Referendum on AD&D 2e

[Brennin Magalus]

...and not one person in the entire world, so far as I can tell, prefers 2E to 3E.

i prefer 2edADnD to the expletive that is d02.

but i still rate 2edADnD as not more than just playable.

He meant people from this world, not from the planet Zetar where the "hate of d02 knows no limit."

 

[Evilhalfling]

I grew up with 2nd Ed, and despite the various broken appendeges, it was still fun to role play in.
And If you cant remember 1st ed twinking-
Mostly magic items - hmm so the dice say your 2nd level party found a + 4 sword - okay,
Ever played in a party with a drow ?
Cavilier - Nuff said
multiclassed elven wizards- so you could get the elven chain loophole
Girdles of Gaint Str - the least gave +4 to hit, +7 damage.
Subdued Dragons as pets - *sigh*

Not that 1st wasn't fun, But I was very young when I played it.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Second Edition drove me away from D&D (toward Shadowrun, CP2020, and GURPS). 3E brought me back.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Another 42% are saying that they would play 2e but ONLY if the best DM they can imagine ran it, and otherwise there's no way they'd do it.

The poll doesn't say "the best DM you can imagine." It says "a good DM." I won't play more than a few games of any system without a DM who's at least decent, and I imagine many others hold that opinion as well, so I hardly think this answer biases the poll as much as you're claiming. Not that it couldn't have been worded better, but you're twisting it at least as much as you claim the question itself is doing so.

 

[Nisarg]

The poll doesn't say "the best DM you can imagine." It says "a good DM." I won't play more than a few games of any system without a DM who's at least decent, and I imagine many others hold that opinion as well, so I hardly think this answer biases the poll as much as you're claiming. Not that it couldn't have been worded better, but you're twisting it at least as much as you claim the question itself is doing so.

And when you read "a good DM", in your mind you are thinking of your personal favourite dm (let's call him Ted), the guy you would want running just about any game because of his skill at DMing. Ergo, the ONLY thing the people answering the poll in that way are saying is that they like Ted and how he DM's and think Ted could make anything good. They are also explicitly saying that if Ted gave them the choice between Ted running 2e and Ted running 3e they'd pick 3e all the way.

To twist the "middle" answer to being pro-2e or even neutral-2e is a highly disingenous way of making 2nd edition seem far less hated than it really is.

Nisarg

 

[Mouseferatu]

And when you read "a good DM", in your mind you are thinking of your personal favourite dm (let's call him Ted), the guy you would want running just about any game because of his skill at DMing.

Not even remotely. I can't claim to know what you are thinking--and, unlike some, wouldn't presume to--but I can tell you what I was thinking.

I was thinking "A good DM." Maybe one of the several I've played with, be it my favorite or not. Maybe somebody I haven't met, if I had friends who vouched for his skills.

I was most assuredly not thinking solely of the best DM I've ever gamed with. In point of fact, I'd be hard pressed even to choose which of several people qualifies as the best, since they all have various strengths.

Assuming that you know what's in the minds of everyone who selected one of the options is the absolute height of arrogance. If that's what you meant when you answered, fine. You're entitled to that. Everything else is supposition, and poor supposition at that.

 

[FireLance]

Did I enjoy playing 2e all those years ago? Of course I did.

Would I play 2e now that I have 3.5e? Not a chance. Even if I can't find anyone to play with, I can still work on something else: writing up a new PrC, writing a module, etc.

Just as an analogy, think of okra (a kind of vegetable; some of you may know it as "ladies' fingers"). I don't really like okra. Even if you had the best chef in the world cook it up and serve it to me, I probably wouldn't want to eat it.

 

[Treebore]

I must be a good DM. My players and I played 2e for years, including a year after 3e came out. Of course I stayed away from the munchkin crap in the "complete" and "option" books and did my best to adjudicate gaming situations as sensibly as I could. So I guess I was playing 3e well before it even came out. Except my skill system was percentile based. Have to admit I like the 3e skill system better, especially with some house rules. But I have always strived to have my game world "make sense" along with the characters in them. 3e just gave me an easier game mechanic to do it with, along with my house rules, since there are plenty of things that still don't "make sense" in 3.x.

BTW, "realism" is almost always why something doesn't make sense to a player or DM, so the closer to real the rules allow you to get, the more sense they will make. Of course then all the tables and situational modifiers will greatly increase the complexity of the system. Slowing it down to below a snails pace. So the bottom line is the trade off, playability versus realism. What is the balance? Depends on your fellow gamers and DM.

As for switching to 3e, there is no real need. As long as you are playing an rpg, whether 3e, 2e, GURPS, Traveller, Shadowrun, RIFTS, or whatever, that is FUN, everything else is secondary. That is the main reason why my group played 2e and took a year to switch over. We were already having fun doing things the way we were so there was no pressing need to switch over immediately.

 

[Nisarg]

Not even remotely. I can't claim to know what you are thinking--and, unlike some, wouldn't presume to--but I can tell you what I was thinking.

I was thinking "A good DM." Maybe one of the several I've played with, be it my favorite or not. Maybe somebody I haven't met, if I had friends who vouched for his skills.

I was most assuredly not thinking solely of the best DM I've ever gamed with. In point of fact, I'd be hard pressed even to choose which of several people qualifies as the best, since they all have various strengths.

Assuming that you know what's in the minds of everyone who selected one of the options is the absolute height of arrogance. If that's what you meant when you answered, fine. You're entitled to that. Everything else is supposition, and poor supposition at that.

No, its basic theory of poll design. Anyone who works at a polling firm would tell you the same thing.. the question asked in this poll was analogous to asking "would you vote for the Blue party if they had good politicians in it?"
When the pollee thinks of "good politicians" he'll think of his definition of a good political figure, and memories of particular politicians he admired will come to mind. In other words, its a very leading question, and one that often betrays fundamental mistrust in a party.

To give a real world example (and I hope this doesn't get considered political discussion): before Kerry was picked for pres. candidate, there were a number of polls made, pitting each of the 9 or so Dem candidates against Bush in popularity. They all failed against him in those polls, he beat them all. But when an "unnamed democrat" ran against Bush, Bush lost bad. Why was that?
The polling firms concluded from this information that there was a serious current of dissent against the Bush presidency, but at the same time a serious distrust of the democratic candidates. People voted against bush vs. the "unnamed democrat" because they imagined that "unnamed democrat" in their mind to be John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton or who ever their favourite democratic president was.

So, bringing it back to the question of our poll in this thread, it may be true that you're a highly atypical human being who wasn't thinking of a particularly great DM when you answered the supposedly "middle" answer to the question. But the average person who answered that question was very much thinking that they'd play 2nd edition if it had a really good DM (and were thinking of a particular DM they liked while doing it), who would overcome their DISLIKE of 2e. Otherwise, they'd have answered the with the third "I'd love to" answer... that's the answer chosen by the minority 20% who liked 2e in and of itself, and did not require some kind of "push polling" to get them to vote favourably.

Nisarg

 

[Zappo]

I'd play a one shot, provided that the DM is good. Not a campaign, though.