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

[DammitVictor]

Of the classic pre-3e rulesets, it's my edition of choice. But it needs houseruling. Honestly, I'd rather play 3.0, but any future 2e games would start with core on top followed by some Player's Option material, and then elements from the splats.

The PHBRs are great for flavor but mechanically... eeeeeeee. I mostly use them for guidance, as a DM, for using the Player's Option books to design classes-- they're invaluable for really nailing down the alternate race/class selection that I'm trying to implement.

 

[Karsten]

I was introduced to this game back in early 90's with 2ed rules. Ever since I have not changed.
2nd edition along with some house ruling is by far the best set to play....and still today I follow this path.

The most played by me are FR, Planescape and Ravenloft.

In all honesty I do not like any other edition (3rd and on) as I consider them to be heavily "computer" oriented.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I played 2E until I got sick of it and moved on to other roleplaying games for a while (mostly WEG Star Wars and WW Vampire). I got a bit tired of D&D "being in a rut" with the class-based system while most other "modern" RPGs were going to an ala carte menu of choices to build characters.

Still, if I was to go back to a previous version of the game these days, 2E would be my version of choice. I'd likely stick with just the "core" books, maybe some of the earlier Complete books, but not any of the Player Option books. And while I'd happily use any of the 2E game worlds, I'd steer clear of the modules for 1E or homebrew fare - most of the 2E modules were railroads and/or tried to be too grounded and failed to account for the fantastic elements of a non-medieval fantasy world.

However, this was the edition I got myself published ("The Winter Tapestry" in Dungeon), which had been what I'd dreamed of doing since I started playing D&D. Unfortunately, it happened a few months before TSR went bankrupt, so I backed away from my dream of working as a game designer.

Wow, a testament to how big a backlog of accepted modules Dungeon had, if you had the module accepted in 1997 (when TSR went bust), and it wasn't published till 3 years late. (Issue #78, Jan/Feb 2000)

 

[Stormonu]

Wow, a testament to how big a backlog of accepted modules Dungeon had, if you had the module accepted in 1997 (when TSR went bust), and it wasn't published till 3 years late. (Issue #78, Jan/Feb 2000)

Gah! Been a while (damn, 20 years ago!) and I must have gotten my timelines somewhat mixed, but I still have the acceptance letter from Jan 6, 1999 (after 3 previous months of working on it). Second best day of my life to see it in print.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Gah! Been a while (damn, 20 years ago!) and I must have gotten my timelines somewhat mixed, but I still have the acceptance letter from Jan 6, 1999 (after 3 previous months of working on it). Second best day of my life to see it in print.

Oh, don't worry, I actually wasn't disbelieving you! I knew they had backlogs, I just thought 3 years was long - but put it down to TSR's troubles. 1999 and then published in 2000 is actually much closer together than I imagined. Christopher Perkins had so many modules accepted that the magazine was publishing them for every single issue even AFTER he became editor.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

2e was where I started, around 1994 or 95, and when you count the multiple simultaneous campaigns, 24+ hour sessions, and general pleasant chaos of youth, I probably still played it more altogether than every other edition or game put together. The various rules add-ons were truly modular; none depended on anything else and they were all independent.

That setup prompted a LOT of experimentation and bending of rules, which was even more heavily and explicitly encouraged back then. To play the game WAS to write the game, and it was great.

I feel sorry for those who have either come into the hobby since WotC started trying to codify everything but breathing into discrete rules and set up the unified mechanic that by its nature started discouraging real innovation and progress.

See, there are two schools on this matter (maybe more, nobody feel left out, please ). FOR ME, who started playing in the mid-70's with the LBBs, 2e felt very packaged. I look at it now and what I see is a bunch of disconnected and not really integrated parts that required an amazing amount of effort to even use, as-is. Whereas everything from 3e onward (definitely 4e onward) provides all the basic tools, and a solid formula for extensions. I can spend my creative resources on the things that matter, not on how the heck to munge together all the 9 different systems for martial arts that exist in 2e+OA...
Maybe because I got to playing D&D when the first bits of the rulebook literally said "this is just some material you can use to make a fantastical fantasy wargaming campaign" but FOR ME there's no question of not being able to just add whatever I want, nor any reason not to, maybe beyond "someone else is already doing this better than I can, so I will go use their version", which is legitimate, but a WIN in my book, as now I can do some other crazy thing. Speaking at least of 4e (I am no expert on 5e, don't really play it much) but there are a HUGE amount of areas where you can exercise your own creativity in terms of material and even subsystems.

 

[MGibster]

I started playing 1st edition but it was 2nd edition where I started spending my hard earned money to purchase books. $18 for a PHB was a lot of money when I was 13. It's been more than twenty years since I've played 2nd edition so memories of specific rules are a bit fuzzy but I do remember liking it. What I remember most about 2nd edition is that it was the golden age of settings. Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Birthright, Al-Qadim, and Planescape were all pretty darned good.

 

[MGibster]

And I will both criticize and praise kits. I think the idea behind kits was to further customize your character and I generally like that in any game I play. There were a lot of kits there were uninteresting, some that were overpowered, and some that were just weird. I mean the Amazon one was completely odd to me in a setting where female fighters weren't uncommon. I think the Amazon kit gave women a bonus to fighting men who were unfamiliar with the concept of women fighters. Even in the 1990s, the idea of a woman being a fighter wasn't exactly shocking.

 

[billd91]

I think the Amazon kit gave women a bonus to fighting men who were unfamiliar with the concept of women fighters. Even in the 1990s, the idea of a woman being a fighter wasn't exactly shocking.

Maybe, but for those DMs who want to portray a "historical" setting (whether sincerely or as a cover for their own male chauvinism), the character could reasonably claim to get more mileage out of that option.

 

[Ulfgeir]

I played in a long campaign back when it came out. I do recall that I wasn't quite that fond of THAC0. But it was better than 1e.

Have played all versions of D&D as far as I recall. I wouldn't mind playing it again, but I think 5e is much better. Only version I wouldn't play again is 4e. That was a computergame without a computer.