breaking some of thier own rules (like level limits), something 2e would throw a hissy fit about.

 

[MerricB]

My feeling is that 3E supports long campaigns and high-level play much better than previous editions. It also works better if you don't want to adhere to the 1E stereotypes.

Cheers!

 

[molonel]

...

I wish you the best. The whole point is to have fun, and if you have more fun playing 2nd Edition, then God's speed and may fair winds fill your sails.

Having said that, I think you'll eventually find problems in 2nd Edition AD&D that will plague you, too. Like 3rd Edition, the stress points and fractures will take a while to appear. It all depends on which books you use, which kits you allow, and which house rules you develop, and which your group can agree on.

I think it's possible to overdose on 3rd Edition. I've found myself gravitating toward Feng Shui, lately. I really need to buy the books for it. I'm looking at alternate systems simply because D&D (or d20 Modern) doesn't fit the needs of every imaginative expression or adventure that an imaginative mind can conceive of. A friend just sent me a copy of the 3rd Edition GURPs manual.

 

[Dark Jezter]

While it might be faster, smoother, and more "cinematic" than 3.0, it also has more than a few worms in the apple

1.) Classes with absolutely no balance, making mages poor at low levels, thieves pointless at high levels.
2.) Uber-elfs, even without Mein Alf
3.) Level Limits, Prime requisites, racial maximums, and 15 is the base for bonuses.
4.) Cha-Useless
5.) Druids that are worthless, and have to fight to remain useless.
6.) Humans with no racial abilities
7.) Fractional attack Rates
8.) Thac0-math.

9.) Multi-classing/dual-classing rules that are as clear as mud.

Oh the plus side, I'm happy that you are enjoying 2e AD&D, Johnny. I myself had some great fun with it during the 1990s. However, after playing 3rd Edition for the last few years, you couldn't pay me to go back to 2e. A while ago one of my players proposed playing a few sessions of 2e AD&D just to see how different it would be after enjoying 3e so much, and the rest of the group unanimously shot down the idea; nobody was eager to go back to the days of THAC0 and godlike mages that dwarf every other class.

 

[Nightfall]

My random thought: If I wanted to go back to 2nd edition...I'd make sure to give myself a lobotomy.

Serious, while no system is ever perfect, at least with 3.x and d20 I have MUCH more fun and much more flavor to use what I want than being stuck in 2nd.

 

[Pozatronic]

AD@D 2e broke my RPG playing Cherry. We played and played and played that damn thing. We played home brews, we played FR (the 1e boxed set). We started to get bored with it...but wait, what's this...Spelljammer...hmm. That lasted a very short while, but It was pretty neat and we did have a lot of fun with it...but then Dark Sun came along and we ate it up till we were full. Then we got into Rifts...untill we realized the rules were awful (but what neat toys they had). After that it was Cyberpunk 2020, where we had the longest running campaigns I've ever played in. So simple. So fun and easy and fresh...and so Simple...so unlike AD&D 2e. We didn't even think about going back, for all those reasons stated above. Then came along 3e, and it's actually not to dissimilar from Cyberpunk 2020. You actually use your stats, and they have skills, not silly proficiences [spelling]. Cyberpunk is hands down my favorite system, but 3x D&D is pretty damn close. I've thought about doing things with 3e that you could never ever do with 2e! It's so inclusive and so easy to manipulate. I wouldn't go back to 2e for a million....ok, I would. That's alot of money.