AD&D second edition: Why be hatin'?

[Particle_Man]

Sorry you feel insulted. I was, in fact, comparing 1st ed., with all the bells and whistles (including UA), with 2nd ed., with all the bells and whistles. You are comparing 1st ed (core) with 2nd ed (core). Too bad you didn't say that earlier, it would have cleared up any misunderstanding.

So how I would look at it is that, as far as balance goes, 3rd ed core is most balanced, then 3rd ed. with options, then 2nd ed. core, then 1st ed. core, then 1st ed. with options, then TOON, and then 2nd ed. with options.

And sorry, 2nd ed. Spells and Powers really took the cake. You could take a cleric, remove access to all spheres except healing, and have enough "points" left over to become like a GOD (permanent True Seeing, for example). I'd be begging for 1st ed. drow cavalier-paladins with a chance of psionics after that one. Options is one thing, but this was options without any thought of balance, except what the DM made up. But if I am needed to step in that much, I could have made stuff up without buying the player's option books. So that turned me off of 2nd ed., back to 1st ed., and (later) made me look forward to 3rd ed. But of course, YMMV.

Personally, I am happy with 3rd ed., would be less happy with 2nd ed., would be in-between happy (but almost as happy as 3rd ed.), with 1st ed., and will be VERY happy with C&C, if it lives up to its promises.

You know, when people assume you are stupid or not well read, it's really sort of insulting.

Yes I have. Not that I brought them up. I was strictly talking about that core rules.

THAT SAID, the players options book are the only thing that kept me playing D&D in any form. I was just about to write off D&D due to the lack of flexibility. Yes, you had to house rule it (especially the cleric and the dumb ability score rules), but it was the first book to add much needed flexibility to the game, an arena in which D&D was wallowing in the past compared to other games out at the time.

FURTHER nothing the supplemental PO books did is as bad as lottery psionics (which is in a core book, nonetheless) or some stuff from the UA (free uber special racial abilties for drow and duegar! cavalier-paladins! etc.)

 

[Brennin Magalus]

...Spells and Powers...

It is Skills and Powers (or Spells and Magic).

 

[RenoOfTheTurks]

And sorry, 2nd ed. Spells and Powers really took the cake. *snip*

Huh. I liked the extra options. Not ONCE did players in my campaigns do something so over the top as to unbalance a game. The games got more dangerous, certainly, with the dire critical effects and advanced specialization rules (and you know some BBEGs were grand masters of their weapons). The rules for using your surroundings in battle were cool, as were the campaign suggestions in High Level Campaigns, part of the same series.

...

I didn't play 1E. I don't think that 2E encouraged min/maxing nearly as much as 3E does, though maybe the possibilities for such were greater. Wasn't a big concern of mine, or a problem for my groups. The feel of most 2E products was more immersive. Now it feels like I've bought new Magic cards every time I buy a book...yay, more kewl rule manipulations...not.

As for the dislike of 2E in favor of 1E. A large segment of OD&Ders liked Greyhawk. A lot. They're entitled to their opinion that the Bandit Kingdom or whatever it's called, was the raddest thing ever. But I don't value their judgments for one second as they bash the FR in fits of jealousy.

People I know who played in FR loved that the timeline moved forward in a canonical way. Our home campaigns could always alter the published setting. It's common sense, unless you've already got a grudge. A setting tells you how the world is. Maybe if you don't like the world, then you b**ch if you have nothing better to do. I don't care for Eberron, but I'd never waste time insulting it except to mention it for the purposes of saying I'd never waste time insulting it. And I personally think good settings include changes with subsequent product releases. FR, Planescape, Ravenloft all did it well, I think.

The good fluff/bad crunch distinction, I think, captures how a lot of people feel about 2E. And about 3E. One camp is hung up on the possibilities for munchkinism in the 2E ruleset, especially the Player's Option books, while others including myself think 3E is almost goading (new) players to focus on creating uber-characters and focus mostly on statistics. It's the invasion of a mentality, I guess like what some say was happening with the "fluff" in 2E. Bad crunch to some means lack of balance, while to others it means focusing on crunch to the exclusion of roleplaying. But you can't win this game. It's not Magic, yet. D&D Minis is, basically, but hey.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I have to agree with the "general consensus" on the good flavor, bad mechanics. I think I can find, for every 2e setting, one of my gaming group who liked it. (Eg I liked Dark Sun and didn't like Spelljammer, but I know there's still some Spelljammer fanatics. Eh.)

I seem to have had poor judgement when it came to things to like in 2e. I liked psionics 2e and Dark Sun in terms of flavor, but they both had terrible mechanics (I literally broke open a DM's campaign using 2e psionics - I used to use it to counteract other players cheating on their ability score rolls). It didn't really surprise me that Dark Sun had such terrible rules - anything using psionics 2e as a big part of it's base had to ignore balance anyway.

I'm glad they rewrote psionics from the ground up, so to speak, for 3e. It still has problems but at least psions now walk on the ground like the other classes.

When S&P came out I was initially happy - hey, no more cookie cutters! - but everyone just went for the strongest options, and many of those options were busted. And then those kits... I liked a few but most I saw were either lame or broken (or both) - just like most prestige classes I see today.

Oh yeah, did I mention I hate the 2e ranger with incredible bitterness? Stupid Drizzt-inspired nonsense. I haven't seen something done so badly in 3e until I saw the CW samurai.

In the end, 2e was so bad I jumped ship to Alternity and only came to 3e with considerable reluctance (under the erroneous assumption that it would be too much like 2e). I note, however, that 2e was easier to run. Huge balance issues aside (these stamped on fun) many of the DMs I know ran better campaigns in 2e than they did now. I suspect we were all more imaginative then, didn't have full-time jobs to take away from prep time, and prep time in 2e was a lot less, either. Plus, it probably helped the DM that most of the players barely understood the rules (and none ever mastered more than a small portion of them) which kept some aspects of munchkinism in check.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

Maybe if you don't like the world, then you b**ch if you have nothing better to do. I don't care for Eberron, but I'd never waste time insulting it except to mention it for the purposes of saying I'd never waste time insulting it.

I don't consider Realms-bashing a waste of time; polemics is great fun.

 

[Dyir]

You won't hear any 2e hate from me. But I'm different from many of the other mentions on this thread: I never played in 1e. To me 2nd edition was the first version of D&D I ever played, and really the first RPG I ever was exposed to. I cut my teeth on 2e (including all of the Player's Option books). When you first start to play an RPG without anyone there to show you how, balance doesn't mean anything at all. I was too inexperienced to realize just how crazy things could become. Indeed, there was some degree of balance in my early group: there was a full-plate wearing gnome illusionist/cleric alongside a halfling thief/psionicist alongside a grey-elf high mage alongside a sword archon. I don't think I could figure out which one was the most overpowered.
So when I think back on 2e, if I don't really think of bad game mechanics. I think of how I played D&D before I left for college and fully embraced both 3e and new friends. So, for me, 2e is "old school" and 3e is just the new thing.

 

[teitan]

I think my biggest problem with 2e was that the "Optional Rules" were only nominally optional. Sure you didn't have to use them but to TSR "Optional Rules" meant that "you don't have to use the rules in your campaign but you have to use them if you want to use our newest products". Part of my disdain for Dark SUn was the necessity for Psionics. I also didn't like the proliferation of sourcebooks and the PO series seemed t be anything but optional. The balance was horrid, I mean compare a core character to a PHBR created character and then a PO created character, big power creep there. I am not usually a balance kind of guy, it is ROLE playing after all and if Elves are bad asses then so be it but it got pretty ridiculous at times.

I hated the references to other sourcebooks that are sometimes OOP like in the Greyhawk 98 material and its references to old modules etc. for more details and the necessity of the From The AShes boxed set for deities and spehere, heck even basic deity information was lack in the GH98 material!!! Man, if I had access to From The Ashes I never would have bought the GH98 material!!!!!!!

Now fluff is great but I think it really took away from the imagination of the game at times. No it shouldn't be as low as the post SIlver Marches sourcebooks but it shouldn't be constricting either. I don't miss the useless fluff of 2e adventures, sure it added to the lore but how many players really learned all that gorgeous and beautiful data? I do miss modules being mini sourcebooks, like EVening Star.

I miss some things about 2e. I miss being able to take 30 dollars to the gaming store and walking out with 2 or 3 supplements. I really liked the parchment look of the old FR material, it helped lend an air of mythic to the products. I miss the ease of adventure design because NPCs didn't take so much time to create. I still spend the same amount of time on the "fluff" of the adventure but creating NPCs is a pain. I miss the speed of play and the simplicity of complexity of 2e. Yes, it was hardly simple in that the rules called for different dice for things and different task resolution for 1000 other things but once you got the hang of it, it was pretty simple... but getting the hang of it took some time.

 

[MerricB]

2E fixed the initiative and surprise rules of 1E.

For that, it should be greatly thanked.

Cheers!

 

[Pants]

2E fixed the initiative and surprise rules of 1E.

For that, it should be greatly thanked.

Cheers!

2E introduced Spelljammer.

For that, it should be tanked.

 

[MerricB]

2E introduced Spelljammer.

For that, it should be tanked.

But Spelljammer gave us the Giant Space Hamster! How can you not love it?



Cheers!