How is 2nd Edition?

[Xyxox]

No. Characters not just murderour theives in handbook. In Al Qadim, they make my culture bad.

Ahhh, I see what you're saying.

But Al Qadim is not about an Earth Arabic culture. It's loosely based on ancient myths from the region (from literally centuries prior to anything resembling current culture). This is similar to what's done with myths from western and Eastern regions, too.

It's a game and is in no way intended to represent anything from existing cultures in our world.

 

[Murad]

I see from you location that you're from Saudia Arabia, so I can appreciate your distinct view of the setting. And I would not have the audacity to tell you your wrong, coming from a western point of view I wouldn't know. However, just a friendly piece of advice (I'm not a mod or anything): politics and the like are really not good subjects for discussion here, so you may wish to pull back a touch.

I sorry. No mean to offend. But to explain. Al Qadim trouble becuase it show Arabs not as good muslim, but as arab in time of Jahiliyya. With many god.

 

[billd91]

I sorry. No mean to offend. But to explain. Al Qadim trouble becuase it show Arabs not as good muslim, but as arab in time of Jahiliyya. With many god.

TSR generally wanted to avoid directly involving too many contemporary real religions. Quite frankly, I think you'd find a lot of Muslims far more enraged about Al-Qadim if it tried to actually incorporate Islam into the game.

 

[Murad]

TSR generally wanted to avoid directly involving too many contemporary real religions. Quite frankly, I think you'd find a lot of Muslims far more enraged about Al-Qadim if it tried to actually incorporate Islam into the game.

No. We accurate depiction of Muslims is welcome. We are not pagans.

 

[Remathilis]

I sorry. No mean to offend. But to explain. Al Qadim trouble becuase it show Arabs not as good muslim, but as arab in time of Jahiliyya. With many god.

Fair enough, but by that logic Forgotten Realms is offensive to Europeans because they show us as polytheistic and pagan instead of Christian.

Still culture insensitivity wasn't there point; they were going for a feel of 1,001 Arabrian Nights, not a modern (or even medieval) view of Arabian culture.

 

[Dausuul]

2E is for the settings. I would not myself be inclined to run or play it; if I were going to go for retro gaming with quirky Gygaxian charm, I'd rather play 1E, in which those elements are less diluted and I get to ogle the bare-breasted succubi.

However, if I were going to pick a prefab setting to game in, there is no doubt in my mind that I would choose one of the settings from 2E - even if we ended up using 4E for the rules. Dark Sun is magnificent, or was before the adventures and the novels trashed it. I've never played Birthright but heard many good things about it. Real-world religious issues aside, I found Al-Qadim very appealing. Spelljammer and Planescape weren't my cup of tea, but they were still very impressive in terms of vision and depth.

Council of Wyrms? Uh... yeah, that didn't happen. You don't need to see my identification.

 

[jdrakeh]

I do see Murad's issue and thank him for his perspective on the matter. That said, perhaps the dicsussion of arguably insensitive religious depictions in RPGs should be re-directed to The Circvs as facilitating said discussion is specifically part of that site's mission statement (and, likewise, seeing as how such discussion isn't technically allowed here).

 

[Umbran]

No. We accurate depiction of Muslims is welcome. We are not pagans.

Well, to be fair, the pseudo-European and pseudo-Asian cultures are depicted in similar lights. Real cultures are rather too nuanced to cover in a couple hundred pages of a rulebook, and D&D has generally avoided officially approaching any monotheistic religion.

And, for similar reasons, EN World has rules against discussion of real-world religion. There are too many conflicting (and understandably strong) opinions of what would be the right way to approach it - there's no way to deal with the subject that wouldn't offend someone.

It is an interesting subject, but this isn't the place for it.

 

[Xyxox]

2E is for the settings. I would not myself be inclined to run or play it; if I were going to go for retro gaming with quirky Gygaxian charm, I'd rather play 1E, in which those elements are less diluted and I get to ogle the bare-breasted succubi.

However, if I were going to pick a prefab setting to game in, there is no doubt in my mind that I would choose one of the settings from 2E - even if we ended up using 4E for the rules. Dark Sun is magnificent, or was before the adventures and the novels trashed it. I've never played Birthright but heard many good things about it. Real-world religious issues aside, I found Al-Qadim very appealing. Spelljammer and Planescape weren't my cup of tea, but they were still very impressive in terms of vision and depth.

Council of Wyrms? Uh... yeah, that didn't happen. You don't need to see my identification.

Dark Sun was one of the all time coolest settings. Gritty, deadly, and full of psionic-mage-dragonny coolness.

I ran a Spelljammer campaign for about seven years. Great fun. Hit all the major campaign setting crystal spheres during it, though Realmspace was the primary center of the campaign.

Ravenloft became the rage in 2E, too.

And for sheer bulk, the Realms had it all.

I tried to start a Council of Wyrms campaign. Gave up during (not after) the character creation session.

 

[aurance]

Second edition probably had the largest amount of mechanical variation. You could have played a game more detailed and fiddly in rules set than any other edition of D&D, via Player's Option. Or you could have played a game more bare-bones than Basic D&D Cyclopedia, via just using the three core books. I considered this a great strength of the 2e system. Overall I loved my experience with 2e.