Holy smokes! I really love it!
Can you guess why?

I´ll elaborate later, meanwhile you can spew your hatred, or praise the kewlest edition of D&D.

Because you're afraid of demons? Because you like the power creep of addons? You like products that were bad novels in disguise?
 
Actually, in terms of mechanics, I thought the core books were much cleaner and more playable than 1e.  Kits were ok in concept but were very unevenly done.  Many haters either get too involved with the minor name changes like assassins and demons or remember the ghastliness of the Skills & Powers.

The rogues were good.

The historical supplements produced for 2nd ed were probably the finest 'settings' products ever published for any edition of D&D, before or since.

Mechanically it was basically sound.

But it did lack some things; I thought that the planar geography of 2nd ed sucked, I dislike the whole slide towards more and more mage specialisation, the splat books were on the whole dismal, it had the worst version of psionics (a bad idea to begin with) ever.

But then again, there was Spelljammer. Lovely idea, shame they had to include the established game worlds in it.

2nd ed AD&D improved on 1st ed in many ways, but I didn't like the direction that it was taken in with the 'skills and powers' era. I think that in some ways 2nd ed was a great idea badly executed.

I use some things from 2nd ed in my game.

I really loved some things about AD&D. Really. More then just Planescape and Darksun and Ravenloft. More then just the planes books I read, or the cool Spelljammer stuff I stumbled across.

But actually playing the game wasn't any fun, mechanically, for me. Though I am pleased that Sett is having such a great time. That's terrific.

I don't know, Sett, because My 2e is very different from Your 2e, by Settembrini's Law.

-clash

Lexonaut Sett. E. Bowman: "The Books, they are full of D&D homebrew sub-systems!"

Mmmmm ... Ravenloft.

2e seemed, to me, a much more conscious attempt to think about the ruleset as a whole than 1e had been.  1e was, as folks have pointed out, very modular ... a lot of rules from which you assembled your rule system.  2e always impressed me as having a notion of a rule system in toto that you could apply largely as written.

The joy/contribution/acheivements of each edition are, AFAIAC:
1e) The adventures
2e) The settings (Planescape, Dark Sun, etc.)
3e) The rules (self consistent core system and delicious crunch)

So, now Sett can spring his trap, but that's what I think, anyways.

And the homebrew advice is still valid across most editions!
It´s awesome. The brown, blue and green books are solid gold.

The setting stuff has been discussed to death.
But the props for the settings, I tell ya, the props!

Never again will any game company produce products as lavish as those boxes. By freak accident stuff was produced that never ever should have been produced.

Nono, no trap!

But I love especially the "core" stuff! The spoon-fed stuff has been covered. But the homebrew advice is mind-blowing creativity fuel!

I thought 2e was very playable...  It was just kinda bland.  Maybe it's just nostalgia, but 1e had a lot of neat stuff in it - stuff that sparked my imagination, like bards and basic planar cosmology.  2e kind of stripped that down.  Its rules system was way better, but my group got bored with it pretty quickly.

-O

Quote from: SettembriniAnd the homebrew advice is still valid across most editions!
It´s awesome. The brown, blue and green books are solid gold.

Well, I still use my World Builder's Guide (I've still yet to see a book as useful to homebrewing as this one), and I keep a few blue books out, though it has been a while since I've resorted to the blue books.

My only real gripe with 2e is the "handbrake-feelling" I get from reading kewl power descriptions. There´s always something lamifying the players, there´s always this vibe of mediocrity.
Like Haste ageing the recipients a whole year.

World Builder´s guide is terrific!

Quote from: SettembriniMy only real gripe with 2e is the "handbrake-feelling" I get from reading kewl power descriptions. There´s always something lamifying the players, there´s always this vibe of mediocrity.
Like Haste ageing the recipients a whole year.

The Haste aging effect was from 1e, if I remember right.

I agree otherwise about the handbrake feeling.  2e seemed designed to ramp back the PCs' power - heck; their example character Rath had pretty miserable attributes that I probably wouldn't enjoy playing with in any edition.

Clerics were pretty heavily gimped with 2e's handling of Domains.  Some clerics ended up with exactly 1 spell they could cast at each level above 4th.

Most of the earlier books kept the whole mediocrity theme.  Most kits, for example, had more drawbacks than penalties.  (Until the Bladesinger and Complete Psionicist anyways.

-O