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It continues to come as a great shock to me that whenever 2E is brought up online (either forums or blogs) it usually comes with negative connotations.  From what I have seen, the complaints are of two main varieties: "2E took away all that was good about 1E" or "2E was the crap we had to deal with before the glory of 3E".  To me, these arguments just boil down to "2e isn't 1e" and "2e isn't 3e".  Well, of course it isn't 1e or 3e, it's 2e!

Now, 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?  1e has Gygaxianism, 3e has streamlined rules, but to me 2e had wonderful worlds to explore and a much cleaned up version of AD&D rules.  Each edition has their benefits and differences I feel, and of course we are all predisposed towards one edition over another, but why all the hate for 2e?  Is there seriously no love for 2e?  If you love 2e, please prove me wrong!

Too much wink-wink railroading, too many piles of padded hackwork books. Too little attention to the realities of play. There were plenty of good ideas coming out over the run of 2e, the soybean filler just tends to overshadow it.

That'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.

I'll prefer OD&D, AD&D, B/X, Rules Cyclopedia, and 3rd edition rules to AD&D2, each for different reasons.

We still play Spelljammer in 2e.

No problems on that front.  If you're willing to play with the rules, it's not that bad and can be a bit of fun.

If you're too caught up in how highbrow you are and how many awesome rules you know from other games, I can see how your enjoyment can be diminished.

As I write this, I'm buying the War Captain's Companion on Ebay.  Bitchin'.

Of all D&D the 2e PHB and DMG are the prettiest to this beholder. I even like those stylized blue panels everyone seems to hate.

Quote from: Blackhand;453575If you're too caught up in how highbrow you are and how many awesome rules you know from other games, I can see how your enjoyment can be diminished.

Frankly for much of the 2e era I played with hodgepodge of 1e, 2e, and Basic rules depending on what seemed to work at the moment. I do not think this was a rare situation.

I'm running a great 2e ravenloft campaign right now. I actually think it is a pretty good system. Haven't played it in years either. Revisiting it after all these years has been exciting. I also took the opportunity to re-read the Gygax 1E PHB and DMG to get a sense of the difference between the editions. Right now I'd be happy to play in any 1E, 2E, or 3E game. IMO they all have things they do well.

Quote from: Blackhand;453575No problems on that front.  If you're willing to play with the rules, it's not that bad and can be a bit of fun.

I actually agree with that. It's not that bad.

Quote from: Cole;453577Frankly for much of the 2e era I played with hodgepodge of 1e, 2e, and Basic rules depending on what seemed to work at the moment. I do not think this was a rare situation.

When the 2E PHB book first came out, this happened in my group for a while. One of the guys was still using his 1st edition book to make characters and 2E was new enough it took us a while to figure out what he was doing.

I never had any problems with 2e.  Honestly, the core books pretty much reflected how AD&D was actually played back then before people started revising their past play history to show they were "old school" or whatever all along.

The expansion books were a mixed bag, but I got plenty of mileage out of the Tome of Magic, the Player's Option books (though I never let my players get their hands on them; they should have been called DM's Option), and a fair chunk of the stuff from the Complete books (Fighter and Thief especially).

Yeah, yeah, no demons/devils/assassins/psionics/whatever-your-personal-sign-of-the-apocalypse-happens-to-be.

My favorite conversation regarding 2e took place soon after the DMG was published.  I was at my friend EJ's house and we were talking about our campaign.  EJ's sister's boyfriend played and saw us with our 2e books.  "Oh man, the new edition sucks," he said, "they took out everything cool from the original books, like the siege rules...they suck now."

"True," I said, "I guess I already have the first edition books so I'm lucky, but I've never really had to use the siege rules.  Did you use them often?"

"Well...we never used them, but still...."

I'm pretty sure that this has been hashed out at least twice before in long threads. I, and many others, thought the core phb was good, dmg indifferent, later books had many great ideas presented unevenly. I think most people agree that the tone changes and edits to things like demons were bad miscalculations - the main differences seem to be how much weight this carries, whether is totally sinks 2e or were minor flaws that could be overlooked for cleaned up mechanics.
 
At this point, I may never play 1e or 2e again. If I want old school, I'm more likely to go to a modern incarnation of Basic.
 
When I think back on it. the game design aspects of many of the supplements were terribly unprofessional.  They'd throw out new rules without seeing how they could be manipulated to create broken characters and without thought to how those rules interacted with the rest of the rules.  That describes many of the Dragon articles during 1e and 2e as well.  Good ideas but not enough numbers people.

Quote from: KenHR;453582The expansion books were a mixed bag, but I got plenty of mileage out of the Tome of Magic, the Player's Option books (though I never let my players get their hands on them; they should have been called DM's Option), and a fair chunk of the stuff from the Complete books (Fighter and Thief especially).

Yeah, hindsight being 20/20, it is very easy now to avoid some of the pitfalls of 2e.  I hear talk of how the second half 2e's lifecycle was marred by poorly designed books, but I haven't read a single one of those, so it doesn't really matter to me.  I particularly disliked my actual-play experience with the Player's Option books with one group, but I still enjoyed playing even though I was the only one using just the core rulebooks.

Quote from: islan;453588Yeah, hindsight being 20/20, it is very easy now to avoid some of the pitfalls of 2e.  I hear talk of how the second half 2e's lifecycle was marred by poorly designed books, but I haven't read a single one of those, so it doesn't really matter to me.  I particularly disliked my actual-play experience with the Player's Option books with one group, but I still enjoyed playing even though I was the only one using just the core rulebooks.

I think there was a serious dip in quality somewhere in the mid 90s. I remember a lot of the Class Books, Modules, Historical Supps, etc being pretty good. Mostly I ran Ravenloft and I remember (I think around 96 or so) the books started looking cheaper, the art got much worse, and the writing declined as well. But before that, I was very satisfied with the material I purchased.

Quote from: KenHR;453582I never had any problems with 2e.  Honestly, the core books pretty much reflected how AD&D was actually played back then before people started revising their past play history to show they were "old school" or whatever all along.

I don't immediately understand what you mean in how the 2e core books reflected actual 1e play. In particular many of the largest changes were specifics of the classes that strike me as top-down innovations. For example 1e style bards may have been a rare animal but is there reason to believe that something similar to the 2e bard was a common house rule? In my opinion the changes more often probably reflect an attempt to make the game cleave more closely to the flavor of fantasy novel series popular in the mid-80s.

Also, TSR's own novel series. Why do 2e rangers fight with two weapons? Icewind Dale. Why do 2e gnomes get a penalty to wisdom? Dragonlance.

If they reflected actual play, I would have instead expected something closer to a compromised between AD&D and basic, or (though I think it would have been a poor design move to do so) a reflection of the "realism-enhancing" house rules common at home tables or in Dragon.

Quote from: KenHR;453582The expansion books were a mixed bag, but I got plenty of mileage out of the Tome of Magic, the Player's Option books (though I never let my players get their hands on them; they should have been called DM's Option), and a fair chunk of the stuff from the Complete books (Fighter and Thief especially).

Tome of Magic was a particular favorite of mine, saw a lot of use in the groups I played with too.

Quote from: KenHR;453582Yeah, yeah, no demons/devils/assassins/psionics/whatever-your-personal-sign-of-the-apocalypse-happens-to-be.

That is stuff I tended to retain from 1e into ostensible 2e games. One of the longest-running PCs in my group was a character who was multiclassed between 2e-style specialty priest and 1e assassin.

Quote from: KenHR;453582My favorite conversation regarding 2e took place soon after the DMG was published.  I was at my friend EJ's house and we were talking about our campaign.  EJ's sister's boyfriend played and saw us with our 2e books.  "Oh man, the new edition sucks," he said, "they took out everything cool from the original books, like the siege rules...they suck now."

"True," I said, "I guess I already have the first edition books so I'm lucky, but I've never really had to use the siege rules.  Did you use them often?"

"Well...we never used them, but still...."

We usually used Mentzer's Warmachine :)

Quote from: Cole;453590I don't immediately understand what you mean in how the 2e core books reflected actual 1e play. In particular many of the largest changes were specifics of the classes that strike me as top-down innovations. For example 1e style bards may have been a rare animal but is there reason to believe that something similar to the 2e bard was a common house rule? In my opinion the changes more often probably reflect an attempt to make the game cleave more closely to the flavor of fantasy novel series popular in the mid-80s.

Also, TSR's own novel series. Why do 2e rangers fight with two weapons? Icewind Dale. Why do 2e gnomes get a penalty to wisdom? Dragonlance.

If they reflected actual play, I would have instead expected something closer to a compromised between AD&D and basic, or (though I think it would have been a poor design move to do so) a reflection of the "realism-enhancing" house rules common at home tables or in Dragon.

My reply was probably a bit hasty.  Most of what 2e did was streamline the game to reflect actual play, but yes, there were definite changes to how many of the classes worked (I personally liked specialist mages, but disliked the loss of flavor to the illusionist, and the druid's spell list was never corrected until PO: Spells & Magic).

There were definitely changes to many classes, but on the whole, the core books simplified the system to reflect how people actually played.

I would use the rules.  I would ignore every bit of play advice from the 2e campaign guides, adventures, and articles.

Quote from: Peregrin;453596I would use the rules.  I would ignore every bit of play advice from the 2e campaign guides, adventures, and articles.

That's great advice, actually!

(Yours, I mean, not 2e's...)

Quote from: KenHR;453593There were definitely changes to many classes, but on the whole, the core books simplified the system to reflect how people actually played.

There were some simplifications - 1e's intricate weapon vs. AC charts would be a good example - but I think overall it merely replaced 1e's body of little-used and poorly remembered rules with a different but overall equally fussy and neglected body of ancillary rules.

Quote from: Cole;453598There were some simplifications - 1e's intricate weapon vs. AC charts would be a good example.

Or a "bad" one. I don't know 2e very well but that's one detail where I've seen how it's handled in 2e, and my feeling is, if you're going to use weapon vs. AC, then do it right. Actually, the presentation in Greyhawk was probably best because IIRC it didn't have AD&D 1e's smearing of what AC meant--a given AC was either an armor type + shield, or an armor type w/o shield.

Settembrini (who pops up here sometimes) thinks that 2e is the best presentation of the AD&D rules, at least in the core. I don't know--the nonweapon proficiencies system sounds tacked on and potentially subject to abuse. I've seen "skills" systems in D&D variants that IMO would probably work better, in Palladium, Talislanta, Atlantis/Arcanum, and Shades of Fantasy, not to mention unpublished homebrews.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;453616Settembrini (who pops up here sometimes) thinks that 2e is the best presentation of the AD&D rules, at least in the core. I don't know--the nonweapon proficiencies system sounds tacked on and potentially subject to abuse. I've seen "skills" systems in D&D variants that IMO would probably work better, in Palladium, Talislanta, Atlantis/Arcanum, and Shades of Fantasy, not to mention unpublished homebrews.

I actually like the non weapon proficiencies in 2E. It has been a while, and we just started playing again, so I'd have to look deeper for potential abuse (though I don't ever recall it being a problem when I played 2E in the 90s). One thing I like about it is it is very contained. You roll against your ability score. I love 3E, but sometimes the 1d20 plus a number thing gets out of hand (particularly with skills). When we startted playing 2E again, this was one of the elements I immediately liked.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;453616Or a "bad" one. I don't know 2e very well but that's one detail where I've seen how it's handled in 2e, and my feeling is, if you're going to use weapon vs. AC, then do it right. Actually, the presentation in Greyhawk was probably best because IIRC it didn't have AD&D 1e's smearing of what AC meant--a given AC was either an armor type + shield, or an armor type w/o shield.

I think the 2e numbers were a bit skewed (I think they favored slashing weapons), but the approach - armor vs. type of strike (P/B/S) rather than weapon vs. armor type - wasn't a bad one; I think Harn used the same approach with a different system.  Considering the smearing of AC you mention, it was the best way to go with the system as it stood at the time.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;453616Settembrini (who pops up here sometimes) thinks that 2e is the best presentation of the AD&D rules, at least in the core. I don't know--the nonweapon proficiencies system sounds tacked on and potentially subject to abuse. I've seen "skills" systems in D&D variants that IMO would probably work better, in Palladium, Talislanta, Atlantis/Arcanum, and Shades of Fantasy, not to mention unpublished homebrews.

The core (non-optional) stuff was presented very well, IMO.  NWPs were half-baked and not really "officially" improved until Player's Option, but they were considered an optional rule (though just about everyone who played 2e used them).

I loved 2E, for a long long time. I even liked some of the Optional stuff (but I always considered all that GM's option.)

Yet, I found games that did what I liked better. I think Birthright, was the final nail in the coffin. A wonderful setting, marred by D&Disms. It managed well, was wonderful and interesting, even with AD&D2E, but with a dozen other games I can name. It would have been pitch perfect. I feel much the same with Dark Sun. Although it managed even better with AD&D2E, it might have served a dozen other games as the perfect setting. For TSR/WOTC? They're just "Hey we've got this IP we can throw around..."

Quote from: Cole;453598There were some simplifications - 1e's intricate weapon vs. AC charts would be a good example - but I think overall it merely replaced 1e's body of little-used and poorly remembered rules with a different but overall equally fussy and neglected body of ancillary rules.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;453616Or a "bad" one. I don't know 2e very well but that's one detail where I've seen how it's handled in 2e, and my feeling is, if you're going to use weapon vs. AC, then do it right. Actually, the presentation in Greyhawk was probably best because IIRC it didn't have AD&D 1e's smearing of what AC meant--a given AC was either an armor type + shield, or an armor type w/o shield.

I feel you - when I said "a good example" I should have instead said "an easily recognizable example of a simplification." I didn't mean to say "clearly an improvement in the rules."

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;453616Settembrini (who pops up here sometimes) thinks that 2e is the best presentation of the AD&D rules, at least in the core. I don't know--the nonweapon proficiencies system sounds tacked on and potentially subject to abuse. I've seen "skills" systems in D&D variants that IMO would probably work better, in Palladium, Talislanta, Atlantis/Arcanum, and Shades of Fantasy, not to mention unpublished homebrews.

I am of the opinion that TSR never really published a good presentation of the AD&D rules - as opposed to the any comment on the actual rules per se. I think compared to many other games AD&D 1e and 2e would take the gold and the silver among RPGs for "lowest % of rules body used at the average table."

I have mixed feelings on how well NWP accomplished what they seem to have been written to accomplish. The basic idea of "compare a roll to one of the main attributes of the character," more at home in the Basic line really, isn't such a bad one IMO and relating the specialized capabilities of a NWP skill to the general capabilities of saving makes a certain sense. It could have been done better, though. Given D&D, maybe it would have been better to start out the skills chapter by sketching out the loose skill-sets assumed in the character classes already, and allowing a few specialties for each individual, with a flat bonus.

In my opinion:

The presentation is very good (although I find the illustrations uninspiring).
The rules revision is on balance clumsy.
The supplements and modules early on were execrable.

The general tenor of game culture in the later deluge of product was either delightful or off-putting. The response is often the inverse of one's response to older D&D game culture, but need not be unmixed.

Planescape looks interesting to me in parts -- the parts that are actually interesting depictions of other-planar environments that I might use in play.

Quote from: BenoistIt's not that bad.

I agree, and have enjoyed playing with 2e rules, but "not that bad" is not the test if one considers 1st edition AD&D a gem simply in need of polish.

2e is not a better duck. It's a platypus.

The editing, organization and layout are nice, and the writing has simplicity and clarity over stylish Gygaxian prose -- but OSRIC has those qualities as well. In both, there are here and there some streamlined rules I like. The more I learn about what's changed in 2e, though, the less I like. OSRIC seems to me to demonstrate more understanding of the D&D game.

Quote from: KenHRHonestly, the core books pretty much reflected how AD&D was actually played back then before people started revising their past play history to show they were "old school" or whatever all along.

Ken, try talking about what you know, instead of calling people liars when you don't know us or thing one about how we played back then.

The books reflected different ways in which many people played. TSR solicited, and received, a lot of input from players. The result was a committee-cooked stew of those many, sometimes contradictory, ingredients.

Sometimes the text indicated the effects that some bits might have in combination. Sometimes, the writers gave no indication of grasping consequences.

Quote from: BlackhandWe still play Spelljammer in 2e.

I still have Spelljammer, but recall it as an example of a shift in TSR's material generally that did not sit well with me for the AD&D line.

It's like listening to hours of so called "smooth jazz" radio. That's several things, but only rarely what I call jazz. (Often, it's what the artists themselves called pop.)

Here's the problem: Those of us who weren't being insanely perverse got into AD&D because we liked it. What was on offer in 1989 was sufficiently different from what was on offer in 1979 that "what AD&D is" can mean radically different things -- whether the person making the reference likes or dislikes what's associated with the term.

Quote from: ColeToo much wink-wink railroading, too many piles of padded hackwork books.

Yes, all that really does it in.

The "core rules" are not much more different from 1st ed. than many of the "house rules" that inspired the revision. 2e books and 1e books can compliment each other as sources of material for one's own set of house rules.

The rest of the line too often offered too little of real use to be worth the price, unless one's attitudes were in keeping with the new take on what the game was, how it was played, what it was about.

Even accounting for those attitudes, I am impressed by how much filler people bought. It's almost as if "must buy the cruft" was the defining philosophy of 2e.

DMs apparently had to keep up with rules lawyers and canon lawyers alike.

Quote from: KenHR"Oh man, the new edition sucks," he said, "they took out everything cool from the original books, like the siege rules...they suck now."

Yeah, but that was before the Players Complete Option Handbook of Deep Gnome Artillerists and Certified Public Accountants of the Forgotten Realms. [/joke] ;)

Quote from: Phillip;453632The supplements and modules early on were execrable.

There are exceptions but most of the modules in particular are awful and many are in my opinion basically unusable as written if you're not willing to secretly or overtly force the players' hand as to what they are able to do. But there were a lot of nice adventures to be found in Dungeon magazine, which, often being reader submissions, tended to have the advantage that they had ever been played, unlike most of the 2e modules proper, which I think tended to be written in a detached reverie of wishful thinking about how great it would play out assuming the players made all the ideal choices for the story.

Quote from: Nicephorus;453585When I think back on it. the game design aspects of many of the supplements were terribly unprofessional.  They'd throw out new rules without seeing how they could be manipulated to create broken characters and without thought to how those rules interacted with the rest of the rules.  That describes many of the Dragon articles during 1e and 2e as well.  Good ideas but not enough numbers people.

In the first decade of commercial D&D (1974-1983), there was much of the flavor that comes from being "terribly unprofessional" because the authors were in fact hobbyists writing about far-out stuff they had introduced in their own games.

After that, the 'unprofessional' lack of testing was often due to real professionals, on corporate staff with salaries just cranking out words in their offices to meet quotas. If they actually played D&D for pleasure, they might not want people to think so. Evidence of real enthusiasm and experience got quashed in favor of "not a gamer, a game designer" aloofness.

Aaron Allston was both a player and a pro, and I think there were enough numbers behind The Complete Priest's Handbook. However, his conclusion that the cleric should be made a bit weaker was not popular.

2e had great settings.

I still hunt down 2e setting stuff on eBay.

Quote from: Phillip;453637In the first decade of commercial D&D (1974-1983), there was much of the flavor that comes from being "terribly unprofessional" because the authors were in fact hobbyists writing about far-out stuff they had introduced in their own games.

After that, the 'unprofessional' lack of testing was often due to real professionals, on corporate staff with salaries just cranking out words in their offices to meet quotas. If they actually played D&D for pleasure, they might not want people to think so. Evidence of real enthusiasm and experience got quashed in favor of "not a gamer, a game designer" aloofness.

Aaron Allston was both a player and a pro, and I think there were enough numbers behind The Complete Priest's Handbook. However, his conclusion that the cleric should be made a bit weaker was not popular.

Remember that for the 2e era it was the opinion of management that the staff had best not be playing (A)D&D if they knew what was good for them.

I think the Basic line saw better work overall before its revamp (and rebranding of Mystara as AD&D) due to less oversight over freelances like, for example, Allston, who did great Basic work.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;453617I actually like the non weapon proficiencies in 2E. It has been a while, and we just started playing again, so I'd have to look deeper for potential abuse (though I don't ever recall it being a problem when I played 2E in the 90s). One thing I like about it is it is very contained. You roll against your ability score. I love 3E, but sometimes the 1d20 plus a number thing gets out of hand (particularly with skills). When we startted playing 2E again, this was one of the elements I immediately liked.

I don't recall any specific difference in rules from the non weapon proficiencies in 1E (Survival Guides, Oriental Adventures).

There started to be a difference in attitude toward rules, though. Two temperaments or philosophies came to the fore:

(a) excessive insistence on looking up rules and making dice rolls, and

(b) "railroading illusionism" in which the DM merely pretends to apply rules.

At first glance seemingly opposed, these were often mashed together to create a tiresome mutant that resembled D&D only about as watching "attract mode" resembles actually playing an arcade game.

Quote from: Phillip;453646I don't recall any specific difference in rules from the non weapon proficiencies in 1E (Survival Guides, Oriental Adventures).

Both of those came out after I'd quit D&D, so whatever edition NWPs appeared under, they weren't part of "my" 1e.

I'd have to go back & research both 2e and Rules Compendium's approach to skills but my impression is that neither of them recognized that it was awkward to have one set of skill rules for thieves, and another set of skill rules for everyone else. They also made ability scores too powerful compared to character level.

Quote from: Phillip;453637After that, the 'unprofessional' lack of testing was often due to real professionals, on corporate staff with salaries just cranking out words in their offices to meet quotas. If they actually played D&D for pleasure, they might not want people to think so. Evidence of real enthusiasm and experience got quashed in favor of "not a gamer, a game designer" aloofness.

I've read it more than once that the Lorraine Williams actually forbid playing games during work hours.

I'm not sure these people were exactly eager to use their free time playtesting the stuff they were developing. Hell, I wouldn't be.

Quote from: ColeRemember that for the 2e era it was the opinion of management that the staff had best not be playing (A)D&D if they knew what was good for them.

Really? Folly.

Quote from: Phillip;453646There started to be a difference in attitude toward rules, though. Two temperaments or philosophies came to the fore:

(a) excessive insistence on looking up rules and making dice rolls, and

(b) "railroading illusionism" in which the DM merely pretends to apply rules.

At first glance seemingly opposed, these were often mashed together to create a tiresome mutant that resembled D&D only about as watching "attract mode" resembles actually playing an arcade game.

I can't say I really detected more of A in 2E over 1E. At least based on the text of the rule books alone (I tend to think of A as more of an issue with 3E than the previous editions). It may be there, I just haven't noticed it myself.

I think railroading did become more acceptable at some point in 2e (though I was just reading the Gygax DMG and he certaintly seemed to endorse it in certain passages). Again while I didn't notice this so much in the rule books themselves, I did notice it in many of the modules.

I recently started my 2e ravenloft game (after not playing the edition for over a decade), and I picked up a bunch of the Ravenloft modules to see if I could run any. The biggest problem I encountered in the writing was the railroading. This wasn't so bad, since I could make minor adjustments to get around it. But the modules were written so that the GM is expected to do everything possible when the PCs don't go where they are "supposed to go" (i.e. "The PCs will go to the theatre by evening. If they don't have Carmine come and get them and take them to the theatre. The PCs should leave midway through the show; if they don't have the constable get them to ask them for help).

With the Ravenloft modules (and in this case I am thinking of the created---a module I rather like), the issue seemed to stem from a desire to structure the scene in an adequately dramatic fashion, or to keep key pieces of info from the party. In the created, the ending is all but written for PCs, and there is actually one case where it tells the GM not to allow an NPC to die no matter how much damage he takes.

On the other hand, modules like Feast of Goblyns had a lot of cool locations, characters, set-ups, etc. Plus it was built around the concept of being a living adventure---where the NPCs don't hang out in specific locations, but behave freely and adapt to PC behavior.

Quote from: Elliot Wilenit was awkward to have one set of skill rules for thieves, and another set of skill rules for everyone else.

Never seen it.

Thieves use exactly the same skill rules (whatever they may be) as other characters. They simply have special rules for special thief functions -- just as clerics have rules for their class abilities, fighters for theirs, and magic-users for theirs.

Quote from: Phillip;453646I don't recall any specific difference in rules from the non weapon proficiencies in 1E (Survival Guides, Oriental Adventures).
.

I think they weren't that different. But I'd have to check out the SG and OA to check (don't remember them being in the 1E PHB, but I suppose they could be in there as well). I guess my real point was I was impressed with the non weapon proficiency rules (whatever edition it started in), after using the 3E skill rules for ten years.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;453657On the other hand, modules like Feast of Goblyns had a lot of cool locations, characters, set-ups, etc. Plus it was built around the concept of being a living adventure---where the NPCs don't hang out in specific locations, but behave freely and adapt to PC behavior.

It 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.

Quote from: Cole;453571Too much wink-wink railroading, too many piles of padded hackwork books. Too little attention to the realities of play. There were plenty of good ideas coming out over the run of 2e, the soybean filler just tends to overshadow it.

Quote from: Cole;453635There are exceptions but most of the modules in particular are awful and many are in my opinion basically unusable as written if you're not willing to secretly or overtly force the players' hand as to what they are able to do. But there were a lot of nice adventures to be found in Dungeon magazine, which, often being reader submissions, tended to have the advantage that they had ever been played, unlike most of the 2e modules proper, which I think tended to be written in a detached reverie of wishful thinking about how great it would play out assuming the players made all the ideal choices for the story.

Both good points that sum up most of what I think about it. In hindsight, there are a lot of gems. Since back then we couldn't rely on that, we had to wade through a lot of crap. Well, we soon realised the general AD&D module line was horrible while Dungeon was generally passable to great, but the crap really killed our enthusiasm. It wasn't even the most hideous junk that did it but the mass of cardboard-stale filler cranked out by the TSR staff. You can actually deal with obviously bad material and laugh it off (c.f. Beneath the Twisted Tower's lame-as deus ex machina*). It is way worse when it enters your game and poisons it. Like Dragon Mountain, which looked badass on paper, but in practice, a friend tried running it (after I had already quit gaming; my last straw was Birthright) and it was a boring slog with the Tucker's Kobolds joke stretched out to an uncomfortable long mini-series.

Actually, the problem with these materials wasn't even necessarily a lack of playtesting. You can get away with no playtesting for a while (as dodgy as it sounds) since you still have an idea about what people do at the table (this is how people create their modules at home, after all). No, the problem was, these materials were divorced from the practice of play. They weren't written with a gaming group in mind; rather, often by wannabe novellists. Jean Rabe, who had written some of the most useless 2e modules? Yes, a (hack) novellist (http://www.jeanrabe.com/). Birthright? Yes, some failed novellist guys' novel pitch turned into a game world (says so right in the foreword). And so on.

Plus: super-bland and offensively sugary RenFaire implied setting.

__________________________
* Originally posted by Gryfalcon on RPGNet (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?293758-1st-Edition-forgotten-Realms&p=6510043#post6510043):

QuoteWhat's worse, the adventure's got a safety catch built in, to wit - if the PCs ever run low on hit points or get in trouble, Elminster and his pet dog will wander into the area, with Elminster absentmindedly calling "Heel!" as he points an odd stick in random directions. Yes, the 'stick' is actually a Wand of Healing, and it'll zap each badly injured PC.

Quote from: Melan;453665__________________________
* Originally posted by Gryfalcon on RPGNet (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?293758-1st-Edition-forgotten-Realms&p=6510043#post6510043):

Wow, that's a real kick in the balls. Made only marginally more palatable because I can't help but always hear the voice of Elminster as sounding just like Sean Connery in Finding Forrester.

Quote from: BedrockBrendanI was impressed with the non weapon proficiency rules (whatever edition it started in), after using the 3E skill rules for ten years.

It also appeared in the D&D Gazetteer series, and the Rules Cyclopedia.

I think it's fine for adding a touch of background color, as I think the designers intended. Certainly what I recall Dave Cook saying on the matter was not in line with the player culture I saw evolve and in turn inform 3e.

For the purposes of the latter, in which such factors are not garnish but meat and potatoes, there's probably not enough going on in terms either of advancement or of the kind of mechanical balance desired.


This question of just what it is we are really trying to do, which game we really want to play, is rather significant when it comes to choosing mechanical implementations.

It also, naturally, shapes one's judgment of means designed to serve ends one does not share.

Quote from: islan;453568Each edition has their benefits and differences I feel, and of course we are all predisposed towards one edition over another, but why all the hate for 2e?

When 2e came out, I bought it.  I remember trying to like it, and to overcome the sense of "uh oh" I got reading through the books, with their bland writing and crappy art.  The 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?"  I had the Monstrous Compendium, too.  That was one of those things that could have been cool, but was poorly executed, and another disappointment.

I 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.  

Even 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.

QuoteIs there seriously no love for 2e?

Sorry; not from me.

Quote from: Phillip;453660Never seen it.

Thieves use exactly the same skill rules (whatever they may be) as other characters. They simply have special rules for special thief functions -- just as clerics have rules for their class abilities, fighters for theirs, and magic-users for theirs.

I think you know what I mean.

Even if you expand "skills" to include class powers, the actual (non-NWP) class abilities also emphasize level over ability scores, while NWP & RC have it the other way around. Unless I'm mistaken, in which case I'll happily be corrected on the substantive point. But I don't have much time for hair-splitting.

I never liked NWPs.  I dislike skill systems grafted onto a class/level based design, to begin with, and NWPs are a half-assed skill system, at that.

The "secondary skill" system is okay; out of all the various skill systems that have been proposed or published for D&D, I think it's the only one that fits well with the games class/level approach.  It's essentially just "hey, this is part of your PC background, so you're familiar with and competent at the stuff you'd expect from that background."

There were things I loved about the 2E era. And none of them were the mechanics. I still have some of the material because it was never converted in the 3E era. But I sold off all the rest of my 2E books. Much of the fluff was great. But for me, all of the mechanics were inferior to 3E.

I liked 2e and we had a lot of fun with it. We liked 3e and had more fun with it, though...

I've always said it is the settings, in particular, that stand the test of time.

The system, AFAIAC, was a step forward from 1e, but still kept many things I had a problem with (dual class vs. multiclassing, percentile strength, non scaling "skill" system, etc.)

Alot of my early formative gaming was with 2E though, I mostly play 3E these days.

In retrospect I think the 2E rules for character generation were quite good in that with NWPs and kits you could create some really interesting and flavourful PCs...halfling goldsmiths or wilderness warrior fighters, or merchants or gypsies or weapons-performer bards or whatnot.  A couple of the "Complete" books were very good as well e.g. Complete Fighter was great for adding combat moves. I didn't mind skills and powers though I never got to play this - they might work with enough DM control over which options work for a campaign.

I loved NWPs - not the ability check mechanism for using them, but the list of actual proficiency choices. By 3E, they'd ripped out most of the interesting skills by hiding them within Craft/Perform/Profession and leaving off minor special benefits, and added more powerful skills like Spot and Move Silently and Concentration. The incentive therefore being just to take those and not worry too much about having a background.

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 :p.  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. (http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/)

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.

Maybe 2e fell into the trap of reverse Star Trek movie quality.  All the odd numbered (A)D&Ds are good, the even numbered ones are lousy.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;453757Maybe 2e fell into the trap of reverse Star Trek movie quality.  All the odd numbered (A)D&Ds are good, the even numbered ones are lousy.

Well, that's a theory that fits my own perspective on the game at this point.

Quote from: Vigilance;453756I 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.

Basically. I would never call 2e "great", but 2e is not objectively "abysmal" or "unplayable" by any stretch of the imagination. It's perfectly playable and enjoyable on its own merits. It's just that nearly all other iterations of the game work better for me, each depending on particular circumstances.

I would maintain that 2e has a lot of role-playing options. When you have choices in 3e these lead to mechanical advantages and that leads to the system mastery issue I refered to. Build optimisations and the like to me are not fun.
The Kit model has all the role play colour that comes with options but the benefits are role play based.

Take the Barbarian class from AD&D . The Barbarian was a broken class (I knwo its from UA but ...) and in reality what is a barbarian, just a warrior from a certain society. If all Oriental fighters are Samurai or Kensai, all Arab fighters are Mameluks, all primitive figthers are barbarians then who are the fighters ...? It is far more logical to have fighter and reskin them with kits. The 2e take on a barbarian is much better. It puts the focus into role-playing a barbarian not on all the mecanical advantages of barbarians.

Some Kits were broken or stupid , Bladesinger, 3 armed tree rangers etc ... but the principle which was that there are 4 core classes and a few hybrids (Wizard, Rogue, Figther, Priest with Wiz/Rogues = Bards, Priest/warriors = Paladins/Rangers) and everythign you can imagine fits into that model with minor tweaks.

Priests make sense in 2e in a way they never made sense in older or more recent editions.

NWP are a bit of a kludge. A fully developed skill system would have been an improvement but NWP as written are playable and simple to use with minor tweaks.

Very little that made D&D D&D was lost in the revision, characters could easily be converted, none of the colour was lost. So you used to be a 8th level fighter in AD&D lets convert you to a 8th level warrior and hey maybe there is a kit that suits how you used to play.
Dropping assasins was a minor foible but an assasin is just a rogue with a firm career choice and an assasin kit is easy.
Monks, well you could easily say monks are just fighters with an oriental flavour if you wanted to you might loose some of that colour but .... who is to say a galadiator from the arenas of Ur who trains 6 hours a day would be any worse at combat that a guy that does that in a monestry.

Yes but if I'm going to use what I want out of 1e in 2e why wouldn't I just play 1e instead.

(There, that's a nice welcome mat for the ZOMG HATE GYGAX crowd to stampede in on.)

Quote from: thedungeondelver;453763Yes but if I'm going to use what I want out of 1e in 2e why wouldn't I just play 1e instead.

(There, that's a nice welcome mat for the ZOMG HATE GYGAX crowd to stampede in on.)

Though I do prefer 2E (and I believe my reasons are mostly because I played more of it than 1E), I have been reading the 1E core books and there is definitely something to be said for Gygax's touch. The 1E DMG is a great book IMO. Lots of material as well as explanation (and a clear point of view).

So I was running Swords & Wizardry White Box last year at a convention.  Big honking all-day 14 hour event where players could come and go. It was awesome, we had an average of 8 players at the table, ranging from 4 to 14 players with them running around the ruins of an island slapping monsters, getting treasure and exploring mysteries. Had a total of 22 different players. Much fun for all, especially me.

The thank yous from players were hysterical to me because I spend too much time on forums.  Only one of my players ever heard of Dragonsfoot or the OSR. The older guys were so happy to play 1e again and the middle-age guys were happy to play 2e again. I didn't correct them...because THIS SHIT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER.

Quote from: Spinachcat;453784So I was running Swords & Wizardry White Box last year at a convention.  Big honking all-day 14 hour event where players could come and go. It was awesome, we had an average of 8 players at the table, ranging from 4 to 14 players with them running around the ruins of an island slapping monsters, getting treasure and exploring mysteries. Had a total of 22 different players. Much fun for all, especially me.

The thank yous from players were hysterical to me because I spend too much time on forums.  Only one of my players ever heard of Dragonsfoot or the OSR. The older guys were so happy to play 1e again and the middle-age guys were happy to play 2e again. I didn't correct them...because THIS SHIT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER.

You could probably see some interesting venn diagrams of which editions of D&D are being played by which player in any given session.

Quote from: Cole;453786You could probably see some interesting venn diagrams of which editions of D&D are being played by which player in any given session.

For sure.

When I did the local HMGS cons the only thing close to edition war was the jibes from the now-RPG director guy (mentioned in another post) and (complimentary) comments from the guests saying "This is AD&D like I remember it."

I've never played 2E AD&D.

I got some of the books over the years.  The core books were sort of a dry read.  Some of the 2E setting books were more interesting reading, such as various splatbooks from Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, etc ...

I never had the opportunity to see the system in actual play.  Perhaps I wasn't missing much to begin with?

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;453674I never liked NWPs.  I dislike skill systems grafted onto a class/level based design, to begin with, and NWPs are a half-assed skill system, at that.

The "secondary skill" system is okay; out of all the various skill systems that have been proposed or published for D&D, I think it's the only one that fits well with the games class/level approach.  It's essentially just "hey, this is part of your PC background, so you're familiar with and competent at the stuff you'd expect from that background."

I think NWPs and talents (I think that was the D&D term) were meant to be basically just that, except with

(a) a base number that can be a useful starting point (like Open Doors, Reaction Adjustment, Saving Throws, etc.)
and
(B) in AD&D, some information about the field in question (partly, I reckon, because that's the sort of material people expected to find in the Survival Guides).

I have not read the books lately, so maybe I'm wrongly imagining that the approach I took in practice was in line with the printed advice.

Consider the design itself in light of this "new school" complaint:

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;453672the actual (non-NWP) class abilities also emphasize level over ability scores, while NWP & RC have it the other way around.

It seems to me the difference makes eminent sense in the context of D&D's class/level system.

As the 1st DMG points out in the section on Player Character Non-Professional Skills:

QuoteWhen a player character selects a class, this profession is assumed to be that which a character has been following previously, virtually to the exclusion of all other activities. Thus the particular individual is at 1st level of ability.

First level is the equivalent at least of 'journeyman' status, if not indeed 'master', in other skilled trades. Ordinary toilers even in the field of fighting are but 0-level, the same as common unskilled laborers.

It is curious that NWPs should factor in level at all, as NPC masons and wainwrights do not get fighting or magical ability for attainments in their crafts.

Oh, but they do in 3e, don't they? Watch out for that 6th-level wool carder!

Perhaps the rap against NWPs is that they are a compromise between the "make it up on the fly" secondary skills and the sub-game of 'builds' in WotC-D&D. Those extremes are both more popular, and NWPs get shot down in the crossfire.

From Gygax's DMG again:

QuoteWhen secondary skills are used, it is up to the DM to create and/or adjudicate situations in which these skills are used or useful to the player character.

If provision of materials that can, if the DM so wishes, lighten some of that burden, is some sort of imposition, then most of the DMG (and indeed the bulk of Mr. Gygax's work) could as reasonably be so reckoned.

It is not the procedures' existence but players' attitude toward them that brings them to such prominence as to warrant the all-pervading superstructure added in 3e.

I have never encountered the troubles in Traveller or Runequest that so many AD&Ders insist on making for themselves.

I will grant that the 'pick so many' (or trade one for a bonus) aspect of the NWP rules can be a significant step toward the game of builds, sort of a camel's nose under the tent. That depends, though, on a predisposition to pull in more of the beast!

I forgot to mention that the 1st ed. AD&D rules for the (human) character with two classes further reinforce the point that the classes adventurers pursue in their careers are fully (at least!) as demanding as other occupations.

That apprenticeship in a new class is another thing that falls by the wayside in 3e, further undermining the original class/level design.

The provisions for hirelings also add to the impression I get from the DMG, which includes this about secondary skills:

QuoteTo determine the extent of knowledge in question, simply assume the role of one of these skills, one that you know a little something about, and determine what could be done with this knowledge.

"Knowing a little something about it" suggests to me a tyro's acquaintance, not expertise.

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.

It's false for all except 2e.

Even in 2e, it depends upon making a particular choice among options for awarding x.p..

It's in 3e that "Faster pussycat, kill, kill!" becomes the solid rule (both in the gamer culture and by the books).

Actually, Phillip, it was a common complaint against D&D going back to the 1970s. There were easy and valid rejoinders, some of them even published in one official book or another, such as "just give out XP using some other criteria". Instant solution. All I was saying was that I don't see how Peregrin's comment applied especially to 2e.

QuoteConsider the design itself in light of this "new school" complaint

:rotfl: New school in the sense of 1978! Coming from TFT (and its descendant, GURPS), and Runequest, when 2e came out and I heard about its use of "skills" it was like the moment when Coke "blinked" in its staredown with Pepsi.

The problem with the attribute-based system in pre-3e D&D isn't that people can't gain levels in their NWPs (although I gather they can, sort of). With all due disclaimers (again) about my never having played 2e or BECMI/RC, the NWPs seem all too likely to allow characters with high ability scores to steamroller their way through games in a way completely out of proportion with their class levels.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;453805Actually, Phillip, it was a common complaint against D&D going back to the 1970s.

I merely noted that it was false, regardless of how often it may have been made.

QuoteThere were easy and valid rejoinders...

...such as the actual rules.

QuoteAll I was saying was that I don't see how Peregrin's comment applied especially to 2e.

2e made the former rule of x.p. for treasure optional, rather buried it, and the usual default offered nothing in its place. Points for monster slaying may have been increased slightly, but nowhere near enough to make up the difference.

If your only way to get x.p. is to kill orcs, and orcs are worth only 20 x.p. each, that's 100 kills to get the 2,000 x.p. needed for 2nd level!

The 2e inclusion of straight 3d6 as a featured option for player-character ability scores made a constitution bonus less likely than in 1st edition. With hit dice rolled normally, surviving 100 chances to get hit is extremely improbable.

(Rules for negative hit points help, but two hits for 1d6 each have a 1 in 6 chance of reducing even a 10-point fighter to zero.)

QuoteNew school in the sense of 1978!

No, "new school" in terms of the D&D schools today. The "old school" is packed with people who understand and embrace the designers' view of the game. The "new school" is packed with people who wanted -- and have got -- something other than what D&D was.

QuoteWith all due disclaimers (again) about my never having played 2e or BECMI/RC, the NWPs seem all too likely to allow characters with high ability scores to steamroller their way through games in a way completely out of proportion with their class levels.

How?

It's a mighty bizarre "Dungeons & Dragons" game that continually has all hinging upon a toss of dice for fire building, fishing, rope use, weather sense, or making animal noises!

Quote from: thedungeondelver;453757Maybe 2e fell into the trap of reverse Star Trek movie quality.  All the odd numbered (A)D&Ds are good, the even numbered ones are lousy.

And yet I love 2e and am currently getting into 4e.  Sigh.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;453805The problem with the attribute-based system in pre-3e D&D isn't that people can't gain levels in their NWPs (although I gather they can, sort of). With all due disclaimers (again) about my never having played 2e or BECMI/RC, the NWPs seem all too likely to allow characters with high ability scores to steamroller their way through games in a way completely out of proportion with their class levels.

Only if you played NWP's as that important in your game.  A lot of the time they never even come up for me.  The only two major events I recall was a player getting upset when his Wizard, who didn't have a Riding skill/NWP, ended up rolling a nat 20 (equivalent of a nat 1 attack roll) and falling off his horse when trying to charge into combat; and when my gnome fighter played poker with some other PC's, and after we all made successes on our rolls and I declared that I had the Gambling NWP (and it turned out nobody else did), my character was declared the winner (by the other players, not the DM).  I have found NWP's to be a great way of adding flavor to the game, and has not resulted in any effect when it comes to combat or any other game balance issues.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;453805The problem with the attribute-based system in pre-3e D&D isn't that people can't gain levels in their NWPs (although I gather they can, sort of). With all due disclaimers (again) about my never having played 2e or BECMI/RC, the NWPs seem all too likely to allow characters with high ability scores to steamroller their way through games in a way completely out of proportion with their class levels.

Yes, it did, especially when using NWPs not from the core rules.  The proficiency system in OA was a bit different in that it wasn't based on ability scores and (if I'm remembering it right) so preserved the level-based-ness of AD&D...I wonder why they went with the version from the Survival Guides.  It wasn't until Player's Option that the system was overhauled and made less dependent on raw ability scores.

Quote from: KenHR;453817The proficiency system in OA was a bit different...

If your campaign is one in which art appreciation, poetry, calligraphy and tea ceremony are essential to advancement as a warrior, then of course tying such skills to level may make sense.

The fairly obvious question is why pull them out in the first place from the class/level descriptions, adding a separate "skills system"?

Depending on your answer, you may be in the market for a game such as 3e or Palladium or Rolemaster -- or even one that replaces classes and levels entirely.

I should add that I see the question posed as well in the cases of AD&D weapon proficiencies and specialization, or Masters/RC weapon mastery.

I personally find those to weaken the significance of classes and levels, and of magic weapons as well, and do not like the effects.

When I was introduced to gaming, AD&D 2e was the dominant edition. During the early 90s my country (or at least, my city) experienced a RPG fad which was probably the closest we ever got to the 1980s craze in the US.

I was more of a D&D RC kid, but of course I was in awe of the lush, colored colors (the interior art was hit and miss) and of such "advanced" concepts as the race/class split, the expanded weapon table (with different damage dice against Small or Medium, and Large opponents)...  and of course, the settings. Dragonlance for some reason was hugely popular around here, as was Ravenloft; Forgotten Realms less so, Greyhawk almost unheard of, Dark Sun divided opinions ("OMG so edgy" vs. "WTF?") and Spelljammer was poorly understood and openly derided. Birthright and Planescape only came later.

In our defense, we were 13.

I still play AD&D 2e from time to time, as it still is the edition of choice for several, if not most people in my circle of gaming friends. It's not my #1 choice by any stretch, but it does push on the old nostalgia buttons. Now that I know AD&D 1e, and OD&D, and the smattering of retro-clones and tributes and variations, I cannot say I am "awed" by AD&D 2e the way I was as a youngling. Nonetheless, it does push the nostalgia buttons, and I don't think that's a bad thing. Sure, I'd rather be playing D&D RC, or AD&D 1e, or Labyrinth Lord, or Swords & Wizardry; but D&D is D&D, and if the GM can make the game sing, I'll just roll with it.

Quote from: Phillip;453815...such as the actual rules.

I don't recall anything in the actual rules of White Box D&D (with or without supplements) or AD&D 1e (core 3 published by 1979, not add-ons published half a decade later) that talked about awarding experience for anything other than monsters killed and treasure taken. If your point is that XP for treasure provides a means of gaining experience without resorting to combat, then point taken, although I don't recall exactly how much guidance there is in the actual rules for adjudicating treasure XP when the treasure wasn't gained directly through combat.

If 2e did have an official option for taking treasure out of the XP equation, without any balancing factor, as you say, then so much the worse. But even with XP for treasure, the criticism is valid. Not in the sense that if you played D&D by the book you were guaranteed a bad time, but in the sense that just giving XP for kills & treasure didn't satisfy how everyone wanted their game to work. Yes, this was an impetus to the development and popularization of new games entirely. However, it was also incorporated into some versions of D&D IIRC.

QuoteNo, "new school" in terms of the D&D schools today. The "old school" is packed with people who understand and embrace the designers' view of the game. The "new school" is packed with people who wanted -- and have got -- something other than what D&D was.

This seems like an unjustifiably rigid and ahistorical classification of opinions. In other words, my reaction to the RC non-combat skills (which is the first place I saw the pre-3e skills approach) was that of someone who'd read & played RPGs since the 1970s, including original D&D, AD&D, TFT, GURPS, Runequest, but who'd never read or played 3e.

Nowadays I think I understand and appreciate the designers' view of the game better than I did, and the attribute-based skills seems just as bad from a D&D perspective as they do from RQ perspective. Let D&D be D&D.

QuoteIt's a mighty bizarre "Dungeons & Dragons" game that continually has all hinging upon a toss of dice for fire building, fishing, rope use, weather sense, or making animal noises!

If you tie the skills to attribute scores, it invites players to seek out ways to use skills tied to high scores to their benefit. Here are two lists of all the NWPs in 2e:

http://www.hurva.org/Docs/Houserules/NWP/NWPcompletelist.html
http://www.rpg.net/etrigan/files/nwpindx.txt

Here's a list of character skills from RC & the Gazetteers:

http://webnexus1.tripod.com/theworldofmystara/id67.html

I can't vouch for the completeness in any of these.

Not all of the skills in the lists are terribly useful for adventuring, but quite a few are, especially if your gaming tends to drift out of the dungeon and into city-based adventures and situations involving intrigue & trickery.

For me it's the corebooks, the settings and the wonderful 2nd version of the chargen program + expansion. While PCGen's workable (esp. for free!), the AD&D2E chargen program is very very helpful. Could do encounters and had a simple map maker that could handle wilderness and dungeons.

Never had much more than that really, though the chargen program had electronic files of pretty much all the rulebooks.

I think with a Dragon article that flipped NWPs to additions to a d20 roll + some other bits pre-3E you could have a really stripped down d20/D&D3E but not sure I'd want to bother reinventing the wheel.

Quote from: Peregrin;453684I 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.

Just to poke at this one again (the classic Forge 'Incoherency' complaint):
2E characters did get their survival ramped up over the OD&D/1e dungeon crawlers with probably higher ability scores and negative HPs now largely in use (at least we always used this, even though it was still an optional rule).
And characters still got resurrection and the like, in extremis. For me at least I think 2E in some ways manages to find a good balance between having characters be actually threatened occasionally and having a working campaign.

The main thrust of the rules revolved around combat, rather than storytelling, but  I'd say that combat inherently requires more rules than social situations or 'test of character' type situations that you can actually use roleplaying for.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;453838I don't recall anything in the actual rules of White Box D&D (with or without supplements) or AD&D 1e (core 3 published by 1979, not add-ons published half a decade later) that talked about awarding experience for anything other than monsters killed and treasure taken.

Death.

1000xp bump for dying - death making you "sadder but wiser".

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;453859Just to poke at this one again (the classic Forge 'Incoherency' complaint):
2E characters did get their survival ramped up over the OD&D/1e dungeon crawlers with probably higher ability scores and negative HPs now largely in use (at least we always used this, even though it was still an optional rule).
And characters still got resurrection and the like, in extremis. For me at least I think 2E in some ways manages to find a good balance between having characters be actually threatened occasionally and having a working campaign.

The main thrust of the rules revolved around combat, rather than storytelling, but  I'd say that combat inherently requires more rules than social situations or 'test of character' type situations that you can actually use roleplaying for.

The ideas I put out there hardly begin with the forge. Otherwise what was the point of advertising 3e as 'back to the dungeon?' My complaint has nothing to do with including story mechanics, and everything with 2e trying to copy other gaming trends without thinking about how those styles of play mesh with the assumptions of d&d to produce satisfactory play. Saying those criticisms are classic forge is giving rewards credit for a line of thinking that already existed.

Quote from: The Butcher;453837Dragonlance for some reason was hugely popular around here, as was Ravenloft; Forgotten Realms less so, Greyhawk almost unheard of, Dark Sun divided opinions ("OMG so edgy" vs. "WTF?") and Spelljammer was poorly understood and openly derided. Birthright and Planescape only came later.

Dude, that sounds EXACTLY like the D&D scene in Eastern France (with the caveat there were a lot of games besides D&D that were competing for attention).

Quote from: Elliot WilenBut even with XP for treasure, the criticism is valid. Not in the sense that if you played D&D by the book you were guaranteed a bad time, but in the sense that just giving XP for kills & treasure didn't satisfy how everyone wanted their game to work. Yes, this was an impetus to the development and popularization of new games entirely.

How does that make a FALSE claim -- "your primary XP comes from killing things" -- a valid criticism?

Not only is that plainly illogical, but what it really comes down to is this:

You: "I don't like using treasures as tokens for points, therefore it's wrong!"

Arneson & Gygax: "As with any other set of miniatures rules they are guidelines to follow in designing your own fantastic-medieval campaign. They provide the framework around which you will build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity  ... New details can be added and old 'laws' altered," and "the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way!"

If you've got some major malfunction that prevents you from awarding x.p. however you please, then I guess you're stuck waiting for me or someone else to publish a book giving you 'permission' for method #42.

But this is Dungeons & Dragons, not Contract Bridge.

Gygax: "Being a true DM requires cleverness and imagination which no set of rules books can bestow. Seeing that you were clever enough to buy this volume, and you have enough imagination to desire to become the maker of a fantasy world, you are almost there already!"

Just how dim a bulb would someone have to be to complain about the suggested x.p. awards and have no 'better' alternative in mind?

The game was set up so that players are free to choose whatever means they wish to secure treasures, without losing points for "doing the wrong thing". Richer ones are on average harder to get, at least by brute force, but the actual difficulty in practice depends on the effectiveness of one's chosen plan -- which may be something the DM never thought of.

The proposed 'improvements' tend to come in two main varieties:

(1) Nickle and Dime: "Kill, kill, kill" is of this variety, but there are all sorts of niggling details one can add to the accounting burden. Made a roll of some sort? Score a few points.

It's lovely for drunkard's walks, but not so great for encouraging strategic pursuit of objectives. "The Golden Egg Cup? Oh, yeah. Is this going to be like when we didn't get around to Mount Doom because Sam insisted on cleaning out Dol Guldur? < shudder > I hope never to see another mop or dustpan."

In some games, if you are so well prepared that you sneak past all the traps and guards to bring home the Egg Cup or the Princess or whatever without a hitch, you have screwed yourself of points for "skipping encounters". Smart play is actually stupid, and stupid is smart.

(2) The DM's Whim: This, I understand, is how Arneson's proto-D&D started out. The DM "levels you up" (or maybe even hands out x.p.) whenever he or she thinks "the time is right" for reasons that might not be revealed (if at all) until after the fact.

The ability to form a strategy tends thus to boil down to guessing "what the DM wants us to do".

Quote from: Peregrin;453874The ideas I put out there hardly begin with the forge. Otherwise what was the point of advertising 3e as 'back to the dungeon?' My complaint has nothing to do with including story mechanics, and everything with 2e trying to copy other gaming trends without thinking about how those styles of play mesh with the assumptions of d&d to produce satisfactory play. Saying those criticisms are classic forge is giving rewards credit for a line of thinking that already existed.

Well, good for you, though I still don't what the problem is with 2E trying to be a more general FRPG rather than just dungeon-y.
On the copying other gaming trends I'd have said the shifting focus from dungeon exploration to complex plots and characters was a trend within D&D, rather than outside, even though some of the mechanics it picked up to support this e.g. skills pioneered by other systems. If anything, D&D designers seem to be generally pretty bad at finding and absorbing innovations.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;4538592E characters did get their survival ramped up over the OD&D/1e dungeon crawlers with probably higher ability scores...

If you mean that 2e characters probably had higher scores, how do you figure? The official 2e options included methods (e.g., 3d6 in order) that yielded much lower ability scores on average than any of those listed in 1st edition!

Some of the others were in the same ballpark as those in the 1st ed. DMG. Despite the (even greater?) boosts to nonhumans in 2e, I don't think any method matched the impressive Method V for humans in the 1st ed. Unearthed Arcana.

OD&D is apples to oranges, and which species of apple depends on whether we're talking Volume 1 or Supplement I.

If we're talking the actual practice of Gary and friends, I read somewhere that they just kept rolling until they got a set of scores they liked. If someone enjoys the process then it's his free time, eh? He'll probably end up with a more "natural" assortment of characters than if he just went straight to exactly a set he had in mind beforehand.

Quote from: PeregrinMy complaint has nothing to do with including story mechanics, and everything with 2e trying to copy other gaming trends without thinking about how those styles of play mesh with the assumptions of d&d to produce satisfactory play.

You were spot on about the consequences of what the 2e books presented as the usual treatment of x.p., if the other rules were actually applied.

However, Vampire was in the vanguard of the trends in question, and the advice to Vampire Storytellers was to 'fudge' left and right for the sake of "the story". That had been the deal in the Dragonlance Saga, too, and 2e products in similar vein followed the pattern of making the rules irrelevant whenever they were inconvenient for a plot line.

Quote from: Phillip;453900I
However, Vampire was in the vanguard of the trends in question, and the advice to Vampire Storytellers was to 'fudge' left and right for the sake of "the story". That had been the deal in the Dragonlance Saga, too, and 2e products in similar vein followed the pattern of making the rules irrelevant whenever they were inconvenient for a plot line.

Are you speaking only supplements here? Because 2E (core rules) came out in 1989, and Vampire in 1991. Dragonlance Saga came in later--1995.

2E also had one of the largest--at the time, feedback "systems" via Dragon magazine, and significant portions of it came from articles, questions, and other elements created in Dragon Magazine years prior to its publication. (Example: The class creation table in DMG? Originally created for BECM/Cyclopedia D&D, and modified for AD&D.)

 The Bard class? Modified in a Dragon article and brought over from said article. (Hell I'm surprise we didn't get Jester as default class of Rogue....bleh.)


 I subscribed to Dragon for a large number of years. I know exactly where the origin of 2E was---in Dragon magazine. I didn't agree with every change, but I recognize where it was born.

Quote from: KenHR;453582I never had any problems with 2e.  Honestly, the core books pretty much reflected how AD&D was actually played back then before people started revising their past play history to show they were "old school" or whatever all along.

Couldn't have said it better myself. The vast majority of people who played AD&D back then used material from 1E, 2E, Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, OD&D and stuff from Dragon and White Dwarf.

I always have and always will prefer 1E, for reasons having to do with nostalgia and familiarity. I also loved the atmosphere created by Trampier's artwork. When I think of a party from 1E I think of this:

(http://www.dungeon-dragon.com/trampier1.jpg)

When I think of a 2E party, this comes to mind:

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_oQaPjd7yXbQ/TNoY3B4HMJI/AAAAAAAAAZw/EIN5zkTR_UQ/s640/Dragonlance_Characters_around_a_campfire_by_Larry_Elmore.jpg)

There is a great deal of stuff in 2E that I didn't like, but it's obvious that the level of ass-hurt caused by the mere mention of 2E has fuckall to do with the quality of the product and everything to with grognards being the Teabaggers of gaming. "OH NOES! Zeb Cook applied THAC0 to PCs!"
:rolleyes:

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;453896Well, good for you, though I still don't what the problem is with 2E trying to be a more general FRPG rather than just dungeon-y.

There's nothing wrong with that.  There is something wrong with a game telling you to invest time in creating a "real" character for "real" roleplaying when the system is designed to kill them off like flies at the lower levels.  This stems from the Hickman type of AD&D gaming where a coherent narrative is more important than emergent play -- decide who you character is before play and weave them into the GM's plot, rather than ignoring who your character is at first and allowing them to evolve from play.

Maybe it's not a problem for you, and that's cool if it isn't, but plenty of people here have expressed the sentiment that losing lots of characters or getting TPKed is disruptive to long-term campaign play that's focused on characterization.  Hell, re-loading save-after-save in Baldur's Gate 1 was annoying enough -- even Fallout wasn't that lethal.

QuoteOn the copying other gaming trends I'd have said the shifting focus from dungeon exploration to complex plots and characters was a trend within D&D, rather than outside, even though some of the mechanics it picked up to support this e.g. skills pioneered by other systems. If anything, D&D designers seem to be generally pretty bad at finding and absorbing innovations.

Generally they're slower to adopt more extreme or "bleeding edge" designs, but I think the focus on amateur fantasy fiction, worlds, and metaplot mirrors the precedents set by White-Wolf pretty well.

Quote from: PhillipHowever, Vampire was in the vanguard of the trends in question, and the advice to Vampire Storytellers was to 'fudge' left and right for the sake of "the story". That had been the deal in the Dragonlance Saga, too, and 2e products in similar vein followed the pattern of making the rules irrelevant whenever they were inconvenient for a plot line.

And that's a trend of gaming that I came into with late oWoD and even 3e -- DMs ignoring large swathes of system in order to get the "desired" result or outcome.  As someone who came late into the hobby, it was one of those "the fuck?" sort of reactions -- why would someone write a 200+ page rulebook if you're just going to say "fuck it" half the time?  

I understand that the system is the GM's toolbox, but if you're actively fighting against the system to get what you want, I think it's time to either re-evaluate the system you're using, or whether or not what you really want is a traditional RPG.

I'd actually thought 3d6 in order was the standard for 1e? No? Oh well.
Though I thought in actual practice the Unearthed Arcana method was banned at most tables along with the rest of it.

For 2E you're right in that I, II, and III (3d6 in order, 3d6 arrange as desired, 3d6 rolling twice for each) gave quite poor stats but methods IV through VI in 2e give quite reasonable scores e.g.
IV: 12 x 3d6, choose six best (most scores likely to be 12s through 14s)
V: 4d6 minus lowest, six times (bias toward higher scores, particularly with unlimited rolling - average of 12.3)
VI: base 8, roll 7d6 and allocate as desired (giving a high likelihood of one or two 18s and so large bonuses - a  couple of 8s as well but these aren't much of a handicap).

Other than that, XP in 2E shifted much more toward story awards over killing stuff with inclusion of class-based xp rewards and story/session xp. As regards rules fudging - I'd thought Dragonlance preceded Vampire, but even the 1E DMG would tell the GM to apply rule 0 where they like - though I know Gary wouldn't fudge his dice rolls (I'm not a fan of that either).

Quote from: Peregrin;453912There's nothing wrong with that.  There is something wrong with a game telling you to invest time in creating a "real" character for "real" roleplaying when the system is designed to kill them off like flies at the lower levels.  This stems from the Hickman type of AD&D gaming where a coherent narrative is more important than emergent play -- decide who you character is before play and weave them into the GM's plot, rather than ignoring who your character is at first and allowing them to evolve from play.

Maybe it's not a problem for you, and that's cool if it isn't, but plenty of people here have expressed the sentiment that losing lots of characters or getting TPKed is disruptive to long-term campaign play that's focused on characterization.  Hell, re-loading save-after-save in Baldur's Gate 1 was annoying enough -- even Fallout wasn't that lethal.


Generally they're slower to adopt more extreme or "bleeding edge" designs, but I think the focus on amateur fantasy fiction, worlds, and metaplot mirrors the precedents set by White-Wolf pretty well.


And that's a trend of gaming that I came into with late oWoD and even 3e -- DMs ignoring large swathes of system in order to get the "desired" result or outcome.  As someone who came late into the hobby, it was one of those "the fuck?" sort of reactions -- why would someone write a 200+ page rulebook if you're just going to say "fuck it" half the time?  

I understand that the system is the GM's toolbox, but if you're actively fighting against the system to get what you want, I think it's time to either re-evaluate the system you're using, or whether or not what you really want is a traditional RPG.

Well, I think 'dropping like flies' is perhaps an overstatement.

Unrelatedly, I once met Tracy Hickman at a con as it happens and you might be surprised to find he doesn't like 2E...I  remember him saying that anything later than 1E gave him that 'New coke feeling'. 1E also made it easier for him to make stuff up as he went along since no one he gamed with actually knew all the rules ;)

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;453913Other than that, XP in 2E shifted much more toward story awards over killing stuff with inclusion of class-based xp rewards and story/session xp.

I've been recently rereading the 2E core books.  We played it a lot in the day, but (like most people) played more of a mix of 1E, 2E, Basic, and rules we pulled out of our asses.  I keep running into stuff in the 2E books and saying, "really?  I had no idea that was the actual rule!  Neat!"  Experience is one of those things.

I don't have the DMG in front of me, but if I recall the official experience rules were ex per monster with various awards for each class completing class specific tasks (i.e. wizards got 100 xp/spell level when ever they cast a 'useful' spell, thieves get 1 xp/stolen gp).  We never played like that, relying on primarily monster xp.  I was curious if anyone has ever played with the class based xp rules?

Quote from: Dixon Hill;453918I don't have the DMG in front of me, but if I recall the official experience rules were ex per monster with various awards for each class completing class specific tasks (i.e. wizards got 100 xp/spell level when ever they cast a 'useful' spell, thieves get 1 xp/stolen gp).  We never played like that, relying on primarily monster xp.  I was curious if anyone has ever played with the class based xp rules?

I tried it. It was a real pain in the ass, so I stopped using it regularly and only applied it when it was really good or interesting (like a thief stealing a bunch of money the characters needed, or a really good use of a particular spell by a wizard).

Quote from: Phillip;453883How does that make a FALSE claim -- "your primary XP comes from killing things" -- a valid criticism?

The general criticism which has been leveled at D&D over the years is that the experience system emphasizes combat & looting, and doesn't allow improvement by other means, so it "encourages" those behaviors. Peregrin may not have recited the exact credo, but his statement was in the same vein. My point, which I'm beginning to tire of making, is that singling 2e out for this is a nonsequitur in the context of the thread. Personally I think that the criticism has some validity, although it's easily addressed--but in any case, it isn't true for 2e particularly more than the previous editions.

QuoteArneson & Gygax: "As with any other set of miniatures rules they are guidelines to follow in designing your own fantastic-medieval campaign. They provide the framework around which you will build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity  ... New details can be added and old 'laws' altered," and "the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way!"

Yes, it really was foolish of me to not to remember that D&D has this catchall somewhere in the three volumes.

Look: the fact that this disclaimer is found in many RPGs doesn't automatically head off all critiques of the rules that are actually provided in the books.

QuoteJust how dim a bulb would someone have to be to complain about the suggested x.p. awards and have no 'better' alternative in mind?

The game was set up so that players are free to choose whatever means they wish to secure treasures, without losing points for "doing the wrong thing". Richer ones are on average harder to get, at least by brute force, but the actual difficulty in practice depends on the effectiveness of one's chosen plan -- which may be something the DM never thought of.

The proposed 'improvements' tend to come in two main varieties:

(1) Nickle and Dime: "Kill, kill, kill" is of this variety, but there are all sorts of niggling details one can add to the accounting burden. Made a roll of some sort? Score a few points.

It's lovely for drunkard's walks, but not so great for encouraging strategic pursuit of objectives. "The Golden Egg Cup? Oh, yeah. Is this going to be like when we didn't get around to Mount Doom because Sam insisted on cleaning out Dol Guldur? < shudder > I hope never to see another mop or dustpan."

In some games, if you are so well prepared that you sneak past all the traps and guards to bring home the Egg Cup or the Princess or whatever without a hitch, you have screwed yourself of points for "skipping encounters". Smart play is actually stupid, and stupid is smart.

(2) The DM's Whim: This, I understand, is how Arneson's proto-D&D started out. The DM "levels you up" (or maybe even hands out x.p.) whenever he or she thinks "the time is right" for reasons that might not be revealed (if at all) until after the fact.

The ability to form a strategy tends thus to boil down to guessing "what the DM wants us to do".

So what exactly are you saying? At this point, you're all over the place, first suggesting that better alternatives to ought to be obvious, and then reducing the most common ones to two possibilities which you immediately dismiss. Which is it--are there really any good alternatives, or are they all crap?

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;453913I'd actually thought 3d6 in order was the standard for 1e? No? Oh well.

The PHB refers you to the DMG. The DMG mentions the standard 3d6 method in passing (obviously assuming that DMs are familiar with the original system), then recommends four alternate methods:

I: 4d6, drop lowest, roll six times, arrange in preferred order.

II: 3d6, roll twelve times, keep the highest 6, arrange in preferred order.

III: 3d6 rolled six times, keep highest score, assign to Strength. Repeat this procedure in order for each of the other five abilities.

IV: 3d6 rolled in order for each of the six abilities. Repeat 12 times, generating 12 characters. Select which of these 12 you wish to play.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;453917Unrelatedly, I once met Tracy Hickman at a con as it happens and you might be surprised to find he doesn't like 2E...I  remember him saying that anything later than 1E gave him that 'New coke feeling'. 1E also made it easier for him to make stuff up as he went along since no one he gamed with actually knew all the rules ;)

I've read Hickman's Xtreme Dungeon Mastery -- so I can see what type of GM he is through the humor (and some practical advice).

The problem is that he's from the "story is everything" crowd, in very-much the "GM has this flowchart of events he wants to see happen."  I'm not such a fan of that, and 2e culture borrows heavily from the DL modules for how adventures should be run.  

I've also heard Hickman, Weiss, and the rest of their AD&D group used to re-play the same scenarios again and again until the desired outcome happened (a lot of which were written down as events in the DL books).  He seems like a creative guy, but his gaming history is pretty atypical, even if he professes to like 1e.  That's why I'm wary of the trends that sprung out of the DL modules -- to me it seems like people (especially non-wargamers) attempting to "patch" the current system to meet their expectations of "I'm going to play a high-fantasy hero in an exciting story!"  Which is, again, all fine and good, I'm just not sure I'd personally use a system originally designed for dungeon-crawling to do so.

So, I'll just go back to my first post and say that I'd use the rules, but absolutely ignore the actual-play advice from any of the books.

Quote from: Silverlion;453908Are you speaking only supplements here? Because 2E (core rules) came out in 1989, and Vampire in 1991. Dragonlance Saga came in later--1995.

I think the reference is to the original Dragonlance series of modules, which today are often referenced as the first major appearance of story-scripted scenarios in D&D, calling for player actions to be subverted and undermined whenever they got in the way of the pre-planned plot.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;453928I think the reference is to the original Dragonlance series of modules, which today are often referenced as the first major appearance of story-scripted scenarios in D&D, calling for player actions to be subverted and undermined whenever they got in the way of the pre-planned plot.

Ugh. I prefer games where there might be plots--by villains--but how and when it happens depends on the PC's. They can ignore it and suffer the consequences, but not A-B-C happens in that order and no other. Still, the mention of Vampire makes me thinking of game systems. Not game modules.

I also find Hickman's "bumper-model" annoying, since it's a style I see used a lot.

Quote from: Peregrin;453927I've also heard Hickman, Weiss, and the rest of their AD&D group used to re-play the same scenarios again and again until the desired outcome happened (a lot of which were written down as events in the DL books).

Wow. Just wow. Do you have a source for this? Because it would explain a lot of things.

You can't look at the modules and the like especially a set of modules like dragon lance, and use them as the yardstick for the game.

We were playing more open games in cities and palaces long before 2e came out. Our characters started with backstories not pages and pages of fan fiction but backstories reasons why we were together and the like. This to me isn't some sop to narrativism its just role-playing.

If you had really gotten to 1987 and the only games you had played were dungeon crawls then you deserve 4e :).


I find it odd that he complaints about 2e cam be summised as

i) They took out my favourite class/race combo
ii) They look out assassins and demons to make the game for little kiddies
iii) They organised the rule books and took out that (largely irrelevant) stuff on page xxx
iv) The modules were all driven by story arcs (as if Against the Giants or The Slave Lords aren't story arcs)
v) They encouraged me to role play more and I just want to kill things and take their stuff. If I wanted role-play I would have joined a fcuking theatre group
vi) I didn't like the font or the little blue graphics in the PHB
vii) They hired artists that could draw and so the art work is blandly professional rather than quirky cartoons
viii) They gave me optional rules for xp that i didn't like
ix) The NWP system is just tacked on as an after thought (I actually agree with this but its an afterthought that was in AD&D 5 years before 2e came out)

All of this basically comes down to its not the version I played when I was 12.
There are no mechanical differences of note.
The changes there are, like weapon styles, broad groups, priest spheres, are optional and I think on the whole add to the game, but importantly they are optional.  

The fact that you can take a monster straight from AD&D and use in 2e, or the fact that all the detail in the Wilderness/dungeoneers survival guides still works in 2e shows that they are basically the same game.

Quote from: Melan;453940Wow. Just wow. Do you have a source for this? Because it would explain a lot of things.

My remote gamer used to play with Tracy Hickman; I'll ask him tonight.

So, in conclusion, the 2e core books are an easy if dry read, lacking in Gygaxian flare but rich in high fantasy art and good layout with plentiful options granted to make the game your own.  The supplements for 2e offer a wide range of material, some hit and some miss, making it good for the discount racks but not so good for full-price retail.  The settings detailed in 2e are wide-ranging and interesting, and quite a few of them are crammed full of the magic that makes fantasy such a great genre.  2e's adventure modules sucked ass.

Did I sum it up pretty well?

They also lack a lot of 1e's bumpy but fascinating elements like illusionists and druids (as a distinct class), half-orcs, assassins and so forth; as well as some crucial rules like XP for GP. To claim these differences aren't substantial is either misguided or disingenious.

Quote from: Melan;454002They also lack a lot of 1e's bumpy but fascinating elements like illusionists and druids (as a distinct class), half-orcs, assassins and so forth; as well as some crucial rules like XP for GP. To claim these differences aren't substantial is either misguided or disingenious.

Other classes like bards, rangers functioning differently. Followers. Combat. Non-weapon proficiencies (considering pre-UA AD&D v. AD&D2). The whole DMG corpus (which is really the engine of pre-UA AD&D) completely altered. The list goes on and on.

Quote from: Melan;454002They also lack a lot of 1e's bumpy but fascinating elements like illusionists and druids (as a distinct class), half-orcs, assassins and so forth; as well as some crucial rules like XP for GP. To claim these differences aren't substantial is either misguided or disingenious.

Quote from: Benoist;454004Other classes like bards, rangers functioning differently. Followers. Combat. Non-weapon proficiencies (considering pre-UA AD&D v. AD&D2). The whole DMG corpus (which is really the engine of pre-UA AD&D) completely altered. The list goes on and on.

Yes, the list of differences between 1e and 2e goes on and on.  Because it's not 1e.  It's 2e.  Stop complaining that it's not 1e, because that makes no sense to me.  Basic D&D, also, isn't 1e.  1e isn't OD&D.  Yet it's amazing and wonderful to me just how compatible all these editions are despite their differences.  And, I for one celebrate their differences.

Quote from: Melan;454002as well as some crucial rules like XP for GP

Wait, for future reference: 2e

• Has XP for GP as a standard rule
• Doesn't have XP for GP as a standard rule, but does have XP for GP as an optional rule (in the core books? in a supplement?)
• Doesn't have XP for GP at all

???

Quote from: islan;454027Yes, the list of differences between 1e and 2e goes on and on.  Because it's not 1e.  It's 2e.  Stop complaining that it's not 1e, because that makes no sense to me.  Basic D&D, also, isn't 1e.  1e isn't OD&D.  Yet it's amazing and wonderful to me just how compatible all these editions are despite their differences.  And, I for one celebrate their differences.

Butthurt, meet special pleading. Special pleading, meet butthurt.

Is there anything else you'd like not to talk about because it doesn't make sense to you?

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;454029Butthurt, meet special pleading. Special pleading, meet butthurt.

Is there anything else you'd like not to talk about because it doesn't make sense to you?

Okay, so let's pretend that "it's not 1e" is a valid criticism.  Then surely Basic D&D must suck; after all, it doesn't even have the assassin or half-orcs.  It even has weird Weapon Proficiencies and race-as-class.

Except Basic doesn't suck, and neither does 2e.  :rolleyes:

And didn't TheRPGSite conclude that GP for XP just doesn't work, anyway?  I was trying to come up with some ways of using it in RC before, but that thread made me wonder if it was even worth attempting.

Quote from: islan;454031Okay, so let's pretend that "it's not 1e" is a valid criticism.  Then surely Basic D&D must suck; after all, it doesn't even have the assassin or half-orcs.

If you start with a false premise, you can prove anything.

"It's not 1e" isn't a valid criticism in general.

On the other hand, "It's not 1e" is a valid criticism if you're comparing and asking why 2e gets little love vis à vis other versions of D&D. But then, the criticism is "it's not 1e or Basic, or White Box, or 3e, etc."

Personally, 2e is a nonentity as far as I'm concerned, but on threads here and elsewhere, it's been interesting to see thoughtful descriptions of its positive elements. Personal hurt over whether the game doesn't get enough respect doesn't fall into that category.

Quote from: islan;454027Yes, the list of differences between 1e and 2e goes on and on.  Because it's not 1e.  It's 2e.

Therefore, your summary at 06:24 PM is flawed.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;454028Wait, for future reference: 2e

• Has XP for GP as a standard rule
• Doesn't have XP for GP as a standard rule, but does have XP for GP as an optional rule (in the core books? in a supplement?)
• Doesn't have XP for GP at all

???

2e does away with the general 1 gp = 1 XP rule*. It only gives XP for loot to thieves as an optional rule, although at a more advantageous rate:

QuotePage 48 DMG:
Table 34:Individual Class Awards

Warrior:
Per hit die of creature defeated 10 XP/level

Priest:
Per successful use of granted power 100 XP
Spells cast to further ethos 100 XP/spell level
Making potion or scroll XP value
Making permanent magic item XP vaule

Wizard:
Spells cast to overcome foes or
problems 50 XP/spell level
Spells successfully reaserched 500 XP/spell level
Making potion or scroll XP value
Making permanent magic item XP value

Rogue:
Per successful use of special
ability 100 XP
Per gold piece value of treasure
obtained 2 XP
Per hit die of creatures defeated
(bard only) 5 XP

_________________
* Which a friend of mine called "AD&D's equation of shame" :D

Quote from: 2e DMGAs an option, the DM can award XP for the cash value of
non-magical treasures. One XP can be given per gold piece found.

It was there in the core books, albeit as an option.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;454032Personally, 2e is a nonentity as far as I'm concerned, but on threads here and elsewhere, it's been interesting to see thoughtful descriptions of its positive elements. Personal hurt over whether the game doesn't get enough respect doesn't fall into that category.

I'm not against discussion of a game's positives or negatives, nor against thoughtful comparisons.  Goodness knows I am aware of negatives in 2e.  I am just against the "it's not 1e, therefore it sucks" mindset.  Now, the posts that I quoted earlier I thought were meant as addendums to my conclusionary description of 2e, but looking back I see that they were probably additions to jibbajibba's post, and if so then I apologize on that misunderstanding.

Quote from: Melan;454033Therefore, your summary at 06:24 PM is flawed.

I'm sorry, but I'm not seeing anywhere in my summary that says "2e is 1e", other than it is "lacking in Gygaxian flare", which I'd say is true that it doesn't have such flare that is attributed to the penmanship of one Gary Gygax.  Or were you referring to something else?

Quote from: islan;454031And didn't TheRPGSite conclude that GP for XP just doesn't work, anyway?  I was trying to come up with some ways of using it in RC before, but that thread made me wonder if it was even worth attempting.

We tried XP for treasure a few times back in the day.  It made the game kinda silly after awhile.

In one game, the players wanted to use both "XP for treasure" and "Monty Haul".  We were playing this game almost every day.  (It was during summer break).  It got so silly that we were leveling up once a day, or sometimes even twice a day.  We got bored after a week or so of doing this, and dropped the game.

Quote from: islan;454041I am just against the "it's not 1e, therefore it sucks" mindset.

To me, editions of D&D are like options you have available as a DM of systems already written for you to play the kind of game you want. Based on this assumption, it's only natural to look at the different editions of the game and say "okay, this edition does this which I like, and that one does that, which I do not like as much/don't like."

It's perfectly reasonable to say "given the differences between 1e and 2e, I feel 1e does it for me." Or to extend the field of comparisons "pretty much all other editions of the game do it better for me than 2e," which is my case. If I want to play with an open field to build a specific set of house rules that sticks organically to our groups play style and people are comfortable with a "less is more" approach to the game, I'd use OD&D. If I want a classic dungeon delving experience with more of everything, a medievalish feel with polearms, want to use hirelings, want to emphasize the game world and keep much of the mechanics on my side of the screen, want to have hex-crawling and callers and mapping or whatnot, then AD&D. If the group wants options on top of options, the same rules that describe everything in the world, want to have a full blown skills system, care about a certain mechanical game balance, then I'll go with 3rd ed. If I want off the hook superheroes are all special and you can do special moves once a day like in Street Fighter, I'll go with 4e.

Mechanically, excluding worlds and modules, concentrating on rules, I don't see anything AD&D2 provides that another edition of the game doesn't do better. It's a mix of stuff without much aim or focus, which is what I mean by "tasteless, lame hogwash." It's bland and without personality. That's the bottom line, to me.

Quote from: Benoist;454046If I want off the hook superheroes are all special and you can do special moves once a day like in Street Fighter, I'll go with 4e.

Were video games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, etc ... the main influences for the incorporation of "special moves" into D&D and other rpg games?

Quote from: Silverlion;453908Are you speaking only supplements here? Because 2E (core rules) came out in 1989, and Vampire in 1991. Dragonlance Saga came in later--1995.

By "Dragonlance Saga", I meant the series begun with DL1 Dragons of Despair in 1983, and concluded with DL14 Dragons of Triumph in 1986 (followed by "setting supplements" DL15 and DL16).

By the latter date, IIRC the accounts of some fellows, RPGA tournaments were already going downhill.

Ars Magica (a game I found interesting) made a splash in 1987. One of the designers went on to make Vampire.

The "Time of Troubles" modules making the Forgotten Realms "2nd Edition compliant" may have been (uncertain as I passed them up) an early 2e example of the sort of attitude that became utterly and decisively intolerable to me with Vecna Lives!.

Vampire, as I think you meant to point out, came after these and other works (e.g., Shadows of Yog Sothoth and the Enemy Within campaign) had brought techniques of plot line management to some prominence both within and outside the D&D scene.

"In the vanguard" was an infelicitous description!

Drawing special attention to it seemed meet to me because
(a) It attained tremendous commercial success.
(b) Its promotion of the practice in question impressed me unfavorably around the same time as the trend was driving me away from the new AD&D culture.
(c) It seems to draw at least as much ire from Ron Edwards and company (the "Forge" crowd) as does D&D.

QuoteI subscribed to Dragon for a large number of years. I know exactly where the origin of 2E was---in Dragon magazine. I didn't agree with every change, but I recognize where it was born.

I referred in an earlier post to the great volume of input that TSR solicited and received from players to inform planning of the 2e line. I am sorry that I suggested more of a leading role than Vampire played.

Quote from: islan;454041I'm not against discussion of a game's positives or negatives, nor against thoughtful comparisons.  Goodness knows I am aware of negatives in 2e.  I am just against the "it's not 1e, therefore it sucks" mindset.

Sigh. I suppose it's possible that someone has said as much in this thread. Again, personally, I think it's likely that 2e comes up short in the overall comparison with 1e, due to both omissions and additions. "Which 1e?" is a relevant question; so is "which 2e?". I know that a lot of 1e fans disdain Oriental Adventures, Unearthed Arcana, or the Survival Guides. I don't even know them beyond brief skims.

For my purposes, the recognizably "D&D" part of the various editions has the greatest benefits and least drawbacks in the simpler and more woolly incarnations. If I want something with more involved character generation and advancement, I'll look to Palladium, Talislanta, or another of D&D's "near relatives"--or farther afield to BRP or whatever. I'm not very interested in any of the 2e setting materials except possibly the Lankhmar modules (though I doubt it; the first one is probably enough). I'm not keen on the High Renfaire aesthetic, and to the extent I'd go in that direction, there are other games that handle it just fine. So if I have 1e and some version of Basic or White Box, 2e is superfluous. I doubt the reverse is true; in any case, I'm not especially motivated to go to the trouble of buying 2e and selling off my other D&D stuff, and my shelves are already stuffed.

Quote from: ggroy;454047Were video games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, etc ... the main influences for the incorporation of "special moves" into D&D and other rpg games?

I have no idea. Probably not. That wasn't the point of my post. My post was basically saying "each edition of D&D does some thing that some people like, and others don't like for this that reason. AD&D2 seems to me to be the blandest edition of the game in that regard in that it's a mix of stuff, it's like a half-assed middle ground throughout." If I want to play AD&D then I play First Ed. If I want to play d20 gaming then I play 3rd ed. AD&D2's only validation in my eyes is that it does a little bit of everything and in the end, no one thing with excellence.

Quote from: Benoist;454050I have no idea. Probably not.

I have no idea either.

I was never really into video games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Double Dragon, etc ...  I was never able to figure out the right combinations of joystick moves + pressing buttons, to do all those "special moves" and other cool stuff in those games.

I more or less stopped going to the arcade regularly, by the time it was mid 1980's.  There were less and less video games which caught my interest.  No point in pumping in more quarters into uninteresting arcade games.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;454049I'm not keen on the High Renfaire aesthetic, and to the extent I'd go in that direction, there are other games that handle it just fine. So if I have 1e and some version of Basic or White Box, 2e is superfluous. I doubt the reverse is true; in any case, I'm not especially motivated to go to the trouble of buying 2e and selling off my other D&D stuff, and my shelves are already stuffed.

And I can understand and respect that 2e is not for you; I don't mean to come off as trying to shove 2e down people's throats.

Quote from: Benoist;454050AD&D2 seems to me to be the blandest edition of the game in that regard in that it's a mix of stuff, it's like a half-assed middle ground throughout." If I want to play AD&D then I play First Ed. If I want to play d20 gaming then I play 3rd ed. AD&D2's only validation in my eyes is that it does a little bit of everything and in the end, no one thing with excellence.

Again, a point for preference!  I understand that we all have our preferences.  For me, it probably comes down to that I was introduced to 2nd edition first.  Personally I like the "renfaire" aesthetic, so it of course seems like it has flavor to me, whereas those who don't like such an aesthetic would of course find it bland.

Quote from: islan;454054Personally I like the "renfaire" aesthetic, so it of course seems like it has flavor to me, whereas those who don't like such an aesthetic would of course find it bland.

What exactly is the "renfaire" aesthetic in 2E AD&D?

Quote from: Benoist;454050I have no idea. Probably not. That wasn't the point of my post. My post was basically saying "each edition of D&D does some thing that some people like, and others don't like for this that reason. AD&D2 seems to me to be the blandest edition of the game in that regard in that it's a mix of stuff, it's like a half-assed middle ground throughout." If I want to play AD&D then I play First Ed. If I want to play d20 gaming then I play 3rd ed. AD&D2's only validation in my eyes is that it does a little bit of everything and in the end, no one thing with excellence.

2e's speciality is role-playing.
The kits are all about extending role play options , not tactical combat options like you get in 3e, but role play options. The Monstrous compendium with it's ecology and backgrounds for each monster is all about role playing the monsters.
The sort of games 2e encourages with political sub-plots and city adventures are all about role playing. Even mechanical changes like Priest spheres and flexible thief skill allocations are all about role playing.
So that is the 2e edge for you.

Quote from: jibbajibba;4540592e's speciality is role-playing.
The kits are all about extending role play options , not tactical combat options like you get in 3e, but role play options. The Monstrous compendium with it's ecology and backgrounds for each monster is all about role playing the monsters.
The sort of games 2e encourages with political sub-plots and city adventures are all about role playing. Even mechanical changes like Priest spheres and flexible thief skill allocations are all about role playing.
So that is the 2e edge for you.

Perhaps this explains the existence of titles like "Elminster's Ecologies (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Elminster%27s_Ecologies)".

The first time I saw such titles, I initially thought they were superfluous and/or the designers pulling a joke or prank.

Quote from: islan;454041I am just against the "it's not 1e, therefore it sucks" mindset.

So, we need to explain in detail why we don't like each one of the many changes we find ill considered? I see how that is reasonable from your perspective. However...

That, right there, is one reason why "2e sucks". It sucks because it effected a deracination of the game, and an indoctrination that left a new generation ignorant of what the Dungeons & Dragons game was about, how it worked and why.

It's not just that it's "not 1e", either. Because it is a bizarre chimera neither fish nor fowl nor venison, it displeases a lot of people wanting just about anything that makes some kind of sense.

I will try to muster patience to explain more in a while.

For the moment, mull over this question. How does capping spell damage at 10 dice improve the lot of wizards (by which I mean specifically magic-users of level 11+)?

Here is a follow up question: In what sort of game would this make no such difference? Hint: If you could not think of the answer to the first question, then you probably have played in nothing but this sort!

These questions touch on pretty key issues of game balance that speak to very wide reaching differences in the larger game context to which the smaller detailed rules were originally fitted like gears within a machine built for a particular purpose.

Quote from: jibbajibba;453760I would maintain that 2e has a lot of role-playing options. When you have choices in 3e these lead to mechanical advantages and that leads to the system mastery issue I refered to. Build optimisations and the like to me are not fun.
The Kit model has all the role play colour that comes with options but the benefits are role play based.

Kits are OK, I suppose. The same goes for Skills & Powers. The only rub is that the DM often ends up having to audit these mix-and-match PCs. When I DM, I don't much care for it.

QuoteTake the Barbarian class from AD&D . The Barbarian was a broken class (I knwo its from UA but ...) and in reality what is a barbarian, just a warrior from a certain society. If all Oriental fighters are Samurai or Kensai, all Arab fighters are Mameluks, all primitive figthers are barbarians then who are the fighters ...? It is far more logical to have fighter and reskin them with kits. The 2e take on a barbarian is much better. It puts the focus into role-playing a barbarian not on all the mecanical advantages of barbarians.

You could say the same for other sub-classes too. Personally, I find a little imagination more useful than a bunch of sub-classes, kits and à la carte PC creation. But that's just me. IMC a knight, a barbarian, a samurai, etc is just a fighter, maybe with a bonus here and a debit there.

QuoteSome Kits were broken or stupid , Bladesinger, 3 armed tree rangers etc ... but the principle which was that there are 4 core classes and a few hybrids (Wizard, Rogue, Figther, Priest with Wiz/Rogues = Bards, Priest/warriors = Paladins/Rangers) and everythign you can imagine fits into that model with minor tweaks.

What in the name of Burl Ives' left nut is a "bladesinger"? I tried to Google the word, but the top result was "are you sure you weren't looking for someone to fist you?"

QuotePriests make sense in 2e in a way they never made sense in older or more recent editions.

True, but the specialty priests in 2E are really just an extension of the specialty clerics Gygax and Lekofka drew up for Greyhawk.

QuoteNWP are a bit of a kludge. A fully developed skill system would have been an improvement but NWP as written are playable and simple to use with minor tweaks.

I think they work best as being a note on things the character is good at. Anything more (unless in unusual situations) is needless wank as far as I'm concerned.

QuoteVery little that made D&D D&D was lost in the revision, characters could easily be converted, none of the colour was lost. So you used to be a 8th level fighter in AD&D lets convert you to a 8th level warrior and hey maybe there is a kit that suits how you used to play.

You don't really need to do that much. Just play them as-is.

QuoteDropping assasins was a minor foible but an assasin is just a rogue with a firm career choice and an assasin kit is easy.

Except you now have to buy another book to have your assassin PC. If they had simply rolled the assassin abilities in with the thief (like with the acrobat) I would have been OK with it. Of course Cook's smarmy, handwaving, patronizing bullshit on the subject didn't help. But that's another issue.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;453714I 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.

I treat 2E the same way I treat all those Dragon articles: something useful in addition to 1E, not in place of it.

QuoteIf 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.

Correct answer. I have yet to meet a DM who ever made use of the 2E DMG when a 1E version was available. I do think the 2E PHB is overall better than the 1E version, but it's pretty even and I can't imagine running a campaign without both.

QuoteSo 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. :)

You and probably >90% of people who play AD&D.

Quote from: Melan;453940Wow. Just wow. Do you have a source for this? Because it would explain a lot of things.

Dunno.  I'm not a big Dragonlance fan, so I don't know much about Hickman outside of what he wrote in Xtreme Dungeon Mastery or what I hear from other people.  In this case, it was a friend of mine who loves Hickman and the Dragonlance novels -- he wasn't trying to smear Hickman or anything, he just thought it was an interesting tidbit.

My friend seems to know a lot about Hickman's AD&D character (Raistlin, or something?) and "random things Hickman and Weiss did with D&D", so I'll ask him where he read this stuff -- the way he was detailing it made it sound like Hickman had written this down in a book -- some sort of memoirs or nostalgia pieces about the origins of Dragonlance.

Quote from: Phillip;454048I referred in an earlier post to the great volume of input that TSR solicited and received from players to inform planning of the 2e line. I am sorry that I suggested more of a leading role than Vampire played.

It isn't just that specific feedback, I'm talking about articles years before positing new ideas for how to do things, often those new ideas were popular (in Dragon) and got absorbed into what became 2E.

When people argue "That is how they played before 2E" they're accurately speaking. They probably read Dragon, and absorbed the idea. Or possibly generated a similar one on their own, so when 2E came out it was a "Hey, I like this!"


Elfdart:

As for Kits, I always felt they were options the GM switched on or off for his world. Picking what kits would be in what region, and why. Yes some were broken for what they were, agreed.

Quote from: ggroy;454055What exactly is the "renfaire" aesthetic in 2E AD&D?

To me it's most visible in the Elmore illustrations. I'm sure you can find more than one pair of curly-toed shoes and lurex tights. Oh, and cloaks with hoods. Flowing, sparkling hair.

The toning down of morally-ambiguous character & campaign options is another part of it.

Finally, and vaguely, since I'm pretty removed from actual play of 2e, and I haven't read much the modules or Dragon articles from the era...but I have an impression that scenarios also moved further away from "adventurers seeking fortune" toward "white hats saving the world in yet another quest". Of course, this started long before 2e was actually released, as noted in this thread.

I will say, I've had a look at the 2e Monstrous Manual hardcover and it seems like a good update of the 1e Monster Manual, with some nice illustrations and some new monsters. (Not sure if anything was dropped.) Whether it would be a good choice instead of adding the MM II and Fiend Folio, I don't know. I never saw much need for a proliferation of new monsters anyway.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;454075To me it's most visible in the Elmore illustrations. I'm sure you can find more than one pair of curly-toed shoes and lurex tights. Oh, and cloaks with hoods. Flowing, sparkling hair.

The toning down of morally-ambiguous character & campaign options is another part of it.

Finally, and vaguely, since I'm pretty removed from actual play of 2e, and I haven't read much the modules or Dragon articles from the era...but I have an impression that scenarios also moved further away from "adventurers seeking fortune" toward "white hats saving the world in yet another quest". Of course, this started long before 2e was actually released, as noted in this thread.

Again this seems a bit daft to me. You move from hobbyist illustrations to professional art done by peple that used to make money illustrating fairy tales and kids books so its a bit twee but you simply can't afford Boris, and that is a bad thing because? And the Brom art from Darksun is excellent and the whole Darksun seeting seemed morally grey (I only ran Sanctuary as a setting and only ever played in Ravenloft all the rest of our stuff was home brewed).
This again seems to be one one of those rather daft statements that claims that because assasins were removed as a class the game was 'cleaning itself up for the kids'. As I believe was stated many times an assasin can be any class its just someone that kills for meoney and I certainly played more than my share of downright evil motherfuckers in 2e and the rules never seemed to hold me back.
Wander through dungeons, kill things and take their stuff didn't get replaced with set up a theive's guild in the city of Grafiley and run a long con to get the Prince to arrest the wizard so you can get access to his trove of magic items because the former was morally bankrupt but just because after you have been raiding dungeons 4 times a week for 5 years it gets a bit old (for me it was closer to 1 year but you get the idea).

Quote from: ElfdartI treat 2E the same way I treat all those Dragon articles: something useful in addition to 1E, not in place of it.

Same here. I seem to recall Mr. Cook saying he saw it that way as well. TSR management obviously did not.

I can only wonder at reports of 1st ed. books sitting in TSR warehouses when WotC was looking to buy the company. I worked for a games store, and we kept selling the books until we could get no more from the distributor.

Quote from: jibbajibba;454080As I believe was stated many times an assasin can be any class its just someone that kills for meoney and I certainly played more than my share of downright evil motherfuckers in 2e and the rules never seemed to hold me back.

By the same token, I can have some awesome role playing using any character class from any edition of the game. I can take any character and role play him or her. The rules never seemed to hold me back. So your claim that somehow 2e's schtick is "role playing" seems to be a load of BS.

I got this is how your mom ran her game and she used AD&D2 and you love the game, but I don't think that your personal experience shows anything particular about the game system itself. I can do urban adventures with 3rd ed, as examplified by the published Ptolus (see my dedicated blog (http://praemal.blogspot.com/)). I can do urban adventures with First Ed as well, as examplified by my own Ptolus variant used here in the play-by-posts forums. Now because I can and do that with First and Third ed with success doesn't mean that the focus of these game system itself is urban adventuring. I'm not seeing how 2e is any better in that regard.

Quote from: Benoist;454084By the same token, I can have some awesome role playing using any character class from any edition of the game. I can take any character and role play him or her. The rules never seemed to hold me back. So your claim that somehow 2e's schtick is "role playing" seems to be a load of BS.

I got this is how your mom ran her game and she used AD&D2 and you love the game, but I don't think that your personal experience shows anything particular about the game system itself. I can do urban adventures with 3rd ed, as examplified by the published Ptolus (see my dedicated blog (http://praemal.blogspot.com/)). I can do urban adventures with First Ed as well, as examplified by my own Ptolus variant used here in the play-by-posts forums. Now because I can and do that with First and Third ed with success doesn't mean that the focus of these game system itself is urban adventuring. I'm not seeing how 2e is any better in that regard.

Actually my mum ran a mix of AD&D, 2e and her own variants (all her own races etc) and I never really warmed to her games as I think she did too much prep and it came out a bit dry oh and she had no idea how to make a fight really dynamic :) But I admired her dedication.

The key to the focus is Kits. If you look at some of the kits in say the complete fighter. The Peasant Hero gets a reaction bonus to poor folks and hints that they would help him out, the Myrmidon gets fire building and a knowledge of military stuff, the Beast Master gets riding and anial handling professiancies. None of these kits have any material mechancial advantage they are all about roleplaying hooks. They are all about how to make a bog standard fighter with one 15 in Strength different from the last foghter with 15 strength. Theya re about avoiding the 1e Taciturn Fighter #6 phenomena. YEs you can do this with imagination of course but the kits give your imagination a bump. In 1e the kits would ahve spawned some daft class in the Beholder or Dragon magazine, the archer that can shoot arrows like machine gun bullets, the Black Priest that can assasinate folks and has loads of theive's skills. Some of these got 'offical' sanctions The Illusionist & Druid, then in UA the Barbarian and the Theif Acrobat, most of them were abandoned for being too broken. Again they weren't about role play they were about mechanical advantages asociated with a type of fighter or a type of wizard or whatever.
In 3e the same thing every slight variation of a class became a new class or a prestige class or whatever. Then the whole game, for a segment of people becomes the system mastery to pick the right combos and feat trees and all that. Then you get 4e and that reliance on mechanical optimisation is the game.

So I stand my my position 2e is the Role Play edition.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;454078I will say, I've had a look at the 2e Monstrous Manual hardcover and it seems like a good update of the 1e Monster Manual, with some nice illustrations and some new monsters. (Not sure if anything was dropped.) Whether it would be a good choice instead of adding the MM II and Fiend Folio, I don't know. I never saw much need for a proliferation of new monsters anyway.

I have never seen it. I got the original 2e ring-binder Monstrous Compendium, and several of the supplemental packs.

My current DM (nominally running 2e, but continually borrowing my 1st ed. books) has the hardbound somewhere. He said that it has all the "good, standard" monsters, none of the "weird ones".

I can hardly think of how many monsters would be too many for me. They are my favorite part of the Arduin Grimoire books. I love the whole three volumes of All the Worlds' Monsters, from the sinister to the silly. Monsters of Myth, the Random Esoteric Creature Generator, even strange 4e versions of familiar critters -- I dig bestiaries!

Quote from: jibbajibba;454091Actually my mum ran a mix of AD&D, 2e and her own variants (all her own races etc) and I never really warmed to her games as I think she did too much prep and it came out a bit dry oh and she had no idea how to make a fight really dynamic :) But I admired her dedication.

The key to the focus is Kits. If you look at some of the kits in say the complete fighter. The Peasant Hero gets a reaction bonus to poor folks and hints that they would help him out, the Myrmidon gets fire building and a knowledge of military stuff, the Beast Master gets riding and anial handling professiancies. None of these kits have any material mechancial advantage they are all about roleplaying hooks. They are all about how to make a bog standard fighter with one 15 in Strength different from the last foghter with 15 strength. Theya re about avoiding the 1e Taciturn Fighter #6 phenomena. YEs you can do this with imagination of course but the kits give your imagination a bump. In 1e the kits would ahve spawned some daft class in the Beholder or Dragon magazine, the archer that can shoot arrows like machine gun bullets, the Black Priest that can assasinate folks and has loads of theive's skills. Some of these got 'offical' sanctions The Illusionist & Druid, then in UA the Barbarian and the Theif Acrobat, most of them were abandoned for being too broken. Again they weren't about role play they were about mechanical advantages asociated with a type of fighter or a type of wizard or whatever.
In 3e the same thing every slight variation of a class became a new class or a prestige class or whatever. Then the whole game, for a segment of people becomes the system mastery to pick the right combos and feat trees and all that. Then you get 4e and that reliance on mechanical optimisation is the game.

So I stand my my position 2e is the Role Play edition.

I don't agree. For your argument to be valid, you have to have basically kits serving the same kind of role-playing boost function consistently throughout the game. That's just not the case. There are kits whose purpose is to support some alternate play activities or funny side schticks that could amount to "role-playing," maybe, depending on how you look at it, but there are just as many kits that promote optimisation, hybrid schticks and the like, just like 3rd edition's prestige classes.

Besides, to me the whole idea that two fighters with 15 strength are the same characters is just stupid. It's always been dead-on retarded as a shortcut, and it's still retarded today.

Quote from: Benoist;454103I don't agree. For your argument to be valid, you have to have basically kits serving the same kind of role-playing boost function consistently throughout the game. That's just not the case. There are kits whose purpose is to support some alternate play activities or funny side schticks that could amount to "role-playing," maybe, depending on how you look at it, but there are just as many kits that promote optimisation, hybrid schticks and the like, just like 3rd edition's prestige classes.

Besides, to me the whole idea that two fighters with 15 strength are the same characters is just stupid. It's always been dead-on retarded as a shortcut, and it's still retarded today.

I don't think the early kits do that at all. the ones from Fighter, Rogue, Preist, Wizard, Bard and even to a lesser extend Ranger and Paladin are all role play based with the odd exception as I noted like Bladesingers or 3 armed tree rangers.

I have played Bardic Riddlemasters, Myrmidon Warriors, Rogue Spies, Wizard Patricians and none of them have anything like the mechanical advantages of a prestige class, a thief acrobat or a barbarian.

And whilst I would hope that Taciturn Fighter #6 is not a phenomena for you it was for a lot of 1e players and to me links back to the whole promoting your hirelings to PC status like a treadmill of PC fodder going back to the whole don't prepare a backstory for your PC let it develop through play concept.

Quote from: jibbajibba;454080Again this seems a bit daft to me.

I don't know how many times I need to say that 2e was long after I'd stopped playing D&D in any form other than homebrewed games that might as well have been their own system.

I did see Dark Sun at the time, along with all the other settings, and although some of them (DS in particular) look attractive, they struck me as being more hampered than helped by being tied to D&D. Dark Sun, for example, does have beautiful illustrations and some great concepts. I was leafing through one book and saw the undead war beetle, which is a great idea. (Although I'm not sure how practical it was, if you followed the mechanics. The write up made it sound like you'd spend more men & treasure putting one together than you'd save by deploying it against the enemy.) But a similar S&S feel is available elsewhere, e.g. in parts of Talislanta. And while people may laugh at Talislanta's claim of "No elves" (I think it's warranted), Dark Sun just can't get away from elves, dwarves, and halflings.

The renfaire theme isn't in DS, though, it's in the other "core" stuff. As for "professional", while DiTerlizzi is a fine artist (in all sincerity), the stuff I have in mind is Elmore and Easley. Is (a lot of) it bad art, even on the scale of popular illustration? I think it is. (Easley is a better draughtsman, though.) But my reaction on the issue of quality is apart from elements like color scheme, subject, clothing, poses. And what I see is: a lot of oversaturated orange & blue--put a bunch of it stuff up next to romance novels (http://www.google.com/search?um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&biw=1410&bih=1018&site=search&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=romance+novel&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=) and at a distance, it's the same. What of? Velvet cloak and boot strike-a-posers (http://ryan-hemeon.is-a-geek.com/brandin/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=70).

About the actual content of the game, you can trim all you like. The reaction to removing assassin, etc. may have been overblown, but it had a reason behind it. The same applies regarding the shift from "adventurers" to the Brothers Hildebrandt & Terry Brooks saving the world yet again.

Quote from: jibbajibba;454106I don't think the early kits do that at all. the ones from Fighter, Rogue, Preist, Wizard, Bard and even to a lesser extend Ranger and Paladin are all role play based with the odd exception as I noted like Bladesingers or 3 armed tree rangers.

I have played Bardic Riddlemasters, Myrmidon Warriors, Rogue Spies, Wizard Patricians and none of them have anything like the mechanical advantages of a prestige class, a thief acrobat or a barbarian.

I do not think this is a consistent observation of all kits throughout second edition, early or not, and I do not think that kits, bardic riddlemasters and myrmidon, automatically make for more, or better role playing.

Quote from: jibbajibba;454106And whilst I would hope that Taciturn Fighter #6 is not a phenomena for you it was for a lot of 1e players and to me links back to the whole promoting your hirelings to PC status like a treadmill of PC fodder going back to the whole don't prepare a backstory for your PC let it develop through play concept.

Taciturn fighter #6 is not an issue I run into that often, no. There are people who are not really at ease role playing at all, and others who like role playing the same character (often turning out to be themselves in elf clothes) over and over again, and others who like to try out new things and personalities and outlook each time they play a different characters, with all sorts of shades in between these broad player types, and the same players having different likes and dislikes evolving over time.

What I'm saying is, to overly simplify it: there are people who suck or don't care about role playing, and there are people who do care and/or don't suck at it. Now, you're telling me there is a subset of players who need to have a bunch of words like "bardic riddlemaster" to be able to play a different character than their last one. OK, why not. I'm just not feeling like I need that. My hirelings are different individuals and when I get to make them myself as a player, they are not just "hireling number 8." The Magic user I am playing right now hired three hirelings before starting the game, so I got to decide who these people were prior to play. One is Llewyn, my linkboy, who's a young lad, just 15 years old, who wants to make it out of the mines for good. Skeyf is a grumpy middle-aged guy, he's one-eyed, and he's a viking type guy who worships the Black Sow, a deity from his childhood, and is a bit of a pain in the ass. Neb is a farmer whose family got killed by a bunch of orcs. Now he just can't make it on his own, so he changed lives and decided to become a mercenary. He's half expecting, and half hoping, he's going to die pretty soon.

These are my hirelings.

Now, the hirelings and henchmen you usually meet in a D&D game are not created by you as player prior to the game. They're NPCs you meet and hire in guilds, in mercenary companies, in inns and bars, whatnot. Now, if these hirelings and henchmen are all basically NPC #82323, without a little bit of personality (it doesn't take much to make a unique character, really) to themselves, then the DM has some work to do to cultivate his world's believability and role-playing techniques. It's an issue with a GM who's not good with it, not an issue with the game.

I suppose the question is: how much mechanical "support" do you want for your character concept. I largely agree with Jibba-Jibba but I'd add I think what kits really do is let you make different sorts of characters that are interesting.

I liked these since compared to the 3E approach since they're not as broken, because the concepts themselves were a lot less silly with stuff like dwarven rat catcher, gypsy, gladiator etc, and since  the character actually starts as a pirate or a smuggler or whatever instead of having to use a lot of background space to try and explain how you plan to become a whatever and why.

Kits are actually a middle position as far as giving support for a concept goes since they just give a couple of minor benefits (and drawbacks!) for being something or other. If you were using early Dragon material most of them would be classes instead - I'm sure I've seen complete separate 1E classes for everything from archers to merchants to sumo wrestlers to witches.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;454126I think what kits really do is let you make different sorts of characters that are interesting.

No wonder I don't see the point. I don't need kits to "let me" make different sorts of interesting characters.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;454126Kits are actually a middle position as far as giving support for a concept goes

And that is basically all I see with AD&D2: It's a middle-of-the-road approach to everything to the point it has no personality of its own, no focus on anything, to the point of utter blandness. If you mix all the colors in the rainbow, what you get is cold white light.

Quote from: Benoist;454129And that is basically all I see with AD&D2: It's a middle-of-the-road approach to everything to the point it has no personality of its own, no focus on anything, to the point of utter blandness. If you mix all the colors in the rainbow, what you get is cold white light.

If your campaign implicitly or explicitly contains everything in the body of 2e, you are going to have a mess; you have to come up with your own focus as players/gms.

Quote from: Cole;454130If your campaign implicitly or explicitly contains everything in the body of 2e, you are going to have a mess; you have to come up with your own focus as players/gms.

... and since I want the focus of the game to be "dungeons" and "dragons", I end up playing First Edition instead.

Quote from: Elliot WilenI did see Dark Sun at the time, along with all the other settings, and although some of them (DS in particular) look attractive, they struck me as being more hampered than helped by being tied to D&D.

I'll second that.

Warhammer 40,000 was novel, but then there were way too many "Hobbits ... in ... [fill in the blank]!" things for my taste.

R. Talsorian's Castle Falkenstein was marvelous, though.

Dark Sun?

Give me Talislanta any day, or Jorune, or (for something really distinctive) Empire of the Petal Throne.

Still, DS and Planescape looked like a big step up from what TSR had been cranking out in the late '80s.

I loved Dark Sun when I ran it. Didn't last long, but I really liked the feel of it. Planescape, I didn't know back in those days. Now I got the main boxed set though, and I like it.

Dark Sun is probably the best thing TSR put out in that entire era, and they still managed to fuck it up with the novels and modules.

But early on in the line it's a thing of true beauty. I'm extremely tempted to take OQ or MRQ2 and do a Humans-Only version of the first version of the setting with all the Rajaat shit ignored. Battle Magic becomes psionics, and Shamanism / Spirit Combat becomes psionic combat. Tap (Plants) is a sorcery spell. Get out my hex grid polyacetate from FR 2e (the single most useful thing in that entire boxed set), slap it on my cloth map of Athas, and start PCs off in the middle of the desert with their caravan burning behind them and miles of trackless wastes ahead.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;454140Dark Sun is probably the best thing TSR put out in that entire era, and they still managed to fuck it up with the novels and modules.

But early on in the line it's a thing of true beauty. I'm extremely tempted to take OQ or MRQ2 and do a Humans-Only version of the first version of the setting with all the Rajaat shit ignored. Battle Magic becomes psionics, and Shamanism / Spirit Combat becomes psionic combat. Tap (Plants) is a sorcery spell. Get out my hex grid polyacetate from FR 2e (the single most useful thing in that entire boxed set), slap it on my cloth map of Athas, and start PCs off in the middle of the desert with their caravan burning behind them and miles of trackless wastes ahead.

I think that would work well. I could see recasting elves and half-giants etc etc as mutated or specially bred humans though as i think their personalities/roles in the setting are pretty interesting - they don't particularly need to correspond to the standard D&D races to do that though.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;454140Dark Sun is probably the best thing TSR put out in that entire era, and they still managed to fuck it up with the novels and modules.

Yeah, I was talking about the original boxed set. I didn't have any of the modules, novels and all that BS.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;454140But early on in the line it's a thing of true beauty. I'm extremely tempted to take OQ or MRQ2 and do a Humans-Only version of the first version of the setting with all the Rajaat shit ignored. Battle Magic becomes psionics, and Shamanism / Spirit Combat becomes psionic combat. Tap (Plants) is a sorcery spell. Get out my hex grid polyacetate from FR 2e (the single most useful thing in that entire boxed set), slap it on my cloth map of Athas, and start PCs off in the middle of the desert with their caravan burning behind them and miles of trackless wastes ahead.

I could see that working really well. :)

Quote from: Cole;454142I think that would work well. I could see recasting elves and half-giants etc etc as mutated or specially bred humans though as i think their personalities/roles in the setting are pretty interesting - they don't particularly need to correspond to the standard D&D races to do that though.

Mutants / ethnic divisions would be my way of handling it, I think. I'd keep muls, pterrans and half-giants as mutants, and turn elves, halflings and dwarves into humans. Thri-Kreen would remain a totally separate species to reinforce their alienness, but would not be available as a PC option.

Quote from: Benoist;454144Yeah, I was talking about the original boxed set. I didn't have any of the modules, novels and all that BS.

The boxed sets were pretty good, especially the maps.

Quote from: jibbajibba;454080This again seems to be one one of those rather daft statements that claims that because assasins were removed as a class the game was 'cleaning itself up for the kids'. As I believe was stated many times an assasin can be any class its just someone that kills for meoney and I certainly played more than my share of downright evil motherfuckers in 2e and the rules never seemed to hold me back.

No. No. That's not a "daft statement", that's a goddamn mission statement by none other but TSR, Inc.

Exhibit 1. James M. Ward (1990): Angry mothers from Heck (And what we are doing about them). Dragon Magazine 154, p. 9. (Text from The Dragon Archives, emphasis all mine.)

Quote from: James M. WardAngry mothers from Heck (And what we are doing about them)

Avoiding the Angry Mother Syndrome is something that I talk about quite often at TSR, Inc. Simply put, if a topic will anger the normally calm, caring mother of a gamer, we aren't interested in addressing that topic in any of our game products. Yes, I know that our company sells adventures full of swordsmen slashing their way through armies, with foul, smelly monsters waiting everywhere to crunch and eat player characters of every description. But I also know that there are clear differences between fighting for its own sake and fighting for a good cause. The "good cause" part is largely what role-playing is and should be all about.

I would like for all of you to think back on the best times you ever had in roleplaying. Every gamer should have at least one adventure that really stands out in his mind. You remember when you finished a big quest, did almost everything right, and the treasure was in your character's arms and sparkling in your mind's eye. In almost all of these cases there was an honorable, public-spirited, or life-saving goal at stake. That goal is the essence of what TSR wants to foster in its role-playing products. Sure, each product should be lots of fun to play and involve high adventure, but each product also has to have certain elements that any gamer's mother
in this or any other universe would smile at. These qualities must be present in each gamer's role-playing to foster the "right stuff."

Here is a case to illustrate this point. Ever since the Monster Manual came out in 1977, TSR has gotten a letter or two of complaint each week. All too often, such letters were from people who objected to the mention of demons and devils in that game book. One letter each week since the late 1970s adds up to a lot of letters, and I thought a lot about those angry moms. When the AD&D® 2nd Edition rules came out, I had the designers and editors delete all mention of demons and devils. The game still has lots of tough monsters, but we now have a few more pleased moms as well. I know there are many of you out there who are saying to yourselves, "Well, I am going to use demons and devils in my game no matter what TSR does!" That's fine with us. Free choice is one of the positive aspects of role-playing.

Avoiding the Angry Mother Syndrome has become a good, basic guideline for all of the designers and editors at TSR, Inc. But this concept also sets up a whole series of other guidelines to which all of TSR's products must adhere in one way or another. We'll cover them briefly here so that you can see where we are coming from when we design our products. TSR prides itself on the quality of the covers and interior art presented in every product. The male and female figures shown are heroic and good looking, and would get either G or PG movie ratings. Our artwork serves to promote the image of high adventure in our games, but it doesn't deal in blood and gore. That isn't the image we want to project. A painting of a hero about to hew at a monster with his shining broad sword is just as effective (if not more so) as a painting showing the monster's guts being splattered messily about the room.

...

Adventure is the concept that keeps our fans coming back to TSR's modules, time after time. What exactly are those characters doing in those dark dungeons and magical forests? Gamers usually start out with the same pattern to their adventuring: They want to hack some monsters and get some treasure. The more treasure that gamers get, the more they enjoy the
game. But anyone with any intelligence at all (and 99.9% of all role-players have a great deal of intelligence, which is why they enjoy role-playing) finds that hacking and slashing becomes boring very quickly.

TSR has produced its share of hack-and-slash dungeons, but since the late 1970s much more time has been spent on the "saving the princess" idea. "Saving the princess" takes on many forms (in most cases it doesn't even involve a princess), but the concept is almost always the same. Each module creates a situation in which the PCs have a goal worthy of their talents. TSR's products have used hundreds of goals of this sort, such as actually saving a princess, curing silver dragons of a terrible disease, and protecting small towns from raiding giants. Those who play in these modules like heroic goals. They like the challenge of doing something tough; they like to receive rewards for helping others out; and they like to feel good about their characters after these PCs accomplish something useful.

If anything is accomplished by this article, I would like for all readers to be able to point to it as a policy statement of TSR, Inc. This company is interested in presenting material that promotes all of the qualities that parents want their children to have as those children grow up. The bottom line for TSR's role-playing products is that we believe that roleplaying has many positive effects on the role-players themselves. Those benefits are put into our games on purpose. We care about our products and want as few
angry moms as possible.

Exhibit 2. The TSR Code of Ethics. (1995) Retrieved from http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/alex/rec.games.frp.dnd/TSR-Ethics (http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/alex/rec.games.frp.dnd/TSR-Ethics), originally posted to rec.games.frp.dnd by Jim Butler. Again, all emphasis mine.

Quote from: The TSR Code of EthicsTSR CODE OF ETHICS

TSR, Inc., as a publisher of books, games, and game related products, recognizes the social responsibilities that a company such as TSR must assume. TSR has developed this CODE OF ETHICS for use in maintaining good taste, while providing beneficial products within all of its publishing and licensing endeavors.

In developing each of its products, TSR strives to achieve peak entertainment value by providing consumers with a tool for developing social interaction skills and problem-solving capabilities by fostering group cooperation and the desire to learn. Every TSR product is designed to be enjoyed and is not intended to present a style of living for the players of TSR games.

To this end, the company has pledged itself to conscientiously adhere to the following principles:

1: GOOD VERSUS EVIL
Evil shall never be portrayed in an attractive light and shall be used only as a foe to illustrate a moral issue. All product shall focus on the struggle of good versus injustice and evil, casting the protagonist as an agent of right. Archetypes (heroes, villains, etc.) shall be used only to illustrate a moral issue. Satanic symbology, rituals, and phrases shall not appear in TSR products.

2: NOT FOR DUPLICATION
TSR products are intended to be fictional entertainment, and shall not present explicit details and methods of crime, weapon construction, drug use, magic, science, or technologies that could be reasonably duplicated and misused in real life situations. These categories are only to be described for story drama and effect/results in the game or story.

3: AGENTS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT
Agents of law enforcement (constables, policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions) should not be depicted in such a way as to create disrespect for current established authorities/social values. When such an agent is depicted as corrupt, the example must be expressed as an exception and the culprit should ultimately be brought to justice.

4: CRIME AND CRIMINALS
Crimes shall not be presented in such ways as to promote distrust of law enforcement agents/agencies or to inspire others with the desire to imitate criminals. Crime should be depicted as a sordid and unpleasant activity. Criminals should not be presented in glamorous circumstances. Player character thieves are constantly encouraged to act towards the common good.

5: MONSTERS
Monsters in TSR's game systems can have good or evil goals.  As foes of the protagonists, evil monsters should be able to be clearly defeated in some fashion.  TSR recognizes the ability of an evil creature to change its ways and become beneficial, and does not exclude this possibility in the writing of this code.

6: PROFANITY
Profanity, obscenity, smut, and vulgarity will not be used.

7: DRAMA AND HORROR
The use of drama or horror is acceptable in product development. However, the detailing of sordid vices or excessive gore shall be avoided. Horror, defined as the presence of uncertainty and fear in the tale, shall be permitted and should be implied, rather than graphically detailed.

8: VIOLENCE AND GORE
All lurid scenes of excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, filth, sadism, or masochism, presented in text or graphically, are unacceptable. Scenes of unnecessary violence, extreme brutality, physical agony, and gore, including but not limited to extreme graphic or descriptive scenes presenting cannibalism, decapitation, evisceration, amputation, or other gory injuries, should be avoided.

9: SEXUAL THEMES    
Sexual themes of all types should be avoided.  Rape and graphic lust should never be portrayed or discussed. Explicit sexual activity should not be portrayed. The concept of love or affection for another is not considered part of this definition.

10: NUDITY
Nudity is only acceptable, graphically, when done in a manner that complies with good taste and social standards. Degrading or salacious depiction is unacceptable. Graphic display of reproductive organs, or any facsimiles will not be permitted.

11: AFFLICTION
Disparaging graphic or textual references to physical afflictions, handicaps and deformities are unacceptable. Reference to actual afflictions or handicaps is acceptable only when portrayed or depicted in a manner that favorably educates the consumer on the affliction and in no way promotes disrespect.

12: MATTERS OF RACE
Human and other non-monster character races and nationalities should not be depicted as inferior to other races. All races and nationalities shall be fairly portrayed.

13: SLAVERY
Slavery is not to be depicted in a favorable light; it should only be represented as a cruel and inhuman institution to be abolished.

14: RELIGION AND MYTHOLOGY
The use of religion in TSR products is to assist in clarifying the struggle between good and evil. Actual current religions are not to be depicted, ridiculed, or attacked in any way that promotes disrespect. Ancient or mythological religions, such as those prevalent in ancient Grecian, Roman and Norse societies, may be portrayed in their historic roles (in compliance with this Code of Ethics.) Any depiction of any fantasy religion is not intended as a presentation of an alternative form of worship.

15: MAGIC, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY
Fantasy literature is distinguished by the presence of magic, super-science or artificial technology that exceeds natural law. The devices are to be portrayed as fictional and used for dramatic effect. They should not appear to be drawn from reality. Actual rituals (spells, incantations, sacrifices, etc.), weapon designs, illegal devices, and other activities of criminal or distasteful nature shall not be presented or provided as reference.

16: NARCOTICS AND ALCOHOL
Narcotic and alcohol abuse shall not be presented, except as dangerous habits. Such abuse should be dealt with by focusing on the harmful aspects.

17: THE CONCEPT OF SELF IN ROLE PLAYING GAMES
The distinction between players and player characters shall be strictly
observed.

It is standard TSR policy to not use 'you' in its advertising or role playing games to suggest that the users of the game systems are actually taking part in the adventure.  It should always be clear that the player's imaginary character is taking part in whatever imaginary action happens during game play.  For example, 'you' don't attack the orcs--'your character' Hrothgar attacks the orcs.

18: LIVE ACTION ROLE-PLAYING
It is TSR policy to not support any live action role-playing game system, no matter how nonviolent the style of gaming is said to be.  TSR recognizes the physical dangers of live action role-playing that promotes its participants to do more than simply imaginein their minds what their characters are doing, and does not wish any game to be harmful.

19: HISTORICAL PRESENTATIONS
While TSR may depict certain historical situations, institutions, or attitudes in a game product, it should not be construed that TSR condones these practices.

Well, fuck me sideways, this patronising lullaby-bullshit is more goddamn fucking heinous than any of the "dangers" it tries to protect TSR's implied target audience - really, really shuttered little kids brought up by 1950s standards? - from. This is not merely intellectually insulting, it is actively despicable.

Just for laughs, here is "Appendix N.", subjected to Jim Ward's article and this bullshit-code (deleted entries are marked in bold red; I also marked entries unfamiliar to me with [?]).

Quote from: AD&D DMGAPPENDIX N: INSPIRATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL READING

Inspiration for all the fantasy work I have done stems directly from the love my father showed when I was a tad, for he spent many hours telling me stories he made up as he went along, tales of cloaked old men who could grant wishes, of magic rings and enchanted swords, or wicked sorcerors and dauntless swordsmen.

Then too, countless hundreds of comic books went down, and the long-gone EC ones certainly had their effect. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror movies were a big influence. In fact, all of us tend to get ample helpings of fantasy when we are very young from fairy tales such as those written by the Brothers Grimm and Andrew Lang. This often leads to reading books of mythology, paging through bestiaries, and consultation of compilations of the myths of various lands and peoples.

Upon such a base I built my interest in fantasy, being an avid reader of all science fiction and fantasy literature since 1950.

The following authors were of particular inspiration to me. In some cases I cite specific works, in others, I simply recommend all of their fantasy writing to you. From such sources, as well as any other imaginative writing or screenplay, you will be able to pluck kernels from which will grow the fruits of exciting campaigns. Good reading!

Anderson, Poul: THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS; THE HIGH CRUSADE; THE BROKEN SWORD
Bellairs, John: THE FACE IN THE FROST [?]
Brackett, Leigh
Brown, Frederic [?]
Burroughs, Edgar Rice: "Pellucidar" series; Mars series; Venus series
Carter, Lin: "World's End" series [?]
de Camp, L. Sprague: LEST DARKNESS FALL; THE FALLIBLE FIEND; et al [?]
de Camp & Pratt: "Harold Shea" series; THE CARNELIAN CUBE [?]
Derleth, August
Dunsany, Lord [Although The Gods of Pegana are right out]
Farmer, P. J.: "The World of the Tiers" series; et al [?]
Fox, Gardner: "Kothar" series; "Kyrik" series; et al [?]
Howard, R. E.: "Conan" series
Lanier, Sterling: HIERO'S JOURNEY [?]
Leiber, Fritz: "Fafhrd & Gray Mouser" series; et al
Lovecraft, H. P.
Merritt, A.: CREEP, SHADOW, CREEP; MOON POOL; DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE; et al
Moorcock, Michael: STORMBRINGER; STEALER OF SOULS; "Hawkmoon" series (esp. the first three books)
Norton, Andre
Offutt, Andrew J.: editor of SWORDS AGAINST DARKNESS III [?]
Pratt, Fletcher: BLUE STAR; et al [?]
Saberhagen, Fred: CHANGELING EARTH; et al [?]
St. Clair, Margaret: THE SHADOW PEOPLE; SIGN OF THE LABRYS [?]
Tolkien, J. R. R.: THE HOBBIT; "Ring trilogy"
Vance, Jack: THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD; THE DYING EARTH; et al
Weinbaum, Stanley [?]
Wellman, Manley Wade
Williamson, Jack [?]
Zelazny, Roger: JACK OF SHADOWS; "Amber" series; et al

Notwithstanding the items on the list I am unfamiliar with, almost none of these works meet the ass-backwards standards of those documents. They excise myth, history, almost all classic works of fantasy worth reading and even the majority of fairy tales, leaving behind some accidental pieces that would pass the sensibilities of people who, I assume, would still consider The Beatles or The Rolling Stones or Elvis Presley "shocking filth". I am not prone to glorifying shock for shock's sake in a raggiesque fashion, but this shit right here is one of the main reasons I consider 2e's ethos dumb and insulting. We mostly played 2e when we were teens, and even then, we knew this dumb and insulting bullshit to be dumb and insulting bullshit. I suppose it also contributed hugely to White Wolf's success - because they were promoting vampirism, lesbianism, drug use, the depiction of violence, paganism and loud music in their products.

[edit]Oh yeah, and I finally found this quote by Geoffrey:

Quote from: GeoffreyThe Bible couldn't get past the TSR Code of Ethics, either. "Hide your Bibles! The children might see them!"

:hatsoff:

Holy shitsnacks.  That shit is ridic.  

The black-and-white, good-vs-evil-no-exceptions bullshit is especially sickening, as well as the reference to authority/police figures being portrayed respectfully all the time.  I don't know what world these people were living in back then, but I want some of the same stuff they were smoking if they think that sort of "mental training" will prepare young people for the real world.

Quote from: Melan;454167No. No. That's not a "daft statement", that's a goddamn mission statement by none other but TSR, Inc.

Exhibit 1. James M. Ward (1990): Angry mothers from Heck (And what we are doing about them). Dragon Magazine 154, p. 9. (Text from The Dragon Archives, emphasis all mine.)


Exhibit 2. The TSR Code of Ethics. (1995) Retrieved from http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/alex/rec.games.frp.dnd/TSR-Ethics (http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/alex/rec.games.frp.dnd/TSR-Ethics), originally posted to rec.games.frp.dnd by Jim Butler. Again, all emphasis mine.



Well, fuck me sideways, this patronising lullaby-bullshit is more goddamn fucking heinous than any of the "dangers" it tries to protect TSR's implied target audience - really, really shuttered little kids brought up by 1950s standards? - from. This is not merely intellectually insulting, it is actively despicable.

Just for laughs, here is "Appendix N.", subjected to Jim Ward's article and this bullshit-code (deleted entries are marked in bold red; I also marked entries unfamiliar to me with [?]).

Notwithstanding the items on the list I am unfamiliar with, almost none of these works meet the ass-backwards standards of those documents. They excise myth, history, almost all classic works of fantasy worth reading and even the majority of fairy tales, leaving behind some accidental pieces that would pass the sensibilities of people who, I assume, would still consider The Beatles or The Rolling Stones or Elvis Presley "shocking filth". I am not prone to glorifying shock for shock's sake in a raggiesque fashion, but this shit right here is one of the main reasons I consider 2e's ethos dumb and insulting. We mostly played 2e when we were teens, and even then, we knew this dumb and insulting bullshit to be dumb and insulting bullshit. I suppose it also contributed hugely to White Wolf's success - because they were promoting vampirism, lesbianism, drug use, the depiction of violence, paganism and loud music in their products.

[edit]Oh yeah, and I finally found this quote by Geoffrey:

:hatsoff:

Fair enough :)

Never stopped me killing the whole party whilst they were asleep and stealling all their stuff mind :)

This actually sounds like a mission statement from Koltar of all people who would have thunk it.

jibbajibba: And in my turn to be fair, company policy is not to be equated with the practice of play. They are different things. (After all, our 2e campaigns were also completely outside the model TSR advocated at that time.)

Quote from: Melan;454167No. No. That's not a "daft statement", that's a goddamn mission statement by none other but TSR, Inc.
*SNIP*

I think I've seen some of this before.  I can see the shift from the PC's being "roguish mercenaries" to "stalwart heroes," but most of the other stuff addressed I don't see as making much of an effect in the actual game.  Looking at that mission statement, though, it makes me wonder how they were able to put out such "dark" settings as Ravenloft and Dark Sun.

99% of Appendix N has to go, per Jim Ward's quoted statement.

World of Tiers?  That's pretty racy stuff.
Lest Darkness Fall?  Gone.
Better drop The Lord of the Rings, and The Hobbit, too, while we're at it.  Bilbo's a thief, and is good(ish) at what he does.  Think of it: thievery, a crime, is being not only rewarded but held up in high regard by the main characters' friends and allies.  The Lord of the Rings is the fruit of those efforts, and I can't count the number of vulgar an- fuck this shit.

FUCK THIS SHIT.

I can't even go through this ironically without having a bad taste in my mouth.

That, ladies, and gentlemen, is a large part of what was wrong with 2e.  Yes, yes, I know, "at your table" and so on and etcetera.  But Ward's statements weren't about your table, they were about changing the whole corporate culture from what it had been to a candy-coated tapdancing mess among other stupidities.

Just good public relations, really. At the time I found it preferable to White Wolf shock tactic grimdark, but it was a different era.

On the literature list I'm mostly scratching my head at your ? thingies as well. I doubt Philip Jose Farmer could do something without lots of gratuitous sex, though I haven't read World of Tiers. 'Changeling Earth' was also published as Empire of the East, if that's any more familiar - not particularly graphic in its evil though there's some human sacrifice at some point that I recall. Lin Carter's World's End stuff (the only one I recall being Giant of World's End) was fairly violent - standard Sword & Sorcery here - and probably wouldn't pass muster on that count. Jack Williamson is probably mostly harmless though I don't know which book they're referencing here, and I've mostly read his SF stuff.

'Three Hearts and Three Lions' is an interesting inclusion. The main protagonist often gets quoted as a classic example of how to play a paladin, but there's still a chapter in there where he indecently assaults a swanmay (and he does some wenching with some elves at some point as well).

The question marks are for books I haven't read, not uncertain cases. Actually, almost all books from that list I have read would be thrown out.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;454140I'm extremely tempted to take OQ or MRQ2 and do a Humans-Only version of the first version of the setting with all the Rajaat shit ignored.

Way back when I played a Dark Sun Warhammer 1e conversion at GenCon. The GM had converted everything to the WFRP system and it was surprisingly awesome. It got nasty, nasty quick!

Dark Sun is an awesome concept and I doubt you lose anything when converting it to whatever system you enjoy.

Quote from: Peregrin;454168Holy shitsnacks.

My feelings exactly.

Quote from: Peregrin;454168I don't know what world these people were living in back then, but I want some of the same stuff they were smoking if they think that sort of "mental training" will prepare young people for the real world.

Let me tell you about that world.

The big mouths of the time were the born again moral majority parents-against-everything assholes. Even that cunt Tipper Gore got into the panic with her crusade against rap and metal. The 80s was the beginning of the 24/7 news cycle and "screaming mommies" was easy content that always sold to the 50+ geezer fucks who sat glued to their 13 inch screens.

TSR had no balls and unlike the music companies who stood their ground, the leader of the RPG industry fell to its needs in front of the Angry Mommies.

Oddly, the entertainment world was split. TV was utterly pussified by the Angry Mommies, but movies pushed into PG-13 and R rated films became more popular.

Even more oddly, Palladium still puts their bizarre disclaimer in front of every book to fend off the Angry Mommies, even though their content has always been outside the TSR code.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;454205Just good public relations, really.

It was an awesome move for White Wolf, Palladium and Warhammer!

Perhaps it was good for TSR sales when you think back about how the Angry Mommies got D&D banned at many schools across the USA and how churches crusaded against their product. I remember reading about a D&D book burning by a church group.

I can only imagine how much hate mail and threats were leveled at TSR. It must have been notable. In a panic to defend the company, it is not surprising they went the pussy route.

Of course, this all seems laughable today now that the conservatives lost the Culture War and nobody cares if gays, rap music, blacks kissing whites and even marijuana show up an 8pm sitcom.

Quote from: Spinachcat;454225The big mouths of the time were the born again moral majority parents-against-everything assholes. Even that cunt Tipper Gore got into the panic with her crusade against rap and metal. The 80s was the beginning of the 24/7 news cycle and "screaming mommies" was easy content that always sold to the 50+ geezer fucks who sat glued to their 13 inch screens.
.

I 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.

I think in the case of TSR they were an especially big target because role playing was a pretty new concept. It was easy to make claims about it causing suicide or demon worship. I don't think they should have capitulated to pressure, but I do understand why they did. And I think a lot of cool stuff still came out from TSR during that time.

Quote from: Spinachcat;454225Even more oddly, Palladium still puts their bizarre disclaimer in front of every book to fend off the Angry Mommies, even though their content has always been outside the TSR code.

I love Palladium's disclaimer. To me it reads like giant :rolleyes: at anyone who gets bent out of shape over the content of the books.

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)

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;454290Dear lord...Worse than 4E??
:eek:

Depends how you look at it.

D&D for me is about exploration of the unknown: it's about travelling through the wilderness, the underdark, the planes, going down the stairs to the dungeon and back with some loot, you know. D&D.

For that purpose, 2e is arguably worse than 4e, because 4e does focus on a certain conception of what it means to go to the dungeon and so on: it's all about the encounter format, the tactical grid challenge, whatnot. There's a focus the game has that 2e doesn't have.

2e tries to be vanilla heroic ren-fair role-playing. The thing is, there are about a zillion different Fantasy RPGs that can do that way better than 2e does, depending on what you want.

However, if you're looking at stuff like the feel of the game, I'll prefer the ren-fair heroic vibe of core 2e to the uber-powahz super-kewl Exalted characters but with d20 mechanics of 4e.

So it really depends how you look at it, to me. In the end, I'm left dissatisfied by both iterations of the game, for different reasons. One doesn't "do" anything D&D, and the other does everything "wrong" to me.

2e is the high watermark of fantasy roleplaying.

Best settings. Best artwork. Best rules.

(http://larryelmore.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/DRAGON_S.jpg)

Quote from: 1989;4543262e is the high watermark of fantasy roleplaying.

Best settings. Best artwork. Best rules.

LOL Dude! I was waiting for you to show up! :D

Quote from: Benoist;454297Depends how you look at it.

D&D for me is about exploration of the unknown: it's about travelling through the wilderness, the underdark, the planes, going down the stairs to the dungeon and back with some loot, you know. D&D.

For that purpose, 2e is arguably worse than 4e, because 4e does focus on a certain conception of what it means to go to the dungeon and so on: it's all about the encounter format, the tactical grid challenge, whatnot. There's a focus the game has that 2e doesn't have.

2e tries to be vanilla heroic ren-fair role-playing. The thing is, there are about a zillion different Fantasy RPGs that can do that way better than 2e does, depending on what you want.

However, if you're looking at stuff like the feel of the game, I'll prefer the ren-fair heroic vibe of core 2e to the uber-powahz super-kewl Exalted characters but with d20 mechanics of 4e.

So it really depends how you look at it, to me. In the end, I'm left dissatisfied by both iterations of the game, for different reasons. One doesn't "do" anything D&D, and the other does everything "wrong" to me.

Well, I was mostly just surprised than JA would say that, since judging by his essays he really doesn't like 4e overmuch...
I actually found your post here weirdly enlightening, Benoist. Maybe one of the reasons I like 2E is that I don't really like alot of the other  alternatives particularly - BRP or GURPS, for instance...

For my part I would have said that D&D is the biggest RPG with the largest market share - to keep that it should try to be all things to all people. So I don't mind that its scope is sort of unfocussed, even if traditionally it was more about dungeon-delving. I didn't really find 3e to be a 'return to the dungeon', either, so I didn't approve of 4e's 'points of light' & dungeon focus either. But YMMV.

For me one of things that adds to 2E's charm...which maybe someone who liked other systems more wouldn't agree with...is that the settings actually sync up with the system. For me it doesn't make much sense to steal a setting and run it with something other than 2e...of the other D&D variants for instance I've tried running Dark Sun with 3e and couldn't get it work since the PCs were too strong to make harsh survival work as a theme. Though Planescape works OK with 3e.

Quote from: 1989;454326Best settings. Best artwork. Best rules.

Two out of three of the men have mullets and I bet beneath the hood the other guy has a mullet too.

Quote from: Cole;454331Two out of three of the men have mullets and I bet beneath the hood the other guy has a mullet too.

They're gonna throw that dragon in the trunk of their Camaro and crank up some Dio on the way back to the inn.

Quote from: Benoist;454328LOL Dude! I was waiting for you to show up! :D

Haha. You know it. :)

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;454290Dear lord...Worse than 4E??
:eek:

I thought we were just talking about editions of D&D.

*zing!*

More seriously: Yeah, actually. I think if you gave me a choice between 4E and 2E, I'd probably pick 4E. I think I can probably kitbash 4E into something acceptable by simply (a) ignoring a lot of stuff and (b) instituting the house rule that you have to tell me how you're doing something.

2E would take considerably more effort.

If there's one thing running OD&D over the past couple years has taught me, it's that unified resolution mechanics are fundamentally useful tools and trying to GM without them is needless masochism.

(OD&D worked really well when I using it in the limited capacity of running OD&D-style dungeons with it. The minute I tried to step outside of that narrow scope, however, I was painfully reminded how inflexible those rules could be. The number of times over the past few months I've wanted to be able to simply say, "Make a Reflex save." instead of trying to cobble together some fiat ruling is painful.)

Quote from: 1989;454336They're gonna throw that dragon in the trunk of their Camaro and crank up some Dio on the way back to the inn.

They're gonna throw that dragon in the back of their Volvo 200 series and listen to some Enya on the way back to the community center.

Quote from: Cole;454340They're gonna throw that dragon in the back of their Volvo 200 series and listen to some Enya on the way back to the community center.

Hah! That sounds about right.

On second thought, they're probably at least trying to walk the walk, even if they can't quite carry it off: maybe a Geo Storm with Winger in the cassette deck.

Original D&D:

(http://www.ithoughtturkeyscouldfly.com/columns/1008/albledzep1.jpg)

AD&D:

(http://community2.metalreview.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Discussions.Components.Files/7/8422.black_5F00_sabbath_5F00_1970_5F00_self_5F00_titled.jpg)

aaaand 2nd edition AD&D:

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Gwt2llCjqTE/SIg0kzfFpWI/AAAAAAAACow/lVo75J0o09Q/s400/1986+NIGHT+SONG.jpg)

So it's decided then. 2e is officially the best edition of D&D. :)

Well, after this discussion I definitely intend to run a 1E campaign when my   2E game is done.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;4542862nd Edition offers nothing of unique or notable value.

I couldn't disagree with you more.  You see, a lot of what you describe 1e having that 2e lacks is something that almost completely disinterests me.  It seemed like there was a lot of people playing 1e back in the day who also didn't care for such things, which is why they probably changed it in 2e.  That's probably the story of most every edition of D&D:  a new crowd comes in, adapts the existing rules to do what they like and ignore what they don't like, then this crowd gets a chance to make their own edition and make their changes "official".  Basic D&D was Holmes' interpretation of OD&D, BECMI was Mentzer's interpretation of Holme's Basic, 2e was Cook's interpretation of 1e, 3e was a bunch of other people's interpretations of probably all editions up until that point.  Heck, whole new games were founded under this principle, such as Rolemaster and Runequest.  Of course, for every edition there are those of the "old crowd" who actually liked the majority of what was already there, and so of course are at odds with this "new crowd" coming in and changing everything.

And I for one liked the interpretations of D&D made in 2e.  Of course these interpretations are not for everyone, but the appeal of D&D to me is just how many different interpretations can be made of the game.  Unfortunately, this appeal is also a repulsion since it makes such nice fuel for edition wars. :\

QuoteBut it's 2011 now, so what's the point of not just going with the superior clean-up of the rules in 3E?

And yet I can't stand 3E. :p

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;454388Well, after this discussion I definitely intend to run a 1E campaign when my   2E game is done.

Awesome.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454401Awesome.

Looking forward to it. I have a feeling it will culminate with the original Castle Ravenloft module. Prior to that I will probably do some old school exploration adventure in my own campaign setting.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;454405Looking forward to it. I have a feeling it will culminate with the original Castle Ravenloft module. Prior to that I will probably do some old school exploration adventure in my own campaign setting.

If your party's high enough level after that, don't deny yourself a chance to run G1, G2 and G3, even if you skip D1-D3 and Q1.  The Giants modules are really loads of fun.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454346Original D&D:

(http://www.ithoughtturkeyscouldfly.com/columns/1008/albledzep1.jpg)

I disagree with this assertion.

I think OD&D would be more like the Beatles' "White Album".  :)

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454408If your party's high enough level after that, don't deny yourself a chance to run G1, G2 and G3, even if you skip D1-D3 and Q1.  The Giants modules are really loads of fun.

Are they still easy enough to find? Giant modules sound fun. I still have my old Castle Ravenloft module, but that is the only 1E module I have in possession right now.

Quote from: ggroy;454410I disagree with this assertion.

I think OD&D would be more like the Beatles' "White Album".  :)

Maybe it is because their LOR references and songs like Immigrant Song, but I have always made an association between D&D and Led Zep.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;454412Maybe it is because their LOR references and songs like Immigrant Song, but I have always made an association between D&D and Led Zep.

Nah.  :)

More like the weirdness and complete artistic freedom on the "White Album", and sounding like it was haphazardly put together.  A classic.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;454411Are they still easy enough to find? Giant modules sound fun. I still have my old Castle Ravenloft module, but that is the only 1E module I have in possession right now.

Behold!

At Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/G123-Against-Giants-Gary-Gygax/dp/0935696598/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1304084940&sr=8-4)

One at Nobleknight for $12. (http://www.nobleknight.com/ProductDetail.asp_Q_ProductID_E_1781_A_InventoryID_E_2147735350_A_ProductLineID_E_2_A_ManufacturerID_E_1_A_CategoryID_E_12_A_GenreID_E_)

And of course, ebay. (http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=G123+against+the+giants&_sacat=0&_odkw=against+the+giants+gygax&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313)

Heck I may even have a spare copy still.  PM me.

EDIT: and they are TONS of fun.  Are they railroady?  Certainly no more than I6!  And certainly less than that awful Dragonlance.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454346Original D&D:

(http://www.ithoughtturkeyscouldfly.com/columns/1008/albledzep1.jpg)

AD&D:

(http://community2.metalreview.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Discussions.Components.Files/7/8422.black_5F00_sabbath_5F00_1970_5F00_self_5F00_titled.jpg)

I can find no fault with those.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454346aaaand 2nd edition AD&D:

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Gwt2llCjqTE/SIg0kzfFpWI/AAAAAAAACow/lVo75J0o09Q/s400/1986+NIGHT+SONG.jpg)

This is just mean.

For some of us, AD&D 2e was more like this:

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/Actrash.jpg)

I think 2e works better as a system than 1e, and also has a lot more material. The downside to 2e was the massive amount of garbage that was produced along with the good stuff. Naturally that's a subjective judgment.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454417EDIT: and they are TONS of fun.  Are they railroady?  Certainly no more than I6!  And certainly less than that awful Dragonlance.

I can second this, even though I have only played a small part of the G-series.  The D/G series, along with T1-4, are the highlights of 1e for me.  Which reminds me, I still need to get them all in hardcopy.

2e AD&D was a better fit for DragonLance than 1e AD&D.  I ran the DL1-14 series of modules using 1e AD&D, and the system did not fit the concept well; especially with how dragons were defined in the 1e AD&D system.  The Smörgåsbord way of making characters in 2e AD&D with kits and proficiencies was a better fit the character types of the game milieu.  The redefinition of dragons in 2e AD&D helped create an atmosphere where lower level characters could reasonably face dragons and survive without significant casualties.

IIRC Khisanth, the first dragon encountered by the group in the first module, smoked 4 characters with its acid breath.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;454412Maybe it is because their LOR references and songs like Immigrant Song, but I have always made an association between D&D and Led Zep.

Ditto.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;454388Well, after this discussion I definitely intend to run a 1E campaign when my   2E game is done.

Cool. This discussion makes me want to run G-D-Q.

Quote from: Benoist;454462Cool. This discussion makes me want to run G-D-Q.

If you run it pbp count me in.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454463If you run it pbp count me in.

I'm going to remember this, and remind you of it. :D

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;454388Well, after this discussion I definitely intend to run a 1E campaign when my   2E game is done.

Check out Swords & Wizardry: White Box. It's free and its raw "proto-D&D" simplicity is very exciting.

Quote from: Spinachcat;454467Check out Swords & Wizardry: White Box. It's free and its raw "proto-D&D" simplicity is very exciting.

Or he could you know play AD&D like he said.

Quote from: Benoist;454464I'm going to remember this, and remind you of it. :D

If I lag behind in posting in such a game beat me over the head with that post, your post, and this post.

(ps I still dig your game I have just had my hands full...time to look in on Ylarum the Doomed...)

There's a couple of things I really liked about 2E. The Bard became a viable jack-of-all-trades character class and there was a section which detailed how to create your own custom character classes. I thought both of those were winners.

Quote from: jeff37923;454476There's a couple of things I really liked about 2E. The Bard became a viable jack-of-all-trades character class and there was a section which detailed how to create your own custom character classes. I thought both of those were winners.

I've actually read the how to create your own character classes and it's pretty neat - I mean, I'd put it at "nice article for Dragon" level but it's still nice.

Also, even Gary said in his 2e he was going to tweak/fix the Bard so I can't fault them for at least trying.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454479Also, even Gary said in his 2e he was going to tweak/fix the Bard so I can't fault them for at least trying.

I wouldn't fault them for trying either. But the bard as a "lame jack of all trades" sucks. I prefer the bard in 1e.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454475If I lag behind in posting in such a game beat me over the head with that post, your post, and this post.

(ps I still dig your game I have just had my hands full...time to look in on Ylarum the Doomed...)

Heck that's what I was going to say: I'm going to start doing this for the Ptolus game first, and THEN I'm going to make things even worse on you with a G-D-Q game. Or throw G-D-Q hooks in the Ptolus game to motivate you. ;) :D

Quote from: Benoist;454496Heck that's what I was going to say: I'm going to start doing this for the Ptolus game first, and THEN I'm going to make things even worse on you with a G-D-Q game. Or throw G-D-Q hooks in the Ptolus game to motivate you. ;) :D

Hooks?

"Ylarum, come and see!  The friar was stabbed in the back with a giant dagger!  And giant footprints lead off in this direction!  Who?  Who could have done this?!"

Quote from: Benoist;454493I wouldn't fault them for trying either. But the bard as a "lame jack of all trades" sucks. I prefer the bard in 1e.

Oh I like the 1e bard...it's...it's hard to say, I'm of two minds about it.

The Bard as presented in 1e is a complex character both from a build standpoint and from a role-play standpoint.  You, the DM, have your hands full with finding training opportunities or at least creating the situation when a player-character arrives in Verbobonc and says "Hey, I want to train in my College, where might I find a Bard to do so?"

But this should be viewed not as a problem but as an opportunity!

With that said, the lute-strumming, typically viewed "bard" is difficult to get (requires higher stats than a ranger and a looooong time to get to the right levels), so creating one that starts as a 1st level character, I think there's some merit to that.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454501Oh I like the 1e bard...it's...it's hard to say, I'm of two minds about it.

The Bard as presented in 1e is a complex character both from a build standpoint and from a role-play standpoint.  You, the DM, have your hands full with finding training opportunities or at least creating the situation when a player-character arrives in Verbobonc and says "Hey, I want to train in my College, where might I find a Bard to do so?"

But this should be viewed not as a problem but as an opportunity!

With that said, the lute-strumming, typically viewed "bard" is difficult to get (requires higher stats than a ranger and a looooong time to get to the right levels), so creating one that starts as a 1st level character, I think there's some merit to that.

Both approaches work, just differently. My own appreciation for the Bard as a stand-alone character class is that it covers more fictional characters as such (Fllewddwyffer Fflam of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain comes immediately to mind as a fictional character not easily shoe-horned into the AD&D version of the Bard). Also while there are character classes which cover specific roles in the game, the Bard of AD&D 2E and after is well-suited as a solo or solitaire play character, being a specialized generalist or jack-of-all-trades.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454500Hooks?

"Ylarum, come and see!  The friar was stabbed in the back with a giant dagger!  And giant footprints lead off in this direction!  Who?  Who could have done this?!"

Could be just as refined and subtle as this! Master Game Master, indeed! LOL

Quote from: jeff37923;454504Both approaches work, just differently.

Caveat/disclaimer: one of my very good buddies in the 90s played a 2nd ed bard and it was easily one of the greatest D&D characters I have ever seen. So despite my dislike for the 2e bard its obviously working for some people. Just not especially me, whereas I have played a 1e bard and it's one of my favorite characters ever.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454500Hooks?

"Ylarum, come and see!  The friar was stabbed in the back with a giant dagger!  And giant footprints lead off in this direction!  Who?  Who could have done this?!"

That's great! :D

Quote from: Justin Alexander;454338If there's one thing running OD&D over the past couple years has taught me, it's that unified resolution mechanics are fundamentally useful tools and trying to GM without them is needless masochism.

(OD&D worked really well when I using it in the limited capacity of running OD&D-style dungeons with it. The minute I tried to step outside of that narrow scope, however, I was painfully reminded how inflexible those rules could be. The number of times over the past few months I've wanted to be able to simply say, "Make a Reflex save." instead of trying to cobble together some fiat ruling is painful.)

This is just bizarre to me.

What special magic is there in saying "Reflex"?

All you're doing is making up a number. The probability is whatever you decide it is, from 0% to 100%, regardless of someone's Reflex bonus.

I can do the same thing just as easily in OD&D if I like, but I also have the more unified selection of five saving throw numbers as a basis.

Quote from: Benoist;454514Caveat/disclaimer: one of my very good buddies in the 90s played a 2nd ed bard and it was easily one of the greatest D&D characters I have ever seen. So despite my dislike for the 2e bard its obviously working for some people. Just not especially me, whereas I have played a 1e bard and it's one of my favorite characters ever.

Yeah, it is not that one is intrinsicly better than the other, it is just two different approaches and the one that is preferable to a Player is a point of personal taste. Nothing wrong with that.

Quote from: Cole;454331Two out of three of the men have mullets and I bet beneath the hood the other guy has a mullet too.

Hire an artist from Kentucky and you are going to get Mullets:)

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454501Oh I like the 1e bard...it's...it's hard to say, I'm of two minds about it.

The Bard as presented in 1e is a complex character both from a build standpoint and from a role-play standpoint.  You, the DM, have your hands full with finding training opportunities or at least creating the situation when a player-character arrives in Verbobonc and says "Hey, I want to train in my College, where might I find a Bard to do so?"

But this should be viewed not as a problem but as an opportunity!

With that said, the lute-strumming, typically viewed "bard" is difficult to get (requires higher stats than a ranger and a looooong time to get to the right levels), so creating one that starts as a 1st level character, I think there's some merit to that.

The 1e Bard is a very specific character from a very specific cultural time. I think its great in the right setting but it isn't suitable for a generic fantasy class.
For me the whole point of D&D and why I come back to it over other Fantasy games is that it fits any game I want to play. The Bard for me is tied to a single world.

Quote from: jeff37923;454504Both approaches work, just differently. My own appreciation for the Bard as a stand-alone character class is that it covers more fictional characters as such (Fllewddwyffer Fflam of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain comes immediately to mind as a fictional character not easily shoe-horned into the AD&D version of the Bard). Also while there are character classes which cover specific roles in the game, the Bard of AD&D 2E and after is well-suited as a solo or solitaire play character, being a specialized generalist or jack-of-all-trades.

I don't disagree but (and I will admit I'm going to have to go back and re-read them; perhaps next weekend) IIRC Fflam, when it was gametime, drew a sword and got his war on.  So I mean, he was no pushover.  Caveat: if I remember correctly (it's been a few years).

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454532I don't disagree but (and I will admit I'm going to have to go back and re-read them; perhaps next weekend) IIRC Fflam, when it was gametime, drew a sword and got his war on.  So I mean, he was no pushover.  Caveat: if I remember correctly (it's been a few years).

As I recall the books he would have been more of a fighter with a magic item.

Quote from: Phillip;454522This is just bizarre to me.

What special magic is there in saying "Reflex"?

All you're doing is making up a number. The probability is whatever you decide it is, from 0% to 100%, regardless of someone's Reflex bonus.

I can do the same thing just as easily in OD&D if I like, but I also have the more unified selection of five saving throw numbers as a basis.

Truth.  The granularity of the 5 save system works much better IMO than the broader ones of the three save system.

Quote from: Cole;454533As I recall the books he would have been more of a fighter with a magic item.

I don't agree dude; there was an instance (at LEAST one) where he just grabbed a magic item and poof: knew what it was, knew the backstory, the whole shebang.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454536I don't agree dude; there was an instance (at LEAST one) where he just grabbed a magic item and poof: knew what it was, knew the backstory, the whole shebang.

You've got a point; it's probably the direct origin of the legend lore %.

Quote from: Phillip;454522What special magic is there in saying "Reflex"?

The exact same magic in saying "Save vs. Petrification/Polymorph"?

This is exactly why I enjoy the S&W single universal saving throw. All modifiers depend on the situation and the character which frees up the GM wonderfully.  Also, the good save of fighters in S&W:WB is a nice class balancer.

Quote from: Spinachcat;454564The exact same magic in saying "Save vs. Petrification/Polymorph"?

This is exactly why I enjoy the S&W single universal saving throw. All modifiers depend on the situation and the character which frees up the GM wonderfully.  Also, the good save of fighters in S&W:WB is a nice class balancer.

All modifiers always depend on the situation and the character. What else is there?

Moreover, any question of modifiers the GM is "freed up" to make is just the same regardless of whether we have one starting point or five.

They distinction at hand was that Mr. Reflex Mod has no starting point -- and he's the one blathering about "unified resolution mechanism" as if there were some there there instead of smoke and mirrors that only make  "GM fiat" easier to pull off with players none the wiser.

Now, if you have a really binding rule, such that the GM really is not making rulings at all, then there's something to talk about. Trouble is, there are just two genuinely global solutions:

(1) Grow the rulebook to encyclopedic length, and in proportion the time spent looking up specifications; or

(2) Constrain the game to the limits of simpler rules. Either "you can't do that" or "you can do it, but only with this arbitrary formula that does not take into account the situation and the character."

Quote from: thedungeondelver;454534Truth.  The granularity of the 5 save system works much better IMO than the broader ones of the three save system.

Quote from: Spinachcat;454564The exact same magic in saying "Save vs. Petrification/Polymorph"?

This is exactly why I enjoy the S&W single universal saving throw. All modifiers depend on the situation and the character which frees up the GM wonderfully.  Also, the good save of fighters in S&W:WB is a nice class balancer.

Do any of you guys know why in the Basic lineage of D&D Wands and Staffs have a different saving throw? I have always wondered that. The best guess I could come up with is maybe the wand shoots a ray you could dodge and the staff doesn't (in d20 terms one's a reflex and one's a will) but I wouldn't be surprised if there is some arcane Gygaxian reason that would blow my mind to learn.

Quote from: Cole;454588Do any of you guys know why in the Basic lineage of D&D Wands and Staffs have a different saving throw? I have always wondered that. The best guess I could come up with is maybe the wand shoots a ray you could dodge and the staff doesn't (in d20 terms one's a reflex and one's a will) but I wouldn't be surprised if there is some arcane Gygaxian reason that would blow my mind to learn.

?I never noticed that before, but if this is a clue red box player book (pg.45) notes that Wands can only be used by magic users/elves, and staves by clerics.
I would have said it might be like a distinction  like arcane v. divine magic except that staff and spell are the same.

Quote from: Cole;454588Do any of you guys know why in the Basic lineage of D&D Wands and Staffs have a different saving throw?

Probably because that's the original D&D lineage as distinct (for Arneson royalty reasons, I presume, among others) from Gygax's AD&D.

In OD&D, Wands saves are easier than Staves & Spells saves for everyone except magic-users of 6th level and up (for whom they are even through 10th before Wands gets harder).

Wands are more common, and the Staff of Power (which duplicates several wand effects) is almost as rare as the Staff of Wizardry. That staves have twice the charges (200 vs. 100) adds to the sense of them as a higher order of magic.

The saving throw factors give spells of fire ball and lightning bolt parity with wands vs. m-us a level after m-us become able to cast them, and make them better once m-us become full Wizards able to make wands.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;454610?I never noticed that before, but if this is a clue red box player book (pg.45) notes that Wands can only be used by magic users/elves, and staves by clerics.

I think that is a simplification having to do with the selection of staffs offered in red box. Original, three-little-books D&D (which also divides wands and staffs into different save categories) also includes magic-user staffs like Power and Wizardry.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;454610I would have said it might be like a distinction  like arcane v. divine magic except that staff and spell are the same.

The question also arises of which is older, the save categories or the cleric class.

Quote from: Phillip;454611Probably because that's the original D&D lineage as distinct (for Arneson royalty reasons, I presume, among others) from Gygax's AD&D.

Well, AD&D consolidates them into one category but that makes it a later change and doesn't point to the origins of the category split.

Quote from: Phillip;454611In OD&D, Wands saves are easier than Staves & Spells saves for everyone except magic-users of 6th level and up (for whom they are even through 10th before Wands gets harder).

Wands are more common, and the Staff of Power (which duplicates several wand effects) is almost as rare as the Staff of Wizardry. That staves have twice the charges (200 vs. 100) adds to the sense of them as a higher order of magic.

The saving throw factors make spells of fire ball, lightning bolt, etc., less obviously inferior to wands.

Good point; that sounds possible - the category difference is to make the powerful one more difficult. (Though if so it's puzzling that MU are better resistant to staffs and less resistant to wands relative to fighting men.)

Quote from: Cole;454613(Though if so it's puzzling that MU are better resistant to staffs and less resistant to wands relative to fighting men.)

It means that different weapons are more effective versus different targets. That adds "pure game" interest.

Whether it's "simulating" anything in particular, I don't know.

Quote from: Phillip;454615It means that different weapons are more effective versus different targets. That adds "pure game" interest.

Whether it's "simulating" anything in particular, I don't know.

I'm just curious whether it is or not. My sense of the way Gygax wrote rules is that it probably has some origin in the fictional world, but maybe an elliptical one.

Quote from: Cole;454616I'm just curious whether it is or not. My sense of the way Gygax wrote rules is that it probably has some origin in the fictional world, but maybe an elliptical one.

Gygax did not create all the D&D rules. I am, for instance, pretty sure that he did not come up with 'descending' Armor Class numbers.

He almost certainly was responsible for the AD&D rule that has "Rod, Staff or Wand" as one category and "Spell" as another.

Quote from: Phillip;454617Gygax did not create all the rules. I am, for instance, pretty sure that he did not come up with 'descending' Armor Class numbers, or the Cleric, or a number of other classes and game systems.

That's true, but if I had to say one way or the other I would guess the saving throw categories come from Gygax. That kind of divison seems very Gygaxian to  me, just a feeling though. I could be wrong.

Quote from: Cole;454619That's true, but if I had to say one way or the other I would guess the saving throw categories come from Gygax. That kind of divison seems very Gygaxian to  me, just a feeling though. I could be wrong.

Why, then, should Gygax himself remove the 'Gygaxian' division in question? That doesn't make any rationale for it seem like a very deeply held conviction!

The division between items and spells is I think quite evident, and the reason (for me, at least) why the division between wands and staffs seems curious.

Quote from: Phillip;454628Why, then, should Gygax himself remove the 'Gygaxian' division in question? That doesn't make any rationale for it seem like a very deeply held conviction!

The "Gygaxian division" I am referring to is just the saving throw categories overall, not wands vs. staffs in particular.

Quote from: Phillip;454628The division between items and spells is I think quite evident, and the reason (for me, at least) why the division between wands and staffs seems curious.

That's what I'm talking about.

Quote from: Phillip;454522What special magic is there in saying "Reflex"?

(...)

I can do the same thing just as easily in OD&D if I like, but I also have the more unified selection of five saving throw numbers as a basis.

The difference is pretty simple. In OD&D here's what you can save against:

Death Ray
Poison
Wands
Polymorph
Paralyzation
Stone
Dragon Breath
Staves
Spells

The first problem, of course, is the question of what you do for effects that fall into multiple categories. (IIRC, AD&D largely fixed this by setting up a hierarchy which cleared up most of the problems.)

The far larger problem, however, are the plethora of effects which don't fall anywhere on that list. About the only thing you can do at that point is scratch you head and... I dunno... try to figure out what sort of effect the situation most closely resembles? Or should I just start creating new categories of saves for these new effects? Just default to an attribute check?

There's nothing "unified" about this mechanic. It's an essentially arbitrary and incomplete hodgepodge.

What makes the 3E saving throw system unified is that the combination of Reflex, Fortitude, and Will neatly cover the entire spectrum of saving throws in a generic fashion. I can use those generic structures to make specific rulings with a large degree of confidence and consistency.

Physically avoiding something, physically toughing something out, or mentally withstanding something isn't the only possible breakdown that would serve as a comprehensive, unified mechanic for saving throws. But it works.

The proof is in the pudding: In a decade of playing 3E, I've never run into a situation where (a) a character needs to make a roll to avoid an effect, but (b) I can't use the existing saving throws as written. But this happens all the time when I'm playing OD&D; and it happened back when I played BECMI and 2E years before 3E existed, too.

And this isn't something unique to me: A quick perusal of old TSR modules will reveal that "make a save vs. some arbitrary category that has nothing to do with what's happening... I dunno... dragon breath? sure, let's go with dragon breath" happened all the time. Even Gygax does it.

That's not a system. That's using a hammer to pound in a screw because you forgot to put a screwdriver in your toolkit.

QuoteAll you're doing is making up a number. The probability is whatever you decide it is, from 0% to 100%, regardless of someone's Reflex bonus.

This assumes that I assign saving throw DCs by first looking at the stats of the PCs and then trying to calculate the % chance of success I want. That sounds like a really stupid way to do it, so I don't do that.

Quote from: Spinachcat;454564This is exactly why I enjoy the S&W single universal saving throw. All modifiers depend on the situation and the character which frees up the GM wonderfully.  Also, the good save of fighters in S&W:WB is a nice class balancer.

Yup. This is also a unified system which again allows the GM to focus on making rulings and playing the game instead of making up rules and changing the game.

Personally, I like distinguishing between speedy, tough, and mental as broad categories. (For much the same reason I like having 6 ability scores for characters instead of 1.) But if you gave me a choice between either the OD&D pseudo-system of incomplete saves or a unified mechanic involving only one save, I'll take the unified mechanic any day of the week.

Could it be that at some point there was a implicit difference between the way wands and staves operated, i.e. what you were actually saving against? I always sort of assumed that the Staves/Wands save referred to aimed magic items, so that you would save to avoid an invisible ray or something "aimed at you". Just like Paralization would mean "resisting to your body getting stuck or frozen or anything that would impair movement" so you would make saves v. Paralization not only against Medusa and the like, but say if you wanted to break free from a mountain of crap over your head after a wall caved in and the like.

This is all complete extrapolation on my part, but from what I know, many DMs do this.

So maybe at some point whoever decided to separate Wands and Staves thought about these two types of magic items as working differently to deliver their effects, or vice versa, consolidating them as a single save because they work the same?

Fort, Ref, and Will was a fantastic innovation, good enough that you see it copied in game after game (MRQ2 has resilience, persistence, evade, for example). It's a very clear conceptual division that allows for rapid snap judgments. IME, the older versions had a lot of hemming and hawing and debating over what was the most relevant save, whereas we never had a problem with that in 3e.

Quote from: Benoist;454701Could it be that at some point there was a implicit difference between the way wands and staves operated, i.e. what you were actually saving against? I always sort of assumed that the Staves/Wands save referred to aimed magic items, so that you would save to avoid an invisible ray or something "aimed at you". Just like Paralization would mean "resisting to your body getting stuck or frozen or anything that would impair movement" so you would make saves v. Paralization not only against Medusa and the like, but say if you wanted to break free from a mountain of crap over your head after a wall caved in and the like. So maybe at some point whoever decided to separate Wands and Staves thought about these two types of magic items as working differently to deliver their effects, or vice versa, consolidating them as a single save because they work the same?

That's the best guess I can make. See also how Poison and Death Ray/Death Magic are the same save.

In LOTFP, James R. prioritizes the saves from most to least general in case of doubt and it makes a kind of sense.

But I'm still curious if somewhere out there, Gygax or Arneson answered that question. I doubt it was completely arbitrary.

I quite like Fort/Ref/Will as well. It does shift from "what do you escape from" to "how you escape from it", but it is one of those rule changes that originally made me take note of 3e's previews.

Quote from: Melan;454747I quite like Fort/Ref/Will as well. It does shift from "what do you escape from" to "how you escape from it", but it is one of those rule changes that originally made me take note of 3e's previews.

You remind me that, when we played TSR D&D, we looked at it as when saving against a fireball, a thief might dodge out of the way, while a fighter might put up his shield and grit his teeth, and a magic-user might yell "by the hoary hosts of hoggoth," dissipating some of the flames, that kind of thing.

But having since played 3e, the F/R/W will division plays very well.

Quote from: Benoist;454701Could it be that at some point there was a implicit difference between the way wands and staves operated, i.e. what you were actually saving against? I always sort of assumed that the Staves/Wands save referred to aimed magic items, so that you would save to avoid an invisible ray or something "aimed at you". Just like Paralization would mean "resisting to your body getting stuck or frozen or anything that would impair movement" so you would make saves v. Paralization not only against Medusa and the like, but say if you wanted to break free from a mountain of crap over your head after a wall caved in and the like.

This is all complete extrapolation on my part, but from what I know, many DMs do this.

One of the things I really like about C&C is how they tie distinct saves to distinct attributes. STR for Paralysis and Petrification, DEX for Breath Weapons and Traps, CHA for Charm, Fear and Death Magic, etc. There is a very similar (presented as optional) rule in the D&D RC, which I often used for my games, but I like C&C's implementation best (minus, of course, the SIEGE system that it ties into, but that's an entirely different topic).

CONSTITUTION = 'fortitude'
DEXTERITY = 'reflex'
WISDOM = 'will'

Nothing added, nothing gained.

As I pointed out, and as should be obvious, I can pull numbers out of my ass just as easily as Jason Alexander can. That's just fine with me, too!

The trouble is that Jason makes the claim that he has something more than that in "F/R/W", something I lack, something that relieves him of the burden of adjudication.

He very plainly has not.

I at least have actual % chances immediately at hand for common situations demanding chance.

QuoteThe difference is pretty simple. In OD&D here's what you can save against:

Death Ray
Poison
Wands
Polymorph
Paralyzation
Stone
Dragon Breath
Staves
Spells

Yes, the difference is simple: actual dice-rolls, not "whatever the DM makes up".

The actual categories are:

Death Ray or Poison
All Wands -- Including Polymorph or Paralyzation
Stone
Dragon Breath
Staves & Spells

QuoteThe first problem, of course, is the question of what you do for effects that fall into multiple categories.

Give us an example of such an imponderable, eh? I'll make a ruling, and you can write it down and henceforth refer to it as a rule.

It's not rocket science -- especially next to "attacks of opportunity" and interaction of skills+feats+powers+conditions+actions!

QuoteThe far larger problem, however, are the plethora of effects which don't fall anywhere on that list.

For which I have EXACTLY THE SAME recourse as you!

"I call that 10 or higher, modified for dexterity."

What's the great magic in saying "reflex" instead of "dexterity"? I'm not seeing any!

Quote from: Phillip;454776For which I have EXACTLY THE SAME recourse as you!

"I call that 10 or higher, modified for dexterity."

What's the great magic in saying "reflex" instead of "dexterity"? I'm not seeing any!

Only it's not the same. At all.

"10 or higher plus DEX" doesn't consider level - a 1st level character has the exact same chance of success as a 15th level one of the same DEX,  unlike the already established practice of saving throws. Whereas the reflex/fortitude/will system DOES take level into consideration. Like saving throws.

The fundamental & primary division between physical strength, physical dexterity/adeptness, and mental strength goes back a ways in RPGs. TFT used Strength, Dexterity, and IQ as the only ability scores, and often called on characters to roll under one of them using Nd6 in order to succeed at some task or avoid some danger.

The problem with the old D&D approach of using saves vs. (various), that I find, is that it's not immediately obvious which save to use. I suppose there are rules of thumb somewhere. For example, in B/X, somehow I picked up a sense (right or wrong) that "save vs. petrification" is the right one to use for avoiding a deadweight trap (like a swinging log or dropping stone).

As for why the categories are grouped the way they are, for any given edition of (A)D&D, I actually suspect that Gygax or the other respective designer did it pretty much for game-balance purposes, within that particular edition. These days it's popular to talk about "Gygaxian naturalism" but I really think that the designers were often motivated to keep various options such as choice of class & race balanced in the sense of trading off advantages/disadvantages so it would be impossible to flatly consider one to be better than the other--at the time you had to make the decision, if not for every conceivable point in a campaign. To extent this supported naturalism since it helped answer the question why anyone in the world would choose to be an X instead of a Y, or why the world wasn't dominated by Zs.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;454792The problem with the old D&D approach of using saves vs. (various), that I find, is that it's not immediately obvious which save to use. I suppose there are rules of thumb somewhere. For example, in B/X, somehow I picked up a sense (right or wrong) that "save vs. petrification" is the right one to use for avoiding a deadweight trap (like a swinging log or dropping stone).

In OD&D the "petrification" category is listed as "Stone," as in "turn to." I would not rule out the possibility that the save vs. stone was well known to Gygax's players from medusa, basilisks, etc., and then one fateful day an indiana-jones style boulder rolled down a chute at a PC, at which point with a terrible glee Gygax instructed the hapless player to "Save vs. Stone."

This has become really funny.

A heated debate about whether the saving throw mechanism Gygax pulled out of his arse in 1976 is superior to a revision to a mechainsm pulled out someone else's arse in 1995 :)

Quote from: Premier;454782Only it's not the same. At all.

"10 or higher plus DEX" doesn't consider level - a 1st level character has the exact same chance of success as a 15th level one of the same DEX,  unlike the already established practice of saving throws. Whereas the reflex/fortitude/will system DOES take level into consideration. Like saving throws.

You don't know whether I have considered level or not. Why wouldn't I?

On the other hand, we both know that the OD&D saving rolls have taken it into account.

The OD&D saving rolls have TWO factors combined to yield a third.

Fortitude +x, or Reflex +y, or Will +z is ONLY HALF the equation. NO result whatsoever follows from it. The DM must ADD the other half, and that can cancel out anything at all in the first half.

I'll see your +10 and raise with a DC 31. Same 0% as +0 vs. 21.

"The Alexandrian" blog has demonstrated considerable understanding of the actual merits of 3e, so it's puzzling that the author should argue the wrong point at all, much less so badly.

Quote from: Cole;454750You remind me that, when we played TSR D&D, we looked at it as when saving against a fireball, a thief might dodge out of the way, while a fighter might put up his shield and grit his teeth, and a magic-user might yell "by the hoary hosts of hoggoth," dissipating some of the flames, that kind of thing.

We do pretty much the same thing. The Reflex save just determines if you were quick enough to dive out of the way, get your shield up in time, or make the dispelling micro-cantrip in time.

But this reminds me, yet again, that I really should work harder to include this kind of "wizards are using minor magic all the time" stuff. It's one of those things I always think is awesome when I read about it... and then promptly forget whenever I'm actually playing at the table.

Quote from: Cole;454794In OD&D the "petrification" category is listed as "Stone," as in "turn to." I would not rule out the possibility that the save vs. stone was well known to Gygax's players from medusa, basilisks, etc., and then one fateful day an indiana-jones style boulder rolled down a chute at a PC, at which point with a terrible glee Gygax instructed the hapless player to "Save vs. Stone."

That sounds ridiculously plausible. In the sense of "it should be true even if it isn't" if nothing else.

Quote from: Phillip;454776CONSTITUTION = 'fortitude'
DEXTERITY = 'reflex'
WISDOM = 'will'

Nothing added, nothing gained.

Yup. Ditching OD&D saving throws and going straight to ability checks would be another way to unify the mechanic.

I find letting saves scale by level and vary by class, however, to be a useful "gain" over the house rule you're proposing.

QuoteThe trouble is that Jason makes the claim that he has something more than that in "F/R/W",

Something more than a unified, universal mechanic? No. That's pretty much all I claimed that I had.

QuoteI at least have actual % chances immediately at hand for common situations demanding chance.

Using OD&D saving throws? No you don't. At least no more than you do using 3E's unified, universal mechanic. The only way you can calculate the actual percentage chance of an OD&D saving throw is:

(1) To know the base saving throw of the character.
(2) To know the difficulty of the saving throw being made.
(3) And then calculating the percentage chance of making the required die throw.

For example, if you've got a -2 saving throw vs. poison being made by a character with a saving throw of 13 vs. poison, then they have a 50% chance of succeeding. If their saving throw was 15 or the difficulty was -4, however, the odds would be different.

Similarly, however, if I know the character's saving throw (+8) and the difficulty of the check (DC 20), I can trivially calculate the percentage chance of success would be for that particular character. (Although I'm still unclear on what the point would be.)

QuoteYes, the difference is simple: actual dice-rolls, not "whatever the DM makes up".

What I don't think you're fully grasping here is that the actual math of the system has not actually changed in any meaningful sense.

(1) Take an OD&D Fighting-Man with a 12 save vs. poison. We assign a -2 difficulty to the poison, saying that he needs to make a -2 saving throw vs. poison or suffer the effects of the poison. What does he need to roll to save vs. the poison? 10 or higher.

(2) Take a 3E Fighter with a +8 bonus. The base DC is set to 20 and then we apply the same -2 modifier to give us a DC 18 check. What does he need to roll to save vs. the poison? 10 or higher.

If I'm just "pulling numbers out of my ass" when using 3E, I'm afraid Gygax was doing the exact same thing with OD&D.

This is not some sort of trick. This works exactly like ascending vs. descending AC. It's the basis for how 3E unified the core mechanics of the game (by getting all the math pointing in the same direction and making the method for applying modifiers to the checks trivial and consistent).

The pertinent difference I'm pointing to between the systems, however, is not ascending vs. descending math. It's the universal and unified nature of the 3E mechanic versus the incomplete hodgepodge of OD&D.

If a 1st level Fighting-Man in OD&D had saving throws of Fortitude 12, Reflex 14, and Will 16, I wouldn't have made the complaint I made. The mechanic would be universal and conducive to informed, consistent rulings.

Nor am I particularly privileging this particular breakdown: As I mentioned in my previous post, S&W's unified save is pretty good. And as I mentioned above, using ability checks would be another option.

You could also continue breaking down the save categories by the type of effect, as long as your save categories were actually universal. For example, you might have saves vs. Natural, Extraordinary, Supernatural, and Spells (which I think, assuming spell-like abilities fell under spells, would give you essentially comprehensive coverage in 3E).

Quote from: Phillip;454811The DM must ADD the other half, and that can cancel out anything at all in the first half.

For someone who professes a liking for DM rulings, you appear to be fucking terrified of them.

Quote from: Phillip;454813"The Alexandrian" blog has demonstrated considerable understanding of the actual merits of 3e, so it's puzzling that the author should argue the wrong point at all, much less so badly.

Phillip's posts have never demonstrated coherence, logic, or intelligence. So it's completely unsurprising that the author should argue the wrong point so badly.

Quote from: Jason AlexanderI find letting saves scale by level and vary by class, however, to be a useful "gain" over the house rule you're proposing.

You are confused.

OD&D saves do vary by level and class, automatically. The numbers are right there.

It's no exceptional "house rule" to consider whatever I as DM deem worthy of consideration, whether the strength of a serpent's venom, the constitution of a victim, the strength of someone trying to force a door, or the dexterity of someone leaping clear of a net.

Very simply, nothing whatsoever is added where you claim something is added. You ought to know better, to know what WotC-D&D books (or for that matter the 1st ed. AD&D Survival Guides) in fact do contribute of real utility.

QuoteSimilarly, however, if I know the character's saving throw (+8) and the difficulty of the check (DC 20)...

Ah, but how do you 'know' the difficulty of the check?

I am sure you can figure this out!

QuoteWhat I don't think you're fully grasping here is that the actual math of the system has not actually changed in any meaningful sense.

No, it is YOU making claims of novelty. They have of course no support, and that is good for a little amusement.

QuoteFor someone who professes a liking for DM rulings, you appear to be fucking terrified of them.

You are being a weasel. The matter at hand is that for someone boasting of his freedom from DM rulings, you appear to have no notion of how actually to get it.

"Look, I have a purple cup, therefore my water is turned to wine!" Uh, no. I do notice that you have access to grapes, though. It's funny that you don't notice.

How long will it take you?

To be fair, calculating save DCs follows a fairly standard set of formulas (e.g. spells are, IIRC, 10 + casting stat ability mod + level of spell + any relevant feat or item bonus), and many of the ones that don't are laid out explicitly in the rules text of the effect causing the save.

The rule of thumb beyond that is level (of the challenge or effect) + 10 for easy checks, level + 15 for moderate checks, and level + 20 for hard checks.

I would consider the ability to perform these calculations to be a fairly basic but essential skill for competent 3.x DMs. Part of planning an encounter involved making sure I had save DCs for all relevant effects properly noted somewhere (spells on the caster's sheet; traps and the like in my one page encounter summary).

Quote from: Phillip;454847

QuoteI find letting saves scale by level and vary by class, however, to be a useful "gain" over the house rule you're proposing.

You are confused.

OD&D saves do vary by level and class, automatically.

You're confusing the house rules you proposed in this thread for the actual rules of OD&D now? And you're trying to rewrite those house rules while pretending you aren't doing it? You can't possibly be this stupid.

QuoteIt's no exceptional "house rule" to consider whatever I as DM deem worthy of consideration, whether the strength of a serpent's venom, the constitution of a victim, the strength of someone trying to force a door, or the dexterity of someone leaping clear of a net.

Oh. Fuck. You are that stupid.

Quote

QuoteSimilarly, however, if I know the character's saving throw (+8) and the difficulty of the check (DC 20)...

Ah, but how do you 'know' the difficulty of the check?

Because that's (a) how all the 3E designers have said they did it and (b) it's self-evident to anyone capable of grasping simple principles of arithmetic and subtraction?

It's not like this was some sort of radical new idea. THAC0 has been around for 30+ years now. (http://cyclopeatron.blogspot.com/2011/04/od-origin-of-thac0-in-1978.html) Nor does the swap from descending values to ascending values actually change the fundamental mathematics of the system, no matter how much you try to claim that it does.

Whether you say it's a "-2 save vs. poison" or a "DC 22 save vs. poison" you are doing the exact same thing.

Similarly, if I give you the equations "x = 4 + 2" and "2 = x - 4" and ask you to solve for x, I am giving you the exact same math problem.

Quote

QuoteWhat I don't think you're fully grasping here is that the actual math of the system has not actually changed in any meaningful sense.

No, it is YOU making claims of novelty.

You realize that's a non sequitur, right?

Aww... Who am I kidding? Of course you don't. Let me explain it for you: When I say "the actual math of the system has not actually changed" replying to say that I'm making a "claim of novelty" regarding the mathematics of the system doesn't actually make a lick of sense.

Particularly when you're the one who claimed in your previous post that there was something different about the mathematics.

Now, if you want to talk about 3E offering a unified and universal mechanic for saving throws (which is basically a completely different topic of conversation), we can talk about that. I notice you were unable to comment on that at all in this last post.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;454852You're confusing the house rules you proposed in this thread for the actual rules of OD&D now?

Nope. I'm 'confusing' this:

Fighting-Men 1-3: 12
Magic-User 1-5: 13
Cleric 1-4: 11

with "varying by class and level".

QuoteBecause that's (a) how all the 3E designers have said they did it...

What is "that"?

Come on. How do you know what the DC is?

Golly, I thought you were a real 3e maven, but this is so obvious! It's what leaps out at people, fans and detractors alike, about the game.

The way class, level and ability score are lumped together has been mentioned, and this is neat because it leaves clear just what is missing.

There are four general factors we may consider:  ability score, class, level, and situation. OD&D lumps the last three, 3e the first three.

We can still break out the components in 3e, because we have filled in all the spaces on character sheets and in stat blocks. We can lump factors similarly in OD&D, but OD&D does not even specify writing down the save numbers on a character card. It's like the IRS vs. Fibber McGee's closet (a 10' pole in there somewhere).

OD&D just doesn't call for rolls for as many situations, and only with Supplement I gives ability scores besides charisma much significance in its essentially class-and-level system.

(There's a rule in the 1st AD&D DMG for finding out that an individual character is especially "keen eared", but in the Original set the only distinction is between humans and the faerie folk.)

3e not only calls for rolls for a zillion and one situations but has specific rules for each.

Poison Save? There is no single Poison Save. Is that poison from an aranea (DC 13), a spider eater (DC 17), a viper (DC 11), or some other monster? The number is particular to the monster. DMG Table 8-3 lists 29 more poisons.

Thieves doing their "human fly" routine are not the only climbers who need to roll in 3e. There's almost a whole page of rules devoted to climbing in the 3.5 PHB.

PHB Table 4-2 lists 45 skills, each with its DCs and other rules.

The encyclopedic treatment extends to other subjects, as well. If there's no rule for something in the first three books, odds are it's somewhere in the supplements.

Quote from: Phillip;454776CONSTITUTION = 'fortitude'
DEXTERITY = 'reflex'
WISDOM = 'will'

Quote from: Phillip;454859Nope. I'm 'confusing' this:

Fighting-Men 1-3: 12
Magic-User 1-5: 13
Cleric 1-4: 11

with "varying by class and level".

The fact that you apparently think those quotes both say the same thing says a lot about your inability to communicate using written language.

QuoteWhat is "that"?

The conversion from descending math to ascending math. C'mon, keep up.

QuoteCome on. How do you know what the DC is?

How do you know that poison save is made at -2?

QuotePoison Save? There is no single Poison Save. Is that poison from an aranea (DC 13), a spider eater (DC 17), a viper (DC 11), or some other monster? The number is particular to the monster.

Let's look at the AD&D Monster Manual. Is that poison from a giant ant (+0), a giant centipede (+4), a geryon (-4), a poisonous frog (+4), or some other monster? The number is particular to the monster!

And if we flip over to the 1st Edition DMG, we find a table of poison types. And the different poison types listed also vary the difficulty of the saving throw! Holy shit!

I'm not really sure where you got the idea that variable difficulty didn't exist in the pre-3E game. But do you understand how ridiculously wrong you are now? Or are you going to keep making yourself look like an idiot?

You have taken up arguing against yourself, Justin?

I leave you to it, then!

Quote from: Justin Alexander;454973But do you understand how ridiculously wrong you are now? Or are you going to keep making yourself look like an idiot?

Quote from: Phillip;454976You have taken up arguing against yourself, Justin?

I'll take that as a "yes" to both questions.

Although you did manage to finally figure out what my name is. Good work on that minor feat of literacy.

QuoteI leave you to it, then!

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Seriously, did anybody understand anything Phillip's been spouting off about?

I have nothing against the F/R/W split in 3e, seems a lot simpler and easier for the DM to use.  As for the full saving throw system, though, I found some problems in the math.  What it came down to, I found during my days of 3e, was that a character usually had either a really good chance to succeed at the saving throw, or it was near impossible (a nat 20 still counted as a success, right?).  But that was just from my point of view of playing in a few campaigns (most of them short), so I'm not sure how accurate it is.

Quote from: islan;455059Seriously, did anybody understand anything Phillip's been spouting off about?

He reminds me of CavScout.

Quote from: islan;455059Seriously, did anybody understand anything Phillip's been spouting off about?

I have nothing against the F/R/W split in 3e, seems a lot simpler and easier for the DM to use.  As for the full saving throw system, though, I found some problems in the math.  What it came down to, I found during my days of 3e, was that a character usually had either a really good chance to succeed at the saving throw, or it was near impossible (a nat 20 still counted as a success, right?).  But that was just from my point of view of playing in a few campaigns (most of them short), so I'm not sure how accurate it is.

No, that's about right.

I only barely remember the 2e saving throw system, but I know the 3.x / Pathfinder system is broken to shit. Its one of the worst parts of the games design.

Quote from: Cranewings;455061No, that's about right.

I only barely remember the 2e saving throw system, but I know the 3.x / Pathfinder system is broken to shit. Its one of the worst parts of the games design.

So it's a case of "good idea, poor execution," eh?

Quote from: islan;455059Seriously, did anybody understand anything Phillip's been spouting off about?

I did, and I think he's partially right in that fundamentally, no matter how you categorize saves, the basic premise has not changed, and the practice from a DM who masters the game instead of letting the game master him is pretty much the same.

Where I think he's wrong is the psychological impact there is on practitioners of the game when you switch the different categories, rename stuff and the like. Obviously, there are many D&Ders who feel confident that F/R/W does something for them that the previous saves categories didn't achieve. It seems more straightforward to know what kind of effect you are resisting to in broad terms, rather than hairsplitting between sources and devices.

I'm of two minds on this, in that I understand the increase in simplicity this represents for many gamers out there. For me, it's about the same, the difference being that in one situations (with F/R/W) you indeed have a straightforward sense of what to select to do this or that, whereas in the other (multiple saves categories per source/implement) there is a guess work involved on the part of the DM (like saying "make a save v. paralization to free yourself from the pile of rubble on top of your head"). For the same reason I like AD&D text and corner cases and "WTF does that mean?" moments when you read through its rules, I like the way these saves engage your thought process/imagination to prompt you to create your own interpretation of the rules and master the game.

In the end, I think it's fairly representative of differences in approaches between iterations of the game. For some people what I'm saying will make sense, and for others it just won't. Let's just say that there isn't a "right" or "wrong" answer here, I think. It just depends what you're searching for in playing the game.

Quote from: Benoist;455074(like saying "make a save v. paralization to free yourself from the pile of rubble on top of your head").

:D I like this.

Quote from: islan;455070So it's a case of "good idea, poor execution," eh?

The problem is how the occurrences come up. If you need a 20 to save, it's one in 20. If you get a 5% bonus it becomes 1 in 10. That's a big deal but if you need a 10, picking up a +1 means Jack shit. The game, therefor, makes it functionally impossible to get a meaningfully good saving throw past 50% but easy for it to be lower... Then they filled it the fuck up full of spells that let wizards and clerics of all kinds oneshot rogues and warriors 4 levels higher than themselves several times a day.

The different saving throw categories aren't something I really miss from 2E. 3E could use around two more save categories I think...probably a category for "Perception" saves against illusions and the like (Int modified?) instead of the Spot/Listen skill point sinks - and some sort of Strength-based save in place of grapple checks or opposed Str rolls.

JAs earlier point about how 2E had different rules for every situation, and how this made it difficult to use for full campaigns outside the dungeon without extra work, was interesting.

I agree the universal mechanic makes the life of the GM easier in some ways..at worst in 3E/4E you can roll the dice and see if the roll makes arguing over what modifier applies irrelevant, instead of having to wait until they at least decide its a roll-low, roll-high or roll d100. Perception type checks are my pet peeve since depending on situation it could be a d6 (finding secret doors, dwarf unusual stonework), a d100 (listen check), a Int/Wis check (Complete Fighter), an Observation proficiency check (also an Int/Wis check, or level-based if using Skills and Powers), or a saving throw.

On the other hand, with 2E there are tons of rules in the supplements, and there probably are some rules or a precedent for any situation worth speaking of in there somewhere. OK, probably more than one rule, actually :)
The other downside of the universal mechanic that they picked in 3e/4e [d20+mods] is that every odd-numbered ability score became pointless, and by applying an ability modifier to virtually every check they made ability scores much more important to characters. No more hopeless characters, and in the end (by 4e) they'd killed off rolling for ability scores entirely.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;455209I agree the universal mechanic makes the life of the GM easier in some ways..at worst in 3E/4E you can roll the dice and see if the roll makes arguing over what modifier applies irrelevant, instead of having to wait until they at least decide its a roll-low, roll-high or roll d100. Perception type checks are my pet peeve since depending on situation it could be a d6 (finding secret doors, dwarf unusual stonework), a d100 (listen check), a Int/Wis check (Complete Fighter), an Observation proficiency check (also an Int/Wis check, or level-based if using Skills and Powers), or a saving throw.

This is something I call the shell game, and I'm using it as a feature in the AD&D Ptolus game to keep players on their toes and avoid the reflex of thinking about the rules before the game itself. See this post in the OOC thread. (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=431625&postcount=516)

I do enjoy the fact that is the roll is good, for anything, you know the bonuses add up to success.

Quote from: islan;455059Seriously, did anybody understand anything Phillip's been spouting off about?

Phillip doesn't understand that saying "save vs. DC 20" (3E), "save at -2" (AD&D), and "make a check at -20%" (CoC) are all ways in which the GM of a game sets the difficulty of an action check.

After trying at least a half dozen ways of expressing that basically simple idea, I'm pretty confident that he is either incapable of grasping it or unwilling to grasp it.

About 80% of his confusing nonsense derives from this. The other 20% (involving a baffling array of proposed house rules which changed from post to post) I don't have any active explanation for.

Quote from: Benoist;455074I did, and I think he's partially right in that fundamentally, no matter how you categorize saves, the basic premise has not changed, and the practice from a DM who masters the game instead of letting the game master him is pretty much the same.

I think you're giving Phillip too much credit. AFAICT, he never addressed the actual issue of save categorization at all. Whenever I talked about it, he would interpret it as having something to do with the way in which difficulties were assigned.

QuoteObviously, there are many D&Ders who feel confident that F/R/W does something for them that the previous saves categories didn't achieve. It seems more straightforward to know what kind of effect you are resisting to in broad terms, rather than hairsplitting between sources and devices.

That may be true, but it's not what I was talking about. The key difference for me is not method of categorization, but the universality of the categorization.

QuoteFor the same reason I like AD&D text and corner cases and "WTF does that mean?" moments when you read through its rules, I like the way these saves engage your thought process/imagination to prompt you to create your own interpretation of the rules and master the game.

Which is what you're talking about here. But, frankly, I'm never going to be convinced that "this game fundamentally doesn't work so you have to house rule it in order to play it" is actually a feature.

Quote from: Cranewings;455154The problem is how the occurrences come up. If you need a 20 to save, it's one in 20. If you get a 5% bonus it becomes 1 in 10. That's a big deal but if you need a 10, picking up a +1 means Jack shit.

Dude. That's nonsense. It's a 5% boost either way. What you're arguing is basically the same fallacy as saying that a second lottery ticket is a great deal because you've doubled your odds from 1 in 14,000,000 to 1 in 7,000,000. Saying that "double your chances" is great and "+5%" is jack shit only works if those two values aren't completely identical.

More generally, I'm unclear on how any diced mechanic could satisfy you with this complaint. (This includes the AD&D mechanics which would suffer from the exact same problem BECAUSE THE MATH HASN'T CHANGED.)

Quote from: Justin Alexander;455336Dude. That's nonsense. It's a 5% boost either way. What you're arguing is basically the same fallacy as saying that a second lottery ticket is a great deal because you've doubled your odds from 1 in 14,000,000 to 1 in 7,000,000. Saying that "double your chances" is great and "+5%" is jack shit only works if those two values aren't completely identical.

More generally, I'm unclear on how any diced mechanic could satisfy you with this complaint. (This includes the AD&D mechanics which would suffer from the exact same problem BECAUSE THE MATH HASN'T CHANGED.)

I think Cranewings is referring to the disparity of saving throws between characters at higher levels, where one character needs to roll a 10+ and the other needs to roll a 20+.  Now I agree that "doubling your odds" doesn't mean much when you are doubling 5% to 10%, but a +1 really doesn't mean much to me when I have to roll over 20; I still will only succeed on a 20.

Meanwhile in old D&D, characters' saving throws usually only differ by about 5 or so, and modifiers are usually constrained to +4/-4; it's probably a very rare thing to have to roll 20+, when saving throws usually start at 15 or 16.  Now, I'm not ragging on the F/R/W setup or anything, just the math results that I've experienced in playing 3e.  If anything, the opposite problem is true in old D&D where, instead of failing all the time, characters are succeeding all the time at higher levels.  But I guess that's what they get for being of high level *shrug*.

Quote from: jibbajibba;454808This has become really funny.

A heated debate about whether the saving throw mechanism Gygax pulled out of his arse in 1976 is superior to a revision to a mechainsm pulled out someone else's arse in 1995 :)

I'm betting this is the substitute for the edition wars of a few months ago. It has 1989 on it and everything.

Justin, it's true that it's almost impossible for dice to satisfy me in d&d. I think it's garbage that the system assumes characters with hitpoints can not ever be stabbed to death but can suddenly be knocked out by wizards or traps. They try to balance the grind of HP damage against the randomness of instant win effects and I think it sucks dick, which is why my home game is saturated with house rules.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;455336I think you're giving Phillip too much credit. AFAICT, he never addressed the actual issue of save categorization at all. Whenever I talked about it, he would interpret it as having something to do with the way in which difficulties were assigned.

I think you're giving Phillip too little credit, to be honest. I'm not saying he's automatically right or that one shouldn't be offended by the aggressive way in which he chooses to present his points, but I'm confident he does have a point. Just giving in to the shit flinging just obfuscates everyone's arguments, IMO.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;455336

QuoteObviously, there are many D&Ders who feel confident that F/R/W does something for them that the previous saves categories didn't achieve. It seems more straightforward to know what kind of effect you are resisting to in broad terms, rather than hairsplitting between sources and devices.

That may be true, but it's not what I was talking about. The key difference for me is not method of categorization, but the universality of the categorization.

That's actually what I'm talking about.

In one case, you will have the universality of the categorization requiring little to no thinking on your part, and you'll just apply the game system without questioning your own judgment. It'll be easy and passive. No questions asked.

In the other, you a have a sample of resistances to specific sources, and from there you have to interpret these values and question your interpretation of them to come up with different applications in the game. It asks of you to master the rules, instead of having the rules do the thinking for you.

I totally understand how easy is the way to go for many people who don't want to think about these aspects of game play. For them, a clear, broad separation between means of resistance will work best.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;455336

QuoteFor the same reason I like AD&D text and corner cases and "WTF does that mean?" moments when you read through its rules, I like the way these saves engage your thought process/imagination to prompt you to create your own interpretation of the rules and master the game.

Which is what you're talking about here. But, frankly, I'm never going to be convinced that "this game fundamentally doesn't work so you have to house rule it in order to play it" is actually a feature.

I know this is something you don't see. Just because you don't see it or don't endorse it doesn't mean it's not a valid way to look at a game system, or that I derive less pleasure from doing so than you do playing d20. It's just a difference in perspective and what we enjoy about game play.

I don't consider a rules system to be some sort of program to run applications. It's a set of tools that allow me to run the game. From there, I appreciate when a game system lets me grow into my own interpretations, so that in the end the game becomes mine, and no one else's. The rules are not a third party looking over the table and adjudicating situations for me and my players. I am the one doing the adjudication. This game does work for me in the way it engages my mind continually, sometimes in the most surprising way.

The fact that you would interpret this as meaning the game "fundamentally doesn't work" tells me we're unlikely to come to any kind of agreement on this. By basically saying this, what I'm saying is obviously "wrong". The only way for us to solve this disagreement would be for me to accept that the rules should be some kind of seemless piece of programming that works like an app on your brain, that there is value in the rules beyond the way they are used at an actual game table, as a theoretical construct divorced from the people who interpret them, and I just don't agree with that. This is part of the illusionism 3rd ed embraced so readily with concepts like "game balance" and the like, and I have done my peace with it by rejecting it wholesale.

Quote from: Benoist;455406I think you're giving Phillip too little credit, to be honest. I'm not saying he's automatically right or that one shouldn't be offended by the aggressive way in which he chooses to present his points, but I'm confident he does have a point. Just giving in to the shit flinging just obfuscates everyone's arguments, IMO.


That's actually what I'm talking about.

In one case, you will have the universality of the categorization requiring little to no thinking on your part, and you'll just apply the game system without questioning your own judgment. It'll be easy and passive. No questions asked.

In the other, you a have a sample of resistances to specific sources, and from there you have to interpret these values and question your interpretation of them to come up with different applications in the game. It asks of you to master the rules, instead of having the rules do the thinking for you.

I totally understand how easy is the way to go for many people who don't want to think about these aspects of game play. For them, a clear, broad separation between means of resistance will work best.


I know this is something you don't see. Just because you don't see it or don't endorse it doesn't mean it's not a valid way to look at a game system, or that I derive less pleasure from doing so than you do playing d20. It's just a difference in perspective and what we enjoy about game play.

I don't consider a rules system to be some sort of program to run applications. It's a set of tools that allow me to run the game. From there, I appreciate when a game system lets me grow into my own interpretations, so that in the end the game becomes mine, and no one else's. The rules are not a third party looking over the table and adjudicating situations for me and my players. I am the one doing the adjudication. This game does work for me in the way it engages my mind continually, sometimes in the most surprising way.

The fact that you would interpret this as meaning the game "fundamentally doesn't work" tells me we're unlikely to come to any kind of agreement on this. By basically saying this, what I'm saying is obviously "wrong". The only way for us to solve this disagreement would be for me to accept that the rules should be some kind of seemless piece of programming that works like an app on your brain, that there is value in the rules beyond the way they are used at an actual game table, as a theoretical construct divorced from the people who interpret them, and I just don't agree with that. This is part of the illusionism 3rd ed embraced so readily with concepts like "game balance" and the like, and I have done my peace with it by rejecting it wholesale.

Ben that doesn't really make sense as an arguement mate.

You seem to be saying a game rule that is complex and obsure and therefore forces you try and decypher the intent of the designer so as to allow you to extrapolate said intent onto other situations is superior to one in which the designer's intent is clear because that promotes intellectual laziness.

Why not extrapolate this still further? Perhaps encoding the character generation rules in a cypher of some kind? Maybe writing the racial rules in the appropriate tongue? Elvish Rules in Sindarian anyone?

It appears to me that if you are someone that wants the game to be more toolkit based to provide you with a generic rule that you can apply to a set situation then you would favour the R/W/S save system with 3 generic categories of saves over the AD&D method with rod, Staves, Wands, Death magic, Breath Weapon etc etc as it gives you a range of DM options whenever a save is required.  eg ... The dragon turns its scaled head and released a gout of bellow red flame  Thief: I leap out of the way. Make a Reflex save Fighter: I lift my shield and crouch into the blast hoping my arm stays steady  Sure make a Stamina Save Wizard: I look into the beast's eye and challenge him to try and burn me! Sure make a Will...oh hold on don't be daft ...

Quote from: islan;455362I think Cranewings is referring to the disparity of saving throws between characters at higher levels, where one character needs to roll a 10+ and the other needs to roll a 20+.  Now I agree that "doubling your odds" doesn't mean much when you are doubling 5% to 10%, but a +1 really doesn't mean much to me when I have to roll over 20; I still will only succeed on a 20.

I assumed that was what he was talking about, honestly, until he said it wasn't. I do think the divergence in save bonuses is problematic. I'm not too concerned about the minimum 5% chance built into the system; I prefer the minor oddities that situation creates to a scenario where attacks literally cannot be avoided or cannot succeed.

But being irate because 5% -> 10% "doubles your chances" but 50% -> 55% doesn't? That's just a poor understanding of how math works.

Quote from: Benoist;455406In the other, you a have a sample of resistances to specific sources, and from there you have to interpret these values and question your interpretation of them to come up with different applications in the game. It asks of you to master the rules, instead of having the rules do the thinking for you.

I think this is the crux of our disagreement: You think mastering the rules means to make up a bunch of house rules. I don't.

QuoteI don't consider a rules system to be some sort of program to run applications. It's a set of tools that allow me to run the game.

I couldn't agree more. Which is why I prefer my toolboxes to have screwdrivers in them, instead of being forced to say, "Okay. I've got a screw here but no screwdriver. So what I can do is take this awl and use it to whittle down the handle of the hammer to form a wooden screwdriver."

I'd rather have a complete set of tools and spend my time focused on how I can use those tools to run the game.

(I'm also not adverse to system tinkering. But I don't see any particular virtue in being forced to tinker with the system because the system wasn't designed properly in the first place.)

QuoteThe only way for us to solve this disagreement would be for me to accept that the rules should be some kind of seemless piece of programming that works like an app on your brain

Having a complete toolbox doesn't mean that the tools build the furniture for you.

Slipping from "boy, I wish this toolbox had a screwdriver in it" to "boy, I wish this toolbox had a robotic overlord who would use the screwdriver for me" requires a very slippery slope indeed. ;)

Quote from: jibbajibba;455423Ben that doesn't really make sense as an arguement mate.

It actually does to me, because I'm actually describing the reality of what brings me pleasure with the games I'm playing right now. Now, maybe I'm not explaining it in a way that particularly resonates with the enjoyment you get from your gaming, but that's a reality nonetheless.

Quote from: jibbajibba;455423Why not extrapolate this still further? Perhaps encoding the character generation rules in a cypher of some kind? Maybe writing the racial rules in the appropriate tongue? Elvish Rules in Sindarian anyone?

Who's to say some people might not enjoy this kind of thing? I probably wouldn't, but here's the thing: it's not an either/or, "completely obscure v. totally straightforward" kind of choice here. It's a question of how, as a GM, you relate to the rules set you're using, and what makes you comfortable using it. Just like the reasons why you'd love your couch would vary from individual to individual, and usually expressed in terms of shades and variety of combinations of choices and preferences, the reasons why you'd use this instead of that rules set will vary from GM to GM. I'm just explaining part of what makes me enjoy a game like AD&D, which I play and run right now.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;455432I think this is the crux of our disagreement: You think mastering the rules means to make up a bunch of house rules. I don't.

Hm. Maybe that's just the wording that bothers me: it's not that I believe you have to formulate house rules to master a game. It's that I believe you must be actively engaged and interpret the rules yourself instead of surrendering to someone else's interpretation of what they mean. It's only an extension of that concept to point out that a game system that welcomes a GM making sense of them however he wishes is actually part of this.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;455432I couldn't agree more. Which is why I prefer my toolboxes to have screwdrivers in them, instead of being forced to say, "Okay. I've got a screw here but no screwdriver. So what I can do is take this awl and use it to whittle down the handle of the hammer to form a wooden screwdriver."

I'd rather have a complete set of tools and spend my time focused on how I can use those tools to run the game.

(I'm also not adverse to system tinkering. But I don't see any particular virtue in being forced to tinker with the system because the system wasn't designed properly in the first place.)

At the same time, I'd say I'm not expecting a set of prosthetic hands and a brain implent to be part of the toolbox. What you're just saying to me is that you want a set of rules to work in the greatest number of cases without you having to second guess them in any way shape or form. And that's a good thing when you don't want to do that kind of thinking, for whatever reason. I actually welcome that kind of thinking in AD&D's case, however, and find that it provides me pleasure running the game.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;455432Having a complete toolbox doesn't mean that the tools build the furniture for you.

It's more like some people will want a complete toolbox that comes with the furniture and you just have to drive the screws into them, whereas others will want to make the shelf from scratch, valuing the craft that comes out of it, getting more of a sense of satisfaction from the achievement, the fact they can decide whatever size the shelf will have, instead of having 4 feet planks delivered with it, and so on. And then of course, there are all shades of behaviors and ranges of satisfaction in between. If you expect me to say "well of course the complete toolbox is better than making a shelf from scratch," your hopes will be disappointed.

While I do understand what prompts you to say that, I do not have to agree with it. As a matter of fact, it would disagree with the actual enjoyment I get from my practice of the game at this point. And while I would not build a game system from scratch at the moment, unlike say, Lord Vreeg is doing himself, mostly because I am happy playing D&D, and that's what I really want to run and play, I also do welcome an active involvement in the way the rules are used, interpreted, and shaped over time throughout the campaign.

It's not something you have to enjoy yourself, but you've got no business telling me that my enjoyment is somehow wrong or not appropriate to your own sensibilities, and that therefore, I'd have to revise my own. You're not playing at my game table, so the point is moot, to me.

Late to the party, but let me see if I can tackle this.

Benoist favors rules enunciated in a vague or obscure manner because it gives him leeway to interpret them as he sees fit, making for a more malleable game, one which feels less formal and yet hinges closer to his vision as a GM. In my experience, this is a powerful asset, but can get somewhat taxing to the GM.

Justin, jibba et al. prefer clear and straightforward mechanics because they're robust and reliable, and being accessible to both GM and players, set up a lingua franca between both parts (which I feel is a good thing, even if the GM is the final arbiter, as players have a better grasp of their capabilities within the game world).

I can definitely see merits and limitations in both systems.

Did I get it right?

Quote from: Benoist;455439What you're just saying to me is that you want a set of rules to work in the greatest number of cases without you having to second guess them in any way shape or form. And that's a good thing when you don't want to do that kind of thinking, for whatever reason. I actually welcome that kind of thinking in AD&D's case, however, and find that it provides me pleasure running the game.

You're right. When I'm using a hammer, I prefer to focus on the task at hand instead of worrying whether or not the head is going to fly off on the next swing.

You think having a hammer with a loose head constitutes Extreme Carpentry and really helps to keep the woodworker engaged and focused because, hey, you never know when that piece of metal might go flying.

I think it just means that the hammer is a lousy tool.

It's not that I don't want to focus or be engaged. I just think there are better things to focus on than compensating for a crappy set of tools that can't do their job without being repaired first.

And, honestly, I can't see any virtue whatsoever in stopping a game so that you can spend some time figuring out, "WTF does this rule mean?" or "Is this blinding burst of light more like a spell (magical effect), petrification (it's based on vision, just like a medusa), paralyzation (since it incapacitates), or death ray/poison (since it's debilitating and it's kinda ray-like)?"

Hypothetically I can imagine a table full of philosophizing tinkerers who might find that sort of thing interesting. Realistically? I doubt your players are actually entertained by watching you intermittently put the head back on your hammer. Maybe there's a little bit of schadenfreude whenever the hammer hits you in the forehead on the back-swing, but that's probably it.

I'm just fundamentally unimpressed with the whole school of "the great thing about crappy hammers is that they encourage you to make your own hammers that don't suck". It seems like a pretty threadbare silver-lining. If you enjoy making hammers, more power to you. But I don't think you need the excuse you claim you need.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;455464You're right. When I'm using a hammer, I prefer to focus on the task at hand instead of worrying whether or not the head is going to fly off on the next swing.

But there you're assuming my hammer is no good. How about you assume my personal hammer is the best there is for the job, and not the one included with the kit?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;455464And, honestly, I can't see any virtue whatsoever in stopping a game so that you can spend some time figuring out, "WTF does this rule mean?" or "Is this blinding burst of light more like a spell (magical effect), petrification (it's based on vision, just like a medusa), paralyzation (since it incapacitates), or death ray/poison (since it's debilitating and it's kinda ray-like)?"

Your problem is that you're making a whole slew of assumptions about the manner in which I run my games instead of asking me, in which case I would tell you that I'm actually not stopping a game to figure out "WTF does this mean." Ever. That's something I do when I'm reading the DMG on my own, between games, which makes me think about the game and come up with different interpretations which inform my rulings when I actually run the game.

So. How about you don't assume what I'm doing and not doing at my game table and ask me instead?

Quote from: The Butcher;455461Late to the party, but let me see if I can tackle this.

Benoist favors rules enunciated in a vague or obscure manner because it gives him leeway to interpret them as he sees fit, making for a more malleable game, one which feels less formal and yet hinges closer to his vision as a GM. In my experience, this is a powerful asset, but can get somewhat taxing to the GM.

Justin, jibba et al. prefer clear and straightforward mechanics because they're robust and reliable, and being accessible to both GM and players, set up a lingua franca between both parts (which I feel is a good thing, even if the GM is the final arbiter, as players have a better grasp of their capabilities within the game world).

I can definitely see merits and limitations in both systems.

Did I get it right?

You can add to the list that, whereas I am able and willing to see Justin's and Jibba's point of view on this issue, they seem unable or unwilling to return the favor, and I find it frustrating.

I don't see any problem with Benoist playaing the game or viewing the rules in a way that works for him. We all came to this hobby from different angles I am sure. Personally I like hearing from people with different points of view, as I can apply new approaches to my GMing (taking what works and ignoring what doesn't).

Quote from: Benoist;455470You can add to the list that, whereas I am able and willing to see Justin's and Jibba's point of view on this issue, they seem unable or unwilling to return the favor, and I find it frustrating.

Never said I couldn't see where you were coming from I just think its a weak arguement.

I have house ruled every game I have ever played. Its my default method of play.

Unless I am much mistaken some of the other readers are mistaking your position as someone who is promoting house rules whereas from your previous positions on stuff I actually think that your position is more like "how can I run this game exactly as written and interpret the rules as closely to Gygax's original intent."  Although I might be totally wrong on that :)

But that's the thing, Jibba: it's not an argument on my part. I don't give much of a crap whether it seems weak or not. It just is. Though you certainly can tell me "well, I don't relate to that", the existence of this point of view for me and how it brings me satisfaction in the game is not something open for debate. It's not something I just made up. It's an explanation as to the reasons why, in actual practice, I'm comfortable with saving throws as they are laid out in AD&D and find them interesting for my purposes when running the game.

Quote from: jibbajibba;455482Unless I am much mistaken some of the other readers are mistaking your position as someone who is promoting house rules whereas from your previous positions on stuff I actually think that your position is more like "how can I run this game exactly as written and interpret the rules as closely to Gygax's original intent."  Although I might be totally wrong on that :)

Since I care about the intent behind the game, I don't want to run AD&D exactly as written. I don't. I don't use speed factors, don't use WP v. AC, and a whole host of other stuff in my games. Ultimately, whatever intent I myself have when I start running the game, it comes down to what's enjoyable and what's not at my game table. Therefore, what I want to do is understand the game, and run it according to what I make of it from there. What matters to me is to understand and then run the game my own way, rather than just ignore it entirely and run the thing in the dark, unaware of what went wrong when it does.

Quote from: Benoist;455406I think you're giving Phillip too little credit, to be honest. I'm not saying he's automatically right or that one shouldn't be offended by the aggressive way in which he chooses to present his points, but I'm confident he does have a point. Just giving in to the shit flinging just obfuscates everyone's arguments, IMO.


That's actually what I'm talking about.

In one case, you will have the universality of the categorization requiring little to no thinking on your part, and you'll just apply the game system without questioning your own judgment. It'll be easy and passive. No questions asked.

In the other, you a have a sample of resistances to specific sources, and from there you have to interpret these values and question your interpretation of them to come up with different applications in the game. It asks of you to master the rules, instead of having the rules do the thinking for you.

I totally understand how easy is the way to go for many people who don't want to think about these aspects of game play. For them, a clear, broad separation between means of resistance will work best.


I know this is something you don't see. Just because you don't see it or don't endorse it doesn't mean it's not a valid way to look at a game system, or that I derive less pleasure from doing so than you do playing d20. It's just a difference in perspective and what we enjoy about game play.

I don't consider a rules system to be some sort of program to run applications. It's a set of tools that allow me to run the game. From there, I appreciate when a game system lets me grow into my own interpretations, so that in the end the game becomes mine, and no one else's. The rules are not a third party looking over the table and adjudicating situations for me and my players. I am the one doing the adjudication. This game does work for me in the way it engages my mind continually, sometimes in the most surprising way.

The fact that you would interpret this as meaning the game "fundamentally doesn't work" tells me we're unlikely to come to any kind of agreement on this. By basically saying this, what I'm saying is obviously "wrong". The only way for us to solve this disagreement would be for me to accept that the rules should be some kind of seemless piece of programming that works like an app on your brain, that there is value in the rules beyond the way they are used at an actual game table, as a theoretical construct divorced from the people who interpret them, and I just don't agree with that. This is part of the illusionism 3rd ed embraced so readily with concepts like "game balance" and the like, and I have done my peace with it by rejecting it wholesale.

You see I think this is an arguement :)

I think you are saying .... the system you use means you don't think as much about how the games works as I do.

This is implied by
I totally understand how easy is the way to go for many people who don't want to think about these aspects of game play. For them, a clear, broad separation between means of resistance will work best.
- implication = other people don't think about the game as much as me

and

The rules are not a third party looking over the table and adjudicating situations for me and my players. I am the one doing the adjudication. This game does work for me in the way it engages my mind continually, sometimes in the most surprising way.
- implication = your mind is engaged continuously other peopels not so much

and in this point
 
In one case, you will have the universality of the categorization requiring little to no thinking on your part, and you'll just apply the game system without questioning your own judgment. It'll be easy and passive. No questions asked.
- implication everyone else just uses the rules passively without questioning their own judgement whereas you are an active participant questing for the one true way ....


Now I might be wrong but that looks like an arguement to me. Surely your basic premise is 'I am playing the game properly as it was meant to be played. The rest of you are at best passive consumers of a set of rules.'

Aren't you just presenting that arguement using a simple passive-agressive rhetorical style?

Quote from: jibbajibba;455560Aren't you just presenting that arguement using a simple passive-agressive rhetorical style?

If you go on a witch hunt, then you are, more than likely, going to find a witch.  Perhaps you are being too sensitive in your reading of Benoist's thoughts, and looking for a windmill to tilt at?

Quote from: Drohem;455597If you go on a witch hunt, then you are, more than likely, going to find a witch.  Perhaps you are being too sensitive in your reading of Benoist's thoughts, and looking for a windmill to tilt at?

Okay maybe :)

I have no axe to grind.

I normally have some respect for Ben's position (even when its wrong :) ) becuase he lays it out pretty clearly and is polite with the way he approaches stuff. I just think here he is being a bit disingenuous in saying he has no argument with those that perhaps prefer a different way of doing things when his posts seem to present a different position.

Personally I think its fine for everyone to hold different opinions (even if everybody else is wrong :) ). When I get into a debate I tend to lay my position out in a straightforward way as possible.

My default position on the Saving throw mechanic in D&D for example would be that the saves in AD&D were formed in reaction to a limited number of standard challenges that PCs faced and that they were a crude tool to provide a bit of game balance. The 3e version is a simplified mechanic that can more easily be broadly applied to any challenge the PCs might meet. I would say this is an improvement.

On the wider topic I have very little reverence for rules. As I say I house rule every game I ever played. This is partly due to arrogance on my part ( I really do suspect that I have as much or more knowledge than most game designers on how many times I can hit you with a sword in a minute for example) but mostly through play. I know the sort of games I like to play and part of that is I like to set a stable and well formed world in place where everyone understands how things function and where possible that process is as akin to how it would in the 'real' world as the rules allow.

I do have a pet Windmill which is where I get a sniff of 'The Designer knows best' and I just can't help tilting at it :)

Quote from: jibbajibba;455602Okay maybe :)

[snip]

I do have a pet Windmill which is where I get a sniff of 'The Designer knows best' and I just can't help tilting at it :)

Hehehe... cool, I can't begrudge a man his pet peeves and tilting at them- I do it all the time too! :D

My point wasn’t that it’s 'better' in the sense you understood, Jibba. It is that it is different, and it gives me pleasure at the game table.

To me, when I’m playing AD&D, it’s something that brings me pleasure at the game table. When I want to shift gears and play some other game, I do. I don’t think that some other play style I enjoy is necessarily inferior, just different. I enjoy plenty of different game systems and play styles, rules heavy (Rolemaster), rules light (Stars Without Number), straightforward (Star Wars d6), not straightforward (Mythus). I could talk about Old and New WoD, MRQ2/CoC/BRP, INS/MV, and explain how these game systems bring me pleasure at the game table. The enjoyment isn’t 'lesser,' it’s different.

Now I do have specific reasons to like AD&D, and that’s what I was talking about here.

It’s not like I’m making stuff up. All over these boards here, and all over gaming forums elsewhere as well, you will find the general consensus that easier is always better. Somebody (I don’t remember who) actually wrote this when talking about descending v. ascending ACs on another thread here. I’m also reminded on the same topic of Jonathan Tweet’s notion that ascending ACs were an obviously, objective, positive improvement on the game’s design, a notion that has since been echoed all over D&D forums. It's a pattern that's repeated constantly, and that annoys the heck out of me.

That’s not how I feel about my own gaming. Sometimes easier will bring me a certain type of pleasure around the game table, and other times intricate rules will bring me another type of pleasure at the game table (a type of pleasure I was trying to qualify here in this thread). Easier, in other words, isn't always better. What frustrates me, and maybe this is why my earlier post felt passive-aggressive, is that for people who favour one approach and exclude the other, there’s a close-mindedness that just refuses to acknowledge that there are a variety of valid ways to look at some rules and their applications in the game, and that they might come with their own rewards. For instance the idea of considering descending ACs as categories of armour instead of raw numbers, without THAC0 and backwards calculations in the game, seemed like a new concept to some people when it popped up on our earlier discussion on this topic. Some will go "oh, I didn't consider it that way," while others go "I didn't think about it so you're obviously making this up."

What frustrates me is the general failure or unwillingness to see anything through another’s point of view demonstrated in those discussions. It’s a waste of time.

Quote from: Benoist;455622My point wasn't that it's 'better' in the sense you understood, Jibba. It is that it is different, and it gives me pleasure at the game table.

To me, when I'm playing AD&D, it's something that brings me pleasure at the game table. When I want to shift gears and play some other game, I do. I don't think that some other play style I enjoy is necessarily inferior, just different. I enjoy plenty of different game systems and play styles, rules heavy (Rolemaster), rules light (Stars Without Number), straightforward (Star Wars d6), not straightforward (Mythus). I could talk about Old and New WoD, MRQ2/CoC/BRP, INS/MV, and explain how these game systems bring me pleasure at the game table. The enjoyment isn't 'lesser,' it's different.

Now I do have specific reasons to like AD&D, and that's what I was talking about here.

It's not like I'm making stuff up. All over these boards here, and all over gaming forums elsewhere as well, you will find the general consensus that easier is always better. Somebody (I don't remember who) actually wrote this when talking about descending v. ascending ACs on another thread here. I'm also reminded on the same topic of Jonathan Tweet's notion that ascending ACs were an obviously, objective, positive improvement on the game's design, a notion that has since been echoed all over D&D forums. It's a pattern that's repeated constantly, and that annoys the heck out of me.

That's not how I feel about my own gaming. Sometimes easier will bring me a certain type of pleasure around the game table, and other times intricate rules will bring me another type of pleasure at the game table (a type of pleasure I was trying to qualify here in this thread). Easier, in other words, isn't always better. What frustrates me, and maybe this is why my earlier post felt passive-aggressive, is that for people who favour one approach and exclude the other, there's a close-mindedness that just refuses to acknowledge that there are a variety of valid ways to look at some rules and their applications in the game, and that they might come with their own rewards. For instance the idea of considering descending ACs as categories of armour instead of raw numbers, without THAC0 and backwards calculations in the game, seemed like a new concept to some people when it popped up on our earlier discussion on this topic. Some will go "oh, I didn't consider it that way," while others go "I didn't think about it so you're obviously making this up."

What frustrates me is the general failure or unwillingness to see anything through another's point of view demonstrated in those discussions. It's a waste of time.

I think its an anglo-saxon thing :) You know you build the tool that is the most efficient and does waht you expect it to do continuously as opposed to the French method.
You must have heard that joke about the French computer that just occassionally says 'non' and doesn't let you do anything at all for 20 minutes while it sulks :)

This is of course why Anglo-saxon men , me included, will never understand women.

Quote from: jibbajibba;455646You must have heard that joke about the French computer that just occassionally says 'non' and doesn't let you do anything at all for 20 minutes while it sulks :)

LOL No, I didn't know that one. :D

I'm only skimming over the back & forth here, but one thing I will say for the old way of doing things is that it's very precise about certain advantages/disadvantages between classes, in a way that isn't easily accomplished with broad categories like Fort/Reflex/Will. For example right in this thread it was observed that wands & staves get separate categories in some versions of D&D.

Or using Labyrinth Lord as an example (since I have the PDF handy), there's a distinction between "spells or spell-like devices", "wands", "[poison or] death", and "petrify or paralyze". These are all magical attacks but their relationship between classes varies. E.g. At low levels, Clerics have 12 for wands and 15 for spells, but Magic-Users have 13 for wands and 14 for spells. So although M-Us are weaker than Clerics in this example, their relative disadvantage is more pronounced against spells than wands. And in fact they're better than Clerics when it comes to Petrify/Paralyze. Additional analysis might show more "lumpiness" in the comparative progressions. For example if you compare a 19th level M-U with a 19th level Cleric, then the numbers for Death/Petrify & Paralyze/Wands/Sells are

M-U   6 5 4 4
Cleric 2 6 4 5

In short, intentionally or not, there are nuances in the relative balance of classes against different types of threat, which even change as levels go up, which I don't think you could reproduce using broad categories, or even with standard per-class bonuses to handle special cases. You'd need per-class/per-level bonuses, and then you're basically back to using the charts.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;455698In short, intentionally or not, there are nuances in the relative balance of classes against different types of threat, which even change as levels go up, which I don't think you could reproduce using broad categories, or even with standard per-class bonuses to handle special cases. You'd need per-class/per-level bonuses, and then you're basically back to using the charts.

A reinvention of 2E saves in a 3E-type design context could perhaps do it by inventing a number of specific class features.
e.g. wizard 6- 'invocation of Hoggoth' - the wizard gets a +2 bonus on saves against wands. From 11th level the bonus applies also against wands also'.


Also, at Benoist: I at least found your perspective interesting. I can see how you'd find tinkering with the system fun, anyway.

On the somewhat unrelated ascending vs. descending AC thing... I'd at one point decided that THAC0 was at least on par with additive attack bonus, since it works better with multiple attacks - since you apply modifiers to the target number rather than the dice roll, you get a single number to roll against for all your attacks and can just do all of them at once, instead of having to roll separately for the carrion crawler's 8 tentacles or each orc or whatever.  Same thing applies when having to do N saving throws for a fireball, really.
I've since realized that I can basically do the same thing in an additive system by subtracting the  modifier from the Armour Class (or DC) and then rolling, though it ends up not particularly simpler than THAC0.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;455780Also, at Benoist: I at least found your perspective interesting. I can see how you'd find tinkering with the system fun, anyway.

Thanks, mate. Makes me feel better about it.

Quote from: Benoist;455622It's not like I'm making stuff up. All over these boards here, and all over gaming forums elsewhere as well, you will find the general consensus that easier is always better.

I don't think "easy" is quite the right word. If it was just a matter of easiness, after all, we wouldn't use any system at all; or maybe just flip a coin to determine the outcome of each action.

"Efficiency" is probably a closer match for what most people mean when they're talking about this: They (a) want mechanics that achieve their goals without wasting its time on "extraneous" goals and (b) they want those mechanics to achieve those goals in the most efficient way possible.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;455698I'm only skimming over the back & forth here, but one thing I will say for the old way of doing things is that it's very precise about certain advantages/disadvantages between classes, in a way that isn't easily accomplished with broad categories like Fort/Reflex/Will. For example right in this thread it was observed that wands & staves get separate categories in some versions of D&D.

Just to reiterate: The pertinent quality here is not broad vs. specific. It's complete vs. incomplete.

Quote from: Benoist;455467But there you're assuming my hammer is no good. How about you assume my personal hammer is the best there is for the job, and not the one included with the kit?

I'm afraid at this point you've just descended into a complete Rule 0 Fallacy: AD&D is better because the rules you make up for it are better. You're not actually talking about AD&D any more. You're talking about your house rules.

QuoteYour problem is that you're making a whole slew of assumptions about the manner in which I run my games instead of asking me, in which case I would tell you that I'm actually not stopping a game to figure out "WTF does this mean." That's something I do when I'm reading the DMG on my own, between games, which makes me think about the game and come up with different interpretations which inform my rulings when I actually run the game.

So the rulebook is full of stuff that forces you to say "WTF does that mean?" before you can rule on it, but you never run into one of those situations at the game table because you've already perfectly anticipated everything that could possibly happen at your game table while reading the DMG?

Okey-doke. If you say so.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;455808I'm afraid at this point you've just descended into a complete Rule 0 Fallacy

I noticed you've yourself gone back to taking potshots against people who dare say they don't see it your way. Here's the thing: I'm not interested in potshots and bullshit. I like you, consider you a smart person with whom I can share constructive conversations most of the time, but it's obvious to me you just want to score points at the moment. I've had enough of these sorts of scoring contests, so I won't retaliate further than this.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;455808I don't think "easy" is quite the right word. If it was just a matter of easiness, after all, we wouldn't use any system at all; or maybe just flip a coin to determine the outcome of each action.

"Efficiency" is probably a closer match for what most people mean when they're talking about this: They (a) want mechanics that achieve their goals without wasting its time on "extraneous" goals and (b) they want those mechanics to achieve those goals in the most efficient way possible.

Just to reiterate: The pertinent quality here is not broad vs. specific. It's complete vs. incomplete.

Justin - what do you personally think are good alternatives for a D&D-style game that isn't as intricate as straight 3e/d20?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;455808Just to reiterate: The pertinent quality here is not broad vs. specific. It's complete vs. incomplete.

Believe me, I'm not buying Benoist's line (as far as I've read it), or Phillip's (ditto), in your respective discussions with them. I'm just saying that the particular progressions in pre-3e D&D saves are interesting, may serve some purpose in how they relate to each other, and aren't easy to reproduce in a unified save mechanic that uses three broad categories. Of course it's incomplete too, unless you have a magic formula for using the existing save categories for all situations that "should" use saves--or if you just don't use saves for anything else.

Quote from: Cole;455816Justin - what do you personally think are good alternatives for a D&D-style game that isn't as intricate as straight 3e/d20?

Currently available to the public? The BECMI Rules Cyclopedia.

Currently available at my dining table? Legends & Labyrinths. (http://www.thealexandrian.net/dreammachine/roleplaying/legends-and-labyrinths.html)

Quote from: Justin Alexander;456056Currently available to the public? The BECMI Rules Cyclopedia.

That is my preferred version (especially given that I can season to taste with whichever elements of AD&D I might want to borrow); I didn't expect that answer, since I thought many of the objections you have to AD&D/OD&D would still hold, though.

Will be interested to see what L&L looks like in its finished form.

For those of you who dislike the clunkiness of the 2e, but prefer the tone, style, and options, Myth & Magic may be of interest to you (I know Benoist is not so inclined!).

The Myth & Magic Starter set is up and available for free. Myth & Magic is to 2e what Pathfinder is to 3.5 or C&C is to 1e. The system is really nice and smooth, and level 1-10 of the 4 core is included in the free books available here:

http://www.newhavengames.com/

Think of it as the Pathfinder Beginner Box, only with more levels, no grids required, 100% less color, and free to download.

In addition there is a Kickstarter for the full Player's Guide, which in only 24 hours is well over 50% of its goal. It should be really sweet:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/705393141/myth-and-magic-players-guide- 2e-revived-and-update

I have some conversion rules made up if anyhow is curious how compatible with 2e (very very).

Cheers

Quote from: Teazia;524764In addition there is a Kickstarter for the full Player's Guide, which in only 24 hours is well over 50% of its goal. It should be really sweet:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/705393141/myth-and-magic-players-guide- 2e-revived-and-update

Use this link instead the above one is broken. (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/705393141/myth-and-magic-players-guide-2e-revived-and-update)

Quote from: Teazia;524764For those of you who dislike the clunkiness of the 2e, but prefer the tone, style, and options, Myth & Magic may be of interest to you (I know Benoist is not so inclined!).

2E sux. (http://sguforums.com/Smileys/TLVsmilies/vomit.gif)

 :cheerleader:

How did I miss this thread?  Yeah, I'm going to get Myth &Magic whenever the budget allows, despite Benoist. :D

Quote from: Benoist;5247752E sux. (http://sguforums.com/Smileys/TLVsmilies/vomit.gif)

 :cheerleader:

In the famous words of the most famous French Canadian export Caillou:

Mommmy, mommmmy, I just wet myself...

2e did suck, though.

RPGPundit

The Good

• Better organised rules that were basically the same as AD&D.
  
• Good settings (everybody says this - personally I think a lot of them were overrated, but I liked Al Qadim, Spelljammer and Planescape).
• Better production values (you can't deny that Tony Diterlizzi in particular did some stunning work, and even Larry Elmore did some very nice pictures scattered around various supplements).
• Less of the jarring pseudo-Christian stuff (devils, demons) that never made any sense. (I know some AD&D grognards like to dress themselves up as being all "metal" because they prefer to have devils and demons in their game. Mate, you're a fat guy pretending to be an elf.)
• Great source books, like the ones on castles, vikings, etc.

The Bad

• Nowhere near enough random tables. This has been a problem since 2nd edition that has only got worse, but DMs need lots of random tables and need to be told how to make their own - this should primarily be what any DMG consists of.
• Too much emphasis on narrative.
• No real advice on how to create the basics: dungeon maps, hex maps, your own monsters.
• The kits - how to break your game in 1 easy step.

The Ugly

• Those blue pictures in the first imprint.
• Those godawful covers in the second imprint.

Quote from: noisms;525083The

• The kits - how to break your game in 1 easy step.

I am sure some were broken (the only brown book i still have is the Ninja) but my memory is most of these gave you things like minor circumstantial proficiency bonuses. They certainly were not anywhere near the level of broken you find in 3e with some of the prestige classes.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;525085I am sure some were broken (the only brown book i still have is the Ninja) but my memory is most of these gave you things like minor circumstantial proficiency bonuses. They certainly were not anywhere near the level of broken you find in 3e with some of the prestige classes.

No, the rules for the kits were mostly fine, but they broke the entire game because they started everyone off along the dark path of character optimization down which madness lay and from which D&D has never really recovered.

Quote from: noisms;525086No, the rules for the kits were mostly fine, but they broke the entire game because they started everyone off along the dark path of character optimization down which madness lay and from which D&D has never really recovered.

Can't agree with that Kits were in no way about optimisation. They were about roleplay.
Optimisation comes when you add the 3e multiclassing and ability to increase stats and skill trees and all that malarky

Quote from: jibbajibba;525113Can't agree with that Kits were in no way about optimisation. They were about roleplay.
Optimisation comes when you add the 3e multiclassing and ability to increase stats and skill trees and all that malarky

So, you've never seen the Complete Book of Elves, huh?

Quote from: misterguignol;525115So, you've never seen the Complete Book of Elves, huh?

Vastly overstated. Though, I was lucky never to see anything from it used in any game I was a part of.

Quote from: misterguignol;525115So, you've never seen the Complete Book of Elves, huh?

What was problematic about it?  (I've never read it).

Quote from: Machinegun Blue;525117Vastly overstated. Though, I was lucky never to see anything from it used in any game I was a part of.

Agreed, but many of the kits in that book were just plain better than the kits in other books.  Even if they weren't game-breaking it wasn't unusual to see power gamers dipping into it.

Quote from: ggroy;525119What was problematic about it?  (I've never read it).

There were a couple kits that seemed to be the obvious choice for certain classes because they were just so much better than the other options from other kits.  Again, not game-breaking stuff in most cases, but definitely the domain of the optimizer.

Kits were pretty hard to abuse as I remember. There may have been a few here or there that were problematic, but compared to the stuff going on in 3e, they were nothing.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;525144Kits were pretty hard to abuse as I remember. There may have been a few here or there that were problematic, but compared to the stuff going on in 3e, they were nothing.

It's true.  It's also true that both 2e and 3e were a lot easier to manage by just going core-only.  I blame 1e Unearthed Arcana for introducing splat-creep/power-creep.

Quote from: misterguignol;525115So, you've never seen the Complete Book of Elves, huh?

Actually I stopped getting the Kits afte that daft 3 armed tree thing in the complete ranger :)

I can totally see how Kits would progress in the hands of designers looking to add mechanical benefit.
To me that moves away from what Kits were about in the first place.

Quote from: jibbajibba;525150Actually I stopped getting the Kits afte that daft 3 armed tree thing in the complete ranger :)

I can totally see how Kits would progress in the hands of designers looking to add mechanical benefit.
To me that moves away from what Kits were about in the first place.

It's the same story as prestige classes in 3e, sadly.  (Maybe on a lesser scale though, as others have pointed out.)

Quote from: jibbajibba;525150Actually I stopped getting the Kits afte that daft 3 armed tree thing in the complete ranger :)

I can totally see how Kits would progress in the hands of designers looking to add mechanical benefit.
To me that moves away from what Kits were about in the first place.

I think the way they need to proceed is stick to the original intent and approach of kits, which were flavor heavy and mehanics light. Once they start going in the direction of turning kits into a vehicle for game expansion, then it will be an issue. I really wasn't enjoying myself deep into 3E when the game seemed to become about churning out new ad-ons for optimization. The solution is more emphasis on flavor.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;525163I think the way they need to proceed is stick to the original intent and approach of kits, which were flavor heavy and mehanics light. Once they start going in the direction of turning kits into a vehicle for game expansion, then it will be an issue. I really wasn't enjoying myself deep into 3E when the game seemed to become about churning out new ad-ons for optimization. The solution is more emphasis on flavor.

Totally agree

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;525163I think the way they need to proceed is stick to the original intent and approach of kits, which were flavor heavy and mehanics light. Once they start going in the direction of turning kits into a vehicle for game expansion, then it will be an issue. I really wasn't enjoying myself deep into 3E when the game seemed to become about churning out new ad-ons for optimization. The solution is more emphasis on flavor.

To me that fits the purpose of themes more.  But I get what what you're trying to say.  Then again if they make themes mechanically robust like Fantasy Craft this direction is exactly how they should go. It allow for prestige classes, if they use them to fulfill their intended purpose.  Of modeling specific roles and organizations of specific settings like Fantasy Craft master classes.

Quote from: Marleycat;525171To me that fits the purpose of themes more.  But I get what what you're trying to say.  Then again if they make themes mechanically robust like Fantasy Craft this direction is exactly how they should go.

I am less familiar with themes, but kits basically offered what i wanted in the way of options for fine tuning a character concept.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;525174I am less familiar with themes, but kits basically offered what i wanted in the way of options for fine tuning a character concept.

Definitely, basically they are exactly like Fantasy Craft themes/backgrounds.  4e themes are much less robust than either 2e kits or FC themes/backgrounds.

Are FC themes like a Paragon Path or Epic Destiny, but at lower levels?

EDIT:  Googling hasn't turned up much about Fantasy Craft themes.

Quote from: ggroy;525177Are FC themes like a Paragon Path or Epic Destiny, but at lower levels?

EDIT:  Googling hasn't turned up much about Fantasy Craft themes.

No not nearly that robust it will usually give you 1 feat maybe a skill or two maybe a weapon proficiency and a knack or two. It's not cut and dried but I think it's very similar to 2e kits rather than a prestige class or a PP or ED.

For example Wizard gives you the feat called Spell Library, 2 additional studies, a knack called Encouragement, a knack called Practiced spellcasting, and a small starting advantage called Thrifty.

They are basically a themed package of abilities etc. taken at character creation.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;525174I am less familiar with themes, but kits basically offered what i wanted in the way of options for fine tuning a character concept.

never played 2e, but for some reason 3.x's prestige classes clicked for me, like when i read a 2e book and noticed a certain focus for skills, etc.

Quote from: beeber;525194never played 2e, but for some reason 3.x's prestige classes clicked for me, like when i read a 2e book and noticed a certain focus for skills, etc.

The idea of prestige classes was great but the implementation gave less than desired results, especially for spellcasting classes IMO.

I really liked alot of the Bard kits though.

Quote from: jibbajibba;525113Can't agree with that Kits were in no way about optimisation. They were about roleplay.
Optimisation comes when you add the 3e multiclassing and ability to increase stats and skill trees and all that malarky

In what sense were they about roleplay? That seems like a really weird defence of the concept.

My objection to the kits was that they led us down the path to the Special Snowflake School of Character Generation, from which sprang "2.5 edition" (with the Skills & Powers books) and, after that 3rd edition's awful multiclassing approach.

D&D has only ever needed a handful of archetypes for its classes. If you want to be an assassin or a burglar or a samurai or an amazon or a desert druid, then fine, but all of those things are just facets of one of the core classes that don't need to have any mechanical benefit associated with them. Once you start associating mechanical benefits with them you start to get optimization creeping in, and ultimately the Book of Nine Swords, Pun-Pun, and all the rest.

EDIT: And, I might add, you also then start getting sourcebook bloat which intimidates newcomers and acts as a barrier to entry.

Quote from: noisms;525252In what sense were they about roleplay? That seems like a really weird defence of the concept.

My objection to the kits was that they led us down the path to the Special Snowflake School of Character Generation, from which sprang "2.5 edition" (with the Skills & Powers books) and, after that 3rd edition's awful multiclassing approach.

D&D has only ever needed a handful of archetypes for its classes. If you want to be an assassin or a burglar or a samurai or an amazon or a desert druid, then fine, but all of those things are just facets of one of the core classes that don't need to have any mechanical benefit associated with them. Once you start associating mechanical benefits with them you start to get optimization creeping in, and ultimately the Book of Nine Swords, Pun-Pun, and all the rest.

EDIT: And, I might add, you also then start getting sourcebook bloat which intimidates newcomers and acts as a barrier to entry.

i think there is a big gulf between kits and 3e multiclassing/prestige classes. Kits were very light on the mechanics. They gave you enough to create a cool (but not bizarre or hodgepodge) character with some vague mechanical support (again usually a small proficiency bonus under the right conditions), but mostly just offered interesting character concepts. Certainly you didn't need kits. In my group about a third of the players actually used kits, while the others didn't. I thought they added to the game without breaking it.

I will agree with you on skills and powers. By that point 2e went too far (but skills and powers came a lot later than the complete books). Never liked skills and powers (not only was it broken, but it didn't fit the flavor of the game for me). I dont consider it 2.5 (hardly anyone I knew used skills and powers).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;525256i think there is a big gulf between kits and 3e multiclassing/prestige classes. Kits were very light on the mechanics. They gave you enough to create a cool (but not bizarre or hodgepodge) character with some vague mechanical support (again usually a small proficiency bonus under the right conditions), but mostly just offered interesting character concepts. Certainly you didn't need kits. In my group about a third of the players actually used kits, while the others didn't. I thought they added to the game without breaking it.

I will agree with you on skills and powers. By that point 2e went too far (but skills and powers came a lot later than the complete books). Never liked skills and powers (not only was it broken, but it didn't fit the flavor of the game for me). I dont consider it 2.5 (hardly anyone I knew used skills and powers).

I think kits led the way to all the egregiousness that came after. They were pretty harmless on their own right, and could be fun, but they were unnecessary and once they'd got their foot in the door, it didn't take much for 2.5 and 3rd edition to come and kick it down.

I also think they had damaging side effects. It's true that sourcebook bloat makes the game harder to sell to newcomers. I also think that kits were a bit restrictive. If you just have a "fighting man" you work hard to make him interesting. If you have a kit to do that for you it becomes a bit of a crutch.

Quote from: noisms;525258I think kits led the way to all the egregiousness that came after. They were pretty harmless on their own right, and could be fun, but they were unnecessary and once they'd got their foot in the door, it didn't take much for 2.5 and 3rd edition to come and kick it down.

I also think they had damaging side effects. It's true that sourcebook bloat makes the game harder to sell to newcomers. I also think that kits were a bit restrictive. If you just have a "fighting man" you work hard to make him interesting. If you have a kit to do that for you it becomes a bit of a crutch.

I dont think kits can be blamed for what came after. WoTC took the complete books and modified them to fit their splat model. Back during 2e, you didn't feel compelled to buy the completes (they were 95% fluff and 5% mechanics). You only bought them if you wanted them. Moslty people bought them for the flavor (i.e. to get ideas for characters or campaigns).

Never saw them as a crutch. Most of my characters didn't use kits. I only used them when I wanted inspiration for a character concept or felt the mechanical support added to the game.

I do agree the 3e lines were intimidating, but that was partly because every book resembled the PhB and came loaded with mechanic. The 2E books (for all their other faults) were clearly differentiated (blue books, brown books, green books, core books, etc) and the supplements were primarily flavor (for example the whole reason to get the bard wasn't the mechanical bonuss of the kits but because it had a lot of information on stuff you might want to know if running a bard (instruments, types of songs and music, etc). Personally I think the blue, brown and green books were great.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;525259I dont think kits can be blamed for what came after. WoTC took the complete books and modified them to fit their splat model. Back during 2e, you didn't feel compelled to buy the completes (they were 95% fluff and 5% mechanics). You only bought them if you wanted them. Moslty people bought them for the flavor (i.e. to get ideas for characters or campaigns).

Never saw them as a crutch. Most of my characters didn't use kits. I only used them when I wanted inspiration for a character concept or felt the mechanical support added to the game.

I do agree the 3e lines were intimidating, but that was partly because every book resembled the PhB and came loaded with mechanic. The 2E books (for all their other faults) were clearly differentiated (blue books, brown books, green books, core books, etc) and the supplements were primarily flavor (for example the whole reason to get the bard wasn't the mechanical bonuss of the kits but because it had a lot of information on stuff you might want to know if running a bard (instruments, types of songs and music, etc). Personally I think the blue, brown and green books were great.

I agree. I didn't buy them to powergame. I bought them to learn about cool things like wizard labs, thieves guilds and equipment, paladin codes, and roleplaying ideas (e.g. dwarven society, Dark Sun gladiator stuff).

First thing I did when I got my Complete Thieves Handbook was design a thieves guild. First thing I did when I got the Complete Wizard's Handbook was design a laboratory and an Academician (hardly a powergame type of thing).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;525259I dont think kits can be blamed for what came after. WoTC took the complete books and modified them to fit their splat model. Back during 2e, you didn't feel compelled to buy the completes (they were 95% fluff and 5% mechanics). You only bought them if you wanted them. Moslty people bought them for the flavor (i.e. to get ideas for characters or campaigns).

Never saw them as a crutch. Most of my characters didn't use kits. I only used them when I wanted inspiration for a character concept or felt the mechanical support added to the game.

I do agree the 3e lines were intimidating, but that was partly because every book resembled the PhB and came loaded with mechanic. The 2E books (for all their other faults) were clearly differentiated (blue books, brown books, green books, core books, etc) and the supplements were primarily flavor (for example the whole reason to get the bard wasn't the mechanical bonuss of the kits but because it had a lot of information on stuff you might want to know if running a bard (instruments, types of songs and music, etc). Personally I think the blue, brown and green books were great.

I mustn't be doing a very good job of explaining myself.

I'm not saying the kits ruined things as they stood. I'm saying they were the first step on the road towards optimization and option over-load, which ultimately ruined D&D for me.

Quote from: 1989;525282I agree. I didn't buy them to powergame. I bought them to learn about cool things like wizard labs, thieves guilds and equipment, paladin codes, and roleplaying ideas (e.g. dwarven society, Dark Sun gladiator stuff).

First thing I did when I got my Complete Thieves Handbook was design a thieves guild. First thing I did when I got the Complete Wizard's Handbook was design a laboratory and an Academician (hardly a powergame type of thing).

The Completes were fine. I wasn't criticising them as books; my remarks were just about the kits. For what it's worth I loved the thieves' guild generator in the Complete Thieves Handbook.

Quote from: noisms;525252D&D has only ever needed a handful of archetypes for its classes. If you want to be an assassin or a burglar or a samurai or an amazon or a desert druid, then fine, but all of those things are just facets of one of the core classes that don't need to have any mechanical benefit associated with them.

You could say the same thing about all the sub-classes, except the min/maxing and special abilities you get out of the sub-classes is way beyond anything in the kits.

QuoteOnce you start associating mechanical benefits with them you start to get optimization creeping in, and ultimately the Book of Nine Swords, Pun-Pun, and all the rest.

In this area I think the Skills & Powers books really do add to the game -certainly more than all the Complete [Whatever] Handbooks. Each ability has a certain cost and if (for example) you want a thief who can be a bow specialist, fine: just pick out the standard thief abilities you're willing to forfeit. It codified something that was already going on with 1E -especially the clerics from Greyhawk.

Quote from: Cole;453577Frankly for much of the 2e era I played with hodgepodge of 1e, 2e, and Basic rules depending on what seemed to work at the moment. I do not think this was a rare situation.

That's how probably >90% of gamers did it. Before 2E, almost everyone (whether they admit it or not) ran some mixture of 1E, Moldvay, Holmes, OD&D and whatever they found interesting in Dragon or White Dwarf.

Quote from: Marleycat;525195The idea of prestige classes was great but the implementation gave less than desired results, especially for spellcasting classes IMO.

To expand on that, prestige classes for spellcasters generally either:

(a) Gave "+1 level of existing spellcasting class" every other level

(b) Gave "+1 level of existing spellcasting class" every single level.

The former broke for the same reason that multiclassing into spellcasting classes broke: Low level spells simply aren't useful enough to higher level spellcasters. These characters were far too weak compared to straight spellcasters.

The latter was broken in the opposite direction, giving rise to prestige classes that were "just like a sorcerer, but better in every way". Theoretically these were supposed to be "balanced" by the punitive requirements for entering the class, but these requirements were rarely punitive.

This might have been marginally acceptable if prestige classes were universally "just like a base class, but better in every way" (although, personally, I think that would be a really bad idea even before the inevitable power creep/race began). But the martial classes were rarely or never like that: You never saw a prestige class that was "get everything the fighter has, plus a bunch of extra cool stuff".

Prestige classes were, IMO, a huge mistake: They added little of true utility to the system and they became a form of cheap confetti that WotC could use to bloat up their splatbooks.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;525256i think there is a big gulf between kits and 3e multiclassing/prestige classes. Kits were very light on the mechanics. They gave you enough to create a cool (but not bizarre or hodgepodge) character with some vague mechanical support (again usually a small proficiency bonus under the right conditions), but mostly just offered interesting character concepts.

There actually was an early effort in 3rd Edition to provide some kit-like functionality, but the Herobuilder's Guidebook crashed and burned so hard on arrival that pretty much everything inside of it was immediately abandoned by WotC.

Quote from: noisms;525258I think kits led the way to all the egregiousness that came after. They were pretty harmless on their own right, and could be fun, but they were unnecessary and once they'd got their foot in the door, it didn't take much for 2.5 and 3rd edition to come and kick it down.

The idea that kits gave rise to a proliferation of non-core classes is nothing more than revisionist history. If anything, kits temporarily suppressed something that had been part of D&D's culture since 1974.

OD&D? 75% of the supplements contained new classes. Dragon Magazine featured new classes on a regular basis. And so forth.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;525311The idea that kits gave rise to a proliferation of non-core classes is nothing more than revisionist history. If anything, kits temporarily suppressed something that had been part of D&D's culture since 1974.

OD&D? 75% of the supplements contained new classes. Dragon Magazine featured new classes on a regular basis. And so forth.

Saying that 75% of the supplements contained new classes is a little bit of a disingenuous use of statistics, don't you think, given that there are only four of them!? ;)

I take your point, but I think there's a qualitative distinction between the new classes introduced in OD&D supplements and Dragon Magazine and the kits. I'm no fan of all those new classes either, but they didn't take the same mix-and-match approach that the kits did. When you bought one of the Completes you immediately got a dozen or more options for your character, often with more sub-options and new special abilities. It's not difficult to draw a conceptual arc between that and the character generation horrors of the 3rd edition era.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;525311The idea that kits gave rise to a proliferation of non-core classes is nothing more than revisionist history. If anything, kits temporarily suppressed something that had been part of D&D's culture since 1974.

This for the win.
Kits actually reduced the number of classes and mechanical variation. They eliminated the thief acrobat, the assasin (you might debate that one), the illusionist, the druid, the cavalier and the barbarian.
They did this by pointing out the very obvious point that a barbarian is just what you call a fighter you haven't met yet. A druid is just a cleric of a Neutral nature god etc ...

Now eventually the same driver that had been in the game from the beginning, that gave us rangers, paladins, monks, the min/max class building mechanical desire, the same thing that gave us classes in The Beholder and White Dwarf and Dragon for black priests, archers, and just about everything else you could think of. that driver took over.
2e actually put a halt on that, stopped the express train that had hit 3rd gear with Unearthed Arcana and realised that you didn't need separate mechanics for every single different variant on the 4 core classes.
Skills and powers was the obvious extension of that mode of thinking. It said from these templates you can build anything you like. Now the problem with Skills and powers is it was horribly horribly broken and ill conceived.

Quote from: jibbajibba;525329This for the win.
Kits actually reduced the number of classes and mechanical variation. They eliminated the thief acrobat, the assasin (you might debate that one), the illusionist, the druid, the cavalier and the barbarian.

Druid and illusionist were both in the 2e PHB.  They were not replaced by kits.

To be honest I liked the 3e era it was quite the opposite of horrific to me.:)

Now you did have to have an iron grip on your game and say "no" alot.  But at least it was nowhere near the horror of 4e with its "everything is core" nonsense.

@Justin,  at least you could solve the magic user dilemma with prestige classes by saying no matter how you multiclass or prestige class, your magic level raises via your character level not class level.  It allows for more prestige classes built as having +1 magic at staggered levels and having other abilities more like paragon paths.  To remove the 3e stupidity of class and prestige class dipping quit front loading classes and just allow 1 prestige class per character.  In otherwords take a cue from Pathfinder and Fantasy Craft for God sake.

Quote from: noisms;525318Saying that 75% of the supplements contained new classes is a little bit of a disingenuous use of statistics, don't you think, given that there are only four of them!? ;)

Okay, fine: Except for a single supplement that contained exclusively DM-oriented content, every single OD&D supplement included new classes. :P

Quote from: noisms;525318When you bought one of the Completes you immediately got a dozen or more options for your character, often with more sub-options and new special abilities.

And this was different from OD&D or Unearthed Arcana... how, exactly?

Roleplaying games (and D&D specifically) have been using new special abilities and sub-options for character creation to sell supplements since 1975 when TSR released Supplement I: Greyhawk.

The only thing that arguably changed in 1989 was that more of this material was being developed specifically for immediate publication in supplements, instead of being debuted in the pages of Dragon.

It should also be noted that this was not some sort of corporate-driven mindset: It was a fundamental part of the fan culture around D&D. People have been homebrewing since Day 1, and homebrewing classes has always been a big part of that. I've still got hundreds of fan-brewed classes and races from the 1st Edition and 2nd Edition era on my hard drive.

Quote from: misterguignol;525331Druid and illusionist were both in the 2e PHB.  They were not replaced by kits.

Apologies ... you are 1/2 right :) the Illusionist is just an example of a speciallst mage like an abjurer or an alterationist.

the Druid however does have granted powers so you are right. They should have pulled it.
They should also have puled the ranger and the paladin.

Trouble as always I guess is a lack of cahones. They don;t want to piss off the player base.

anyway you are correct they both appear in the 2e PHB. The logic is still sound though :)

Quote from: jibbajibba;525343Apologies ... you are 1/2 right :) the Illusionist is just an example of a speciallst mage like an abjurer or an alterationist.

...and is therefore mechanically different than a standard magic-user.  So I'm not sure what your point is.

QuoteTrouble as always I guess is a lack of cahones. They don;t want to piss off the player base.

I hate to break it to you, but a lot of people *like* having a bunch of classes to choose from.  Designing for them is just good business.

Also, kits were no different from this because kits have mechanics specific to them.  They weren't just flavor add-ons like you've claimed.

Quoteanyway you are correct they both appear in the 2e PHB. The logic is still sound though :)

You keep using the word "logic," but I'm not yet convinced you understand what it means.

The Druid and Illusionist were 'kits' of the core 4 archetypes. Just as the fighter was a kit of the Warrior, the Cleric a kit of the Priest, the Mage of the Wizard, and the Thief of the Rogue.

I think the big confusion is AD&D 2e issue with consistency. The core 4 archetypes were called groups: warrior, priest, wizard, rogue. The original 4 classes available for every campaign (because they had the lowest attribute pre-requisite for each group) -- fighter, cleric, mage, thief -- are essentially baseline 'kits.'

The illusionist, druid, ranger, paladin, bard, were optional core classes within the prime 4 groups. And all those spheres and schools were provided to give structure to future priest or wizard specialists. They were there to get the ball rolling for tables to invent their own classes within groups.

But sometimes people were cautious or reluctant to build their own. Hence an intermediate step was created: pre-created classes by TSR itself as kits (also read as: suggestions). All of those released kits were really additional classes within the 4 groups. They required GM table approval and the books wholly encouraged GM kit editing for setting. This was for people who didn't want to DIY new classes.

But sadly there was no disambiguation used. Or more precisely, their use of disambiguation (that kits are merely TSR suggested classes) ended up creating more ambiguity. So even though classes and kits are mechanically the same, they conceptually seemed different to some tables because they consistently used different terms.

Granted the book titles didn't help much either. Case in point, Complete Fighter's handbook suggest class fighter fixation. Thus any kits therein must be about kits within the fighter class, right? However when new kits are introduced they talk about kits (as new classes) under the warrior group designation. A thorough reading disambiguates; a cursory one confuses.

A kit is a TSR suggested interpretation of a newly invented class within a broad archetypal group. Nothing more, nothing less.

Quote from: Opaopajr;525346The Druid and Illusionist were 'kits' of the core 4 archetypes. Just as the fighter was a kit of the Warrior, the Cleric a kit of the Priest, the Mage of the Wizard, and the Thief of the Rogue.

I think the big confusion is AD&D 2e issue with consistency. The core 4 archetypes were called groups: warrior, priest, wizard, rogue. The original 4 classes available for every campaign (because they had the lowest attribute pre-requisite for each group) -- fighter, cleric, mage, thief -- are essentially baseline 'kits.'

Have you guys actually read 2e?  

Kit =/= class.  You know how you can tell?  YOU CAN HAVE BOTH A KIT AND A CLASS.  Ever notice that each Complete Book of X Class had kits specifically for that class?  It's pretty easy to figure out why.

Seriously, show me a page reference in the 2e PHB where kits are referenced.

@Opaopajr, huh?!? what 2e do you have? It's certainly not the same one I had.

Quote from: misterguignol;525344...and is therefore mechanically different than a standard magic-user.  So I'm not sure what your point is.

I hate to break it to you, but a lot of people *like* having a bunch of classes to choose from.  Designing for them is just good business.

Also, kits were no different from this because kits have mechanics specific to them.  They weren't just flavor add-ons like you've claimed.

You keep using the word "logic," but I'm not yet convinced you understand what it means.

Illusionists used to have their own spell lists, own pre-requs etc. The Specialist Mages are as different from mages as specialist 'burglars' are from standard thieves.
But you are fully aware.

Likewise the earliest kits had no mechanical variation. the Myrmidion got a free firebuilding non-weapon proff, the Peasant Hero got a Bonus to reactions to peasants and somewhere to hide if they needed it.
Compare these to the mechanical variations you see in the Barbarian or the Cavalier from UA or even the mechanical variations between the Ranger and the Fighter.

And lots of people like having lots of classes just like lots of people like optimisation and min/maxing.  I never said they didn't I just said that 2e actually tried to cap that rather than feed into a process that had started much earlier.

And Yeah I am actually pretty good at logic and I know what it means and everything, weird huh.....
but if you look at my posts I very rarely attack people or focus on semantics I really do try to dig into the issue under discussion and examine it in as a complete manner as possible. So I am not goign to accuse you of not understanding of being a bit of a thicky or anything, merely of having a point of view I disagree with.

Quote from: jibbajibba;525356Illusionists used to have their own spell lists, own pre-requs etc. The Specialist Mages are as different from mages as specialist 'burglars' are from standard thieves.

What page are specialist burglars on again?  

Specialist mages have prohibited schools of spells that they can't use, as well as benefits with the school they specialize in.  That is literally mechanical differentiation.

QuoteLikewise the earliest kits had no mechanical variation. the Myrmidion got a free firebuilding non-weapon proff, the Peasant Hero got a Bonus to reactions to peasants and somewhere to hide if they needed it.

Translation: there is no mechanical variation, except for these mechanical variations that I am about to list.

Quote from: misterguignol;525359Translation: there is no mechanical variation, except for these mechanical variations that I am about to list.

Mechanics can support roleplaying (I think that was jibba jibb'a original point); kit mechanics usually do so. Apart from the more broken ones (Fucking Rick Swan and his 3-armed tree rangers).
 
"You're character can't choose the Reading/Writing NWP/does not start out able to read Common" is a mechanical thing, but leads to in-game roleplaying around not being literate, when your fighter can't read things in game, or needs to find a literacy tutor.
 
Your Witch having groups of peasants form wherever they're staying to oust them from the town likewise is or at least leads to roleplaying, even though this lives under the "Special Hindrances" line and has mechanics associated with it.

Quote from: misterguignol;525359What page are specialist burglars on again?  

Specialist mages have prohibited schools of spells that they can't use, as well as benefits with the school they specialize in.  That is literally mechanical differentiation.



Translation: there is no mechanical variation, except for these mechanical variations that I am about to list.

A specialist burglar is just a thief that spends their points on Climbing and hiding in shadows not on Open locks and find remove traps. The point is they have no unique rules.
2e Illusionists are the same they have the same limits as any other specialist mage. Kits are different from sub-classes because sub-classes have unique mechanics where as kits use the core mechanics to enhance role-pay options.

But there is obviously no point trying to converse as you don't want to have an actual discussion so okay fine.

Quote from: jibbajibba;525374But there is obviously no point trying to converse as you don't want to have an actual discussion so okay fine.

Ah, the Internet flounce.  Last bastion of people who have been caught out not knowing what they are talking about.

PS - because illusionists have prohibited schools they functionally do have a tailored spell list in 2e.  You would know that, if you knew what you were talking about.

Quote from: misterguignol;525377Ah, the Internet flounce.  Last bastion of people who have been caught out not knowing what they are talking about.

PS - because illusionists have prohibited schools they functionally do have a tailored spell list in 2e.  You would know that, if you knew what you were talking about.

Sigh....
I promised I would not get personal so I will try and explain it again.

The argument was that the Kits in 2e started the min/max paradigm that came to dominate DnD.

My position is that 2e tried to reduce the number of classes and specifically the mechanical variations that had grown up round each new class as it was introduced. I identified a bunch of classes that had been eliminated from 2e as a result of the ability to use Kits. I also stated that Kits do not introduce new mechanics instead they use a range of exisitng mechanics , such as NW proficiencies, reaction bonuses etc as a way to make classes varied without the need for lots of additional mechanics.

Now in doing so I made an error about Druids, they are still in there. Illusionists are there but there are there as a variant on the base wizard class one of 8 possible variants. It's obvious that they list out the illusionist example to prevent people whining that they had 'removed illusionists' from the game.

The move to min/max is far earlier than 2e. It dates back to OD&D and rangers and paladins and it hit a peak in AD&D with the publishing of the UA.
I really think that 2e was an aim to real in all of that and shift the focus from "what mechanical advantage does my PC have" to "how does my PC fit into this game world".
 
Now I am going to stop participating in this discussion not because I am "flouncing" but because its pointless. You have an opinion I have an opinion.
We are not going to agree.

Maybe kits are like a mirror, if you see gobs of flavor and ideas, then you probably aren't a power gamer, if you see min/max potential well there you go.  Most players are likely somewhere in the middle, they enjoy both.  Kits then serve two purposes.  Fluff and Crunch.

Some might find them unnecessary, but they shouldn't begrudge the enjoyment that others might get from the resource.

Cheers

PS- I like how this forum lets folks get nasty, it actually keeps things civil overall.  Whining get shut down quickly and everyone can benefit by everyone watching their toes.

Quote from: Teazia;525435Maybe kits are like a mirror, if you see gobs of flavor and ideas, then you probably aren't a power gamer, if you see min/max potential well there you go.  Most players are likely somewhere in the middle, they enjoy both.

Like a Rorschach test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test).  ;)

Incidentally, Myth & Magic a 2e "future-clone" (my word) just reached 100% funding of its Players Book Kickstarter in 3 or 4 days.  Its a pretty tight system that via a two year open playtest cleaned up the rough edges of 2e.  Check out the free starter books.

Cheers

Quote from: Teazia;525440Incidentally, Myth & Magic a 2e "future-clone" (my word) just reached 100% funding of its Players Book Kickstarter in 3 or 4 days.  Its a pretty tight system that via a two year open playtest cleaned up the rough edges of 2e.  Check out the free starter books.

Cheers

What's the asking price for a physical corebook?  I need to know so I can budget money for it. The free stuff is awesome but I have no computer to store PDF stuff long-term.

Quote from: Marleycat;525451What's the asking price for a physical corebook?  I need to know so I can budget money for it. The free stuff is awesome but I have no computer to store PDF stuff long-term.

35 for the hardback shipped.  75 for 4 hardbacks shipped.  A bit more for international shipping.  I you happen to be in Taiwan or Vietnam, I'll break you off a piece for 23.75.  :p

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/705393141/myth-and-magic-players-guide-2e-revived-and-update

Because I'm having problems explaining my point, I will now cite chapter and verse:

AD&D 2e TSR PHB (10th printing, if that matters), page 25, column 1, paragraph 2:

     "The character classes are divided into four groups according to general occupations: warrior, wizard, priest, and rouge. Within each group are several similar character classes. All classes within a group share the same Hit Dice, as well as combat and saving throw progressions. Each character class within a group has different special powers and abilities that are available only to that class. Each player must select a group for his character, then a specific class within that group."

And the example of Complete Fighter's Handbook, p 13, column 1, paragraph 1 & 2:
     "Sometimes it's just not enough to be a Fighter, Paladin, or Ranger. Each of those classes is a lot of fun, but there's nothing which says you want to be restricted to three types of fun.
     So, here we're going to show you how to create and play other sorts of warrior characters."

At this point kits read off like wholly separate classes. General description, role, secondary skills, WP, NWPs, Equipment, Special Bennies/Hindrance, Starting Wealth options, & Races -- it's all mechanically there. They are as classes, and for all intents and purposes they should be separate classes, but they disambiguate it into an utter mess. Hence the following...

Here comes an example of the stupid part (Complete Fighter's, p 14, bottom of column 1):
Kits and Warrior Classes
     "In general, each Kit can be used with each of the three warrior classes. Your character can, for instance, be a Barbarian Fighter, an Amazon Paladin, or a Samurai Ranger...
    (proceeding discussion of questionability of Pirate Paladin, and saying it is possible depending on GM naturally, etc.)
     When one warrior class cannot choose a specific Warrior Kit, the exceptions will be noted."

Completely stupid addition that mucks everything up. It's one too many transparencies added atop each other. Group>class>kit was wholly unnecessary when they wrote out kits essentially as classes. When there's a Paladin-"everything" type Warrior for every idea out there, you end up with a whole lot of nothing.

I like AD&D 2e, but some things were outright stupid and their effort to disambiguate classes and kits by subordination (even though they have essentially the same structural design!) was one of them. If they wanted to focus on kits as flavor then they shouldn't have pre-selected WPs in Samurai frex, or given special power/weakness at all, etc. If they kept it at fluff & flavor, fine subordinate kits into class into group; but as it is they wrote out new classes and tried to squeeze them into the PHB core + optional classes.

Now, I like Kits. But it's because I like Kits as Classes. Because mechanically they are essentially new classes. However, if read as RAW then you get the previous nonsense, like trying to squeeze a pirate into a paladin. But then read as RAW there's only 4 non-optional classes within 4 groups, WPs/NWPs are completely optional, and there's only 1 initiative system. So... the game's been a DIY toolkit from the beginning.

Quote from: Teazia;525435Maybe kits are like a mirror, if you see gobs of flavor and ideas, then you probably aren't a power gamer, if you see min/max potential well there you go.  Most players are likely somewhere in the middle, they enjoy both.  Kits then serve two purposes.  Fluff and Crunch.

Some might find them unnecessary, but they shouldn't begrudge the enjoyment that others might get from the resource.

Cheers

PS- I like how this forum lets folks get nasty, it actually keeps things civil overall.  Whining get shut down quickly and everyone can benefit by everyone watching their toes.

I like this explanation very much.

Well you did get one thing correct.  Like it's predecessors 2e is very much a DIY game, problem was most people have no idea how to do DIY correctly, hence the advent of 3e and then from there the horrors of 4e because of the mistakes made by 3e. Simple really, maybe 5e will get it right.:)

Quote from: jibbajibba;525329This for the win.
Kits actually reduced the number of classes and mechanical variation. They eliminated the thief acrobat, the assasin (you might debate that one), the illusionist, the druid, the cavalier and the barbarian.
They did this by pointing out the very obvious point that a barbarian is just what you call a fighter you haven't met yet. A druid is just a cleric of a Neutral nature god etc ...

My esteemed colleage Master Guignol has already pointed this out - but this is just complete bullshit. You mustn't have read the 2nd edition PHB or any of the Completes in a long time, if ever: illusionists are a specialist wizard (in the PHB) and druids are a class (in the PHB); the acrobat is a kit in the Complete Thief, as I think is the assassin. Barbarian and cavalier are both kits in the Complete Fighter.

QuoteNow eventually the same driver that had been in the game from the beginning, that gave us rangers, paladins, monks, the min/max class building mechanical desire, the same thing that gave us classes in The Beholder and White Dwarf and Dragon for black priests, archers, and just about everything else you could think of. that driver took over.
2e actually put a halt on that, stopped the express train that had hit 3rd gear with Unearthed Arcana and realised that you didn't need separate mechanics for every single different variant on the 4 core classes.
Skills and powers was the obvious extension of that mode of thinking. It said from these templates you can build anything you like. Now the problem with Skills and powers is it was horribly horribly broken and ill conceived.

Sure, the 2nd edition PHB and DMG put a halt on that (the DMG gives sound advice on class creation, stressing that most of the time you really don't need classes for the barbarian, assassin, archer, etc.). I don't disagree. But TSR couldn't help itself, and that's why we got kits. And, after that, Skills & Powers. Both of which were really egregious and just flew in the face of all the clear-headed advice in the DMG.

Quote from: noisms;525514My esteemed colleage Master Guignol has already pointed this out - but this is just complete bullshit. You mustn't have read the 2nd edition PHB or any of the Completes in a long time, if ever: illusionists are a specialist wizard (in the PHB) and druids are a class (in the PHB); the acrobat is a kit in the Complete Thief, as I think is the assassin. Barbarian and cavalier are both kits in the Complete Fighter.



Sure, the 2nd edition PHB and DMG put a halt on that (the DMG gives sound advice on class creation, stressing that most of the time you really don't need classes for the barbarian, assassin, archer, etc.). I don't disagree. But TSR couldn't help itself, and that's why we got kits. And, after that, Skills & Powers. Both of which were really egregious and just flew in the face of all the clear-headed advice in the DMG.

Dude you misse dhte point.

In the 1E Unearthed Arcana The Cavalier, Theif Acrobat, and Barbarian are completely new classes with their own unique mechanics. Illusionists are a complete class in 1e with their own unique mechanics and spell lists.
I was pointing out that 2e reduced the degree of mechanical bloat by moving these classes to kits (or int he case of specialist mages as part of the core Wizard class).
Kits make use of existing mechanics. The kit for the barbarian for example has roleplay suggestions, background ideas and if I recall a free NWP. compare it to the UA barbarian, with D12 hit dice, unique mechanics on jumping, wilderness survival, hitting creatures that normally can't be hit by non-magical weapons etc etc etc....

If you think that the 2e Kit for a Barbarian has anything like the mechanical bloat of the 1e Barbarian then I suspect you haven't read the 1e Barbarian in an awfully long time.....

Quote from: Cole;453577Frankly for much of the 2e era I played with hodgepodge of 1e, 2e, and Basic rules depending on what seemed to work at the moment. I do not think this was a rare situation.

It wasn't. As a teenager I did not realize the editions were different for quite some time.

Quote from: jibbajibba;525519In the 1E Unearthed Arcana The Cavalier, Theif Acrobat, and Barbarian are completely new classes with their own unique mechanics.

Not to be overly pedantic, but they weren't new classes.   They had been around for a while.  UA was just a compilation of some of the classes from Dragon Magazine.

Either way, it doesn't take away from your point though.

Quote from: Yevla;525527It wasn't. As a teenager I did not realize the editions were different for quite some time.

It still isn't, as a matter of fact.  I play 1e with some 2e mechanics (like bard class, thief progression, priest spell spheres, etc).

Quote from: Acta Est Fabula;525547Not to be overly pedantic, but they weren't new classes.   They had been around for a while.  UA was just a compilation of some of the classes from Dragon Magazine.

Either way, it doesn't take away from your point though.

Yeah fair point they were a collection of semi offical classes that had been about for a while :)

Quote from: thedungeondelver;453757Maybe 2e fell into the trap of reverse Star Trek movie quality.  All the odd numbered (A)D&Ds are good, the even numbered ones are lousy.

That would bode well for D&D Next...except for the fact that Star Trek ruined that system when they had 2 terrible movies in a row.

//Panjumanju

Quote from: Panjumanju;525762That would bode well for D&D Next...except for the fact that Star Trek ruined that system when they had 2 terrible movies in a row.

Which ones?

Insurrection and Nemesis?

Quote from: ggroy;525766Which ones?

Insurrection and Nemesis?

Got it in one.

//Panjumanju

Is this (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/705393141/myth-and-magic-players-guide-2e-revived-and-update) enough love for you?

There are free PDFs of this game available from rpgnow.  Check it out (Myth & Magic RPG).