The 2e Love Thread


Gamer Life General Discussion

1 to 50 of 52 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

Anyone else secretly love 2e? Yeah, sure, I grew to hate it, I was extremely happy that 3e came out, but, as time goes on, I find myself missing 2e in all its clunkiness. I miss the insane multi-classing, the ineffectual stats, the labrynth of weapon proficiencies, skill proficiencies, and saves.

Hell, I'll even admit to missing THAC0.

A little.

Okay, not really, but I wanted to set the mood.

Who's got some love for 2e that they want to share?

Liberty's Edge

It was nice to have.....

CAMPAIGN SETTINGS!!!!!


I have some good memories of 2nd Edition. I had a DM who came up with a different specialty priest for every god in his homebrew campaign. As a cleric-lover, I felt like a kid in a candy store!

Scarab Sages

Well I kinda only started with 3.5, but now that I found a magazine that's willing to accept my submissions, I need to conform to their standards, which I think are 2E, and now I find that it's almost like another language. in a way though, I kinda like it since it seems less like a formula crunching game and more like mapping on a piece of paper with a pencil game.

And yes, this was all just a shameful way for me to plug an awesome mag. buy it! it's good!


I miss A LOT the fact that there wasn't rules for everything and the DMs judgement was more "valid"...

Also miss my PC The Shade whom due to rules loopholes managed to get a total of 65 levels in several classes... Good'ol days!

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

kessukoofah wrote:
Well I kinda only started with 3.5, but now that I found a magazine that's willing to accept my submissions, I need to conform to their standards, which I think are 2E, and now I find that it's almost like another language. in a way though, I kinda like it since it seems less like a formula crunching game and more like mapping on a piece of paper with a pencil game.

Was it ever. I tried explaining to a friend of mine that started playing with 3.0 how in 2e we didn't have a battlemat and instead, I used to draw on a piece of scratch paper where everyone was and run combat that way, constantly redrawing as necessary. There were effectively three ranges: too far to close in one round, close enough to close in one round, melee.

I miss the crazy iterative attacks.

I miss dwarves who couldn't use magic.

I miss rolling initiative every single round.

Okay, not really regarding initiative, but in theory I do.

Scarab Sages

As sort of a side note, does anyone know of any 2e-3e conversion guides, or if possible the other way around? I have some adventures all written up but i don't know the notation for monsters and stuff.


kessukoofah wrote:
As sort of a side note, does anyone know of any 2e-3e conversion guides, or if possible the other way around? I have some adventures all written up but i don't know the notation for monsters and stuff.

At the beguining of 3e there were some "conversion" guidelines but they were too basic. I think you are better off getting the old mauals and starting from 0. It quite easy thou, there are not much rules anyway.

Liberty's Edge

I miss old multiclassing.

I miss different experience point tables for each class.

I miss dual-classing humans.

I miss +1 weapons or armor being amazing finds.

I miss non-weapon proficiencies (I know, most people hated 'em; I didn't).

I miss seeing a whole monster and a s@%!-ton of information on it printed on a SINGLE friggin' page in a monster manual.

I miss weapons doing 'odd' amounts of damage (such as a warhammer dealing 1d4+1 points of damage).

I miss clerics being restricted to blunt weapons (for the most part).

I miss there only being a single 'high-level' druid to a continent.

I miss direct damage spells being good (even though I still use them).

I miss the the lack of "OMG UR BILD SUX U N0B!11!shift+1"

Et cetera.

Sovereign Court

Sebastian wrote:
Anyone else secretly love 2e?

I miss the adventures, the GREAT imaginative settings, I do not miss the rules system, except for around ... 2095 monsters that have never been converted to 3e... Shame.

I miss ... Al-Qadim, Ravenloft, and Planescape. Even Birthright a bit.

Oh heck, I'd do it all over again !


I don't miss the: Bite Damage 8-28 hp....

Dark Archive

I miss Al-Qadim, Kara-Tur and Spelljammer, as settings.

I miss the player-customizable psionics of the Dark Sun supplement The Will and the Way.

I miss some of the concepts that came out in Spells & Powers (such as schools of Shadow, Artifice, etc.), and the a la carte race and class-building stuff of the Players Options books (which could have been done a little better, but were still awesome and ahead of their time).

I miss Kits like the Shair (Al-Qadim) and Totem-Sister (Elves of Evermeet).

I miss settings that were *NOT* designed to be usable with the stuff out of the PHB as written. Settings where Elves were desert raiders and Halflings were cannibalistic savages and Half-Giants and Thri-Kreen were 'core' races. Settings where Samurai and Wu Jen and Ninja were the core classes and Clerics, Fighters and Wizards were the oddball foreigners, and Elves and Halflings didn't exist, but Spirit Folk and Hengeyokai did.

I miss having a book that *encouraged* playing Centaurs, Hobgoblins, Bugbears and Aarakocra.

I miss Spheres, and Clerics who didn't know *every single spell* on their spell-list.

I miss classes being assumed to be *masters* of their craft at 9th level, gaining keeps and titles and small armies of followers, creating a whole new post-game, where the PCs run their own thieves guilds, have a dozen apprentices, or are building their own temples.

I miss Tony DiTerlizzi's artwork. But I miss Denis Beauvais' artwork (on the cover of Dragon) even more.

I miss Dragon magazine.

I miss oddball stuff, like the Council of Wyrms setting, or the Birthright setting, or the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, exploring new parts of Mystara every month.

I miss Monstrous Compendium pages that I could pull out and use in a game, then clip back into the binder afterwards.

I miss the days when I didn't have to go to a 3rd party source to find a 'Complete Book of Necromancers.'


I miss a lot from 2e. That's where I started with d&d.

I miss 1 monster per page.
I miss initiative every round, and the weapon speed concept.
I too used free form battle rules like someone mentioned from above.
I even miss the "magic" of discovering cool stuff and weird things by yourself, instead of finding out on the internet.
I miss the insane stat requirements for paladins (sorta).
I miss clerics and blunt weapons.
I miss the innocence of learning how to play with a bunch of friends around a big table. But that's just a function of us being in high school. But the friends I made then - are still my best friends today. I don't miss that at all.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Set wrote:


I miss oddball stuff, like the Council of Wyrms setting, or the Birthright setting, or the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, exploring new parts of Mystara every month.

Ummm... As an old Mystara fan, I have to point out that the Voyage of the Dawn Treader is one of C.S. Lewis' books. I think you meant to say the Voyage of the Princess Ark.

Scarab Sages

I miss:

  • System shock checks. No CoDzilla here, move along, he accidentally killed himself.
  • Good ability scores having almost no effect.
  • Hundreds of good adventures never to be played.
  • Magic items were special.
  • Low levels were even scarier.
  • I was younger.

  • Liberty's Edge

    I miss:

    1.) Crazy long tables with no coherent method of determining results:

    Roll d% consult chart A, then roll 1d12, the roll 1d6 on the sub-chart...

    2.) Wild magic surges.

    3.) Potion-mixing mishaps, (i.e. what happens when you drink invisibility while heroism is in effect.)

    4.) Character kits, especially fun ones like the Bardic Blade.

    5.) Artifacts with randomly determined powers, see point 1 above.

    Dark Archive

    I am currently playing a cleric of Mask in a FR 2e game (a refreshing experience, after a whole career as a DM), and while it has its moments of clunkyness, occasional plain unbalance and overall lack of functionality compared to the 3.X ruleset, I must admit that some aspects are way better than their more recent incarnations.

    After a whole year we advanced only a couple of levels, and a 8 man party averaging 10th level barely survives 3 encounters out of 4.

    Maybe it depends on the great DM I have the luck of gaming with, but the slow progress, scary combats (THAC0 is nasty!) and feeling of greater difficulty... well, it's good fun.

    I just miss a more integrated and expanded skill system (and the feats). And a bunch of spells, blasted spheres and whatnots.

    Dark Archive

    I choose...

    D. All of the Above.

    *smirk*

    yeah, that may be a cop-out but there's not much more I can add except I'm an AD&D 2E Forgotten Realms fanboy til death.


    I can not say I miss 2e, but you knew that. Is OSRIC 1e or 2e? How many 2e fans have checked out Castles & Crusaders? To me it seems a pretty close match spiritually sans all the charts…which, according to this thread, may be part of the appeal.

    Dark Archive

    Dysphoric Hominid wrote:
    Set wrote:


    I miss oddball stuff, like the Council of Wyrms setting, or the Birthright setting, or the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, exploring new parts of Mystara every month.
    Ummm... As an old Mystara fan, I have to point out that the Voyage of the Dawn Treader is one of C.S. Lewis' books. I think you meant to say the Voyage of the Princess Ark.

    Eh. I also miss not being senile, apparently.

    Get off my lawn, you kids!


    I miss the damage immunities of monsters, and that quirky system whereby weapons and priests (usually) lost ther effectiveness moving around the planes. (And especially the combination whereby a +2 sword on the prime material plane could only hurt creatures which needed a 'magic' weapon to hurt them on the outer planes.)
    I miss spell resistance, and a succubus having a chance to gate in a balor. I even miss the 'least', 'lesser', 'greater', 'true', and 'guardian' categories of tanar'ri.
    I miss the Arcanaloth, A'Kin, at 'The Friendly Fiend', and the book which he wrote, Factol's Manifesto about Sigil's squabbling factions.
    I miss the XP tables which meant that sometimes a character could be a couple of levels ahaead of another character with identical XP but a different class.
    However I DO NOT miss 'Warriors of Heaven' with that horrible option for a player to run a Tulani character. (Well okay, I maybe miss it just a little, but I DM'ed, you have to understand, and I had a power gamer running a Tulani character...)

    Hmmm. I wonder if anyone wants to run a 2nd edition PbP on the boards?

    Edit:
    Ah yes, I miss one minute long combat rounds with only one or two attacks rolled, instead of this 'video on fast-forward' where a hasted monk uses flurry of blows to throw an unbelievable number of shurriken in six seconds.

    Liberty's Edge

    I miss it ...

    ... but I probably wouldn't go back to it.

    Scarab Sages

    The "one minute" combat round is probably not that hard to fix. As an added benefit, all of the nerfed spell durations would go back up to reasonable levels (1 round = 1 minute, 1 minute = 10 minutes, 10 minutes = 1 hour, 1 hour = 1 hour).


    I miss all the support for alternative campaign settings, like al-qadim, maztica, and the sublime planescape. Other than that, I don't miss 2e. I never liked the system and I had houseruled it so much that it looked like more like 3e years before even WOTC took over.


    It's all been said above, but I do *feel* the love here and can't help but be moved by it.

    I miss weapon speeds, different XP charts for different classes, rolling up followers you have no idea what to do with, books with more 'fluff' than 'crunch' (and not having to make that distinction) and the total lack of shame.

    3.x is a better system for all the changes though, hence my desire to stick with it.

    Peace,

    tfad

    Liberty's Edge

    CourtFool wrote:
    I can not say I miss 2e, but you knew that. Is OSRIC 1e or 2e? How many 2e fans have checked out Castles & Crusaders? To me it seems a pretty close match spiritually sans all the charts…which, according to this thread, may be part of the appeal.

    OSRIC is 1e. i was reading throught it, feeling nostalgic...

    i went straight to 3e from 1e (skipped 2e), so i can't say i miss it.


    Basic Fantasy Roleplaying is another Basic/1st/2nd/3rd hybrid with some pretty neat features.

    Make certain to d/l The Olde Dungeoneer's Almanack 2008 and the individual expanded classes, in which the Assassin, Druid, Illusionist, Jesters (the early version of the modern Bard), Paladin, Ranger (an awe-some Ranger version), Skills, and other classic stuff can be found, for FREE.


    I love 2ed and it is my system of choice right now and has been for years.

    Although I've played characters in several 3ED campaigns, I'll never Dungeon Master D&D using 3rd or 4th Edition rules myself.

    What 2ED means to me (and this may sting a little, in fact I'll probably be hated after this...!)

    An emphasis on DMing skills that go beyond a clever combination of monsters and battle. The beauty of rhetoric, storytelling and narrative techniques. Discussions on Forums like this one which were not all about monster combos, but about ways to surprise and delight players with intrigue, plotting and role-playing NPC's that were far more than a great collection of numbers.

    A comparatively rules-light system, welcoming to new players. Spending the barest amount of time on mechanics, and encouraging the lion's share on ethical choices, character role-playing, relationships and real dramatic content. Not making a God of combat tactics.

    A non-comprehensive system. Challenging the DM to fill in the gaps, make judgement calls, do a little homework as to how things work in the real world, expanding knowledge of real-world issues. And from this imperfection the natural progression to developing a house-rules adaptation that everyone buys into and understands, and which is partly your own creation.

    Beautiful campaign box sets filled with gorgeous actual (take em out and use em) maps, and all kinds of weird and wonderful hand outs, Taroka Cards, Cult Symbols etc.

    A feeling that products were created to excite and please you, with love and imagination, not just with $$ in their eyes.

    Deciding the outcome of a role-play situation or challenge, by roleplaying it. Not roll-playing it. A cliched arguement perhaps but true.

    A feeling that adventure writers were talented, understood dramatic situations, had original ideas or at least a grasp of exhilerating moments and discoveries. Instead of, to be honest, the feeling that you, or in fact almost any writer, could do better...

    A group desire to tell a great story, however tragdic. To play heroes that would die for a cause - like those of literature and mythology. Rather than a lurid golden-calf attraction to formulating the most ass-whooping MMORPG-appropriate character possible to crush a series of monsters in a player vs DM competition.

    To anyone for whom 3ED or 4ED means any or all of these things, I apologise and salute you.

    Scarab Sages

    Arcane Joe wrote:

    I love 2ed and it is my system of choice right now and has been for years.

    Although I've played characters in several 3ED campaigns, I'll never Dungeon Master D&D using 3rd or 4th Edition rules myself.

    What 2ED means to me (and this may sting a little, in fact I'll probably be hated after this...!)

    <snip>

    Just wondering, Joe, because I do agree with all of your points: have you ever read a Paizo Pathfinder Adventure Path? They are pretty much the epitomy of what you describe - more space spent on character motivation and action than statblocks. Heck, even the statlocks include Morale and Tactics that give you an idea of how that NPC acts.

    I do get a disturbing trend these days where if the DM makes a ruling or judgement call regarding story, the players trust the rules more than the DM. If I want my NPC wizard to live in a tower made of force, I don't need to have to justify that by the spell, NPC wealth, and magic creation rules!

    Dark Archive

    Cardboard stuff. Old Stoney, or the pre-fab standup villages, or the castles that came in the boxed set, or the Japanese castle from the Dragon. I love that kind of crafty stuff, even if I never had the patience to put more than one of them (old stoney) together.

    Adventures / setting fluff that derived from monster weirdness. Blind Monks milking catoblepas for 'Death Cheese.' Beholders carving out underground warrens with their disintegrate eye ray. A Night Hag that makes money on the side by plane shifting people around. All sorts of monster abilities that were never intended to be used during a five round lifespan, but were on the much shorter and easier-to-use monster description anyway.

    Articles like 'The Little Wish' about Cantrips or offering up Paladins for each alignment (or planar familiars for each alignment) or dragons for the other colors of the spectrum or new spells for Illusionists by Duli Wonk.


    I'm not sure if I have Jal, but I'll be sure to read some - I appreciate the steer. Was 'Shackled City' one of these? Because I did borrow some scenes from that.

    For a while now I've been relying on my own material supplemented very generously by the ideas of novelists : )

    Scarab Sages

    Arcane Joe wrote:

    I'm not sure if I have Jal, but I'll be sure to read some - I appreciate the steer. Was 'Shackled City' one of these? Because I did borrow some scenes from that.

    For a while now I've been relying on my own material supplemented very generously by the ideas of novelists : )

    Shackled City was the first one, but although good it is probably not the best example (even in book form). If you want a purely Paizo module check out one of these (go for the first of one series). Hopefully you can peruse one at your local gaming store. There are always the pdfs which are cheaper to "try out".


    Arcane Joe wrote:

    An emphasis on DMing skills that go beyond a clever combination of monsters and battle. The beauty of rhetoric, storytelling and narrative techniques. Discussions on Forums like this one which were not all about monster combos, but about ways to surprise and delight players with intrigue, plotting and role-playing NPC's that were far more than a great collection of numbers.

    A comparatively rules-light system, welcoming to new players. Spending the barest amount of time on mechanics, and encouraging the lion's share on ethical choices, character role-playing, relationships and real dramatic content. Not making a God of combat tactics.

    I strongly suggest you give Questers of the Middle Realm a look.


    I miss people being more focused on their character concepts and roleplaying and willing to wing things that weren't covered in the rules, instead of being "hamstrung" by the fact that they can't do X because book Y says you can't, or because Splatbook of Dreck was released and all they want to do is use Broken Feat and Prestige Class instead of having an interesting character story.

    Feh.


    I Second Lilith!

    I used to have more time for drawing at the gaming board than arguing about rules...

    Scarab Sages

    Lilith wrote:

    I miss people being more focused on their character concepts and roleplaying and willing to wing things that weren't covered in the rules, instead of being "hamstrung" by the fact that they can't do X because book Y says you can't, or because Splatbook of Dreck was released and all they want to do is use Broken Feat and Prestige Class instead of having an interesting character story.

    Feh.

    That's the exact reason why lately we stopped trying to find rules for everything and instead I ask "ok, so what do you want to do?". they tell me, i set up the DCs or make up how they do it and we keep going. I very rarely have to say no, and their characters benefit. on the other hand, I now have a shelf full of rulebooks that we barely ever referance most of...

    heck, it's gotten to the point where they're actually working with me to create or modify classe and races to suit characters they want to play. My brother created a variant paladin as a Cowboy and his friend created an improvised weapon user. most fun we had for a long time.


    And following Kessu: That's why you'll see me at the OTD boards and veery rarely at Rules-related boards!

    BTW The best way to play a cowboy its to play it Beebop ;P

    Scarab Sages

    Hugo Solis wrote:

    And following Kessu: That's why you'll see me at the OTD boards and veery rarely at Rules-related boards!

    BTW The best way to play a cowboy its to play it Beebop ;P

    well he did used to put cool jazz on in the background whenever he got a "moment" to shine. big speeches and important conversations, stuff like that.

    in fact, his only problem was an affinity for absurd names. IIRC, his cowboy was named Fleet Admiral Rocky Del Awesome. there were also about 50 middle names and he kept tacking them in as he had more adventures. It's not because he can't choose more appropriate names, he just chooses to go with names that make people laugh.


    Seriously, people. There are rules light systems out there.


    CourtFool wrote:
    Seriously, people. There are rules light systems out there.

    Yea. 1st edition AD & D.

    Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

    CourtFool wrote:
    Seriously, people. There are rules light systems out there.

    My love of 2e is as much about nostalgia as it is about lighter rules. In fact, much of what I miss is 2e's own brand of arbitrary and bizzare rules.


    kessukoofah wrote:
    in fact, his only problem was an affinity for absurd names. IIRC, his cowboy was named Fleet Admiral Rocky Del Awesome. there were also about 50 middle names and he kept tacking them in as he had more adventures. It's not because he can't choose more appropriate names, he just chooses to go with names that make people laugh.

    I have the same problem with two of my playes... Its funny at the begining but when they get around 10th+ level and the "King" wants to speak with them seriously... quite a chanllenge for serious RP...

    Grand Lodge

    I miss the fluff of 2e not the mechanics

    Scarab Sages

    Lilith wrote:

    I miss people being more focused on their character concepts and roleplaying and willing to wing things that weren't covered in the rules, instead of being "hamstrung" by the fact that they can't do X because book Y says you can't, or because Splatbook of Dreck was released and all they want to do is use Broken Feat and Prestige Class instead of having an interesting character story.

    Feh.

    So there was this time in 3.5 that a player used sovereign glue to jam into a liches mouth to keep him from casting with Verbal components. Yeah, he was a 1st Edition veteran.

    My brothers are awesome with this though, I love playing with them. Like the time their Ogre PCs were fighting a Hellfire Wyrm inside a pyramid, and one PC dangled with one arm off the spiral stairs to attack another character on a lower level, while the other PC took a flying leap off the top level to chase down a falling orb, then caught the other PCs leg to swing onto the stairs, only to be snatched by the Hellfire Wyrm and teleported into a forest.

    Or the time the Ogres ripped the wall off a store because the shopkeep wouldn't open the door. Or the time they threw a town guard over the city walls because he wouldn't let them in. They were imprisoned by Solars for that one.

    All 3.5 All Good times. Had nothing to do with the Rules As Written.

    Scarab Sages

    Do I love 2e, yes. We still play 2e on a fairly regular basis. Just completed an 18 year long campaign in a 2e homebrew. What did 2e do for me? I created a magic system that does away with the 10 minute workday for magicusers [divine/arcane]. I have been able to create some of the most memorable characters I have ever dealt with. The GUIDELINES that were laid out worked in most cases, but not all, and as DM, I figured out the best way to make everything work together, and the party to have a good time playing our favorite game.
    I have only recently found out [Oct 2007] that there was a 3rd edition, not to mention 3.5. I still love my system as I have been playing it for the last 20+ years.

    Just my 2 cents on 2e.

    RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

    Arcane Joe wrote:

    I'm not sure if I have Jal, but I'll be sure to read some - I appreciate the steer. Was 'Shackled City' one of these? Because I did borrow some scenes from that.

    For a while now I've been relying on my own material supplemented very generously by the ideas of novelists : )

    Shackled City was written by the same group of people. It is kind of a "proto-Adventure Path."


    I cannot recall anything on the rules I miss, but the fluff was great. Old MM, campaign settings etc etc.


    I miss wild mages, assassins and deathmasters as classes you could play from level 1 onward. The 3E versions of these classes are terrible.

    I miss that all ogres did not have 5HD for being ogres and another 7HD for being barbarians. Then, with rage, these 3E ogres all have 200 HP and take 17 rounds to kill.

    I miss cleric spheres as some have mentioned. It was a great way to customize clerics and make them distinct from one another.

    I miss different initiative rolls every round.

    I miss the separate advancement charts for different classes, even though I changed them around so that fighters and thieves (screw "rogues") advanced faster than clerics.

    I miss that no one wanted to play a filthy bard back then. And if they did, it would take forever to become one. (Am I thinking back to 1E here?)

    I miss the ability to make a character from scratch in under 30 minutes.

    I miss that a character's hit dice did not advance beyond a certain level. A 10th level fighter with 70 HP was respectable back then.

    I miss the fact that you were not expected to have X number of magical items by level Y.

    Liberty's Edge

    Bill Lumberg wrote:


    I miss that no one wanted to play a filthy bard back then. And if they did, it would take forever to become one. (Am I thinking back to 1E here?)

    Yeah, that was 1E. Bards were the proto-type prestige class. They were a pain in the @$$ to become, but once you got there, you were awesome.


    I miss most of 2nd Edition.
    That's why i still use a lot of things from 2nd edition :

    +1 bonus to some attributes for some races (often enough)
    Kits (i still use a bunch of class variants, most of them adapted from old kits)
    Initiative roll for each round (keeps things interesting)
    Weapons speed factor (gives reasons to switch weapons according to a situation or an opponent)
    Spells casting time (give real feeling of casting)
    Critical hits and fumbles (dragon magazine)
    Multiple schools of magic (alchemy, artifice, chaos, dimension, shadow and so on)
    Psionics being different, weird and dangerous

    But most of all, the spirit of D&D, which got lost someway in the 3.0/3.5 transition, when the point was to have fun and not to compete with other players, when the main point of a character was his concept, not his stats or his "build".

    1 to 50 of 52 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>
    Community / Forums / Gamer Life / General Discussion / The 2e Love Thread All Messageboards

    Want to post a reply? Sign in.