[Iterations of D&D] Wiki pages and possible essays

[Moreno R.]

I guess Moreno or Paul could really nail AD&D2, after someone comes along and cleans up all the profanity and sarcasm from the first draft, right guys?

Probably. But that someone will have to remove 90% of the text and exorcise the article with holy water...   :-)

The problem is that AD&D2 is dated, too.  These days when people rant about D&D I feel like a dinosaur, my old tirades against THAC0 or about how the various proficiency works or how the spell lists are insane or how the xp table encourage stupidity in the players... are all out of date. People don't even know what I am talking about. It's like a sort of collective black curtain, "there is no D&D edition before 1999"...

I even read just last week some guy talking about "Old School Renaissance" using as an example...   AD&D 2nd edition.

[Paul Czege]

Moreno,

I'd love to read a comparison of AD&D 2e to AD&D 1e that highlights changes you think drove cultural changes in play style. I grew up playing AD&D 1e. There are a constellation of small changes in 2e, and a clear change in play style, but I've never been able to mentally map from the small system changes to the different play style. I've always argued that the Dragonlance modules taught the different, railroaded play style. You think system changes were important as well?

Paul

[Moreno R.]

Hi Paul!

I wrote a short summary of the changes in the road to "story before" in this post at the forge (the first post in the thread)

The principal change is that the rules in AD&D2 are to be read, not used. The cultural change already happened, AD&D2 is a unplaytested pile of crap, but nobody cares, it's already "common culture" the fact that the GM will not follow the rules anyway.

About the single rules change I have written tons of usenet post in 1994-1999 about it, but it's all in Italian, to make a list I should search these old post or read again both game manuals (AD&D1 and AD&D2), something I have to inclination to do aver again...

[Paul Czege]

Moreno,

I can believe the "not used" assertion. A year or so ago I spent a couple of days reading the 1e Monster Manual and it was stunningly obvious how much real play every single monster had undergone. The descriptions and characteristics of the monsters are inspiring and pregnant with play potential. 2e feels like that game was taken into the studio for a clean up that didn't understand its workings well enough to keep important parts. But that's just my overall gut reaction. I don't know the changes well enough to point confidently to specific concerns.

Paul

[Troy_Costisick]

I'd love to read a comparison of AD&D 2e to AD&D 1e that highlights changes you think drove cultural changes in play style. I grew up playing AD&D 1e. There are a constellation of small changes in 2e, and a clear change in play style, but I've never been able to mentally map from the small system changes to the different play style. I've always argued that the Dragonlance modules taught the different, railroaded play style. You think system changes were important as well?

Paul,

Earlier this year Monte Cook wrote and article on that very subject.  It's a little too brief IMO and does make some generalizations, but it does give you some good insight into how the D&D designers looked at the changes between editions.

Peace,

-Troy

[Troy_Costisick]

I'd love to read a comparison of AD&D 2e to AD&D 1e that highlights changes you think drove cultural changes in play style. I grew up playing AD&D 1e. There are a constellation of small changes in 2e, and a clear change in play style, but I've never been able to mentally map from the small system changes to the different play style. I've always argued that the Dragonlance modules taught the different, railroaded play style. You think system changes were important as well?

Paul,

Earlier this year Monte Cook wrote and article on that very subject.  It's a little too brief IMO and does make some generalizations, but it does give you some good insight into how the D&D designers looked at the changes between editions.

Peace,

-Troy

And just to add to this, you might check out James Maliszewski's articles on Gygaxian Naturalism, The Hickman Revolution, and The Ages of D&D.

Peace,

-Troy