I played AD&D 2nd in the nineties. I found the rules laughably terrible. I now regularly play D&D 3.5 and think it's the most well thought out design so far. I never could bring those two games under one umbrella in my brain.
Now I bought me the Rules Cyclopedia.
And what do I read?

Five Foot Steps, Ten second turns, battlemat based movement, clearly designed combt round, sane initiative rules, general and usable attribute bonuses, balancing all the way!

Wow, RC truly is way more like D&D 3.5 than I ever thought.

But please explain to me the utter shittiness that the AD&D 2nd Ed. Players Handbook is:
No clear way to use the rules, LESS combat options and tactics than RC!
NO movement rules.
1 MINUTE turns!

What the fuck is advanced about that?

RC has more and better defined rules than AD&D second.

How does AD&D first come into the picture? Was it "Advanced"?
The only thing "Advanced" I could find between RC and 2nd was useless detail like Spell components.

Really puzzled, hoping for enlightenment.

Just a shot in the dark but I'll bet it's because AD&D 2e developed out of 1e, which was also a mess.

There was the original D&D; which was developed in two different directions. One was supposed to be a continuation of the original rules, though some elements were revised, and this became "Basic" D&D.  Meanwhile, Gary Gygax added a shitload of rules to D&D and this became AD&D 1e, which was often incredibly byzantine, but generally good for a lark.

By the 80s, after Gygax lost control of TSR, Basic D&D had evolved into the Basic/Expert/Companion/Master boxed sets, and had actually gained a whole bunch of fairly sophisticated rules that were still more streamlined and sensible than the gonzo mess that was AD&D1e.

Meanwhile, in an effort to strip Gygax of any authorial rights to AD&D, to sanitize D&D by removing anything that the christian right might find offensive, and to make a heavily misguided attempt at a blatant cash grab, Lorraine Williams ordered the creation of "2nd Edition AD&D", which was apparently written by a gang of meatbags with the brains of circus monkeys and the emotional appeal of cybermen.  They stripped out anything even mildly offensive to soccer moms, and decided to throw out absolutely any trace of personality and fun along with it, but didn't actually make any tangible improvements to the fundamental AD&D rules aside from omitting a few of the more useless gygaxian siderules.

By the time the Rules Cyclopedia came out, "Basic" D&D was actually a vastly superior game in terms of system design and playability than AD&D.

RPGPundit

Well, the history was that AD&D originated in 1978.  As with most RPGs in that period, it was something of a confused mess -- distinct mainly in that it was larger.  When AD&D2 rolled around in 1989, they did only editing for consistency but kept most of the core rules the same as 1st edition.  

In contrast, the boxed set Basic D&D rules were created in several successive attempts to make a more playable game out of the AD&D1 rules set.  It went through three editions fairly quickly before 1984.  It was then expanded with the Expert, Companion, Masters, and Immortals sets -- themselves were revised.  The Rules Cyclopedia in 1991 was the cap of this evolution, put together by Aaron Allston.  Basically, they were more willing to change, revise, and improve within the Basic D&D line -- being less concerned about backwards compatibility.

EDIT: Cross-posted with RPGPundit.  All of the points about AD&D2 mentioned in the original post are in AD&D1, so offhand I think your problem is more with Gygax than with the revision.

Thanks for the insight.
What brought Gary to the conclusin, that one minute turns would be in any way cool?
Did anybody play it like this?
Or was everybody "pulling a Jeff Rients" e.g. playing D&D with AD&D as a source for optional rules?

Quote from: SettembriniWhat brought Gary to the conclusin, that one minute turns would be in any way cool?
Did anybody play it like this?

I'd say the one-minute turn grew out of wargames, in which a one-minute turn is pretty speedy.

In a weird way, it does work with AD&D HP and damage. It's definitely an abstraction and no arguing.

I actually did play AD&D by the rules as written, at least at first. Being a refugee from wargaming, rules were important and to be followed. I steadily house-ruled for a couple of years until I discovered RQ and realised it did everything I wanted better. Interestingly, Jonathan Tweet has pointed to the advanced design of RQ for the 70s, and I think it's well-known that it had a huge influence on D&D 3e.

@Droog: Your argumentation is flawed. Either AD&D is wargame-derived, but why should D&D be less so? It oughta be more so, and truly, RCD&D has well defined rules, like a wargame, but AD&D 2nd is a confusing mess, with much GM leeway.

Oh, well, I'm not too invested in it. Who knows why Uncle Gary did what he did? It's not like he had a lot of precedent to go by.

What I'm really getting at is that AD&D was always a confusing mess, with much GM leeway.

Quote from: Settembrini... battlemat based movement ...

This is in the RC?  :confused:

Personally, battlemat-based combat is one of my main pet-peeves with 3.5 D&D.  

The Rules Cyclopedia is my favourite version of D&D, and the fact that it does not require a battlemat is one of the reasons for this.

Quote from: RPGPundit... By the time the Rules Cyclopedia came out, "Basic" D&D was actually a vastly superior game in terms of system design and playability than AD&D...

Agreed.

One thing to keep in mind is that, although 'based upon' OD&D, the Basic/Expert/RC vesion of D&D in fact changed many aspects of OD&D.

The first Basic set (the 'Holmes' basic set) was published in 1977, just as the first books were being published for AD&D, and was intended as an 'intro' product for AD&D (and also as a stop-gap product, as the OD&D line was being phased out).

By the time the second Basic set (the 'Moldvay' basic set -- the one with the cool Erol Otus cover) was produced, TSR had decided (most likely for legal reasons concerning Dave Arneson) to maintain two separate game lines: AD&D and D&D.  The Moldvay Basic set changed many aspects of OD&D (e.g. introducing the concept of 'race classes'), as well as cleaning up and streamlining many other aspects (e.g. the combat system).  These improvements were continued (and refined) with the Mentzer Basic set, and eventually the RC.

It is worth keeping in mind that Basic D&D, in the form that we recognise it today (i.e. the Moldvay/Mentzer/Alston system) actually post-dates AD&D.  The core AD&D books were all published before 1980.  So when Tom Moldvay was put in charge of cleaning up the system for a separate D&D line, he had the benefit of having Gygax's complete AD&D system before him for consideration.

It is not surprising that Moldvay (and subsequently Mentzer and Allston) opted for a leaner, clearer, more coherent rules system than those found in AD&D.

Hence the superiority of B/X/RC D&D over AD&D (1e and, especially, 2e).
:cool:

Quote from: Settembrini@Droog: Your argumentation is flawed. Either AD&D is wargame-derived, but why should D&D be less so? It oughta be more so, and truly, RCD&D has well defined rules, like a wargame, but AD&D 2nd is a confusing mess, with much GM leeway.

While OD&D (the 1974 rules) and Gygax's refinements to OD&D (which became 1e AD&D) were influenced by wargaming, by the time Tom Moldvay reorganised and revised the rules for the 1980 Basic Set, there was a decision to make them less wargame-like in order to appeal to new players.  This can be seen in the default assumptions of the AD&D rules (published 1977-1979) and the Basic/Expert D&D rules (published 1980-1981).  The former assumed that players would be using miniatures, whereas this assumption was not made in the Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert rules.  (Although there is mention of miniatures in the Moldvay Basic rules, iirc, it is clear that they are optional; in addition, all the use of 'inches' ["] to describe movement, found in AD&D and appropriate for wargames, is dropped in the Moldvay Basic rules.)

There you go, young fellow.

I'm always willing to learn from you guys, especially bein such a "young one" to D&D. But let me cite the RC again:

QuoteMiniature Pigura
Your campaign group might like to ux miniature
figures to rcprmnt all characters and monsters,
especially in combat encounters.
Several types of miniature figures are available
from toy and hobby shops worldwide that arc
made of metal. plutic, or cardboard; the metal
and plastic ones are suitable for painting. With
so many available, you should be able to find
figures that look very similar to your characters.
The 2Smm figurines (a human is about 1* tall)
arc well-suited to D&D gama.
When you use miniatures to conduct combat,
1" on the table suifacc represents 10' of distance.
Ifa character can move 30 yards (90') in a
round. you'd move his figure 9" head on the
table.
You can use a ruler to measure distances or you
can buy one of many vinyl or plastic playing sur- faces that are already gridded into inches. Add'
tionally, you can use watercolor markers to dro
mom and situation details on vinyl ot plastic su.
faces and

There are more miniature references throughout the RC, especially the five foot step, and "fighting retreat" rule, seem to need 1 inch mapping. OTOH my 2nd Ed. PHB does not even mention miniatures and mdiscreet movement, it only states that movement is a guesstimated thing, because a minute is such a long time.

My basic point is:

The RC is way more defined and tactical than AD&D 2nd.
When AD&D is older than the RC, why are the wargame elements weaker?

Quote from: SettembriniMy basic point is:

The RC is way more defined and tactical than AD&D 2nd.
When AD&D is older than the RC, why are the wargame elements weaker?

AD&D 1e has more 'wargame elements' than the RC (or the B/X rules).  Perhaps these elements were purged in 2e (I don't know, as I've never played or read 2e AD&D), explaining the difference that seems so confusing to you.

In addition, I've never really thought of the RC as having a strong 'wargame' feel to it.  Yes, it has clear rules for combat, but I've certainly never felt that a battlemat was necessary for RC D&D (unlike 3e).

I suspect that you're viewing the RC through the lens of 3e D&D.