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Not sure where to put this thread so I will start it here. Please be civil about the topic and to each other. Before anyone says it THACO is not that hard to caluclate. If you graduated from high school you can do the math. I ask that you please refrain from posting "Wotc stopped producing it" or anything along those lines as it adds nothing to the conversation.
So does anoyne here on the board play or played 2E? What did you enjoy and what did you not? Was their any products you disliked or liked? Rules you liked or disliked?
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So does anoyne here on the board play or played 2E? What did you enjoy and what did you not? Was their any products you disliked or liked? Rules you liked or disliked?
I grew up with 2E, but I haven't played it since about 2005 or so. Actually, I'm running a group through Rise of the Runelords (using PFRPG rules) without using a battlemap or minis right now, and that's got me thinking about maybe running my next campaign in 2E. Dust off the old books and such.
My favorite non-campaign setting books were the "Complete" books, especially The Complete Priest's Handbook, The Complete Fighter's Handbook, and The Complete Paladin's Handbook. The last real 2E campaign I played in used both the spell point system from one of the Player's Option books, and psionics. I remember it working out well for us.
As for settings, I've had good times with Planescape, Mask of the Red Death, and Dark Sun. I always wanted to play Birthright, but we could never get anything serious off the ground.
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PLANESCAPE !
RAVENLOFT !
Darksun too !
I miss good old 'middle child' 2 Ed.
While I don't have the nostalgia for 2 Ed mods the way I have for 1st Ed's mods (come on, tough to beat!) I do remember reading some of the 2 Ed supplements cover to cover then back again; I mean Faiths and Pantheons or Demihuman Dieties or early Ravenloft and Planescape books were all top notch!
I would love to run Kingmaker on tabletop with 2E rules :)
Like Aberrant Templar above, I grew-up with 2E D&D. We played Rolemaster for a year or two until 2E came out of the (french) printing press.
I still prefer it to 3.0. Even the "heavy customization" of the later Player's Options books is pale in comparison to 3.5 and Pathfinders, so I don't buy the "characters become SO broken with those books" argument.
For those who like fluff over crunch, 2E is still king (although Pathfinder made much progress that way compared to 3.5). Personally, I see Planescape as the culmination of the 2E era; a ripe product for ripe players. I have a feeling that Birthright is a similarly ripe product, but I never had the chance to play it.
Even more so than 3E, 2E was easily customizable and "houserulable", which I liked a lot. Some will say that this is the sign of a weak system but I disagree.
'findel
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I also ran came across the whole "players options books are too powerful!" etc. One complianit was that you could make an armored mage. Sure he maybe able to wear any type of armor he still can lose a spell if the character recevies damage and it was a 15 point advantage. When you get 40 points to spread around you lose almost half on one perk.
I also allowed them to make their on versions of races in the game using the same point system. So whathever the players came up with was how the races were in the game.
I loved 2nd ed up to a point.
The first time I played back in 88 was useing 2nd ed rules and I quickly grew to love them. The forgotten realms is and always will be my favorite gameing memories( curse of the azure bonds is a gameing tresure) and the realms themselves back then combined everything I rember reading about the fae, the knights of old and the power of magic. Look at the 2nd ed moonshea supliment and tell me this doesn't remind you of the brothers grimm come to the gameing table.
And then it changed in not a good way. The players options were a nice idea but allowed for too much customization. When you have a human cleric that trades away all his spheres except for healing, trades away his ability to use all magic items but keeps his armor and weapon skills, then takes the points he traded for and buys 4 schools of wizards spells, evocation,illusion,transmutation and necromancy, the 4 most powerful. so basically you have a armored mage rolling a d8 for hd and throwing fireballs and then raising the enemies as his undead minions. To me thats a little too much.
I could also go on about the whisper gnomes and their level of abuseive crack but I think my point is made.
I loved the versatility of the worlds, I remember the games jumping from the realms to greyhawk to spelljammer to darksun then to the planes and the city of sigal. Then when we started a new realms campaign about the conquest of maztica the fun was almost non stop.
I do remember that in 2nd ed stats wern't nearly as important as they are now. If you were a fighter naturally you wanted that magical 18 so you could have the god like chance to have the miracle 18/00 but even a 18/70 was diesl and 18/30 you were a stud. Mages were able to see through the simpilest of illusions and clerics could not be made afraid or held.
Speaking of cleric. I rememeber the variety of divine spellcasters. Such as the standard cleric, the specilty priests, the druids, the shamans, the templars, the adepts. All of these were in faiths and pantheons and made the realms just come to life in a way the other systems couldn't match.
THAC0 didn't bother me too much, the unfair exp requirements did. I was a 5th lv mage with a 7th level theif and a 6th lvl fighter and 6th level cleric, and we all had the same amount of exp.
I do miss 2nd ed somewhat simpley because IMO it was much more story oriented and less on needing uber stats and had more of a woundrous feel to it. BTW if charlie, marie, bob or monica happen to be reading this thanks for some great gameing memories guys.
It seemed to me, and I may be remembering through rose-colored glasses here, that in pre-3E D&D the system took a back seat to the story. There were no exhaustive discussions about character optimization. The only way to min-max was to use loaded dice. We solved our problems and told our stories in the game, not on our character sheets. That's something I definitely miss. I also yearn for the days of adventures that were written in a very "sandbox" style that tried to account for every conceivable PC action. It may have taken up a lot of extra space, but I loved that every NPC had stats because there was a good chance that someone's group would attempt to start a brawl with everyone they came across. NPCs were written as living, breathing entities with lives of their own. Modern NPCs remind me of console RPGs. Only the ones important to the plot have anything meaningful to say.
To the OP:
Before anyone says it THACO is not that hard to caluclate. If you graduated from high school you can do the math.
This comment is simply retarded. You could figure character interactions using quadratic equations. That doesn't make it a good idea. THACO was a clunky, non-intuitive system, and I don't begrudge anyone who is glad to see it gone.
It seemed to me, and I may be remembering through rose-colored glasses here, that in pre-3E D&D the system took a back seat to the story. There were no exhaustive discussions about character optimization. The only way to min-max was to use loaded dice. We solved our problems and told our stories in the game, not on our character sheets. That's something I definitely miss. I also yearn for the days of adventures that were written in a very "sandbox" style that tried to account for every conceivable PC action. It may have taken up a lot of extra space, but I loved that every NPC had stats because there was a good chance that someone's group would attempt to start a brawl with everyone they came across. NPCs were written as living, breathing entities with lives of their own. Modern NPCs remind me of console RPGs. Only the ones important to the plot have anything meaningful to say.
To the OP:** spoiler omitted **
See, I've played 3.x and Pathfinder and GURPS and World of Darkness and BESM games etc. etc. with sandboxy stories and no-min maxed characters and every NPC had a distinct history and personality.
And I have played AD&D 2nd Games where friends argued about where the sweet point was to dual class your character to make him an unstoppable fiend, and what insane, broken race/class combinations you could use to "win" D&D. I played AD&D 2nd games where "you couldn't do it if it wasn't on your character sheet" and where someone just read word-for-word the descriptions in the linear module and refused to deviate if someone tried to be creative.
In the hands of the right GM, AD&D was flexible and provided good enough guidelines to make a good story. And in the hands of a poor GM, AD&D games were easily the worst games I have ever played (worse than other poorly-GMed games I've played, in my personal experience).
To me the real "magic" of AD&D wasn't the game system at all, but as others have already mentioned, the very rich campaign settings and stories that came out around the system. The "magic" of AD&D was that the writing of the "fluff" in those games was extremely good and imaginative. And the boxsets to this day are just beautifully presented.
But for me, personally, the actual rules of the game? Not so much. Heck, I'm playing through Icewind Dale (the video game) and while obviously the magic of tabletop play and a good GM is lost and you can't compare, I'm just noticing all these bizarre rules restrictions that I'd forgotten about... bard can wear armor but can't cast in it, fighter-cleric can only fight with a handful of bludgeoning weapons, any physical stat under 16 makes you useless and ineffective (made the mistake of rolling a 10 Con for one of my characters and decided to live with it... now she has NO hit points... can't even seem to get to max HP).
And no, I can't calculate THAC0, despite being 34 with a Master's degree, but that degree is in English which should tell you everything you need to know right there. I don't blame the system for my inability to perform basic arithmetic. :)
Played it, did have fun on occasion with it--and I'm certainly glad other people remember it fondly. But personally--PERSONALLY--PLEASE NOTE THE WORD "PERSONALLY"--I'm glad the days of AD&D are far behind me. After all, the best bits--the settings--I can still incorporate using other systems I'm far happier with.
A lot of stuff I agree with completely.
+1
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A thing of simple beauty. 2e was my high point in roleplaying games, not sure why exactly but for me and my friends it just sort of worked. I remember very few arguments about rules, unlike it's flashier d20 younger brother.
Ravenloft, pure joy to read. Dark Sun, still unmatched. Birthright, had it 'right'. Al Qadim, best kits I have seen the feel of the game was masterful.
Now we didn't play 'complete' books only the core 3 + any World books required. The specialists mages and cleric spheres were enough difference for them to really feel different. As someone said above, this simple elegant system has failed to be replicated as well in later systems.
Racial class restriction and level restrictions seemed to be perfectly fine. A Gnome Paladin, what rubbish is this!
3e era gave us a rolepaying game with brains, but I think it was at the expense of the soul.
2 cents from a die hard 2nd ed'er.
S.
Objectively the 3E saving throw system was better than that of 2E, cleaned up and streamlined, an evolution, but in retrospect 2Es saving throws had a certain wonky charm. Not exactly sure why death magic and polymorph were not considered spells for purposes of determining relevant saving throw, or why petritifcation and polymorph or paralysis and friends shared a saving throw, or why you needed that big ugly table 60 to figure out saving throws for each class, but to me it is quirky and endearing.
A thing of simple beauty. 2e was my high point in roleplaying games, not sure why exactly but for me and my friends it just sort of worked. I remember very few arguments about rules, unlike it's flashier d20 younger brother.
Ravenloft, pure joy to read. Dark Sun, still unmatched. Birthright, had it 'right'. Al Qadim, best kits I have seen the feel of the game was masterful.
Now we didn't play 'complete' books only the core 3 + any World books required. The specialists mages and cleric spheres were enough difference for them to really feel different. As someone said above, this simple elegant system has failed to be replicated as well in later systems.
Racial class restriction and level restrictions seemed to be perfectly fine. A Gnome Paladin, what rubbish is this!
3e era gave us a rolepaying game with brains, but I think it was at the expense of the soul.
2 cents from a die hard 2nd ed'er.
S.
Srsly. Dwarf wizards? No way.
Hmmm. Lots o' traditionalists here. No big surprise there. Now for my two cents...
I played the hell out of 1st edition. I loved it. I had never seen anything else, and I was 12.
I played the hell out of 2nd edition. I loved it. I loved the changes Zeb Cook (and others) made. I was 14.
Then...
I discovered other game systems, and other theories of design. Other styles of play. I still loved AD&D, but I also liked much of the other stuff that was out there. Because of this period in my life, I collect RPGs. Not to play, necessarily, just to collect, look at, analyze, and reflect. I love collecting the things.
As I began to understand design theory and the ideas behind things a little bit better, my love for AD&D began to diminish. But I soldiered on. I joined a 2nd edition homebrewed campaign, and that was the last straw. The GM is still a friend of mine, and he was good. The rules, not so much. Examples:
1. I was invisible. Flying. Silenced. I was detected by smell, because creatures with high hit dice have an automatic chance to detect invisible creatures - regardless of circumstances. My character did take baths, you know.
2. My next character, an elven fighter/thief, made a save vs. the fear aura of a death knight. The party human fighter didn't. So I strolled up there to take my whack, and BAM - Power Word Kill. No save - fine, I knew the risks. No raising, because I'm an elf - aaaaaagh!
3. Speaking of elves, and other demihumans (a term no longer in use), loved the front loading. So did everyone else, I'd imagine. SKR did a great rant on this, and I'll leave to you the exercise to find it. I agree with it, spot on.
Anyway, long story short, I moved away, and quit playing AD&D. Didn't like the rules, the design, nothing. But you see, the game WAS fun. I did love it. I don't mean to seem like I'm taking an axe to the fine work of EGG or Zeb Cook or anyone else - I'm not. I just felt that the game was drowning in a sea of illogic, poor rules design, arbitrary restrictions, and unintegrated add-ons. From the release of AD&D in 1977 until 2000, the fundamental structure of the game never really changed. Oh sure, there were add-ons and fine tunings, but elves still couldn't progress as far as they wanted in the mage class, etc. etc.. The basic BONES of the game were just being covered by different flavors of fine-tuned (or not so finely tuned, Psionics, I'm looking at you) meat. And it was an ugly-boned beast. So, I had to quit. I couldn't take it, and I didn't want to argue with my friends about it.
I had no interest in 3e. It still had classes, Vancian spells, levels, etc. But...
A new friend in the place I moved to lent me his books. And I read them. Despite a lot of things I was not that into, the game really had been overhauled. The unified d20 mechanic hooked me in. All classes use the same XP table? Anyone can be anything they want (subject to GM approval)? I could learn to like this!
I bought the books for my collection. And then I played...
O! Heaven! It felt like the old days, the good days, my younger days - but the rules were more logical, more sensible, more...accessible. The add-ons used the SAME mechanics as the core rules, with little exception (3.0 Psionics, I'm looking at you). The ability to customize characters had increased one thousandfold.
I love Pathfinder. I love love looove it. I really should marry it. I like the changes that were made, I like the company that puts it out. Maybe in 2023 (23 years from the release of 3.0) I'll feel differently. Maybe I'll be tired of it by then, with some of things I still don't like about the system. Maybe not. But I like it how it is right now. And I like that it gives you multitudinous options and lets you pare out things you don't like, a feeling I never had with 1 or 2e (quite the opposite).
I'm not knocking anyone's love for 2e. I loved it, but like with an ex with whom you've had an angry breakup, I had to just let it go, and let it see other people. I will say that story and plot are dependent upon the GM, not the rules. No system will give you that if the GM isn't up to it. I just don't feel that that is a valid criticism of 3e or Pathfinder or GURPS or Palladium or anything. I will say that the mechanics of 3e are BETTER than 2e, that 3.5 was better than 3.0, and that Pathfinder is better than 3.5. 4.0 - meh. It doesn't have that D&D feel to me. I don't like it. I will say that the rules, from a design standpoint, looked good, but they were not for me. And if they work for you, great, please, enjoy. Same for 2e. My nostalgia for those days is for the fun I had and the friends I played with, as we were then. None at all for the ruleset. I think the rules were the best last gasp of a legacy system that was good when it was all there was, and gave me hours of untold fun, but that ultimately weren't that good. Ask yourself if what you loved was the rules or the fun. Ask yourself if the fun is any less with the newer rules.
As always, whatever works for you is what you should go with. My opinions are mine, and you may feel differently. I only posted here because I think that nostalgia gets the best of some people, and I feel that people should try to look with a more critical eye at the past and not romanticize it.
I look forward to the searing flames that will come my way.
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Hmmm. Lots o' traditionalists here. No big surprise there. Now for my two cents...
I played the hell out of 1st edition. I loved it. I had never seen anything else, and I was 12.
I played the hell out of 2nd edition. I loved it. I loved the changes Zeb Cook (and others) made. I was 14.
Then...
I discovered other game systems, and other theories of design. Other styles of play. I still loved AD&D, but I also liked much of the other stuff that was out there. Because of this period in my life, I collect RPGs. Not to play, necessarily, just to collect, look at, analyze, and reflect. I love collecting the things.
As I began to understand design theory and the ideas behind things a little bit better, my love for AD&D began to diminish. But I soldiered on. I joined a 2nd edition homebrewed campaign, and that was the last straw. The GM is still a friend of mine, and he was good. The rules, not so much. Examples:
1. I was invisible. Flying. Silenced. I was detected by smell, because creatures with high hit dice have an automatic chance to detect invisible creatures - regardless of circumstances. My character did take baths, you know.
2. My next character, an elven fighter/thief, made a save vs. the fear aura of a death knight. The party human fighter didn't. So I strolled up there to take my whack, and BAM - Power Word Kill. No save - fine, I knew the risks. No raising, because I'm an elf - aaaaaagh!
3. Speaking of elves, and other demihumans (a term no longer in use), loved the front loading. So did everyone else, I'd imagine. SKR did a great rant on this, and I'll leave to you the exercise to find it. I agree with it, spot on.
Anyway, long story short, I moved away, and quit playing AD&D. Didn't like the rules, the design, nothing. But you see, the game WAS fun. I did love it. I don't mean to seem like I'm taking an axe to the fine work of EGG or Zeb Cook or anyone else - I'm not. I just felt that the game was drowning in a sea of illogic, poor rules design, arbitrary restrictions, and...
Beautiful. +1
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Awesome post. Really enjoyed the read.
2. My next character, an elven fighter/thief, made a save vs. the fear aura of a death knight. The party human fighter didn't. So I strolled up there to take my whack, and BAM - Power Word Kill. No save - fine, I knew the risks. No raising, because I'm an elf - aaaaaagh!
See for me this is a feature of 1e/2e not a flaw. Seems to me to have been a perfect time to embrace your thief side and run and hide...
I believe elves could be reincarnated? Please correct me if I'm wrong. Wouldn't a fighter/thief badger have opened new an interesting role-playing opportunities?
But seriously the save or die thing of yesteryear I miss. Every encounter now is 'balanced' by a system to be winnable in a stand up fight. I liked a little bit more grit in my fantasy world. In 2e they removed sexism and in 3e they removed racism. Both these things I disagree with strongly in the real world but didn't mind at all in my make-believe world of D&D.
Cheers,
S.
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Persoanlly I think the Options books was TSR way of making a new edition wothout calling it tht and imo they were needed. It had reached a point that the populairty of D&D was on a decline and they needed something to get players reinterested in 2E. While they released a lot of good books for the game they also released imo too much at once. Having a CEO at the time who considered gamers a lower life form than pond scum did not help either.
Ah yes, the concept of change vs the traditions, we had to wait for 6 months after our then gm bought the skills&powers book before he was comfortable with using it.
Of course it did open up a whole rats nest of trouble for a bit, there were plenty of armored mages, rogues with weapon specialization and so on, but you did sacrifice other things for those abilities so in the end it balanced out.
I myself played a mage who could use Rogue weapons, had the Rogues TACHO and could use studded lether armour, but on the other hand each time I cast a spell I had to save vs breath weapons (The worst mage save as I recall) or take the spell level in damage, trust me, that adds up. All in all it did add a little more customization to the character building, and that felt fresh and fun.
Ah yes, fond memories of Ad&D indeed.
Thanks for the comments. They make me blush.
Seriously, though, thanks. And now to the reply:
Stefan, I could have run and hid, and in retrospect... but I was more fighter than thief (in roleplaying terms), and anyway, just the idea of being reincarnated vs. raised... ehhh, it was a minor issue, more indicative of a straw than a log, but enough straws did eventually break my metaphorical camel back.
The save or die thing, fine either way. Works for players and DMs alike. The sexism and racism, I too oppose in the real world, but if they fit in your game then fine, go crazy.
Boiling it down, anything your GM can add or subtract as flavor is ultimately independent of the rules. If the GMs style changes because of the rules, well, that seems suspect to me. Bear in mind that 2e gave me years of enjoyment, oceans of fun, largely because of good GMs and good friends.
My ultimate position is still the same, hated the rules (over time, not all at once), loved the game, loved the fun. I still have all of my stuff from that era in my collection, unsurprisingly. I have given some thought to playing OSRIC for a few months. Haven't been able to bring myself to do it, though. Not because it wouldn't be fun, in a retro, kitschy sort of way, but because I only have so much time to play, what with the wife and kid and all, and I'd rather play Pathfinder.
Let me just say again, though, that we entice people to join our Armies of Gamers with the fun we appear to be having. Fun is the free sample we give out to get 'em hooked. Rules are the quality product that keeps them coming back for more, because ultimately the rules can impact how much fun you're having. Whatever rules give you that gaming "high", keep on snortin' those. And have fun.
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Awesome post. Really enjoyed the read.
2. My next character, an elven fighter/thief, made a save vs. the fear aura of a death knight. The party human fighter didn't. So I strolled up there to take my whack, and BAM - Power Word Kill. No save - fine, I knew the risks. No raising, because I'm an elf - aaaaaagh!See for me this is a feature of 1e/2e not a flaw. Seems to me to have been a perfect time to embrace your thief side and run and hide...
I believe elves could be reincarnated? Please correct me if I'm wrong. Wouldn't a fighter/thief badger have opened new an interesting role-playing opportunities?
But seriously the save or die thing of yesteryear I miss. Every encounter now is 'balanced' by a system to be winnable in a stand up fight. I liked a little bit more grit in my fantasy world. In 2e they removed sexism and in 3e they removed racism. Both these things I disagree with strongly in the real world but didn't mind at all in my make-believe world of D&D.
Cheers,
S.
Agreed. I love playing in the 1e game I am currently in. Prefer 1e to 2e, but I have a deep love for both of them and BCMI/Rules Compendium versions as well.
2. My next character, an elven fighter/thief, made a save vs. the fear aura of a death knight. The party human fighter didn't. So I strolled up there to take my whack, and BAM - Power Word Kill. No save - fine, I knew the risks. No raising, because I'm an elf - aaaaaagh!
You're reminding me of the exact moment I decided the one AD&D campaign I was in was going to be the last.
We were fighting the tarrasque--the GD LEGENDARY TARRASQUE--and as part of an attempt to creatively maneuver myself so as to have a snowball's chance in hell of contributing effectively to the fight, I teleported myself...
And killed myself by rolling 00s on the teleport check. (I was only going about 100 feet back, too.)
Most legendary encounter you could have in D&D, exciting fight, and I was killed by a rogue pair of percentile dice that had little to do with the actual story or fight at hand. Maybe that's someone's idea of fun, but it sure as hell isn't mine.
Let me just say again, though, that we entice people to join our Armies of Gamers with the fun we appear to be having. Fun is the free sample we give out to get 'em hooked. Rules are the quality product that keeps them coming back for more, because ultimately the rules can impact how much fun you're having. Whatever rules give you that gaming "high", keep on snortin' those. And have fun.
QFT. Well said. I always try to be clear my experiences are my own and others vary widely.
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True the teleportation rules in 2E leave much to be desired yet imo it was more a case of bad Dming more than anything else DQ. IF I was the DM I would have told you to ignore the result and reroll. Or even not to bother rolling for 100 ft. In an epic fight like that dying because of a bad roll just plain sucks imo.
I really liked 2e for a number of reasons. For one, it was highly compatible with 1e but generally better. Anything that wasn't better was pretty easy to replace with the 1e version - particularly the ranger, for example, which sucked in 2e.
For me, it just happened that 3x, particularly 3.5, made enough things better that it became my D&D of choice.
Shift to a number of years later, after thinking certain things over in the PF playtests, my game of choice is now PF but I've come to realize just how strong some elements of 2e really were.
I like the reorganization of saving throws into Fort, Ref, and Will. That's far better than the weird mix of 1e/2e saves. But the 1e/2e saves have the benefit of being a much more constrained system than 3e. There are maybe only 2-3 things a spellcaster can do to bump up the difficulty of saves in 2e while the unbounded stat bonuses in 3e can skew things far away from a weak saves. A bounded system kept the balance between powerful save or die spells and higher-level character saves far better than the 3e system did.
On a similar note, AC was generally bounded as well. It wasn't possible to stack up defensive bonus with defensive bonus to ridiculous levels.
2e's initiative and action system did a better job of balancing powerful spellcasting against fighting with weapons. The order of initiative was decided after actions were declared and that made the wizard's spellcasting uncertain, particularly compared with the cyclical initiative of 3e. Cyclical initiative has good points going for it. It makes durations easier to manage and speeds up combat play because you don't have to repeatedly re-determine initiative. But those things make it much harder to disrupt a spellcaster.
So over the years my appreciation for much of 2e really has increased, even if it isn't my D&D of first choice any more (that's PF). It's probably about my 2nd choice, though.
2e's initiative and action system did a better job of balancing powerful spellcasting against fighting with weapons. The order of initiative was decided after actions were declared and that made the wizard's spellcasting uncertain, particularly compared with the cyclical initiative of 3e.
This was a rule my 2E group never used. We stuck with the old "decide what you are going to do when it is your turn" routine.
And we ended up throwing out the whole stupid THAC0 system and used 1E combat.
And we ended up throwing out the whole stupid THAC0 system and used 1E combat.
You preferred looking combat results up on a table to THAC0? We were pretty happy to get off those tables. But YMMV.
You preferred looking combat results up on a table to THAC0? We were pretty happy to get off those tables. But YMMV.
And we ended up throwing out the whole stupid THAC0 system and used 1E combat.
Wasn't THAC0 and 1E table exactly the same thing? THAC0 was only a reference (at AC "0"). Otherwise, project your THAC0 over a couple of AC above and below "AC 0" and you get the 1E table.
* The level of Abstraction: it was easy and fast to play, I never used a paper with squares or a grid to play AD&D, no 5' steps, no 10' reachs... yet it worked well, simulated some things in proper ways and allowed some tactics.
It is BY FAR the better thing of AD&D and something I miss, 3.5 and 4E want to be miniature games. That said, I know that some d20 systems use abstract rules for movement in combat.
I would really like to see a future versions of D&D that doesn't demand the micro-management of movement as current versions do.
You never ran into the "I'm not standing there" problem? I can't count the number of times an arguement started over who exactly was in a fireball radius.
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Wasn't THAC0 and 1E table exactly the same thing? THAC0 was only a reference (at AC "0"). Otherwise, project your THAC0 over a couple of AC above and below "AC 0" and you get the 1E table.You preferred looking combat results up on a table to THAC0? We were pretty happy to get off those tables. But YMMV.
And we ended up throwing out the whole stupid THAC0 system and used 1E combat.
Yes. THAC0 was also in 1e. Look at the monsters section in the back of the DMG.
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Campaign settings were rich and varied. And to be honest I love the old boxed sets, I've been buying them now n again when I have a chance.
As others have said, Planescapes was fantastic. Yet to see any setting that captures my attention like it did. We used to also play a lotta Dragonlance, though it generally ended up with the players hunting down the Heroes of the Lance for their loots ><
Mechanically the system was poo on a cracker, but hey it was pretty good at the time and I didn't know any better ;p
Anyone remember those "book of lairs" that were made for FR and Dragonlance? Got a lot of mileage out of those they were pretty neat.
Wasn't THAC0 and 1E table exactly the same thing? THAC0 was only a reference (at AC "0"). Otherwise, project your THAC0 over a couple of AC above and below "AC 0" and you get the 1E table.
It was close, but not exactly the same. The 1e tables had 20s repeated on each of the tables, for each column, multiple times. That could not be replicated by using THAC0.
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It was close, but not exactly the same. The 1e tables had 20s repeated on each of the tables, for each column, multiple times. That could not be replicated by using THAC0.
Wasn't THAC0 and 1E table exactly the same thing? THAC0 was only a reference (at AC "0"). Otherwise, project your THAC0 over a couple of AC above and below "AC 0" and you get the 1E table.
Except in the DMG Appendix which lists all the monsters in the MM - they all have THAC0 ala 2e as part of their stats. But I think you are right, 2e THAC0 had 20 = auto-hit and 1e had a repeat of 20 6 times only.
S.
Haha, ah yes the teleporting death, trust me, it's one thing to get killed yourself teleporting, it is quite something else to teleport yourself AND the groups best fighter to a tacticly advantageous place only to end up inside the mountain and killed, and then because you and your friend never made it to the point the rest of the party get's killed as well. and then you have to duck for hurled dice and miniatures haha
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Haha, ah yes the teleporting death, trust me, it's one thing to get killed yourself teleporting, it is quite something else to teleport yourself AND the groups best fighter to a tacticly advantageous place only to end up inside the mountain and killed, and then because you and your friend never made it to the point the rest of the party get's killed as well. and then you have to duck for hurled dice and miniatures haha
I'm failing to see why Teleport is being singled out.
(a) No one forces you to cast it.
(b) You see the possible outcomes before casting, meaning you know the risks.
(c) Teleport Without Error
I had and used teleport but only after much scrying and much consideration. Still the chance of random doom always made it my last ditch escape plan.
Newer editions have removed nearly all downsides of casting. Cast in melee = no problem now + numerous spells have no negative effect, i.e. Haste (1e/2e) = +1 year to your age.
Mage's back then had to take responsibly and be prepared to get peppered with dice. Thus was the price for reality bending power.
These new generation mages just don't know how good they have got it!
;)
S.
These new generation mages just don't know how good they have got it!
Hahahaha, you got that right! I didn't really mean to pick on teleport, just wanted to share a story myself.
Grew up with it.... liked it, but wasn't in love with it.
Certainly better than 3.x for me.
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I love 2E. I am currently DMing a 2E Rise of the Runelords campaign and it is fantastic. It is fast-paced and story-oriented.
A few reasons why 2E really works for me:
- the rules can be as simple or as complex as you want. So many of the rules are listed as optional that you can really tweak it to your preference.
- Combat is fast and narrative. My personal preference is to have a fast 10 minute combat where there are 3 or 4 meaningful decisions to make rather than a 45 minute combat with numerous micro decisions.
- Character customization without numerous exception based rules.
- I am good at math and find THAC0 to be fast and easy. For my players that don't get it as easily I can make a small table for each of them in about 2 minutes so that they can cross reference their dice roll and tell me what AC they hit. I can then quickly apply the necessary modifiers and tell them the result in about 2 seconds.
- The intiative and saving throw systems keep fighters, etc relevant with magic-users.
- The art work in the books. The 2E art is second only to Pathfinder.
- I just love the feel that you can get when you use the core rulebooks + all of the complete books. It is such a wonderful goulash of stuff.
I played 2E regularly from '89 to '93 or so.
I loved (and still love) the art. I still think the original 2E books are the best looking D&D books to date (despite them not being full color).
I don't think they went far enough in slaughtering some sacred cows from 1E...they definitely erred on the side of "not enough."
And THAC0 wasn't "hard" -- negative numbers just slow people down with no pay off. 3E got it right.
I have fond 2E memories, but I like 3.X better.
And as far as "optimizing" goes, I certainly remember some whinging when one PC was using the Bladesinger kit and made the other fighter PC feel a tad inadequate. Or priests cherry-picking deities based on which had the best spell access and/or bennies. We just didn't post our gripes on the Internet back then. :-)
I never played with the Player's Option books, though. And I never got into Planescape -- whenever I read anything about it, I kept imagining everyone sounding like Dick Van Dyyyke in "Mary Poppins".
True the teleportation rules in 2E leave much to be desired yet imo it was more a case of bad Dming more than anything else DQ. IF I was the DM I would have told you to ignore the result and reroll. Or even not to bother rolling for 100 ft. In an epic fight like that dying because of a bad roll just plain sucks imo.
The fact remains that by the rules, I was dead. The fact that the DM merely thought it was hilarious is an entirely separate but equally frustrating issue (fortunately, I've never seen him again after that campaign). If you have to house rule or fudge to keep it fun, then it's not a good rule, s'all I'm saying.
Haha, ah yes the teleporting death, trust me, it's one thing to get killed yourself teleporting, it is quite something else to teleport yourself AND the groups best fighter to a tacticly advantageous place only to end up inside the mountain and killed, and then because you and your friend never made it to the point the rest of the party get's killed as well. and then you have to duck for hurled dice and miniatures hahaI'm failing to see why Teleport is being singled out.
Because I cited as my very specific, very personal moment of, "wow this rule sucks" as to do with a teleport death upthread.
Please note no one anywhere ever said AD&D sucks because of teleport.
(a) No one forces you to cast it.
(b) You see the possible outcomes before casting, meaning you know the risks.
(c) Teleport Without Error
Since I started this discussion, for the record:
At the time my character felt her choices were between "be squashed by the Tarrasque, or teleport out of range." I think I still made the less risky decision, and used the tools my character had at her disposal at the time.
She was too low level to know or cast Teleport without Error.
Newer editions have removed nearly all downsides of casting. Cast in melee = no problem now + numerous spells have no negative effect, i.e. Haste (1e/2e) = +1 year to your age.
I personally prefer toned down--but still useful--spells that do less than very powerful spells that might hurt or kill you (compare PF Haste to AD&D Haste).
I think the potentially fatal consequences of difficult spells makes for good storytelling, but by my personal preferences, experiences, and sense of fun, I find they make for frustrating game play rather than enjoyable game play. I understand you feel differently and am glad you have a game system you enjoy.
I do like in Pathfinder that Concentration checks have become much harder. As I think Concentration was meant to replace the mechanic where your spell could fizzle if you were struck. And sometimes I think Concentration should be even harder still. This is a nice, even mechanic that can apply to any situation, and focuses more on the how of spellcasting than worrying about the specific permutations of one individual spell.
There's also of course the fact that many powerful spells require having the right spell component. There's a reason the party in my Pathfinder game hoards diamonds--which I don't necessarily make easy to come by (and sometimes you can end up having a fun little sidequest for people to go find the materials they need if they want to cast a really powerful spell).
Basically, I agree there should be some costs, consequences or risks to spellcasting. We differ on the degree and how the consequences should come about.
So does anoyne here on the board play or played 2E? What did you enjoy and what did you not? Was their any products you disliked or liked? Rules you liked or disliked?
I played D&D, AD&D, and 2nd Ed. AD&D.
I thought 2nd Ed. was reasonably workable. It had a lot of breadth in terms of non-combat activities. The addition of the various guides and the introduction of other proficiencies was also a big help, e.g., Dungeoneer Guide, etc. (I ran multiple entire sessions back-to-back in 2nd Ed. that did not involve a single trap or combat.)
There was an assumption when 2nd Ed. came out that the rules were guidelines and not meant to cover everything. So, finding the right DM was important. The "Knights of the Dinner Table" gets at this in the on-going comic strip.
I liked that there was a lot of real-world physics deeply embedded in the play. Yes, there was magic and psionics, but if someone picked up an improvised weapon then I had a decent idea what the damage would be from it.
There were not rules about running on diagonals versus running orthogonally, because you just did not need to worry about it.
The saving throw and to hit math was harder, but that did not slow down play in my groups.
I did see one young lady at my gaming table start to weep, because she was so entirely math phobic. 4th Ed. works better in a case like that.
In service,
Rich
www.drgames.org
2nd Ed. was also the last edition where player characters were truly special. If you got drained (not accumulated negative energy levels) to level zero then you stopped being special. You were not dead; you just became one of the rest of the gang, regular folk.
Cool idea that heroes and champions are special with abilities beyond the normal mortal ken.
Starting in 3rd Ed., you could have 51st level street urchins.
I also liked the idea of the differentiated level tables. It was harder to go up in levels as a mage than a thief, and there was a certain satsifaction to finally making it to fifth level so that you could cast that lightning bolt or fireball.
In service,
Rich
www.drgames.org
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At the time my character felt her choices were between "be squashed by the Tarrasque, or teleport out of range." I think I still made the less risky decision, and used the tools my character had at her disposal at the time.She was too low level to know or cast Teleport without Error.
I was in no way attacking your choice. Given that it was a no win if the Tarrasque had stomped on you, teleport was a chance to live. Had you not had teleport then your survival was zero. It is a shame that your character died, but risk is part of the adventuring life-style. You may have died on "a roll", but fighters die on "rolls" (plural). In the end character dead is a fact of roleplaying with a random element (i.e. dice). My opinion is that perhaps the newer rules sugar coat things a little too much, clean too much grit off the experience. Will the next edition of the rules give PC's even more hp's and less abilities/spells that can interfere with you bashing the critter? At what point is enough, enough with character survival?
But you are right I grew up with the facts that Haste aged you, Teleport could kill you, Finger of Death was indeed a "finger of death" and not a "finger of most likely cause you a slight amount of injury, maybe". I guess like real world gravity, we back then excepted these were the laws of the fantasy world our characters inhabited and we played within them.
1e/2e classes were unique and interesting, later editions with the mix'n'match multi-classing system blurred the lines of who was doing what. It seemed to me like they were attempting to turn D&D into a skill based system, where the 'skills' were 'skill packages', i.e. classes.
End of the day 2e was where I played the most and had the most fun, life has moved on and RPG's are a fun distraction rather than a driving force in my existence. I'm sure the 'youth' of today will retell tales of 3.5e or PF and how they seemed to have more fun than under 6e or PF 4e?
Interesting topic, thanks to the OP,
S.
I was introduced and began playing 2E in 1996. I've DMing ever since. Sometimes we do a Pathfinder campaign or WoD or something. But I get the most enjoyment out of DMing 2E Forgotten Realms set in the Dalelands and Cormanthor. I even have an online group dedicated to AD&D 2E on the Wizards website. Best system and best roleplaying experieinces I've ever hand ever. I'm a 2E Devotee for life.
2E was the game I learned the concept of RPGs on back when I was around 11, but sadly (really sadly, when you consider the social implications) I didn't actually find a group of players until 3rd edition had been out for a year or two. They were all my age and mostly only familiar with 3rd edition rules.
That being said, I've tried my hand at running two brief 2E games in the past. The first one was a throw game I tossed together the day Gygax passed away to honor the man. That one was kind of a gag game as well. The mystic 4th wall was being damaged, so the king sent out a message implicitly calling for (in character) "high level PCs" to repair it before the entire world was reduced to a series of numbers. The more progress the PCs made, the more serious it became, and by the time they reached the end, they weren't repairing the 4th wall anymore, they were saving the princess from an evil wizard.
After that, my players were marginally familiar with 2E rules, so I dusted of the Council of Wyrms supplement I'd never gotten a chance to use in my childhood and we took a crack at that. The radically different xp increments made this impossible, though, and it only lasted 3 games - with our blue dragon overshadowing the others almost constantly, and the player who opted to play the crystal dragon being unable to contribute in any meaningful way.