No Second Edition Love?

[RFisher]

Where's the second edition love?

Most of the questions posted to the WotC out-of-print forum seem to be 2e.

Last time I googled "AD&D" I turned up more 2e stuff than 1e.

2e brought us many useful and important revisions: cleric spheres, a 1st level bard class, customization of thief skills, higher demihuman level limits, Thac0 standard, specialist mages, more class/race options, an excellent ranger class, and some internal consistency about prime requisites.

Plus, it brought us Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft, etc.

Not everyone sees all of those things as either useful or important. (^_^)

It wasn't so long after 2e came out that I abandoned (A)D&D seemingly forever. Likewise, it was a bit of 2e on a whim that started me back on the road to enjoying (A)D&D again.

Recently I looked at the core 2e books & decided that if I dropped all the optional rules & maybe used a couple of the DMG options I'd have a game that I'd like a lot.

 

[Greg K]

On another point, Gregk, you actually liked the Complete Priest? Good grief, I thought it was a complete waste of dead trees. Let's take the 2e priest, which isn't an unbalanced class on its own, nerf it hard to the point where the class is pretty much useless and then try to tell everyone that this is how priests should be.

Overall, yes. It actually got me thinking a lot about the pantheons I designed and differentiating priests of different deities through more than just spell list/spheres. Is the book flawless? No. However, I found it much more useful and thought inspiring then any of the current Complete books (most of which I am lucky to find ten percent of the content interesting or of use ).

 

[Dragonhelm]

I love 2nd edition. In some ways it will always be more D&D to me than 3.X or 1st ed ever is/was.

Agreed. I began playing around 1991, when 2e was still fairly fresh. I enjoyed much of the game, especially the settings.

Kits didn't bother me, as I was more interested in the role than in balance. I think this is why I like prestige classes as well.

These days, I'd be inclined to use 2e with C&C, though I'd play a D&D game of any edition if the opportunity was there.

 

[Alzrius]

I loved 2E. I started playing with it, and that level of fluff has never been matched before or since. The holisticity of the D&D multiverse with various campaign settings was incredible, and all we have now are faded echoes.

Ironically, 3E/3.5E has a much better rules set than 2E did. It'd be nice to see that kind of fluff with the current crunch (bad business practices notwithstanding).

 

[Greg K]

Y'know, I hear this a lot. That 2e drove players away. Yet, by the time 2e came out, the players were already gone. The fad that was DnD had ended years before 2e hit the stores. I think that 2e gets a very bad rap for somehow driving a stake into the hobby. The hobby was already shrinking pretty rapidly by the time 2e pops up.

Yeah, I don't agree that 2e drove people away. Most people I know that left had a) planned on leaving prior to the release of 2e and 2e actually kept them around a little longer or b)they had already left (either for other systems or the hobby in general).

 

[Psion]

The glories of the editions are:
1e: Adventures
2e: Settings
3e: Rules

So I love each edition for what it was best at.

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

I find 2E unforgiveable for the same reason I find most RPGs unforgiveable and not worth my time: emphasis on pointless simulation and narration and not enough focus on actual game.

 

[dcas]

The first AD&D book I owned was the First Edition Dragonlance Adventures, but everything after that was Second Edition AD&D.

Dragonlance Adventures is essentially 2nd Edition. All of the 2e tropes (nonweapon proficiencies, specialty priests, wizard schools) are already contained in it. I'm not saying that's good or bad, mind you. . . .

 

[jdrakeh]

I find 2E unforgiveable for the same reason I find most RPGs unforgiveable and not worth my time: emphasis on pointless simulation and narration and not enough focus on actual game.

AD&D 2e had an emphasis on simulation and narration? There is about as much attempt to simulate genre ane/or realism in AD&D 2e as there was in AD&D 1e (i.e., not much), while there were absolutely no rules that promoted narrative (either in the literal sense or the flighty Forge sense). I'm curious why you think otherwise. Care to provide some examples of how AD&D 2e emphasizes simulation and narrative?

 

[eyebeams]

There are about as many 2e games running in my area as 3e games, and no 1e games that I know of.