You know what really pisses me off about 2nd ed. is that 3rd ed. did everything that 2nd ed. should've done.  Things that you hated weren't really addressed so it wasn't a substantial upgrade over 1st ed.  After 2nd ed., 3rd ed. made us wary that we would be walking into the same situation.  Wizards of the Coast would've of aptly named it 1.5 ed.

Quote from: John MorrowBut here are some more comments Ryan Dancey from that discussion he had on the Pyramid message boards in 2000 that I frequently quote.

My personal opinion about those quotes is that Dancey is telling the grognards what they want to hear.  At that time Dancey was making the intention plain that WotC was going after the "lapsed AD&D1 player".  His reasons for the failure of AD&D2 are just prettied up versions of what AD&D2 haters have used as excuses for years.  The twelve year old girl comment is pretty telling as to his motives and the reaction he's seeking.  That's not to say that there aren't some possible valid complaints there.  I just doubt Dancey's motives for the statements.

Quote from: TonyLBAD&D 2E is a swine game now?  :rotfl:

Because WW snuck into TSR's offices at night and rewrote the game. Or they used their mind rays or something. I forget which. You really have to keep track of the details of Punditlore™ by pure rote because the details don't follow any rational form.  Or you just come to realise that RPGPundit is a loon and ignorance of the details of Punditlore™ is The Way to wisdom. One of those two.

Quote from: John MorrowI 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.

Well, I consider Dancey to be about as trustworthy as President Bush.

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

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

What, exactly, does this prove?  The first section in the book is still character creation.  AD&D 2 just had a couple extra pages for an art picture, a introduction to the 2nd edition, and listing the credits for the people that worked on it.  Hardly something worth admonishing.

Quote from: DumbassThose included removing demons & devils from the game, taking out anything perceived as "evil" like half-orcs and Assassins...

This was a questionable decision, but given the level of "there's demons in them thar books!" parent reactions, it made some sense to do.  I know some people still consider it "urban legend", but paranoia from parents about D&D extended well into the 90's in the area I lived in.

Quote from: Dumbassand 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.

Since Dancey's marketing plan for 3e revolved around focusing on the player as a consumer, I fail to see how he can criticize 2e for doing the same thing.  

Quote from: DumbassNo standardization of systems... Nobody during the 2e design worried about standardization because they felt that the weight of existing rules knowledge overcame the problem.

Yeah that, or the fact that they didn't want to drastically change the game that everyone already knew and loved.  Of course, unified systems weren't exactly a consumer mandate back in 1989.

Quote from: DumbassThe 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

I never thought getting rid of two classes and a race that weren't really even used that much (they hardly ever even appeared in modules) was a big deal.  As for barbarians and cavaliers, they weren't even in the game until Unearthed Arcana - and UA barely came out before 2e; hardly a staple of the game.

Quote from: DumbassThe artwork in the 2e core books was not evocative of a unique vision of the game.

Perhaps the dumbest criticism I've ever heard.  D&D isn't supposed to have a unique vision - that's the whole point.  And what did Dancey replace it with?  Some "dungeonpunk" crap that isn't evocative of the old D&D whatsoever.

Quote from: DumbassOptional Rules In the Player's Handbook Are A Bad Thing

Hardly a universal opinion.

Quote from: DumbassThe original "Monstrous Compendium" concept didn't work.

One of the few things I agree with him on.  They should have started with the hardback.  Still, hardly worth condemning the whole game over.

Quote from: DumbassCuriously, 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.

I don't agree with Dancey's argument that the industry tried to alienate customers.  TSR may have tried to become more family-friendly.  And White Wolf emerged as a powerhouse by appealing to a new demographic.  But the rest of the industry was pretty much business as usual.  Except that the rest of the industry became plagued with financial problems - caused by internal and external problems.

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

This is just laughable.  RPGs were something of a fad in the 80's.  That's gone.  The industry will never be what it was then, no matter what anyone does.

Quote from: DumbassBy 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.

This sounds more like urban legend to me.  Can anyone actually confirm this?  Because all the stories suggest that Lorraine wouldn't want her daughter playing D&D at all.  I also fail to see anything in the books resembling this.

The books did try to be less "counterculture" and more friendly to younger demographics.  But that was a good thing.

Besides, 3e is clearly aimed at 12 year old boys.  The art alone makes that obvious.

Quote from: DumbassSales declined because publishers stopped making products consumers wanted to buy.

Again, which publishers is he talking about?  TSR had plenty of sales, what they had a problem with was spreading the sales out over too many lines and some failed board game attempts.  But the RPG sales weren't that bad - it was more of a problem of costs being too high.

White Wolf certainly made products consumers wanted to buy.  They made a mint.

So did Palladium.  Rifts was one of the biggest selling RPGs ever.

The other mid-tier companies kind of collapsed (ICE, WEG, R Talisorian, GDW, etc)  But a lot of that had to do with their own internal problems.  And before they collapsed, they were producing the same stuff they had been for years.

Quote from: jgantsWell, I consider Dancey to be about as trustworthy as President Bush.

The more I read by him the more Dancey sounds like a politician.  He presents a very slanted view as if it were obvious truth so suit his own ends.

Quote from: jgantsWell, I consider Dancey to be about as trustworthy as President Bush.

While his comments definitely had an agenda (selling 3e and the OGL vision), he's still more informed as an insider than most of the people who opine in online message boards.  And bear in mind that his critique of 2E is not the system, per se, but the whole package (including presentation) and how that sold.  Dancey is definitely looking at sales as an indication of success and trying to explain why it didn't sell.

Quote from: jgantsWhat, exactly, does this prove?  The first section in the book is still character creation.  AD&D 2 just had a couple extra pages for an art picture, a introduction to the 2nd edition, and listing the credits for the people that worked on it.  Hardly something worth admonishing.

His point there was that the trend of the industry was toward more exposition.  The more important point, with respect to 2E, was the point about adventures beginning "somewhere in the middle of the product".

Quote from: jgantsThis was a questionable decision, but given the level of "there's demons in them thar books!" parent reactions, it made some sense to do.  I know some people still consider it "urban legend", but paranoia from parents about D&D extended well into the 90's in the area I lived in.

Regardless of whether it was necessary or not, this change is cited by many people as a reason why they didn't like 2E.

Quote from: jgantsSince Dancey's marketing plan for 3e revolved around focusing on the player as a consumer, I fail to see how he can criticize 2e for doing the same thing.

And to be honest, having just run a D&D 3.5 campaign, I think D&D 3e's biggest liability and most frequently sited complaint is that it's horribly time-consuming and complicated to GM and just too much work.  So I would say that D&D 3e failed to at least some degree here, too.  I'm having fun playing in D&D 3.5 games but I'm not sure I'd ever want to run it again as more than a mini-campaign or prepared module.  Too.  Much.  Work.

Quote from: jgantsYeah that, or the fact that they didn't want to drastically change the game that everyone already knew and loved.  Of course, unified systems weren't exactly a consumer mandate back in 1989.

No, but they also were not unknown and the organic nature of AD&D 1E development meant that it was a particularly disorganized mess of different mechanics with little consistency across them.  His point here was that they missed an huge opportunity to make an improvement.  And I think that part of the reason he made that point is that in order to convince people to switch from 1E, 2E couldn't simply be just as good -- it had to be an improvement to justify the overhead of switching.

Quote from: jgantsI never thought getting rid of two classes and a race that weren't really even used that much (they hardly ever even appeared in modules) was a big deal.  As for barbarians and cavaliers, they weren't even in the game until Unearthed Arcana - and UA barely came out before 2e; hardly a staple of the game.

If you've read Robin Law's book Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering, he describes several player types and one of them he calls the "Specialist".  That's the guy who always has to play the Ninja. I think those classes attracted specialists and all a group needed was one player who had to play an Assassin, Monk, Half-Orc, Barbarian, or Cavalier (and let's not forget that the last two were featured in the D&D Cartoon) to keep a whole group from switching.  Another case where it's a problem is with the people who run campaigns that last for a decade or more rather than playing modules and running short campaigns.  If they have those classes in their long-term campaigns, it makes switching editions more difficult if the new edition doesn't have them.  Again, I agree with Dancey that a new edition needs to offer a compelling reason to switch and taking things away from people can offer them a compelling reason not to switch.

Personally, I think the logical next step of adding Prestige Classes would have been to make the Paladin (especially), Ranger, and Bard prestige classes like the Assassin, but I understand why they didn't.

Quote from: jgantsPerhaps the dumbest criticism I've ever heard.  D&D isn't supposed to have a unique vision - that's the whole point.  And what did Dancey replace it with?  Some "dungeonpunk" crap that isn't evocative of the old D&D whatsoever.

I agree with you here, by the way.

Quote from: jgantsHardly a universal opinion.

No, but this goes into the whole "network externality" idea that Dancey thinks is so important and he does make a good point that it puts splits into the player community between people who do things one way and people who do things a different way.  As someone who likes Fudge a great deal, I've seen the other extreme.  Since different Fudge games can be so different (heck, FATE and SotC are "Fudge games"), saying that one plays Fudge doesn't mean much.

Quote from: jgantsOne of the few things I agree with him on.  They should have started with the hardback.  Still, hardly worth condemning the whole game over.

No, but it does help explain the failure of it to sell and get older players to switch.  The binder is still annoying enough to deal with on my shelf (I own quite a bit of 2E stuff even though I never really played it).

Quote from: jgantsI don't agree with Dancey's argument that the industry tried to alienate customers.  TSR may have tried to become more family-friendly.  And White Wolf emerged as a powerhouse by appealing to a new demographic.  But the rest of the industry was pretty much business as usual.  Except that the rest of the industry became plagued with financial problems - caused by internal and external problems.

No, I don't agree.  I do think there was a shift to the whole "storytelling" idea and away from butt-kicking adventure.  And the sales numbers that Dancey provided (which you can doubt, but I have no reason to) suggest that the hobby did, in fact, implode.

Quote from: jgantsThis is just laughable.  RPGs were something of a fad in the 80's.  That's gone.  The industry will never be what it was then, no matter what anyone does.

I'm not sure I fully agree with that.  A decade-and-a-half is a long shelf-life for just a "fad".  Part of what Dancey points out is that people kept playing -- their old games and old editions of games -- and just stopped buying games.  That's a big part of why he wanted to reach out past 2E to the old 1E players.  They were still playing, just not buying new stuff.

Quote from: jgantsThis sounds more like urban legend to me.  Can anyone actually confirm this?  Because all the stories suggest that Lorraine wouldn't want her daughter playing D&D at all.  I also fail to see anything in the books resembling this.

I have no idea if it's true or not, but part of his point here was also that the changes were not driven by market research or demands but by management fiat.

Quote from: jgantsThe books did try to be less "counterculture" and more friendly to younger demographics.  But that was a good thing.

I'm not sure it was and Dancey argues that it wasn't.  As a "fad", D&D had to appeal to college aged people, too, to keep going.  That's what WW did and they did pretty well for themselves during this period.

Quote from: jgantsBesides, 3e is clearly aimed at 12 year old boys.  The art alone makes that obvious.

I don't think that's true, though I certainly think it tries to be accessible to that group.

Quote from: jgantsAgain, which publishers is he talking about?  TSR had plenty of sales, what they had a problem with was spreading the sales out over too many lines and some failed board game attempts.  But the RPG sales weren't that bad - it was more of a problem of costs being too high.

Sure, but none of that was good for 2E or D&D, was it?

Quote from: jgantsWhite Wolf certainly made products consumers wanted to buy.  They made a mint.

While Wolf succeeded by tapping into a new community of players.  I'm not sure that many D&D players jumped ship to go play Vampire, though I'm sure some did.

Quote from: jgantsSo did Palladium.  Rifts was one of the biggest selling RPGs ever.

Correct.  But Palladium was selling what gamers wanted -- a traditional kick-butt adventure game.

Quote from: jgantsThe other mid-tier companies kind of collapsed (ICE, WEG, R Talisorian, GDW, etc)  But a lot of that had to do with their own internal problems.  And before they collapsed, they were producing the same stuff they had been for years.

The argument is not to produce the same stuff, per se, but to appeal to the same sensibilities.  And if you think D&D version wars are a problem, take a look at the Traveller community.

Quote from: NicephorusThe more I read by him the more Dancey sounds like a politician.  He presents a very slanted view as if it were obvious truth so suit his own ends.

Oh, he's definitely got an agenda, but when I read criticism of his comments, his opponents often sound much the same way with their own agenda.

3E did pull me back into D&D for a couple of years. But that was not because it felt like a return to 1E. It didn't feel like that at all. 3E is its own beast. Also, it's definitely targetted at teenagers, and that burned me out after a while.

Quote from: John MorrowDancey is definitely looking at sales as an indication of success and trying to explain why it didn't sell.

I think Dancey is a really smart guy.  But he's a salesman type.  Real slick, if you will.

I think he tells people what he thinks they want to hear so that he can sell them on his ideas.  I also think he skews his research to get exactly the results he was looking for.

I definately don't think he does anything for the love of the game, as it were.

Or to put it another way, I could totally see him being the main character in Thank You For Smoking.

Quote from: John MorrowHis point there was that the trend of the industry was toward more exposition.  The more important point, with respect to 2E, was the point about adventures beginning "somewhere in the middle of the product".

This, again, is a funny point for him to make about modules.  Particularly since the whole point of his plan for D20 was to avoid having WotC produce modules themselves.

Quote from: John MorrowRegardless of whether it was necessary or not, this change is cited by many people as a reason why they didn't like 2E.

I think its one of the symptoms people mention, but I don't think its the real reason.  The real reason, IMO, is that people were upset because by 2e because TSR had "sold out".  But that would have been inevitable.  Regardless of who the owner was or what small changes they did/didn't make, any new edition was going to make them look like a sell out.  People got really attached to the whole counterculture thing that came with D&D, not unlike the similar trends of the time with heavy metal, and then got mad because their "scene" went mainstream.

Quote from: John MorrowNo, but they also were not unknown and the organic nature of AD&D 1E development meant that it was a particularly disorganized mess of different mechanics with little consistency across them.  His point here was that they missed an huge opportunity to make an improvement.  And I think that part of the reason he made that point is that in order to convince people to switch from 1E, 2E couldn't simply be just as good -- it had to be an improvement to justify the overhead of switching.

If no other RPGs ever existed, he might have a point.  But, really, there were dozens of other games that moved to new editions with only slight changes like that.  Look at the versions of Traveller, Runequest, Twilight 2000, Star Wars, Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, etc.  

This is just how the industry operates (and will likely always operate).

Of course, once again Dancey's words don't quite match up with what WotC did.  D&D 3.5 is enough of an update to be annoying, but not enough to really convince people to switch.  Consequently, a lot of people stuck with 3.0.

Quote from: John MorrowIf you've read Robin Law's book Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering, he describes several player types and one of them he calls the "Specialist".  That's the guy who always has to play the Ninja. I think those classes attracted specialists and all a group needed was one player who had to play an Assassin, Monk, Half-Orc, Barbarian, or Cavalier (and let's not forget that the last two were featured in the D&D Cartoon) to keep a whole group from switching.  

If the group was smart, they'd let the unique, little snowflake player go off and join some Vampire game instead.  :pundit:

And I still say Unearthed Arcana was a disasterous mess that TSR was smart not to use for 2e.

Quote from: John MorrowAnother case where it's a problem is with the people who run campaigns that last for a decade or more rather than playing modules and running short campaigns.  If they have those classes in their long-term campaigns, it makes switching editions more difficult if the new edition doesn't have them.  Again, I agree with Dancey that a new edition needs to offer a compelling reason to switch and taking things away from people can offer them a compelling reason not to switch.

And yet, 3e made it almost impossible to switch from 1e or 2e.

Quote from: John MorrowNo, but this goes into the whole "network externality" idea that Dancey thinks is so important and he does make a good point that it puts splits into the player community between people who do things one way and people who do things a different way.

How does that differ by putting the optional rules in the DM's guide instead?  And as long as people will have house rules (which is, pretty much, inevitable), you'll still run into these kind of problems.

Quote from: John MorrowNo, but it does help explain the failure of it to sell and get older players to switch.  The binder is still annoying enough to deal with on my shelf (I own quite a bit of 2E stuff even though I never really played it).

See - a lot of his arguments revolve around a bizarre assumption that there were millions of AD&D 1e players that were actively playing but didn't switch to 2e for some reason or another.

In reality, I think there were three groups of people:

1. People who used to play AD&D, but then stopped playing RPGs all together because the overall popularity of the hobby was in decline.

2. People who played AD&D at some point, but found they liked other games.

3. People who still played AD&D, but wouldn't have switched to any new edition even if it came with a hot girl.

I think D&D 3 may have appealed to some of #2 since it was a lot different.  And the big marketing push for 3e probably brought in a lot of #1.  But there's still a #3 group out there that 3e still didn't affect.

Quote from: John MorrowNo, I don't agree.  I do think there was a shift to the whole "storytelling" idea and away from butt-kicking adventure.  And the sales numbers that Dancey provided (which you can doubt, but I have no reason to) suggest that the hobby did, in fact, implode.

I saw plenty of story-telling in White Wolf's stuff.  I saw some in TSR's stuff.  I saw none of it in the other mid-tier publisher's stuff.

And I still contend the implosion of the industry was do to the overall decline in popularity of the hobby.  Not unlike what happened with the wargaming hobby.

Quote from: John MorrowI'm not sure I fully agree with that.  A decade-and-a-half is a long shelf-life for just a "fad".  Part of what Dancey points out is that people kept playing -- their old games and old editions of games -- and just stopped buying games.  That's a big part of why he wanted to reach out past 2E to the old 1E players.  They were still playing, just not buying new stuff.

People stopped buying stuff because they felt they had all they needed.  The endless supplement model for the industry just won't work long term.  Not enough people want to keep buying stuff.

And while 3e may have temporarily made people interested again, it was very short lived.  If you compare today's numbers with those from 2000, they probably won't look all that much better than the numbers were from 1989 to 1997.

Quote from: John MorrowI have no idea if it's true or not, but part of his point here was also that the changes were not driven by market research or demands but by management fiat.

I'll agree that TSR made some bad decisions this way, I'm just not sure that was one of them.

Quote from: John MorrowI'm not sure it was and Dancey argues that it wasn't.  As a "fad", D&D had to appeal to college aged people, too, to keep going.  That's what WW did and they did pretty well for themselves during this period.

And then WW's popularity dropped like a brick.  Again, trying to appeal solely to the college demographic tends to lead to short term success.

AD&D was "cool" because it presented the counterculture aspects of devils, etc - just like heavy metal was doing at the time.  Vampire was "cool" because it presented the moody, introspective, arty aspects - like the popular goth style of the time.

But WW had to change.  And I'd argue NWOD is a lot let "angsty" and a lot more friendly.  In other words, it's sold out (compare complaints of NWOD vs OWOD to the ones about AD&D 2e).

The next big RPG will probably also tap into this market, too.  But then once it bleeds it dry, it will also sell out.

Quote from: John MorrowI don't think that's true, though I certainly think it tries to be accessible to that group.

The art is cartoony and it plays like a video game.  In what way is it not pandering to the teen boy market?

Quote from: John MorrowWhile Wolf succeeded by tapping into a new community of players.  I'm not sure that many D&D players jumped ship to go play Vampire, though I'm sure some did.

And players = consumers, whether they are new or not.

Quote from: John MorrowThe argument is not to produce the same stuff, per se, but to appeal to the same sensibilities.

But that's my point - the overall market decrease was not caused by one product not meeting the needs of consumers.  ICE, GDW, WEG, etc - they didn't go out of business because of changes to AD&D, or even their own games - they went out of business due to a decline in the overall popularity of the hobby.

Quote from: jgantsthey went out of business due to a decline in the overall popularity of the hobby.

What happened during the 90s?  Hint: What are you reading this post on right now?

Quote from: StuartWhat happened during the 90s?  Hint: What are you reading this post on right now?

The intraweb? Are the tubes clogged?

Quote from: StuartWhat are you reading this post on right now?

Crystal Meth?

Grunge?

I didn't Like AD&D 2nd.

I went from D&D to Toon to Shadowrun to Vampire. After these 4 games was when I had my first experience playing AD&D2.

D&D had a chart for everything, easy enough.

Toon was 2d6 roll under. Easy.

Shadowrun had its Dicepool system; Vampire was a  simplified version of that using D10s.

Then I heard the term Thac0. It took me asking 5 times before I could rememeber what it meant. It took me games before I could do it myself. Combine that with all the illogical limits in the game and you have why I think it was shitty.

Being used to the freedom of choice in my last three games, it didn't make sense that a mage couldn't weild a sword, or wear armor, or had certain spells per day. The old Game Balance argument didn't hold up either, Shadowrun was balanced just fine without it.

Quote from: David JohansenThat topic is too large to fit on the entire internet, but here's my list.

Impossibly dry text.  I never played with a single gamer who'd actually read the rules.

Totally messed up weapon stats.  The long bow doing a d8 and 2 attacks per round and heavy crossbows a d4+1 and one attack every three rounds is just the tip of the iceberg.  This is because the game designers just ported across 1st edition and didn't really think about it much.

Including secondary skills and non-weapon proficiencies in the same book.  Everyone seemed to have both on their character sheet.  It's one or the other people.

Non-weapon proficiencies that didn't mesh with theives abilities.  What?  I can hide in shadows 25% of the time but I've got a 14 in 20 as a blacksmith?  I'm in the wrong line of work.  Actually the theives abilities were a compound mess as it is.  See Buck Rogers XXVc for how 2nd edition should have worked on just about every count.

Complete books of cheese.  Character kits as background would be fine.  As archetypes with special abilities.  Cheeese!

TSR management's phobia of anything offensive has to fit in here somewhere.

That sounds about right. This having been said, I found that it did do some things better (for instance, I like THAC0 better than I like cross-referencing charts). I think my best D&D experience was the long-running 1e/2e hybrid that I played in circa 1995-97 (it took the good and dumped the crap of both systems).