D&D General Zeb Cook and the Evolution from OA to 2e

[el-remmen]

I happened to be looking through my Dragon collection when I saw this thread and found the 2E survey from issue #124. The summer it came out I was working in an office at 2 WTC and had free access to a photocopier, so I made copies of the survey for all my gaming friends.

Anyway, I took photos of the survey, which unfortunately does not record my answers because I filled out a copied version as to not mar my mag. I put them behind a spoiler tag to keep this one post from overwhelwing the thread with the multiple large images.

Spoiler: AD&D Game 2d Edition Questionnaire

P.S. For those who are interested, I have been slowly sharing samples of my Dragon and Dungeon mag collections through my HOW I RUN IT instagram acct.

 

[Fenris-77]

Not even a thousand burning Bards can dim the awesomeness that is the D12 HD Barbarian. Glory in his presence!!

 

[Mannahnin]

Greyhawk Adventures (Ward)

On a related note, Dragon 129 has a Game Wizards column by Ward soliciting input from fans about what they want to see in this book. And 135 has a follow up from him with the results, having apparently read 511 letters on the subject. Another fun read.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Not even a thousand burning Bards can dim the awesomeness that is the D12 HD Barbarian. Glory in his presence!!

On the one hand, the Barbarian was ridiculously stupid in UA.

On the other hand, anytime you're rolling the d12, you're cookin' with GAS. So ... not all bad!

The d12 is truly the king of all dice.

 

[Yora]

I didn't know that nobody knew what to do with the ranger class even 35 years ago.
For exactly the same reason that still makes it impossible to get it fixed today.

Cook should have axed it back then when he had the chance. Should have gone the way of the cavalier and assassin.

 

[Voadam]

OA was huge in developing the non-combat proficiencies which led to the DSG split of weapon and non-weapon proficiencies which continued into 2e.

It is a good argument for the line of OA Kensai to 2e ranger. It did not hurt that a recently iconic 1e ranger from a D&D novel was already a dual wielder (Drizz't from his drow UA race ability).

2e had a martial arts system open to any character in the PH for the first time. OA had developed martial arts for any character in what is my favorite version throughout D&D editions.

 

[Fenris-77]

The desire to write a Martial Arts system for 5E that I actually like is strong in me today. I'm going to try to resist that temptation.

 

[cfmcdonald]

I happened to be looking through my Dragon collection when I saw this thread and found the 2E survey from issue #124. The summer it came out I was working in an office at 2 WTC and had free access to a photocopier, so I made copies of the survey for all my gaming friends.

Anyway, I took photos of the survey, which unfortunately does not record my answers because I filled out a copied version as to not mar my mag. I put them behind a spoiler tag to keep this one post from overwhelwing the thread with the multiple large images.
...

Fascinating. Any idea/speculation on why most of the sections start with "1. No question"?

 

[Eubani]

Fascinating. Any idea/speculation on why most of the sections start with "1. No question"?

Maybe to provide sectional separation on the answer sheet for easier reading.

 

[Alzrius]

Fascinating. Any idea/speculation on why most of the sections start with "1. No question"?

You're not supposed to ask about that; that's why it says "no question."