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

[Elder-Basilisk]

I'm glad you're having fun with 2e but... never again.

You'd have to pay me to go back and even then I'd haggle over the size of the check to make sure it was worth all the annoyance of that system. Stats that don't matter unless they're absolutely superhuman (the difference between an 8 and a 14 con is. . . system shock and that's it). Saves that seemed completely random and arbitrary and modifiers picked out of thin air to go with each spell. A non-weapon proficiency system that was pretty much entirely binary (the "roll under your stat on a d20" mechanic meant that your base stat was so much more important than the skill that a commoner with a 13 would need to spend 6 proficiency slots (generally gained 1/3 levels) in order to be as good as a PC with an 18 and one slot). Hardly any rules for anything other than combat. I want to climb the tree "well, you're not a rogue, and that's a special ability rogues have so I'm going to say you have a 20% chance of climbing the tree modified by your platemail" or "everyone can climb trees, you do it" without any reason other than whether the DM is thinking about rogue abilities and play balance or story. Weapon Speed: "Sure, you've got a pike but I've got a dagger so I always get to rush in past your guard and hit you four times before you can attack me because, don't you know, pikes are slow. Weapon proficiencies that make every fighter pick the two or three weapons he wants to be able to use in his entire career at first level. You find a cool magic battle axe. . . too bad you're only proficient in longsword. Two weapon fighting rules that made every other style (other than bladesong) pointless. One size fits all armor (Platemail is the best. Period.) The only good things I can say about 2nd edition is that it produced Baldur's Gate II and 3rd edition.

 

[S'mon]

My feeling is that 3E supports long campaigns and high-level play much better than previous editions.

I've kinda had the opposite experience - maybe it's just my group, but I've found that the geometric power increase in 3e (as opposed to 1e/2e's more linear increase at high levels) and the dependence on buffing-magic slows the game to a crawl, while a lot of the new spells like Teleport Circle are far more disruptive of campaign settings than any 1e stuff - scry-buff-teleport circle & you can put an army in the enemy king's throneroom rather easily. High level 3e combat is easier tediously easy or arbitrarily lethal; players are either bored with the ease of it or else their PCs are killed, there seems prety well _no_ middle grounds, and believe me I've tried!

 

[Li Shenron]

Although I had only an extremely limited experience with AD&D, I got the impression that it was quite complicated to run (especially as a DM), compared to 3.x, because most of the stuff was nonlinear. Therefore it was more difficult to remember many little things, and the DM used to have a large screen full of notes and a pile of printed tables. I think 3.x is much smoother. Mostly I played AD&D through the Baldur Gate's series and that was working very well... in fact the PC did all the job!

On the other hand, 3.x seemed to me more complicated in generating characters. It simply takes more time to write up a new character, the reason obviously is that you have more choices! This is a good thing for experienced players, but for beginners it is not. Some of my friends don't want to try playing because they are scared of all the pages they believe are mandatory to read.

Yes, I know that Basic D&D is coming out this months, but I am skeptic we really needed that. I think what is really needed to help newcomers enjoy a D&D game with very little preparation is a well-prepared DM who knows how to teach only the very minimum required (and not before it is really needed). A DM who doesn't want to run his own pet-game using variants, house rules and extra books before some of the players even understand the difference between a wizard and a sorcerer, for example...

 

[Barastrondo]

Yes, I know that Basic D&D is coming out this months, but I am skeptic we really needed that. I think what is really needed to help newcomers enjoy a D&D game with very little preparation is a well-prepared DM who knows how to teach only the very minimum required (and not before it is really needed).

Indeed. Now if we can just figure out a way to get them into the chain stores at a impulse-buy price point so that kids who are casually interested can pick one up and get started within hours, the industry will be set.

 

[Johnnie Freedom!]

It feels like a gigantic patchwork, and sometimes I get the urge to strip away a lot of it, and return to just using the core rule books together with a few selected supplements. Anyone else get the same feeling - too much "sugar" ruins your appetite?

Absolutely. It's a simple case of overload, which quickly spirals into burnout. For instance, with AD&D 2e, we're all determined to avoid all of the "Handbook" supplements (both for race and class) and just use the basics. For cryin' out loud, we have imaginations, don't we? Why do we need a friggin' new supplement every week?

 

[Psion]

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.

I almost quit playing *D&D during the 2e era due to issues I had with the game (see Remathlis' post for examples.) That "dreadful" players option stuff was the only thing that pulled me back in.

I really didn't find 1e or 2e simpler. In fact, I found some of it downright byzantine.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

IMHO, it's really the "game" and not the "rules of the game" that make it fun. We had hundreds and hundreds of hours of fun playing 1e, then 2e, and 2.5 (Skills and Powers). The rules are just there to allow the game to proceed. I personally think 3e and 3.5 are the best versions to date, but I've yet to have even a fraction of the fun I had in older editions. Is this because of the rules? I don't think so. The trials of adulthood and responsibility in the real world has kept us from really getting a good campaign off the ground. I tried for nearly 3 years to keep my latest one going, and constant schedule changes and player absences has caused us to all lose interest in the game. No fault of the rules there.

In short, choose the rules you like best, and have a blast!

 

[DMScott]

Two great truths of *D&D:

1) The initial, basic rulebooks of any edition form a reasonably simple and complete game. It's the bloat that's added afterwards that starts to screw things up.

2) The main accomplishment of each succeeding edition is clearing away most of the bloat of the previous edition, internalizing the minority of the bloat that's a decent addition to the game, and making the game simple and complete again.

Initially, 2E was a huge improvement over 1E's zillion hardcovers. Splatbooks and settings turned it all sour. Initially, 1E was a huge improvement over the little brown books with their scattered supplements and Strategic Review rules changes. A zillion poorly conceived and playtested hardcovers turned it all sour.

Initially, 3E was a huge improvement over 2E's splatbooks and settings. Poorly balanced hardcovers, splatbooks, and settings are all adding bloat, and will turn it all sour (if they haven't already). 4E, if and when it's released, will clear most of the bloat, internalize the few gems, and keep on trucking, and it will most likely be a huge improvement over 3E. This is the way it is, has been, and always will be.

I'm glad you're enjoying 2E - the PH and DMG form a pretty decent system. I recommend you stay away from the splatbooks - some of them are OK (primarily the ones written by Aaron Allston), but most just add unnecessary bloat. Good luck and good gaming.

 

[Remathilis]

Some of my feelings toward 2e are colored by perceptions of others, esp others on this and other RPG boards.

I remember at some point, my desire for a logical rule set forced me to use the Core Rules 2 Rtf files to "create" the perfect 2e. I called AD&D gold, and it was marvelous. No Exceptional Str. Balanced Races. Classes with options and not restrictions. Reasonable alignment rules. Combat options that didn't bog down the system. The document, which hadn't even covered the entirity of the PH, was 300 word pages long (TG for cut/paste). I scrapped it, and played out 2e with a 5 page setting/house rule pamphlet.

I was amazed to see how many of my "gold" rules made 3e.

The Moral of my Story: basic/1e/2e are not designed with any great amount of internal logic. You have 3 options: deal with these logical pot-holes as "teh are the rulz (TM), Change/houserule/drive yourself mad trying to fix it, or lastly roll in with a different system. I suggest number 1: ingore the stupid contradictions and go with the RAW, modified for setting/play reasons. It will save you alot of headache.

 

[Storm Raven]

In 3.0/3.5 you create a character who dreams of one day joining a ninja clan. I do not know off hand how many start-stop games I have had were I never got to the level to even get the prestige class my character was after.

Or, you could play such a character as a junior member of a ninja clan who has not yet been initiated into the deeper mysteries of the organization. Run the prestige class as senior members and special secrets, while the rogues and so on who make up the lower ranks just haven't been taught the "secret ways" yet.