Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8631338" data-attributes="member: 82106">Just as a note of interest. I ran both 1e and 2e, and played both very extensively, for their entire lifespans as 'current' games (IE 10+ years for each) and I think they are VERY DIFFERENT games. That is, at the level of classes, spells, and combat stuff, they are mechanically compatible. However, that is pretty deceptive, as the two games try to do very different things. The exploration rules of 1e are basically non-existent in 2e for instance. There's none of the structured movement through the dungeon with each action taking a certain amount of time and triggering wandering monster checks, burning torches and rations, etc. in 2e, those rules are virtually entirely elided. There are 'wandering monster' tables in 2e, but their purpose is VERY DIFFERENT, they are there for the GM to use 'whenever his story needs it' to generate something to goad the PCs with! Likewise in the wilderness you run into 'random' monsters when the GM feels like it happening (there is a roll to see if you meet something at least). The tables themselves are to be created BY THE GM, there are no 'stock' tables (there are some examples and then various products do provide some) as there are in AD&D 1e.2e is a game in which a DM creates a story, either conceiving of it ahead of time, or possibly weaving together stuff that happens in play starting with some basic pregenerated starting seed adventure. The players, through the PCs then experience that story, possibly altering it and shaping it to whatever degree the DM allows. Leveling, which is a reward for expert play in 1e, becomes more or less just a device to illustrate different phases of the story in 2e. Its up to the GM what kind of XP is netted for any given action (you do still get XP for killing monsters), so at best it is a 'carrot' for following along with the plot and staying in character (because only the thief for example will get XP for stealing treasure, the wizard will get it for clever spell castings). How much XP is derived from 'activities' vs monsters is left up to the DM. Likewise elements that were reward structures in 1e become tools for the GM, or maybe the players if allowed, to use for story purposes. This includes things like keeps, followers, etc. Things like magic item creation, spell research, acquiring artifacts, etc. is all moved from 'prep work' to essentially narrative elements where the DM either hands them as tasks to the PCs ("make the sword of Gork Killing, cause you gotta kill Gork.") or at best the DM may allow a PC to do one of these things, or not as it suites them. All this is rather different in tone and design than 1e.I am curious if GDS can explain why 2e doesn't really work. GNS IMHO seems to explain why it was not working for us rather well.</blockquote>

Verification