D&D 2E Edition Experience - Did/Do you Play AD&D 2E? How Was/Is It?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Remember that those encounter tables are inclusive of the 1977 book.

Yeah, I know. Just throw a Nilbog at the party, let's get down to the fun!

 

[Orius]

Totally agreed on the FF, though there's a lot of chaff in with the wheat. The weirdness quotient and originality is high, and of course the art adds wonderful flavor.

The 1977 MM has a lot of original stuff, but is also stuffed with junk in places (like the excessive dinosaur list), and has dubious stats and editing, stuff like the damage for a lot of creatures seeming to be written for OD&D rather than AD&D, and notoriously unclear/unexplained stuff like how demonic spell-like abilities are meant to work.

I think GAS has a point about the 1993 Monstrous Manual in terms of it being a well-curated list of core monsters with fewer issues than the 1977 one.

Of the 3 1e monster books, the FF can be pretty hit or miss. Still, it's good overall, and there's a good amount of the material that eventually made its way into 2e and even beyond. The original MM has the standard staples of the game, and while the dinosaur list is a bit excessive, it's probably the result of toy dinosaurs being relatively easy to obtain and use in the game's formative years. The other problems are kind of a general 1e problem from Gary having written the books separately and sort of creating the rule set as he went along.

2e's MM is one of the best core monster books ever produced for D&D, though there are a few small issues. First and foremost is the lack of standard random encounter tables. Some of the entries should have been skipped like the monsters from the Psionics Handbook that required said handbook to run in the first place or the inadequate entries for demons and devils. Those could have been cut to make space for the tables. Also some of the entries on the big group tables like Birds, Mammals, Insects, etc that were fantastic rather than real world animals or scaled up version of such should have had their own entries or skipped for space. Otherwise, it's an excellent resource.

Speaking of the FF, there's a well-done solo campaign journal on Dragonsfoot where user Xabloyan runs an Appendix P adventuring party through an Appendix A solo dungeon, and he uses the FF encounter tables, so those monsters show up a lot.

That CJ is here. Using Appendix A from the 1e or even 5e DMG is a good way to brush up on the rules. And doing a solo game in a total funhouse dungeon is fine by me, since a lot of it involves practicing running the game.

 

[AnderNGmx]

It was lots of fun. Lots of fun with friends.

 

[cdwander]

With all of the talk about the Golden Age of Gaming, and all of the retro-clones floating around, it's made me curious about the older editions of the game. I'm curious how many folks on ENWorld have ever played these older editions, and what their level of satisfaction was. Or is, if you are one of the rare birds that are still rocking it O.G. Style.

This week I'd like to examine the AD&D 2nd Edition. Have you played it before? or are you still playing it? What do you think about it?

By "played," I mean that you've been either a player or a DM for at least one gaming session. By "playing," I mean you have an ongoing gaming group that still actively plays this version, however occasionally. And for the purpose of this survey, I'm only referring to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition set, first published in 1989 and updated through 1995. You remember it; it was the version with a knight on the cover, and had "2nd Edtion" printed on it in bold red letters...this one right here:

View attachment 120691

Note that this edition is different from the 1st Edition AD&D game, which was released in 1977 and had a ruby-eyed statue on the cover. That was a completely different survey (see below).

Feel free to add nuance in your comments, but let's not have an edition war over this. I'm really just interested in hearing peoples' stories of playing the "Advanced" rules, and what they remembered (for better or worse) about it.

Next week we will tackle the post-TSR Era of Dungeons & Dragons, beginning with the 3rd Edition rules. So if that's your flavor of choice, stay tuned!

Other Surveys
OD&D
Basic D&D
B/X D&D
AD&D 1E
BECMI / Rules Cyclopedia
D&D 3E
D&D 4E
Survey Results (24 Apr 2020)

I played it and still do, I have played and enjoyed 3rd edition, and fifth edition, but I have always gone back to second edition. The feat tree is the disadvantage to 3rd edition, while it is fun it detracts from the game itself and forces the player to spend to much time designing a mechanical powerful character to gain advantage as well as the quick leveling turns into immediate gratification that is rewarded with extra feats and thus the player is driven to fight everything in order to gain the power they need to advance the mechanical design of their character. Now characters quickly reach level 20 and you are remaking a new character that you a designing through a feat tree to be more powerful then the last one you played. Fun at times, but it becomes a mechanical slog through which your character is designed and not the actual game experience that creates the character. Fifth edition tapers back on the feats, but at this point I had begun going back to 2nd edition, because of the open system that allowed the players to play with rules, although some say the are archaic, that are simple for character design and play. Thus the game happens at the table and not at the building of the character, and for more complex character class design the players always have the skills and powers option books that let players create a class within a class to play. The final note is the game is played with dice, so these other editions try to take away the chance of failure, and it is the failure that creates the experience that happens in the game, the overcoming it. The other systems force the DMs to balance the conflicts so that the party can not be overpowered, and they never need to run, or come up with a solution that doesn't involve the use of their abilities, it is about mechanical advantage as opposed to creative solutions, and some luck that is what gets lost in the newer designs. Characters where suppose to die, the world was suppose to be treacherous, and that was the point, luck of the role and creativity was the most important part of the game that is now lost to the designers who have taken, by accident, that out of the players hands by having rules that apply to everything.

 

[Karsten]

I am one of those that is still playing (both DM and Player) 2nd edition. I am also solid about the fact that there is no chance going to any other edition.

I have tried 3rd and 4th editions, so personally I think that 2nd edition has absolutely no match, if we talk about Role Playing Games.

Newer editions than 2nd edition, are oriented to match the experience and logic of Computer Games, in a typical effort to attract more audience or clients, if you prefer. A lot may argue about this, but it is a fact.

2nd edition, is also one of the most (if not the most) homebrewed edition, in the sense of customizations to rationalize rules and related topics, according to the whims of each individual teams and table.

I will also agree with "cdwander" that newer editions tend to overpower players (exactly like computer games do) and over-balance (if I am allowed the term) the game.
In my view, AD&D is not and should not be balanced. There are tons of monsters and situations that are simply "way above any character paygrade" and if they stubborn enough to pursue such avenues, they will simply die. There is always the option of running.

Suffice to say that newer editions, offer CRs and stats to God-like creatures, which is simply ridiculous.
Hero or not, they are vastly more powered than any kind of mortal being, thus there is no challenge there.

Character classes are also NOT balanced. A wizard of 18 intelligence and sufficient levels (e.g 12 or even more), if played correctly (be it NPC, Enemy or Player) is extremely hard to even touch, let alone kill.

All in all, aside of how anyone may feel, my underline would be that newer editions take out creativity and fantasy and person involvement, therefore my vote goes to 2nd edition.

 

[Voadam]

Suffice to say that newer editions, offer CRs and stats to God-like creatures, which is simply ridiculous.
Hero or not, they are vastly more powered than any kind of mortal being, thus there is no challenge there.

While 2e only has super powerful stats for the avatars of gods and not the actual god behind the avatars it is an outlier in older editions, 0e and 1e had full stats for the actual gods PCs could interact with fully.

I would also suggest the plethora of statted avatars are god-like statted creatures in 2e.

 

[howandwhy99]

Second edition is my nostalgia edition. We had played some earlier games but 2e arrived when we were a little older and became serious about playing the game as more than children. I played all through high school and college and became a D&D fan. And like all fans at that time I questioned why the game was designed as it was. What was it trying to be?

I went and listened to many of the older players who decried the end of D&D. Those who were older and adults, those who had DM'd and played for several years and engaged in the same pursuit through the 70s and 80s I was then that of asking, "why is this game designed this way?"

It was concluded by many in the community that 2e was deeply flawed. And they left in the 1990s like so many others had when I joined. These flaws weren't the designers intention or even so much their fault. It had to do with not understanding the game. A phenomenon endemic to the hobby.

I think now of post-Gygax TSR and D&D, originally his company and his game, as the second line-up of a famous rock and roll band. They inherited a band name and its legacy, they had the old hits they had to play, and they knew what the music sounded like, and honestly they could play. But they didn't really know how to create they way the original artists did. They didn't think the same way about the game. But they did know much of the popular opinion of what was considered flawed and what was good from the original works. They sold to and served those interests.

90s TSR changed a considerable number of things about D&D. Not just the game, but the hobby itself. The 1e-2e divide was the most divisive and rancorous edition change I know of for an RPG. There was no coming out of it as a whole much less the same.

This is when I learned about D&D, something I learned backwards in that era. First, we all learned 2e. Then we learned what came earlier and looked deeper for why the game was designed as it was. Those who knew this history forward were leaving. What was clear was 2nd ed, like every edition thereafter, didn't support the game for its originally intended play. For scoring points. For testing players ability at the game held in the imagination. For learning how to work together in a strategic, cutting-edge cooperative game design.

2e was where I started but I can't say I enjoy going back except for the nostalgia. Even with the pleasure of gaming and exuberance we all felt, it was simply too painful to play and, ultimately, drove so many away. It is a time of childhood and fond remembrances. And I do believe much work can be redeveloped. But I believe most would take that era to an earlier or later time. To designs which better serve their preferences.