D&D 5E what is it about 2nd ed that we miss?

[delericho]

It really seems like 5E pushes the custom background for anyone who isn't extremely new to the game. Like, the ones listed are just examples, and you're supposed to use them as a template for making up your own.

Huh. I didn't get that sense at all. Instead, I got the impression that the DM would be well advised to add a number of new backgrounds, ideally some specifically tailored to his particular campaign, and then have the players choose from the available options (maybe with some further tweaking).

Otherwise, my gut feeling is that it would very quickly drop away from backgrounds having any sort of meaning, and instead devolving to an excuse to min-max those proficiencies. But YMMV, of course.

 

[Ancalagon]

Otherwise, my gut feeling is that it would very quickly drop away from backgrounds having any sort of meaning, and instead devolving to an excuse to min-max those proficiencies. But YMMV, of course.

This is true, but it already is possible to min-max somewhat. If your class and your background have a proficiency in common, you can replace the duplicate by another proficiency as per RAW. I think the GM should make sure that the replacement proficiency makes sense for the background though, but if not for that...

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Otherwise, my gut feeling is that it would very quickly drop away from backgrounds having any sort of meaning, and instead devolving to an excuse to min-max those proficiencies. But YMMV, of course.

Backgrounds have meaning, because they explain where you learned the skills that you have, but they're mostly there as an RP guideline to thinking about your character as more than just a killer/adventurer. Contrast with the approach from any of the earlier editions, that didn't address Background as a separate step, and you would either just put points wherever they were mechanically advantageous (3E) or just have the "skills" associated with only your class (as the DM saw fit).

If you can think of a Background that justifies giving you the two exact skills and tools that you want, then the Background sub-system has done its job. If you've ever played an RPG before, then you already know how to tie your character together, so this step is just a formality.

It's kind of like that whole sub-system with the ... formalized NPC interaction... and the Bonds or Ideals or... whatever. It's all just formalized language to try and get you to treat NPCs as real people with their own motivations. If you already know how to do that, then you can just cut to the chase and play the character without dealing with those... steps.

 

[ZzarkLinux]

YMMV. The Players Option era was what made me quit AD&D. Couldn't stand them.

I understand your notion, but I disagree that the options were bad/harmful.

D&D needed to give players options to remain competitive in the entertainment industry. Internet, nintendo, cd players, xbox, shopping malls, after school activities all "give the players options" for entertainment, without requiring books, gasoline, or 8 hours of scheduled gametime.

I feel that the argument would be better said as "The lack of player options, lack of internet, lack of competition in entertainment industry, and low cost of living allowed D&D and Creative Roleplaying to thrive". I would strongly agree with that !

 

[Dorian_Grey]

I feel that the argument would be better said as "The lack of player options, lack of internet, lack of competition in entertainment industry, and low cost of living allowed D&D and Creative Roleplaying to thrive". I would strongly agree with that !

First, I love this thread so far: some stuff I agree with, some stuff I don't - but I feel that pretty much everyone has been civil, and it's interesting to read the comments and see all the different perspectives on my favorite edition.

Second, I think this comment is spot on - but I feel that there is a place for table top games today and in the future. Now, I have no research backing this up, just anecdotal evidence from talking to gamers at my FLGS, but a lot of people - of all age groups - are talking about how they are getting sick and tired of how modern entertainment works with lock downs, DLC, OPUD (Over Promise Under Deliver) Syndrome, toxic players (think that 13 year old jerk on XBox who apparently spends a lot of time running around sleeping with everyone's mother) and "Pay to Play". Also, and this surprised me, but a lot of younger players were saying that they were burned out on social media and enjoyed the privacy of a table top game. I could be off base, but there is some truth to the fact that DLC and "always on" internet is irrelevant to my 2nd Ed books. And it's not like WotC can turn off my books just because they don't like what I'm doing with them.

So yes, having a lack of player options, lack of internet, lack of competition, and low cost of living does help the game - but AAA pricing for half baked products that don't work (EA Games), Pay to Play, and abusive player bases help the game too. Because you don't have to deal with any of that.

Just a slightly off topic rant! And YMMV!

 

[Troy Benton]

Honestly, it's the settings. I miss Dragonlance. I really miss Planescape. Thankfully I'm getting some Ravenloft with the new content. The 2E settings were so fantastic. There's something to say about 2E being a system geared more for Roleplaying, but 5E still brings a lot of Good Roleplaying on the table. It just depends on the people, were 2E more forced you to. Of course, 2E was never as popular as 5E.

Luckily, there's a little something called Homebrew that I still get to enjoy the old settings with, as long as I have my numerous and all-so-often beat books.

 

[TheLoneRanger1979]

I tend to agree with this, which is one reason I house-rule in one free feat at 1st level.

Now that is one house rule i would love to live by.....

EDIT: did any of you 2E veterans, managed to pull off a 1E ranger in 2E? And how?

 

[Libramarian]

I miss THAC0! But when I use it I say an attack roll is successful if the result is equal or greater than THAC0 or equal or less than AC. This is actually faster and easier than attack bonus/ascending AC. It would work even better in 5e due to bounded accuracy.

I also miss some of the ecology information in the monster manual. It was insane to include a monster's diet in its stat block, but whether it forms packs or is solitary, and whether it's most active during day or night is actually nice to know.

I kind of miss how naive TSR was about player preferences and the commercial viability of different types of products. The game was a mess and they produced a lot of crap for it, but it had an aloof, open-ended feel. 5e by comparison feels panderly and self-referential. More like a toy than a hobby, I guess.

 

[Ancalagon]

Oh, I completely agree my opinion is somewhat contentious. That's partially why I made sure to post it.

That being said, I really do believe it. It led to the greater focus on tactical battlemat play over TotM, and a focus on greater amount of player-driven build customization. Both concepts that, in the '90s, were exactly what I was looking for D&D to do.

I remember greatly enjoying them when we played them, but looking back it seemed like a powergamer's playground...

 

[Ath-kethin]

I remember greatly enjoying them when we played them, but looking back it seemed like a powergamer's playground...

The High Level Campaigns book still sees use behind the scenes at my table, and I liked a lot of stuff from Spells & Magic. The only one I had no real use for was Combat & Tactics, to be honest.

Though I remember a game I joined a while after it began; I took over an NPC kobold thief. The rest of the party consisted of a "paladin," a "wizard," and a "cleric" - in quotes here because they had all used the point building system to hybridize the living daylights out of the classes.

They could all do everything but sucked at EVERYTHING. My kobold ended up being the most effective character in the group, and I also leveled circles around them.

That to me was the biggest problem with the Player's Option stuff - it just wasn't very good at doing what it was supposed to do.

Good times.

 

[TwoSix]

I remember greatly enjoying them when we played them, but looking back it seemed like a powergamer's playground...

Oh, it was.... <nostalgic sigh>

 

[Ancalagon]

The High Level Campaigns book still sees use behind the scenes at my table, and I liked a lot of stuff from Spells & Magic. The only one I had no real use for was Combat & Tactics, to be honest.

I haven't looked at it in *ages* but I remember thinking at the time that the high level campaign book was pretty stellar - useful for any campaign as soon as you hit level 7-8 really, at least in the advice on how to organize and run thing. A lot of that stuff should have been in the DMG

Though I remember a game I joined a while after it began; I took over an NPC kobold thief. The rest of the party consisted of a "paladin," a "wizard," and a "cleric" - in quotes here because they had all used the point building system to hybridize the living daylights out of the classes.

They could all do everything but sucked at EVERYTHING. My kobold ended up being the most effective character in the group, and I also leveled circles around them.

That to me was the biggest problem with the Player's Option stuff - it just wasn't very good at doing what it was supposed to do.

Good times.

That is... peculiar. I remember building a fierce cleric of doom that was basically *almost* as good as a fighter but with, you know, clerical magic. All you had to do was sacrifice half of your sphere and there you go. The 3.0 battle-cleric, you could build that in 2.5.

Are you sure they weren't a bunch of bards?

 

[billd91]

I understand your notion, but I disagree that the options were bad/harmful.

D&D needed to give players options to remain competitive in the entertainment industry. Internet, nintendo, cd players, xbox, shopping malls, after school activities all "give the players options" for entertainment, without requiring books, gasoline, or 8 hours of scheduled gametime.

I feel that the argument would be better said as "The lack of player options, lack of internet, lack of competition in entertainment industry, and low cost of living allowed D&D and Creative Roleplaying to thrive". I would strongly agree with that !

I'd argue that Skills and Powers was horrible. It masqueraded partly as a system for building races but really screwed the pooch on it, as far as I was concerned. The min-max heavy dual stats didn't help either. It cured me of any interest in the PO line.

 

[billd91]

Now that is one house rule i would love to live by.....

EDIT: did any of you 2E veterans, managed to pull off a 1E ranger in 2E? And how?

We converted the surprise abilities to the d10 system used in 2e and used the rest of it straight up. Worked just fine.

 

[pemerton]

It led to the greater focus on tactical battlemat play over TotM, and a focus on greater amount of player-driven build customization. Both concepts that, in the '90s, were exactly what I was looking for D&D to do.

Oh, it was.... <nostalgic sigh>

I played a S&P campaign back in '96-'97. My cleric was pretty broken (d10 hp, good weapon spec options, maybe fighter THACO? - I can't remember that one; but I do remember lightning bolts as cleric spells).

I don't think the customisation options, and the balance between them, had been fully thought through!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't think the customisation options, and the balance between them, had been fully thought through!

That's a bit of an understatement. Using those customization options, you could turn a cleric into full fighter (plus some spells), or into a wizard with plate armor and better HP; they just had so many useless spheres that you could trade away! And I don't think I ever saw a weapon-user lacking specialization once that option became available.

 

[Henry]

I played a S&P campaign back in '96-'97. My cleric was pretty broken (d10 hp, good weapon spec options, maybe fighter THACO? - I can't remember that one; but I do remember lightning bolts as cleric spells).

I don't think the customisation options, and the balance between them, had been fully thought through!

Our group had one of my friends playing a character that was cherry-picked "built" using those rules. He was a dwarf who could use weapons like a fighter, spells like a mage (except for the scalpel-like cutting out of schools he never used anyway) and a little bit of clerical healing to boot. (I honestly can't remember the specifics since it was 20 years ago now, just the effects of what he could do). We never called the character by his name, we always called him the player's "dwarf thing," because he wasn't a fleshed out PC so much as a Frankenstein's Monster of class features.

As in,

"Hey, Joe, are you playing your Dwarf Thing for tonight's game?"

 

[pemerton]

We never called the character by his name, we always called him the player's "dwarf thing," because he wasn't a fleshed out PC so much as a Frankenstein's Monster of class features.

As in,

"Hey, Joe, are you playing your Dwarf Thing for tonight's game?"

My cleric didn't have this problem, at least. He had a name (Thurgon) and a personality and was a pretty core PC in the game.

I should add, though, that part of his personality involved being a religious fanatic, for which I earned some bonus build points!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

He was a dwarf who could use weapons like a fighter, spells like a mage (except for the scalpel-like cutting out of schools he never used anyway) and a little bit of clerical healing to boot. (I honestly can't remember the specifics since it was 20 years ago now, just the effects of what he could do). We never called the character by his name, we always called him the player's "dwarf thing," because he wasn't a fleshed out PC so much as a Frankenstein's Monster of class features.

To be fair, this is a failure on the part of the DM and the player to integrate this class variant into the world. If the class is common enough for a player to be one, then there should be a whole organization full of those somewhere in the world.

Really, aside from the massive balance issue, the real problem with Skills & Powers was that it was labelled "Player's Option" - as though the players could just unilaterally opt into using whatever they wanted, regardless of whether it made sense for the world. I mean, the option to play a cleric with wizard spells and fighter THAC0 had always existed in 2E, but nobody made much use of it while it was relegated to one massive sidebar in the DMG.

 

[Bera]

I played a S&P campaign back in '96-'97. My cleric was pretty broken (d10 hp, good weapon spec options, maybe fighter THACO? - I can't remember that one; but I do remember lightning bolts as cleric spells).

I don't think the customization options, and the balance between them, had been fully thought through!

So, the character you describe is relatively similar to the Crusader option, but on steroids. It looks possibly broken on the surface because of the warrior thac0, but not actually bonus attacks. As someone who played some of the Spells and Magic classes, you really do feel the pinch of a small spell selection, so the pre-made crusader, monk, and shaman classes are about on par with the other classes of 2nd edition. Unless you swap most of your small selection of crusader spells out for wizard spells and gain bonus attacks for specialization, in which case you're just a slightly watered down fighter who advances like a cleric and casts pretty strong wizard spells.

The system worked fairly well when it was guided by roleplaying concerns and character concepts, but could be horribly broken if the players picked things for pure power and worked up a concept after the fact.