Experience with D&D before playing BG2

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Yeah it was enormous. And Daggerfall had a very special feeling about it.

 

Daggerfall allways eluded me. Its one of those games I have never played. A few of my friends had it, I remember, but for some reason I didn`t manage to copy the game. This was back when I had no clue that copying games were illegal. It probably wasn`t a big deal back in those days either. You never really heard about it being a bad thing, and stuff like that.

For me the first experiences i had with roleplaying games were Ultima 7 - The Black Gate, and Betrayal at Krondor. (I think thye came out in...93?). Those games completely blew me away. I had never played anything like it, and I had no clue that games could be like that. So open and with so many options. I was utterly hooked. Before I played those games, I was mostly into adventure games. The old Sierra ones, and Monkey Island. The step from that kind of games to rpgs was probably a common one I think.

 

Just wondering anyone out there as old as I am. anyone with me during the age of Ultima 1, Bard's Tale 1, might and magic 1 and some others of which I forgot the name.... back in the late 80's... games have sure come a long way.

 

I remember those games. I played them alot later though. Probably in the early 90s. I think I was hooked on Bard`s Tale for awhile. and something called...Sword Quest 2.

 

Oh yeah, played Ultima in the 80's. Lord British. Bard's Tale 1 was another good one. Games sure have come a long way, but not always for the best. If only the manufacturer's could take what was good about hte oldies and incorporate them into the new stuff. Screw the graphics, make it all gameplay I say. Graphics put limitations on the gameplay. I would prefer more options, like wall climbing, horse riding, flying/levitating, etc...

 

I actually was given BG2 as a tutorial on how to play D&D (it was as 3rd ed was released, but still helped). I don't think I made it out of the first dungeon for days...

 

I didn't even know there was such a thing as D&D until I came across Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn. After that, I was hooked.

 

Baldur's Gate 1 was the first time I found out about DnD. Although I'm quite sure I'd caught a few episodes of this beforehand...

 

I Played D&D only for a short time. I switched then to the Dark Eye (Das Schwarze Auge) since more people around me were playing it.

But after BG1 i was drawn back to D&D. It simply refreshed my memory. Dark Eye is quite good, but not as high-fantasy as D&D.

G.G for Ever!

 

I played in several D&D campaigns back in the eighties in secondary school. 2nd Edition. I only discovered Baldur's Gate a few years ago. By then I had got to know Neverwinter Nights and it's 3E rules, but never got far with it. I find Baldur's Gate much more fascinating and more satisfying.

I like the 2nd Edition rules more, even though dual-classing is a bit strange. In real life, you can pick up experience in a new field without losing everything in the old one. A little bit of this, a little bit of that like 'character builds' in NWN seems more natural then 'I fought with swords for months and became very experienced in it, but now that I opened a mage book I don't know a hilt from a blade', like a character could say if he or she dualed from lvl 7 Fighter to lvl 1 Mage. But timing the dualing thing right and the joy when you first reach the level you wanted to dual at and several gaming weeks later reached the level you get your old skills back, is satisfaction in itself.

I never dual-classed in PnP though, I didn't have a Player's Handbook myself, so I wasn't very knowledgable about game mechanics back then. I was a Fighter-Mage, but when I had to make a saving throws I would ask 'should I roll high or low' - I was a bit superstitious back then, thinking I could influence a roll by sending my thoughts to the die.

 

The dual classing rules in 2nd Ed were designed to discourage people from trying it.

 

Maybe there was no dual-classing back then? I just found out it couldn't have been the 2nd Edition I was playing, as that one only came out in 1989, the time I stopped playing AD&D when going to university. It must have been the 1st edition I was playing. I remember the orange spines mentioned on this page: Dungeons & Dragons editions on the Forgotten Realms Wiki.

I do remember though, kits were being introduced in the last year we were playing the game, could it be it was a new feature in the 2nd Edition? I didn't study the books myself, but it was something some fellow players were all secretive about. I remember other kits than those in BG2 though. One of my fellow players played a Delver I think, could that be?

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Lots of questions in my previous post. Mostly from the wonder I feel by discovering I could not have been playing BG's 2nd edition AD&D at all. For the last few years I kept on telling on the internet the 2nd edition is nostalgia to me. Now I found out I couldn't as it didn't even exist in the mid eighties, when I started playing (I think it was 1985).

*edit: double post

 

That was my impression as well. I considered the box sets of D&D to be first edition - there was a red box, blue box, green box, black box and (maybe) a gold box? The features of 1st edition, as I remember it, were demihumans were kind of like classes unto themselves. Halflings were basically fighters with some thieving abilities, elves were fighters with some magic abilities, and dwarves were.. well dwarves were always dwarves. There was no multi or dual classing, and I remember very low maximum level limits for the demihumans.

Second edition I considered to be the AD&D books. Demihumans were now not individual classes, they were races, and they were allowed to multi-class (although they still had strict level limits to how far they could advance in all classes except thief). It also expanded into subclasses. 2nd ed had rangers and paladins in addition to just fighters. The druid class split form clerics, bards were introduced, and I believe an acrobat was a spin-off from the thief class. It was also at this time that the schools of magic were introduced, and the sub-classes of mages sprang out (with the illusionist being the first IIRC).

However, to my knowledge kits were not part of standard 2nd ed. I remember some years after the release of 2nd edition, a book entitled (I believe) Arcana Archives (edit just checked the link evidently it was called Unearthed Arcana) introduced a cavalier and barbarian as separate character subclasses of the fighter, but not kits per say.

The kits, as they were comprised in BGII were unfamiliar to me, although supposedly that was still second edition. It would appear that the introduction of kits was like AD&D version 2.1. According to the link you posted, a revised Monster Manual and Players Handbook was released in 1996, but as that was after the time I was actively playing PnP, it is possible that kits were in that version. According to the link, that was still 2nd edition, so I cannot completely rule out the possibility of kits in 2nd ed.

 

There were two editions of AD&D from what I remember reading up on sources when trying to find out more for the Planescape - a bit like how 3e and 3.5e developed there seemed to be 2e/AD&D and AD&D.

 

All from memeory, so some of this might be a tad incorrect, but I believethat the D&D boxed sets were released as a dumbed-down version of AD&D 2nd editon. More like a beginners verion or a lead-in game to the more robust AD&D. AD&D was released in the 70s. The D&D boxed sets in the 80s.

AD&D 1st edition had a different version of the Bard and Ranger. The Ranger actually had Druid and Mage spells. During that time, Unearthed Arcana came out adding the Cavalier, Monk and Barbarian. Might of had a few more classes, can't remember. AD&D 2nd edition changed XP tables and some of the classes. Then they had a lot of other releases during 2nd editon that added kits and sub-race options. They were from the class and race "Handbook" releases. The Forgotten Relams 2nd edition release of "Elves of Evermeet" added alot more kits, including the Elven Knight, which was an awesome class. And then the Player's Options releases came out as well, adding alot of different options, including many rule changes and optional systems to implement into your game.

 

I completely forgot about the Monk subclass in Unearthed Arcana. The D&D box sets as dumbed down versions of the standard AD&D rules seems pretty accurate to me. The only person who had to be really familiar with the rules was the DM, and you basically had only four choices for classes - fighter, mage, cleric and thief, with the demi-humans being some combination of those four.

I've done some more thinking about this, and I did have a friend back in the mid-1990s who was still into AD&D, and I'm pretty sure he had an elven stalker. So that certainly suggests kits were part of 2nd edititon. I'm thinking it must have been the re-release of the players handbook in 1996 according to the link posted. The end of my D2 playing probably happened sometime in high school - so pre-1992 at any rate, which would explain why I didn't know much about the different kits prior to playing Baldur's Gate 2.

 

What Aldeth writes is familiar to my own experiences. But what Blade of Vanatar says is also true in my eyes: the seventies AD&D was split into 2 editions in the eighties: I lended a box set of D&D from on my friends, which in my memory, like Blade of Vanatar says, was a dumbed-down version of AD&D. I read the books of the D&D box set (with it's demihumans as a class of their own who couldn't choose a profession besides being what they are) to become familiar with the terminology and what roleplaying is about. But I only really played AD&D (my first and most favourite character was an elven Fighter-Mage).

I found pdf's of the original series of books on the internet and recognize the Player's Handbook cover: it had a wizard surrounded by gargoyles on a dark blue background. On it's fiirt pays it says it was copyrighted in 1978. There's also a Player's Handbook, I did find out in the same way, that I never got to know. It has charging horsemen against a light-brown background, was copyrighted in 1989 and it says 2nd Edition.

So, you might consider the 1978 edition as a 2nd edition, but it was called AD&D plainly, is my conclusion. And what was called AD&D 2nd edition came out in 1989, just in time to provide the ruleset for Baldur's Gate, but too late for me to become familiar with, as I left my birthplace to go to university and after moving didn't find any group to play with no more (and only rediscoverd AD&D in it's 3rd Edition by getting to know Neverwinter Nights in 2007 or thereabout, followd by Baldur's Gate 3 years ago).

From the index pages an overview of the differences:

1978 Edition:

Cleric
- Druid
Fighter
- Paladin
- Ranger
Magic-User
- Illusionist
Thief
- Assassin
Monk
The Multi-Classed Character (for demi humans)..................................................................... 32
The Character with Two Classes (for humans)

The 1989 2nd Edition:

Warrior
- Fighter
- Paladin
- Ranger
Magic User:
- Schools of Magic
- Specialist Wizards
- Illusionist
Priest
- Cleric
- Priests of Specific Mythoi
Druid
Rogue
- Thief
- Bard

At a glance, the differences aren't that great, and it seems BG picked it's classes from both versions (like Thief and Bard from one, and Assassin from the harder). But like Aldeth says, there were also the [class] Handbooks, like the Fighter's Handbook etc. and Unearthed Arcana. I hope to find some digital or (even more rare) paper copies of those once.

When I see a discussion in a mod forum or readme about how to 'stay true to the PnP rules' I always feel a desire to have those books in paper right here in my hands. I hope to find some one day.

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BTW: the Illusionist is mentioned in 1989 as just an example of the Specialist Mages (no others are mentioned), in 1978 it was a subclass of it's own with it's own xp table (Illusionists level-up slightly faster at lower levels).

 

I've never played dnd before. When I first got BG2, it was information overload. After a bit of research, the game started making more sense. DND is not at all popular in this side of asia other than being known as a time sink.