AD&D second edition: Why be hatin'?

[rounser]

Let's face it- D&D is, at it's heart, about killing monsters, gaining treasure and experience, and cool new powers. It's a power trip. Without that aspect, you might as well be doing improvisational theater.

No wonder most D&D campaigns are so full of silliness and random quotes and joking around...to encourage otherwise is like trying to keep theatresports a serious affair.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

For this outlook alone, I would show you the door. When I want to compete with people, I would rather spar.

Funny that, given that for most of my players, I'm the best DM they've ever had.

I challenge their wits. I reward them for good playing, both roleplaying and tactics. If they play badly, they die- that's just how it is.

Most of the DM's I've played with bore me quickly. They don't provide powerful challenges for my characters to overcome, and they don't reward me. Strategy is meaningless in their games. In one such game, late in the campaign I retired my character and became the DM's strategy advisor. After one session with me running the combats, the players (all of whose characters survived, by the way) thanked me later for actually giving them a challenge, as one said, "I took a beating, but it was a beating from a true master. That felt really good."

I often test a DM's mettle by doing something absolutely stupid that would, in one of my games, get my character killed (or worse). If they kill me, I know I've found a DM I can respect. If they spare me, they're a pushover, and not worthy of my gaming time.

I run games of political intrigue, dungeon hacking, battlefield tactics, and just wandering the forests talking to tree spirits. Whatever I do though, I know that if there isn't a challenge, there isn't any interest. Players grow bored when they're not kept on their toes. The DM *is* the adversary, but he has to be an honorable one, who plays by the same rules as the players, and adjucates the game fairly.

Sounds repetative.

How so? It seems to be the way the game was designed to go... and how life goes, I might add...

The two are unrelated. Some -characters- may well have a strong RP excuse to hyper-specialize. Some -characters- have an equal reason to go JOAT. I, for instance, am a JOAT IRL. I know science, math, literature, history, languages, psychology, philosophy, a bit of mechanics and computers, and, heck I ride horses and hunt things too. I'd never specialize. My role in life is as the person who can bring up obscure information in a myriad of topics. Works for PCs too.

Oh, I like generalist characters too. In the rare event that I do play (and not DM), I often play Bards or Fighter/Bards. One of my players in the current campaign elected to play a Channeler (from midnight) when the core spellcasting classes were available, because he liked their "toolbelt" flexibility and myriad skill points over the sheer casting power of the other classes. He's been one of the most important characters in the campaign so far- he's the only one who can heal, track, has high numbers in interaction and knowledge skills, and (since he multiclassed with Knight) has a magic weapon and mounted combat skill. While technically weaker than the rest of the party (a Fighter, a Fighter/Commander, and a Knight), he fills many missing roles in the party.

Of course, many of the best "power characters" I've seen were characters of such diverse skill. One-trick ponies aren't much use, in my experience, a good DM can quickly defeat their "trick"...

I don't have any problem with power gaming, so long as there's an equal playing field. The DM can adjust to differences in power between the PCs and his adversaries but that's nothing like dealing with player 1 using underpowered nonsense 1, player 2 using overpowered nonsense 2 and player 3 using amazingly overpowered nonsense 3. No, really, that's not fair to players 1 and 2.

I've only seen that as an issue when ego gets in the way... if a player who likes to be the "hero" of the story makes an "overpowered" character (there's no such thing, IMHO), and a few players who prefer to stand off to the side make "underpowered" characters, it's generally not an issue. If two primadonnas are competing, then you can have problems...

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've only seen that as an issue when ego gets in the way... if a player who likes to be the "hero" of the story makes an "overpowered" character (there's no such thing, IMHO), and a few players who prefer to stand off to the side make "underpowered" characters, it's generally not an issue. If two primadonnas are competing, then you can have problems...

Just because someone didn't take the most powerful character ability doesn't mean they "stood off to one side".

Suppose player 1 wanted to be a samurai, and took that underpowered nonsense in CW. Player 2 wanted to be a powerful cleric and took the Radiant Servant of Pelor. Player 2 is flat-out more powerful. You're telling me that player 1 is just a wall flower?

This is why I think optional rules should actually be balanced and why DMs should modify or ban the overpowered and underpowered stuff.

 

[Incenjucar]

What are you talking about? I like corporations and capitalism. TSR during its "2nd edition phase" was an incompetent corporation. In the case of D&D and the "Known World," by the mid-90s they had destroyed a line that had a lot of supporters (the B/X/RC game), and had translated the KW into 2nd edition's "Mystara." In addition to doing an incompetent job in translating the setting, it introduced yet another 2E campaign setting (with yet another completely unnecessary/annoying meta-plot) to an already bloated market. The failure of TSR by the end of the 1990s was precisely because of idiotic decisions like the one involving Mystara.

The same period produced Planescape, which had a rather celebrated meta-plot (the only glitch was at the end, and that's because 2e was dissolved before they could bring back the status quo that was intended). So sucks for you, was great for me.

Having an incorrect position is harmful.

Incorrect in art tends to be subjective. Mystara may have sucked, but Planescape was outright lovely. Still has zilch to do with 2e as a system, since the system doesn't define the marketing tactics.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Just because someone didn't take the most powerful character ability doesn't mean they "stood off to one side".

Suppose player 1 wanted to be a samurai, and took that underpowered nonsense in CW. Player 2 wanted to be a powerful cleric and took the Radiant Servant of Pelor. Player 2 is flat-out more powerful. You're telling me that player 1 is just a wall flower?

This is why I think optional rules should actually be balanced and why DMs should modify or ban the overpowered and underpowered stuff.

They should be, but it's seldom that hard to compensate.

And I do think that a CW Samurai (which really isn't that badly underpowered) and a Radiant Servant (which isn't that overpowered, especially in a campaign with few or no undead) could coexist in the same party without too much trouble. Then again, I'd probably never allow either in the same party together, as they seem to be written for dramatically different campaign settings... and I wouldn't even allow either one in my current setting.

 

[David Howery]

the biggest question I have for those who claim to hate 2E is "just what were the differences between it and 1E that you came to hate so much?". The two systems were so damn similar, if you hated one, you'd pretty much have to hate the other. I'm talking core rules here, not campaign worlds or optional books. 1E, 2E, and 3E all have similar histories in that they started out with 3 simple core books and mushroomed out into a mindnumbing galaxy of supplements and optional books. 3E has killed way more trees than 2E ever dreamed of.
When 2E came out, I had mixed feelings on it. SOme things I liked, some I didn't. Like any good DM should do, I kept the good and changed the bad.... No demons? no problem, just put them back in. No assassins? no problem, just put them back in. Etc.... Converting 1E to 2E was absurdly simple; conversions to 3E are a lot more complicated....

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

I challenge their wits. I reward them for good playing, both roleplaying and tactics. If they play badly, they die- that's just how it is.

Most of the DM's I've played with bore me quickly. They don't provide powerful challenges for my characters to overcome, and they don't reward me. Strategy is meaningless in their games. In one such game, late in the campaign I retired my character and became the DM's strategy advisor. After one session with me running the combats, the players (all of whose characters survived, by the way) thanked me later for actually giving them a challenge, as one said, "I took a beating, but it was a beating from a true master. That felt really good."

I often test a DM's mettle by doing something absolutely stupid that would, in one of my games, get my character killed (or worse). If they kill me, I know I've found a DM I can respect. If they spare me, they're a pushover, and not worthy of my gaming time.

I run games of political intrigue, dungeon hacking, battlefield tactics, and just wandering the forests talking to tree spirits. Whatever I do though, I know that if there isn't a challenge, there isn't any interest. Players grow bored when they're not kept on their toes. The DM *is* the adversary, but he has to be an honorable one, who plays by the same rules as the players, and adjucates the game fairly.

Thank you for clearing up what you meant and I can sympathize with this.

 

[Particle_Man]

the biggest question I have for those who claim to hate 2E is "just what were the differences between it and 1E that you came to hate so much?". The two systems were so damn similar, if you hated one, you'd pretty much have to hate the other. I'm talking core rules here, not campaign worlds or optional books. 1E, 2E, and 3E all have similar histories in that they started out with 3 simple core books and mushroomed out into a mindnumbing galaxy of supplements and optional books. 3E has killed way more trees than 2E ever dreamed of.
When 2E came out, I had mixed feelings on it. SOme things I liked, some I didn't. Like any good DM should do, I kept the good and changed the bad.... No demons? no problem, just put them back in. No assassins? no problem, just put them back in. Etc.... Converting 1E to 2E was absurdly simple; conversions to 3E are a lot more complicated....

Partly the restrictions in 1st ed. that were removed in 2nd ed. led to there being little reason to take certain races or classes. The half-elf schtick in 1st ed was that they, and only they, could be multi-classed pc cleric/magic-users or cleric/magic-user/fighters or cleric/rangers. (before unearthed arcana, anyway). Illusionists had a spell list that contained spells that regular M-U's had no access to, or access as higher spell levels. In 2nd ed., the elf was always a better choice than the half-elf. And if one wanted an illusionist, one could play it in the knowledge that a mage could cast any spell that you could cast. If you were DM, you could "Bring the illusionist back in" by making wizards lose access to illusionist spells (unless they were illusionists) but that would take a bit of work, and could result in player whining. So, perhaps things were not as simple as you claim.