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<blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9650377" data-attributes="member: 7026594">2E was a very backwards-compatible edition.&nbsp; That's one of the reasons it retained descending AC for example (which was ironic, since the reason Gary kept it in AD&amp;D 1E was for backwards compatibility/familiarity to existing players).&nbsp; 2E was more reverse-compatible with 1E than 3.5 was with 3, IMO.Slaying the Dragon and other sources have made pretty clear the reasons for TSR's bankruptcy, and it wasn't the release of 2E, which they definitely needed to clean up the rules, such as (among other things) implementing a playable initiative system. The bankruptcy had much more to do with lacking awareness and cost controls on boxed sets, setting proliferation cannibalizing their own sales, and the factoring agreement fixing their budgets at the start of the year making them unable to pivot nimbly to adjust to flops or capitalize on successes with immediate reduced or ramped up production.&nbsp; Once they started losing money thanks to those things, and started utilizing the Random House deal to get cash advances on products (which wouldn't necessarily sell, and eventually got returned) to cover their basic operating expenses, their doom was pretty close to sealed.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mannahnin, post: 9650377, member: 7026594"] 2E was a very backwards-compatible edition. That's one of the reasons it retained descending AC for example (which was ironic, since the reason Gary kept it in AD&D 1E was for backwards compatibility/familiarity to existing players). 2E was more reverse-compatible with 1E than 3.5 was with 3, IMO. [I]Slaying the Dragon[/I] and other sources have made pretty clear the reasons for TSR's bankruptcy, and it wasn't the release of 2E, which they definitely needed to clean up the rules, such as (among other things) implementing a playable initiative system. The bankruptcy had much more to do with lacking awareness and cost controls on boxed sets, setting proliferation cannibalizing their own sales, and the factoring agreement fixing their budgets at the start of the year making them unable to pivot nimbly to adjust to flops or capitalize on successes with immediate reduced or ramped up production. Once they started losing money thanks to those things, and started utilizing the Random House deal to get cash advances on products (which wouldn't necessarily sell, and eventually got returned) to cover their basic operating expenses, their doom was pretty close to sealed. [/QUOTE]

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