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

[Yora]

2nd Edition went away when 3rd Edition came around. That's what happened to it.

The actually strange thing is why the 1st Edition and BECMI holdouts are still so visible. BECMI is a rather different game that is also called Dungeons & Dragons, so I get that.
But I'm not really familiar with 1st Edition. Maybe the differences between 1st and 2nd were greater than those between 2nd and 3rd? There was a major difference between 3rd and 4th and the 3rd Edition fans still seem to be the more numerous and active. If moving from 2nd to 3rd was a lot less cumbersome than other Edition changes, I would guess that people just were happy to move on without deciding to stick with the old rules because the new ones just didn't work for what they wanted to do.

 

[Stouthart]

2nd Edition went away when 3rd Edition came around. That's what happened to it.

The actually strange thing is why the 1st Edition and BECMI holdouts are still so visible. BECMI is a rather different game that is also called Dungeons & Dragons, so I get that.
But I'm not really familiar with 1st Edition. Maybe the differences between 1st and 2nd were greater than those between 2nd and 3rd? There was a major difference between 3rd and 4th and the 3rd Edition fans still seem to be the more numerous and active. If moving from 2nd to 3rd was a lot less cumbersome than other Edition changes, I would guess that people just were happy to move on without deciding to stick with the old rules because the new ones just didn't work for what they wanted to do.

1st edition was more similar to 2nd than 2nd was to 3rd. I remember the transition to 2nd edition being for the most part seamless. Now the change to 3rd was a pretty big jump with the change over to the unified d20 mechanics and the addition of feats.

Stouthart

 

[Orius]

But I'm not really familiar with 1st Edition. Maybe the differences between 1st and 2nd were greater than those between 2nd and 3rd?

No way, the differences between 1e and 2e were fairly minor, not much terribly greater than the differences between 3.0 and 3.5 Most of it was just little details here and there. I think more likely the hardcore 1e crowd never really went over to 2e, while sme of the later 2e crowd went on to 3e rather easily, since the flavor and sensibilities of late 2e and early 3.0 were'nt terribly different.

 

[Desdichado]

But I'm not really familiar with 1st Edition. Maybe the differences between 1st and 2nd were greater than those between 2nd and 3rd? There was a major difference between 3rd and 4th and the 3rd Edition fans still seem to be the more numerous and active. If moving from 2nd to 3rd was a lot less cumbersome than other Edition changes, I would guess that people just were happy to move on without deciding to stick with the old rules because the new ones just didn't work for what they wanted to do.

Quite the opposite, actually. 2e was a minor tweak in most respects, to 1e--at least until the "2.5" edition with Skills & Powers came out. 3e, on the other hand, was a completely different game.