What's interesting in Melan's exhibits is to see the way the sanatized "as few angry moms as possible" approach is linked to the story/railroading approach by promoting the "save the princess" concept to promote "sane values for our children." It's interesting, and explains why 2nd ed's sense of aesthetics is basically shit, to me.

Fortunately all that church anti-D&D stuff abruptly ended when TSR turned demons into baatezu. The name change was really the only concern of the preachers.

Quote from: Benoist;454251What's interesting in Melan's exhibits is to see the way the sanatized "as few angry moms as possible" approach is linked to the story/railroading approach by promoting the "save the princess" concept to promote "sane values for our children." It's interesting, and explains why 2nd ed's sense of aesthetics is basically shit, to me.

Oddly, though, there aren't many 2e settings that really fit the "save the princess" style or aesthetic.  This is the edition of Ravenloft (the princess is probably a vampire), Dark Sun (you're more interested in saving water than a princess), Planescape (the princess is going to double cross you at some point), and Spelljammer (a Space Hamster ate your princess).

Quote from: Spinachcat;454261Fortunately all that church anti-D&D stuff abruptly ended when TSR turned demons into baatezu. The name change was really the only concern of the preachers.

In defense of the absurdly religious forces at work, they did indirectly give us ice cream sundays through fucking with teenagers. Can't have those kids drinking soda on sundays, or the lord will be angry. They'll just have to go without the floats.

It's been mentioned by Frank Mentzer and Gary Gygax both that every time TSR's "evil game" was featured in the media (for example the 60 Minutes hatchet job), sales would spike.

So once again and as always the management at TSR during the 2e era royally fucked things up and had them upside down and backwards.

I think fans of old D&D could produce some nice subject-specific booklets incorporating ideas (not copyright material) from the various treatments in different editions, along with a few more approaches gleaned from discussions online.

The added attention paid in 2e to discussing variants was in itself something I liked very much in principle, however often the actual implementation may have seemed to be mere padding of page counts.

There seemed to me a shift that started soon after the publication of the 1st ed. Players Handbook in 1978. The way things had been presented before in supplements and magazine articles made it, I think, easier to see them as merely "offered for your consideration", one DM to another.

I don't recall ever encountering, in the OD&D scene, the attitude that one was required to use any particular bit in a book, much less everything in all the books. A lot of stuff had been cooked up by people who didn't even know that some other guy was making rules for thieves or hit locations, illusionists or psionics or whatever -- so naturally they were not designed to work together (which didn't mean they could not, either).

With AD&D, especially with the big influx of new players who started with AD&D (often learned by cold reading of the Advanced books, no less), I saw the notion of a set 'canon' of the game.

What Mr. Gygax wrote, sometimes misinterpreted and sometimes not, somewhat encouraged that.

The whole deal with "kits" rubbed me a bit the wrong way because it took the attitude of dependence on Official Product to a new level. TSR had to fill books to justify prices, and prices in turn justified reference to the books for every last detail instead feeling free to make up whatever one wanted for one's own campaign.

Even the specialty priest rules in the PHB irked me a bit, even though I had always thought that customization for cults was very desirable (and I liked the Greyhawk examples).

There were on so many fronts incremental slouchings toward something like 3e, seen as yet but dimly.

Late X edition tends to be in many ways very close to early Y edition. Changes that might seem radical from a W edition perspective may appear just minor refinements to people who came in at a later point in development.

Quote from: misterguignol;454262Oddly, though, there aren't many 2e settings that really fit the "save the princess" style or aesthetic.  This is the edition of Ravenloft (the princess is probably a vampire), Dark Sun (you're more interested in saving water than a princess), Planescape (the princess is going to double cross you at some point), and Spelljammer (a Space Hamster ate your princess).

I'm not convinced. Look at the description of the "save the princess" logic. It's not just literally -save the princess- but any goal that basically features the protagonists (i.e. players' characters) as heroes that set things right. In Ravenloft, this is resisting the surrounding darkness as long as possible to escape the demiplane or kill Strahd or whatnot, in Dark Sun that was the revolt against the evil master of the City State ("Freeeeedom!"), in Planescape... that doesn't come to me, and Spelljammer well, was gonzo D&D in space (i.e. a change in scenery rather than thematics).

So, though I like each of these settings personally, I think that each in their own way might have fit in what Jim Ward was talking about there. Now looking at the core books of the 2nd ed game though, the aesthetic is very much in-your-face. And the modules well, ... yeah. I won't even go there.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;454227I grew up in a town where a lot of this anti-D&D stuff was common at the churches (lived there between 84-89) and it resulted in me not being able to play for a couple of years (at least not openly)---I also had all my Iron Maiden tapes taken away as well. Your right, now it sounds nuts, but at the time some people just wouldn't listen to reason.

Hehehe.... My mother ripped up my Ozzy Osborne Blizzard of Oz album cover during this hysteria, circa 1985.  We had a major blowout over it.  I made precautions and hid other 'Devil tainted' materials from her, including my AD&D books.

Quote from: Benoist;454278I'm not convinced. Look at the description of the "save the princess" logic. It's not just literally -save the princess- but any goal that basically features the protagonists (i.e. players' characters) as heroes that set things right.  [...] Planescape... that doesn't come to me

I always saw planescape more as the setting where you try to steal the Wand of Orcus, because, hey, in like 20 infinite planes, somebody's gonna buy it off you.

Quote from: Drohem;454280Hehehe.... My mother ripped up my Ozzy Osborne Blizzard of Oz album cover during this hysteria, circa 1985.  We had a major blowout over it.  I made precautions and hid other 'Devil tainted' materials from her, including my AD&D books.

I eventually turned my mother around on the issue (once we moved back to boston).

Quote from: islan;453568Now, of course I may be biased since I was introduced to the hobby with 2e.  Yet even though I have played other editions of D&D, 2e still remains my ideal version of D&D.  So it really confuses me when I see people touting it as the "worst edition of D&D".  Why is it the worst edition?

I came into the hobby in '89 with BECMI and swapped up to 2nd Edition before the year was out. Despite the nostalgia I feel for it, I do consider 2nd Edition to be the worst edition of the game, for two reasons:

First, it still retains 90-95% of the stuff that I was really, really glad that 3rd Edition jettisoned because it was all stuff that I had houseruled out of the game before finally giving up on AD&D entirely in the mid-'90s.

Second, at the same time it doesn't include any of the interesting historical perspective of OD&D or AD&D1. Exploring those older manuals turns up all kinds of design paths that were left unpursued and ideas that were later forgotten in the design gestalt of the mid-to-late '80s. 2nd Edition has none of that.

2nd Edition offers nothing of unique or notable value.

To put it another way, THAC0 offers a pretty good example: Arguably a minor improvement over 1E, but still crude compared to 3E. If it was 1995 I might argue that you're better off using the slightly cleaned up 2nd Edition. But it's 2011 now, so what's the point of not just going with the superior clean-up of the rules in 3E?

(And if you're not interested in clean-up, then you're going to stick with the older versions of the game.)

Quote from: Justin Alexander;454286I came into the hobby in '89 with BECMI and swapped up to 2nd Edition before the year was out. Despite the nostalgia I feel for it, I do consider 2nd Edition to be the worst edition of the game, for two reasons:

Dear lord...Worse than 4E??
:eek:

Quote from: misterguignol;454262Oddly, though, there aren't many 2e settings that really fit the "save the princess" style or aesthetic.  This is the edition of Ravenloft (the princess is probably a vampire), Dark Sun (you're more interested in saving water than a princess), Planescape (the princess is going to double cross you at some point), and Spelljammer (a Space Hamster ate your princess).

But Dragonlance was still going strong; so was Forgotten Realms.

Quote from: Drohem;454280Hehehe.... My mother ripped up my Ozzy Osborne Blizzard of Oz album cover during this hysteria, circa 1985.  We had a major blowout over it.  I made precautions and hid other 'Devil tainted' materials from her, including my AD&D books.

Ozzy Osbourne, noted artist who wrote the song "After Forever".  Yeah.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454293Ozzy Osbourne, noted artist who wrote the song "After Forever".  Yeah.

I thought Iommi wrote the lyrics to After Forever (and Butler most of the lyrics overall)