The Unseen Servant forums

dmw71 wrote:I grew up playing almost 1e exclusively (with some BX and BECMI on occasion), but have discovered, after returning to D&D, that I really like (and probably prefer) 2e to 1e. The two editions feel very, very similar, but 2e feels like a cleaner, more streamlined set of rules (but I do miss half-orcs as characters).

As a player, I will gladly try any edition. As a DM, I feel there are probably too few rules in BX or BECMI, and probably too many in the d20 editions. For me, 2e and 1e, in that order, are the sweet spot in terms of a rule set to base a game upon.

crpgguy wrote:Looking back in hindsight, I don't like all the stuff 2E cut out from the previous version (psionics, etc), only to make them entire books you have to buy extra. When they were in 1E by default.

1. The surprise and initiative system,
2. Thief skill determination,
3. THAC0 instead of to-hit charts,
4. Demi-human level limits,
5. The eight specialist wizards instead of just the illusionist.

GreyWolfVT wrote:Based upon the last two replies about 2e. Do folks not remember there are tons of "splat" books in 2e that do provide Half-Orc's as a race as well as many many other races, kits, subraces, classes etc..

Zhym wrote:Part of the charm of 1e, for me, is that it's almost like having Gary Gygax's DM notes for his own campaign, with all that implies: messy organization, esoteric tables you'll probably never use, diatribes on gaming philosophy, and illustrations that aren't that far from a middle schooler's notebook drawings. In other words, 1e is chock full of history and character.

2e is superior in many ways. The mechanics are mostly similar, and 2e does clean up a lot of what's messy, contradictory, or missing in 1e. But 2e also marked when TSR went more corporate and, whether for good reason or not, pushed Gary out of the business. If 1e is like reading Gary's DM notes, 2e is like reading a particularly dry software manual. The exclusion of demons, devils, etc. that Dave mentioned is another facet of the corporatization of AD&D during the 2e era: removing those aspects because of the "D&D = devil worship" hysteria makes total sense from a business perspective but rubbed players the wrong way. And then there are all the splat books, which seemed mostly like a way to keep shoving out product (often of very low quality) that players could buy after they'd already picked up the core rule books.

That said, the players in a game are much more important than whether the rules are 1e vs. 2e. I've played in great 2e games and crummy 1e games, and the difference was the people at the table. Fun people make for fun games.

As for other editions: I really dig OD&D as a system to get going quick and not worry about rules. I only played 3.0/3.5 in the Neverwinter Nights computer game. That was fun and seemed to have some good ideas in it, including being able to choose which class to level in.

GreyWolfVT wrote:Very well then..... oddly enough even not having Half-Orc's in the core rules never stopped me and my friends from making and playing them we didn't even have the splat book for the correct information we just remembered what it was from 1e and went with that. Psionics never interested me so it was never a cause for concern to me. Same with some of those additional concerns of other folks not here like devils and angels not in the MM lol I never once had an encounter with those. The way I look at the splat books as most of us call them is that to me they are rules that they cut out of the "core" rules that they later then wanted to reincorporate into the system. To boot if all of these were in the core rules can you picture the size of the book?

GreyWolfVT wrote:Very well then..... oddly enough even not having Half-Orc's in the core rules never stopped me and my friends from making and playing them we didn't even have the splat book for the correct information we just remembered what it was from 1e and went with that.