What was so bad about the Core 2e rules? Why is it the red-headed stepchild of D&D?

[eyebeams]

There was never really a coherent anti-2e movement. There was a rather strenuous marketing effort coinciding with the release of 3e to create antipathy for it, to sell 3e books. 2e was overwhelmingly welcomed by groups that were playing AD&D and keeping up with news and events around the game. Many of the elements that didn't get moved from 1e were incredibly unpopular. Monks and assassins were widely disliked, as was anything from Unearthed Arcana. Weapon specialization was considered suspect (though it was widely used to give the fighter some oomph), and greatly toned down. The dual-wielding, stealthy ranger was designed to move rangers away from heavy armor use and the bard was redesigned because the previous version was considered to be unplayable.

2e was pretty much designed by taking 1e and incorporating the broad consensus that existed at the time. In fact, some more experimental elements that were announced for 2e were pulled back in favor of keeping continuity with 1e. The biggest one of these was the toning down of the promised "group" concept, where every class was part of a meta-class template that could be used as the basis for new of modified classes.

 

[justanobody]

So WotC is the reason for all the 2e hate as well the 3.x hate because of the marketing strategies geared towards their newest version?

 

[WizarDru]

We started with Basic D&D and graduated quickly to AD&D between middle-school and high-school. The idea that AD&D was somehow an 'adult' game would have been met with laughter in the early 1980s. D&D, as a rule, was not generally associated with maturity. While it featured a complex ruleset, it's still a game of make-believe, where a bunch of nerds sit around a table and talk about fighting dragons. The adoption of D&Ds concepts into video and computer games and the widespread popularity of those game types in ensuing years have, to some degree, changed that assertion....but the only people who'd be arguing about one version of D&D being more 'educated' than another would be D&D players; the general populace still considers D&D somewhat juvenile in nature.

We played AD&D for several years, but by the time 2e came out, we were pretty much out of the building. By that time, we had switched full-time to GURPS, with AD&D's design choices becoming something that my players and I no longer found compelling. When 2e came out, my general thoughts were:

1) Wow, they really like the color blue.
2) Looks like they shuffled around a lot of stuff...magic missle is what level, now?
3) Huh...still has the same problems that made us leave AD&D.

I can't comment on whether 2e was a good system or a bad system, because we never adopted it. I know that it carried over some concepts that we didn't like from 1e (or felt we had found better solutions for) and it also seemed considerably more expensive (whether this had any bearing on reality or not, I don't recall...but that was the perception at the time, during college).

2e clearly had lots of setting material and also seemed to have a lot of flavor that was different to 1e. I wouldn't call one better than the other, but different. I remember well the 'Gygaxian' prose style. I picked up Gygax's and "Mastery of the Game" and I certainly didn't think that it was written for adults, per se. In fact, I remember distinctly mocking Gary's style, particularly in his over-use of certain terms, chief among them being milieu. Gary could write some very purple prose when he wanted to and often seemed to want to justify the purchase of a thesaurus. While his writing could be entertaining, it was rarely what I would consider concise.

3rd edition was clearly an attempt to win back expatriate D&D players. The 'back to the dungeon' motto was directly aimed at former D&D players who had left D&D and retained nostalgia for it, even though they'd moved on to other games, other hobbies. Every single player in my 3e game had stopped playing D&D after 1e and were lured back to D&D by 3e. We didn't leave 2e, though...we left AD&D. 2e simply failed to lure us back.

We've since played 1e after reforming our 3e group. Nostalgia was quickly trumped by rules that we found archaic. That isn't to say we didn't have fun...just that we enjoyed 3e more.

 

[WizarDru]

There was a rather strenuous marketing effort coinciding with the release of 3e to create antipathy for it, to sell 3e books.

Can you give some examples? Not having been a 2e player, I never saw any of that marketing...only the run-up marketing for 3e to lapsed players.

 

[delericho]

So WotC is the reason for all the 2e hate as well the 3.x hate because of the marketing strategies geared towards their newest version?

That is very much at odds with my recollection of that time. When 3e was in development, the overwhelming feeling I got online was that 2nd Edition was tired and worn out, laden with too many supplements and too many options that weren't even intended to work together ("The Complete X Handbook" series and the "Player's Option" series specifically).

From what I recall, the WotC marketing at the time was very much focussed on improving the game, and harkening back to what had once made it great, and very much less on running down the previous edition.

 

[justanobody]

That is very much at odds with my recollection of that time. When 3e was in development, the overwhelming feeling I got online was that 2nd Edition was tired and worn out, laden with too many supplements and too many options that weren't even intended to work together ("The Complete X Handbook" series and the "Player's Option" series specifically).

From what I recall, the WotC marketing at the time was very much focussed on improving the game, and harkening back to what had once made it great, and very much less on running down the previous edition.

Well that was because people tried to use everything in every game like the reason that Punpun character exists, where you aren't supposed to use everything or even close to it all the optional rules. The problem with using too many options was people were using too many options and you didn't need a core to do that, just to start using just the core again.

I was more asking the same as WizarDru did though... I ignored 3rd coming in because I didn't need it, but kept hearing how it was better than 2nd form people that never played before and didn't even have 3rd yet. Reminds me of the time prior to 4th coming out when people were just hearing parts of it.

So it may not have been an ad campaign, but the marketing seemed to be there via a word-of-mouth campaign that got out because of the hype.

 

[delericho]

The problem with using too many options was people were using too many options and you didn't need a core to do that, just to start using just the core again.

My last 2nd Edition campaign was indeed core-rules-only. I can't argue with what you said... except to note that if I've spent all that money on supplements, it's not unreasonable to expect to be able to use them.

So it may not have been an ad campaign, but the marketing seemed to be there via a word-of-mouth campaign that got out because of the hype.

WotC aren't responsible for the word-of-mouth campaign, only for what they actually say in marketing. However, with both 3e and 4e, large segments of the ruleset were known long before the games were released, meaning it was possible to make some informed judgements at that point.

Certainly, for me, it was quite clear fairly early on that 3e was a marked improvement over what 2nd Edition had become - and I had had a huge amount of fun playing 2nd Edition for many years prior to that point. I can't complain I didn't get value out of that system.

 

[Jack99]

You have to understand that the average D&D player thinks they're smarter than the average person. The average D&D player also started playing D&D when they were somewhere between 10-15 and of course think they were smarter than everyone else, 'cause otherwise they were just geeky, socially dysfunctional teens who locked themselves away from the bullies at lunch-time in the library with their socially inept peers.

Merry Xmas mate, that was just funny.

I think you hit another thing there. How many languages was 1st edition translated into vs 2nd? Maybe the wording changes just had to happen to make it easier to translate for people just learning a new language and English is one of the harder ones to learn because it always changes so much.

What are you basing that argument on. "Changes so much" is extremely vague.

But an English teacher refusing to look up the word in context or to even find out what it means, and then to think I would be using melee wrongly for waylay, for me to even know what waylay means and not know what melee means when she knows she hasn't taught them?

Teachers just don't like being wrong and when a teacher is wrong the student is at fault for it and should be punished!

Anyway the office sent me back and called the teacher to the office and sent her back to the classroom with a dictionary to look up words she didn't understand before arguing with students.

So apparently 1st edition was too hard for teachers but easy for kids. Kind of like childproof bottles are hard for adults to open, but easy for children to open.

So if 2nd was made simpler in the way of words it was so adults could understand them.

Sigh.

 

[Spatula]

There was never really a coherent anti-2e movement. There was a rather strenuous marketing effort coinciding with the release of 3e to create antipathy for it, to sell 3e books.

That's not how I recall it at all, but like a lot of people I drifted away from D&D in the 90's. By the time 3e came out, TSR had pissed off the online community and then had ceased to exist, 2e was dead as a product line, and a good chunk of the RPG world was playing other games. So WotC didn't need to manufacture any anti-2e sentiment - people didn't care about 2e anymore. All they had to do was showcase the changes they were making (everything based off a simple d20 roll-high subsystem, etc.), which they did in Dragon (and which enthusists compiled on websites like the original EN World), and that was enough to bring people like me back.

Now when 2e first came out, I thought it was great, and bought TSR's strenuous marketing effort to create antipathy for 1e hook, line, and sinker. The problem 2e faced later on in its life is that there was just an amazing number of cool RPGs out in the 90's, and D&D was tired & old in comparison (as everyone had been playing it for 10 years or more at that point).

 

[WizarDru]

By the time 3e came out, TSR had pissed off the online community and then had ceased to exist, 2e was dead as a product line, and a good chunk of the RPG world was playing other games. So WotC didn't need to manufacture any anti-2e sentiment - people didn't care about 2e anymore.

That pretty much jibes with my experience and that of my players. We knew TSR had gone out of business and heard that WotC had picked up D&D (which was generally considered a good thing...at least moreso than what happened to Avalon Hill). Most everyone I knew didn't even realize that WotC had put out D&D material for 2e and assumed they had gone straight to 3e because no of us were playing it.