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Post by mullmann on Sept 22, 2014 20:30:48 GMT
Basically they pussified 1e by taking out the demons and devils and shit like that. Sure it may be a bit better organized or whatever. Also the book quality took a big hit.
Avoid this game if possible
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2014 21:35:30 GMT
I don't really have anything to add to mullmann's comments.
I just like staring at his avatar!
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Post by Murdock Berk on Sept 22, 2014 22:03:45 GMT
I just like staring at his avatar! That |
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Post by Malcadon on Sept 23, 2014 4:07:28 GMT
That, and the game line was a glut of overly detailed campaign sourcebooks/gazetteers that I could give two shits about. It reached a point where they started making books with setting-based songs, poems and cooking recipes! It wouldn't be too bad, but if you try to start a game under one of those settings back then, there was the expectation that you read-up on the campaign sourcebooks. And settings like Greyhawk Forgotten Realms and Mystara are too bland and generic to deserve overly elaborate campaign sourcebooks that leaves no stone unturned with regards to setting details. Personally, I would prefer a simple primer to get newbies into the style and mindset of the setting, and present a gazetteer that *feels* richly detailed, but is ambiguous enough with the details to be open-ended. Also, the art feels a little to bland to me. Yes, there are a lot of colorful pictures for everything, but that does not impress me! If that did, I would have praised 4e as having the best art all-round. In truth, the only art that I actually liked form the 2nd years are anything by Diterlizzi and Mathafuckin' Brom. Elmore is OK, but I prefer his sci-fi art more than this fantasy art. And, I too like your avatar, Mullmann. Your avatar is nice too, Oldkat.  |
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Post by Lord Huthor on Sept 23, 2014 15:39:03 GMT
I just like staring at his avatar! That +1 |
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Post by Lord Huthor on Sept 23, 2014 15:44:07 GMT
Agree with pretty much everything Malcadon said.
Back to the OP - I agree it was garbage with the name changes of outer planar creatures and shit, but I think given the repressive atmosphere of the time, D&D might not have survived and continued without it (if you think that would be a good/bad thing depends on what you thought of 2E onwards I guess....)
Some 2E stuff though I actually found pretty cool: Undermountain, Myth Drannor - some elements of Planescape, though I kind of felt they took out too much of the mystical feel 1E gave me about the planes, and kind of made it's occupants 'humans in funny suits'.
I know a lot of people liked them, but for some reason, kits annoyed the hell out of me....
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Post by Deleted on Sept 24, 2014 3:08:43 GMT
I bet that is better than an everlasting gobstopper!  |
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Post by Murdock Berk on Sept 24, 2014 16:10:07 GMT
Man I fuckin love gobstoppers.
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Post by distortedhumor on Sept 25, 2014 0:27:39 GMT
Actually had tons of fun with 2nd edition.
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Post by Admin on Sept 25, 2014 0:28:35 GMT
Actually had tons of fun with 2nd edition. Me too. |
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Post by mullmann on Sept 25, 2014 1:16:12 GMT
your fun is WRONG
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Post by Admin on Sept 26, 2014 1:13:06 GMT
I remember in the early days of 2E, we played it on LSD.
Heh, good times!
LSD,
Prespos
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Post by Murdock Berk on Sept 26, 2014 4:27:15 GMT
I remember in the early days of 2E, we played it on LSD. Heh, good times! LSD, Prespos Dude, did you see that lightning bolt I cast, mannnn? I TOLD YOU I WAS A FUCKIN' WIZARD, MANNNN! |
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Post by dragonspipe on Jul 14, 2016 0:09:35 GMT
2e represents the full blooming of all things O/AD&D. It's a monster. It's beautiful. It has the most of everything. It becomes incoherent. It's simple at it's core, the ultimate erector set of D&D that ever was, and likely ever will be.
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Post by Malcadon on Jul 14, 2016 4:32:02 GMT
One of the biggest issues I have with 2e is that it was not really a new edition, but a facelift to AD&D. It was like they just painted over the AD&D rule books with a single coat of paint and figured that they were done! 2e was created by literally cutting up pages of the AD&D PH and DMG and gluing them into a collage. Save for some minor Dragon Mag stiff like Proficients, they took more out of the game than add to it, while offering little in the way of actual improvement. They ran the same old backwards and needlessly complex THAC0 system. Multi-classing was still a mess. Same old needless level-caps (at least BEMCI did *something* to address demihumans in high-level games) and class restrictions by race. Had they not utterly castrated the game to appeal to moral crusading scum, I would not consider the game by rules alone its own edition, but a version of AD&D akin to what Version 3.5 was to 3rd Edition. Oh, they did not remove Demons and Devils completely. They made a comeback in version 2.5 of AD&D, but with a name-change: Tanar'ri = Demon; Baatezu = Devil; Yugoloths = Deamons (yes, the ones form the FF, due to the British spelling); Fiend = general term for Demons and Devils. Also: Gods = Powers; Diva = Angel. Hell, they even tried to water down "evil" to absurd levels (yes, in one book, it suggested to DMs that evil NPCs should just be mean-spirited), and hammer in the notion that evil was a restricted alignment to players. Shit, the guy that got my into the game played some really evil characters. He had one character do things that put a real person on a sex-offender registry! Oh, and he is swellest guy I know. The political correctness was entirely pointless! The people who complain about game the most, were not the types of people who would ever play RPGs, and more so, the types of people who would *never* be satisfied! When you have a reputation for producing a game with a lot of violence, devil-worship, sexist & occult imagery, and creating social misfits, you don't do damage control; the dame is done and changing things would only alienate your fans. No, what you do is that you own the shit out of it! You take that rep by the balls by promoting the game as something that is dark, edgy, rebellious, self-indulgent, hedonistic, and more over, something your mom would hate! And the truth is, D&D is a game of fantasy. Its about an escape form real-world troubles and bullshit. As creators of fantasy worlds, TSR only had one simple job: make something self-indulgent that people would what to play in! You do not delude it for the sake of outsiders; you only need to make it exciting for those who do play it! |
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Post by Admin on Jul 19, 2016 9:56:50 GMT
Minor quiffles:
* Proficiencies were introduced in OA, later refined in the DSG and WSG. The SG system is the basis for the 2E system.
* Renaming of demons, devils, planes, etc. occurs pre-2.5.
Pres
Ps.
Is "quiffles" even a word?
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Post by jamerowe1 on Jul 20, 2016 14:33:40 GMT
If our fun is wrong then we DON'T EVEN WANT to be right! |
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Post by theslo on Jul 31, 2016 2:59:51 GMT
2E streamlines the game and made a great many improvements to AD&D. As for the book design, they are greatly improved in organization, though I love the Gygax DMG.
I don't see why you feel the need to hate on an AD&D product line designed by Zeb Cook who was in on 1st Edition's greatness.
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Post by FaerieGodfather on Sept 7, 2016 13:06:53 GMT
AD&D 2nd Edition is still my favorite version of the game. I just wish it had been based on BECMI instead of AD&D.
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Post by dragonspipe on Sept 16, 2016 14:51:31 GMT
I tried adding some BECMI to 2nd edition at the time, but my friends refused to play without their ingrained AD&D stat mods.
When 2e came out, it was almost universally panned by the club I was in. Not because of descending AC, that only became hard to understand on the internet, years later. But due to its clinging to nonsense level/race limits that had been tossed from 1e games long before. 2e seemed downright hokey and backward right out of the gate. It was a hard sell.
But eventually, the main merits of the system gained respect. I think the #1 innovation was the introduction of schools/spheres. Since most D&D is houseruled, the base edition you're playing is pretty much defined by where the spells are. The same houserules from 1e ported over to 2e just fine, so what we ended up with was a nicely expanded magic system, and that's what sold the 2e PHB's.
And for the most part, if you don't get too anal, the NWP's are a nice addition. People say "you can't add skills to a class-based RPG", but I've played a number of RPG's that do just that. And it works fine.
I dug 2e until they started sending stuff to print full of typos - I had purchased a couple of splats and kept finding sloppy wordage/typos, which seemed like a giant fuck you, and never bought another TSR product while the company was still alive. If I had known that the quality was better in the setting supplements, I might have stuck with them longer, but I've always been a homebrewer.
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Post by fp on Oct 4, 2016 19:17:51 GMT
Basically they pussified 1e by taking out the demons and devils and shit like that. Sure it may be a bit better organized or whatever. Also the book quality took a big hit. Avoid this game if possible They didn't take out demons and devils. As a matter of fact, demons and devils are more powerful in 2E than in 1E. The books are better organized and, once you take into account the editing, color artwork and improved typesetting techniques, the book quality is greatly improved from 1E. |
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Post by dragonspipe on Oct 4, 2016 22:13:06 GMT
The demons & devils were taken out of 2nd edition as part of their PR concerns, and then snuck back in 3 years later in the 8th loose-leaf monster supplement, under a different name, and omitting the most offensive of the lot (Asmodeus, Demogorgon, Fraz-urb Lu, a few others)
The artwork is subjective, IMO 2nd edition art is of varying quality, overall striving for a realistic look, and occasionally failing spectacularly (PHB reprint barbarian's fucked up hand). Overall, I find the best 1e art to be more badass and evocative. The best 2e art is some of the best high-fantasy realism depictions ever printed.
Book print quality in 2e is a noticeable step down from 1e, especially early 1e prints, which were exceptionally high quality.
Readability and indexing is, of course, a big improvement.
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Post by fp on Oct 5, 2016 19:40:37 GMT
What was so offensive about Fraz-urb Lu?
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Post by dragonspipe on Oct 6, 2016 0:29:39 GMT
Hell if I know.
I would conjecture that Tsojconth was an especially nefarious module to the panicky Christian crowd, for its inclusion of magic circles, demonic skulls, and old Fraz was certainly a Satanic vibe, Prince of Deception and all that.
For all of TSR's protests of innocence, they did throw in a fair bit of occultism in AD&D, and the game did serve as an introduction to such things for a good many kids.
Hence 2e's decision to chill on the occult flirtation, much to it's demerit.
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Post by fp on Oct 10, 2016 20:18:44 GMT
The Satanic Panic thing wasn't limited to just D&D. "Michelle Remembers" and the McMartin preschool trial were both really big in the 80s. The Anti-cult movement finally reached its boiling point in the early 80s. The ubiquitousness of "Satanic Cults" didn't really pop up until this time period and D&D was just bandwagoned onto the whole mess.
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