So, I was watching a review of D&D 5E on YouTube and the host did this thing about how he got started through AD&D and then played 2E in college, yadda yadda, and mentioned that he cannot play those games anymore. He really liked 5E (which I do, too). Then, yesterday on G+, I was reading a post and had the same thing about how AD&D was great and helped them get hooked into the hobby but he could never play it anymore. This made me realize that I hear from a lot of people (online) sort of the same thing. It makes me feel like an odd duck because I still really like AD&D. I got started on 2E but what my friends and I play is AD&D. When I go to Nexus Milwaukee or Gary Con, I play AD&D. I go to Half Priced books regularly looking for product. Why do so many people seem to dislike AD&D now?

Because they're dumb enough to be embarassed at playing an old elfgame.

Hint. If you play elfgames, you're already uncool. No one gives a shit whether it's something that came out last week, or in the 70s.

Quote from: The Butcher;845310

dead link...

... because like in so many aspects of our culture, people are conditioned to want only the New and Improved version of anything.

It isn't just with AD&D.  I've been quirking my brow for thirty years or more at the various Edition Wars across the hobby, and my comment of "So hang on.  You hate the new edition.  You like the old edition.  The old edition still does everything it did when you bought it, and you've still got it.  The gaming company hasn't sent a hit squad to confiscate your copy.  What in the merry hell prevents you from continuing to play it?" has almost always fallen on deaf ears.

There are people who apologize for liking Alf and Vanilla Ice. Those things aren't sexy, unless you happen to like them in some sort of hipster way, which means you actually think they're terrible and your admiration is just thinly disguised derision. Then there are other people who really don't give a fuck what some asshole on the internet thinks and still watch Alf reruns and listen to Ice Ice Baby without a pretentious bone in their body.

My guess is the Youtube and G+ people are just trying to look cool by saying they don't like AD&D, but also remain inclusive by saying they used to play it. Sounds like what a politician would do.

I personally think that AD&D is a bit clunky. I like it, even though I have no particular nostalgia for AD&D (actually, I found quite inaccessible when I started with RPGs), but compared to the often more streamlined games of the last decades or so, it has all these almost arbitrary side rules and most importantly, limitations. Classes and abilities are a lo more rigid when compared to newer games, and I personally think that these limitations can feel a lot more restrictive if you are not used to them anymore. Call it an entitlement issue if you like, but the later versions of D&D offered quite a few more liberties (multi-class options come to mind).  

Also, not caring too much about mechanically balancing as the holy grail of game design almost guarantees that it does not pander at all to the  optimisation crowd, who tend to be loud and dogmatic (you know, the people who craft characters and optimise them for white room scenrarios, and usually talk about actual RPGs like manically masturbating virgins talk about sex).

Quote from: Ulairi;845314dead link...

Ah well. It was a fun image.

Replaced with text.

Quote from: Beagle;845335I personally think that AD&D is a bit clunky... Classes and abilities are a lo more rigid when compared to newer games... Also, not caring too much about mechanically balancing as the holy grail of game design almost guarantees that it does not pander at all to the  optimisation crowd...

Clunky, rigid, unbalanced, but above all 'flat' are the standard critiques in my neck of the woods. Flat because non-caster characters don't gain all the kool powarz they get in later editions.

For the record, I'd run it no problem if asked.

To answer the question of the post rather than the title: AD&D is fantastic at being AD&D. If you want to do anything else, and can get your players to go for it, there are probably numerous other systems on the market that do it better.

  To answer the thread title: Certain folks have made a lot of noise to the effect that 99% of all *D&D players after 1983 or so (at the latest) have been Playing the Game Wrong, so folks may be a bit ashamed at having sinned against the Great Gygax.

   (Note: Almost all my gaming in the past 12 months has been either AD&D 2nd Edition or BECMI, with a group that has predominantly not played them before. The chief complaint--by an overwhelming margin--has been the inconsistency of the rules system. Yet even the player who's been most vocal about this says that the game still fundamentally works.)

Quote from: Ulairi;845308So, I was watching a review of D&D 5E on YouTube and the host did this thing about how he got started through AD&D and then played 2E in college, yadda yadda, and mentioned that he cannot play those games anymore. He really liked 5E (which I do, too). Then, yesterday on G+, I was reading a post and had the same thing about how AD&D was great and helped them get hooked into the hobby but he could never play it anymore. This made me realize that I hear from a lot of people (online) sort of the same thing. It makes me feel like an odd duck because I still really like AD&D. I got started on 2E but what my friends and I play is AD&D. When I go to Nexus Milwaukee or Gary Con, I play AD&D. I go to Half Priced books regularly looking for product. Why do so many people seem to dislike AD&D now?

Wanna be hipsters trying to be "avengers of everything" showing their RPG.net butt-hurt while thinking those who play games they don't like should bow and lick their boots for them bringing us their "enlightenment." What they really need is more hard dirty work to occupy their time.

I'm not a fan of AD&D, but I don't think I've ever actually played it. That is, we played a game using the AD&D books, but we ignored a lot of the rules and made up a lot of house rules to fit it to what we liked.  Now I like B/X and its various relatives.

I'd run AD&D2e, but without any proficiencies and splatbooks.

In my mind those two are the worst offenders in the game. Proficiencies were optional but kind of mandatory, as they were used in 'official' events. And splatbooks, because they made a huge mess out of the system, much like D&D3.x.

But I can't foresee that I actually would run it. There are better systems for the genre.

I played ADnD loads way back when in the early 80s.
I thoroughly enjoyed it at the time.
The last time I played it was probably the late 80s and I was getting kind of tired of it and had moved onto other RPGs (Runequest, Rolemaster etc).

I expect if someone wanted to run it, I'd probably have a laugh with it, if only for nostalgic reasons, but maybe I'd be into it again, I dunno.

When I see an old ADnD DMG, MM, PHB etc in a shop or wherever, the good  memories come flooding back.

I'll just stick with 1e AD&D. After 30+ years of playing it, I like to think I'm pretty good at it, in much the same way I am with playing the piano, speaking Chinese, or whipping up a really good bowl of chili. One thing about gamers who hate it...every day they're talking about how to convert something from 1e to whatever later edition they think is better while I've never heard a 1e gamer ask how to do the opposite.

I ran a 2nd edition campaign last year.  I would up ignoring so many of its rules that by the end of the campaign, I was annoyed that I hadn't just used Labyrinth Lord + the AEC classes instead.

That's why I could never go back to AD&D: OD&D's better.