Old-School D&D

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Just out of curiousity, how many people here are still fans of 1st/2nd edition, as opposed to 3+ edition? I've encountered a lot of people who say "You know, I love 2nd edition, but I play 3e because that's all anyone wants to play these days."

 

I hadn't heard of D&D before 2E, but I still am more emotionally attached to 2E than to 3E. 3E just doesn't really look much like D&D.

 

2nd edition isn't "old school"!

Old School is the red boxed Basic Edition with the red dragon on the cover. The one where the only classes available were:
Fighter
Cleric
Magic-User
Thief
Dwarf
Elf
Halfling

Funny, I'd forgotten that Halflings used to be a class instead of a race.

 

Ah yes, back before multi-classing, dual-classing, 18/00 Str, proficiencies, bards, monks, and myriad obscure and clunky rules to determine things that should have been worked out through RPing or on the fly by the DM... ( )

 

Ditto. I was disappointed when TSR got eaten, but I was okay with WotC until they destroyed D&D. They changed it to be more like an already existing computer game series called Might & Magic. I started playing 3e, but when I realized what they had done, and then confirmed it, I felt sick to my stomach. I've boycotted WotC since then, though I doubt they noticed.

 

I think I started playing when it was "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons". When the 2nd Edition came out, the switch to it was natural and a lot of fun. I however found the "evolution" to 3E more difficult but I learned to like the new rules, especially under 3.5E.

The big downside of this new edition is the fact that they've completly detroyed my favorite PC, which was a Multi-Class Cleric/MU. I find it now way underpowered. But hey! Nothing is perfect! Instead of playing, well, I'm now the DM!!

 

I started with 2e, and was reluctant to go to 3e/3.5. Now that I've played it for a bit, though, I can't see ever going back. The 3e rules are so much easier to use, and the DMG makes life so much easier in terms of creating new magic items, I can't imagine how I ever waded through 2e in the first place.
In fact, in retrospect, 2e was what drove me to GURPS--which is a much easier system, if you play the basic rules, and allows for plenty of RP or powergaming, whatever you wish.
I'm all for the new rules.

 

I mainly play 3.5E and thats basically because I really do like playing it.

However saying that, I also enjoy a good bit of 2nd ED

 

You see, I cut my teeth on 2nd edition, went back and bought 1st edition and the Basic and Expert sets, and jumped into 3e full-throttle... and realized I wasn't very fond of it. It's not a horrible game, but it is a different game from 2nd edition. I left 3.5 alone for quite a while, partially because of that.

IMO, the best of 2nd edition was an intelligently-applied Skills and Powers/Spells and magic version... with a DM watching what's happening, mandating certain things about your characters (like, for example, I wouldn't let an elf get away with saying it has no infravision, but switching the +1 with swords into daggers for a wizard isn't unreasonable), and forbidding others (make a Spells and Magic cleric-type, but completely ignore spellcasting in favor of granted powers and special abilities; its quickly abusive).

I tried to create this system, before 3e was officially announced (it's still on my web page, as an Independant Project). Hackmaster incorporated some of this, but bogged it down with a huge amount of other stuff (as well as the horrific pricing on monster books... $20 for each of 8 volumes; not gonna happen).

 

I think there's a huge difference between the impact of rulesets on PnP compared to CRPG. For PnP, I would suggest the simplest rules possible whereas for CRPG, I like the more complicated feats / skills / multiclassing etc.

As far as multiclassing goes, I like the 3e rules better. In BG (2e), multiclassing is far too overpowered.

 

I am not sure how the rules are for 3.5 but I do love the old school rules (Red Box and Blue Box)
I say both because first the Red Box only covered to level 10 if that and Blue Box brought the levels higher.

After playing 2e rules for a while my friends and I all went out and bought the D&D Encylopedia which contained all the info from the Red, Blue, Green whatever color boxsets from the 70's. Very simple, basic and fun.

Than we went back to the 2e rules and realized how much we missed have a multi-clas f/m/t or a f/t. I am not sure how the 3.5 rules are but I would give them a try if I had the time to sit for a few hours and actually play. But I don't because I with my wife, kid, & job.

 

Surely the red box didn't go as far as level 10, did it? If so what on earth were in the Blue, Green, and Black boxes? I thought the Red box only went to level 4.

 

I checked last night. The red box was till level 4/5/6, dependent upon your class. I don't know how the other box levels went up but I did read somewhere that with all four you could reach level 20+ dependent upon class. The only thing I didn't like about the classic D&D is that Elf, Halfing, Dwarf classes could only reach level 12 or so. I found that insulting to those of use who enjoyed playing the Elf for magic and fighting.

I believe in 1995 or so TSR released the Basic Encylopedia which contained an additional class, Monk. That was my favorite class from that book. I do have to say I enjoyed how simple the game was, but as stated before I also enjoyed have a Elf thief or their multi-class combos.

 

Really? I thought the basic set went up to ~10, at least with XP tables. Remember, all the classes had those weird titles (like a 1st level cleric was an "Adept", and a 10th level elf was something like a "Hero Wizard"!) There just wasn't any support in terms of modules (B1, etc), as nearly all the modules were for levels 1-3 or 2-4. The expert set modules (X1, etc) started at like 3-6 and went up to ~14. (Then you had Companion, Master, and Immortal set rules, but we never played such high level characters...)

 

High level characters in Basic were way over powered in my mind. And when I actually had the chance yesterday to review some of the 3.5 rules I find it an insult that characters now can achieve even greater power than the good old basic. The advance at least had some power balance, I didn't get that from 3.5 rules.

 

I agree, things started getting out of control with the companion set. The weapon mastery rules (in the master set?) were especially cheesy...

(heh heh heh, these young'uns, who think 1e is "old school! )

 

It all depends on what you consider young. When I started to play 2e was just released. Fortunely for me some of my friends who played a year or two before I got into D&D had the 1E rules. And now that I look back on it I believe I was a little lad when the Red Box came out. Or I wasn't even born yet. Can't remember the year the red box was first release. Was it 1979 or 1977? Either way I was not around or a baby. LOL. But the red box rules are simple and fun to play if you don't want a super power character running around with his or her head in the clouds.

 

Old School all the way for me! I still prefer 2e and some 1e rules and use them whenever I game. The old '79 DMG is still, IMO, the best D&D book I've seen.

3E is an entirely different game.

 

Bah! (again) 2e isn't old school! Red Box all the way!

 

I played a whackload of 2E and loved it, but it just didn't have a set system that let me do the things I wanted to do -- too much was done "on the fly" and to be honest some of the mechanics (THACO and skills, for example) were very clunky.

I have a fair number of 3.5E books now, even though I have no one to play with (I consider myself a collector ) and while I admit that the mechanic created by Gygax has been supplanted by a different (and I'd say simpler) one, the feel of playing would still be the same -- me and my buddies laughing, making dumb jokes, ordering pizza, and mocking the poor fool who's blown 3 rolls in a row.