2E: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

James M. has a new post up where he re-evaluates 2E AD&D. I read it, and the comments section (up to time of writing anyway) and it certainly seems to have got people thinking. And instead of write a big long comment there, I figured I would put some thoughts here on my own blog. And yes, I will be continuing with my ideas about Prince of Nothing's axioms on what makes old school D&D old school D&D, but not tonight. 

I've mentioned many times here that I started with the Mentzer BECM books (minus Immortals), but my cousin had a lot of the 1E AD&D books. We messed around with it a bit, but other than the occasional monster or magic item, we tended to keep D&D and AD&D separate back then (mid to late 80s), and when 2E came out, he picked up the PHB but it was mostly just a curiosity for us -- hey, it has arquebuses! Bards are a class instead of some crazy hard to qualify for dual classing monstrosity with unclear rules! I don't think he got much more of the 2E stuff, since it was more or less compatible with 1E, which he already had and hardly played. BECMI was our jam.

In the mid to late 90s, before I moved to Japan, I was working at Waldenbooks (remember those?) and was able to purchase books at a substantial discount (but not making enough to really afford lots of books, not that that stopped me!). I got into a group that ran AD&D, but it was a weird hodge-podge of 1E and 2E because the games were something like 90% compatible. And so when I could, I picked up the black cover core 2E book revisions. The plus side? The Monstrous Compendium was an actual book instead of a bunch of loose leaf binder pages. Down side? Not sure there is one (other than it being 2E, if you're a 2E hater!). 

I was never a huge fan of the 2E rules, but I'd never read through the entirety of the 1E books, so I never really knew what I was missing (at the time). I enjoyed 2E well enough, but like I said, the game I played in was not pure 2E. Half-Orcs & Assassins, UA Barbarians and Cavaliers, 1E OA, Illusionists as either their own dedicated class or as a mage specialization (not that anyone played an Illusionist that I recall). And it worked. My original group had pretty much used the BECMI engine with 1E classes/spells/monsters/magic items bolted on when we played 1E. And with the Evansville group, we just used whatever worked from 1E and/or 2E. And when I ran an OA campaign for them, we used 1E OA, the 2E Complete Ninja's Handbook, and my DMing was still basically BECMI procedures. And again, it worked just fine.

I've cracked open the 2E books from time to time over the years. I've pulled a few things from it into my TSR house rules. Would I play it straight? Probably not. But there are some good things in it. Here is my VERY SUBJECTIVE and incomplete (because it's late and I want to get this done and go to bed) evaluation. 

The Good: 

The rules are a lot easier to read and understand than 1E, and the books make good references. Like BX, in that regard, and like BECMI in that they serve as a good tool for learning the game without a group to teach you (to an extent). 

I like the way they keep classes fairly simple, but with lots of options for customization. Obviously anyone who has downloaded Flying Swordsmen or purchased Chanbara knows that I like kits/subclasses! Did they go overboard with splat books? Of course they did. But the concept of the kit to offer a small customization to the main class is still a good one. 

Illustrations for every monster! 

Consolidation of a lot of spells, magic-items, and monsters that were scattered around different books in 1E. Again, makes for a good reference.

Some general cleaning up and streamlining of rules for combat (closer to Classic D&D, but not quite).

I really like the single class Bard in 2E. It's far from a powerhouse, but it has style (although yes, the picture is kinda cringe). Also I liked, at the time, the customization of Thief skills by point allocation. Makes leveling up take a bit longer, but being able to specialize your Thief as the lock-picker or sneak or pickpocket was nice, and not overly complicated.

The Bad: 

Too much emphasis on creating a story for the players, and enforcing it with railroads and XP awards for compliance. Now, I know a lot of people were big fans of all the settings TSR put out back then. There's definitely some cool stuff out there. But the focus on story awards and RP awards really made 2E the mother-may-I edition of D&D, if played by the book. 

The endless stream of splat books. Some were good. Some had good things in them. There was just too much, junking up what was otherwise a nice, streamlined version of the game. 

The non-weapon proficiency skill system became the default. It has some problems, but I don't have time to go into them now. In brief, too limiting and created too much focus on ability scores, that has lasted through three WotC editions.

The Ugly:

The art, as James M mentioned in his post linked above, was much more technically well executed, but not always as evocative as in previous editions. Some of it was, but not a lot. I do appreciate that they put in full page, full-color art plates. And, as I mentioned above, every monster had a picture. But a lot of those pictures are pretty blah. And they're just the monster in a white field, no context. 

The "cleaning up" of the rules. BECMI gets some shade thrown its way for sanitizing the game for kids, but 2E turned that up to 11. Now, Half-Orcs and Assassins aren't 100% necessary for a D&D game. Neither are devils/demons (not in BX or BECMI, after all). But the emphasis on having to play heroes, and avoiding things that might make parents upset -- that is really what makes this game so different from other TSR editions. But as with my experiences with the game, if you run it like Classic or 1E, it still has all the old school charm. 

The technical manual tone, while good as a teaching tool and reference, is just not that evocative. BECMI taught me how to not just run a game, but to create dungeons and wildernesses. 1E has all sorts of random stuff that adds to world building and immersion. With 2E, you need supplements and splat books for that.

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In the end, I think the too strong story emphasis is what keeps me from returning to 2E for more than just inspiration for a few things to grab for my own Frankenstein-edition. That's the biggest flaw. Splat books and bland art can be ignored (and again, the Rules Cyclopedia for BECMI is much like 2E in that it's a great rules reference, but bland appearance -- no surprise, as they came out in the same era).