No Second Edition Love?

[Philotomy Jurament]

Correct, that I know of; the people I've talked to who went to other game systems after AD&D was because they were already getting fed up with the mechanics of AD&D, and the 2nd edition was either not enough, or the "nail in the coffin.

I *wanted* to continue playing OAD&D, but when 2E came out, almost everyone I played with wanted to move to 2E, and outright rejected 1E. I ended up proposing BECMI, instead, which was happily accepted. I found this odd, at the time (and still find it odd), but it turned out great.

(Incidentally, that's the only time I've ever had a problem "selling" a system a wanted to run. Usually it isn't a problem.)

 

[Ranger REG]

Some observations:

1) I have met far more people who played 2e RAW than 1E RAW, by which I mean I have *never* met anyone who ran 1e RAW, ever. I know that these people exist, but when people hold forth on 1e's superiority they often really mean 1E without the official surprise, initiative, tactical movement, unarmed combat or armour type rules. And of course, everybody adopted THAC0, which was ported into 2e anyway. Maybe 2e's core systems were inferior to a version of 1e that you lobotomized and stitched back together, but in those cases, the credit doesn;t belong to 1e. It belongs to the "surgeon."

Does 2e RAW means 2e + Complete Handbook or 2e-Rev + Player's Option?

There isn't much to update 2e because it is nothing more than a major update of 1e. Pure and simple.

3e, OTOH, overhauls half if not most of the rules.

2) 2e suited the fashions of the time, which were geared to highly standardized game systems, exemplified by GURPS. In fact, if you read Dragon Magazine or were paying attention to general scuttlebutt at the time, gamers *constantly* complained about confusing powergaming combos and strange exceptions interfering with their games. There was a very strong movement to add some point-based schemes to the game (and these eventually made it into the DMG in a limited way) and a real hatred of oddball classes. Much of the community felt stung over Unearthed Arcana's new classes and races.

Didn't realize the majority back in the 80's didn't like the original UA. It's like high school all over again, now outcasted by geek "in-crowd."

3) This is going to ruffle some feathers, but the fact is that this is a 3e-based community drawn in large part by WotC marketing, and part of WotC's strategy was to encourage as much dislike of the old edition as possible. It's sound marketing to try and disrupt the remaining 2e player network, since it recruited players without having any strong presence as consumers. In other words, the company wanted to you pay some money and play 3e instead of game with an existing 2e group that hadn't bought anything since '94. This community is a legacy of that strategy.

Funny, I met 3e gamers who were 1e gamers that were singled out by the 2e rules. 3e made it more inviting for 1e gamers.

4) The last point is simple enough: 2e went for a decade or so without any major updates. If TSR provided adventure support for a few concentrated lines and came out with 2.5e in 1995 I have a feeling that sentiments would be much different.

As stated earlier, 2e was a major update for 1e. There are few differences between the two, which compiles the best of 1e core rules and supplementary rules in the 3-volume core set.

 

[eyebeams]

Does 2e RAW means 2e + Complete Handbook or 2e-Rev + Player's Option?

It obviously means neither, as you're trying to define one or more optional books as corebooks. The PHB, DMG and MM were the 2e corebooks.

There isn't much to update 2e because it is nothing more than a major update of 1e. Pure and simple.

There are several substantial differences to 2e, many of which made it to 3e, like:

* Int bonus for proficiencies.
* Massive death threshold.
* Bard class.
* Light armor combat and a major revision for the ranger.
* Specialist wizards.
* Non-generic priests.
* Thieves without hardcoded abilities.
* Much different initiative, surprise and weapon vs armor rules.
* Critical hits and rules to defend instead of attack.
* Called shots.
* And more . . .

Didn't realize the majority back in the 80's didn't like the original UA. It's like high school all over again, now outcasted by geek "in-crowd."

UA was one of the most error-ridden books ever produced by TSR, and introduced multiple new systems that didn't balance properly agains existing rules. When you print the Cavalier's HD incorrectly, that ain't good.

Funny, I met 3e gamers who were 1e gamers that were singled out by the 2e rules. 3e made it more inviting for 1e gamers.

If 2e was nothing more than an update of 1e, how could 1e players be aliented by a rules system you say is substantially the same? Not that these alienated people probably played 1e RAW . . .

 

[Henry]

If 2e was nothing more than an update of 1e, how could 1e players be alienated by a rules system you say is substantially the same? Not that these alienated people probably played 1e RAW . . .

If it's strictly rules, Half-orcs were tossed, illusionists lost a lot of their uniqueness with the advent of specialist classes, people who went through hell to play bards were confronted with the bard being easy as pie to enter, weapon specialization was drastically reduced in power, rangers lost their amazingly munchkinish giant-damage bonus and extra hit dice, assassins, cavaliers and barbarians were tossed, and basically more restrictions built in where some people enjoyed the "fuzzy-grayness." However, the majority of people did like we did -- they used the core systems of 2E (or their own systems which were probably already remarkably similar to 2E thanks to house rules), but they added in the bits and pieces of the older version that they liked.

Now, if we're talking about people who were growing gradually bored with AD&D's loosely-structured mechanics, AD&D didn't change enough to make them happy, and a lot of them left completely - hence the upswing in existing games like Rolemaster, Runequest, HERO/Champions, etc. etc.

However, you're right on the majority of players -- they probably went linearly straight from 1E, to 2E, to the Player's option books, straight on to 3E.

 

[Desdichado]

Correct, that I know of; the people I've talked to who went to other game systems after AD&D was because they were already getting fed up with the mechanics of AD&D, and the 2nd edition was either not enough, or the "nail in the coffin." We never left AD&D, but we heavily modified the mechanics to every single game our groups ever played, each person putting their own spin on it.

Now, when we play 3E, we mainly play exactly like the rules, but the DM just accepts or denies different rules sources/classes/feats/spells/etc., rather than sitting down and hammering out an amalgam of the wishes of player and DM.

ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE ALERT!! THE FOLLOWING MEANS NOTHING TO ANYONE EXCEPT FOR ME!

That's exactly what happened to me too. I left D&D prior to 2e, and while I looked at 2e from time to time and was interested in some of the settings, if nothing else, I'm not sure that I actually understood at the time that it was a new edition as opposed to just new printings, revisions, etc. 2e still looked too much like 1e to tempt me back, in other words.

 

[Henry]

That's exactly what happened to me too.

Yeah, I know -- you're one of my case studies.

 

[Desdichado]

Yeah, I know -- you're one of my case studies.

Yeah, I'm an odd guy in terms of taste, I suppose. Even now, I'm interested in post 3e D&D because it's flexible enough to allow games other that that which it seems obviously optimized for. When running, I almost never go down in dungeons, for example, and although I've made my peace with the battlemat, I'm not really a bit fan of it.

Anyway--yeah.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

No second edition love...

...Not from me anyway.

I'll just say that 2nd edition D&D was one of things that helped me to branch out and look at other games. I'd say that from 89' to 98' the majority of what I played was not D&D related at all. I couldn't stand FR or Dragonlance settings and it seemed to be all anyone wanted to play in. It's a dislike that stays with me to this day and I was one of the people who enjoyed the Elminster articles in Dragon and looked forward to the FR Boxed set.

Anyway, I actually gave away all of my 2nd Ed core books a few years ago along with most of my 1st ed material. I only kept the classic setting books and modules. (both Greyhawk Boxes, The Original FR boxed, 1st Ravenloft box, G1-3, D1-3, Q1, Temple of Elemental Evil, Scourge of the Slave Lords, White Plume Mountain, Tomb of Horrors and of course Keep on the Borderlands).

I also kept my 3 hole punched Red and Blue books. I learned to play D&D from those so I have a bit of an attachment to them. But 2E? Meh...

 

[Turanil]

I began with BD&D but quickly jumped onto AD&D 1e. When 2e came out, we immediately adopted it. I thought that 2e rules were better than 1e, except for the missing Monk and Assassin (that nonetheless came back in some Scarlet Brotherhood supplement). In any case, considering to the endles amount of time I did spent houseruling this or that, the rules clearly didn't fit. 3e was much an improvement in this reard, but I did like the art much less, and would have prefered 3e more in some 2e vein... Fortunately I later got C&C (despite it tries to be 1e like rather than 2e like).

Anyway, what I did like best in 2e, was the layout and art of the 1st printing of the books (on the other hand, the 2nd printing, the black cover books, was meh... :\ ).

 

[prosfilaes]

The one thing I notice about 2e is how easy it is to create a "munchkinized" character. I think the term comes from 2e, and it makes sense. Skills & Powers was an AWFUL book from that perspective.

I never saw anyone use the Skills & Powers books, nor even much use of the kits when I played 2e. Someone using a cleric class from Faiths and Avatars did get an adventure thrown at him once, when he single-handedly used his divinations to circumvent the whole adventure.

The funny thing is, as players, we never did this. We often created characters with more, um, "Character" in 2e than in other systems, and I could never figure out why. We're the same players in 3e, the system works a lot better... and yet, people now use that system to create characters more based around the rules than the personality. It's an affliction my whole group suffers from, in one sense or another.

3ed seems to put so much emphasis on building your character, whereas so much was set at the start in earlier versions. Even the choices you could make in 2e, didn't depend on what feat or what skills you had taken at earlier levels.