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

[JeffB]

*I have not read all the posts, excuse me if I'm being repetitive*

For me 2E started to become "not old school D&D " with the PO books- at least when we are talking rules. I never have understood the rifts between the anti- 2E folks and pro-2E crowd when it comes to core rules- My personal feeling is 2E (core) rules were closer to how most AD&D games were actually played. Barring the loss of demons & devils for awhile, I think the rules changes both major and minor were mostly an improvement.

I think (obviously) where 2E differed was in the types of material produced for it. The module died and the campaign setting (and dozens of supplements for it each year) flourished. However the actual change in gameplay (more story driven, less..err..gygaxian?) was something that started up in the early 1980s with the release of the DL modules and was on the increase every year thereafter. And many of the latter day 1E supplements were as full of broken rules and general wonkiness as the worst 2E stuff. Things like the "suvival guides", and "(campaign setting) Adventures" as well as just a load of bad modules/adventure material. In fact during 1E's latter days, by far the best materials TSR was producing, IMO , were the early Forgotten Realms books (the OGB and FR1-6-ish). Unfortunately that line eventually suffered the same fate as most late 1E products and became the leader of badly written, unbalanced, error ridden products for 2E's life.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You would think that most people would select the game system that best suits their play style (and certainly some people do just that). What I find interesting is when that doesn't happen, when people use a particular rule set to do what it isn't suited for --and this is common in my experience.

I would say that marketing is a powerful force, as is peer pressure. Also, sometimes there is nothing that well suits a person's needs, and one attempts to select something that can be modified to taste.

So long as you know how the ruleset will affect play, and so long as you have some idea what you are looking for, you should be all right.

Largely because most of the discussion I've seen and been part of on the topic has overall been less than pleasant. So far, this one is turning out no different.

That is often the result of making dismissive blanket statements that one doesn't back up. Like the whole "false dichotomy" thing.

IOW, I suggest that if there have been "less than pleasant" aspects to any conversations related to your "false dictotomy" position, they might be related more to your refusal to give a rational basis for the statement than anything else.

Moreover, if it is true that you haven't supplied "any rational argument...to explain why you feel this way" "Largely because most of the discussion I've seen and been part of on the topic has overall been less than pleasant", I fail to see what having more patience and waiting longer for you to answer would accomplish.

I didn't put words into your mouth in any way, shape, or form. I merely looked at what you said, and tried to determine what a rational position given your statements could be.

EDIT: As a dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts, I don't think that I am wholly wrong in my analysis either. If you decide that the OS & NS labels are the only way to split the whole, and that they cannot overlap, you are creating a false dichotomy that isn't present in the actual idea of OS or NS games.

And I stated why I disagree with your position, within the limitations of my understanding of it. Because leaving that statement out there without examining it at all is, IMHO, a disservice to gamers.....and I gave my reasons for believing that as well.

Perhaps some other time, when you approach the discussion in a different manner.

Absolutely. Had you supplied more, I would have looked at what you supplied. Fork a thread whenever you like, or explain more fully the next time you make the claim. I would be happy to discuss the matter with you or with anyone else.

Like I said, I've made some guesses as to what a rational position given your statements could be, but I would be more than happy to hear what the rationale behind your position actually is.


RC

 

[AllisterH]

I disagree with the notion that PO was that bad. Like I said earlier, the biggest thing PO did for us was to show how, shall we say, different the point totals of various kits and specialty priests.

Seriously, if you have F&A, try figuring out the point value for say Selune (one of the more restrained Specialty priests) and compare. Thats nothing we found compared to say Mystra's specialty priests.

 

[Ariosto]

There are a couple of negative effects rules can have on a mode of play:
(A) They can actively work against it.
(B) They can make it less intuitive.

One can solve (A) by changing the rules, but (B) may bode against that in the sense that beyond some point there's little point in having started with (or claiming still to be playing) the particular game in question. A high degree of rules integration also poses practical problems, greater the more rules there are. It is easier to keep track of what one is doing and maintain consistency when adding rules of one's own to a simple framework than when changing or removing components of a complex system.

In an RPG, mere accumulation of rules can have effect B on role-playing. Where there's no rule for a situation, one is forced to look at the situation itself in coming up with a ruling. When can simply roll dice and look up numbers, it's easy to keep one's attention focused on the mechanical abstraction rather than on what a character would perceive.

That effect somewhat depends on the degree to which character players -- as opposed to the referee -- manipulate mechanics. It's hard to "play the numbers" when one does not know the numbers in the first place. Moreover, the need for the referee and players to communicate in sensory and sensible (rather than game-jargon) terms helps keep the one dealing with mechanics grounded in the imagined world. Whether assessment is in purely realistic or dramatic terms, the situation itself gets attention.

Thoroughly dissociated mechanics, making no sense from a character's perspective, are an example of class A interference with role-playing. A player must deal with the game construct, and primarily with it, in order to play effectively.

Chance factors likewise interfere with the unfolding of a predetermined story. High PC casualty rates interfere with a game simultaneously involving a lot of combat and long term character development. A high lower bound for how long it takes to resolve an encounter works against having many encounters per session. Resource management requires resources to manage, and strategy requires significantly better and worse options. There are many ways in which rules tailored to one style can handicap another.

I would say that 2E offers very little in the way of class A barriers to "old school" play, and that even the class B effects are very weak if one is already acquainted with, and inclined to, that style.

The effect of the "game philosophy" presented might be more profound if it shapes one's formative impression of what D&D is "about", though. It can be seen as undermining the old game simply by failing to propagate it. While I think it may have done too little in that regard (considering that something billed as an official recension of D&D is rightly judged by standards not applicable to something making no such claim), it remains a work quite usable with a traditional understanding.

 

[Grimstaff]

But how hard were they to put back in? I had plenty of devils -well, demons actually-- and assassins in my long-running 2e campaign. Harlots, alas, not so much.


If they players want to be challenged directly, the DM is free to oblige them. Aren't all rules optional? And aren't more options for resolving tasks/conflicts, well, nice to have? (within reason, of course. Profession: Cooper and Perform: Hammer Dulcimer are a bit much).

Besides, how many 1e players actually described how they were going to make their horse run faster? Or build a bridge? More importantly, how many DM's could reasonably evaluate the wide variety of player action descriptions they got? I bet a lot of task resolution came down to randomly-assigned percentages and ability checks.

I'm sure some 1e DM's were actually polymaths. I'm also sure most weren't.


1e also featured a whole lot of identical fighters wearing plate and carrying longswords. There's something to said about providing some guidelines for mechanically representing a wider variety of character concepts, at least with regard to the game's core activities (like the hitting of things).

Again, my comments weren't intended as critisisms of 2E, but reason why 2E is not "old-school" to me. I ran "old-schoolish" games with 3E and 4E, but would never call them "old-school" systems.

OD&D, AD&D 1E, B/X, all had certain elements that define classic old-school RPGing in my mind, and 2E was the first move beyond those elements in official form. 2E, imo, took non-old-school elements like non-weapon proficiencies and class glut from the realm of optional rules via additional books (such as Unearthed Arcana and Wilderlands Survival Guide) and made them part of the core system. 2E also saw the normalization of rail-road-style adventures, which also debuted under 1E in the form of Dragonlance modules.

Obviously, the DM can entertain old-school trap finding and disarming via in-play description rather than making a skill check in any edition, but this is not directly implied in the core rules of 2E. The GM can take formerly Druid-only spells away from clerics to make the Druid a unique class again, but again, this is not implied, encouraged, or suggested by the core rules of 2E. A 2E cleric has free reign to use druid spell, a 2E magic user has free reign to use illusionist spells, this is simply not old-school, where these classes were whole and unique from their counterparts.

The point is not whether the DM may customize 2E to his tastes, but rather how 2E presents itself unmodified. Playable, fun, and customizable? Sure. Old-school? No. Not at all. Not in my opinion.

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

 

[BraveSirKevin]

Well... For one thing, the books were REAAALLLY old school. I still have the earlier versions of the books where everything is printed in black and cyan except the occasional colour plate. I spent money on the new full colour ones just cos I couldn't endure the archaic look and feel anymore

There is a lot to be said for 2nd ed though... I played that system for the entirity of high school and I was really reluctant to switch away from it (in part cos I'd spent so much money on material and still had about 30 issues of Dungeon, and a couple bought adventures I hadn't run yet). But after I actually read 3rd ed's core books it was pretty clear that 2nd Ed had gone the way of the dinosaur.

I still approach the adventure crafting aspect in a very 2nd Ed way, but in terms of mechanics, the newer versions are a lot more useful and usable. Let's face it... THAC0 was a pain

 

[Ariosto]

The only additional "pain" I can see in THAC0 versus 3E-style AC is that it's simpler if someone knows both the attacker's THAC0 and the target's AC (which is the number added to the die roll).

If you want to avoid arithmetic generally (and subtraction altogether) during play, here's a little trick:

Write down a combatant's chance to hit base (unarmored) AC as number or less on d20 -- for instance, 11 for most (if not all) 1st-level characters without bonuses in any edition. Let's call that "attack factor" (AF). Note "defense factor" (DF) as the penalty to that; so, if base (descending) AC is 10, AC 4 gives DF 6. A bonus to hit adds to AF, while a penalty to hit adds to DF.

Thus, modified AF 13 misses on a roll of 14+; a roll of 1-13 hits any lower DF. If AF exceeds 20, then you add the difference to the roll -- but short of that, you're not adding anything to rolls. That's simpler in play than 3E/4E, in which one must always add attack bonus to each roll (or else subtract it from AC) even if there's no other modifier.

The drawback is that it involves some preparation if you're working with monsters written up with some other system in mind. In 3E/4E, though, the factors are pretty "naked". As an AC bonus is normally added to 10, just subtract 10 from AC; add attack bonus to 11.

"A stitch in time saves nine" -- adding just once rather than over and over.

 

[Nikosandros]

Thus, modified AF 13 misses on a roll of 14+; a roll of 1-13 hits any lower DF. If AF exceeds 20, then you add the difference to the roll -- but short of that, you're not adding anything to rolls.

You are not adding to the rolls, but you are modifying the AF against each opponent. At the end of the day, I don't have any problems with THAC0, table look-up or additive BAB... none of those systems ever slowed down combats for me.

 

[Ariosto]

You are not adding to the rolls, but you are modifying the AF against each opponent.

Nope! It remains the same, unless you've got some special situational modifier -- which would need to be accounted for in any system.

Absent any such circumstantial bonus or penalty, or any exceptionally high (21+) AF, this system involves no arithmetic at all in play -- and then the numbers are smaller (the naked modifiers themselves). Common ones (such as AF at different ranges, with different weapons or versus different armor types) can be pre-calculated. How much of an advantage that is depends on how often you're using uncommon factors, but the advantage is there.

 

[Nikosandros]

Nope! It remains the same, unless you've got some special situational modifier -- which would need to be accounted for in any system.

I don't get it...

If I have thac0 19 and I'm attacking AC 6, I need a 13 or better to hit.

Under your system I have an AF of 12. When I'm attacking you I need to subtract your DF of 4 to my AF so that I can hit on a 8 or less. When I'm attacking someone else, I need to again subtract the appropriate DF.