Why all the Second Edition Haters?

[qstor]

I didn't play much 2e but I love the supplements like (as mentioned) the 3 Forgotten Realms gods books, the FR supplements in general are full of great stuff, a lot of it missing from the 3e FR material. The few 2e Greyhawk adventures are good too, like Slavers and Iuz the Evil. The Guide to Hell and Paladin in Hell are both some of my favorite products too.

Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Magazine had some great articles and adventures. The Complete Books are pretty good in general too.

Since playing 3e rules I've found that I prefer them to 2e, even Skills and Powers. But I have a lot of good things to say about the 2e products.

Mike

 

[Staffan]

Oh, reading over these threads reminded me of something else: the utter lameness of the multi-classing/dual-classing rules. Dual-classing is probably one of the dumbest ideas ever in RPGs, certainly the dumbest idea ever to hit D&D. I don't know what the hell Cook was thinking when he put that in.

I'm pretty sure the dual-classing rules go back to 1e (though they called it something like "the character with two classes" or something like that), which would make it Gary Gygax' responsibility.

 

[Shemeska]

Well for starters, I never played a single game of D&D till 3rd ed had already been out for a few months. *grin*

However after getting to know the system and feel of 3e D&D I discovered Planescape (and to a lesser extent RL and DS) and realized just how much of a soul 3e lacked. Mechanics-wise it blew the socks off of the 2e stuff, but it was seemingly devoid of ingenuity, flavor, fluff, and the sheer detail that 2e products oozed (especially Planescape).

I've never played a 2e game, but I get more use from my 2e books than I do half of my 3e books. 2e flavor text and metaplots = brilliant. 3e is sorely lacking this in many cases.

However... that said, I've been more and more impressed with the quality and depth that FR has gotten in 3e. There's a high standard for most of the books for that setting, and I must comment on that.

As well, the 3e Manual of the Planes was very very good, though simply for page length it couldn't contain the depth of material that Planescape had created and handed to it on a silver platter. It's my favorite 3e book, hands down, and hopefully the Planar Handbook this summer is just as good. I expect it to be so, at least with respect to some things. *gets a knowing glimmer in one eye but says nothing*

 

[RFisher]

I'm pretty sure the dual-classing rules go back to 1e (though they called it something like "the character with two classes" or something like that), which would make it Gary Gygax' responsibility.

Yep. They are there in the original PHB.

I used to think they were pretty stupid, too. These days, I still can't say that I like them, but I understand where Gary was coming from, and they make a kind of sense. (Call it gamist versus simulationist if you like those terms.)

 

[Ozmar]

You don't hear from 2e-loving players now-a-days because they are all playing Hackmaster.

Hackmaster is an incarnation of the 2ed rules that I could play and enjoy, just due to the sheer "Knights of the Dinner Table"-style old-school cheeziness. If I didn't have 3e, I could learn to love Hackmaster.

Ozmar the 3e Convert

 

[FireLance]

For those of you who never experienced it, this is how dual-classing worked. It was kind of like curent multi-classing rules, but with some really asinine restrictions. First of all, you had to have a 15 in the stat most important to your first class, and a 17 in the stat most important for your next class.

One of my favourite characters from the era of dual-classing was a Fighter with Strength 14 and Intelligence 17 who couldn't dual-class into Wizard because he wasn't strong enough .

 

[skinnydwarf]

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

Why does no one have fond memories of 2e?
<SNIP>

Like many others on the thread, I don't have very fond memories of the *rules* of 2e, but had a few fun games. Early in my roleplaying career I was exposed to other games (Jorune 3rd edition was actually the first game I owned), and realized how crappy the 2e rules were. I pretty much left it for awhile, only playing occasionally. There were many times I swore I would never play D&D again, because the rules were so annoying. But I usually came back after awhile, because it was the game that everyone knew the rules for.

When I started learning about 3e, and reading much of the DND 3e mailing list and OGL list back in freshman year of college, I kept saying to myself "they fixed everything I hated about the 2e rules, and added lots of cool things to boot!" (I thought attacks of opportunity were especially cool). Since then I've been a really big fan of 3e, hardly playing anything else. But I'm trying to get a sci-fi GURPS game running, and I really like Burning Wheel (a little indie RPG). It has a really cool combat system, and a cool life-path system for character creation. Plus, it's pretty cheap, only $15 for the set.

 

[Ogre Mage]

In 2nd edition, the fluff was good but the crunch was bad.

 

[shadow]

I don't "hate 2e", in fact I have several fond memories of some 2e games that I played. To be honest 2e had some of the best supplements. 2e settings such as Dark Sun and Birthright were some of the best RPG settings ever created. However, with that said, I did have some serious problems with many of the 2e products.

1. Kits: Ugghhh...I HATED kits. The main problem with kits was that they were either too underpowered or they completely changed the base class so much that they were better off as a seperate class.

2. Cross referecing: Since when did Tome of Magic, Book of Artifacts, and all the Complete Handbooks become core books? Besides NEARLY EVERY SINGLE BOOK referered to Battlesystem. (Half of the Castle Guide was devoted to Battlesystem rules, and a large number of spells in the Tome of Magic told the reader to "refer to page...of Battlesystem rules).

3. Monk and Assassins were removed. Monks were cool, but they didn't fit well within 2e's four basic class structure, so they were cut. And supposedly "any one who kills for profit can be called an assassin", so assassins were no longer needed. (I suppose by that logic thieves could have been cut too since "any one who steals something can be called a thief".)

 

[EricNoah]

Until 3E came along I didn't really know how clunky 2E's rules had gotten. I did, however, run many fun/entertaining 2E games, enjoyed the computer support (Core Rules 2.0), and liked the direction the rules were going regarding character customization (skills & powers may not have been well-balanced but you could build a unique character at least). I don't think I could go back to the 2E rules. That said, I often go back to my 2E FR supplements for more in-depth "fluff."

I think there was a different mentality about the role of the DM in 2E as compared to 3E (the DM was more "in charge of everything" in 2E -- because there was less spelled out in the rules the DM had to make up a lot of things on the fly, which was fine for an experienced DM).