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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
What was wrong with 2e?
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 5951331" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>Nothing was "wrong" with 2E per se.</p><p></p><p>Most of the hate comes from it falling into the proverbial middle between what's old and what's new.</p><p></p><p>Nostalgic grognards tend to reserve their love for OD&D/BD&D/1E because these were there first. Gamers with a love for contemporary systems (e.g. Pathfinder, 4E) see them as being direct continuations of (and improvements upon) Third Edition.</p><p></p><p>So (to paint in very broad strokes) you have the people who love First Edition, and the people who love Third Edition. Second Edition is the proverbial middle child. It's too watered-down for the old guard, and too antiquated for the newer gamers.</p><p></p><p>Now, it's not really that simple. The 4E and 3.X/Pathfinder people tend to edition war a lot. The grognards can be similarly fractious when it comes to which old-school D&D they prefer, but the unifying factor is how Second Edition as a whole tends to be rejected.</p><p></p><p>The flipside to this is found among Second Edition's various campaign worlds. Notwithstanding those that got their start in First Edition (e.g. Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance) or in Third Edition (e.g. Eberron), most of the love for Second Edition is divided amongst those who enjoy the campaign settings that were released during this era. It's not hard to find people who love Planescape, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, and others. Even among those 1E campaign worlds there's often a fair among of warm feelings for the 2E materials (though this can be iffy).</p><p></p><p>The difference here is that these aren't unified the way the other edition-supporters are (which is something of a microcosm of the problems of publishing for so many different campaigns at a time), and so don't usually see themselves as part of the various edition wars, particularly since for them it's about the setting, rather than the system. Worse, since you can't retro-clone settings, these groups tend to have less new material to rally around, and so have less impetus to get involved in the discussions to begin with (particularly since there's an undercurrent of "I can run the setting with any system anyway, if I wanted").</p><p></p><p>In other words, the 2E love is there. You just have to look in different places to find it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 5951331, member: 8461"] Nothing was "wrong" with 2E per se. Most of the hate comes from it falling into the proverbial middle between what's old and what's new. Nostalgic grognards tend to reserve their love for OD&D/BD&D/1E because these were there first. Gamers with a love for contemporary systems (e.g. Pathfinder, 4E) see them as being direct continuations of (and improvements upon) Third Edition. So (to paint in very broad strokes) you have the people who love First Edition, and the people who love Third Edition. Second Edition is the proverbial middle child. It's too watered-down for the old guard, and too antiquated for the newer gamers. Now, it's not really that simple. The 4E and 3.X/Pathfinder people tend to edition war a lot. The grognards can be similarly fractious when it comes to which old-school D&D they prefer, but the unifying factor is how Second Edition as a whole tends to be rejected. The flipside to this is found among Second Edition's various campaign worlds. Notwithstanding those that got their start in First Edition (e.g. Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance) or in Third Edition (e.g. Eberron), most of the love for Second Edition is divided amongst those who enjoy the campaign settings that were released during this era. It's not hard to find people who love Planescape, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, and others. Even among those 1E campaign worlds there's often a fair among of warm feelings for the 2E materials (though this can be iffy). The difference here is that these aren't unified the way the other edition-supporters are (which is something of a microcosm of the problems of publishing for so many different campaigns at a time), and so don't usually see themselves as part of the various edition wars, particularly since for them it's about the setting, rather than the system. Worse, since you can't retro-clone settings, these groups tend to have less new material to rally around, and so have less impetus to get involved in the discussions to begin with (particularly since there's an undercurrent of "I can run the setting with any system anyway, if I wanted"). In other words, the 2E love is there. You just have to look in different places to find it. [/QUOTE]
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