AD&D and the people who still play it

[Zappo]

I can see people playing OD&D. It has a heap of unreasonable limitations, but it also has the advantage of being extremely simple. I prefer 3E by far, but I can understand people playing OD&D.

I don't quite know about 1E. Never played it, I often hear people saying that it has a particular feeling or something, that makes it a lot better than 2E. Dunno, for what I know it looks mostly similar to 2E, but I can't really make a judgement here. I reckon that it is currently more popular than 2E, and that a lot of people played 1E and avoided 2E, so there's got to be something.

I sincerely have absolutely no idea of why anyone would play 2E when 3E is available, except maybe for the already mentioned economical reasons.

 

[Henry]

Welcome to the Dragonsfoot regulars dropping into the thread!

I always like keeping friendly relations between all RPG boards, because there's always a lot of people who are regulars at multiple boards. Dragonsfoot being the strong resource it is, it's a great place to visit, even thought I sorta live here.

 

[Raflar]

Do you know anyone who have not switched to 3.0/3.5?

Slim

I recently took a gander at the hits my 2nd edition website was getting and was totally amazed. Haven't updated it since 3e first came out and I'm now getting 30,000+ hits a month (for the past 6 months at least). Granted there's a lot of Waterdeep information there so you could just use that but all the rules oriented stuff is still 2e (which I haven't played in 3 years)... so who knows...

I should actually update the site.. or at least put up a poll and find out why people are coming to the site.... I'd be interested to know if it's the 2e or just the Waterdeep info that draws them there...

Raflar the Wanderer
www.raflar.com

 

[Henry]

Waterdeep info?

hits = hits + 1

 

[Pants]

I got the 2e PHB and DMG some years ago, but I finally got my hands on the Monster Manual (they called it the Monstrous Manual back then) a week or so ago. It was an older printing than the PHB and DMG, but now I finally have all three corebooks for 2e.

I like the ecology sections posted for each monster of the book, and can't help but think that they have some big-time story potential. For example, the largest of the giant snakes is known as the Grand Snakemaster, who no one has ever seen -- wouldn't that be a cool legend for your PCs to write home about!

The 2nd edition MM was a bloody work of art. Seriously. I may sell all of my 2nd edition books, but I will always keep the MM. The ecologies, favor text, and some of the DiTerlizzi art is all great stuff. Plus it has the whole 1 monster per page thing, which is something that I was disappointed with when the 3.0 MM came out. Great stuff.

 

[Norfleet]

I liked the ecology thing. That was one of the more useful sections of the manual, since it told you what the hell the monster was doing there in the first place. The 3E Monster Manual rather presents monsters in a very unflattering light, as things to be killed for XP and loot. Half of the monsters lack any explanations which would justify what the hell the monster was supposed to be doing there in the first place, other than as fodder for players.

 

[Cedric]

Many D&D gamers love 3rd edition and 3.5 for the scope of the games. The addition of a good skill system, freedom of race/class selection, multi-classing options, feat selections...and on and on.

But quite a few other D&D gamers feel that 3rd edition and 3.5 added a lot of rules content to the game that was unnecessary. Yes, the rules have in many ways been clarified and made more streamlined and more easily understood.

But the depth of the rules has been dramatically increased to their thinking. Character creation and development is no longer near as straight forward as before.

1st edition games often have a very gritty, character death is possible, be on your toes feel to them. I think most of the people who still favor 1st edition find that to have been lost in third.

Now, what you don't see as much of these days are people who play 2nd ed with all of the books. Those people usually love the extra rules content and flocked to 3rd.

I won't go so far as to say that 1st edition gamers are purests...but I would say that most of them think they are.

Cedric

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

I still have all of my old books... I have not played in years but some of the campaigns are with out a doubt missed by me...

I agree with the creacter creation... I feel stupid everytime I go to make one for 3rd edition as I could make one for 2nd edition in a matter of minutes not hours... Also for some strange reason I still think paladins needs to have a 17 CHR... *LOL*

Now I am still new to 3.0 edition but I think it was an improvement over 2nd and the OGL is the best thing to ever happen in my humble opinion.

 

[Welverin]

Only old people. Seriously. I swear. For some reason, the older gamers get, the more reluctant they are to try out the newer systems.

Oh, that and they're all like... "Back in my day, we didn't have attacks of opportunity. We had a system that wouldn't let you do anything except die...and we _liked_ it!"

OK. So they're not that bad, but seriously, the age thing applies, IME.

Because I think it's funny (from the DND List 8/15/99):

OK. I've been reading all this balderdash and hooey about you people not
"not likin' this" and "not wantin' that." Well, you guys today got it made!
If it weren't for us "old-timers" you guys wouldn't know a Dungeon Masters
Guide if it broke into your house and stole all your Rush albums! Here's
what it was like back in my day:

We didn't have FANCY, SPECKLEY, SWIRLY DICE back in the old days. Our dice
were PLAIN and they were BLUE! If you threw the 12-sider too hard, IT
EXPLODED! Then you had to buy another Expert Level Set to get another one!
And we COULDN'T EVEN READ THE NUMBERS on our dice! We had to COLOR them with
a CRAYON for crying out loud! We had Cruddy, Blue, Exploding, Crayon-Coated
Dice - AND WE LIKED IT!!!

Our MONSTER MANUAL was BLACK & WHITE for Pete's sakes! We had to COLOR in
all those pictures! And we didn't know what color things were back then - we
HAD TO USE OUR IMAGINATIONS! God forbid if we used all our Red Crayon on our
dice! Then all of our monsters had Orange Eyes! And what kind of crazy
ecosystem was represented on the cover of that thing anyhow? They had every
monster in the food chain living together in perfect harmony! We had
Colorless Monsters that lived together peacefully - AND WE LIKED IT!!!

Then there was that DUNGEON MASTERS GUIDE! It had that SCARY BIG DEMON
LOOKING THING on the cover! And everytime your Mom saw it SCARED THE
BEJEEZUS out of her and she would RIP IT UP or THROW IT AWAY or sell it to
your best friend at a garage sale for $1.25! We had to buy the same book
over and over again cause our Moms threw it out - AND WE LIKED IT!!!

And, don't get me started about SOURCE MATERIAL! We didn't have "Complete
This" and "Player's Option" that! We didn't have any Core Rules for the
Computer-thing-a-ma-jig! All we had was some CRAPPY INTELLIVISION GAME. All
of our dungeons were drawn on graph paper! All of our rooms were 10' x 10'.
But (and this is where we got you young fellers BEAT) ALL of our dungeon
rooms were FILLED WITH TREASURE! Heck, all you had to do back then was BREAK
DOWN THE DOOR, KILL THE MONSTER, and TAKE THE TREASURE! We didn't have PLOT
LINES or CAMPAIGN WORLDS or STORYLINES to bog us down! There was MOUNTAINS
of TREASURE! Heaps of it!!! You know why you don't find treasure in every
room in your silly dungeons and modules anymore? CAUSE WE TOOK IT ALL! HA!
AND YOU CAN'T HAVE IT! We had plotless, storyless, 10 foot by 10 foot
dungeon rooms FILLED WITH TREASURE, AND WE LIKED IT!!!

Now you all are complaining about the quality of a "Dungeons and Dragons"
movie! Oh My Stars and Garters! Count your sheep lucky that you get a
MOVING PICTURE! We had a cartoon with a Unicorn that shot a laser beam from
his horn, and an 8-year-old barbarian...AND WE LIKED IT!!!

Finally, you guys with your "LEAD FREE" miniatures! I had to get a new puppy
every month because of the things I grew up painting! Heck, now I feed my
dog Vrock entire Warhammer Armies cause they're nothing but 28 millimeters of
cheap scrap metal and plastic! We had lethal, cancer-causing miniatures that
killed our pets, AND WE LIKED IT!!!

Maybe this post will knock some sense into your ungrateful noggins, and
you'll stop your whining about petty things like TURNING THE ARMOR CLASSES
BACKWARDS! You're gonna BUY Third Edition and you're gonna PLAY Third
Edition and you're gonna LIKE Third Edition. And if you wanna scrap with me
about it - I'LL TAKE ALL OF YOU ON! You go ahead and keep playing those
older editions that I grew up with, and I'll convert my character to Third
Edition - then we will see whose Armor Class is better! Besides, it will
take an army of you whippersnappers to get my treasure!!!

 

[Melan]

Let's see...
Did I have fun with 2nd edition? Yes, certainly.
Did I have fun with the 1e/2e hybrid I played before that? Of course.
Did I have fun with the little Basic D&D I also played? Hell yes!

These games were and are still fun (and played by millions). My current system of choice is 3e, but I also see the other side of the coin - older editions (except 2e in my case) aren't broken for many, so why fix them? Besides, I prefer the mentality of OD&D to 3e, 2e and even 1e myself - I just play an OD&D flavoured game in 3e.