Are you part of the "Lost Generation" of RPG gamers?

[Weregrognard]

There's a very insightful post on Blog of Holding about the AD&D 2e era and how it's kind of been lost in the shuffle between newer D&D (incl. Pathfinder) and the OSR movement. In the post, he feels the AD&D 2e era is due for a resurgence as well as a “voice” in the RPG blogosphere.

I’m inclined to agree with the him, and it made me wonder whether there is a "Lost Generation" of RPG gamers – ones, like myself*, who started with the hobby somewhere between the late 80s to early 90s, and cut their teeth on AD&D 2e. Basically, too young to be "Old School", but too old to be "New School"; stuck between the two worlds.

If so, I conjecture that we are a fractured minority, much like the overall D&D fan-base, but we exist, and “that's not nuthin’”.

Thanks for reading.


* In my example, I started with D&D back in 1991 with the Basic "Black Box", and switched to AD&D 2e within less than a year. We (my friends and I) tended to use both BECMI D&D and 1e material with 2e, as they were largely compatible. Other than brief forays into other popular RPGs of the decade (Cyberpunk, Rifts, Shadowrun, GURPS, World of Darkness, and others), AD&D 2e was our mainstay. After fun, but ultimately dissatisfying experiences with 3.x and 4e, I find myself looking back to AD&D 2e and earlier. Through the OSR, I'm learning things about my favorite hobby I never knew or realized back in the 90s; any potential excitement for 5e all but nonexistent, but I digress.

 

[Yora]

Is there any difference to "I started with AD&D 2nd Edition"?

 

[Jacob Marley]

I started in 1991 with hand-me-down 1st Edition books... so, I am not a 2nd Edition player but I did start during that time period, and our games were informed by the same cultural events that informed *traditional* 2nd Edition gamers.

 

[Treebore]

Since 2E D&D has its own clone now... I think it has started. Now we wait and see how "loud" it gets.

 

[Yora]

I think 5th Edition sounds a lot like 3rd minus 0.5 Edition.

Also we had Dark Sun for 4th Edition, which I think is one of the prime examples of 2nd Edition greatness, together with Planescape. And Planescape never fully went away.

 

[rogueattorney]

I am not part of that generation, getting my start in 1981 right before 1e was hitting its zenith in terms of popularity.

I think there are two factors as to why 2e is "lost" in terms of the attention it gets on the gaming 'Net.

First, the sheer number of 2e products made the experience very diffuse. Players from different groups are likely to have had extraordinarily different experiences with the edition depending on what setting and supplementary rules were being used. Certainly more so than with OD&D, 1e, and B/X D&D. That leads to less of a shared experience and common ground for community building. I think you're more likely to find online communities focused on the various settings than the rules used for those settings.

Second, 2e was the low point of D&D's popularity. There are simply fewer people who enjoyed and look back fondly at that edition.

 

[TerraDave]

The issue could be that people did not like "2E" the way they liked earlier editions. Even if they played a lot of it.

If you liked classic D&D style...you probably like 1E (or OD&D or B/X) better. If you liked the 2E splats and option books, you probably like 3E better (or maybe 4E). If you liked the Realms, or Dark Sun, or Planescape, you may not link that directly to 2E but see it as its own thing.

 

[Alzrius]

In my opinion, his blog post missed the crucial point for why 2E hasn't had an explosion of nostalgia-fueled popularity and retro-clones (though some commenters did point it out): 2E is about the settings, not the mechanics.

2E was the era of Dark Sun, Planescape, and Birthright. It's when Ravenloft became its own campaign, and the Forgotten Realms took off like a rocket. It was when we had wild experimentation like Jakandor and Red Steel.

None of these are things that you can retro-clone. Indeed, there's an undercurrent of "I can port this to whatever rules I like most now" in a lot of discussions about those old settings, fueled by various degrees of conversions to 3E and 4E that have appeared in official and unofficial channels.

The "lost" generation of gamers isn't lost because they're being ignored; they're "lost" because they don't have much stake in the edition wars, since for them the edition is a minor concern.

 

[mattcolville]

I started in 1986 with AD&D, I don't think we switched to 2nd Ed until 89 or 90.

Birthright was 2nd Edition which was the height of my experience. In that sense this describes me. When I think about going back to D&D, I think about 2E nowadays.

I loved every edition of D&D, and I played all of them for *years*. But 2E was the only one we stopped playing just because we felt like the genre was old and played out.

3rd and 4th we stopped because we got tired of the rules. We sort of accumulated annoyances and eventually they overwhelmed what we liked.

I dunno though, I can see myself going back to any edition really. Even 3.

 

[M.L. Martin]

In my opinion, his blog post missed the crucial point for why 2E hasn't had an explosion of nostalgia-fueled popularity and retro-clones (though some commenters did point it out): 2E is about the settings, not the mechanics.

The "lost" generation of gamers isn't lost because they're being ignored; they're "lost" because they don't have much stake in the edition wars, since for them the edition is a minor concern.

As someone who's identified himself as part of this generation/"middle school"/etc. for years, this is pretty much spot-on. It's why what I've been waiting for--and what I think a lot of us are waiting for--is the restoration of the PDFs or the old source material in other formats; system isn't as much a concern, since we can adapt it to the Rules Cyclopedia, C&C, OSRIC, 3E/Pathfinder, 4E, Savage Worlds, BRP, GURPS, Hero, Fate . . .

(And the elements that weren't system or setting--the tone and flavor--well, that was shot through the head as soon as WotC took over and announced "Back to the Dungeon! Demons, devils and assassins everywhere! Everyone playing the same game, by the same rules, preferably in the same setting and with the same adventures to create one giant Collective . . .er, Network!" It's a lost fight at this point. )