# The difference between Ad&d 1st and 2nd edition?



## Sir Robilar

Hi there, 

I guess the thread title explains everything. I´m just curious as I began playing with AD&D 2nd edition but never knew how it differs from 1st edition AD&D. Also, would you say that 2nd edition improved the game?


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## Wik

The difference is pretty big.  One is the greatest edition of D&D ever.  The other was a complete waste, and destroyed D&D entirely.

...or something.


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## Wik

To be serious, though - 1e was a bit more "rulesy" at times, and had a bit of a dungeon-crawl focus.  It was also very much a swords and sorcery game in orientation, and had a heavy chunk of weird, gonzo "D&Disms".  

2e, on the other hand, seemed to focus more on "role-playing" in focus, essentially saying "to hell with mechanics, anyone that worries too much about mechanics is a min/maxer" and really pushed the character side of the game.  It was also more influenced by real-world history in how it was presented, and was more high fantasy than sword and sorcery.

Rules-wise, 1e had the assassin and monk classes, rangers could cast wizard spells at 10th level, and the level limits on non-human races (there was a half-orc!) were lower.  Bard was really more of a "prestige class" (you had to build into it).  2e, on the other hand, had character kits (which were hit or miss), proficiencies (skills) built into the core rules, and introduced specialist wizards and the bard core class.


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## Chainsaw

Go to dragonsfoot.org and ask as well... That board focuses on 1E/2E.


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## Aus_Snow

They're closer than one might think. . . within spitting distance, I'd say.


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## Steel_Wind

Oh - totally more akin to one another than 3rd or 4th are compared to 1/2 or to each other.

You could run a 2E module in 1st edition with virtually no changes and it would play just fine (and vice versa). The kits and powers Splat Books did change things - but they were never core and were rarely reflected in the settings material.

The thing I remember most about 2E was not the rules - it was the settings. A vast, glorious, cornucopia of settings with their own peculiar rules and sub-genre of flavor. 

Add a new player acquisition model that just BROKE in to a BILLION PIECES due to that little game called _Magic:TG_ and all it took was a little ... push. _And off the cliff the whole thing went. _

Enter Ryan Dancey and Peter Adkinson and then before you can say _Heroscape _ -  here we are.


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## awesomeocalypse

1st edition gave you lots of awesome rules for playing a cool fantasy hero who raided unspeakably deadly dungeons for a chance at treasure and glory.

2nd edition did that too, but then it told you that actually using those rules made you a bad roleplayer, and the game was ideally played without ever rolling (and lots of monty python jokes).


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## Henry

2nd edition toned down some of the more egregious parts of 1st edition introduced by Unearthed Arcana -- double weapon specialization, the cavalier and barbarian classes, and some of the more unused parts of AD&D1 -- such as (replacing) the nigh-unused psionics rules with something that worked a little better (but had its own problems), ditching the "weapon vs. ac" and grapple/pummel/wrestle rules, etc.

It had some neat parts (wizard specialization classes), and some not-so-neat parts (introducing two-weapon fighting, clerical spells, and the toned-down favored enemy bonus for the ranger was a personal dislike of mine). Quite a few gamers, such as myself and our groups, mixed parts of the two. Our own groups, for instance, used non-weapon proficiencies from 2E, but we kept the 1st edition ranger almost whole-cloth (and used the tracking rules from 2E NWPs). Man, that Ranger giant-class bonus was freakin' awesome -- getting +1 per level damage PER HIT against anything from goblins to storm giants was the hallmark of the old ranger class.

We used wizard schools, but kept the 1E artifact and relic rules, because they screamed flavor -- to be honest, there has not been a single version of artifacts that captured my imagination like the 1E artifacts -- 4E artifacts come close, but still the 1E artifacts take the cake. I highly recommend finding an acquaintance with a copy of the old 1E DMG and cajoling them into letting you borrow it -- it is like reading an 18th century explorer's travelogue cataloging a foreign land.


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## pawsplay

Sir Robilar said:


> Hi there,
> 
> I guess the thread title explains everything. I´m just curious as I began playing with AD&D 2nd edition but never knew how it differs from 1st edition AD&D.




Rules-wise, not much difference. However, they had substantually different assumptions about the standard way to run a game, different character options, and certainly different organization. 1e was basically a folio of Gary's notes, anything he wrote rules on. 2e was written in a more instructional form, and then had tons of new rules scattered among various supplements. Even Oriental Adventures and Unearthed Arcana, which certainly had their problems, were relatively self-contained in terms of 1e rules.



> Also, would you say that 2nd edition improved the game?




On the balance, yes. However, it did a bunch of things not as well, including some stuff that was actually kind of important. And I can never really forgive it for turning the original prestige class into a wimpy rogue-wizard with a guitar. The beguiler concept is okay, but it works better as a dedicated caster than as a sideline to a skill-based hybrid character whose spells compete with his own class abilities. Definitely not impressed with the loss of the assassin and the half-orc, the genericization of the greater demons and devils (most egregiously, Tiamat and Lolth turning into deities and Marilith becoming an entire species of demons). Mixed feelings on the dragon power upgrade; on the one hand, yes, that gives dragons real street cred, on the other hand, it kind of moved away from a game were 6th-12th level or so was the sweet spot for traditional swords-and-sorcery adventuring. In 2e, there was this kind of idea that a 21st level fighter might still be slaying dragons, whereas in 1e, higher level characters were trying to figure out how to survive on the outer planes, assasinating archdevils, founding empires, and dealing with millenial demiliches and nests of dracolisks.


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## Ariosto

There are many differences in detail, which can be pretty significant or pretty negligible. For instance, there is the business with Priests and Spheres. We had (chiefly as the DM's fault) a player who did not understand, and kept playing his Cleric as if he had access to (and preference for) the Druid's spells in addition to what he ought to have had.

So, we had him turn instead to the 1st ed. PHB, with its separate Cleric and Druid lists.

Since most of the players have that handbook (only the DM having 2nd. ed. books), it ended up becoming standard. 

Then, the DM wanted to look up prices for some magic items, and borrowed the 1st ed. DMG. That book is chock full of weird and wonderful stuff! When people stumbling over THAC0 was holding up the game, we turned to the tables of pre-calculated "to hit" numbers.

Those tables, by the way, have six repeating 20s before going to 21. Without that in 2nd, does a "natural" 20 always hit?

That's one of the more minor details. An AC works basically the same way! So do hit dice, levels, saving throws, movement rates, experience points and classes (although assassins and monks might be mysterious if you have only a 2nd ed. PHB, and bards are quite different). Psionics are very different in AD&D 2. The real basics are pretty much the same among Original, AD&D 1, the several Basics, and AD&D 2. 

As I recall, the biggest difference between AD&D 2 and all the rest is that XP for treasure, although mentioned as an "option", is not the standard. That, and the level limits on non-humans are higher (whereas humans are limited to 20th).

Initiative and surprise use different dice and methods (both d6 in AD&D 1), and I think so do some other things. Weapon vs. armor is different. Druids and rangers are different. Rangers get 2d8 HD at 1st, 1d8 at later levels, and get druid and magic-user spells, in AD&D 1. Druids advance more (perhaps sometimes slightly too) rapidly in 1st edition. The AD&D 2 Rogue has basically the same features as the AD&D 1 Thief, but the numbers are different.

In 1st ed., "Wizard" is the title of a _magic-user_ of level 11+. Each class has its own peculiar titles by level, so a party might be made up of a Champion, a Chevalier, a Pathfinder, a Lama, and a Warlock.

In 1st ed., elven fighter/thieves can cast spells in all sorts of armor.

Boy, I dunno. Seems one is likely to find _something_ every few pages!


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## Achan hiArusa

Changes

*Races*
The Half-orc was taken out of the corebook, but was given an entry in the Monstrous Manual I.  It was placed back in the game in the Book of Humanoids and Skills & Powers

*Classes*
Classes in 1st Edition were organized with classes and subclasses.  The classes were Cleric, Fighter, Thief, Wizard, and Monk; the subclasses were Druid (Cleric), Paladin, Ranger (Fighter), Assassin (Thief), and Illusionist (Wizard).  In 2nd Edition classes were placed in groups:  the Warrior Group (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger), the Priest Group (Cleric, Druid, and Specialty Priest), the Rogue Group (Thief, Bard), and the Wizard Group (Mage and Specialist).  Weapon and nonweapon (from DSG and WSG) proficiencies were based on group, not on individual class

*Class Changes*
*Fighter*:  Optional Weapon Specialization was made core.  Additional multiple attacks for Bows were removed.
*Paladin*:  Experience chart was changed to match Ranger.
*Ranger*:  Hit Dice changed from d8 to d10, Species enemy bonus was changed to +4 to hit with -4 to reaction checks from +1 damage/level.  Changed from being useable on every "giant class" creature to one specific enemy.  Two-weapon fighting added when in light or no armor, tracking changed to proficiency system, move silently and hide in shadows added.  Attacks per round changed to match other warriors.
*Cleric*:  Spell access altered by sphere access system.
Druid:  Spell access altered by sphere access system.  Spell access not accelerated by one level. 
*Specialty Priest*:  New class.
*Thief*:  Skill scores not fixed by level, instead the character gets a pool of points that he can spend as he likes within certain limits.
*Bard*:  No longer required fighter and thief levels, spell casting altered from druid list to wizard list.  Druid powers taken away, gain rogue skills.  Bonus languages taken away, Charm ability replaced by ability to influence moods. Suggestion ability removed.  Colleges removed.
*Wizard*:  Max HD reduced from 11 to 10
*Specialist*:  New class, replaces old illusionist.
*Monk*:  Class removed.

Arquebus, Blowgun, Mancatcher, and Whip added to weapon list, Bo stick, Jo Stick, and Broad Sword removed, Weapons vs. AC table, weapon length, and space required removed (placed as optional rule), weapon type introduced.

Proficiency system was core but optional, classes gain NWPs based on group, not class.

Climate/Terrain, Organization, Activity Cycle, Diet, Morale added.  Level/XP Value moved from DMG to Monster Manual stat block.  Habitat/Society and Ecology added to description.

Psionics instead of being a powerful add on were made the province of a class and the powers acted like proficiencies


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## Ariosto

Achan hiArusa said:
			
		

> The classes were Cleric, Fighter, Thief, Wizard, and Monk



Again, a Wizard was a high-level *Magic-user*. (It's the same class name in EPT!)

IIRC, _fireballs, lightning bolts_ and the like got capped at 10 dice in 2nd edition. (I think a cap is a good idea. I am inclined to go for 11 for 1st edition.)


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## Achan hiArusa

Yep, just missed that one, you won't catch the other one I made because I fixed it.  I forgot the big one, almost all classes had level titles that they were supposed to use instead of the class name.  And alignment languages were eliminated in 2nd Edition.


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## The Shaman

For me, the difference is that I played first edition but I never played second edition.

I'm not sure that really adds much to the discussion, I'm afraid.


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## Mircoles

Both dragons and giants were given a boost in power in comparison to their 1e equivalents.


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## john112364

For me the big difference between 1e and 2e was that 2e tried to clarify and fix the massive jumble of rules that was 1e AD&D. They stream lined a lot of rules and nerfed some (I'm looking at you ranger!). They weren't always successful but it was avery good effort. The best part was that you could use 1e rules with minimal to no modifications.

I for one didn't miss the half-orc and if anyone really wanted to play one, the 1e halforc was certainly no game breaker in a 2e game.

We house ruled the rangers favored enemy bonus to a +4 to hit and damage rather than just to hit. (I think. It's been a while.)

I liked the non weapon proficiencies because it was cool that you now had skills outside of combat, but we used to joke about how when you pick up a new nwp you could be an instant master. (Hey I just got the riding proficiency and now I can do tricks on my horse like I was born in the saddle! )

And the surpise system in 1e was such a mess that we never used it. You roll 1d6 for surprise. So far so good. But there were so many exceptions that you couldn't keep track. For instance some creature were only surprised on a 1 whereas others surprised other creatures on a 1-4. Wtf! How do you resolve that.

But the best part of 1e was definetly the DMG. This was (and still is) such a good reference book especially the appendices. There is information in this book that crosses any edition and is just plain _useful_! And who doesn't love the detailed castle building cost. It practically breaks down the cost of a keep brick by brick. I know that's level of detail that most people don't want to deal with, but it's there if you want it.


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## Ariosto

> For instance some creature were only surprised on a 1 whereas others surprised other creatures on a 1-4. Wtf! How do you resolve that.



Surprised 1-3. DMG p. 62, second example. 

(Note, however, errata in the table on that page; PHB p. 103 is correct. The next to last entry should read "monster surprised", the last entry "party surprised".)

Did 2E deprive, e.g., elves, halflings and rangers of their bonuses to surprise others, and, e.g., rangers of their bonuses not to be surprised? Otherwise, I guess there _still_ "were so many exceptions you couldn't keep track".

Good thing it isn't necessary to "keep track" of every character, monster and magic item in the game at once! All you need to know about are the ones present at the start of an encounter.



> But the best part of 1e was definetly the DMG. This was (and still is) such a good reference book especially the appendices.



I'll second that!


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## Shemeska

Steel_Wind said:


> The thing I remember most about 2E was not the rules - it was the settings. A vast, glorious, cornucopia of settings with their own peculiar rules and sub-genre of flavor.




Amen to that. I never formally played 2e, but the setting material from the period inspired me to an incredible degree and had a massive influence on my preferred playstyle to the present day.


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## Thanael

Sir Robilar said:


> Hi there,
> 
> I guess the thread title explains everything. I´m just curious as I began playing with AD&D 2nd edition but never knew how it differs from 1st edition AD&D. Also, would you say that 2nd edition improved the game?





Why not grab a used 1E PHB and a 1E DMG (plus perhaps the Unearthed Arcana) from ebay and find out for yourself? Should be available for under $ 10 for all if you're not too concerned with condition. 

That's what i did. I started with 2E too, and found the 1E DMG a very interesting read. It's a classic.


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## john112364

Ariosto said:


> Surprised 1-3. DMG p. 62, second example.
> 
> (Note, however, errata in the table on that page; PHB p. 103 is correct. The next to last entry should read "monster surprised", the last entry "party surprised".)
> 
> Did 2E deprive, e.g., elves, halflings and rangers of their bonuses to surprise others, and, e.g., rangers of their bonuses not to be surprised? Otherwise, I guess there _still_ "were so many exceptions you couldn't keep track".
> 
> Good thing it isn't necessary to "keep track" of every character, monster and magic item in the game at once! All you need to know about are the ones present at the start of an encounter.
> 
> I'll second that!




It wasn't keeping track of characters it was that not everyone used the same dice. Most used d6, but some used d8 (I can't remember if any other dice were used. The d8 just kinda stuck in my head.) And I still don't know how to figure surprise when one character is surprised only on a 1 and another surprises everyone on a 1-4 (cause they're sneaky bastards ) Maybe if I went back and reread it I may figure it out now, but it made no sense then.


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## Ariosto

john 12364 said:
			
		

> It wasn't keeping track of characters it was that not everyone used the same dice.



I'm pretty sure everyone does in the original MM, PHB and DMG. That's more than one can say for _damage_ dice in any edition except the very first, before Supplement I!

I can see how it might be a confusing way to describe the advantage! Remember, though, that the default always is a roll of 1-2 (on d6).

So, a swan is surprised only on a 1 in 10. A 1 in _anything_ is 1 less than the usual 2. An invisible stalker normally surprises on 1-5. For the swan we count 1 less chance, or 1-4, and roll d10 instead of d6.

It combines the simple and the subtle, the bigger dice meaning less chance of surprise while the numbers on the dice -- side A vs. side B -- indicate different degrees (numbers of segments) of surprise. Guys with high dexterity get themselves together sooner.

The "Advanced" in 1st ed. AD&D was no joke! The Basic sets kept a lot of things simpler.

 The 2nd ed. "core" definitely benefited in consistency from being released all at once (rather than over _three years_ of changes to systems in development). The organization is clearer, the writing more straightforward, and the editing most evidently better than that of the 1st ed. DMG!

It also simplified some game-mechanical tools, which did not necessarily retain their full original power.

(For a real brain-bender, try the initiative system in OD&D Supplement III. _Champions_ later used a similar but simpler system.)


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## slwoyach

There is very little difference in the core mechanics, not two editions of DnD are as similar to each other as 1e and 2e.  A couple of the classes were changed and a bunch of the overpowered wang from the later 1e books were dropped but that's about it.  My father swears that 2e killed dnd for him because it wasn't really dnd anymore, but I was never able to figure out what he was talking about.

The 3e and 4e games are so different that they shouldn't even be called D&D.  WotC just made their own games and slapped the name on them to take advantage of brand loyalty.  I like, play, and run 3e; but it really shouldn't be called Dungeons and Dragons.


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## PapersAndPaychecks

1e's a sword and sorcery game where the player characters are motivated by wealth.  Influences are Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, Jack Vance's Cugel stories, and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, with a touch of Conan and a dash of Elric.  Quasi-Tolkein material such as halflings and treants are thrown in as an afterthought.  Traps cause Death No Save.  Nobody in the party knows or cares if his character has a sister, but you can bet that someone has a 10ft pole.

2e's a high fantasy game where the player characters are motivated by story.  Literary influences are all heroic fantasy, and the player characters are heroes (rather than protagonists, which is what 1e thinks they are).  Several people in the party have their whole family trees mapped out, and most people can name three of the human tongues they speak (none of which are called "common"), but nobody has a 10ft pole.  Peculiar concepts like alignment languages still get lip service in the rules but everyone forgets them in play.


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## Odhanan

Wik said:


> The difference is pretty big.  One is the greatest edition of D&D ever.  The other was a complete waste, and destroyed D&D entirely.
> 
> ...or something.



A bit over the top, but you got the basic logic right.


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## billd91

Odhanan said:


> A bit over the top, but you got the basic logic right.




A totally unfair claim. 2e didn't do in TSR or D&D. Poor management of product lines did. 2e was a perfectly fine version of D&D with some much needed clean-up of rules (surprise being a primary one). Some new ideas presented didn't work out too well (priest spheres, anyone?) but were still worth trying.


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## billd91

Ariosto said:


> I can see how it might be a confusing way to describe the advantage! Remember, though, that the default always is a roll of 1-2 (on d6).
> 
> So, a swan is surprised only on a 1 in 10. A 1 in _anything_ is 1 less than the usual 2. An invisible stalker normally surprises on 1-5. For the swan we count 1 less chance, or 1-4, and roll d10 instead of d6.




I'm not sure that was the intent, and that's the problem with 1e surprise once you add non-d6 dice. And they were introduced fairly early too (G and D series brought drow and svifneblin). And let's not even talk about monks in the 1e PH.
So does the ranger's 3 in 6 to surprise a +16 2/3% chance or a -1 on any die rolled by the opposition? Is his 1 in 6 to be surprised a -16 2/3% applied to the enemy or a +1. Does the amount of bonus he gets depend on the die used by the enemy?
None of that was clear. Moving everything to d10 was a good reform of the system.


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## Ariosto

billd91 said:
			
		

> I'm not sure that was the intent



That's the intent indicated in the DMG, so unless you've got some compelling _reason_ for uncertainty, such as some other way you think it works, and why, I don't see what else there is to say.

A ranger surprises on 1-3, and is surprised only on a 1. Ranger vs. ranger, that means 1-2 on d6 (the same as normal dude vs. normal dude). A halfling in certain circumstances surprises normal dudes on 1-4 on d6, a party with a ranger on 1-3 on d6, drow on 1-3 on d8, swans on 1-3 on d10, svirfnebli on 1-3 on d12, and leprechauns never ("Their keen ears prevent them from being surprised.").

It is perfectly clear to me, and to the overwhelmingly vast majority of people I have encountered who professed to have _read_ the explanation in the first place:



			
				DMG p. 62 said:
			
		

> *Example:* Party A is surprised only on a roll of 1, but party B surprises on 5 in 6 (d6, 1-5) due to its nature or the particular set of circumstances which the DM has noted are applicable to this encounter. The favorable factor normally accruing to party A is 1, i.e., parties of this sort are normally surprised on 1 or 2, but this party is surprised only on a 1 -- therefore they have an additional 1 in 6 to their favor (and _not_ a 50% better chance). Party B will surprise them on 5 in 6 less 1 in 6, or 4 in 6. Assume A rolls a 4, so it is surprised for 4 segments unless B rolls a 1, in which case A party's inactive period will be only 3 segments, or if B rolls a 2, in which case surprise will last for only 2 segments (4-1=3, 4-2=2).


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## Reynard

PapersAndPaychecks said:


> 1e's a sword and sorcery game where the player characters are motivated by wealth.  Influences are Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, Jack Vance's Cugel stories, and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, with a touch of Conan and a dash of Elric.  Quasi-Tolkein material such as halflings and treants are thrown in as an afterthought.  Traps cause Death No Save.  Nobody in the party knows or cares if his character has a sister, but you can bet that someone has a 10ft pole.
> 
> 2e's a high fantasy game where the player characters are motivated by story.  Literary influences are all heroic fantasy, and the player characters are heroes (rather than protagonists, which is what 1e thinks they are).  Several people in the party have their whole family trees mapped out, and most people can name three of the human tongues they speak (none of which are called "common"), but nobody has a 10ft pole.  Peculiar concepts like alignment languages still get lip service in the rules but everyone forgets them in play.






> You must spread some experience points around before giving it to Papers and Paychecks again.




I concur.


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## Henry

I can concur with some of Papersand Paychecks' summary, in as much as the prevailing thought at the time AD&D1 was the main game in print. Lew Pulsipher's article "Be Aware, Take Care" in Dungeon Magazine (one of my favorite articles of all time) might as well have ben entitled "dirty tricks for mercenaries", because that was the gist of the article. It had very sound tactical advice, very sound strategies that work well if the "Game" aspect is emphasized. In fact, the article points out (paraphrasing here) that:

_"Some people say that heroes like Conan don't make all sorts of careful provisions, etc. However, D&D characters aren't like Conan: You're those other guys."_ 

It goes on to say that novel characters could be understood or said to be making these preparations off-stage, so to speak, but the stories don't show them doing such.

2E's rulebook prose does seem to focus more on the heroic aspects than the "boring" aspects. Gygax would approve of a table breaking down the costs piece by piece of building a castle; Zeb Cook and the other TSR writers of the time didn't find a need for such in the DMG2.
_
"Hey, how much to add a muder hole in my Barbican?"_


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## El Mahdi

deleted


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## Votan

Sir Robilar said:


> Hi there,
> 
> I guess the thread title explains everything. I´m just curious as I began playing with AD&D 2nd edition but never knew how it differs from 1st edition AD&D. Also, would you say that 2nd edition improved the game?




If you focus on just the original rule books, 1E was Gary Gygax collecting a lot of house-rules for OD&D and placing them into a single place.  It's more brilliant because he included everything (also has more weaker material).  In my opinion of how to play 1E, the trick is to take what you like and ignore what you do not (boot hill rules may not be for everyone, 100 types of polearms was likely overkill).  Balance seemed based on the idea that characters progress slowly and mortality among adventurers is very high.  

This began the tradition of every table doing the game slightly different -- a fun phenomenon that I saw a lot of in the late 80's.  

In 2E they tried to make a more systematic game.  It takes a lot less vetting to work and incorporates some of the good ideas of later 1E.  It was also deliberating designed with 1E to work with so many rough patches are fixed.  It removes a lot of the fun advice and general game philosophy of the 1E DMG (although some comes back in splatbooks).  

It had different issues, in the end.  I disliked the art of the 2.5E PHB with an undying passion which likely biases me somewhat and I found the sphere approach with clerics needlessly complicated (little did I know).  But a lot of material was added to the PHB to make it less necessary for everyone to own a DMG.  

I liked both, a lot.


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## bagger245

Damn this thread makes me want to run 2e again. My favourite and first love. I like 2e's playstyle alot.


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## Ariosto

Thank you for your feedback, El Mahdi. The circumstances of my birth gave me a brain not well wired for seeing such things just as most people do. Learning to anticipate such views, to think in ways strange to me, is an endless process of discovery.

Why did you not object to the _other fellow's_ taking issue with _my_ "personal opinion" in the first place? How about his vague citing of the designer's "intent", his _implication_ that I was wrong because "none of that was clear" -- a claim for which he offered no support at all?

How did _you_, yourself, infer the implication that the other fellow had not read the text in question? Was it not that you agreed that such a weight of evidence would indeed, by common sense, suggest that conclusion?

Otherwise, I see no logic at all to your attribution of _your_ thoughts and words to me!

Would it be "derogatory" of someone's contrary "opinion" to observe that in my experience the overwhelmingly vast majority of people who professed to have _read_ Enworld's advertisement agree that it indicates a community supporter subscription is only $3.00 per month? 

Would it be too much to expect that a claim of "uncertainty" as to whether the proprietor's intent was as advertised might reasonably be supported with some evidence, some indication as to _why_ one might have such doubt -- perhaps with some indication as to what the claimant believed to be the actual case?

An _unsupported_ suggestion of some _unspecified_ other intent, raised as an objection to my post, adds _what_ to the conversation, apart from contentiousness for its own sake?

Is such a claim really a personal opinion? Or is it a claim as to _fact_, an "opinion" of the sort meaningfully distinguished as _informed_ or not?


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## Ariosto

Votan said:
			
		

> If you focus on just the original rule books, 1E was Gary Gygax collecting a lot of house-rules for OD&D and placing them into a single place.



Yes, indeed!



> In 2E they tried to make a more systematic game.



I get that impression as well -- more systematic in terms of parts, but still very modular in the bigger scheme, not the large-scale integration of a WotC system -- but also that in practice it was more "designed by committee". I think that had consequences in terms of what happened when one set the game-mechanical gears into motion. It certainly did not impart the sense of a distinctive personal vision and authorial voice that 1st ed. AD&D had.

First Edition was very much "Gary's game", for better _and_ worse. Second Edition was "TSR's game".

I recall Mr. Cook having written that he saw 2E mainly as a _compliment to_ the 1st ed. books, and that is to my mind how it shines most brightly. In that way, it _adds to_ the game without subtracting!

If one is coming at it from the perspective of the imagined situation coming first, then more ideas -- more tools in the toolbox -- for how to translate that into a mechanical abstraction can be handy to have.

Sometimes a 2E treatment of, say, initiative might hit the spot. Sometimes a 1E approach might seem more suitable.


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## Odhanan

billd91 said:


> A totally unfair claim. 2e didn't do in TSR or D&D.



That "AD&D2 killed D&D"? Depends on who you ask, I think. For some people, in terms of feel, AD&D2, its settings, modules, further treatment down the road, have little in common with what pre-UA AD&D is. For some of these people, AD&D2 in effect "killed" the official game for them.

For others, AD&D2 is the best thing that happened since sliced bread.

It's a matter of personal preferences. AD&D2 is a fine game system in and of itself, and I'd have fun playing it. It is, however, to me, personally, the next-to-last iteration of the game I would choose to play D&D (4e being dead last). Pre-UA First Edition would be one of the first iterations (with OD&D 1974) I would look at. 

It's not a debatable question, really. It's what I, me, myself, personally prefer, and I concur. 

YMMV.


----------



## Remathilis

I can't add a whole lot more to the list of changes, but I can say this.

2e fixes a lot of problems (like initiative) and breaks a lot of others (druid spell access in the core is waaaayy messed up, as the spheres system sometimes gives the wrong spells to the wrong class, like druids getting detect evil and clerics getting reincarnate). It also doesn't slaughter enough cows (like exceptional strength). Its beauty is that is is very compatible with Basic and 1e, making it a GREAT vehicle to run modules of either stripe in it.

While I don't run AD&D anymore, I'd probably run 2e over 1e because I grew up in 2e and if I'm choosy about my supplements (which I am) there is nothing in 1e I can't replace (monk, assassin, half-orc, demons, devils, ect).


----------



## MerricB

Ariosto said:


> I'm pretty sure everyone does in the original MM, PHB and DMG. That's more than one can say for _damage_ dice in any edition except the very first, before Supplement I!





If only that were true. The monk has a _percentage_ chance of being surprised - say 30% for a 3rd level monk - which doesn't integrate with the surprise system at all!

(Interpreted one way, if the poor monk rolls a 30 on the dice, does that mean he's surprised for 30 segments? )

Cheers!


----------



## billd91

Ariosto said:


> That's the intent indicated in the DMG, so unless you've got some compelling _reason_ for uncertainty, such as some other way you think it works, and why, I don't see what else there is to say.
> 
> A ranger surprises on 1-3, and is surprised only on a 1. Ranger vs. ranger, that means 1-2 on d6 (the same as normal dude vs. normal dude). A halfling in certain circumstances surprises normal dudes on 1-4 on d6, a party with a ranger on 1-3 on d6, drow on 1-3 on d8, swans on 1-3 on d10, svirfnebli on 1-3 on d12, and leprechauns never ("Their keen ears prevent them from being surprised.").
> 
> It is perfectly clear to me, and to the overwhelmingly vast majority of people I have encountered who professed to have _read_ the explanation in the first place:
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by DMG p. 62
> Example: Party A is surprised only on a roll of 1, but party B surprises on 5 in 6 (d6, 1-5) due to its nature or the particular set of circumstances which the DM has noted are applicable to this encounter. The favorable factor normally accruing to party A is 1, i.e., parties of this sort are normally surprised on 1 or 2, but this party is surprised only on a 1 -- therefore they have an additional 1 in 6 to their favor (and not a 50% better chance). Party B will surprise them on 5 in 6 less 1 in 6, or 4 in 6. Assume A rolls a 4, so it is surprised for 4 segments unless B rolls a 1, in which case A party's inactive period will be only 3 segments, or if B rolls a 2, in which case surprise will last for only 2 segments (4-1=3, 4-2=2).
Click to expand...



That's *one* way to interpret it.
But when you look at the instructions about Party B surprising party A on 5 in 6 less 1 in 6 and translate that to other dice, it's not that clear. It's easy to see that, compared to the normal 2 in 6 of being surprised, that party A's 1 in 6 better at avoiding the surprise. But then, the dice size is the same.
If group C was surprised 1 in 8, party B's 5 in 6 reduces to what? If 2 in 6 is normal, what do we subtract from the 5 in 6 to arrive at the new surprise value?
You interpret it in the other direction. 5 in 6 is 3 in 6 better than the base assumption so you're saying they surprise Party C by adding 3 in 8 to get 4 in 8. At least that's what I'm interpreting from your post. You just concern yourself with the numerators.
But the operations, as described by the DMG, can't be followed without doing a significantly different calculation. I can't reduce 5 in 6 by the difference between normal and 1 in 8 without putting them in the same terms and changing the die. I can take the common denominator approach and see that Party B's 20 in 24 is reduced by 5 in 24 (normal's 8 in 24 - Party C's 3 in 24) to 15/24 or 5 in 8. Notice how that's a different outcome from your interpretation at 4 in 8.

The difference in our interpretations gets even weirder with the monk whose surprise die is d%. Party B's massive 5 in 6 surprise advantage becomes virtually worthless against monks. A 3rd level monk is surprised 30% of the time. 30 in 100. Are you really suggesting adding just 3 to that and turning a surprise percentage that's normally 50% higher into merely 3% higher simply because the enemies are 3rd level monks? 

This is why 1e surprise was such a mess.


----------



## billd91

Ariosto said:


> Sometimes a 2E treatment of, say, initiative might hit the spot. Sometimes a 1E approach might seem more suitable.




Indeed. This is why my D&D of choice after PF/3.5 is an amalgam of 1e and 2e. They're highly compatible and the spots where 2e is decidedly weaker than 1e (rangers specifically come to mind) is easily fixed by promotion of the 1e version.


----------



## Ariosto

MerricB said:
			
		

> The monk has a _percentage_ chance of being surprised - say 30% for a 3rd level monk - which doesn't integrate with the surprise system at all!




Holy monastic aesthetics, Batman! If it were going down by a constant 3.33% per level, then one could roll a d10 for confirmation (say, 3.33% surprise at 10th+, instead of 2% at 17th).

The original (Supplement II) rule had them 1 in 6 at 3rd, 1 in 8 at 5th, and only 1 in 10 at 7th and above. ("Note, however, that extremely silent creatures will double surprise possibilities, i.e., halflings, thieves, bugbears, and undead double possibilities.")

This is one of those cases in which the advantages in development of the 2nd edition show, I think. I expect that advances in availability of computers and programs for word processing and version control also contributed, but that the basic _organization_ of the project has its "proof in the pudding".

Who edited the AD&D books? Mike Carr? Was there even an actual _developer_ at all? Did TSR even use the services of a professional _copy editor_?


----------



## Ariosto

billd91 said:
			
		

> That's *one* way to interpret it.



Fine. What is *another* way? Let's see ...



> But the operations, as described by the DMG, can't be followed without doing a significantly different calculation.



I disagree. A significantly different calculation is _not_ following those operations. That is, quite simply, what makes it _different_ in the first place!



> I can't reduce 5 in 6 by the difference between normal and 1 in 8 without putting them in the same terms and changing the die.



Whatever this may mean, I am pretty sure it's at odds with:

The favorable factor normally accruing to party A is 1, i.e., parties of this sort are normally surprised on 1 or 2, but this party is surprised only on a 1 -- therefore they have an additional 1 in 6 to their favor (and _not_ a 50% better chance).

It looks as if you propose


> I can take the common denominator approach and see that Party B's 20 in 24 is reduced by 5 in 24 (normal's 8 in 24 - Party C's 3 in 24) to 15/24 or 5 in 8. Notice how that's a different outcome from your interpretation at 4 in 8.



Notice how that's an entirely different process than what is actually printed in the DMG.

What are you doing here? 1/8 divided by 1/3 would be 3/8, and that multiplied by 5/6 would be 15/48, or 5/16. Is that what you really meant to do?

Notice how that directly contradicts the very explicit and emphasized statement that the factor of 1 less than 2 is what applies, *"not a 50% better chance"*.

If, instead of a goof in maths, you've got something even more convoluted going on, then it's only so much further removed from the text.

I am sure the 2E version is even harder to misconstrue. However, someone determined to go through such acrobatics of inserting a multiplication problem pulled out of thin air _in direct contradiction of a warning not to do so_ can probably manage to confuse himself no matter what.



> Are you really suggesting adding just 3 to that ...



No. I am suggesting the same thing as MerricB: that the monk's surprise chance "doesn't integrate with the surprise system at all".

That's no critique of the surprise system. It's a critique of the new monk class -- and, more generally, of the haphazard development and editing that did not catch and tie up (or snip off) that loose end. Just what Gary meant to do with it (and probably thought he had, somewhere in those thousands of manuscript pages), I don't know. It is certainly not the only thing that "slipped through the cracks", and (as far as I know) never got corrected.

I have said _repeatedly_ that I appreciate the clarity and organization of the second edition! Being more like that is one of the fine qualities of OSRIC.


----------



## MerricB

Ariosto said:


> Who edited the AD&D books? Mike Carr? Was there even an actual _developer_ at all? Did TSR even use the services of a professional _copy editor_?




No idea. 

That there was a rules editor is known: that person edited out the rule in the PHB that the first 10' of falling was 1d6 damage, the second 10' was 2d6, etc. So, a 20' fall was 3d6 damage and a 30' fall was 6d6 damage, etc. This led to an inconsistency with Unearthed Arcana and the thief-acrobat...

It's probably worth noting that for the AD&D project, Gary was working much more as a developer than a designer. The bulk of the design work was in original D&D + supplements + magazine articles; his role was putting it all together into a coherent system. Unfortunately, he worked on the books one at a time, and the system was in flux the entire time: no AC 10 in the Monster Manual, the monk having a thief's to-hit chances in the PHB and then a cleric's in the DMG...

Of course, Gary's judgement as a developer wasn't the best: he'd include rules (such as the weapon vs armour rules) because his friends wanted them, not because they added anything to the game.

These days, when I look at the 1e DMG, I see a rushed product. I see something that needed more attention before it was released - and someone who could stand up to Gary and say "these initiative rules make no sense" (and realise that they didn't). The DMG shows too many signs of "let's gather all the bits and pieces from Chainmail, OD&D and Supplements and edit them together" rather than the redesign the game deserved.

The game got that when Tom Moldvay and David "Zeb" Cook did their edition of the Basic and Expert game: finally, an elegant version of D&D with the tortured mechanics stripped out and replaced by something that worked. David Cook got the same chance to do the same thing to AD&D when 2nd edition came along, and he did so: the resulting set of rules is far more clear and elegant than AD&D.

Unfortunately - and in my opinion - the clarification of the rules came at the expense of some quirkiness that we would miss. Yes, the division of the Wizard spells into schools is elegant, and allows a lot of easy specialists to be made, but you lost the fascination of the original Illusionist class. Likewise with the Druid.

Cheers!


----------



## Nebulous

2e gets a lot of flack, but we really enjoyed it. Sure, lots of the splatbooks were of iffy quality, but at the time i wasn't really aware of that as it was the only game i played except for the occasional venture into Gamma World, Star Frontiers and Runequest (and D&D was better than all of those combined). I guess the settings were the standout element of 2e, they had such rich diversity, and back then the Forgotten Realms was new and exciting.  I have very fond memories of 2e. Oh! And at the time, the Forgotten Realms Atlas on CD, and the Dragon Magazine archive on CD were the coolest things since sliced bread.


----------



## TerraDave

Why, I am working on something related…(see sig)…

First, AD&D was NOT Gygax’s house rules. If only we could be so lucky. It was very much a compilation of many people’s house rules, or at least things that they had been playing with, and sought to tone down the excesses of OD&D (see a pattern here?). Some of the complicated bits were OD&D legacy material, some were foisted on Gygax by others in TSR as part of the very strong trend at the time to add detail and realism. Note that Unearthed Arcana probably came closer to house rule territory, but we will never really know how many of those rules Gygax actually used in play. 

Ok, Second edition, or I should say the core books for 2E. The issue with this version is that it many different goals:

-Be backwards compatible,

-Bring the game closer to how people played it (ie, leave out the complicated stuff they were ignoring),

-Bring in more player options without the gonzoness of Unearthed Arcana

-Make monsters challenging over a wider range of levels

-Tone down the elements that led people to link the game to Satanism

-Make the game more generic to support different campaign settings and campaigns. 

-This included FR high fantasy, DL story telling, and even historically oriented campaigns, which TSR would try to support. 

-Do a total rewrite to remove Gygax’s name from the game (note, this was also part of a pattern, see Dave Arneson). 

Most—though not all—were worthy goals. The result was a mostly cleaner playing game that you could use with all sorts of stuff out there that felt like it was written by committee and totally lacked the edge of OAD&D. 

Many posters above have also touched on the schizophrenic nature of the game. That is, all the mechanics where there for blasting arch-fiends with your staff of wizardry and taking their stuff, but the game at points was written as if this was a bad thing.  This was part of pattern of trying to use moral suasion to address deep issues in the game and, dare I say it, game balance, that actually went back to early 80’s 1E and post Gygax Dragon. "Monty Haul" was to be avoided at all cost. It was more about the world, the story, and having an interesting, if not really good, character. Or at least that’s what they said. Play was something else.


----------



## Remathilis

To piggyback Merric's thought.

AD&D really does assume you know how to play it before you crack the rulebooks. You either learned by watching others, playing Basic, or both before you EVER cracked the AD&D tomes. The result made AD&D's "stream of conscious" layout a mess for looking things up; the encumbrance/movement rules are haphazardly spread through the PHB and DMG, M-U spell acquisition is lost in the magic, scroll, and intelligence sections. Initiative is a mess and appears more like an optional add on than a well-rounded system, and until I read it in OSRIC I never knew what a casting time of "one segment" counted as!

2e at least streamlines some things that needed it; initiative/surprise, casting times/weapon speeds, making the ranger and bard behave like normal classes, etc. I really do wish they'd finish the job; but we got what we got.


----------



## PapersAndPaychecks

TerraDave said:


> Many posters above have also touched on the schizophrenic nature of the game. That is, all the mechanics where there for blasting arch-fiends with your staff of wizardry and taking their stuff, but the game at points was written as if this was a bad thing.  This was part of pattern of trying to use moral suasion to address deep issues in the game and, dare I say it, game balance, that actually went back to early 80’s 1E and post Gygax Dragon. "Monty Haul" was to be avoided at all cost. It was more about the world, the story, and having an interesting, if not really good, character.




Yes, this.

1e adventures are organised into dungeon maps, encounter keys, and wandering monster rosters.  They have fiendish puzzles designed to test the player's intelligence (and not the character's intelligence score).  Monsters are thrown in according to the challenge they present to incoming player characters, regardless of the likelihood that so many large carnivores so close to each other would turn into one carnivore and a pile of bones within a week or so.  In 1e, it's perfectly normal to go through entire series of modules without ever meeting anything you're supposed to talk to.

2e adventures are organised into chapters, and they included subheadings like "If the party loses the fight..." followed by various agonised suggestions about how to force the adventure back onto its predetermined track if the three orcs somehow manage to defeat the party of 6th level characters.  (1e does not have such sections.  If the party loses the fight, then the DM grins evilly as he collects the character sheets and then crushes them beneath his sandalled feet, and hears the lamentation of their henchmen.)  In 2e, monsters are placed according to their newly-added ecology sections in the Monstrous Manual, they live in smaller dungeons with fresh water and adequate toilet facilities, and they aren't allowed to use traps unless the player character gets a saving throw at +4.  (Otherwise someone might fail and kill someone's precious character, which means the module author has to write a subheading called "If the trap kills anyone....")


----------



## Ariosto

Remathilis said:
			
		

> AD&D really does assume you know how to play it before you crack the rulebooks.



At least in the 1st edition, that is a pretty big factor, I think. It's _not_ what Gygax suggested in the first sentences of the Introduction in the PHB, but if memory serves he saw and regretted it later.

Some people have said that they didn't fully "get" some aspects of D&D until they came across the "little brown books", or _Best of The Dragon_.

Heck, I don't know what the official 1E AD&D frequency is for a periodic check for wandering monsters in the dungeons. There's Table I in Appendix A, but I am pretty sure that was still meant only for the solitaire game. (It might be interesting, though, to try in play reverse-engineering the other entries into 1/20 encounter chances.)

In OD&D, there's a 1/6 chance per turn (average one encounter per game-hour). If that's in the DMG, then I don't know where. The thing is, I had for _years_ no reason even to ask the question! I already knew all about dungeon expeditions.

I think part of the problem was how messy the DMG was, and even just Gygax's prose style. Relatively easy-to-follow adventure scenarios could easily trump the book as pedagogy in how to run the game.


----------



## Remathilis

PapersAndPaychecks said:


> Yes, this.
> 
> 1e adventures are organised into dungeon maps, encounter keys, and wandering monster rosters.  They have fiendish puzzles designed to test the player's intelligence (and not the character's intelligence score).  Monsters are thrown in according to the challenge they present to incoming player characters, regardless of the likelihood that so many large carnivores so close to each other would turn into one carnivore and a pile of bones within a week or so.  In 1e, it's perfectly normal to go through entire series of modules without ever meeting anything you're supposed to talk to.
> 
> 2e adventures are organized into chapters, and they included subheadings like "If the party loses the fight..." followed by various agonised suggestions about how to force the adventure back onto its predetermined track if the three orcs somehow manage to defeat the party of 6th level characters.  (1e does not have such sections.  If the party loses the fight, then the DM grins evilly as he collects the character sheets and then crushes them beneath his sandalled feet, and hears the lamentation of their henchmen.)  In 2e, monsters are placed according to their newly-added ecology sections in the Monstrous Manual, they live in smaller dungeons with fresh water and adequate toilet facilities, and they aren't allowed to use traps unless the player character gets a saving throw at +4.  (Otherwise someone might fail and kill someone's precious character, which means the module author has to write a subheading called "If the trap kills anyone....")




Waitasecond...

Sure, there were some terrible 2e railroads, but there were some GREAT 2e modules that don't run on the rails. The Shattered Circle. Dead Gods. 

Also, I crushed more than my fair share of 2e PCs under my foot, esp for doing stupid things and failing those trap rolls. What your discussing isn't 1e/2e mentality, its narrative vs. rat-bastard DM play.

In fact, what your describing as "2e" mentality can be found in nearly every edition (I saw it quite a bit in Basic, and it persists into 3e, 4e, and yes even 1e; Dragonlance was a 1e product). I realize you have a vested interest in promoting 1e, but to think all 2e modules were railroads armed with nerf-guns is a vastly inaccurate representation.


----------



## WanderingMonster

The difference is 1 editon.  

Showing my work:

2e-1e=1e


----------



## pemerton

Remathilis said:


> Sure, there were some terrible 2e railroads, but there were some GREAT 2e modules that don't run on the rails. The Shattered Circle. Dead Gods.



Is _Dead Gods_ the Planescape module where Orcus comes back to life, and it starts with the PCs going off on an apparently unrelated adventure (maybe with Ratatosks?) and getting sucked into the Orcus plotline?

If so, then I've got it, read it but never tried to run it because it looked to me exactly like a railroad.

But I agree that 3e can have the same problem - I've got Return to the Demonweb Pits but never tried to run it for the same reason. There's no way my players would have their PCs just jump through a portal, or follow the directions of Rule-of-Three on nothing but his own say-so.

Given that RtDP was meant to have a "back to Planescape" vibe, I've always assumed that this railroady flavour was endemic to Planescape . . . but having been put off by this flavour, I've not explored Planescape further.


----------



## TarionzCousin

Votan said:


> 100 types of polearms was likely overkill.



Yeah. All you needed was the pike. It was superior in every way!


----------



## Ariosto

> Yeah. All you needed was the pike. It was superior in every way!



In 1st edition, a halberd does more damage vs. all sizes of foes and gets a better chance to hit versus all armor classes.

The pike allows tighter files and reaching past more ranks, for more sharp ends per unit of frontage. The advantage of its length in a charge is a disadvantage when weapon speed factor is telling.

Other polearms are good for dismounting riders or disarming opponents -- the ranseur filling both those needs -- or doing  more damage when set to receive a charge (the spear shining here).

The lance factors help make cavalry charges impressive, to say the least. A heavy lancer hits a size L creature for 6-36 points, usually enough to fell an ogre.


----------



## Remathilis

pemerton said:


> Is _Dead Gods_ the Planescape module where Orcus comes back to life, and it starts with the PCs going off on an apparently unrelated adventure (maybe with Ratatosks?) and getting sucked into the Orcus plotline?
> 
> If so, then I've got it, read it but never tried to run it because it looked to me exactly like a railroad.
> 
> But I agree that 3e can have the same problem - I've got Return to the Demonweb Pits but never tried to run it for the same reason. There's no way my players would have their PCs just jump through a portal, or follow the directions of Rule-of-Three on nothing but his own say-so.
> 
> Given that RtDP was meant to have a "back to Planescape" vibe, I've always assumed that this railroady flavour was endemic to Planescape . . . but having been put off by this flavour, I've not explored Planescape further.




Dead Gods is only a railroad if you run every part of it back-to-back. It, like the Great Modron March, was supposed to be divided up into chunks and run intermixed with other adventures. Perhaps one week you run a scenario from DG, next the PCs go do something else, and a few sessions later, the DG plot advances. Its overly railroady when read, but when played it feels more sandbox-y (though not a true sandbox in any sense of the word) and natural. 

Still PlaneScape was well known for its railroads (possibly surpassing all but the Realms and Dragonlance, though Ravenloft did have a few gems). It was a by-product of introducing narrative into modules; good for reading, not always so good for game. Still, when you consider that Against the Giants begins with you being sent to stop the hill giants on penalty of death(!) from the town you came from; things weren't all that better back then either.


----------



## pemerton

Remathilis, that's fair enough. I have run G1-3, but must confess I ignored the whole "threat of death" thing and drew on existing PC motivations (it has to be said, a two-handed sword wielding Dwarf Fighter with a two-handed sword wielding Ranger henchwoman didn't need _that_ much prodding to be motivated to go and kill some giants).


----------



## Raven Crowking

PapersAndPaychecks said:


> 2e adventures are organised into chapters, and they included subheadings like "If the party loses the fight..." followed by various agonised suggestions about how to force the adventure back onto its predetermined track if the three orcs somehow manage to defeat the party of 6th level characters.  (1e does not have such sections.  If the party loses the fight, then the DM grins evilly as he collects the character sheets and then crushes them beneath his sandalled feet, and hears the lamentation of their henchmen.)  In 2e, monsters are placed according to their newly-added ecology sections in the Monstrous Manual, they live in smaller dungeons with fresh water and adequate toilet facilities, and they aren't allowed to use traps unless the player character gets a saving throw at +4.  (Otherwise someone might fail and kill someone's precious character, which means the module author has to write a subheading called "If the trap kills anyone....")





Agreed.

We can only be thankful that this philosophy died out with 2e.  


RC


----------



## David Howery

and of course, the most famous difference between 1E and 2E was:

the 1E DMG had a Random Prostitute table.

the 2E DMG did not.

This outrage was never rectified, and doubtless was the cause of TSR's eventual crash and fall into bankruptcy...


----------



## Raven Crowking

David Howery said:


> and of course, the most famous difference between 1E and 2E was:
> 
> the 1E DMG had a Random Prostitute table.
> 
> the 2E DMG did not.
> 
> This outrage was never rectified, and doubtless was the cause of TSR's eventual crash and fall into bankruptcy...




Agreed.

We can only be thankful that this philosophy died out with 2e.  


RC


----------



## JohnRTroy

When it comes to the rote mechanics, I agree with what most posters say.  AD&D 1e did not feel like a good "let's learn this game".  As much as I loved Gary and still love his writing, I don't think he could ever do a very good job of making an easy-to-learn rule set.  D&D benefited greatly from the basic sets.  (DJ is almost like 1e in that regard, LA is the best so far but I still think it could benefit from a second party;s hand).

As far as philosophy of the game (such as game play styles, etc.) goes, it really isn't fair to measure 1st and 2nd edition by themselves.  We are seeing a gradual evolution of the game system, and that comes from both expectations of the growing player base as well as the influence of other designers.  I think arguments about it becoming more about "story" and less about "randomness", because if you look at the modules of the time, there was a lot of change of style and experiments.

Monster Ecology--heck, that was starting in Dragon, and Gary started doing more of that.  Read WG4 to see how he adds some ecology to rather sketchy monsters in the FF?  And EGG went with the boxed text paradigm.

Stories and Chapters--read some of the pre-Dragonlance Hickman modules.  I3-5 is a great mix of both Randomness and tricky traps along with a lot more story driven stuff.

I think the hard division into camps between 1e and 2e ignore these gradual changes and the fact that there are many players who were okay with some changes and not the rest.  I refuse to use the terms "golden age" or "silver age" because I don't think there's a good line to measure.  I also fear the "scrappy doo" effect, where enough of a vocal group complaining about a change in the past end up transforming actual historical fact.  (If people hated Scrappy Doo they would have written him out of the damn show pretty quickly).  I think a few elements like Ed Greenwood and Unearthed Arcana suffer from the Scrappy Doo analysis.

Finally, a cute aside.  The 1e Harlot Table--I am embarrassed to say for the first few years of my life I never looked up the word so I thought these guys were some sort of royal attendants or professions.  (The word hooker or prostitute was not used, and terms like pimp weren't as saturated in the language back in the early 80s).


----------



## MerricB

JohnRTroy said:


> When it comes to the rote mechanics, I agree with what most posters say.  AD&D 1e did not feel like a good "let's learn this game".  As much as I loved Gary and still love his writing, I don't think he could ever do a very good job of making an easy-to-learn rule set.  D&D benefited greatly from the basic sets.  (DJ is almost like 1e in that regard, LA is the best so far but I still think it could benefit from a second party;s hand).




"So far"? Are we expecting a new Gygax RPG? 

Cheers!


----------



## JohnRTroy

MerricB said:


> "So far"? Are we expecting a new Gygax RPG?
> 
> Cheers!




Oh, no, I didn't mean to imply a new game!  (There are some unpublished games but I believe he was reworking them to use LA as a base).  I meant so far as based on the entire publishing history of Gygax.  

(If there ever is another printing of LA in the near or far there's always the possibility of a co-writer re-organizing the rules, etc, just like somebody could perhaps publish AD&D 1e by taking the rules as a base and re-organizing them).

Although I WISH Gary was still alive.


----------



## MerricB

JohnRTroy said:


> Oh, no, I didn't mean to imply a new game!  (There are some unpublished games but I believe he was reworking them to use LA as a base).  I meant so far as based on the entire publishing history of Gygax.
> 
> (If there ever is another printing of LA in the near or far there's always the possibility of a co-writer re-organizing the rules, etc, just like somebody could perhaps publish AD&D 1e by taking the rules as a base and re-organizing them).
> 
> Although I WISH Gary was still alive.




You and me both.

As a grammatical point, you could delete the "so far" and it'd be a lot more accurate. 



> As far as philosophy of the game (such as game play styles, etc.) goes, it really isn't fair to measure 1st and 2nd edition by themselves.




Very, very true. The game of D&D has always been changing. 

Cheers!


----------



## Weiley31

Thanael said:


> Why not grab a used 1E PHB and a 1E DMG (plus perhaps the Unearthed Arcana) from ebay and find out for yourself? Should be available for under $ 10 for all if you're not too concerned with condition.
> 
> That's what i did. I started with 2E too, and found the 1E DMG a very interesting read. It's a classic.



You can also get _For Gold and Glory_ as well incase Ebay doesn't help out too much or what not. It's pretty much 2E, a retroclone though, and I've heard its pretty much verbatim/closest to actual DND 2E. Even combines the DMG and MM of 2E with it.









						For Gold & Glory - God Emperor Games | DriveThruRPG.com
					

For Gold & Glory - Within these pages lie the keys to open worlds of wonder and adventure! Whether you are exploring dank dungeons, forging




					www.drivethrurpg.com
				



The PDF is free. So with this+whatever other 2E books you want (I suggest a number of the Leatherette+Historical Reference books+the actual 2E MM) and your pretty much good to go on anything 2E related/running it.


----------



## aramis erak

pawsplay said:


> And I can never really forgive it for turning the original prestige class into a wimpy rogue-wizard with a guitar. The beguiler concept is okay, but it works better as a dedicated caster than as a sideline to a skill-based hybrid character whose spells compete with his own class abilities.



The first two Bard concepts (both in TSR's magazines) were not prestige classes; Gary apparently didn't like them, but knew the fans did, so nerfed the one he chose by making it a prestige class...

I much prefer the 2E Bard, even though it's a walk away from both OE versions and the AD&D 1E version, and from both the Jonngleur and Minstrel, and totally not based upon the historic Celtic Bards...


----------



## aramis erak

For me, the question of the differences is that there are several subeditions...
AD&D1E pre-UA
AD&D1E w/UA
AD&D1E w/UA and OA/WSG/DSG (adding NWPs)
AD&D2E no supps
AD&D2E with the class splats (PHBR series)
AD&D2E using PO:S&P & PO:C&T... feels like different edition entirely - 12 attributes, point building, customized classes, NWPs, a combat system that looks like the precursor to 3E...

Each has a different feel when the GM isn't ignoring the rules.

And, to be honest, when I tried going back to AD&D2E, I no longer enjoyed it. 
But I hhave since used Cyclopedia + Gazetteers + PC-series... and did enjoy it. Switching to 3E was a mistake in that campaign.


----------



## Weiley31

aramis erak said:


> AD&D2E with the class splats (PHBR series)



This is pretty much gonna be the path for me when I eventually get around to attempting to play AD&D2E. 2.5E just seems too much for me despite the options it presents. Plus the HR books and Complete Book of Necromancers.

I just have to get used to the fact that the edition is _Rolling Under_ and not _Rolling Equal to or Above_

I would honestly love it if there was a way to play 2E with the D20 format we're all used too.


----------



## John R Davis

The Shaman said:


> For me, the difference is that I played first edition but I never played second edition.
> 
> I'm not sure that really adds much to the discussion, I'm afraid.



Exactly the same for me. Skipped 2nd entirely. 

Can't remember why?


----------



## aramis erak

Weiley31 said:


> This is pretty much gonna be the path for me when I eventually get around to attempting to play AD&D2E. 2.5E just seems too much for me despite the options it presents. Plus the HR books and Complete Book of Necromancers.
> 
> I just have to get used to the fact that the edition is _Rolling Under_ and not _Rolling Equal to or Above_
> 
> I would honestly love it if there was a way to play 2E with the D20 format we're all used too.



Not exactly. All editions are roll high in combat.
It's only NWPs and thief/bard/ranger/monk/assassin skills that are percentile.

2E's biggest "innovation" in thief/bard/ranger/monk skills is that they're not from  a value at level x table, but are base at first level, plus points at first to up desired ones, then smaller points totals each level thereafter.

One can, however, simply make the rolls 1d20+ attribute for 21+ for those NWPs...


----------



## James Gasik

Mircoles said:


> Both dragons and giants were given a boost in power in comparison to their 1e equivalents.



Debatable, I have a friend who misses 1e dragon breath doing damage equal to the dragon's hit points.  I think he's mad, but there you go.


----------



## TerraDave

And it rises from the grave!

I wrote a really good reply in this thread 12 years ago. If I do say so myself.


----------



## Hex08

1E confused the hell out of me as a child but I played it and loved it. 2E gave me, along with Vampire: The Masquerade, some of the best games I have ever been a part of. I also spent WAY more money on 2E than 1E.

Edition debates will always rise from the dead!!


----------



## haakon1

If you know any of the early editions - AD&D, 2e, or Basic etc. - you can figure out and use materials from the others.


----------



## MoonSong

Weiley31 said:


> You can also get _For Gold and Glory_ as well incase Ebay doesn't help out too much or what not. It's pretty much 2E, a retroclone though, and I've heard its pretty much verbatim/closest to actual DND 2E. Even combines the DMG and MM of 2E with it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> For Gold & Glory - God Emperor Games | DriveThruRPG.com
> 
> 
> For Gold & Glory - Within these pages lie the keys to open worlds of wonder and adventure! Whether you are exploring dank dungeons, forging
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.drivethrurpg.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The PDF is free. So with this+whatever other 2E books you want (I suggest a number of the Leatherette+Historical Reference books+the actual 2E MM) and your pretty much good to go on anything 2E related/running it.



Cool that you mention for gold and glory. Bad that you responded to a post from twelve years ago... n_n


----------



## James Gasik

I know I really don't check dates on posts for threads.  If I did, I'd never respond to half of them!


----------



## aramis erak

haakon1 said:


> If you know any of the early editions - AD&D, 2e, or Basic etc. - you can figure out and use materials from the others.



It really helps to understand that the BX/BECMI/Cyclopedia line's high level characters are less up-powered than their AD&D equivalents. Cyclopedia p293 notes that levels over 12 should be AD&D:BasicD&D:3... so AD&D level 14 is Basic level 16 (=12+((14-12)*3) by therules). Part of it is differences in saves, partly in HP, partly in reduced power in high level spells...

Oh, yeah... AD&D1 and BX/BECMI/Cyclo have flat spots on the to hit tables; AD&D2 is pure THAC0 without flat spots, Cyclo has 5 each of 20's and 30's. So a normal man with flat 11's for atts and THAC0 20 in Cyclo can hit AC-4 on a modified 20. In 2E, he can't...


----------



## David Howery

Hex08 said:


> 1E confused the hell out of me as a child but I played it and loved it.



I wasn't a child, but... yeah, this seems to have been a common experience.  1E was really not well organized or explained.  That said, it was something new and the basic idea was a real attention grabber that people loved...


----------



## Man in the Funny Hat

1E and 2E are very much alike, yet also quite different.    Helpful, eh?  1E is definitely an acquired taste.  It has plenty of issues that create struggles, but also has a "feel" that I believe was noticeably lost with 2E.  2E is definitely better written as far as rules clarity, and much better organized.  I always had tremendous appreciation for the customization provided by kits in 2E, but ultimately found the proficiency system to be a well-meaning kludge that had both beneficial AND undesirable effects on gameplay.  I was always quite dissatisfied with the removal of monks and assassins without any attempts to replace them with _something_, while cranking out ENDLESS rules expansions and supplements.  When they finally did in the case of the monk, I was even more dissatisfied with the supposed replacement.  So, much that was problematic with 1E was improved by 2E, while other things that desperately needed to be addressed were NOT - largely in the name of backward compatibility I think.  And, of course, 2E was BURIED under bloat never seen before or since.

So, I'd say that 1E is worth a look - but 1E will challenge you NOT to like it while hiding what's good about itself.


----------



## deganawida

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> So, I'd say that 1E is worth a look - but 1E will challenge you NOT to like it while hiding what's good about itself.




I see statements like this quite a bit, but, being another person who started with 2nd edition, have never understood why 1st edition is so different.   Is it something ephemeral?  I am sincerely curious as to what makes it so different than 2nd edition.


----------



## Greggy C

I started on 1e, and then we bought all the 2e books.  There was no change, just better organization, more spells, more monsters etc.
But the modules I chopped up to insert into the campaign were a mix of 1e and 2e.

2e expanded and expanded, adding lots of handbooks, psionics etc.  but really didn't change the spirit of the game.  
We certainly didnt change to "all story driven" campaigns.


----------



## Dioltach

One difference, as I recall, was that 1E had the "XP for treasure" system, which 2E didn't. Only the XP tables weren't adjust accordingly, resulting in impossible XP requirements at higher levels. I seem to remember that a magic user would have to kill a dozen great wyrms single-handedly to go from 10th to 11th level.


----------



## Greggy C

Dioltach said:


> One difference, as I recall, was that 1E had the "XP for treasure" system, which 2E didn't. Only the XP tables weren't adjust accordingly, resulting in impossible XP requirements at higher levels. I seem to remember that a magic user would have to kill a dozen great wyrms single-handedly to go from 10th to 11th level.



We didn't have any problems gaining levels in 2e, all the way to level 24-26.  But our group was powerful and the fights were intense, high xp affairs.


----------



## Weiley31

Dioltach said:


> One difference, as I recall, was that 1E had the "XP for treasure" system, which 2E didn't. Only the XP tables weren't adjust accordingly, resulting in impossible XP requirements at higher levels. I seem to remember that a magic user would have to kill a dozen great wyrms single-handedly to go from 10th to 11th level.



I would say adding that rule in alongside 2E's normal XP gains or what not, would help. I think.


----------



## Man in the Funny Hat

deganawida said:


> I see statements like this quite a bit, but, being another person who started with 2nd edition, have never understood why 1st edition is so different.   Is it something ephemeral?  I am sincerely curious as to what makes it so different than 2nd edition.



Problem is that it requires a REALLY long answer (which is always certain to include a great deal of personal bias and preference), or a really short one that can't possibly explain the differences fully and clearly.  The best way to really get a feel for the degree of difference and in what ways, is to not ask others to explain it, but to read the 1E rules and compare them to 2E yourself.  You'll see 1E has rules that 2E doesn't; rules that 2E changed; rules that 2E added that 1E doesn't have; and how the writing itself changed in style - from one guy addressing others his own age to a _group_ of contributors addressing readers whom they assume to be much younger than themselves (or if they ARE as old as themselves that the authors aren't addressing them as players but as parents of the players, and therefore have to reassure them that there's nothing INAPPROPRIATE or morally dangerous about the game), and so on.  And yet the two editions are similar enough in key mechanical ways that there is virtually NO alteration needed to use any materials from one within the other.


----------



## Staffan

Dioltach said:


> One difference, as I recall, was that 1E had the "XP for treasure" system, which 2E didn't. Only the XP tables weren't adjust accordingly, resulting in impossible XP requirements at higher levels. I seem to remember that a magic user would have to kill a dozen great wyrms single-handedly to go from 10th to 11th level.



Sort of. 2e indicated that you should give out story awards for accomplishing an adventure's goal. It was kind of silent on how much to award, except to say that the total story awards shouldn't exceed the amount of XP you can get from defeating monsters in the adventure, and that it shouldn't exceed 1/10 of the amount you need to level up.

However, monster XP was increased by a bit, though this was a bit subtle. In 1e, the amount of XP a monster would give was calculated as follows:

Find the monster's Hit Dice on the XP table in the DMG, which gives a base value as well as a certain number per hit point.
For each special ability, add a number of XP to the total. A small number of special abilities are extra-special and give more bonus XP.
In 2e, it instead works like this:

Start with the monster's Hit Dice.
Add 1-3 HD per special ability.
Look the result up on the monster XP table.
Since the table has sort-of exponential (or at least accelerating) results, it means that special ability-heavy monsters will earn many more XP than in 1e. For example, a 1e dao will bring you 1600 XP + 12 XP/hp, for an average of 2068 (8d8+3 hp gives an average of 39 hp). This would seem to be based on the base 600 XP for 8+n to 9 HD, plus two special abilities worth 300 XP each (I'm guessing that's minor spellcasting and immunity to earth-based spells) and one exceptional ability worth 400 XP (which I would guess is the more useful spells they have, like _wall of stone_, _rock to mud_, and _passwall_). The 2e dao has, as far as I can tell, the exact same stats, but is worth 5000 XP – more than twice as much as the 1e dao. 5000 XP is the equivalent of a 15 HD monster, so that's 6 pluses worth of specials (though I can only count four: flying, low-level casting, high-level casting, immunity to earth magic).


----------



## aramis erak

deganawida said:


> I see statements like this quite a bit, but, being another person who started with 2nd edition, have never understood why 1st edition is so different.   Is it something ephemeral?  I am sincerely curious as to what makes it so different than 2nd edition.



1E has a lot of niggling rules in inappropriate places, so there's often something missed, misinterpreted, and/or ignored; the basics of combat and magic were pretty consistent BITD,  but what the DM knew, and what they chose to use, varied widely

Further, a number of 1E specific rules were left out of 2E because the (fairly limited and informal by modern standards) surveys showed that, quite literally, almost no one was using them. Fans of 1E may or may not know them; many who know them don't use them anyway. (Amongst the better known of such: level training. AD&D1E RAW, it's not enough to have the XP, one has to have the training, and to get the training, the gold to pay for it.

*More importanly than all the above is that 1E PHB & DMG are written in a very stream of consciousness style;* some like that, while I can't stand the gygaxian spew. It includes a lot of what E. Gary Gygax  considered best practices, some of which are controversial  today. Also note: not all 1Eprintings contain the same content. Early editions don't allow dwarf clerics, later ones do, but only as NPCs; IIRC, Unearthed Arcana allowed PC Dwarf Clerics.


----------



## David Howery

aramis erak said:


> More importanly than all the above is that 1E PHB & DMG are written in a very stream of consciousness style;



yeah, that was pretty obvious to those of us playing the game back then.  I think my biggest disappointment about 2E was that it wasn't a straight 'clean up' of 1E... I was really annoyed that TSR was so spooked by the BADD crowd that they took the fiends out of the game (at first) and some of the other things they expunged.... I really wanted to see 1E get organized and cleaned up and all vague/contradictory/unexplained rules get cleared up...


----------



## Mannahnin

Yeah.  They did massive surveys on what fans wanted to see in 2E, but some of the design decisions I really shake my head at in retrospect.

Like going with 3d6x6 for ability scores, while retaining (somewhat cleaned up and slightly simplified) ability score charts which really require numbers of 15+ for bonuses in most cases.  Which was just nuts.  When Gary made the original version of those charts in the 1E PH, he  stated that he expected PCs to have at least two scores of 15+, and when the DMG came out, the primary ability score generation method was 4d6 drop the lowest, arrange to taste.

Or the initiative system which made shorter, lighter weapons virtually always win initiative over longer ones with more reach.  TBF, the 1E initiative system was FAMOUSLY confusing, bad, and overly complex with special sub-rules, and basically impossible to play as written.  2E's system was definitely much better and cleaner than the mess 1E had, but the core basic concepts in the 1E system were definitely more realistic (and to my mind, more fun as mechanics) and could have been simplified easily without switching entirely to the new system which had its own issues. 

Or relegating gold for XP to optional rule status without giving any serious guidance on how to award xp for stuff other than killing monsters.


----------



## David Howery

Mannahnin said:


> TBF, the 1E initiative system was FAMOUSLY confusing, bad, and overly complex with special sub-rules, and basically impossible to play as written.



from what I remember back in 1E days, most of the groups I was in reduced all that to 'one player rolls a D6, DM rolls a D6, winner gets initiative for their side.'  The only thing that affected it was surprise....


----------



## billd91

David Howery said:


> from what I remember back in 1E days, most of the groups I was in reduced all that to 'one player rolls a D6, DM rolls a D6, winner gets initiative for their side.'  The only thing that affected it was surprise....



Yeah, I'd say most groups did reduce it to side initiative, but the rules *are* more complex than that. As far as the only thing affecting it was surprise - that's a pretty loaded topic since surprise in 1e was *SO* convoluted and messy.


----------



## Mannahnin

David Howery said:


> from what I remember back in 1E days, most of the groups I was in reduced all that to 'one player rolls a D6, DM rolls a D6, winner gets initiative for their side.'  The only thing that affected it was surprise....



Just that?  No "longer weapon gets first strike when closing to melee"?  No "fighters with multiple attacks always strike first with their first attack"? No "when not closing to melee, on a tied initiative roll, lighter/shorter weapon strikes first"?  Did you guys require casters to declare spellcasting before initiative was rolled?

I definitely remember most groups just rolling d6, side-based initiative like you describe.  But how ties were treated or whether any of the exceptions were included varied a bit from table to table.


----------



## David Howery

Mannahnin said:


> Just that?  No "longer weapon gets first strike when closing to melee"?  No "fighters with multiple attacks always strike first with their first attack"? No "when not closing to melee, on a tied initiative roll, lighter/shorter weapon strikes first"?  Did you guys require casters to declare spellcasting before initiative was rolled?
> 
> I definitely remember most groups just rolling d6, side-based initiative like you describe.  But how ties were treated or whether any of the exceptions were included varied a bit from table to table.



yep, just that.  About the only exceptions I can remember (it's been a few... decades) were surprise (another complicated 1E thing) and sometimes spells that had long casting times.  In the events of ties, we'd have everyone in melee strike at once and spells would be judged on casting times, more or less...


----------



## aramis erak

Mannahnin said:


> Just that?  No "longer weapon gets first strike when closing to melee"?  No "fighters with multiple attacks always strike first with their first attack"? No "when not closing to melee, on a tied initiative roll, lighter/shorter weapon strikes first"?  Did you guys require casters to declare spellcasting before initiative was rolled?
> 
> I definitely remember most groups just rolling d6, side-based initiative like you describe.  But how ties were treated or whether any of the exceptions were included varied a bit from table to table.



That's essentially how initiative works in Moldvay and Mentzer. it's simple, it's fast, and it's easy to explain. 



Mannahnin said:


> Yeah.  They did massive surveys on what fans wanted to see in 2E, but some of the design decisions I really shake my head at in retrospect.
> 
> Like going with 3d6x6 for ability scores, while retaining (somewhat cleaned up and slightly simplified) ability score charts which really require numbers of 15+ for bonuses in most cases.  Which was just nuts.  When Gary made the original version of those charts in the 1E PH, he  stated that he expected PCs to have at least two scores of 15+, and when the DMG came out, the primary ability score generation method was 4d6 drop the lowest, arrange to taste.
> 
> Or the initiative system which made shorter, lighter weapons virtually always win initiative over longer ones with more reach.  TBF, the 1E initiative system was FAMOUSLY confusing, bad, and overly complex with special sub-rules, and basically impossible to play as written.  2E's system was definitely much better and cleaner than the mess 1E had, but the core basic concepts in the 1E system were definitely more realistic (and to my mind, more fun as mechanics) and could have been simplified easily without switching entirely to the new system which had its own issues.
> 
> Or relegating gold for XP to optional rule status without giving any serious guidance on how to award xp for stuff other than killing monsters.



Understand that AD&D 2 was coming out knowing that it was in fact going to be competing with B/E/C; the master rules are about the same time as AD&D2 in release.... B/E/C/M is a different game with many overlapping mechanics - both deriving from Original Edition...  So they didn't feel the need to "keep it simple" since Frank Mentzer had the simple side covered with the B/E/C boxed sets.

Too bad the retailers generally only understood the difference if they actually played, and most didn't. Hell, many players BITD didn't. I wasn't cognizant of it when I bought the (then brand spanking new) Basic Rulebook (Tom Moldvay's version). (It was available either as part of the $15 box, or as a $9 shrinkwrapped book. Due to allowance issues, I got the latter... )

As for the higher stats for modifiers? 
OE had +1 at 16, and -1 at 6. 
Sup 1 added some mods. That's Gygax's work.
AD&D 1E follows Gary's lead, as it was basically "Gary Gygax's D&D as of 1978"... 
AD&D 2E follows AD&D 1E. So it's clearly a "Blame Gary" situation.

Holmes uses a different chart, and I don't have my books to hand. ISTR it being simplified from OE Sup 1&2..

Meanwhile, the simpler modifiers in Moldvay follow a smoother distribution... not quite as smooth as modern, but I prefer it...:

Att34-56-89-1213-1516-1718Mod-3-2-1±0+1+2+3
(Note that in the Immortals rules, this chart gets expanded to about a 100, which, IIRC, is +44 - too lazy to check at the moment)

Frank Mentzer rewrites and slightly revises Moldvay's work, then expands it later, into a whole 36 level game (for human PCs; The demi-humans get essentially 16 to 18 levels, but HP only for 8-12 of them, via the Attack Ranks system.) But he keeps the same simple modifiers table. (I do wish he'd gone to d20's roll-high for thief abilities, and for general skills... but, nope...)

Aaron Alston and Troy Denning revised the Basic to Immortals line in the early 1990s...  Troy doing the BBBB¹, with its cardstock paper figures and big battle mat, single volume rulebook aimed at levels 1-5, and a nifty adventure which uses the figs and battlemat. Aaron did the Cyclopedia, which covers levels 1-36, and adds an option for the demis to hit that level as well... He also did the Wrath of the Immortals big box, which revises Mentzer's Immortals rules, and adds a big campaign...

D&D 3E takes a cue from B/X, B/E/C/M/I, and BBBB/Cyclopedia on stat mods. 3E is really about dead center between the two in complexity. At least at first.

As for AD&D 2E Initiative? I've known groups who used it with all the bells and whistles, others who used individual initiative with WSF, others using individual without WSF, and others using side-by-side; those last two also exist in B/X and B/E/C/M/I... This also is part of the design calculus: by having the two be significantly different, but still largely interoperable, the adventures could sell across the gap, and groups could customize. 

Unfortunately, customizing was becoming less and less common, in parallel with the rise of videogames. There's a paradigm shift in attitudes towards rules in wargaming in the 1980's, and it also permeated the RPG sphere. If there's one good thing the OGL has done, it's to make homebrewing legit. (There are others, but irrelevant to this issue.) Between the OGL and the OSR, mix-n-match and create your own variant attitudes are back. The best are great... most are, as Theodore Sturgeon's maxim² states, "Crap."  

Notes:
¹: Big Black Box Basic. By Troy Denning - a rework of Mentzer to go with Aaron Alston's rework of B/E/C/M/I into two components - the Cyclopedia including all of B/E/C/M, and Wrath of the Immortals, reworking entirely the Immortals ruleset. 
²: Sturgeon notes, "90% of ëverything is crap.


----------



## Man in the Funny Hat

Mannahnin said:


> Yeah.  They did massive surveys on what fans wanted to see in 2E, but some of the design decisions I really shake my head at in retrospect.



It wasn't many surveys and really wasn't massive either.  They did what they could but they had no way to communicate reliably with their customer base.  They had one survey in Dragon magazine, and they were reading other suggestions that people made - but this was before the internet existed.  Everything was plain ol' USPS snail mail - both in letting players know they were looking for their ideas, and in players getting responses TO TSR.  They did what they could but it wasn't exhaustive or scientific - and then they still did what they they wanted.


Mannahnin said:


> Like going with 3d6x6 for ability scores, while retaining (somewhat cleaned up and slightly simplified) ability score charts which really require numbers of 15+ for bonuses in most cases.  Which was just nuts.



Yeah, I've complained about that particular lack of understanding of their own game for decades (though it took me a decade to realize it myself prior to that - but then I wasn't designing a new edition to publish).  They should have picked ONE single ability score rolling method intended to be used by everyone, and then adjusted the bonuses on the charts to fit the probabilities _for that one method_.  But backward compatibility with 1E was a huge design focus they unnecessarily burdened themselves with, and it KILLED most really significant changes that _should _have been made.


----------



## aramis erak

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> It wasn't many surveys and really wasn't massive either.  They did what they could but they had no way to communicate reliably with their customer base.



Actually, they did have a way to reach many of their customers... not a majority, sure, but definitely the "invested in the future of the game" crowd... the Dragon magazine subscriber list. Complete with snail-mail addresses!
I wasn't a subscriber, but had friends who were. They got the survey. 

It's worth noting that in about 1990, another survey was done - I suspect it was using the retail play membership list... because I got it. There was also a box to tick if one wanted the results. It was NOT an anonymous survey, either. 

So, there were a number of ways to get surveys to players.  How many actually got sent, and how many returned? the people who know are few and getting fewer by the year. 

TSR's marketing department did pretty well for the era.


----------



## cfmcdonald

aramis erak said:


> Understand that AD&D 2 was coming out knowing that it was in fact going to be competing with B/E/C; the master rules are about the same time as AD&D2 in release....



The D&D Master Set was published in 1985, and the 2e player's handbook in 1989. I wouldn't consider that about the same time.


----------



## RuinousPowers

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> And, of course, 2E was BURIED under bloat never seen before or since.



I don't think that's the case. There were a lot of supplements, but they were mostly mechanics-free. Just lots of lore dumps, honestly.  I think 3e's bloat far surpassed anything from 2e.


----------



## aramis erak

Chris Currie said:


> I don't think that's the case. There were a lot of supplements, but they were mostly mechanics-free. Just lots of lore dumps, honestly.  I think 3e's bloat far surpassed anything from 2e.



Core, of course, is PHB, DMG, MC (MC1)
Tome of Magic, Al Qadim: Arabian Advendures, Dark Sun, Dark Sun: Dragon Kings, Spelljammer, Spelljammer Captain's Companion, Council of Wyrms - all are rules heavy expansions. There's fluff in AQ, DS, DSDK, SJ, CoW, but it's still more than 30% mechanics in those.
15 PHBR¹ series. 9 DMGR² series, Most of which are 90% mechanics, the rest about 50%. These mass as much or more than all of AD&D1e's hardcovers combined.
PO:C&T, PO:S&P, PO:S&M, DMO: High Level Campaigns³ - functionally, these form what is essentially a new edition. They're all optional rules, and not fluffy at all.


cfmcdonald said:


> The D&D Master Set was published in 1985, and the 2e player's handbook in 1989. I wouldn't consider that about the same time.



AD&D 2E was also essentially restarted from scratch in 1987; Gygax and others had started the project in 1984... That does, however, put it up against Denning Big Black Box Basic and Alston Cyclopedia development... Same dual line issue.

I know that I didn't encounter a black box until 1987, either... and I was looking... Street date and publishing date often have local discrepancies. (In fact, I didn't find it until I was out of Anchorage... I found it while on a trip. I don't remember if it was Seattle, Corvallis, or Los Disneys Florida) Regardless, it was still direct competition, and while it added a BUNCH of complexity, it still is less complex than AD&D 1E or 2E core rules. (Master adds the Weapon Mastery system - which is in many ways far superior to anything before the PO:C&T, and many who've used both consider it better than PO:C&T).  I never have seen a complete gold Immortals box.
It's also worth noting that BECMI was released through toy stores and big box stores; book stores usually carried AD&D only. If they had more than AD&D, it wasn't going to be the D&D line, but would be other game lines... Such as DragonQuest, The Fantasy Trip (until 1983), Star Wars (1987 on), rarely Traveller, Car Wars, or MSH/AMSH. Cyborg Commando made it into (and sat on shelves worthily unloved in) Waldenbooks.


¹: PHBR series
²: DMGR series
³: 2nd edition sourcebooks


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## James Gasik

It's true, 2e had a massive ton of books, many of which had character options.  And just like what happened in 3e, many of these were mixed and matched to create rather nightmarish amalgamations of characters. Balancing of races was busted pretty early on (Complete Book of Elves), balancing of Kits also went out the window pretty quickly.  As the attempt to reign in the Cleric failed (Complete Priest's Handbook), Legends & Lore as well as Monstrous Mythology boosted Specialty Priests (a trend that exploded in the Forgotten Realms books).  Toss in creative ways to use Weapon Proficiencies starting with Complete Warrior (and never really stopping, see Bladesong Fighting Style or Wild Fighting as later examples), plus more published spells and magic items than any other edition, and yeah, late-2e had insane bloat and supported even crazier characters.

And I haven't even gotten to Chronomancer yet...


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## RuinousPowers

aramis erak said:


> Core, of course, is PHB, DMG, MC (MC1)
> Tome of Magic, Al Qadim: Arabian Advendures, Dark Sun, Dark Sun: Dragon Kings, Spelljammer, Spelljammer Captain's Companion, Council of Wyrms - all are rules heavy expansions. There's fluff in AQ, DS, DSDK, SJ, CoW, but it's still more than 30% mechanics in those.
> 15 PHBR¹ series. 9 DMGR² series, Most of which are 90% mechanics, the rest about 50%. These mass as much or more than all of AD&D1e's hardcovers combined.
> PO:C&T, PO:S&P, PO:S&M, DMO: High Level Campaigns³ - functionally, these form what is essentially a new edition. They're all optional rules, and not fluffy at all.



You lost me when you claimed every campaign setting was a core book. 

The Player's Options came in so late, and replaced all the class books, that it can hardly be seen as bloat.

The DMGR series is mostly fluff. I bet the actual mechanics could fit on 2-3 pages.

Did 2e have more rules than 1e? No one is going to deny that. But nothing in 2e compares to the hundreds of feats alone from 3e.


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## James Gasik

I don't know, if you made a list of all the possible Non-Weapon Proficiencies, I bet it would get pretty large.


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## RuinousPowers

James Gasik said:


> I don't know, if you made a list of all the possible Non-Weapon Proficiencies, I bet it would get pretty large.



There are a lot, and they are listed here:


			Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition - Nonweapon Proficiencies
		


But that us NOTHING compared to the 199 page listing of feats for 3.5.


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## overgeeked

Apologies if this list was already posted.









						What are the major differences between AD&D 1st Edition & AD&D 2nd Edition
					

Supposedly on May 21st WoTC are going to release a premium limited edition reprinting of Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition in of honor of the late Gary Gygax. I already own the AD&D 1st edition




					rpg.stackexchange.com


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## Orius

I don't know, both 2e and 3e are serious contenders for the Worst Bloat category.

2e has a longer lifespan, 11 years vs. 8 years for 3e, and 3e spends some of its time updating material to 3.5.  2e also has about 10 different settings -- that number can get bigger if you want to count subsettings separately -- 31 splats, 15 binder punched MCs 10 softback MCs, 3 optional hardcovers, 4 Player's Option books, a handful of various supplements here and there and Battlesystem.

3e has beyond the core books has 44 hardcover books in 3.5 alone not counting the books from 3.0.  The 3.5 hardcovers have at least 160 pages each and some go up quite a bit further than that.  By comparison, the 2e splats are usually 128 pages except for the 96 page HR books.  There's a fair amount of overlap with 3.0 material converted to 3.5 though.  That's not counting the releases for the Realms or Eberron.  Now a good deal of material in 2e tends to be fluff as well.  At the very least  if 3e doesn't have the most crunch, it has a noticeable higher crunch density.


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## teitan

1e was very much it’s own thing. It was D&D and Sword & sorcery fantasy, gritty adventure. Yes it was dungeon crawl. Ravenloft and Dragonlance revolutionized the game by beginning a shift to story driven campaigns though and the industry had been shifting that was as well and 2e was positioned as a generic fantasy toolkit and it was mediocre at that job. As a D&D game it was great if you tossed out NWP (lacked cohesion with the established thief skills) and kits (most of which were just slight adjustments and flavor hacks at best, bladesingers at worse). The system was streamlined, simplified (THAC0 was better than Attack Matrices) and did all this while remaining compatible with 1e and Basic because it was additions or reinterpretations as opposed to “changes” like going to 3e or later editions and without complications. 

With all this though it took some of the charm away from the game itself. The rough edges of AD&D 1e were a huge part of its appeal. The exploration aspect of the game was a huge part of its appeal and as we saw in 2e, while the settings were amazing, the system itself was not fit for a story game style system like WEGd6 or Storyteller, Shadowrun or even BRP. 3e leaned back into what made D&D special and really captured a lot of the 1e flavor while being new, a resource management game and 5e captures what 2e was trying to do better while retaining what makes D&D cool as well. 

2e is a great game. 1e is a great game. Neither is “better”. I like to think 1e is perfect if you throw the 2e thief in it. Forget the bard though. Blech.


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## Mannahnin

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> It wasn't many surveys and really wasn't massive either.  They did what they could but they had no way to communicate reliably with their customer base.  They had one survey in Dragon magazine, and they were reading other suggestions that people made - but this was before the internet existed.  Everything was plain ol' USPS snail mail - both in letting players know they were looking for their ideas, and in players getting responses TO TSR.  They did what they could but it wasn't exhaustive or scientific - and then they still did what they they wanted.



I suppose "massive" is inherently subjective.  That 2nd ed questionnaire from Dragon 124 (Aug '87) was pretty extensive, and they solicited and received a ton of mailed feedback based on their Game Wizards columns, especially Zeb's infamous "Who Dies?" installment from Dragon 118, which deliberately poked the player base, talking about eliminations and reorganizations of character classes.  Dragon had a pretty huge circulation in those days.  Issue 121's column talks a bit about the feedback, as does 124's column by Michael Dobson:



> *Second Edition update*
> It's always been a little difficult to enter David Zeb Cook's office, what with rows of toy robots, walls covered with bizarre cartoons and  drawings, heaps of Oriental reference works, German and Russian military histories (for Zeb's upcoming SPI® game project, the MOSCOW 1941tm game), and the other detritus that separates the office of a game designer from that of a normal human being.
> 
> Lately, the problem has been compounded by over 2,000 letters from you, our best fans and harshest critics, concerning every aspect of the Second Edition AD&D® game project. Boxes filled with letters are first read by Zeb (and, yes, he reads every word of every letter he gets), then the most interesting observations and comments are highlighted. Next, Steve Winter, our Senior Games Editor who's also working on Second Edition, reads every letter. Then I read them all. Selected letters are passed on to the rest of the Games Division staff and to company executives.
> 
> Some of the responses we've received are incredible. Three stand out: an 80-page dissertation on the AD&D game system by Bob Bell, a Tennessee player and DM, who did a first-rate job of analyzing problems and recommending innovative solutions; a 50-page analysis of  magic-user spell problems by Scott Mayo, another long-time player (he's now working on clerical spells); and, the single biggest package we received: a letter from Jim Trew full of creative rules variants and some very interesting questions that we'll need to address. We appreciate the shorter letters, too, so don't rush out to send us a few hundred pages of comments. We are sincerely appreciative of the time, effort, and quality that all of our correspondents have shown.
> 
> Incidentally, to provide your letter with the maximum impact, it's a good idea to type it, organize your thoughts and comments, and keep it concise. Zeb, Steve, Jon Pickens (Research and Play-Test Coordinator), and I regret that we can't personally answer each letter, but if we did, Second Edition would never get done. By the way, death threats are not very effective.
> 
> As Zeb has noted in previous installments of this column, the letters have had a real impact. Things we were pretty sure about have changed because you, the true editors of the TSR line, have persuaded us that the changes are right. The bard, for example, lives because of your letters.
> But we need even more input, and that's why Jon has put together a mammoth questionnaire to find out everything we can about what you want. The questionnaire is slated to appear in POLYHEDRON Newszine and this issue of DRAGON® Magazine, and we'll be bringing copies to
> the GEN CON® 20 Game Fair and elsewhere.






Man in the Funny Hat said:


> Yeah, I've complained about that particular lack of understanding of their own game for decades (though it took me a decade to realize it myself prior to that - but then I wasn't designing a new edition to publish).  They should have picked ONE single ability score rolling method intended to be used by everyone, and then adjusted the bonuses on the charts to fit the probabilities _for that one method_.  But backward compatibility with 1E was a huge design focus they unnecessarily burdened themselves with, and it KILLED most really significant changes that _should _have been made.



Indeed.


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## Blue

Sorry, late to the thread and I haven't read the 100+ entries.

I remember a conversation with my DM not too long after we switched.  He felt that 2ed was a lot more codified and unified, but that it lost a bit of it's soul in becoming so.  As a player, I felt it was a lot more organized and straightforward, with reduced crazy subsystems.

_*Raises glass to Mike, the DM whom I really learned to RP under.  He passed a few years back._


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## James Gasik

Fewer, maybe, but there were still crazy subsystems in the supplementary products.


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## haakon1

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> backward compatibility



Backwards compatibility is a huge part of what makes an edition change good or bad, imho.  I’m always hoping for a cleanup without tossing out the best of what came before, and I think that was best done by 3e, 3.5e, and 5e.


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## haakon1

deganawida said:


> I see statements like this quite a bit, but, being another person who started with 2nd edition, have never understood why 1st edition is so different.   Is it something ephemeral?  I am sincerely curious as to what makes it so different than 2nd edition.



Feel.
2e knuckled under to the anti-D&D crowd (no more devils, assassins, or half-orcs).
And its center of gravity was Forgotten Realms instead of Greyhawk (the game’s creator’s D&D campaign turned into a setting).
FR-centric went along with adventure modules switching from dungeon crawls to participating in someone else’s story.

To summarize, from a messy collaboration treating you as peers who should create your own stuff & coukd share their world to a processed product.  Which had good & bad sides.


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## Man in the Funny Hat

haakon1 said:


> Backwards compatibility is a huge part of what makes an edition change good or bad, imho.  I’m always hoping for a cleanup without tossing out the best of what came before, and I think that was best done by 3e, 3.5e, and 5e.



Quite so.  I do remember being fairly disappointed with 2E, perhaps LESS for what it did change than what it _didn't_.  I still went all-in on it for pretty much the duration of 2E though.  Only started drifting away as TSR itself was dying/dead, but never felt any real pull to go back to it like I have with 1E and 3.5.


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## haakon1

Man in the Funny Hat said:


> Quite so.  I do remember being fairly disappointed with 2E, perhaps LESS for what it did change than what it _didn't_.  I still went all-in on it for pretty much the duration of 2E though.  Only started drifting away as TSR itself was dying/dead, but never felt any real pull to go back to it like I have with 1E and 3.5.



I stopped playing D&D around 1989, and restarted DMing in 1996 with 1e, then 3e about a year after it was published, then 3.5e ever since it came out.  I’ve played 2e, 4e, PF1, and 5e, but didn’t like them as much ... and PF1 & 5e seem fine, but I have played enough to run them.

For my 3.5e campaigns, I use materials from every edition & PF1 & SF, with the least from 4e, and perhaps the most from AD&D 1e & 3.5e.


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