2E is my Dad's favorite edition of D&D.

I personally love 1E and 2E equally and will mix-and-match the two at times.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1028154Each of Pundey's thoughts are certain possible, as could be fearsomepirate's thought that the initial premise is incorrect.

Yep. I'd like to see some kind of poll to at least get a vague idea of what the actual numbers might be. (I think our forum goers here would be a skewed sample.)

For myself, I played a ton of 2nd when it was "live". I stopped having a regular group around the time 3rd came out, so I didn't get into it at all. Found a group for 4th and played a good amount. Lost the group and haven't had the chance to try 5th. I realized that I really prefer 2nd edition, and used it with some house rules (conveniently posted here recently) last year for a few games.

My gut feeling is that AD&D has that sweet spot of being a lot of people's first edition, and when people think "old school" they think AD&D. 2nd edition is too "new" to count.
I would really like it if a 2nd edition renissance happened, like the OSR. Take the good from 2nd edition (The settings, simpler system than 3rd-4th) and approach it with fresh eyes.

I think a lot of tables who were playing 1e AD&D back in the day had cobbled together a mish-mash of houserules and cross-over rules from B/X. Together, this formed a specific "dialect" of D&D that that group of friends played. When 2e came out, we may have bought a book or two, but any interesting content from that was merged into the D&D we already had. There was certainly no thought of abandoning our D&D and switching over to the new version.

Decades later, when we restarted playing D&D again, it was largely this kind of game that we were going to play. We call it "1e AD&D", but we for sure ain't playing by the book.

If I were to run AD&D, I'd run 2e core with a 1e MM nearby for the stats on demons & devils. 2e's MM is richer, it offers players a few more choices, and the rule are overall written better. My 2e books also are more battered than my 1e books (Easley books in pristine condition), so I wouldn't feel bad about putting more wear and tear on them (cue Gronan rage at collectors ).

I had been playing 1E for 11-12 years before 2E came out, covering my period of most frequent gaming from the start of middle school through the end of college. So, any issues I might have had with the game I sorted out through house rules and so forth. It is totally imaginable to create a version of D&D that I think would be better at the table (lord knows I have enough fantasy heart breaker files in my 'game design project' folders!). But a new published edition has to be significantly better, in a variety of ways, for me to take it seriously. 2E made a few interesting revisions and expansions, but for the most part it is just the same, or a bland version of the same. I bought it, looked it over, and played a few sessions, but I never saw anything that sustained my interest.

I know a lot of folks that still play 2E. But they tend to be born in the early 80's/late 70's instead of the 60's or 70's.

One of the best campaigns I ever ran was a 2E campaign of Night Below back in the day. Never had a problem with the system, and regarded most of the changes as improvements.

The only reason I haven't gone back to play 2E is that for me, 5E improves on both 1E and 2E, so I'm not really interested in playing either.  

As for why 1E remains much more popular, I'd guess because of nostalgia, the tone and feel of 1E, and the classic modules from the era. However, even when it comes to the latter, I think 2E gets short shrift. Most of the material TSR put out for 2E was poor,  but they put out an enormous number of books in that era - so many that even with a 10 per cent hit rate there is some great and overlooked adventures and setting books. Matt Colville has deservedly raised the profile of the Night Below, but there's a lot of other great material as well, from Carl Sargent's Greyhawk material to adventures like the Shattered Circle and Gates of Firestorm Peak, to the the Return to series.  There are many gems to be found among the dross.

I have no idea how representative this is, but in my particular case it was timing.  I wouln't be surprised if there are a far number of people in the same boat, since we were in that 2nd-wave of buyers in the early 80's, instead of the original generation of D&D players.  Anyway, 2E managed to arrive just at the moment when I had enjoyed AD&D and B/X, but was ready to try something else.  And 2E didn't seem different enough from 1E at first to make me want to buy the books, when money was still an issue.  So I never purchased 2E core (though I did get a few source books to use in other systems).  I only played it 2 or 3 times in conventions sessions.  

In general, this might be expressed as the timing issue of when 2E was ready to take off, you had several reactions:  Those that upgraded soon, those that were jumping on Vampire, those that were ready to do something else, and those that were dropping out.  If you didn't catch 2E the first time around, the main appeal to it now would appear to be one of the settings, however ...

As much as so many people love Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Planescape, and the like, there are plenty of us that simply didn't then, and still do not.  There's nothing terribly great about 2E Forgotten Realms, either, other than the sheer volume of material--and even that is a turnoff for some.

2e didn't 'fix' many of the problems with 1e. (It did fix a few.) It did create its own set of new problems though.  The 2e alignment system was so very stupid, IIRC.  I refer to the way the alignments are defined.  That terrible bit of writing in the 2e PHB from the POV of the PCs.  So bad that I still remember it nearly 30 years later.

I and my group at the time, we played a few games under the 2e ruleset.  Found it not to our taste and went back to 1e. But we had been playing AD&D since the late '70's (before the PHB and DMG released in some cases.)

There was nothing in 2e that offered a compelling reason to switch.  the few improvements were easily backported.

I suspect most 2e players were those who started with 2e, or moved over from BECMI.  As an unsubstantiated opinion, I can offer no data to support this, nor even anecdotes.  This is the internet though, a place rife with such unsubstantiated statements, so its not at all out of place.

AD&D 2E is the only edition of D&D I've ever played, and the only version that my friends in high school and college played.  It was more timing than anything, as we started role-playing around 1990.  For me, it helped that AD&D 2E was essentially the same rules set as Buck Rogers XXVc, just with magic and a lousy skills system in comparison.

You have to admit that, whatever the qualities of the game might have been, for several years they got out a shit ton of products and sold a lot of books. It all ended in tears in the end, when the spat book bloat metastacized and TSR unravelled. But the first 3-4 years of 2E's product run were actually pretty solid. There are a lot of good books from that period.

Well into 3.Xe, our group was still playing 1e. 2e material was treated as 1e supplements, especially settings such as Planescape. We never really used the core books, though some material from Skill and Powers, Spell and Magic, and Combat and Tactics were used.

The OSR could be a part of it. I mean the first big one was OSRIC and there are people who are still unaware of the existence of For Gold & Glory. Other OSR material may be Holmes/BECMI/RC based, but like in the old days D&D and 1e material was used interchangeably.

For sure; I consider everything published before 3E to be the same game and completely interchangeable.

Quote from: Franky;10281782e didn't 'fix' many of the problems with 1e. (It did fix a few.) It did create its own set of new problems though.  The 2e alignment system was so very stupid, IIRC.  I refer to the way the alignments are defined.  That terrible bit of writing in the 2e PHB from the POV of the PCs.  So bad that I still remember it nearly 30 years later.

Both this and what sureshot referenced...

Quote from: sureshot;1028135I prefer 2E over 1E even if I find the advice for how DMs are supposed to act towards player in terms piss poor imo. Their seems to be at least to me a vibe of player vs DM. Players have high stats target their weak saves. Low stats not a problem play a flawed to very flawed character even if in 2E low stats are a major liability imo. Player wants to keep using a Silver weapon for every fight. Punish him by making it snap and bend. I dug out my old 2E books and while I still enjoy it I can see why so many DMs were jerks during it's heyday. Don't even get me started on the example fight scene they use to explain initiative .

Talk about all your player stereotypes wrapped up in one. If it's not the dumb Dwarf Fighter charging Orcs because "me dumb Dwarf Fighter me charge when me see ORCS!!!" ignoring the rank of Trolls walking forward. The Wizard who seems lost and out of her element and seems only able to cast Fireball even when her own party in the way. While needing to be almost yelled at not too when other players tell her not to. The DM seems  a equally bigger dick " c'mon c'mon pick a spell or you lose your turn".

I enjoyed playing both 1E and 2E and would do so again with the right DM for 2E. No wonder their was a rash of " I am god" DMs in my neck of the woods for awhile those really don't do a good job of teaching potential DMs a much needed dose of humility.

...are accurate assessments about some passages in the 2e core books. I'm not exactly sure why they were written as they were. Perhaps as reaction to Gary's own unique authorial voice. They certainly experimented with tone and voice and style in the writing during that era for unclear reasons. I remember that The Complete Book of Elves was basically (but not explicitly) written from the perspective of an absolute elf fanboy--just fawning vernacular love of all things elven such that elves could have slaves of the 'lesser races' who would stay loyal out of adoration of the amazing elves--all of which would have been an valid and interesting (if unusual) narrative choice if it were perhaps deliberately done and repeated for the other humanoid splat-books. It is a damn shame that the 2e era is the most opaque era of the game, since it would be great fun to dive into the 'why's of these things.

QuoteI suspect most 2e players were those who started with 2e, or moved over from BECMI.  As an unsubstantiated opinion, I can offer no data to support this, nor even anecdotes.  This is the internet though, a place rife with such unsubstantiated statements, so its not at all out of place.

Well I can be your anecdote. I played BECMI (actually first sessions B/X, but first purchase BECMI's Basic) all the way to ~'89 and switched to 2e with some 1e splats like UA and OA and the Wilderness book still in print.

No one plays 1e around here.  2e has some proponents, but it's Pathfinder, Pathfinder, Pathfinder.