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

[Goblinoid Games]

I actually really like 2e. I played a hell of a lot of it back in the day. I bought nearly all of the books for it up until around Planescape came out, and I never did buy the option books.

IMHO the early core stuff is only slightly tweaked from first edition, with the main difference being that a lot of stuff was cut from the DM guide. I think the "feel" was different, mainly in art style and due to eliminating demons/devils, but mechanically it is basically the same game. I just couldn't get into it anymore though once the art started to shift in later books, and the option books came out. Things got too "weird" for me. So at that point I pretty much stopped buying WotC material.

I remember reading in Dragon that 3e was supposed to be as compatible with 2e as 2e was with 1e...but obviously design goals changed, because when I bought and cracked open the 3e books I was so alienated by the presentation and new mechanics that I pretty much abandoned D&D for a long time. Then finally I went back to the old editions and the rest is history.

 

[Psion]

The rules of 2e were so close to 1e that I still fail to see why there seemed to be such reluctance to move forwards by some. The only thing that really bothered me is that Oriental Adventures -- a book that brought us tons of fun in the later AD&D era -- was so poorly pulled forward in most aspects except proficiencies.

Art-wise, I see Easley as a classic for D&D, and his work was on much 2e.

I do agree that settings like Dark Sun and Planescape, while awesome in their own accord, do represent a mode-shift for D&D. But that didn't represent a majority of my play (or many people's, considering the settings were cancelled).

Oh yeah, in case there is any confusion: I pretty much played 1e through its whole run.

 

[Ariosto]

Even the addition of a "find traps" function need make no radical difference. Rolls to find secret doors go right back to the original set. As I observed earlier, significant changes in mode of play were due not to changes in design intent but to rules that players added. "Niche protection" rules concerning thieves provide extreme examples.

The big difference in RuneQuest was not that a number of factors were listed on the character sheet and called skills; most of those had pretty direct analogs in 1st edition AD&D. The big difference was that it was not a "character class" system. The process of play -- including role-playing of actions -- was in my experience fundamentally the same as in OD&D.

 

[gamerprinter]

Another thing about AD&D

I know what is traditionally given as 1st - 4e, however. I actually consider D&D 1e as 1st edition and AD&D as a kind of 2nd Edition, while actually 2nd edition AD&D is both an extrapolation of 1e AD&D and a transition to 3e with Skills and Powers related splats at the end of 2e.

So in my thinking, though AD&D is considered part of 1e, its really an unnumbered edition. Therefore, 1e D&D is first edition, while AD&D 1e is second edition, thus all following editions should be one number higher. 3e is fourth edition and 4e is fifth edition.

You can't tell me AD&D 1e is the same as D&D 1e, it should be considered its own edition above 1e.

GP

 

[Goblinoid Games]

Michael, I understand what you mean, but people tend to label these differently.

A lot of people unfamiliar with all the various editions refer to anything prior to AD&D 2e as "1st edition." Even WoTC has done this on a few of their polls.

So first there was the "original" game. Then it essentially split into D&D and AD&D, with AD&D being a separate brand. In many ways D&D, what became something people called "Basic D&D" even though that actually wasn't the name of the game, is actually much more similar to the original game.

Now there is more detail to it than that, with various versions, but that is the simplest explanation.

 

[MonkLover]

Yea Gods! do I miss 2e, I missed out on most of 3e (and all of 3.5), and 4e is not bad, it just does not have the feel that 2e had, Unfortunately no one seems to run any 2e games in my neck of the woods.

 

[Orius]

Tip: Erol Otus needed no "kit" for his swashbuckling old-school fighter:

Would be the swashbuckling old-school fighter where the only distinguising feature would be the Roman numeral at the end of the name?

Kits may not have been perfect, but they were ok as a template for character customization. And I prefer customization to cookie-cutter characters or the massive class glut of 1e with Dragon.

 

[Ariosto]

Books of kits can be handy. On the other hand, buying into the notion that they were necessary, that such things were not feasible without Official Product, was (to whatever extent it took hold) chiefly a commercial convenience for TSR and WotC -- and a blow against the very "do it your way" philosophy of the original game that got bruited loudly and clearly again in the 2E books.

 

[Grimstaff]

Um. You know AD&D 1e and B/X BOTH had proficiency systems? (Well, BECMI did, right in the Rules Cyclopedia). And How is class-glut a 2e thing? 2e has LESS classes in their PHB than 1e (no monk, no assassin, and a revised bard) and UA CERTAINLY added lots of new classes (barbarian, cavalier, thief-acrobat) as did Dragon (witch, anti-paladin, ranger-archer). If we ignore setting specific classes (such as Dark Sun or Al-Quadim), 2e added psionicist, ninja, and barbarian before Players Options.



Um. AD&D, B/X, and OD&D+Supplements all had this class called the "thief" It has a skill called FIND TRAPS. I guess they don't support Old-school trap finding either, eh?

And yes, druids lost some unique spells, as did illusionists. It was the trade-off for poorly organizing schools/spheres. I much prefer the sphere divisons made in Spells & Magic which gave druid's back thier proper spells and toned down the cleric.



2e (more than any other D&D game) is a blank pallet. There is no implied setting more than what the rules said their was. AD&D 1e has an implied setting; its not stated but Greyhawk IS the 1e world. Now, I won't argue much of the 2e fluff aimed you at a more new-school vibe, but I disagree that 2e itself is "new school", sheer volume of legacy rules and artifacts kills that theory.

Lots of "um"s!

Your points are certainly valid, and as I stated in my post (perhaps not clearly enough) many of the elements I don't feel are particularly old-school were introduced during 1E.

But the fact remains I can pick up a 1E PHB or B/X and run a game without specialization, non-weapon proficiencies, or single-classed bards, and run a game with plate-armored elven fighter/magic-users, non-homogenized druids, and half-orc cleric/assassins. I cannot do this with a 2E PHB, unless I basically houserule it back to 1E.

So sorry, but 2E still not old-school. In My Opinion.