Quote from: Opaopajr;895892It was a magical time of maidens traipsing with unicorns through virginal forests, knights travelling hither and non to battle threats to such flowers of beauty, for honor, faith, and said fair maiden hands... and settings where you could then have killer cannibal jungle halflings, or desert nomad dwarves, or divine right of kings amid a (fairy) realm management. All was well and the lands were at peace, and the garden bloomed with worlds and settings and a thousand beautiful campaign variations. From table to table, it was like travelling to unknown vistas and sipping deep from the well of imaginative life...

/skips off to the horizon

La la la la la!...

This is both a beautiful post and most of the explanation of why I skipped 2e. (Well, in addition to the sanitizing of problematic elements, demons and assassins and such, and the steady decrease of target audience age as my age increased.)

For me, actual play in the 2e era was continuing to play 1e, maybe with more house rules than before.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;895987It's an attitude that still pans out to this day, with now 5e, forcing players if they want to use the array, rather than rolling, they get an 8 (-1) in a score.  No choice, using the rules as written.

So, let's take a look at that.  A player CHOOSES the array method over rolling, because they actually have that CHOICE, and then you're complaining that once the the player has CHOSEN that method, then they have "NO CHOICE, using the rules as written."

Juiblex fucking wept.  Your passive aggressive whinging about the crime-wave of choice-theft that the industry is perpetrating against you (sorry, your players?) has become a caricature.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;895987I find that annoying.  My home game, I turned it into a 10.  For those who want to actually, you know, feel heroic without the typical stat they have to find and dump.

As the DM, you could also have chosen the official, optional variant for "Customizing Ability Scores." But, you did find a simple solution to your particular problem, so you *can* find your way out of the paper bag; we just get to witness you work through the trauma over and over again.    

It kind of blows my mind that a 1-point ability bonus is what keeps a player from feeling heroic, especially in the context of the other stats in the standard array, but that's been beaten to death over in the hell-of-a-thousand-posts.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;895987Also, I'm planning this new game to be more S&S/Heroic Fantasy than the last three AL modules (save Strahd.)  I'm sick of 'THREATEN THE UNIVERSE!!!11!' plots.  Something more personal, sandboxy feels good to me.

I completed agree, here.  Fewer epic arcs to save the universe, fewer modules slaved to the AL-workday, and more interesting adventures, please.

Quote from: AsenRG;896518And to quote the edit in my previous post, in the end the battle was resolved when I said "screw tactics". Then I proceeded to slash the closer one with the kama, and then bashed the one who was attacking the druid with the weight from a distance, dropping half of them in less time than I'd spent trying to inconvenience them (due to my damage bonus, they couldn't even withstand a single attack).
Which was, frankly, not the message I'd want to send to a group of newbies, but it seemed that that was what the GM was expecting and rewarding. Still not sure why, except maybe because HP damage has extensive rules.

Fighters, especially those with high strength, do very well in making short work of most enemies in the early levels. All those tactics things would matter, but you definitely needed a GM who knew what he was doing -- and from your additional detail from your following post, that sounds more condemning of his rules knowledge. With a group of other newbies it's perfectly fine for a fighter to do their job of not hold back and protect the party directly. Perhaps you wanted them to try their hand at things, but that'll come through with time anyway - not everything that the game's combat has to offer has to be seen in the first fight.

Your kusarigama guy could have easily availed himself of tactics though, especially if there was a second floor balcony, or even coordination of the group with using furniture (like a portable table) as cover. If your character was that strong, and had kusarigama weapon specialization, and your group was that weak, you could have easily had the extra time to pull some amazing things. With your second attack on the alternating rounds you could have done some interesting Trips, Disarms, Pins, shoves, etc. That said, the other players needed to know why they cooperate, where they can best do that, and respect the advantages each class brings to the table.

Two-weapon fighting is actually pretty strong, by the way, when people use it right. Often you have low armor, low HP characters strut their stuff too close to tanking melee and then die horribly. But if people know what they are doing, and much of the CH: Fighter is on, it's actually quite strong due to attack throughput and maneuver options. But again, with optional specialization anything, such focus comes at the cost of general utility.

PS: You haven't given me a statline or equipment guidelines for the kusarigama PC above...

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;896385They went out of business in early '93, right?

Something like that. It happened shortly after I had moved up to the Twin Cities, so I'm not sure of the exact timing. (I just came back down to my dad's place one time and discovered they were gone.) I felt like the writing was on the wall from the point where they changed location in the strip mall (moving around the corner into a storefront that you couldn't see from the street).

QuoteOur gaming started as a 1E/2E hybrid, since the father of some friends had played and let them use his 1E PHB.

I think this sort of thing (mix-and-matching 1e and 2e core rulebooks) was insanely common. I used a 1st Edition MM for four years, only replacing it when the Monstrous Manual came out in '93.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;896617Juiblex fucking wept.

OMG. So gonna steal that!

Quote from: Opaopajr;896662Fighters, especially those with high strength, do very well in making short work of most enemies in the early levels. All those tactics things would matter, but you definitely needed a GM who knew what he was doing -- and from your additional detail from your following post, that sounds more condemning of his rules knowledge.

Maybe. My reading was always that it's condemning of his willingness to roll with stuff he didn't expect.

QuoteWith a group of other newbies it's perfectly fine for a fighter to do their job of not hold back and protect the party directly. Perhaps you wanted them to try their hand at things, but that'll come through with time anyway - not everything that the game's combat has to offer has to be seen in the first fight.

Ahem, I was a newbie as well:). I didn't start the fight with a sucker punch because I wanted an advantage, I wanted to avoid killing any of them.
Of course, the good intentions ended when they started trying to kill us.

QuoteYour kusarigama guy could have easily availed himself of tactics though, especially if there was a second floor balcony, or even coordination of the group with using furniture (like a portable table) as cover.

No second floor was ever mentioned until after the fight. And come on, we tried enough things for a group of 4 newbies, wouldn't you say:D?

QuoteIf your character was that strong, and had kusarigama weapon specialization, and your group was that weak, you could have easily had the extra time to pull some amazing things. With your second attack on the alternating rounds you could have done some interesting Trips, Disarms, Pins, shoves, etc.

I did the disarm, remember? It got us an additional loot item, as far as I can tell.
Why do you think the rest of this would have fared better;)?

QuoteThat said, the other players needed to know why they cooperate, where they can best do that, and respect the advantages each class brings to the table.

Well, we had scarcely met.

QuoteTwo-weapon fighting is actually pretty strong, by the way, when people use it right. Often you have low armor, low HP characters strut their stuff too close to tanking melee and then die horribly. But if people know what they are doing, and much of the CH: Fighter is on, it's actually quite strong due to attack throughput and maneuver options. But again, with optional specialization anything, such focus comes at the cost of general utility.

CH: Fighter wasn't on the table, though. The GM said explicitly he's giving me the book to look for options I like better, because he didn't want to create a new class (which we ended up doing anyway). He made it clear that he doesn't like the manoeuvres, though.
 

QuotePS: You haven't given me a statline or equipment guidelines for the kusarigama PC above...

Because I thought you were joking. After all, I have my custom class already, why would you need to create another?
OK, here's what I've got.
Str: 18/94
Dex: 13
Con: 8
Int: 16
Wis: 12
Cha: 6

The GM hated my rolls with the 4d6 pick best 3, assign as desired, BTW. And he was totally surprised I assigned them in that way (then he hated it again at the end of the session upon noticing that I get an XP bonus because my class' primary attributes, which I think we set before rolling, were Str and Int;)).
I pictured him as kinda distant from people, so the Charisma thing was fitting.

Equipment: Kusarigama, leather armour. Due to lack of funds (rolled low on that one), that was all I got. There were some backstory considerations for it as well.

He just doesn't sound like a good GM, period. There was no real need for a custom class there and he sounds like a terrible fit for rolling with the game's punches. Ahh, good ol' generous Method V...  Could have been even a paladin or bard with those numbers. You were very lucky to roll a 94 on d%, though. I have no idea why he hated your roll, especially since he selected that method; you got an 8 and a 6, which meant a third of your stats were below average.

Not knowing, or now trusting, his development of your custom class however I do think your stat choices are odd -- outside the high INT being simultaneously required to get the class XP bonus. I have no faith in his judgment for handling basic ad hoc running of the game let alone to create a custom class. I feel the easiest way for you to get +10% XP would be to stick in base class fighter, and considering your desires were easily met within that base class see no reason to step out of it.

I'll input them as is for a base class Fighter, reassign them for what I feel would be a stronger base class Fighter, and in keeping with the Warrior archetype, also make a Paladin version. I'll use the post above for your old character for simplicity's sake.

Quote from: Opaopajr;896935He just doesn't sound like a good GM, period. There was no real need for a custom class there

I disagree on the custom class. "Skirmisher" wasn't the whole concept.

Quoteand he sounds like a terrible fit for rolling with the game's punches.

On that, we agree.

QuoteAhh, good ol' generous Method V...  Could have been even a paladin or bard with those numbers.

Sure. He said the same.
It wasn't what I wanted to play, though.

QuoteYou were very lucky to roll a 94 on d%, though.

True.

QuoteI have no idea why he hated your roll, especially since he selected that method; you got an 8 and a 6, which meant a third of your stats were below average.

I'm pretty sure he was seeing powerful PCs as a problem.
Though technically, he didn't pick it, he gave us a choice between it and "roll 3d6 12 times, pick the best 6 rolls". And he tried to steer us in that direction, telling us we'd get at least some low scores.

QuoteNot knowing, or now trusting, his development of your custom class however I do think your stat choices are odd -- outside the high INT being simultaneously required to get the class XP bonus. I have no faith in his judgment for handling basic ad hoc running of the game let alone to create a custom class. I feel the easiest way for you to get +10% XP would be to stick in base class fighter, and considering your desires were easily met within that base class see no reason to step out of it.

Thing is, they weren't met. Not that it matters; I didn't put the 16 in Intelligence because it was the way to a bonus. I did because I wanted to play a character that was a smart warrior. Consequently, I didn't even want a d10 in HP, so I had a d8 in that.

QuoteI'll input them as is for a base class Fighter, reassign them for what I feel would be a stronger base class Fighter, and in keeping with the Warrior archetype, also make a Paladin version. I'll use the post above for your old character for simplicity's sake.

Feel free to;). But again, this wasn't an exercise in character optimisation in my book. Sure, a Paladin would have been stronger...but also clumsier and less smart. Neither of these appealed to me.

And either way, we're now wildly off-topic:)! This is what play in AD&D2e was for me. I'm glad it wasn't like that for many of you, but that was all I could contribute, since of course, I wasn't looking to try the same edition again after this experience:D!

What was part of your concept that made it so radically different from the base 4 classes of the Four Archetypes, (let alone the vast array of optional classes and kits,) that required a custom class? An Eastern weapon? A lower Hit Die? Having a reason for high INT & WIS score (anyone can do that for any class, it's what you *need* to get for it that'd warrant a custom class)? So far from what little you're describing I don't see the need even remotely.

Wait... did you two pull out the PO: Skills and Powers book?

I started with Basic in 1990 and quickly moved to 2E. Even though I owned some setting boxes (Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Dark Sun) and read tons of TSR novels, I ran mostly low/mid-level dungeon crawls in lairs/locales that I designed myself. Never really ran a campaign in an official setting (or modules). We also didn't do voices or any sort of thespianism. Everyone spoke in their normal voice, like "I attack," "I ask the merchant if x," or "My guy hauls ass when he sees the troll."

I started in the 1e era, and was around when 2e came out.  In my circles at least, most of play didn't really change in the EARLY 2e era.  It was only later, when more emphasis started to be placed on adventures with big metaplots, copycatting the WoD 'storyteller' style, and the idea of 'kits' making you think that it was mechanics that would be important in making your character special started to get more prevalent, that things started to go sour.  I think also one of the first things I noted that started to change was the increased 'sanitization' of the setting products, making D&D seem more bland and banal.  Demons and Devils being changed into 'bateezu' and 'tanari', and getting rid of assassins (not just as a class, but generally de-emphasizing the idea of the PCs being scumbags), were the early signs. 2e quickly shifted in that sense, not so much in mechanics, but it started to feel like it had gone from being "Heavy Metal" to being "the New Adventures of Hercules".

Epics. It felt like too many modules were "World Ender" class. A general loss of the more down to earth adventures.

On the other hand. The good ones were effectively a campaign so you got alot of traction. Others just seemed to lack propper scope. That followed through to BECMI modules too and the last of the Gamma World series.

That reminds me of "Die, Vecna, Die!" the last adventure published under TSR. Not only are you trying to defeat on of the biggest, most iconic non-deity villain in the D&D canon, but series of events the PCs are involved with end up destroying whole demiplanes (liked playing Ravenloft? Well this last adventure wipes it away!). It just reminds me of Marvel comics, where every writer who comes in wants to play around with Galactus or the Pheonix force (or at least gets to rehash the Cyclops/Jean Grey dynamic). I didn't see it in BECMI, other than the Wrath of the Immortals module (which by definition would have to be epic, and was like the only thing they ever did with the Immortal level of play, so I didn't begrudge it).

We mostly homebrewed our worlds and didn't run published modules, so most of the stuff that has been mentioned I found out about after the fact.

Quote from: RPGPundit;898022I started in the 1e era, and was around when 2e came out.  In my circles at least, most of play didn't really change in the EARLY 2e era.  It was only later, when more emphasis started to be placed on adventures with big metaplots, copycatting the WoD 'storyteller' style, and the idea of 'kits' making you think that it was mechanics that would be important in making your character special started to get more prevalent, that things started to go sour.  I think also one of the first things I noted that started to change was the increased 'sanitization' of the setting products, making D&D seem more bland and banal.  Demons and Devils being changed into 'bateezu' and 'tanari', and getting rid of assassins (not just as a class, but generally de-emphasizing the idea of the PCs being scumbags), were the early signs. 2e quickly shifted in that sense, not so much in mechanics, but it started to feel like it had gone from being "Heavy Metal" to being "the New Adventures of Hercules".

I started in 86 and my memories are very similar regarding the time it took for the game to shift fully to what we now think of as the 2E era. I even remember watching the Ravenloft products slowly start to emulate WoD over the course of the 90s (and I don't think I noticed it starting until the mid-90s when they even started releasing optional rules for players as monsters in Ravenloft). The storytelling thing I think hit a little earlier because there was so much of that around in the hobby at the time. There was always melodrama and talk of storyline even going back to the black boxed set in Ravenloft (heck the original module even has a bit of that) but it shifted radically with later modules (where you'd have scenes instead of chapters and a lot more metaplot).

I think what a lot of people might not realize if they started gaming after this period, is during the 2E era the 1E AD&D books, the 2E AD&D books and the D&D books were all sold side-by-side at the local bookstores and were almost viewed as interchangeable. I bought a ton of 1E books for my 2E games for example. The original 2E PHB had a lot of optional rules no one used. And even when they started releasing the class books with the kits and stuff, that was all optional material that a of folks didn't allow (or allowed on a case by case basis). When Skills and Powers came out in the mid-90s I remember there being a big split in my group over the issue. Because even though AD&D had NWPs, the idea of skills and powers felt much more like a White Wolf or GURPS thing than a D&D thing and so I didn't even allow that book at my table (and neither did most of the GMs I knew at the time). So even just looking at the mass of material that was released at the time, it isn't necessarily reflective of how people were playing the game. Each table was different (much more so than how tables seemed to be during the 3E era in my experience).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;898108I think what a lot of people might not realize if they started gaming after this period, is during the 2E era the 1E AD&D books, the 2E AD&D books and the D&D books were all sold side-by-side at the local bookstores and were almost viewed as interchangeable. I bought a ton of 1E books for my 2E games for example. The original 2E PHB had a lot of optional rules no one used. And even when they started releasing the class books with the kits and stuff, that was all optional material that a of folks didn't allow (or allowed on a case by case basis). When Skills and Powers came out in the mid-90s I remember there being a big split in my group over the issue. Because even though AD&D had NWPs, the idea of skills and powers felt much more like a White Wolf or GURPS thing than a D&D thing and so I didn't even allow that book at my table (and neither did most of the GMs I knew at the time). So even just looking at the mass of material that was released at the time, it isn't necessarily reflective of how people were playing the game. Each table was different (much more so than how tables seemed to be during the 3E era in my experience).

Aside from some very minor, easily houseruled bits, we interchanged Basic, AD&D & 2nd edition depending on which game had the rule we liked better that moment. Not to mention all the modules being nearly the same system. It was a far cry from, say,  going from 3rd to 4th...