Quote from: Omega;895768Pretty much exactly like O, BX, BECMI and A.

Modules though tended to be more constained. Sometimes too constrained, by the plot. Felt like alot less open roam modules came out in the 2e era. But there were some gems like the whole Darkness Gathering series. One of my favorites of the 2e era.

I think mainly because 2e did not change much with the rules. Least not so drastically things were a slog to convert.

YMMV of course. Im sure someone will wander in with a horror story or three.

Addendum:

From experience as a DM and player at home and at cons the gameplay was overall unchanged. Lots of variance from table to table just like previous and aside from occasional grumbles at THAC0 or Kits it was overall amiable. WMMV horror stories there too Im sure. But at least for me that how it was. The players I picked up for 2e were the same.

I pretty much agree though we didn't use any modules at the time.

It played pretty smooth and we played standard dungeon crawls,  converted old modules, single class parties (6 fighters and a mage and all rogues and mixed rogues) silly games (in early 200 actually) and everything else. Like all D&D it had its bugs but was in general a good system. I'm still half convinced it was the best D&D edition.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;899331I don't think they're directly related, but I do think it's in the same bucket of making the game more appealing to mass consumers. Dumb it down. Sanitize it. Market it next to ads for toilet paper and toothpaste.

And note it often was next to those things.  Near the end of the fad I bought Star Frontiers at Sears .

TSR had a brief period when they made major major bank

Quote from: 5 Stone Games;899355And note it often was next to those things.  Near the end of the fad I bought Star Frontiers at Sears .

TSR had a brief period when they made major major bank

Yep.



Grognardia (put down the damn pitchforks, people!) I think got it right in his article about "Scrappy Doo"

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/12/scrappy-doo-and-hickman-revolution.html

And while I agree with his premise, I'd also especially note that the mainstream-ifying of a thing also leads to the thing losing what made it interesting.

Devils & Demons got renamed, but not dorked. Ta'nari and Baatezu?  They were A grade nasty. 2e was a weird sanitizing / not sanitizing. The Planescape Blood War is great stuff, Sigil was a place where evil & good had to co-exist, and Dark Sun was full of slavery, cannibalism and savagery. Lots of great dramatic depth in the 2e settings, even when the 2e rules felt watered down.

But how dumb do parents have to be to NOT realize, hey those are fucking demons in my kid's book!!!

Quote from: daniel_ream;898216it reminds me of the kinds of things that middle-class whitebread 14-year-old death metal fans draw on their schoolbook covers

14 year old death metal fans are the greatest human beings to have ever existed!!

One change I will note with 2e is an overall change in tone to a gradually more over-the-top style. Similar to how BECMI went. But with the modules and settings rather than the rules. A shift in scope.

Quote from: Spinachcat;89937314 year old death metal fans are the greatest human beings to have ever existed!!

https://youtu.be/wpyyXFmlzJo

Now, I started with 3.5e back in February 2007, I was thirteen at the time. So sadly, I missed out on the heyday of AD&D 1e and 2e by virtue of being born in 1993, but my dad was around for those days and he was a huge D&D fan (in fact, he introduced me to D&D and was my first DM) so he probably could tell tons of stories about his experiences with 2e D&D if he posted here.

Still, reading this thread is interesting. It really is amazing how different things were back then compared to now. In all honesty, I wish I could've been there to experience it.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;900173Still, reading this thread is interesting. It really is amazing how different things were back then compared to now. In all honesty, I wish I could've been there to experience it.

No you don't, because then you would have had to have lived in the olden days like us fogeys from before they invented electricity and running water and graphical user interfaces.

I was playing an AD&D 2nd ed campaign, at the same time as I ran Rolemaster myself.
I think both systems had some clunky bits, but I think I sometimes managed to "mask" these in Rolemaster, by thinking carefully about house rules etc, while the guy who ran AD&D 2e didn't streamline things at all, and it did feel odd in places. I don't remember much system details, apart from the notorious Thac0. Still, we ran our game in some colorful cities and the DM had tons of material, so it was kinda fun. Battles were more enjoyable in Rolemaster though (but with Rolemaster we needed a calculator, while AD&D did not).

I don't remember there being much difference. Obviously some campaigns had different styles based on who was playing or DMing, but that was always the case dating back to when I started playing as a grade school kid back in 1979. I'm always amazed to hear grogtards claiming that outdoor adventures were more prominent in the 2E era, since the very first published module I played was Keep on the Borderlands, where cross-country travel and wilderness encounters were a sizable part of the module. Homemade adventures also emphasized outdoor adventuring, if for no other reason than the fact that no DM I ever played with was so lame as to start the PCs at the site of the dungeon. Every adventure included a trip to the dungeon, and for the survivors, a trip home from the dungeon. Grogtards need to quit blaming shitty DMing on 2nd Edition.

I remember quite vividly that the 2E PHB was available some time before the 2E DMG. Since we weren't about to stop our regular gaming just to wait on the next book, we simply used the new PHB alongside the 1E books. I'm pretty sure almost everyone else did, too whether they want to admit it or not. How did this affect play? Not much. Many of the new rules were things most 1E players were doing already (ditching segments, simplifying initiative, listing weights in pounds, ignoring the fucktarded training rules, customizing thieves and clerics, et al). The biggest difference I noticed was that the 2E PHB included all the information about spells the players and DMs needed in a single book, whereas in 1E the information was badly organized and spread among three books. Anyone playing a magic-user who looked up what a spell did, only to read that the spell in question is like the druid spell of the same name, only different appreciated the no bullshit approach to how 2E was organized when it came to spells.

The equipment list was also done much better.

Players who wanted their PCs to hack first and ask questions later could do so in 2E or the 1E/2E hybrid most AD&Ders played just fine. Those who wanted to take part in railroad, Grand Quest circlejerks could do so long before 2E came along, as Dragonlance proved.

Quote from: Spinachcat;899373But how dumb do parents have to be to NOT realize, hey those are fucking demons in my kid's book!!!

Well, wording can matter an awful lot.  For Christians, they might see some fantasy book with some kind of demon-like 'monsters' in it with weird names, and treat it differently than a book which outright said "Devils".

Quote from: Spinachcat;899373But how dumb do parents have to be to NOT realize, hey those are fucking demons in my kid's book!!!

Same way people will read a name and automatically assume that that is what the book is about or the thing is. In this case in reverse. Dont call a demon a demon and alls fine.