Quote from: Elliot Wilen;373135Borr-ring...

Anyway, Pseudo, my beef with you in this thread, aside from the fact that you're continuing this argument with Benoist long after the substantive issue has been resolved (i.e., we know what Benoist means) is that you dredged up a beef with me (and Sett) for absolutely no reason connected with the actual topic. Here's the real connection:

This has everything to do with the 4e discussions, nothing to do with this one. If anything this thread has seen agreement on all sides that 2e's system isn't strongly tied to the style of play that has helped give 2e a bad name.

We're not disagreeing about the system here, Elliott. Most of this thread has been about settings, modules, supps and the like. And I guarantee you there's no consensus here about whether 2e's settings, modules and supplements force players to use them or play them in a certain way or not (or which ones do, if some or all do).

Quote from: T. Foster;373140Perhaps this idea could have worked if the monsters had been printed one per sheet (though considering how much filler-material had to be included to get most monster descriptions up to one page I have no idea what they would have done with twice the space -- perhaps a short fiction-piece starring each monster?) and on thicker, reinforced pages, but then we're looking at an even bigger space-hog, requiring several 2" thick binders just to get the "canon" monsters from the 1E books, not to mention all the additions and setting-specific monsters that followed.

Variant rules for monsters might have worked to fill up space. Think like the various types of hydra, or the age tables for dragons, but for every monster. Elf sub-types alone could probably fill both sides of a page.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;373141We're not disagreeing about the system here, Elliott. Most of this thread has been about settings, modules, supps and the like.

Again, your issue regarding the connection between systems and styles of play is irrelevant.

QuoteAnd I guarantee you there's no consensus here about whether 2e's settings, modules and supplements force players to use them or play them in a certain way or not (or which ones do, if some or all do).

There may not be consensus, but there's no contention either, unless you can point to someone who's actually claiming that the 2e materials "forced" anyone to do anything.

The closest I've seen, that I can recall, is people saying that the 2e materials as whole continued and amplified a trend toward plotted adventures and adventures situated within a metaplot. The claim is about an aggregate trend, in numbers and emphasis. Maybe there are exceptions.

To complete my thoughts from my previous post...

Those sorts of adventures still contain usable material for non-story-plotted games, but they require more customization than a location-based adventure or a situational scenario, and more of the page count is wasted.

Also, I think it's very hard to utterly disconnect the style of a printed adventure and the way it's actually going to be played. If you have an inexperienced GM who doesn't know what he or she wants to do, then the adventure as printed looks like a model to follow. For that matter if you have a GM who believes that scene-based pre-plotting is a good idea (and note, I'm not saying it is or isn't, for a given group), then an adventure written that way is much more attractive and much easier to use.

So...of course it'd be best to collect some real data on actual play to see how those materials impacted people's gaming. The best we can do here is collect anecdotes; however, I think the anecdotes tend to support the idea that e.g. Dragonlance in play was a plotted railroad. Some people liked that, some people hated it. You'll have to show me the people who say they used the DL modules to construct a sandbox. (That DL was a 1e phenomenon is irrelevant, we already agree that 2e RAW isn't railroady.)

I liked 2e AD&D, as I feel that it polished up 1e AD&D with some tweaks (better, IMO).

Yes, the binder concept for the MM was great in theory, but a disaster in use.  As noted previously, the pages invariably ripped and came loose.  The binder was bigger and bulkier than a softcover or hardback book.

A failing of DL, IMHO, was using the characters from the novels as pre-generated characters for the module series.  Not only did it re-enforce play style and choice to mirror the events in the novels, it also created a disconnect between what players envisioned in their mind's eyes for those characters' ability scores, classes, and levels and what was presented in the modules as the pre-generated characters of the characters from the novels.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;373120Ah, Jeffy, I didn't realise someone had rung the idiot bell to call you in.

No need for a bell, your pretentious condescending nature screams sophomoric pseudointellectual loud enough.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;373120If you're going to keep on bringing up my political positions, it would help if you could correctly state them. Were you someone of say, average human intelligence, I might ask what relevance my politics has to this thread, but I'm not sure you know what a big word like "relevance" means.

See? not only is your misguided support of anarchy relevant to the discussion, because it screams lazy thinking at the top of its lungs which you are doing more of here, it is valid. You are a puppy, you come in and in your youthful enthusiasm chew up the surroundings and then pridefully pee on the floor, thinking that it will substitute for logical arguement. Why don't you go back to the coffee shop and play while the others continue with their discussion? We promise to throw you a bone to gnaw on.

Quote from: Angry_Douchebag;372399BS.

Spelljammer was the JESUS setting.  It gave everyone everything they ever wanted in a flood of insightful, out-of-the-box thinking and jaw-dropping originality:

The waning empire of Space Elves; though past their absolute dominion over all that came to pass in the crystal spheres, they still engender contempt in everyone else with their aloofness and arrogance.

Differentiating space orcs from ground orcs by spelling their racial name backwards.  Scro?  Pure awesome.

Porting in you favorite races from EVERY TSR setting (not all of them, I know).  Space Drow and Kender.

Hippo men.  With Pistols.

Damn straight!

Honestly, the problem with 2E is that it made the game more interesting than the ridiculously dry, rigidly interpreted "dungeon delve setting" material 1E had become bogged down with. 1E got me in to RPGs, I'll grant it that, but it was 2nd edition that got me back to AD&D. I'd been wandering around for years enjoying Dragonquest, Runequest, Palladium and T&T when 2nd edition popped up and my weekly college group talked me in to picking it up. It became my main fantasy system for the next eleven years.

The fact that many people today and in retrospect disliked it and love to talk about how much they dislike it doesn't bother me; those were the kinds of gamers I was clearly avoiding back then anyway...boring simulationists who couldn't handle the much more interesting fluff and diversity 2E brought to the game.

Jeff might be technically more stupid than Pseudo, but he´s also more right!

Quote from: Drohem;373152A failing of DL, IMHO, was using the characters from the novels as pre-generated characters for the module series.  Not only did it re-enforce play style and choice to mirror the events in the novels, it also created a disconnect between what players envisioned in their mind's eyes for those characters' ability scores, classes, and levels and what was presented in the modules as the pre-generated characters of the characters from the novels.

What about the folks who played the modules first, then read the books?

Seanchai

Quote from: Settembrini;373165Jeff might be technically more stupid than Pseudo, but he´s also more right!

Best back-handed compliment I have recieved all day.

Quote from: Seanchai;373180What about the folks who played the modules first, then read the books?

Seanchai

Fuck them.

Quote from: Nicephorus;373133The MM binder idea is cool - for the first 10 minutes.  It was unwieldy so I would take pages out for a game and leave it home.  then I would forget to put them back and couldn't find them.  Of course, the pages tore.  I think late 2e put out a standard book format.

I can confirm that. I came into the hobby in 1994, and you couldn't get the old binder any more even then - the book had become the standard (I believe it came out in 1993).

When you consider that 2E came out in 1989 and 3E came out in 2000 it wasn't even "late" 2E - the binder got phased out well within the first half of 2E's lifetime.

Quote from: jeff37923;373181Best back-handed compliment I have recieved all day.

I really mean the "you are right"-part, though.

Quote from: Drohem;373191Fuck them.

Wait! Are paying them first?

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;373280Wait! Are paying them first?

Seanchai

*rolls d% on the random prostitute table*

Saucy Tart. I guess you just got lucky, if you can shut her up, that is.