Do you consider 2nd edition AD&D "old-school"

[AllisterH]

In many of these discussions on this board, we talk about how things were done old-school/back in the day.

However, I've noticed that when people say this, they refer either to OD&D or 1st edition AD&D. Conversely, both 3e and 4e are considered "modern/new school". For example, the thread talking about game lethality seems to a discussion between how stuff was done in 1e/Od&D vs 3e vs 4e.

So what about 2nd edition though? Doesn't 2nd edition have its own type of feel?

 

[Dice4Hire]

To me old-school is pre 3.X. I don't think amny people will agree with me, but in my view D&D changed a lot between those editions. I don't think the change form 3.X to 4E was nearly as wide, though.

 

[scruffygrognard]

The way that I ran 2nd edition for a while felt old-school... it was very much a free-form, sandbox type of game.

That said I don't think that the system was an old-school system, especially once class kits, racial splatbooks, Skills & Powers and Combat & Tactics are factored in.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Doesn't 2nd edition have its own type of feel?

Yeah, it does. More than any other edition, it emphasises story and setting. It has the most altruistic PCs, insofar as anyone who goes into the homes of sentient beings and kills and robs them can be said to be altruistic. It has by far the slowest level progression.

It's the Tolkien edition. Or, more appropriately, the Dragonlance edition. Setting, epic adventure and 'altruism'.

I don't consider 2e to be old school, though the rules aren't that different from 1e, the feel is very different imo. In 2e the DM was expected to 'fight' the rules much more, to maintain story, though many people probably played it just like 1e.

 

[Belphanior]

It does have its own type of feel, but I consider all of 2e to be "old school."

Pre-PO it was an unbalanced mess of class-based rules thrown together. But you know what? It was plenty fun and had some of the greatest settings ever to grace our hobby.

Post-PO it was an unbalanced mess of point-buy rules thrown together. And the above still pretty much applied.

 

[vagabundo]

3e is old school to me now.

 

[lutecius]

It's the Tolkien edition. Or, more appropriately, the Dragonlance edition. Setting, epic adventure and 'altruism'.

I don't consider 2e to be old school, though the rules aren't that different from 1e, the feel is very different imo. In 2e the DM was expected to 'fight' the rules much more, to maintain story, though many people probably played it just like 1e.

I feel the opposite. ad&d2 specifically had some edgy settings (darksun, planescape), but the rules were definitely old school compared to its contemporaries.
PO and a&d2 itself felt like patches to me. It was fundamentally the same system.

 

[Ahnehnois]

2e is my definition of old school; anything earlier doesn't even register to me since I wasn't alive.

 

[Nikosandros]

Since 2e came out, I've often mixed the two versions of AD&D... many disagree, but for me they are essentially the same game. The PO stuff, on the other hand, modified quite a bit the system.

 

[ExploderWizard]

2E is certainly one of the older editions but it doesn't quite fit the whole "old school feel". It was the first edition to include elements such as story focus and in-game rewards for such by the RAW. This presentation style is more what I would call "proto" new school, in that these types of ideas gained strength in 2E and had inluence on 3E and 4E. It was also a setting/fluff wonderland providing more descriptive/ecological detail into monsters than any edition before or since.