Why all the Second Edition Haters?

[Prince of Happiness]

I ran a Waterdeep campaign that I have fond memories of. I have nothing but hate for the depiction of elves in 2E. It just cemented the whole Nazis with pointy ears stereotype that I am...so. Utterly. Sick. Of.

Also, I would like to see whomever wrote up the "Blade" kit for Complete Bards face some kind of punitive action. Grrrrrr...

 

[Ibram]

I played during 2e, and though I enjoyed it I did find the rules somewhat clunky (save vs. wands?). I looked into running a game, but got bogged down in the rules.

Then 3e came out, I played a game that week. Within a month I was running a game, which I still do to this day.

 

[Kastil]

I have fond memories of 2e though I have moved onto 3e/3.5e.


Many of my favorite characters I like to talk about are 2e characters. Why'd I stop playing it? My group fell apart unfortunately (my parents and my son's Godparents of all things!) and when I started playing again, 3e came out.

::shrugs::

There was a forum out there that did 1e but at the time our household only had one PC and my husband played in the forum for that. Over the years I've come to detest that forum for my own personal reasons so I have no intention of ponying up to the bar there.

2e? I only have the fondest memories for it. Miss it? Sometimes but 3e took care of a lot of personal house rules. Looking back never did anyone too much good and I'd rather move forward.

::bleeds like a sheep::

 

[qstor]

I never played much 2e until the very end and it was Skills and Powers. I like many others do have fon memories of 2e products particularly the FR and Spelljammer ones. There's a lot of fluffyness in those books that I miss in a lot of 3e books from Wizards which seem to cram new prestige classes in every nook and cranny.

2e has its pluses and minuses but like the vast majority of people on this board. I prefer the 3e rules mechanics to 2e. Living Greyhawk got me into 3e and that's what I've been playing most. I'm tempted to run a 1st edition adventure from Dungeon for our game club as a way back nostalgia thing.

Mike

 

[Kormydigar]

Its a question I've been on the fence about since the advent of 3e...

Why does no one have fond memories of 2e?

I don't want to debate whether 1e/3e was better or whatnot, but it seems that that few people have any real fond memories of 2e, or at least not enough to pull out the core books and run it. There is no sites dedicated to it, no messageboards full of gushers, no "keep 2e alive" threads.

I have fond memories of it, and would run it again if I found a few willing players, but in general, there seems to be a 2e = the devil attitude amonst the fans, and I'm curious as to why 1e or basic (or original) gets all the love, but 2e is the red-headed step child?

I was very excited when 2nd Edition hit the shelves. Our group played with it awhile (about a year) before abandoning it for GURPS which we played almost exclusively till 3.0. I am running 3.0 right now mainly because of all the cool 3rd party support. Until I finish school my free time to design adventures is limited and we play whats got the most published stuff. The main problem that I had with 2nd ed. is the same one I have with 3rd ed. There is a lack of soul in the feel the game has. Thats why I sold all my 2nd ed books 13 years ago and will hold on to my basic D&D,and 1st ed. stuff till I die

 

[Estlor]

I have mixed feelings about 2E. I was into OD&D exclusively through the '80s and didn't jump on the AD&D bandwagon until my friend (and closest gaming buddy) picked them up in 1994. That meant I had missed the "3 ring binder" experiment and the PHBR series was in full swing. I really liked 2E back then. It felt like OD&D... but not as dumbed down.

2E's problem was it became tedious as time wore on. The longer I played it, the more played out it seemed. The ever-ballooning ruleset became more of a liability than a benefit. Rules were broken and my gaming buddies got better and better at exploiting them. And combat. We would spend entire gaming sessions on a single combat encounter.

The most fun I had with 2E was the very last campaign I ran. We scaled way back. The only books I permitted were the PHB and the psionics section of Skills and Powers. The party was a Ranger, a Psionicist, a Fighter, and a home-brew class (based on the "Spellfire character" from the FR novels, as the player that came up with the idea called it). It worked out pretty well because I stopped looking for rules and started making things up on the fly. We had one combat encounter where the ranger snuck into the villians' office to retrieve combat plans, got caught, and ended up surfing down the staircase on the top of a desk, fighting off troops that didn't get bowled over to begin with. In the meantime, the "Spellfire character" was lobbing blasts of pure magic up the steps (barely missing the ranger on more than one occasion) while the psionicist used his powers to hold the door shut that the enemy reenforcements were trying to enter through. I think it lasted about five minutes (a record for AD&D), but it's the one thing we all remembered about that campaign.

 

[Ssyleia]

I loved 2nd Ed AD&D from 89 on.
I loved 2.5 AD&D (i.e Player's Option) from 94 on
I loved 3rd Edition from 2000 on
I love 3.5 from 2003 on

Last year, a diehard 2nd Edition player joined our campaign (mostly because there's no 2nd Edition campaigns going on anymore) Last week he told me, he started to love 3rd Edition (actually 3.5) which he couldn't have imagined a year ago.

No game rules are perfect, most certainly 3.5 D&D rules aren't. But they can be enjoyable. And if the system upgrades, I IMHO believe that some of the waning fun of the old system starts anew, as a gaming group "goes where no one (save playtesters) has gone before".

2nd Edition had Kits. I miss them. 3rd Edition has Prestige Classes. That offsets.

 

[Orius]

I think the 2E haters are folks who only played it for a little while and then 3E came in. They claim that 3E is not a direct progression of AD&D 2nd Edition. I disagree, 3E is clearly AD&D to me. It's just been cleaned up with respect to task resolution. Now you roll a die and must beat a DC instead of looking at your character sheet and checking against a skill/ability. 3E also removed all of the arbitrary restrictions of 2E; but who obeyed these anyway?

I played 2e for 6 years before 3e came out. I switched to 3e not because I hated 2e, but because 3e worked better for me.

Hmm, didn't I mention this earlier in the thread?

And who's saying 3e isn't AD&D? Of COURSE it's AD&D, that's why everyone's calling it third edition.

 

[drakhe]

Actualy playing in 2 adnd 2e games

I'm currently involved in 2 campaigns in 2e

One playing in the forgotten realsm (about 40 % houserules)
One playing in birthright (about 10% houserules)

And loving it!

(I'm also running a DnD3.0 game and a warhammer campaign, and on occasion play in a warhammer campaign (curently on hiatus). I have previously played 7thSea, Deadlands & CoC)