Ok, before anyone gets the wrong idea, i'm not proposing an edition war, i'm looking for advice.

I'm in a gaming group, we just finished our first (ever!) 2nd ed AD&D homebrew campaign, and we're looking around to see what else there is to do.

One guy has suggested we switch to 3rd ed, but he's the ONLY one familiar with it to any real degree. (i've some knowledge of the rules through games like DDO, but no real experience). Some players don't care what system we use, others are ok with 3rd conditionally, others still are actually opposed to it and favor 2nd.

My question is: what makes 2nd better than 3.x? What does it do better? What areas shine more?  What parts are more playable? What benefits are there from using 2nd ed resources? etc...

I understand this is going to get a lot of opinions, and i can treat them as the sole property of the person giving them, so i'm really, REALLY not looking for an edition war, just a comparison and contrast of the two, trying to find what makes 2nd edition worth playing.

Thanks.

Benefits that I see about 2e over 3e:

* character optimization isn't such huge metagame within the game.
* you don't have to tinker around with feat progression min/maxing, and making sure you have the "right" classes
* combat moves a lot faster because you aren't tied to the grid battlemap nearly as much as you are in 3e
* spellcasters aren't horribly overpowered in 2e compared to 3e if you're using just the core books
* you aren't required to worry about multiclassing, which is an assumption in 3e
* this is a HUGE one here.  Backwards compatibility.  I.e., you can take 2e characters and play them in any AD&D 1e, 2e, or B/X module with very little tinkering, if at all.
* not a robust skill system, so most people don't have the impression that you're tied to the character sheet as to what you can do in adventure, which really started to be a problem when 3e came out and everything was put into a skill.
* VERY much easier on the DM, especially when creating NPCs and monster encounters

I suspect that if you have a player that really wants to move on to 3e, it's because of one of two thing:

1: he or she is into char op, which if no one else is familiar, will end up with them having this super min/max character that makes the others feel useless after a few levels  (3e is heavy into rewarding those players who memorize the most books/supplements)
2: he or she like grid based combat more than free flowing combat.  And if that's the case, do 4e instead

Awesome! Thanks for the input.

Yeah, the min/max might be an unspoken reason. He's a self professed "walking encyclopedia" of 3rd Ed, and is really pushing it because he's familiar with it and finds it more intuitive.

I will let others talk about 2e vs. 3e. Instead, I will offer up two very cool free D&D-ish RPGs that may appeal to a group who enjoy old school D&D. And again, they are 100% free PDFs which make them easy to introduce to players.

MAZES & MINOTAURS
http://storygame.free.fr/MAZES.htm

VIKINGS & VALKYRIES
http://mazesandminotaurs.free.fr/VIK.pdf

Mazes & Minotaurs is an awesome fun RPG of fantasy Greek based on Clash of the Titans and Jason and the Argonauts. There is a massive amount of free support material for the game. V&V is M&M reskinned for Vikings. The system is akin to 2e with modern twists.

Very nice, thanks Spinachcat. I'll present those possibilities to the group. Free is nice, but we tend to give PDFs a wide berth in favor of physical copies we can write on :evilgrin:

Another thing we run into is some conservative gamers, or gamers who were raised by conservatives, and are thusly put off by the in-game deities, either for their own reasons or for the sake of reputation with those outside the gaming group. And those gamers are a sizable majority within the group. We also have parents with children who come to the game nights and some don't want to have "dark themes and false gods" around their kids, which i find reasonable.

The important thing is that everyone's having fun, but if some people simply cannot have fun without the complete, unadulterated rules, then i think something else is probably afoot. This is why we chose 2nd edition in the first place, because of TSR's decision to exclude pantheons from the very core rule books in response to the extreme reaction they got in the 70s-80s. (correct me if i'm wrong there)

The PHB has clerics and mentions gods, but then leaves it up to the players/DM to decide what is included there, rather than having the core rules built to support a specific setting. And since i like world building, not having such details hard wired in makes my job of customizing just that much easier.

I do have a love affair with viking mythology though, and will give V&V a look over sometime soon methinks.

Quote from: Amalgam;649971Awesome! Thanks for the input.

Yeah, the min/max might be an unspoken reason. He's a self professed "walking encyclopedia" of 3rd Ed, and is really pushing it because he's familiar with it and finds it more intuitive.

Danger! Danger! Will Robinson. That might be the issue here.

If the rest of the group is cool with the game as it is, I'd stick with 2e, if I were you.

Well for all the flak 2e gets for being sanitized, this might be a case where that's an advantage.

Check out some of the other 'green books' like Charlemagne and Crusades books.

Also, if people get a hankering for a more DragonRaid Christian style rpg, 2e DMG already has plentiful alternate XP methods to choose from. That way you can make it more of quests rewarding Christian virtues of mercy, temperance, charity, etc. The options to reward general actions and class skills to the benefit of alignment/faith, party, NPCs, and other alternate goals might help tailor the XP system into a better table fit (esp. given parents of small kids).

2e offers a lot of options to build your own toolbox. From alternate settings, alternate combat, magic, class, kit, etc. systems, alternate playstyle focii, metric tons of "fluff" and flavor, etc, I can pretty much say it is the most flexible and DIY D&D edition -- which also plays a happy middle between 1e and 3e conversions. But then I'm an unrepentant 2e fan.

Please, please tell me that you are gaming in either Tehran or Saudi Arabia.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;649962Benefits that I see about 2e over 3e:
I suspect that if you have a player that really wants to move on to 3e, it's because of one of two thing:

1: he or she is into char op, which if no one else is familiar, will end up with them having this super min/max character that makes the others feel useless after a few levels  (3e is heavy into rewarding those players who memorize the most books/supplements)
2: he or she like grid based combat more than free flowing combat.  And if that's the case, do 4e instead

A more charitable reason would be that he wants to do a character concept or career arc that isn't cleanly supported by 2e rules. But I'd be wary of running a 3e campaign for someone who knows it much better than me and is likely to rules-lawyer me. Also, yeah, 3e's a lot more DM prep especially as you progress.

Given your group's preferences I'd stick with 2e for the time being.

My personal preference is for 3.x.  Among its advantages are a more consistent ruleset and far more customization.  

But because it allows customization of your character, it's easy to end up with characters of significantly different power levels.  Around here you'll find a lot of people don't mind that -you're all on the same team after all -but it can be an issue.  If you know that one player is looking to turn the whole game into combat-centered munchkinism, stay away from 3.x and it's descendants.  

If you're interested in a system that provides broad mechanical support for playing any concept you're interested in, try 3.x or Pathfinder.

Stick with 2e, it's a better and much more fun game.

wow! i go to sleep and wake up with a whole page of responses. Thanks guys!

Spinachcat, not sure if it was me you meant, but no, we're on in Tehran or Saudi Arabia. Sorry.

Quote from: Imp;649986A more charitable reason would be that he wants to do a character concept or career arc that isn't cleanly supported by 2e rules..

Fair enough.  The biggest selling point of 3e is character customization.  However, unless all players are on an equal footing, it falls into character optimization really, really easy.  His player may genuinely like 3e the best, but if he's the only one, and if he's not DMing, I'd have a bad feeling about going to 3e.

If you want options for character themes, 2e does just as well as 3e because of all the kit options.  The difference is that 2e kits are more around the role-paying aspect of customization, while 3e focuses heavy on the mechanical aspects.

Another vote for 2E with kits, since most of you seem to like it, and the walking encyclopedia is going to dominate the game otherwise. Not sure what he means by intuitive, unless it's about the ascending mechanics, which I do prefer to earlier editions.  I just no longer like the matrix, and I invert that part of 2nd and earlier (unless playing a silumacrum that already supports it).  The key is the already mentioned mechanical support, which translates to "most everything my character can do is codified." If that's your druthers, go for it.  

I might suggest Myth and Magic, which gives some customization without going wild about it.  Or perhaps the NEXT playtest packet has a ton of features of 3rd, without the bloat. You can limit the choices to the available Specialties and Backgrounds, which pretty much allows a bit of on-the-spot kit-bashing.  You might consider that, if folks want a few more options.

**Plus, it uses ascending AC!** (okay, so maybe I'm the only one happy about that)

Quote from: honesttiago;650029The only thing I truly prefer about 3rd and later is the ascending AC.  I just no longer like the matrix, and I invert that part of 2nd and earlier.

2e doesn't use the matrix.  It uses THAC0.  Which does have one extra step than ascending AC (subtract from 20).  But ascending AC is the least complex. Depends on preference.  

QuoteFinally, as an alternative, the NEXT playtest packet has a ton of features of 3rd, without the bloat.  You might consider that, if folks want a few more options.  You can limit the choices to the available Specialties and Backgrounds, which pretty much allows a bit of on-th-spot kit-bashing.  Plus, it uses ascending AC! (okay, so maybe I'm the only one happy about that)

I was going to mention this, but apparently I'm a "NEXT fanatic".