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Message: <blockquote data-quote="an_idol_mind" data-source="post: 4681936" data-attributes="member: 43749">2nd edition's goals seemed to change as the game went on. On a corporate level, I'm sure some of the decision to make a new edition came as a result of wanting to get Gygax out of the picture. However, I doubt the designers themselves shared that goal. The core books seemed set out with three goals in mind: clarify the rules, incorporate popular supplementary rules (such as non-weapon proficiencies) into the core, and purge the objectionable material such as assassins and half-orcs. That last bit got ditched pretty early on as rules supplements returned the missing elements with varying levels of success. When WotC took over, demons, devils, and assassins were all mentioned freely again. With just the core books, I think 2nd edition accomplished the goals of consolidating and clarifying the game. However, the PHBR series quickly bloated the game to levels far beyond what 1st edition had reached. By then, the goal seemed to be about changing the AD&D game to fit almost any fantasy vision, even if doing so meant turning the rules into a Frankenstein monster of patchwork systems. Eventually, the glut of campaign settings also led to a glut of novels, which I think further influenced the evolution of the system. While many people complained loudly about earth-shattering events and super NPCs, they seemed popular enough to influence design decisions. Powerful NPCs and linear, plot-driven adventures became the standard. Somewhere along the line, AD&D had changed from being about exploration and danger and into an interactive novel. Furthermore, continuity in campaign settings became huge -- just look at how quickly the Dark Sun setting changed, or how hard it was to stay current with the Forgotten Realms. I don't think the issue with 2nd edition was that there were no design goals. I think the problem was that those goals shifted constantly. pre-2nd edition AD&D was pretty much defined by the dungeon crawl, while the parallel D&D line had specific tiers of adventure laid out with appropriate support for each level. 3rd edition had a "return to the dungeon" design to it, and 3.5 signaled a change in the type of support WotC gave. 4th edition arguably has the clearest of directions, with deliberate holes left in the core rules with the intention of filling them in later. 2nd edition, however, had constantly changing design goals which often directly contradicted what the AD&D system was intended to do.</blockquote>

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