Any other fa/tg/uys still play AD&D 2nd edition? I might just be nostalgiafagging but I legitimately think it's better than the other editions.
>>46639208
As a long time Pathfinder player who wants to switch, explain why. Not just for Pathfinder, but all four other editionsand, if possible, any other general fantasy systems.
>>46639338
I've tried 5ed and it really seems like its more of a videogame than a table top game. They made combat more "complex", but its quickly devolves into spamming named attacks like your playing some MMO, which I personally fucking hate. Also the emphasis on the "polished" combat system takes a lot of the focus away from roleplaying and tactical strategy, the two reasons I play DnD at all.
>>46639208
The writing and the settings were extremely well put together. Later splatbooks were lacking in good crunch.
>>46639208
Naw, 1E or Rules Cyclopedia all the way. 2E ain't shit, not even in the top 5 editions.
>>46639458
>I've tried 5e
>I legitimately think [2e is] better than the other editions
You are not qualified to support this claim. Could someone who knows what they are talking about answer my question? Preferably using more specific mechanical examples than this guy?
>>46639458
Are you sure what you were playing was 5e? Because I find it a lot closer to playing like 2e with a more balanced Skills and Powers and without THAC0 than anything. Like I seriously have no idea what you're talking about.
>>46639569
>Are you sure what you were playing was 5e?
Lmao I fucked up. I meant 4e.
>>46639208
I'm DMing a game for it now.
It's alright.
>>46639208
The best fluff came out for 2e.
But the crunch is an abomination.
If you're a grognard you're better off playing any earlier edition of D&D, or a retroclone, and just adapting the fluff to it.
If you're not a grognard, you're WAY better off playing something that came out after it.
It has no place in the universe. Its identity resides solely in its fluff and usage in vidya.
>>46639338
I sat in on my friend's weekly 2e game, and the main difference that I noticed was that it's mechanically much simpler. It lacks most of the fiddly nonsensical rules of 3.x, and the immersion-breaking "gamist" traits of 4e and 5e.
>>46639644
>the main difference that I noticed was that it's mechanically much simpler
Why I like it so much desu
>>46639644
>2e is mechanically simple
>4e and 5e are immersion-breaking gamist
Thank you for answering my question. It sounds like 2e is not for me but I will probably look into it a bit. Can anyone speak about 1e or its contemporaries?
>>46639208
Planescape is the best.
I remember AD&D fondly, but when I was a kid, I omitted a lot of rules that I thought were superfluous.
Turns out that what I was playing was pretty much Basic D&D.
I like the monsters
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/_index.php
>>>46639775 Can anyone speak about 1e or its contemporaries?
1e is basically 2e with better description but significantly worse organization.
Significantly worse to the point of nausea.
"Follow 5 references to other section (some of which don't mention page numbers) to figure out how this works."
"Ask your DM for these rules, they're in his book (player's handbook was published first, many of these references go to content that was going to be written but that never was)."
And so on. It's really REALLY poorly organized. But otherwise it's very well written.
1e and 2e are almost mechanically identical though.
2e got published after some shennaigans with the board of directors.
Specifically, Gygax got replaced as CEO and he was entitled to large royalties on 1e.
And they made 2e so that they wouldn't have to pay him royalties.
BECMI is even more ruleslite than 1e/2e, has good description, and is decently organized.
But it makes some really weird balance decisions and campaign assumptions.
It all works out well, but it's weird.
Original D&D is even more ruleslite than BECMI (and by extension AD&D)
but makes weird campaign assumptions, doesn't have good descriptions, and is organized even worse than 1e.
It also cross references other games for it's rules. Really.
>>46639800
Spelljammer or I shove your dubs straight up your ass.
Yeah well you're wrong.
>>46640052
What kind of campaign assumptions? Like, that they will always use the packaged settings, or that they'll be dungeon-centric, or what?
2nd Ed was my first game, D&D or otherwise.
>>46639561
I have played every edition, but I can't back up his claim. 5e is the best, followed by 3/3.5/3.75. That's an indisputable fact, not an opinion.
>>46639635
This. The only reason 2e was even a decent game was because they came out with TONS of material. All of which can be adapted to new systems (like 5e) which are FAR superior mechanically.
tl;dr: 2e was only good if you are too lazy to homebrew but not to lazy to constantly do pointless clunky calculations.
>>46639717
Like 5e?
>>46639800
The only thing good about planescape is that you can probably buy yourself an awesome Spelljamming vessel in a city like Sigil.
I am actually about to GM AD&D 2e in a month. I haven't played the game in over a decade now so I am hyped
>>46640293
Tell me more about 5e desu
My group was started by a couple of guys who play exclusively 2nd edition. Tables and tables and tables, but its fun times.
>>46640477
It's super simple. There isn't a lot of bloat like previous editions, and the rules are super intuitive. 2e is needlessly complicated.
>>46639208
Kits are a cool idea. The settings were good.
Beyond that it's an anomaly. The OSR hates it because "not muh oldschool", modern players think it's too old to be worthwhile.
>>46639458
>Also the emphasis on the "polished" combat system takes a lot of the focus away from roleplaying and tactical strategy, the two reasons I play DnD at all.
The same criticism literally applies to 3.X's combat system.
You might as well be playing Disgaea 1 instead of 3.X
>>46640477
It's also very easy to homebrew stuff in when you feel like it
>>46639458
>>46640827
It isn't bait though, I just mixed up 5th and 4th edition.
Might as well ask this thread.
Spelljammer is the raddest shit ever. Going through the novels currently. I'm interested in the Unhuman Wars they keep referencing, but I can't seem to find much about it.
My question is then is where can I find the most comprehensive telling of this event?
>>46640179
Mechanical implications about the setting.
Races as classes (with high ability score requirements), the inevitable progression at high levels was divine accession, -4 STR; etc, etc.
>>>46641036 My question is then is where can I find the most comprehensive telling of this event?
My memories a bit foggy on what's in what Spelljammer product, and that's central enough to the setting's background that it comes up pretty much everywhere.
Or rather, I'm not really sure. Astromundi Cluster? Maybe Lost Ships?
Here's a pretty complete summary:
A long time ago, just long enough ago to no longer be in the living memory of the orcs and goblins, in a land far far awayIN SPAAACE!!generic fantasy was afoot.
A large organization of elvish errand boys were carrying messageacross Space. Being elves, they were incredibly uppity.
There were also orcs there. Because there are orcs everywhere. But these ones were called scrobecause they were in Space.
Maybe the elves got fed up with the orcs raiding their shit and decided to wipe them out. Maybe the orcs got tired of not raiding enough shit and deciding to go conquering.
I don't really remember which, I think it was the second one? So anyways, almost all of the orcs died. A lot of elves died too.
The elvish war effort was aided by the invention of Guyver knock-offs and Gundam knock-offs.
Both of which were made of bugs (and maybe ghosts, IIRC).
The orcs and goblins either didn't invent anything of note, or the elves blew it all up.
It's not really important.
All that really matters is that the elves wiped out the only other significant multi-spheric civilization.
Also, almost no orcs or goblins are alive to who witnessed the Unhuman War, and they both breed extremely quickly.
So the implication is that a second Unhuman war could breakout any day now.
>>46640052
>Original D&D is even more ruleslite than BECMI (and by extension AD&D)
OD&D started out like Basic and ended up like AD&D. Basic is, more or less, the 3 core books of OD&D combined with the 1st supplement (Greyhawk). BECMI (Mentzer Basic) adds in additional material to flesh out its 5 successive sets, but the core rules come down to that. BECMI's immediate precursor (B/X, or Moldvay Basic) only has two different sets (going from levels 1 to 14, rather than BECMI's 1-36 + immortals) adds in comparatively little, and so is closer to being a cleaned up version of base-level OD&D. (The first version of Basic, Holmes Basic, only goes to level 3 and is as much an OD&D starter set as it is a real edition of Basic.)
OD&D with all the material starts to look a lot more like AD&D. Remember that the core systems of all the old school editions is pretty much the same, and they vary mostly in the number of details stacked on top (with the Basics and base-level OD&D on one end, and AD&D and OD&D with all the material on the other). This is actually pretty handy, because it makes it easy to port individual rules from one edition to another.
>>46641944
Normally I'd point folks asking about 2e to the OSR thread >>46641003 but it's just getting started and this one is already going. It's something you might want to keep an eye on in the future if you're interested in continue to delve into this stuff though.
>>46641944
Ugh. Those release dates....
15 Years
8 Years
4 Years
So I guess 6th ed in 2 years.
>>46639458
This anon is attempting to make a joke by applying 4e memes to 5e.
>>46640246
jesus christ i didn't know they got this stupid
>>46642121
I think you're cherry picking a bit here. It takes 15 years to go from OD&D through 1st edition AD&D to 2nd edition AD&D. And that time period also encompasses 3 editions of Basic. It's only 3 years between the release of OD&D and the year the 1st editions of both AD&D and Basic were released. Mind you, I'm not disagreeing that the edition turnover of new school D&D has been too quick, but A) that was sometimes the case with old school D&D as well, and B) at least some of that has to do with the fact that WotC was dissatisfied with the performance of 4e, otherwise I think it would've had at least a couple more years in it.
>>46639561
Everybody is going to have a different opinion of which edition is best, and why. For that matter, a lot depends on what exactly you're trying to do. Anyway, here's this thing. It's not perfect and is a bit dated in that it doesn't include 5e, but it's a decent starting point for trying to understand the differences between the editions.
>>46642391
And another one...
>>46639208
B/x is still better, but 2e has the best settings.
D&D Tiers
God Tier
BECMI
Rules Cyclopedia
Moldvay
Great Tier
AD&D 1e
Holmes
Good Tier
AD&D 2e
D&D 4e
Meh Tier
OD&D
5e
Lower Than Whaleshit Tier
3.x
Wannabe Lower Than Whaleshit Tier
Pathfinder
Wannabe Tier
Palladium Fantasy
Shit Naga What Are You Doing Tier
FATAL
>>46642663
This.
>>46642663
I'd actually put 5e in good tier and Palladium Fantasy in Meh tier but that's all I really disagree with.
>>46642663
>BECMI players spam meme-tier tier-charts
And folks wonder why I'm a 2e man.
>>46640477
5e is essentially the greatest hits version of D&D and tries to retain a feel of 1st and 2nd edition, while applying game mechanics learned from 3rd and 4th edition.
Most of the powers and magic come from the core classes. There's only a total of about 30 or so pages that someone ACTUALLY needs to read to run the game, and the rest of the 300 page book is characters, spells, background and fluff, races, etc.
What makes 5e the new hotness on the block is the fact that they made it incredibly easy to homebrew and laid out almost all of their notes in the DMG on how they did everything, including a LOT of variant rules to change the flavor of your D&D to what YOU want.
Example: 5e's resting mechanic. You have a short-rest and a long-rest. A short-rest takes 1 hour of game time, and you're allowed to do anything that isn't combat or casting spells during. After that, you can spend your hit die as a resource and recover HP that way, as well as recover short-rest abilities. A long-rest is your standard 8 hour-rest, and while you don't have to be asleep, you do have to spend that time doing almost nothing of importance. Just resting. But you get back ALL your HP, all of your abilities, and half of your max Hit Dice rounded up.
But the DMG offers options to flavor it. If you want a really heroic feeling campaign where the characters are like gods, you can change Short rest to 15 minutes, and Long Rest to an hour. If you want a really brutal 1e feeling game, you change Short Rest to 8 hours, and a Long Rest to a week.
There are all sorts of things in the DMG for flavoring the game how you want. In addition, it does away with a lot of fiddly bits by default and just gives you a solid game to run with.
I used to be a big Basic Edition guy, but I've been running all of my Basic Edition modules through 5e now. I don't intend to go back.
>>46642663
So, instead of playing a roleplaying game it appears you prefer to wank around with spreadsheets. Enjoy; the rest of us will actually use our brains instead of defaulting to robot mode.
>>46643014
Wut?
Seriously wut?
Have you ever even looked at Moldvay, BECMI, or the Rules Cyclopedia? Or are you just assuming "old = complicated" and humiliating yourself?
>>46639338
>long time Pathfinder
how can you be a long time player? It's only be out 6 years
>>46643314
Did there are people who think Pathfinder is a retroclone and having played 3e makes them an "old school grognard" either times really are a changin or people are fucking stupid.
>>46642408
"Has best settings" is kinda meaningless once you realize that settings are system neutral.
>>46642408
Is B/x basic d&d?
I'm not familiar with all the abbreviations for it.
>>46639458
I always thought 4E felt more like Exalted with its Charms system. Every character gets charms and some characters (namely the more spellcastery ones) get sorcery, which is a lot like charms, but channeled through will instead of through actions.
>>46643706
See >>46641944 or >>46642052. It's the second iteration of Basic, and arguably the first real edition of it (Holmes Basic only goes to 3rd level and is sort of a transitional game from OD&D, and was intended as a starter set after which you'd jump into AD&D). B/X for Basic/Expert is also referred to as Moldvay Basic or Moldvay/Cook Basic, and is comprised of two different sets... (wait for it)... Basic and Expert. The two sets combined are a grand total of 128 pages including monsters, treasures and everything. It details things up to level 14 (with some general rules for progression beyond that point), and there was intended to be at least one more set released for it, but they instead decided to start over with BECMI (with the BE part of it retreading the same ground as B/X).
Moldvay Basic is like a more concise version of Mentzer Basic (BECMI), the latter of which is divided into 9 different books totaling something like 450 pages rather than 2 books totaling the aforementioned 128. For this reason and the terrible layout of Mentzer Basic, which makes it really hard to reference, Moldvay is often preferred by grognards who tend towards the rules-light end of the D&D spectrum. It should be noted, however, that the Rules Cyclopedia is basically a single-volume, more reference friendly presentation of Mentzer Basic (covering the BECM sets, while leaving out the I, the Immortals stuff), though it's still a decent bit longer and more involved than Moldvay Basic.
>>46643925
Isn't the rules cyclopedia only longer because it also includes details on the Mystara campaign setting?
>>46639208
2e is okay. I like 1e better, but these days B/X is my go-to game if I'm playing D&D. Your best bet for these kind of questions is in the OSR General threads. This kind of thing is what they spend most of their time talking about.
>>46640477
It's shit. The only real rules are for combat, everything else is playing "mother may I" with the DM. And since it's already abandonware, the combat will get old sooner or later.
>>46644110
Not at all. It covers more levels. It has more levels of spells, a couple more classes (the rather wonky druid and mystic), weapon mastery and skills, and sections on wrestling, aerial combat, naval combat, siege warfare, mass combat and so forth. It's just a bigger, more in-depth system. It's more than twice as many pages as B/X, and I'd be willing to bet it's closer to 2 1/2 or 3x as long when it comes to word count.
>>46642663
>AD&D 1e
>Great Tier
Ehh. Well everything else is right.
>>46639208
Yeah I had a really good campaign a few years back. Some of the best D&D I've played actually.
Mechanically its kind of a mess and it just suffers from a lack of focus by modern game design principles. Like a couple anons said the OSR systems are probably better, but I mean its D&D unless you're playing 4th then balance shouldn't really matter that much.
It's like the first edition that moved to more narrative heroic type fantasy and the settings are fucking amazing.
The kits were probably the best version of prestige classes without adding whole new classes that didn't have enough of a mechanical distinction and this is the only edition where multiclassing made sense and thats saying something.
>>46642391
>2E is the edition of choice for old-school AD&D players
>it's just cleaning up
Man... every fucking time I see this, that makes me sperg out.
I found 2E, I played 2E. Someone once showed me 3.PF. I went back to 2E. I stayed there. Keep 3,4,5E. 2E is where it ends. Ultimate edition.
