I see the red-headed stepchild of D&D has been getting a bit of a kicking here in the blogsphere once again. It’s easy to beat on poor ol’ 2E, isn’t it? It’s the edition that we only loved for its assortment of kewl campaign settings and supplemental material in Dragon and Dungeon magazines anyway, right?
I admit the game certainly had its share of problems. I played a fair amount of 2nd edition AD&D back in the 90’s (and hell, I’m still running a play-by-post game of it today), but I think it only just now occured to me how much of the written rules in both the 2nd edition Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide I’ve completely ignored over the years. Here’s a shortlist of the most notorious offenders…
Half the combat rules: Included in this is weapon vs. armor adjustments for ‘To-Hit’ rolls, different damage dice for small/medium and large creatures, speed factors, the punching and wrestling table, called shots, polearms and weapon frontage, all the crazy modifiers to initiative (“Well, if you want your mage to use his magic wand this round, George, it’s an extra +3 penalty to your init roll…“), and so much more. All of this stuff always seemed like a bunch of nonsense to me. You need a flow chart to keep track of it all, and my goodness, can you imagine how long one round of combat would take if you were juggling all of this crap? I believe this was one of the key reasons I lost interest in my previous 2nd edition play-by-post game (“A Hot Day in L’Trel“), because I figured I’d just run the game ’straight out of the book’. What a terrible idea that was. It felt like I was judge to a complicated wargame rather than the DM overseeing what should be a fairly simple, cut-and-dried battle between the PC’s and a group of bandits or a pack of giant, rabid rats.
I suppose I’m biased from having been exposed to the combat system in Basic D&D first (or ‘classic’ D&D, or B/X D&D, or BECMI D&D, or whatever you people want to call it this week). It was simple. Group initiative, roll to hit, roll for damage, spells are cast, roll for morale (if applicable), move on to the next round. The supplemental rules were easy to remember: your opponents get an attack bonus if you turn and run away, etc. Individual initiative was optional.
I admit I did use individual initiative in my 2nd edition games back in the day, but I ignored all the modifiers and rolled a straight d10 (unless you had a monster like a zombie, which is supposed to take its turn last because of how slow they move). I also used the optional ‘hovering on death’s door’ rules, because… I don’t know, really. I reckon the first DM I played 2nd edition with used them in his game and I just took it from there. I’ve certainly had a reversal of opinion on this rule in recent years (nowadays I much prefer something like Robert Fisher’s injury table, which I seem to use in every game I’ve run recently).
Spell components: Nope. No way. Your 1st level mage is already weak enough as is, I’m not going to further hinder you by making you go around collecting bits of fleece or powdered iron or rose petals and then tell you that you can’t cast your one lousy spell anymore if you run out of them.
Yes, I know they were part of 1st edition too.
I also ignored them there.
Priests of a specific mythoi: They were just clerics in my games, thank you very much. Even in campaigns of my own creation, with my own pantheon inserted into the game world, I still didn’t want specialist priests thrown in there. There never seemed to be anything wrong with the 2nd edition cleric as-is, why do I need to give them specific powers and allow them to use battle axes because the god of such-and-such deems it appropriate?
It might be fair to say that I’m something of a hypocrite here, given that I did use specialist mages. Ah well.
Training: Like spell components, this is another carry-over from 1st edition. It doesn’t seem as strict as 1E’s rules regarding leveling up, but it’s implied that the DM may not allow a PC to increase in level after gaining enough XP until they seek out some form of training. I’ve always hated this idea.
Let’s say I’m a 3rd level fighter and I whip up on a band of hobgoblins all by my lonesome, earning enough experience to move into the 4th level. I’ve improved my skills in the field, why am I not automatically considered better at what I do (fighting)? Instead, I have to go home and spar with Duke, the stereotypical grizzled, eyepatch-wearing vet for five sweaty hours until I become a better swordsman.
It’s like if you had a rookie baseball player, and he hits ten home runs over the course of a three game series and yet the sports media won’t even think about considering him a better player until he goes through batting practice the next day. What the hell?!
Now, if I was using the proficiency system and the player wanted to learn a new weapon or a new skill, fair enough, seek out a trainer… but all that stuff happens in downtime anyway, so it never became an issue.
Dual class humans: Not that I outlawed or scrapped the rules for this, but nobody I played with EVER bothered with this. It just wasn’t on our radar at all. I guess if you wanted multiple class skills you went with a multi-class gnome or dwarf or half-elf.
____________
As a flip-side to this, I can think of one rule I always enforced that every other 2nd edition player I knew seemed to ignore when they ran their games, and that was the racial ability requirements table.
Everyone used the class ability requirements (you need to have a DEX score of at least 9 to be a thief, for instance), but many DM’s seemed to care not if you needed a minimum STR of 8 and CON of 11 to qualify to be a dwarf. Well, I surely did care. I was somewhat of a Nazi about those rules. I remember a player looking crestfallen, almost coming to tears because they didn’t have good enough stats to be a halfling (who the hell wants to be a halfling by choice, anyway?). Okay, it wasn’t that bad… but I do recall a little argument and a slight hissy fit from the player in question over that one. (who went on to play a half-elf instead and rose to become one of the most powerful characters in the game, by the way).
I enforced this rule to keep the demihuman quotient in check. Unless you’re on a world where elves or gnomes are the predominant race, I always figured humans should be the most common type of PC race selection. I didn’t do this to be a bastard, I just wanted it to be something special when you saw a dwarf PC roaming about.
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August 4, 2009 at 15:13
Jeff Rients
Personlly, I never had a problem with the 2e core rules. The 2e DMG was pale imitation of the original, but that’s another matter entirety. And while I wasn’t keen on the explosion of settings, the supplement bloat or the adventures, I still feel the 3 core books provide a completely sufficient and enjoyable iteration of AD&D. I only stopped buying 2nd ed because even as an idiot in high school I could tell that TSR and my interests no longer overlapped.
August 4, 2009 at 17:46
David
As someone who has been running 2E games exclusively for the past six years almost nonstop, I feel I should chime in.
I use all of those combat rules you mentioned in every game I run, and without skipping a beat. You ask how long a combat round would last if someone really used all of those rules, but you should know yourself when you were still in my game. I don’t think it was very long at all. But then, I’m so used to juggling those numbers that it doesn’t phase me at all anymore.
Spell components: I normally use them, although I’m eschewing them in my current game for convenience sake. I can see the argument for not using them, though. The lower level spells require mundane items that are painfully easy to collect unless you stay out in the wilderness for months at a time. The higher level spells need much rarer items, and the DMG encourages you to make sidequests to track them down, but that kind of discourages learning the spells to begin with. Why waste a spell slot on something you need to run a sidequest for every time you want to cast it?
Specific priest classes: I used them in my last game, but not in this one because I only have one main deity. But I can see the appeal of tweaking the cleric for the faith. It’s a little weird when a cleric of war and a cleric of peace both have the same spells and gear restrictions.
Training: Eh, that’s an optional rule anyway, but I’ve never used it myself for the same reasons you gave.
Dual-classing: I gotta say the exact same thing as you did here. Nobody has ever even brought it up before in my own game. I didn’t scrap it, it just never was necessary to address. Kind of like level limits.
Racial Ability Requirements: I never enforced this myself, because it isn’t necessary. I don’t know if it’s a quirk of fate or what, but 90% of any given party in my games are human anyway. We usually only have one, maybe two demi-humans at best, and they’re usually elf or half-elf.
August 4, 2009 at 18:47
ze bulette
Funny, I literally pressed the send button on an email to a used game online warehouse in order to get a purchase quote on all of my 2E stuff, just a minute before seeing this post. I actually have never played it, having only ever played 1E and earlier – I just acquired it through a large all-or-nothing purchase I made. I will say though, that I’m very impressed with the campaign settings resources, and that though the books don’t seem to have a lot of personal charm or flavor, their layout does looks very clean and inviting.
There’s just something about the allure of creating my own setting though that makes the rich Forgotten Realms or that other one (can’t remember its name right now!) superfluous for me. I’m amazed how popular they were – for me, part of the fun of D&D was in romping around in our OWN world. Someone else’s seemed fine for reading about (hence all the FR books?) but not for playing in. Still, with the time and energy involved in whipping up a universe, it does make some sense that this would have sold decently.
August 4, 2009 at 22:05
The Badger King
I never had a problem with 2ed AD&D, although at the time I was rather miffed at the idea of having to rebuy everything, The last 2ed thing I purchased (come to think of it, the last TSR product I purchased too) was the TOME OF MAGIC. I have subsequently “acquired” a lot of 2ed stuff (the most useful of which was the Core Rules and Core Rules Expansion cds), and although I find the modules from this area suck donkeys, some of the stuff is rather interesting. I don’t mind looting ideas from the various splatbooks, and the World Builder’s Guidebook is QUITE useful.
Personally, I’m kind of getting tired about all this constant edition bashing. I’m fairly new (well, just about a year) to really getting back into gaming through the blogosphere, and the amount of vitriol being bandied about by some people just astounds me, mostly because…. who cares? You don’t like the edition, don’t use it… that’s no reason to run anyone who likes it into the ground. You find something you like, but it’s from a different edition… steal it and repurpose it. All this in-fighting about, well, OD&D is superior, the rest of you SUCK, oh you hate 4thed because you’re old, blah blah blah…. who cares? I just want to read cool ideas and tips and tricks… not rants and vitriol. Just my $o.o2.
August 4, 2009 at 22:18
noisms
I love some of the 2e combat rules. They really add a new dimension to the game. (Stuff like weapon speeds and weapon types vs. armour class.) I recognise that puts me in the tiny minority, but ho hum.
I also have to confess to finding 1e very underwhelming. I’m not a fan of High Gygaxian prose. And I think there’s this weird and rather pathetic discourse among some 1e players who think that just because 1e says “devils” and “demons” rather than “baatezu” and “tanar’ri”, liking it somehow makes you more of a rebel and a badass.
August 5, 2009 at 03:59
Myrystyr
I ran 2nd edition from 1991-2005, and found it better than 1st edition for two simple reasons: rules organisation, and customisation of rules.
The books are laid out so much better, the split between core and optional rules are better defined, it is easier to house-rule when you are working from the core, and those specialty priests really add something special to the campaign. Stone me for a heretic if you will, but I can rip off the 2E skin and slap on a Basic/Expert feel a lot better than with 1E. Yes, you read that right, I found 2E to be closer to Basic D&D (which I played and ran 1986-1990) than 1E.
While I might refer to the 1st edition books from time to time, 2nd edition worked best for me – there’s a whole lot of options you don’t have to play with if you don’t want them in your game, and a good range of options to add to your game as you see fit. It really is a toolbox you can pick and choose from, when making your campaign and running your game.
I’d even buy a 2E retro-clone.
August 5, 2009 at 07:46
Hamlet
That’s one of the greatest things about 2nd edition: all those rules you mentioned were pretty much optional. The core framework of the edition rules, the very heart of it, is so pathetically simple it’s a marvel to behold.
Everything else is just Christmas Tree Ornaments.
August 5, 2009 at 08:36
wickedmurph
I DMed 2e from 1991-2000, and had a really good time with it. I have to say that you’re spot-on with the stuff that gets ignored, though. I used pretty streamlined combat that was more 1e-y, did individual initiative with a d20, handwaved the spell components, except as flavor (like when the female npc mage put down the ball of sulphur and bat guano she had behind her back, and the whole party took a deep breath), clerics were clerics and retconned training, ignored dual-classing.
I didn’t bother with racial ability requirement, though. It seemed silly. No such thing as a sickly dwarf?
Anyways, I liked a lot of things about 2e – flexibility, lots of non-combat options. I was into splatbooks at that time – mostly just as reading material, though. 3e just made me angry, though – too difficult to DM, and requiring a masters in character mechanics.
August 5, 2009 at 10:02
Matthew James Stanham
That’s one of the greatest things about 2nd edition: all those rules you mentioned were pretty much optional.
Indeed, not just pretty much optional, but entirely optional. The PHB and DMG clearly label entire chapters “(optional)” and at its core, second edition is very similar to Classic B/X BECMI, being a stripped down version of first edition. Hell, the entire spell list is “optional”. Second edition is a “do it yourself game”, with all the good and bad things that implies.
August 7, 2009 at 13:30
Brian Murphy
Like others above, I actually think the core rules of 2E are quite good–in fact, if I ever start up my theoretical game of 1e AD&D, I would port over a few of 2E’s cleaned up and improved rules (such as initiative and thief skills). 2E really went sour with all the splats.
October 15, 2009 at 01:35
Philibusta
Let’s not forget, as Hamlet mentioned, that all those rules (the compicated modifiers to initiative, etc.) are optional. One of my longtime roleplaying groups used the same motto for our gameplay that Bruce Lee used for his martial arts: “Use what works, throw out what doesn’t.”
Basically, what that meant to us was that if a rule didn’t work without a great deal of complication, or if something didn’t serve to move the game along, or more importantly, to move the STORY along, it got tossed out. Overdetailed, overcomplicated combat rules went out the window.
“It’s R-O-L-E-playing, not R-O-L-L-playing.” – some dude I played D&D with years ago and whose name I cant recall.
I did favor the Priests of specific mythoi thing, although I think in my 20 years of play, I never ever once PLAYED a priest (or a cleric). It just made sense to me that a priest devoted to, say, a goddess of love, would have different abilities than one who worships the god of thieves.
As far as Edition bashing: Just once. I gotta do it once.
3rd Edition sucks. No, no, really, it sucks. I only played it a few times, enough to realize it sucks. But I did read the Player’s Handbook and the Dm’s Guide cover-to-cover, and….yuck.
First thing I noticed, and if you dont believe me, go back and read: They turned Halflings into Kender. Really. Read the race description in the 3E PHB. They’re Kender.
The Wizard gets SCREWED in 3E: Both the Sorcerer and the Cleric have better combat abilities than the Wizard, yet they also both have more spellcasting abilities. The only upside the Wizard has is creating magic items. WOW! My favorite classes to play were Thieves and Wizards, so I played quite a few wizards (Mages and specialists). And (other than scrolls and potions), I think I only ever ONCE played a wizard that created a permanent magical item.
Not to mention the fact that they trimmed the spell selection. Try playing a Necromancer specialist wizard. Good luck.
The Wargame: Geez, how many chapters of rules on miniatures play do we really need??? is this D&D or Warhammer???
Demigod PCs: As characters rise in level, they become ungodly-powerful. And that tool for converting 2E characters to 3E? Yeah. I tried that with one of my own favorite 2E characters, an Elven Fighter/Thief of levels 7/9. Now, in 2E, this would have been on the high range of what was called “mid-level” characters. But when I converted the charater to 3E, and added all the feats and bonuses and whats-its, he was riciulously powerful.
One of the only changes I liked about 3E was the new multiclassing system. That was a genius idea. Oh, and the DM tools in the back of the Montrous Manual (um or whatever it was called this time around) for customizing monsters. That was pretty ingenious, too. Other than that, I’ll just stick with 2E.
November 19, 2009 at 05:04
oltkeos
I’m not sure why 2E has been getting such a raw deal of late; my theory is that it’s just the “cool” thing to do.
I enjoyed (and still enjoy) 2E immensely; along with Basic (Classic) D&D, 2E is my favorite edition to DM & play. It’s well organized, and firmly keeps optional rules just that – optional.
I prefer a pretty streamlined game, with casting time modifiers and variable weapon damage for large creatures the only “optional” combat rules I use. Sure, I use spell components (for flavor), but I work on the assumption that the character replenishes his stock when the party returns to town.
As for the “splatbooks”, I have quite a few, and when I was in my younger gaming days, loved them. Now, as I’ve gotten older, I prefer sticking with just the DMG, MM, and PH. In my opinion, with just the three core books, you have all the resources you need for several lifetimes.
November 20, 2009 at 02:28
faustusnotes
I agree with noisms, lots of the additions to combat in 2E – particularly speed factors and different armour adjustments – made a big difference to the feel of combat and gave people a reason to choose a weapon other than a longsword. I didn’t use them all, because it was a lot of work, but i used some. But I then moved onto rolemaster, so maybe I was into detail at the time…
Did you use race-based level limits? They were the one rule I dropped with extreme prejudice. I tried enforcing the training rule once but my players nearly killed me. It makes perfect sense for mages, but none for fighters. I think I might have used it on a semi-irregular basis (e.g. every 5 levels the party had to rest), but I don’t really recall.