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

[Dire Bare]

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?

I don't remember any "anti-2e" hate during the launch of 3rd Edition.

Then again, I never really saw the "anti-3e" hate that a few posters insist WotC is responsible for during the launch of 4e either.

 

[Gentlegamer]

There may have been nothing wrong with the core game... aside from it really needing a shot in the arm. A lot of people had stopped playing AD&D in favor of other games and while the fundamentals of 2e were strong

The "lots of people" didn't amount to very much. Mostly people that never liked D&D to begin with. These are many of the players who "returned to D&D" with 3e (a wholly new system bearing the D&D trademark).

TSR's ability to do anything with it seemed to be petering out. The complete books had extensive coverage to it would be hard to squeeze in really new content, campaign worlds were all over the place and had plenty more they could cover but at the expense of lots of niche products doomed to never gather too much market share.

That's not a problem with the core game, is it? That's like saying something was wrong with the 3e core rules because between WotC and the third party publishers, there was nothing left to cover.

I think there was plenty of writing on the wall that something needed to be done with 2e. Even TSR started experimenting with new rules with the PO series in order to extend it's life as the flagship product.

That's just the sign of a mature product line. 3e did much the same (including releasing a major revision of itself after only 3 years).

 

[Gentlegamer]

An RPG rulebook is very much a technical manual. Flavorful language can be interspersed, but when you're talking about rules functionality, you absolutely have to speak simply, clearly and precisely.

I agree, but there was nothing "too complex" for game rules in the way Gygax wrote them. His prose had both flavor (a true author's voice) and effectiveness. Seriously, people are acting like the original AD&D game read like Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

AD&D 2nd edition was published for several reasons. One of them was to eliminate Gygax's writing to eliminate the royalties TSR owed him as author.

 

[Gentlegamer]

I suspect he meant "nouns".

My house, your house, their house, his house, her house, the house yesterday, the house tomorrow... I believe in some languages, you'd need a different form of "house" for some or all of those.

That's declension. Conjugation is for verbs.

infinitive = "to be"

present, active, indicative

singular
I am
You are
He is

plural
We are
You are
They are

"to be" is an irregular verb in most languages, including English, as you can see. I guess the point is, English also conjugates verbs.

 

[Lizard]

That's declension. Conjugation is for verbs.

And Trix are for kids.

I figured since it's obvious English conjugates verbs, the OP must have meant nouns. Hey, I was a WRITING major, not a GRAMMAR major!

 

[Gentlegamer]

And Trix are for kids.

I figured since it's obvious English conjugates verbs, the OP must have meant nouns. Hey, I was a WRITING major, not a GRAMMAR major!

And I was a history/political science major, but I also studied Latin.

 

[Spatula]

The "lots of people" didn't amount to very much. Mostly people that never liked D&D to begin with. These are many of the players who "returned to D&D" with 3e (a wholly new system bearing the D&D trademark).

Yeah, I have been playing D&D for the majority of my life, and I spend a lot of time on D&D message boards discussing the game, but obviously I never liked D&D to begin with...

 

[mxyzplk]

I certainly don't remember much anti-2e vitriol when 3e came out. The new version was seen as part and parcel of the revitalization that WotC brought, when Lorraine had brought the company to the verge of bankruptcy and the line just wasn't going anywhere. Normal releases had given way to Player's Option which had given way to nothing in particular. My various gaming groups played 2e and a mix of other games (the "dang this is getting old" factor affected us too) and when 3e launched we just said "new version? Sweet" and picked it up.

 

[billd91]

I certainly don't remember much anti-2e vitriol when 3e came out. The new version was seen as part and parcel of the revitalization that WotC brought, when Lorraine had brought the company to the verge of bankruptcy and the line just wasn't going anywhere. Normal releases had given way to Player's Option which had given way to nothing in particular. My various gaming groups played 2e and a mix of other games (the "dang this is getting old" factor affected us too) and when 3e launched we just said "new version? Sweet" and picked it up.

I remember a bit of anti-Players Option vitriol, particularly directed against Skills and Powers. I also remember a lot of "Meh" about D&D by that point, particularly with the power creep of some of the splatbooks and general over-saturation.
There was some vitriol that was still hanging on from 1e players, but that was distinctly in the minority. There were also plenty of people seduced away to other games who had some disdain for D&D in general. There was also lots of anti-TSR sentiment going around.
I will say that I think there was more anti-2e vitriol, such as it was, than I ever saw against 1e.

 

[Orius]

I remember a bit of anti-Players Option vitriol, particularly directed against Skills and Powers.

That's because Skills and Powers was pretty broken. The subabilities broke it the worst, like the division of Strength into Muscle/Stamina. If you had a fighter with 17 Str, you could split the 17 as 19 Muscle and 15 Stamina. What this did was boost you way past all the Exceptional Strength levels right into attack and damage bonuses for 19 Str. IIRC, 17 Str was +1/2 and 19 was +4 attack and either +7 or +9 damage. A HUGE unbalanced jump, especially since none of the PHB races had Str bonuses allowing for a 19 Str at creation, 18/00 was the highest possible. And Stamina? It just affected carrying capacity and encumbrance.

That was the single most egregious piece of imbalance, though several subabiliites were almost as bad. The Int subabilities had one that affected wizard spells and another that affected NWPs IIRC, so most players of non-wizards just used the spell one as a dump sub-stat to boost their NWPs. I think Dex had some breakage as well. I didn't mind the point-based character creation, though I think some hated it as a GURPSification of D&D. Even that though, probably needed some DM policing to maintain balance.