Ruin Explorer
Legend
2E is the D&D we played most of. I got it not that long after it came out in 1989, assuming that the 2nd edition of something had to be better than the 1st (I feel I was vindicated in this, despite not playing 1E until a year or two later), and we kept playing it right until 3E came out. Most of the people I was playing with by 1993, I'm still playing with now (though there are others too).
My experience was that 2E was a flawed game, but an excellent one, and one that dramatically improved over the 1990s. I mean, by 1993, we'd actually mostly drifted away from D&D, into games like Vampire, Werewolf, Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Cyberpunk 2020 and many others. But then Planescape came out in 1994, and the Skills & Powers books, and the Complete books were improving (had been since 1992), and we'd got the Monstrous Compendium (instead of the ghastly binder monster book), and gave AD&D a second lease of life for us. We still played other games, but we pretty much had a D&D game going from when Planescape came out until 3E came out, and it is because of Planescape that that was the case. It made D&D "cool again", even when weren't playing Planescape (which was most of the time). I mean, it was such a 1990s thing, Planescape, it doesn't fit in well now (hilariously the general approach and what it's interested in seems almost counterculture to 2020), but given it was the 1990s, that worked.
Rules-wise, as noted, it kept improving. 2E seemed okay in 1989, but by 1992 even it looks terrible, rules-wise, compared to more modern games. Very limited. Gradually the "complete" books changed that, and Skills & Powers and so on overthrew it. Then you had the multi-volume spells and magic items books, which were a tremendous resource. Because they added to 2E, and opened it up, though, we kept playing it. By 1998 we'd done pre-3E stuff like turning THAC0 into +to hit, and inverting proficiencies and saves so they were roll-overs, which helped.
So yeah, my experience of 2E was kind of that it was an amazing introduction to RPGs, had amazing settings, gradually started to look a bit dumb/dated, and then Planescape + loads of books opening up the rules and adding tons of content made it cool again.
That's definitely true, but at their worst, they were still typically far better than the house-rules and homebrew and so on you'd see people posting on the internet (people were just objectively worse at games back then), and they were huge because they opened up tons of stuff that was totally locked-down before that. They changed how people thought about the game.
Plus, let's be real - a lot of the core rules themselves were of extremely dubious quality and balance. Acting like S&P was bad, but basic 2E was solid is really dodgy.
My experience was that 2E was a flawed game, but an excellent one, and one that dramatically improved over the 1990s. I mean, by 1993, we'd actually mostly drifted away from D&D, into games like Vampire, Werewolf, Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Cyberpunk 2020 and many others. But then Planescape came out in 1994, and the Skills & Powers books, and the Complete books were improving (had been since 1992), and we'd got the Monstrous Compendium (instead of the ghastly binder monster book), and gave AD&D a second lease of life for us. We still played other games, but we pretty much had a D&D game going from when Planescape came out until 3E came out, and it is because of Planescape that that was the case. It made D&D "cool again", even when weren't playing Planescape (which was most of the time). I mean, it was such a 1990s thing, Planescape, it doesn't fit in well now (hilariously the general approach and what it's interested in seems almost counterculture to 2020), but given it was the 1990s, that worked.
Rules-wise, as noted, it kept improving. 2E seemed okay in 1989, but by 1992 even it looks terrible, rules-wise, compared to more modern games. Very limited. Gradually the "complete" books changed that, and Skills & Powers and so on overthrew it. Then you had the multi-volume spells and magic items books, which were a tremendous resource. Because they added to 2E, and opened it up, though, we kept playing it. By 1998 we'd done pre-3E stuff like turning THAC0 into +to hit, and inverting proficiencies and saves so they were roll-overs, which helped.
So yeah, my experience of 2E was kind of that it was an amazing introduction to RPGs, had amazing settings, gradually started to look a bit dumb/dated, and then Planescape + loads of books opening up the rules and adding tons of content made it cool again.
That's definitely true, but at their worst, they were still typically far better than the house-rules and homebrew and so on you'd see people posting on the internet (people were just objectively worse at games back then), and they were huge because they opened up tons of stuff that was totally locked-down before that. They changed how people thought about the game.
Plus, let's be real - a lot of the core rules themselves were of extremely dubious quality and balance. Acting like S&P was bad, but basic 2E was solid is really dodgy.
