Anyone else still DM 2nd Ed?

[Toofey]

Well?

All said and done though, my players are all trained on it at this point, so I see little reason to change. Although these feats things I hear about sound interesting.

[Shpadoinkle]

My brother-in-law (one of them anyway) still plays 2e. As do I, when I play with him, but I prefer 3e.

Feats for fighters mostly replace combat styles you could spend weapon proficiency slots on- two weapon fighting, for instance. Other feats give you bonuses to skills or let you alter spells in various ways (make them automatically do maximum damage, expand the area of effect, make them last longer, etc.)

[JadedDM]

I still DM 2E, yep. Nothing but, in fact. It's the only system I actually know.

[Caliphbubba]

still play in a 2nd ed game once a month, and can be pressed into DMing it once in awhile.

But as far as D&D goes I'd much rather play 3.x.

[John Campbell]

Off and on. If I were currently DMing, it would be AD&D 2, which is far superior to later editions, but I'm running a Shadowrun game and want to actually play at least some of the time, so our D&D game is 3.5/Pathfinder, because no one else in my group will run anything that's not d20.

Stay away from feats. They're the bait in a trap. They tell you they'll grant you all kinds of neat abilities, and when you reach for them, you find yourself locked in a steel cage where you can't even attempt any of the things you want to do, because there's a rule for that now, and you have to have the right feat, and there are hundreds and hundreds of feats, and you get seven. And not even all at once; in dribbles over a 20-level career.

[LibraryOgre]

I used to use 2nd edition a lot, but then found C&C. Most of what I liked in 2nd edition was either in C&C or easily transportable.

[Fhaolan]

Yup. But the group doesn't get together very often anymore, so it's a fair span between sessions. In the order of *months*.

[hamlet]

Yep. I play it rather regularly.

Want to start up a new campaign, but running out of time.

[Greylond]

I GM HackMaster 4th Edition, which is really close to AD&D 2nd Edition. Before HM4 came along I preferred AD&D2, although I found that I didn't like some of the "Complete" Books. Some of them had way over powered classes and other powers and some of them had rules that just plain contradicted some rules from the PHB/DMG. What I ended up liking the most was the 4 basic class books(F/M/T/C) and the Dwarf and Gnomes&Halfling Books. The Elven book had some interesting stuff but some of the class/packages were just too much, i.e. BladeSinger. The Player's Option books had some interesting ideas but I think they just went too far although I did endup using a couple of things from them, like the Advantages/Disadvantages from the Skills&Powers.

If I wasn't GMing HM, I'd probably be running AD&D 2nd. I've met some people around here(Memphis) and Dallas area over the last few years that still play AD&D though.

[Demonweave]

Don't DM it,
But play Hackmaster (as already said, based partly on 2nd Ed)
Play 2nd Ed, and DM 3rd. (My DM for 2nd is a player in my 3rd. lol

[Lurkmoar]

*raises hand*

We tend to use a fair variety of other systems, and if I'm lucky, other GMs.

[Armoury99]

We tend to use a fair variety of other systems, and if I'm lucky, other GMs.

+1 to that.

Having played 3.5, then 4e, then Pathfinder... we're pretty much all in agreement that our next campaign should be 2nd Ed as we liked that better than all of the above (probably a high nostalgia value for us old timers too).

Or hell, maybe we'll do OD&D.

[Matthew]

Sure do, or at least an approximation of it. :smallbiggrin:

[Jay R]

"Still"?

Our group has just gone over to 2E. For the previous 2 years we'd been playing Original D&D out of the white box.

[Blas_de_Lezo]

If you're interested, I'm signed up in a forum that runs almost all versions of D&D, including 2e. It's in spanish though. The link it's in my sig. :smallamused:

[Toofey]

Stay away from feats. They're the bait in a trap. They tell you they'll grant you all kinds of neat abilities, and when you reach for them, you find yourself locked in a steel cage where you can't even attempt any of the things you want to do, because there's a rule for that now, and you have to have the right feat, and there are hundreds and hundreds of feats, and you get seven. And not even all at once; in dribbles over a 20-level career.
That's actually been one of my big issues with every new ed of D&D. each one further defines what is and is not possible and it takes a lot of the creativity out of the game. From what I hear in 4th ed you don't even get to pick your spells as a wizard anymore. (I only saw the book for a few minutes and when I got that impression from the magic section the person who's book I was looking at confirmed it)

[GreyMantle]

I used to use 2nd edition a lot, but then found C&C. Most of what I liked in 2nd edition was either in C&C or easily transportable.

I'm curious, what did you like about 2E that C&C doesn't have?


(I ask because I'm currently writing a retroclone myself. However, my only experience with 2E comes from the Infinity Engine games, so, other than being more "rule slite" than 3E, I'm not exactly sure what to take from the older editions.)

[LibraryOgre]

I'm curious, what did you like about 2E that C&C doesn't have?


(I ask because I'm currently writing a retroclone myself. However, my only experience with 2E comes from the Infinity Engine games, so, other than being more "rule slite" than 3E, I'm not exactly sure what to take from the older editions.)

A big part of it is easy to fix... spell choice. C&C has a very limited spell list, and converting on the fly requires a bit more work than I want to do. A lot of the quantifiable changes (like kit or S&P variability) that I like in small doses in 2e is easy to do in C&C in an unquantifiable manner (i.e. "This is what I'm gonna do... we'll swap out X and give you Y.")

I think most of my feeling for 2e that doesn't happen in C&C comes down to nostalgia.

[dps]

I haven't actually played since 2nd Edition was the latest ruleset. If I did get an opportunity to play again, I think that I'd prefer to still play 2nd Edition, but I doubt I'll ever have the time, at least before I retire, and by them everybody might be playing 12 Edition or something.

[aaron_the_cow]

I play it! I actually learned from my uncle, who uses a homebrewed 1st/2nd-y thingy.

[Kurgan]

About a two years back I picked up the 2nd edition adnd phb and monstrous manual. Since then, it is the only system I have DMed with (though that is in part because I've only run one campaign in that time...). Not so much still playing, since I'm rather new to it, but I must say I have fallen in love with it and its fairly rules light ways.

[Telasi]

I run 2e very rarely, mostly because a certain subset of my gaming group doesn't like it. I would gladly run/play it more often, but it's pretty much all 3.x or 4e where I play.

[Toofey]

For the record if anyone is available to play in nyc a group I'm currently playing 2nd ed in is always taking players (we're currently at 4 total) and "the right person" could also join the group I'm currently dming.

[Gedaliah]

Have been playing in a mixed 1st/2nd edition D&D game for a year and a half. I love both versions of the game, and it is fund to pull out bits and pieces from both. We mainly use the core books, but have splashes of Skills and Powers, Unearthed Arcana, and some of the class-specific books.

One of the enjoyments of harkening back to the earlier versions is that it seems more open and flexible than latter editions. Have played all editions - original, AD&D, Basic D&D, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, and 4th. Even have touched on Pathfinder. 4th edition is about the only one that I think I shall generally avoid.

But, hurrah for 2nd!

[Lord Vampyre]

2nd edition is by far, my favorite system (for fantasy games). However, I find it difficult to find a gaming group that still plays it.

[DueceEsMachine]

yep. Still play 2nd ed. At least when I can. there's only one other guy I know in town that plays, and getting together between work schedules is near impossible.

Anyways. I'd play it more, but what can you do? Just picked up some old books at a 2nd hand store - the floating hut of yaga baba. lol. looks awesome. an original Ad&D monster manual. Good times.

Also, anyone enjoy the skills and powers options of substats? I think they're pretty cool, and occasionally even use them on a 3.x character. just to mix things up.

[LibraryOgre]

Also, anyone enjoy the skills and powers options of substats? I think they're pretty cool, and occasionally even use them on a 3.x character. just to mix things up.

My problem with the substats is that they were too easy to min/max. Unless your DM paid close attention to encumbrance, Stamina was useless; pimp muscle for the bonus to hit and damage. If you weren't planning on being an archer, or you had a 13, pimp balance at the expense of aim... going to an 11 aim lost you nothing, but a 15 balance gave you a +1 to AC.

Most substats had logical reasons to break them for most classes... a cleric might not want to break up a good Wisdom, but an excellent Wisdom? The 20 is tempting, or going for the spell immunities due to will power.

[hamlet]

And I just hated those book in general.

Like the miscagenated offspring of GURPS and D&D.:smallfrown:

[Matthew]

Ha, ha. Whilst I am fine with the Player's Option books as sources of ideas and such, I have to admit the idea of subattributes always left me rather cold.

[Toofey]

Have been playing in a mixed 1st/2nd edition D&D game for a year and a half. I love both versions of the game, and it is fund to pull out bits and pieces from both. We mainly use the core books, but have splashes of Skills and Powers, Unearthed Arcana, and some of the class-specific books.

One of the enjoyments of harkening back to the earlier versions is that it seems more open and flexible than latter editions. Have played all editions - original, AD&D, Basic D&D, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, and 4th. Even have touched on Pathfinder. 4th edition is about the only one that I think I shall generally avoid.

But, hurrah for 2nd!

Actually one of my favorite things about 2nd ed as a system is it was close enough to 1st ed that you could still use any materials from 1st ed that you want. I look at the current eds and can't figure out what the hell they're talking about.

[PPA]

I'm currently DMing a 2e campaign which started April last year. We never really got into 3e and beyong. Felt too video-gamey for our taste. Having said that, I do adapt some stuff from 3e, 3.5 and Pathfinder to 2e. We (gasp!) even use Player's Options!

We're having a blast, I can tell you.

[EvilJames]

I have been DM'ing A 2nd ed Planescape campaign for over 2 years now. It as supposed to be much shorter but one of the players bought me the Great Modron March adventure anthology so that caused it to take longer. That game will soon be taking an extended Hiatus and we'll be picking up a 2nd ed Spelljamer campaign. However I don't get to play 2nd ed for the most part as the only other people in my group started on 3rd ed so that's what they run when it's their turn behind the screen.

Actually now that I think about it, the last time I got to play 2nd ed was maybe a year or so after 3rd came out, because or DM tried shoe horning feats in as an experiment.

[olthar]

As of last month I've done every edition of D&D (as long as 3 and 3.5 count as the same since my game last month was 3.5), and I still greatly prefer 2nd. I run a monthly game of 2nd (monthly because it's hard for us to get together often enough to play more often) and my players still like 2nd a lot.