The Inverse Trek Law?

[Ruin Explorer]

Except that WotC is begging the gods that 4e could possibly sell 1/10th as good a 1e. Let us never forget that 1e AD&D is the best selling RPG of all time.

And the lack of effective competition had absolutely nothing to do with that right? And 3E is reponsible for people "leaving for WoW", right, nothing to do with shrinking amounts of time available to play combined with people's lives breaking up gaming groups or anything like that at all.

Spinachat, that's a damn silly argument and you know it. I'd also like to see some sales figures proving that 1E, and I mean 1E, not OD&D, sold 10x better than 3E, because frankly? I seriously doubt it.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I've had a great deal of fun with all three editions so far, and all three have had some major flaws, What I disliked about 2E was the one minute combat round, the strangeness of proficiencies, the lack of the monk in the core book, the lack of demons and devils (yes, I know they were baatezu and tanar'ri), and the art. Yes, the art. It was not good (no offense if the 2E hacks artists are reading this.

What I liked were class kits, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Dragonlance and the emphasis on DM fiat. 2E was also easy to prepare for. You could make a memorable NPC on the fly because there were only a handful of stats that really mattered. In fact, I had all of the character creation tables committed to memory. It was also incredibly easy to houserule without breaking every other system in the game. I also ended up playing more 2e than 1st and 3rd editions combined. All in all, I think its a faulty assessment that 2E sucked. I prefer 3E, but I played the heck out of 2E.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

1e was by far and away the best edition of D&D ever.

Fixed your typo. No, no need to thank me.

 

[Terramotus]

Fixed your typo. No, no need to thank me.

You know darn well that he didn't typo that. You may disagree, but being so dismissive as to suggest that his point is so ludicrous that he couldn't possibly have meant it the way he wrote it, thus he had to be in error, is both childish and contributes absolutely nothing to the discussion.

You could have chosen to point out flaws that made 2E an inferior game, or points that made 1E a vastly superior experience to you. You didn't even bother - instead you posted just a veiled ad hominem attack that served no apparent purpose other than to spread ill will. Congratulations.

Ahem.

Personally, I have some fond memories of 2E, but we played in a heavily houseruled version. Although I'm sure 1E was heavily house ruled by most groups as well. I agree with many other posters that both 1E and 2E felt "easier" to house rule in, since the rules weren't as tight.

I suspect that a lot of what people are talking about when they say that 2E sucked is related to the splatbooks. The core rules were fine, but when you added all of the kits, new classes, optional rules, weapons from the splats, all designed by different people with no coherent design philosophy, the rules snapped like a twig. The Players Option stuff rectified some of this, but selective application often only made things worse. Sure, they weren't Core and could be ignored, but everyone wants to play with the new stuff.

I distinctly remember back in high school playing with two other players at 1st level demolishing a module designed for 4-5 6th level characters. I believe that was the point that, even back then, we realized that enough was enough and we had to start house ruling to make things more balanced.

 

[BryonD]

And the lack of effective competition had absolutely nothing to do with that right? And 3E is reponsible for people "leaving for WoW", right, nothing to do with shrinking amounts of time available to play combined with people's lives breaking up gaming groups or anything like that at all.

Exactly right.

I enjoyed 1e a lot. But the massive success had a lot to do with it being ground breaking, being the only game in town, and vastly fewer alternatives to divide people's time. Hell, when 1e was rocking there was no internet and only three major TV channels. And that is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of things that have changed.

 

[BryonD]

Too bad a lot of people already love 4E and think it promises to be the best edition yet. . . thereby invalidating your hypothesis.

A lot of people loved 2e, but a lot didn't.
A lot of people love all the Trek movies. A lot don't.

Lockstep is not a requirement.

 

[hong]

I prefer Star Wars

 

[The Little Raven]

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home hasn't held up terribly well.

I dunno, it is still the highest grossing Star Trek movie to date (adjusted for inflation and all that). It's also one of the most well-known of the series to non-Trek fans ("You mean, the one with the whales? Nuclear wessels!").

 

[The Little Raven]

...and yet, D&D's highest point was in the early 1980's, when 1e was in full swing.

How do you define "highest point?"

In 2003, Charles Ryan (then Brand Manager of D&D) said that D&D was selling better at that time than any other time in it's history. Since core books are the number one sellers, that would imply that more core books were sold in 3.X than in any other edition, leading one to believe that more people were playing 3.X than any other edition. So, if 3.X had higher sales and more players, then how was D&D at a "highest point" when it wasn't selling as well, nor had as amany players?

 

[Piratecat]

Fixed your typo. No, no need to thank me.

Don't do this, please. It's rude, especially in this context.