I saw RPG Pundit lambasting 2e on Twitter today and I thought, so why is 2e the best edition of DnD ever produced?

So let me know, what did you guys like best about running, playing, reading 2e DnD?

For me, its art was the most iconic any edition of D&D has ever had within its pages.

I mostly skipped 2E.  Played it once at a convention.  Didn't have anything in particular against it, but wasn't blown away compared to 1E.  Mined a few of the books for material in other systems late in the 2E run, but that was about it.  I get why a lot of people enjoy the various settings, but most of them did not interest me.  Didn't help any that the 2E run almost exactly corresponded to my lack of interest in running D&D at all.  The few times I did run D&D during that time, it was Rules Compendium.

I always felt that early 2e and late 2e were almost entirely different games. Did anyone else feel this way?

Quote from: Shasarak;1108613I saw RPG Pundit lambasting 2e on Twitter today and I thought, so why is 2e the best edition of DnD ever produced?

So let me know, what did you guys like best about running, playing, reading 2e DnD?

I love AD&D 2E, it has great artwork and gave us Ravenloft: Realm of Terror and Masque of the Red Death.

Plus, 2E has sentimental value since it's my Dad's favorite edition.

Quote from: Shasarak;1108613I saw RPG Pundit lambasting 2e on Twitter today and I thought, so why is 2e the best edition of DnD ever produced?

So let me know, what did you guys like best about running, playing, reading 2e DnD?

Because it was basically 1e but cleaned up.

Honestly a lot of the main complaints that people had with 2E - the bowdlerisation of content - are nothing now.  They may have mattered at the time.  But these days now that both editions of AD&D are long dead if you want  Demons rather than T'narri or want to put back in Half-Orc assassins - it's not an issue.

2e felt like a compromise edition.
It was a Watered down 1st ed ADnD (due to the whole Satanic panic thing) and the skill system felt bolted on as an afterthought.
It was the edition that caused to me to move onto other RPGs and I never came back to DnD until Pathfinder and later 5e.

I Did give 4e a go I suppose, but for me that way way the worst edition of DnD and I only played for a few sessions as a friend REALLY wanted me to try it out.

I skipped the entire DnD 3e and 3.5.

Quote from: Shasarak;1108613I saw RPG Pundit lambasting 2e on Twitter today and I thought, so why is 2e the best edition of DnD ever produced?

So let me know, what did you guys like best about running, playing, reading 2e DnD?

I think 2nd ed is a good spot for complexity. Considering Basic, AD&D and then 3rd edition.
2nd is where the game started moving away from xp for treasure and towards xp as reward for playing the game. (Class awards, etc.)

And this was a fertile ground for the boxed settings that came out for 2nd. Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, etc. They could have been created for other editions, but I think there was a certain direction that 2nd took, that facilitated them especially.
But then, this was also the direction of story over gameplay, which was not so good.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1108618I always felt that early 2e and late 2e were almost entirely different games. Did anyone else feel this way?

Are you talking about the hardback "Player's Options" stuff for late 2nd? Because yes, I feel that's where the game became 2.5, leading into 3rd edition.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1108634Are you talking about the hardback "Player's Options" stuff for late 2nd? Because yes, I feel that's where the game became 2.5, leading into 3rd edition.

Yep. Spells & Magic, Combat & Tactics, and Skills & Powers (or titles similar to those) were what I was talking about.

EDIT: I wonder when we'll get the product(s) that marks the unofficial start of 5.5...

I have mixed feelings about 2e.

Yes, it's a bit cleaned up. It's organized in a somewhat rational way. But it also split chapters randomly between the PH and the DMG, which can make it hard to find specific rules quickly. And while the text is easy to read, it isn't a good example of technical writing. For instance, how does THAC0 work? Or skill checks? Those are core mechanics, and should be called out, explained upfront, and how to roll, what you need to roll, and how to apply the modifiers should be clearly explained. Except they're not, both of those rules are buried in kind of random places in the middle of a paragraph, and the descriptions are very sloppy. Do you add or subtract modifiers from the roll, or from THAC0? It doesn't actually tell you.

The same with the mechanics. Speed factors? Pretty good. Weapon vs. armor? Yes, it's simpler than 1e, but by making all slashing weapons and all bludgeoning weapons the same, it means knives are as good against armor as 2H swords or battle axes, and clubs are as good as maces. So it lost the point of the mechanic. A simpler morale? Great! Except while the core mechanic is simple, the actual conditions that trigger a morale check is a really long list. That hurts usability, especially since the morale system in B/X only had 2 conditions, but covered all the essentials. Or priest spheres -- great idea, I love the idea of customizable priests. But the spells assigned to each sphere make a horrible mish-mash of the priestly classes -- for instance, clerics get reincarnate, while druids do not. The worst is probably the XP system, which is stuck in this bizarre limbo where it's trying to graft story-based rewards on the traditional XP system, and does it in a way that's mathematically broken (giving a fixed XP reward doesn't scale when XP requirements increases geometrically).

But 2nd edition really shined in other areas. Like others in the thread, I loved the art (in the non-revised edition). The full color plates in particular were spectacular, and inspiring. It was heroic, whimsical, and mythic, in turns. It opened the doors to many possibilities. And some of the fluff really shined -- the section on Heward's Mystical Organ, for instance, is how legendary artifacts should be. But others parts clashed seriously with the rules. Probably the biggest problem is that based on the tone and fluff, 2nd edition clearly wanted to be heroic, high fantasy. But the rules really didn't change all that much, it's still mostly 1e under the hood. And 1st edition is brutal, unforgiving, doesn't guarantee you a zero to hero heroic arc, and rewards the greedy. So there was a contradiction between the expectations they created, and how the game actually ran.

Not a fan, the edition where there's no point in playing anything other than an elf fighter/magic-user because +1 to hit with long swords and long bows with longbows with sheaf arrows doing 2d4 twice a round and being able to specialize and get one built to your strength for the damage bonus.  Also, since everyone's playing fighter/magic-users you can pretty much level up by staying in town and trading the spells you have in your books.  It's a shame they didn't put non-weapon proficiencies on the same scale as thieves abilities and set them all at stat + up to 10 points per level.  It's also the edition where most adventurers are better at their non-weapon proficiencies than their class abilities.  As has been mentioned before they completely borked the weapons, particularly damage type verses armour but I've often wondered if the designers had ever actually played D&D.

 I do think the objective of streamlining and rationalizing the system was good.  In particular the combat turn was a lot easier to figure out. The integration and rationalization of the better parts of Unearthed Arcana was worthwhile.  Toned down weapon specialization, improved  The art in the first printing was fantastic, Elmore and Easley for the win, far better than anything they've used since.  The second run art was weird and not great.  There is one thing better than a long bow though, a staff sling, not quite as good for damage but two shots a round and you get your strength bonus to damage without paying for a personalized weapon.  The hardback Monstrous Manual is probably the best Monster Manual ever.

The art was stunning!  The rules generally worked.  The core books (and Ravenloft) invoked wonder in my impressionable mind.

Yes.

I love the 2nd Edition AD & D PHB.