Why Do People Still Play 1e But Almost no one Plays 2e?

Armchair Gamer · March 12, 2018, 01:33:09 PM

Quote from: Haffrung;1028916New media has been a game-changer for D&D. A guy with no pen and paper RPG credits to his name just raised over $2 million on a D&D kickstarter on the strength of his Youtube channel.

Actually, I believe Matt Colville's got a fairly extensive list of design credits.

Haffrung · March 12, 2018, 01:53:36 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1028944Actually, I believe Matt Colville's got a fairly extensive list of design credits.

A handful of books 15 years ago. The point is, if you asked RPG industry insiders two years ago to name the 100 most influential people in the hobby, the people who could get projects funded and published, Matt Colville would be on nobody's list. And yet he just achieved the most successful kickstarter in the history of the hobby - by a country mile. The designer with the strongest brand in RPGs, Monte Cook, reached $550k in his kickstarter for The Strange a couple years ago. Colville just quadrupled that. And that's all because of his Youtube channel.

Armchair Gamer · March 12, 2018, 02:00:16 PM

Quote from: Haffrung;1028951A handful of books 15 years ago. The point is, if you asked RPG industry insiders two years ago to name the 100 most influential people in the hobby, the people who could get projects funded and published, Matt Colville would be on nobody's list. And yet he just achieved the most successful kickstarter in the history of the hobby - by a country mile. The designer with the strongest brand in RPGs, Monte Cook, reached $550k in his kickstarter for The Strange a couple years ago. Colville just quadrupled that. And that's all because of his Youtube channel.

True; if your point was 'he came out of nowhere' rather than 'he has no track record', it still holds despite my nitpicking.

RPGPundit · March 14, 2018, 03:19:03 AM

Quote from: S'mon;1028896Unlike Edwards' horrible GNS, 5e's concept gets it exactly right IMO - most players play and most GMs GM for a mix of the three, and the three pillars are often mutually supporting.

Yes, it did get it exactly right. Because it was cribbing exactly what I'd been saying for years. And that's no coincidence.

Turanil · March 14, 2018, 04:14:18 AM

If I were to again play 1e or 2e, I would use both in fact. I would use 2e for everything, except initiative that would still be with d6. Then, players would have choice of playing classes from either 1e and 2e. However, only 1e illusionists and 1e druids would use spell lists from 1e, but otherwise all spells would come from 2e. Monsters would aslo come from 2e.

As to answer the initial question, I have no idea why people prefer 1e over 2e. Maybe because half-orcs, assassins, illusionists, rangers and bards were either abandoned or rendered lame in 2e?

S'mon · March 14, 2018, 05:18:28 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;1029260Yes, it did get it exactly right. Because it was cribbing exactly what I'd been saying for years. And that's no coincidence.

Well, I'd also been saying it loudly for years (especially on EN World - I noticed a lot of what I posted there over 2000-2012 seemed to make it into 3.5e and later 5e) only nobody paid me.

In dealing with and criticising GNS, and then the the 4e disaster*, I'd noticed and repeatedly said eg that a strong simulationist base gave structure and purpose to gamist play. The Forgeist idea that a game can only do one thing, and their disdain for simulation, proved disastrous for D&D.

*"D&D is a game of fighting horrible monsters, not traipsing through fairy rings interacting with the little people"! quoth 4e.

Ulairi · March 14, 2018, 09:31:04 AM

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028912According to WotC, 5e has outsold 3.0 and 3.5 combined. Chris Perkins said last year was D&D'd biggest year since he arrived at the company during the 3.x era. So yeah, it's bigger.

The much lower barrier to entry is IMO a big factor. Purely an anecdote, but I know a guy whose whole experience with D&D prior to being invited to a 5e game was spending over 2 hours putting a character together who got killed almost immediately. So I think it's less about being playable until level 20 and more about not needing system mastery to play a basic fighter and kick the shit out of monsters. That really should be the litmus test of any fantasy game...if I write "Fighter" at the top of my sheet, I should be a badass.

What version of D&D did he play prior?

danbuter · March 15, 2018, 08:50:37 AM

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1028152I just got Combat & Tactics. It's a shockingly bad book. I can't imagine ever actually using it at the table.

It was terrible. However, PO: Spells and Magic should be required for any 2e game. Even if you only use the revised schools, it's worth it.

Willie the Duck · March 15, 2018, 09:13:33 AM

Quote from: danbuter;1029429It was terrible. However, PO: Spells and Magic should be required for any 2e game. Even if you only use the revised schools, it's worth it.

Mind you, it's been a long time since I actually played 2e, but I remember Skills & Powers being terrible, but Combat and Tactics being merely being one more attempt to fix a buggy system. It brought back attacks of opportunity (which never was termed as such, but existed in earlier versions of the game) and weapon reach and the like. Sure, expanding weapon specialization and yet another unarmed combat system was truly pointless. I more like it to being 10-15% useful rather than being truly terrible. Now Skills and Powers, that was actively terrible.

Ratman_tf · March 15, 2018, 11:36:43 AM

Quote from: danbuter;1029429It was terrible. However, PO: Spells and Magic should be required for any 2e game. Even if you only use the revised schools, it's worth it.

Huh. I'll have to give it a look. C&T turned me off from the Player's Option series.

crkrueger · March 15, 2018, 06:15:19 PM

Quote from: S'mon;1029272I'd noticed and repeatedly said eg that a strong simulationist base gave structure and purpose to gamist play.

It gives structure and purpose to narrativist play too, unless you're going heavy OOC-meta to storytell.

Christopher Brady · March 16, 2018, 12:46:47 AM

Combat and Tactics was one of the better books, in my experience. I rather like it.

Elfdart · March 18, 2018, 11:05:09 PM

Quote from: Turanil;1029267If I were to again play 1e or 2e, I would use both in fact. I would use 2e for everything, except initiative that would still be with d6. Then, players would have choice of playing classes from either 1e and 2e. However, only 1e illusionists and 1e druids would use spell lists from 1e, but otherwise all spells would come from 2e. Monsters would aslo come from 2e.

As to answer the initial question, I have no idea why people prefer 1e over 2e. Maybe because half-orcs, assassins, illusionists, rangers and bards were either abandoned or rendered lame in 2e?

Most people who play 1E use parts of 2E or one of the other editions. On the flip side, most who play 2E use parts of 1E and other editions. I use mostly 1E material when it comes to classes, races, treasure and monsters. I use 2E for initiative, spells and equipment. I find the complaints about "tone" or "feel" ridiculous. You can be just as noir-ish with 2E as with 1E and you can do the unicorns/lollipops Tolkien thing just as well with 1E as with 2E (as Dragonlance proved).

Elfdart · March 18, 2018, 11:09:38 PM

Quote from: Krimson;1028708I used Skill & Powers. We experimented with the split ability scores, but that got old fast. What I mostly used from it was the Psionic rules which first appeared in Will and the Way. Combat and Tactics was kind of fun when I ran games with a battle mat and miniatures. I think I still have Spells and Magic on my shelf and I kind of like how Clerics and the Druid were treated. I think the book I used most was High Level Campaigns, which had rules for statting out monsters which was very handy for making custom NPCs.

I rather liked Skills & Powers, though I agree that splitting ability scores was weak. I really enjoyed the Spells & Magic book for creating customized spellcasters. I never found any of the custom PCs over-powered, and two of my regulars love to Min/Max.