I think where I get confused is when you have this elaborate world with all these political organizations, and all this game text telling you how to make "real" characters, yada yada, and then all of that is grafted onto a wargame dungeon-crawling system designed to be extremely lethal, but where your primary XP comes from killing things.

In essence, a system where designers were telling you to strive to make your character unique and special, but one where it actively wanted your character to die as quickly as possible.

I mean, it works for Baldur's Gate, because you can reload your last save if you get slaughtered and get Minsc or someone back, but it just seems like a mismatch between intent for what should be happening at the table and the actual game design.

Clearly a perspective that sees 2e as a starting point. The same criticism can be (and has been) applied to all the other versions of D&D before 3e.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;453688Clearly a perspective that sees 2e as a starting point. The same criticism can be (and has been) applied to all the other versions of D&D before 3e.

Sure. I just see 2e as the culmination of quite a few (imo ) bad trends regarding the purpose if a character,  the narrative,/metanarrative,  etc.  

You can definitely trace tho trends back to earlier editions.

There are so many good points in this thread, it's hard not to restate them.

I think 2e is great, and I don't really treat it as a separate game from 1e. And yes, I fully understand the various reasons why the grogs have problems with 2e, but I just don't care.

If I were to rate 1e and 2e side-by-side, I'd say that 2e has a superior Player's Handbook, while 1e has a superior DMG. Monster Manuals from both editions are comparable, but 1e monster books are slightly better. 1e has better adventure modules, yet 2e has far superior campaign settings. Non-adventure supplements from both 1e and 2e are roughly equal in overall quality, but 2e has so much more stuff, that quality is obviously somewhat more variable.

So yeah, 2e is worth playing....and I just mix 'n match 1e and 2e material together. That way I get the best of both worlds for my campaign. Win-win scenario for me.

Quote from: Benoist;453572That's just it, to me: 2e to me has very cool worlds, cool worlds that can be used with any other edition of the game without having to deal with the lame, tasteless hogwash that is the 2nd ed rules.

Absolutely. I usually run 3e rules with 2e fluff.

I loved some of the settings and stories. I just don't remember the rules making any sense. I started with 2e as well.

2e best version (as I have siad previously in other posts).

Focus on character over power playing. 3e Required too much system mastery and heralded the age of optimum builds and all that crap.

Skills and powers / players options was an abortion and was at the tail end of 2e can can be discounted.

I still play 2 e now so yahboo suck to the rest of you

Quote from: Cole;453663It varied from module to module and the RL line had some winners, but it also had some terrible adventures as well, with not much better than a mad libs level of input for the players. That's the story of 2e, though - so much chaff to find the grains.

Yet I find this true with every edition of D&D.  Basic might be an exception just because it didn't have a whole lot of products released for it, though I hear that quite a few of the GAZ line is "odd".

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;453670...and to overcome the sense of "uh oh" I got reading through the books, with their bland writing and crappy art.

And yet I see 2e's art as the absolute best, and 1e's art as the worst (namely the art in the PHB and MM; I find the art in the modules I own to be quite evocative and enjoyable).

QuoteThe DMG, in particular, was a big disappointment compared to  the 1e version (which still gets referenced in my fantasy RPG campaigns, regardless of what system I'm running).  I recall going through the 2e DMG and wondering "where did all the cool stuff go?"

It got put in the PHB .  Okay, seriously, yeah the 2e DMG is not as cool as 1e's DMG, I only ever used it to look up magical items.  I noticed that in 1e the DMG is much more required, whereas the 2e DMG is a lot more optional, so I can't really see the 2e DMG as that important of a representation of the series.

QuoteI tried to like 2e, but it never failed to disappoint me.  I liked 1e, and 2e was almost like 1e (very close in so many ways), but to me it seems like the dead husk of 1e with all the soul and life sucked out of it and an animate dead spell cast on it so that it still shuffled along.  

So, you don't like 2e because it isn't 1e?  I'm not saying that you're wrong to dislike it because of that, just that it doesn't make 2e objectively worse than 1e.

QuoteEven with the "soulless" thing, I could have overlooked that and injected some soul into it.  But releases that followed core just made things worse.  Splat-books upon splat books.  Module after module that I bought thinking "maybe this will be cool," and it just wasn't.  2e was a steady stream of disappointment, for me.  I gave up on it a long time before it got completely ridiculous with the powers and options stuff, though.

To be honest, all the modules I have on my shelf are from 1e, so I am completely inexperienced with the glut of bad releases for 2e; I just have the core books, the setting box sets and a whole bunch of random supplements.  I can see why D&D fans at the time were disappointed with 2e, and that my enjoyment in 2e is derived from after the shit was done hitting the fan, so to speak.

In hindsight, I think 2E's greatest problem (in terms of longevity) is that it doesn't have its own niche. People who want to play old-school will pick 1E (why bother changing to 2nd ed., the rules in the PHB are 90% identical), while people who might enjoy the later 2nd ed. materials (lots of mechanical distinction with kits, Player's Option customization, etc.) will just play 3E, which has more of the stuff.

Ruleswise it's eclipsed by the preceding and following editions, so all you have left are a great bunch of lackluster modules and a few really interesting settings - which can just as easily be played in the aforementioned other editions.

It's the edition I was introduced into gaming with, so I have warm and fuzzy memories of it for that reason alone (and I suspect a lot of the love for 1st edition comes from the same emotional attachment, even though they found logical arguments to back up their claims). We tried to play a game of 2nd edition not too long ago, and were completely baffled by the rules after playing so many modern systems.

I will maintain to this DAY, that 2nd edition D&D had the best settings in rpg history. Yes, I know about the horrible business decisions that were being made that led to the buyout down the road. I know some of them are quite cheesy. But man, those settings caught my young imagination on FIRE! They were on par with some of the best comic books of all time, in getting ideas flowing. Modern D&D seems dull and barren compared to it. The only thing I've ever seen that can compare to the sheer coolness of Dark Sun and Planescape is Mystara, which I was only introduced to much later.

I know they took the demons out, and removed some of the grime, but to this day I absolutely LOVED the pure gonzo craziness of 2nd edition D&D. It was exactlly what we wanted at the time. I am very sad that nobody has seen a way to combine that sort of creative output with a sensible business plan. I'll wish forever that more games had a plethora of awesome settings to choose from, but as an adult I know they 'don't sell'.

Quote from: Premier;453726In hindsight, I think 2E's greatest problem (in terms of longevity) is that it doesn't have its own niche. People who want to play old-school will pick 1E (why bother changing to 2nd ed., the rules in the PHB are 90% identical).

Personally, I cannot understand 1e AD&D at all when I pick up the books.  I appreciate them for what they are, and I would love to play it with an experienced DM, but I certainly can never run it.

I have a suspicion I may have gotten the same experience with 2e had I picked up the 2e AD&D books without having first been introduced to it by the computer game Baldur's Gate.

Quote from: islan;453739Personally, I cannot understand 1e AD&D at all when I pick up the books.  I appreciate them for what they are, and I would love to play it with an experienced DM, but I certainly can never run it.

Check out OSRIC, the 1e clone. One of the advantages is that it is written and compiled in such a way as to make the 1e game accessible for people who had headaches having to read EGG's prose. Free PDF available for download on that page.

If you want to play a 2e setting, using 2e rules is the way to go.  No conversion work necessary.

I hate work.

I think 2e suffers from being the 2nd worst edition of D&D.

Taken on its own merits, it's a good game, maybe even a great one.

However, AD&D, BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia, 3rd edition and OD&D are all *better* versions of D&D, to my mind.

Those aren't put in any particular order btw.

So basically, I think whenever you see people discuss 2e online, they're talking about an edition of D&D they don't prefer. So yeah, there's going to be negative connotations.