From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd
On Thu, 16 Oct 2025 12:28:10 GMT, rudis
<
user8921@newsgrouper.org.invalid> wrote:
Any second edition love?
I've made no secret of my love of the edition. In fact, whenever I
play, 2nd Edition is what I tend to use.
(Well... now look what you've gone and done. You've
gotten me started on this topic! Sorry for the wall of
prose that's gonna follow, but remember, it was rudis who
started it ;-)
It's not really that I think it's the greatest system. Let's face it;
2nd Ed has a lot of rough areas. I just don't think any of the other
iterations of the game are really any better. That, combined with my
preference for the grittier style of the game and my familiarity with
the rules is why I still use it.
But ultimately, I don't really think it's the RULE SYSTEM that makes
for a good game or not. It's the GM, and the players, and the
adventure, and how they all interact. You could probably have a good
time using the FATAL system if all the other elements were good
enough. Maybe even Rolemaster too!*
I always felt 2nd Ed got short shrift. I think it was, given its
design choices, a remarkably good system. It wanted to be Gygaxian
AD&D, but streamlined, and I think it achieved this goal admirably. It
mostly maintained the feel of the 1st Edition game, but polished out
some of the rougher aspects of the original game while still keeping
many of those more difficult ideas (like weapon vs armor hit bonuses)
as optional rules. The game was _far_ more accessible than Gygax's
dense prose, and far more willing to concede that the rule-books
weren't the end-all to how the game should be played.
I think a lot of the dislike for the edition had nothing to do with
the rules themselves, but with everything else surrounding the game.
Some saw (not entirely incorrectly) the new edition as a money grab.
Others said it was an attempt (again, not entirely without merit) to
write Gygax out of the game. Some people really disliked the way TSR
handled the whole "demons vs Baatezu" thing too.** And some didn't
like how few changes TSR made to the new edition, comparing it
unfavorably to non-TSR competitors.
But I loved it.
It was just the _right_ level of complexity for me. I didn't want an
_easy_ game. I loved that it still maintained some of the unfathomable
jargon that made D&D something of a shibboleth to geek underculture.
After all, if you couldn't calculate THAC0 (or even knew what that
was), were you really somebody worth hanging out with? But at the same
time, the new edition made the game quicker to play; you didn't have
to constantly refer back to the rulebooks to get through a single
round.
The older editions, harkening back to its wargaming roots, were much
more about the mechanics. You played against the rules; you needed to
master the nitty-gritty to succeed. But that was never what interested
me about the game. I was in it for the setting and the characters. I
wanted to create STORIES with my friends. The newer edition
facilitated that much better than the old.
But there was more to love about 2nd Edition. Mechanically, the game
didn't take many chances... but structurally it was much more modular.
From the start, it was built to add in new classes, races and
monsters. We saw this immediately with the PHBR and DMGR series, and
with the folio-like Monstrous Compendium, but that modularity was
built into the game itself. There were so many OPTIONAL rules you
could use -or not- as your group pleased. No AD&D 2nd Ed. game was the
same as the next. It gave every group personal control over their own adventures in a way that was discouraged in the older editions. It put
the players in charge, not TSR. That was a huge shift, and I think
that change --that the players, not the publishers, are the heart of
the game-- resonates to this day in the OSR/third-party developer
movement.
Add into all that the sheer volume of content TSR released in support
of second edition; a flood that hasn't been matched by any other
edition. Yes, some of it was absolute crap, and even a lot of the good
stuff had flaws. But there was some awesome stuff too, and because
there was so much of it, you couldn't help but stumble across some
good material eventually.
It wasn't just table-top gaming either. The sheer volume of
D&D-related material --novels, comics, video games-- helped turn D&D
from a geeky hobby into something that -slowly but evermore surely-
was something recognized as a part of mainstream culture. TSR novels
appeared in the NY Times best-seller lists, for gosh sake!
Still, it isn't really the mechanics that keeps me playing it. In
fact, whenever I DM'd a new group and had them use the crunky old 2nd
Ed. rules, I lamented that I was forcing an overly complex game upon
them when there were easier systems available. Wouldn't it be better,
I asked myself, if I just used 5th Ed? Easier to learn, and when the
players inevitably moved on to other groups, they'd be able to
transition more easily.
But I stick with 2nd Ed. anyway.
It's the FEEL of the game. Later editions are much more... well, I
often say they are more 'comic-book super-hero' in feel, because they
give the players much more power and abilities. There's a better
balance between player classes too, and more modularity in the classes themselves. But I _like_ the lethality of the old-school games, where
the PCs are often out-classed by the monsters. I _like_ the imbalance
in power between classes (e.g 'linear fighters and quadratic
wizards'). It forces the players to work together more. It's nothing
you can't do in later editions... but you have to work at it. In 2nd
Ed., it comes free with the rules.
And, like I said, I just have more familiarity with the system. That
means I can focus on creating and running the adventures, and not have
to learn and relearn new systems all the time. I just don't see the
NEED to personally move on from 2nd Ed.
So, yeah... I guess you could say I've some love for second edition.
I'll happily acknowledge its many flaws, and have no problem with
others playing the editions they enjoy more... but I haven't really
found any other system that was so much better that I'm happy to move
to it.
------
* I kid, I kid. I use Rolemaster as a punching bag but I have a sort
of soft-spot for the game. And those critical hit table results are
the bomb!
**Honestly, given the pressure from groups like MADD and the hysteria
around the game, I have no problem with that. It added some much
needed depth to the fiends, and it wasn't like you couldn't still call
them demons in your own game. But a lot of people thought TSR was
folding to pressure... even though they STILL used fiends -albeit
renamed- in the game itself.
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