I've figured it out.

[maddman75]

I started right when 2e came out. We had burned out, and had pretty much stopped playing by then. When 3e came out it got us all playing again.

 

[grodog]

None of the four groups I played with migrated from 1e to 2e, in part because of what die_kluge characterized as a shift that screwed players (at least two campaigns had monk- and assassin PCs), but moreso I think because of the dumbing down/sanitizing of D&D that early 2e espoused: removal of demons and devils as tanari and bateezu, and Jim Ward's "mom-ifying" vision for 2e:

Avoiding the Angry Mother Syndrome is something that I talk about quite often at TSR, Inc. Simply put, if a topic will anger the normally calm, caring mother of a gamer, we arenít interested in addressing that topic in any of our game products. Yes, I know that our company sells adventures full of swordsmen slashing their way through armies, with foul, smelly monsters waiting everywhere to crunch and eat player characters of every description. But I also know that there are clear differences between fighting for its own sake and fighting for a good cause. The "good cause" part is largely what role-playing is and should be all about.

[snip]

Here is a case to illustrate this point. Ever since the Monster Manual came out in 1977, TSR has gotten a letter or two of complaint each week. All too often, such letters were from people who objected to the mention of demons and devils in that game book. One letter each week since the late 1970s adds up to a lot of letters, and I thought a lot about those angry moms. When the AD&D 2nd Edition rules came out, I had the designers and editors delete all mention of demons and devils. The game still has lots of tough monsters, but
we now have a few more pleased moms as well. I know there are many of you out there who are saying to yourselves, "Well, I am going to use demons and devils in my game no matter what TSR does!" That's fine with us. Free choice is one of the positive aspects of role-playing.

And so went the soul of the game....

 

[Evilhalfling]

My group (all three of us) happily switched to 2nd it wasnt all that different from late first.
NW profeciences (from survival guides), removal of some odd, rarely played classes. Okay So my halfling monk suffered but offically he wasnt allowed to be a monk anyway ... Codification of the THACO over using tables for attack rolls (my DMG was looking ratty) more class choice for demihumans, these were all good things. Later we realized that the NW prof system was unrealistic and nearly unsusable, that cleric spells by sphere were terrible, stoneskin was broken, unarmed combat made no sense, etc. It was easy to pull resources from first, like drug and alchol effects, better magical research rules, tax systems, government, mass combat etc.

I branched off into other games, odd settings (Dark Sun, Planescape, Galantri) and flatly refused to play with skills and powers rules. I didn't fully accept 3.0 when it came out, refusing to use sorcerers or 1/2 orcs, but we had just ended a campaign, so it was a good time for a change.

Looking back on 2ed I can see the flaws more clearly and would never go back.

 

[Starglim]

I thought it was about time to buy the 2e Players' Handbook a couple of years after it came out, read it through, put it on the shelf and continued playing 1e. I didn't change over to 2e until probably 10 years later when I moved to Sydney and joined a group playing with the Players' Option books.

 

[Wombat]

I'm an oddity.

I quite playing whan 1st ed AD&D came out

I started with D&D (or OD&D as it seems to be known nowadays), and then more or less dropped out of the D&Dverse for other rpgs until 3e came out. At that point, due to a move and trying to set up a new game group, I found it was far easier to come up with a D&D group again than anything else.

I played a couple individual sessions of AD&D 1 and 2 in between, but that was very rare. RuneQuest and Ars Magica held my real interest. Basically in those days, D&D was something to make fun of. **shurg** Different times, different ways.

 

[Victim]

I started playing in 2e.

 

[Razz0putin]

If you've got the right group it doesn't matter what the rules are. The rules can help but the best group can do wonders with the worst rules. However the system can help smooth things along to the perfect game we all see in our minds or the system could fight us every step of the way.

 

[RichGreen]

Hi,

I got very excited by the 2e rules, but we finished our 1e FR campaign off first, then started a new 2e campaign with new PCs. 2e was a big improvement on 1e, but the splat books and later Skills and Powers made the game a bit unwieldy. Could too many supplements overload 3.x in a similar way if the WotC designers don't think carefully before introducing too many optional extras? Not sure.

I played a couple individual sessions of AD&D 1 and 2 in between, but that was very rare. RuneQuest and Ars Magica held my real interest. Basically in those days, D&D was something to make fun of. **shurg** Different times, different ways.

This rings true with me. Runequest, Call of Cthulhu and various other RPGs of the 80s and 90s were seen as much more sophisticated and grown up (and some of them actually are!). People laughed at D&D until 3e came out. Seems to be more acceptable nowadays.

Cheers



Richard

 

[Razz0putin]

You really should seperate wasn't playing from wasn't born
they are very distinct differences for not playing

 

[the Jester]

2e came out just as I was starting college. Both myself and a new friend went to buy the 2e PHB the day it came out and got the first two copies our FLGS sold. We immediately (I mean, a few days later) started a game. All my old friends (well, nigh-all, anyhow) were gone by that time- so all the 1e pcs became background characters.

One thing about 'the switch'- it was much easier to switch to 2e. I didn't have to restat anything, really, unless it was a cleric, assassin or monk. But the switch to 3e requires extensive rewriting of the campaign's fundamentals (especially religion, or at least the way clerics work, but also including every npc- none of them had feats before!). I think a lot of teh hat for 2e comes from how much of an improvement 3e was over it. If 1e was a nice blt, 2e took off the mayo, added cheese and switched the butter lettuce for iceberg. Different, but not too much; different enough to annoy a lot of people but similar enough to sway them despite that. But- continuing the metaphor- 3e threw out the blt entirely in favor of something on a toasted sesame seed roll, with a delicious spicy chicken patty, entirely different fixin's and a heavy dose of onions as well! It's pretty far from the original sandwich, but it's still a sandwich.

In retrospect, the one thing I think 3e should have taken more of from 2e was specializing the clerics. I understand the philosophy behind the return to a 'main spell list' type of class, but I wish they'd done it differently- with many more domains per cleric and far fewer spells on the 'base list.' Yes, it would be tricky to balance; isn't the whole system?