I submit to you that the second edition of any given game is always the best.
The first edition is a bunch of guys coming together with some ideas. They slap up mechanics in the way that would be sensible and make for fun playing, and they add in a bunch of lore based on what they think is cool or interesting. They typically draw ideas from mythology, other fiction around them, and occasionally real world issues or analogies. But they're still only starting up in it, not quite knowing how this works or where a good balance (whether mechanically or lorewise) is, and they make mistakes. Any rulebooks and fluff material they publish is likely to have this haphazard and amateurish quality to it.
Second edition is where they start to have a good grasp on how things go. They smoothen things up based on their own greater wisdom and on feedback from the first batch of players. They revise the rules to something more functional and get rid of fluff and background material that just doesn't mesh well with the greater world. They may still add in some more cool stuff, mechanical options and fluff they would like. With the money and greater professionalism, the books are likely to look better and there'll be more of them. All is well.
Henry Anderson
Third edition and further on is where it all starts to go downhill. Most if not all of the original writers have likely left the house. Mechanics are often simplified to attract new players, but the new writers and playtesters have little to no idea on the underlying subtleties of the old mechanics and how they went together, often resulting in a big mess. And the story of the setting has become its own beast: no longer do people add interesting stuff from mythology or other stories into it, but instead they expand and advance the storyline that already exists, once again often without understanding how it came together in the first place - it's quite likely that these new writers know little of those old tales or references at all. Whatever the original vision was, no one in the company knows any longer. Great many books are published just to make money, and they will contain far more mechanical options and fluff than is needed, and are usually entirely professional and rather sterile, with no life or interesting narrative to them that the amateurish flavor of the earlier editions brought in.
Further editions only make things worse, attracting more and more people and keeping the spiral going so that they could make more money. It'll be likely most players don't even know of the earlier editions any longer, or figure they're automatically shit because they came earlier.
You know this to be true, Veeky Forums, do you not?
Adrian Wilson
Most games I've played only have a single edition.
GURPS doesn't fit: fourth edition is pretty great.
Shadowrun fits.
WH40k checks out. And on that note, so do WFRP and Dark Heresy.
Advanced Fighting Fantasy... yeah, it fits.
In case of Dungeons & Dragons, the actual "second" edition would probably actually be the first edition AD&D. But yeah it's the best.
Christopher Rogers
Exalted.
Wyatt Clark
>In case of Dungeons & Dragons, the actual "second" edition would probably actually be the first edition AD&D.
It'd actually be like third, even fourth. Who can even count those things.
Jacob Adams
2e is the best edition of D&D, hands down. 3.anything thru 5e is just varying degrees of terrible. It's led me to hate the entire d20 system as a whole... to the point where I just can't even bring myself to play it, regardless of setting.
Adam Evans
>Advanced Fighting Fantasy...
Muh nigga
Mason Rogers
Why is 2e the best?
Gabriel Harris
It has no mechanics, so you can do whatever you want in it.
Chase Turner
Nah, you're mixing it up with the old white-box D&D.
Isaac Murphy
I'd honestly put both the Basic series and 4e above it.
Hell, possibly even 5e.
The only thing AD&D is best at is settings, and setting are the least important part of a system. The bloat rot started to set in at AD&D, and produced 3rd and its kin, that alone makes it worse than Basic.
Aiden Baker
Honestly 2nd edition AD&D fits pretty well with what OP said about 3rd editions: Gygax was no longer around and the new editors had no idea what actually made the game tick. They did sort of make it more accessible and easier to figure out - 1e rules were a fucking mess - but that's not saying too much to their favor.
I still rather like it, though, because it offers the most options of the old-school D&D, all the kits and weapon specialization and stuff, and because it stands in the middle point between lethal old-school dungeon crawling and epic story-based high fantasy, managing to do both pretty well.
Eli James
>2e is the best edition of D&D, hands down. I'd dispute that, but regardless, 2e--as has been mentioned--is decidedly not the 2nd edition of D&D.
Chase Lewis
Its not its decent but it was the edition that set up a lot of what people who hate 3.X complain about the most. Skill (non-weapon proficiencies), the OP hero feel, the destruction of boundaries between classes, class templets, which led to the creation of entirely new classes. Say what you will, sorcerer is a wizard with a different motif, it did not need to become an entirely new class.
Caleb Jenkins
>non-weapon proficiencies Nonweapon proficiencies were already a thing in 1e, 2e just put them to the core book - as optional rules. >the destruction of boundaries between classes Bard was a thing even back in 1e, and used to need actual class levels in three different roles so it was even more of a boundary-destroyer than it is in 2e. >class templets, which led to the creation of entirely new classes Most of any new classes in 2e were just kits, fitting well enough to the established niches. >Say what you will, sorcerer is a wizard with a different motif, it did not need to become an entirely new class. Entirely true, but that didn't happen until 3rd edition.
Parker Thompson
>Nonweapon proficiencies were already a thing in 1e They were, but for the most part, they were outside the mainstream of 1e play, coming along relatively late in its lifespan, and in supplements that weren't exactly must-have material.
>Bard was a thing even back in 1e Bard was enough of a clusterfuck in 1e that nobody ever seemed to use it. Hell, it was hidden at the back of the book. 1e was fairly all-over-the-place and there were a number of things that tended to get ignored in play. Bard was one of them. Mind you, I'm not sure what he's talking about as far as destruction of class boundaries goes, so I'm not trying to make a broader point here than that bards might as well have not existed in 1e.
Eli Wright
Even so, both proficiencies and bards were already in 1e, and 2e simply brought them closer to prominence and made bard in particular easier to get into.
I'm not sure about the class boundaries either, to be honest. Outside of bards there's just multiclassing and races with classes, both of which again were in 1e...?
Evan Wilson
>Nonweapon proficiencies were already a thing in 1e, 2e just put them to the core book - as optional rules. If they weren't in the core book how were they a "thing"?
>Bard was a thing even back in 1e. If we used that logic, than paladins were a problem all the way back in OD&D, but I will agree bard was a disaster.
>Most of any new classes in 2e were just kits, fitting well enough to the established niches. Exactly, and kits led to the idea that new classes were needed instead of just using an add on kit.
I like 2nd Ed and its my favorite edition, but I'm not going to pretend it was the best edition (1st Ed or B/X gets that). It was rules heavy, and introduced a lot of concepts people complain about in 3.X.
Ian Wilson
>If they weren't in the core book how were they a "thing"? Well, the 2e kits aren't in the core book either so that logic would excuse them out of this argument as well.
>but I will agree bard was a disaster. Though to the class's credit, bard kits were pretty amazing, and would never have happened if the bard itself was just a thief kit or something like that.
>kits led to the idea that new classes were needed instead of just using an add on kit I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say here. Having kits led to more classes instead of more kits?
Leo Walker
1st edition of D&D: White Box & Holmes 2nd edition of D&D: Moldvay/Cook B/X 3rd edition of D&D: Mentzer BECMI 4th edition of D&D: Black Box & Rules Cyclopedia
Yep, OP's theory checks out.
Daniel Richardson
Warmachine is in the same boat right now. The theory checks out.
