New School Thinking of Going Ol' School

[Dragonhelm]

Like the OP I have been inclined to return to 2e. I have mentioned it to my players with predictable responses from them.

*players that like simple combat and dislike looking up rules (viewing this as a waste of gametime) Liked the idea.

*players that have no real intrest in Rules Mastery. liked the idea

*players that like Rules Mastery. dislike the idea

*players that like to "build" characters for specific abilities without interference from the DM. dislike the idea

I think that just goes to show that there are different tastes and styles in gaming. It really isn't a matter of one edition being better than another. It's just that each one offers something different.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

The last time I was browsing through my 2e PHB, I was reminded how much it explicitly covered these cases. It even tells you how to handle certain things if you aren't using NWPs, since they were officially optional.

This thread prompted me to pull out my 2E books, and I agree; they do a pretty good job of explaining things like this.

I never played 2E, much, because I couldn't stand the direction TSR was heading. (Bad adventures, shafting Greyhawk, crappy interior art in the new core books, excising all the cool stuff from the DMG, sanitized and PC art, excising demons & devils, tons of splat books, et cetera.) However, I think the core 2E rules were pretty solid.