FABIO wrote:

laudablepuss wrote:

Mischief Maker wrote:

McMoo the Anti-Drug Cow wrote:

I don't know if any of you fagg0ts are hardkore enough to be playing Pen & Paper D&D, but me and my band of nerds are revisiting our celibate teenage years and have recently resumed our 2nd ed AD&d campaign.

We have 6 of the forgotten realms boxed sets (Undermountain, Undermountain II, Waterdeep, Dragon Mountain, Ruins of Myth Drannor, FR Campaign Setting).

I've also managed to find about a dozen 3.5 handbooks in pdf format. (On Suprnova, but gone now)

Should we stay in 2nd ed or move up to 3.5?

Is there any sofware I can throw on my laptop to make things simpler? I'm using this, and it's pretty OK. Their vaunted cyclopedia only has basic items and no monsters.

Does anybody know where i can steal get the Core Rules 2.0 and Core Rules Expansions CD's?

If you're big on the "for nostalgia's sake" gayness, I say stick with 2nd Edition. If you just want a better and quicker set of rules, use the Star Wars D6 system. Or hell, just grab a pair of 10 sided dice and just come up with a percent chance of success for everything. With all the plot-killing bitching that my groups got into over the overly complex and unrealistic AD&D rules back in the day, I figured the game would be better called "Lawyers and loopholes."

If you want realism, D&D isn't a good game. It's premised on champions in the mold of Hercules -- people who are just way way tougher than most people can ever hope to be. The kind of guys that get clocked in the head with an uprooted tree wielded by a giant, stagger, then keep fighting. Realistic games are scary and dangerous because that's how real combat is. I played a hyper-realistic medieval RPG that was pretty fun but it was tough to prepare a challenging game. If you die, you're dead, and getting hit with a sword or an arrow is devastating. That's fun for a while, but I like D&D's fakeness more consistently (I occasionally get tired of it of course).

That said, I can't see any rational argument for 2nd edition over 3rd edition except maybe that you're just used to it and don't want to change. It's not easier, it's not more realistic, it's not more balanced, and it's not even remotely as flexible.

Play Champions for realism and depth while still being simpler than D&D rules. Play West End's Star Wars RPG for a fast paced and simple game.


I really love how the Star Wars rulebook encourages you to fudge it on occasion when it would mean faster play, showing two examples. one of a bookworm stopping the game to flip through and check the rules, the other just approximating the number and rolling, then asking you which sounds more fun. They also tell you to skip a player's combat turn if they don't say what they're doing quickly enough.

GM: "Okay you're surrounded by storm troopers and combat begins. What do you this turn?"

Player: "Hmmm.....what would give me the greatest tactical advantage......."

GM: "You spend this turn standing shocked wondering what to do. Who's next?"