AD&D 2nd sucked because it was swine-ified.

All fluff, no adventure.
The PHB is okay.
The DMG is an abomination only surpassed by Vampire.

Quote from: SettembriniAD&D 2nd sucked because it was swine-ified.

AD&D 2E is a swine game now?  :rotfl:

I dunno. I prefered 2E. It was easy to drift my way. 3E is sleek and focused, and leaves me cold. iE was cool, but 2E was better. Mind you I houseruled the hell out of it, but I liked the fact that I could do so, without any trouble. I guess I'm not a dungeony sort of GM

-clash

AD&D 2e was my first game but it's easily my least favourite version of the game. As I said in my vote on the Worst Game thread, it's the D&D that's secretly ashamed of being D&D. Systemwise, it's alright, but the presentation (and the decisions made about which things to add to the system and which to take out) scream blandness to me.

Specifically, AD&D 2e seems to have been designed by people who are very conscious of two pressures: the idea that games can be about telling stories instead of killing monsters, which was gaining currency at the time, and the whining and wailing of the anti-gaming movement. Playing up to the expectations of the first crowd was a mistake which meant that AD&D 2e didn't play to its strength; trying to appease the anti-gaming movement was an incredibly stupid mistake. The sort of person who thinks that D&D is going to lead kids to Satan isn't going to be fooled by a few cosmetic changes, so all they achieved was removing everything suggesting violence, chaos, mayhem and *fun* from the game.

AD&D 1e was written with the assumption that players would be college age. AD&D 2e was written for a younger audience but toned things down far too much, gunning for a "family friendly" approach which simply didn't work. D&D 3.X, meanwhile, is absolutely perfect for teenagers.

Quote from: Abyssal MawAD&D2 did not improve on many of these area, and in many cases they actually set down suddenly very clear rules that were a lot less fun to play. The example I often use is the very clear cut example of the character that started as Lawful Neutral, and played through several adventures doing basicly good acts and the DM decides she needs her alignment changed. So he changes it to Lawful Good, and docks her like 2500 XP.

That's an example of a player being punished for developing their character. Not to mention, she probably picked 'good' acts to do because of adventures that same DM was coming up with, and then it was the DM arbitrarily laying down a punishment at the end.

In AD&D1, I think there's some vague advice about "if a character seems to act differently than their alignment, it may warrant docking some XP.."

But I think most of us read that as "...and it also may NOT warrant docking any XP.."

AD&D1e (p25 DMG) says that if a character changes their alignment, they drop an experience level to the minimum required, losing all abilities etc. If the change was involuntary, not only do they require to regain the xp they must also make atonement through a cleric with a treasure of 10,000 gp per level.

In AD&D2e (p28-29 DMG) initial changes to alignment incur no penalty, however if the character is established and changes their alignment the cost to go up their next level is doubled; they are undergoing a "personality crisis".

So your DM erred. IMO the AD&D2e method is better.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityYeah well, so does Eco's notion of the open, rather than closed, work of art.

Fortunately 3e overall definately falls into the "open" category. Even moreso when including d20/OGL. Perfectly so? Nah, but the flexibility is there.

Quote from: GabrielWhat was it that was changed that made AD&D2 so sucky in your eyes?

I wasn't playing D&D actively at the time, so I can't comment personally.  But here are some more comments Ryan Dancey from that discussion he had on the Pyramid message boards in 2000 that I frequently quote.

About how things changed between D&D 1st Edition and the 1990s:

QuotePick up an adventure for D&D circa 1985.  The adventure will begin on at worst page 2.

Pick up an adventure for D&D circa 1995.  The adventure will begin somewhere in the middle of the product, after a lengthy story and setting exposition, details of NPCs, geography and history, and perhaps a substantial boxed text essay to be read to the players to "set the mood".

Compare the core rules for several game systems:

D&D 1E:  Character creation begins on page 8.

D&D 2E.  Character creation rules begin on page 12.

Shadowrun 1E:  Page 30.

Werewolf 1E:  Page 73.

Mage 1E:  Page 95.

7th Sea:  Page 112.

(Note:  Character creation in the 3e PHB:  Page 4.)

In a follow up message, he writes:

QuoteI don't agree that a page-count analysis of rules vs. storytelling is the best way to determine if a game 'supports roleplaying' or not.  The 3e PHB is packed with things designed to trigger the imagination of players, and imagery designed to help them create an internal vision of the shared D&D fantasy.  Having 30 or 40 pages about theater and drama doesn't actually add much to the value of the book, in my opinion.

About specifically what went wrong with D&D 2nd Edition:

QuoteThey were given the aforementioned design constraints from management.  Those included removing demons & devils from the game, taking out anything perceived as "evil" like half-orcs and Assassins, and planning a shift away from the DM as the most important consumer towards the players being the most important consumer.  That's why you sometimes get the feeling in the 2e core books that someone "has" to be the DM, rather than someone "gets" to be the DM.

[...]

So, my critique of the design problems of 2e would be as follows:

1)  No standardization of systems.  [...] Nobody during the 2e design worried about standardization because they felt that the weight of existing rules knowledge overcame the problem.

2)  The game took things away from the players and didn't give them anything back that was a suitable replacement.  Monks, Assassins and Half-Orcs are the obvious subtractions.  There was a sizable number of people playing Barbarians and Cavaliers too[...]

3)  The artwork in the 2e core books was not evocative of a unique vision of the game.  [...]

4)  Optional Rules In the Player's Handbook Are A Bad Thing.  [...]

5)  The original "Monstrous Compendium" concept didn't work. [...]

There are a whole host of other things I think are "missed opportunities" in 2e.  [... he lists a series of things they could have fixed but didn't ...]

On D&D 2nd Editions effect on the market:

QuoteCuriously, in the twelve years since the release of 2E in 1989, rather than try to capture those consumers, the RPG industry has done everything in its power to make games as far away from those customers' interests as possible.  And, as a result, sales in the RPG category have been in decline since 1993.

[...]

The period from 1993 to the present should have been a golden age of RPG business, and instead it was a near-death experience.

(Remember, these quotes are from 2000.)

About who D&D 2nd Edition was aimed at:

QuoteBy management fiat, 2E was aimed at 12 year old girls.  The owner of the company had a 12 year old daughter, and wanted the company she ran to produce things her kid wanted to play.  That subtle bias affected the entire 2E product line.

As the first reason why RPG market share declined in the 1990s:

Quote*  Sales declined because publishers stopped making products consumers wanted to buy.

The only real bad thing I can say about AD&D 2nd Edition is that it didn't suck when I was 15, but 30 had a different story to tell.

Quote from: NicephorusEverything above is pretty much a 1e thing still wrong with 2e.  It doesn't give a reason for preferring 1e over 2e.  1e rules were a mess, 2e applied only a few bandaids.  It went from one variety of art of varied quality to another variety of art of varied quality.

Mechanically, I found 2e superior.  I thought the demon renames and the other lip services to PC were stupid but just ignored them.  2e also brought new settings - most of them had limited replay value but they did offer new options.

sigh

Totally messed up weapon stats: Just because you didn't use the Weapon vs armour chart from first edition doesn't mean you can ignore it as a design choice.

Including secondary skills and non-weapon proficiencies in the same book: In first edition nwps were added in Oriental Adventures, Wilderness Survival Guide, and Dungeoneers Survival Guide.  Obviously an optional rule too.

Non-weapon proficiencies that didn't mesh with theives abilities: Again, this is because non-weapon proficiencies were a badly designed option from a supplement.

Complete books of cheese:  Well, there was Unearthed Arcana...

Quote from: jgantsJudge by the core books, people.

I think the only time we played with the core is when we converted our 1st ed. characters to 2nd.  After some minor character deballing, we wished we had just kept on playing our characters in 1st because the system didn't seem that different.  I think the kit books were bought to spice it up and that was an on again/off again campaign crashing experience.  I don't blame 2nd ed. for that.  It just wasn't that big of improvement.

Quote from: lev_lafayetteAD&D1e (p25 DMG) says that if a character changes their alignment, they drop an experience level to the minimum required, losing all abilities etc. If the change was involuntary, not only do they require to regain the xp they must also make atonement through a cleric with a treasure of 10,000 gp per level.

In AD&D2e (p28-29 DMG) initial changes to alignment incur no penalty, however if the character is established and changes their alignment the cost to go up their next level is doubled; they are undergoing a "personality crisis".

So your DM erred. IMO the AD&D2e method is better.

See but it was easier to ignore the 1st Edition. Where is a 1st level character going to get 10,000 gp? It's simply not serious, and you just tossed it out.

One other thought, in general XXVc is the model I'd have preferred third edition to take.  It was pretty well thought out for the most part.  They could've spent more on interior art though.

Anyhow, I'd have ditched d20s to hit and made weapon skills based on Dex.  And probably gone with stat based saving throws on percentile.  But I digress.

My gaming group and I used a mix of 1st and 2nd edition. I and the other DMs(including myself, there were 4 full time and an aditional 2-3 part time) in our group used the 1st edition DMG for 90% of most things.  

I liked the addition of non-weapon prof, but wish it had been done better. I think Hackmaster did a better job at that.(the skills start low and are percentile based)

The new bard sucked hard. Though I did like how Psionics now had an actual class. I hated to see the dropping of the monk class and others.

THAC0 was a lot better than the old matrices though. I never understood people who couldn't figure that simple math out. Hell, I've show people who were terrible at math how to work THAC0.(I took as much time as needed till the deer-in-headlights look disappeared off their faces)

I hated how the ranged went from a Giant(and Giant-kin) killing bad ass to a warrior who could wield two weapons in light armour and had tracking.

Still, I liked more about 2nd edition than 3rd. I picked up the 3rd edition players when it came out. Read through it a few time to make sure what I was seeing was real and then gave it away.

Then I found Hackmaster and found out what they should  have done for 3rd.

The previous statements are all the opinions  of Nazgul and do not in any way affect your ability to play the game of your choice. Should you wish to respond in part or in whole to this, try  to do so in a rational manner.

The only thing I really hated about 2E was the magic system, but unfortunately fire and forget magic seems to be a staple of D&D magic.

QuoteAD&D 2E is a swine game now?

It is. Your lack of Punditlore is astounding.