Standing up for D&D's Gen X: 2e (Part 2)

This is part 2 of a 2 part series. Part 1 is about 2e rules. Part 2 is about 2e 'culture'. 

Here's my dirty little secret that I never told anyone before:

I actually really liked the Complete Book of Elves.

I am just going to leave that bombshell hanging in the air and return to it later in this post, in the hope that the shock value of that statement will minimise the impact of what I am going to say next.

The aesthetic of 2nd edition expanded and improved the D&D genre of fantasy.

I am going to interject here and say that this post covers two 'cultural' parts - Genre/aesthetics and Style of play. Right now we're obviously talking the first part, but I will get to the second further down. Alright, back to the topic at hand:

Let's ignore the masochistic"I prefer the cheapass sketches to top of the line artists" argument that you see 1st editioners espouse every now and then as insular nostalgic nonsense and go to a second point: 
Most 1e grognard complaints in this department seem to be that 2e is basically Paladins & Princesses - After all, they removed half-orcs and assassins and renamed devils and demons.

Those are, honestly, improvements. Assassins and half-orcs was the 80s version of edgelording. People who genuinely think they were missed in 2e are the same kind of people whose favourite marvel characters are Gambit and Carnage (would be wolverine except for how mainstream popular he is). As gaming fantasy goes, it's about as naff as anything can be. Also, no one cares if your devils and demons now have a new name even though everyone knows they are devils and demons. Grow up.

Now, let me start by saying I have a lot of appreciation for the Sword & Sorcery genre. And I think it is an excellent baseline for D&D fantasy. But there is a critical element of fantasy very under-represented in the 1e aesthetic. Arthuriana.

As a child, I loved Ivanhoe, Prince Valiant and Arthurian tales. I enjoyed Ladyhawk and Willow. And Three Hearts & Three Lions is absolutely a D&D tale in my view.

Now, that is not to say that I am secretly yearning for AD&D to be Pendragon-in-drag(on), although it bears mention that Malory's La Morte D'Arthur and Prince Valiant are, in fact, metal as fuck (Valiant in particular - sacks cities, sells people into slavery and casually kills people he doesn't need to - also, his arthurian world is the definition of crapsack).

But I want them to be a part of the D&D fantasy genre without dissonance. What place does a paladin actually have in the murderhobo looting gaming aesthetic of 1e AD&D? None. The paladin is honestly a really weird fit for the 1e alleged style of play.

But it has a place in second edition. The same way Tolkien's brand of fantasy does. The 2e aesthetic is probably the most medieval one of all editions and somehow that's a bigger tent. But let's also put this in perspective. Yes 2e gave us Larry Elmore and his epic landscapes, but the most used artist in the 2e era is probably Jeff Easley. 

The guy whose art framed the covers of all three 2e core books, all three revised 1e core books, the rules cyclopedia, the black box D&D set, the revised 2e core books, the revised black box, the Player's Option covers and more. 

I mean, it's crazy how many core books he did the covers for. Basically all of post B/X ones that wasn't BECMI. No one defined the post 1e TSR aesthetic more than him. And he was metal as fuck. Look at this shit:

He smashes the door with a full body flex? WTF.
Also, I want to play that thief behind him.

Fly, you fools

A rare 2e heroic ambush

But there's a few Easley pieces I feel really encapsulates the defining tone of 2nd edition, what I call "Knights in Grimey Armor".

The PHB cover is basically how I envisioned 9th+ level fighters to look after they've attracted followers and established a stronghold. Riding out to dish out the pain.

These guys aren't your crapsack dungeon delvers trying to turn a quick gold coin by sneaking past some kobolds in the borderlands. There is definitely something a bit more upright about them. But they also aren't exactly knights in shining armor (though the PHB fighter's armor does have a shine to it). They look battle-hardened and of uncertain morality.

These are guys who could perhaps be knighted for their service to the realm - then go down to the local taverns to impress the harlots there with their latest orcskull cleaving exploits and all the gold they looted from them. Easley's fighters are the ones I want to play. They have range, of a sort, in the kind of fantasy they express.

And that is what the "Knights in Grimey Armor" aesthetic is about to me - Range. A world that has room for explorer's leaving their quaint hobbit holes, dungeon delving Gray Mousers, Lothlorien elves, fighters whose personality and appearance is simply "hard" and the occasional knight who does in fact polish his armour every night.

2nd edition didn't swap Sword & Sorcery for Paladins & Princesses. It simply expanded the D&D fantasy genre to hold those (already existent in 1e) elements with less dissonance. Does 2e have elements of ren-fair? Yes, thankfully. Is it pre-dominantly ren-faire? No. Thankfully.

And yes, somewhere inside that broad tent is room for a supplement written from the perspective of an elven racist about how superior they are to all other species in every way. Frankly, if you're gonna play an elf, you should read that book as background material for how to really look down your nose at the pathetic mortals whose company you keep, the elven way (let's not talk about bladesingers). I make no apologies (unlike the author of Complete Book of Elves. wtf).

A gaggle of grognards bursts into the blogosphere,
spoiling for a fight.

Alright, enough talk about aesthetics and genre. All things told, it is the least important part of this series, even though it is a topic dear to me. It's just fluff, y'all. The easiest thing to ignore or pick up. Truth be told, none of that should really matter for what game system we choose to run with in 2023.

Let's get down to the part grognards love to hate on - The part where 2nd edition ruined old school roleplaying and started down the path of railroad adventures.

I'll say it plainly - It probably contributed to all that, although there is an argument that all this was well underway years before and purist old school TSR was effectively dead by 1984. 

But 2e continued the trend. There were new styles of play and types of adventures to be had and explored in fantasy gaming and 2e was going to do that, with all the shitty outcomes that followed. 

And old school gaming wouldn't be properly conceptualised until years later to remind people about what was being lost in that transition.

I don't think it actually killed old school gaming as much as it opened the doors for different types of gaming, a gradual dilution and erosion. 

Alongside all the new stuff, it was still a game that played with perfect backwards compatibility to the old modules and produced modules like Ruins of Undermountain, Return to the Tomb of Horrors, Temple Tower and Tomb, The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga, the Illithiad trilogy.

Ok, it also gave us pure and unequaled shit stains like those Vecna adventures (Zeb - wtf happened? you once wrote Isle of Dread ffs) and recommendations on when to fudge rolls for random encounters.

2nd edition was a game, again, with range in its style of play. A range that held plenty of room in the tent for old school gaming. If anything, we see far more elements of old school gaming in the non-old-school 2e stuff than we do in 3e. I mean, even the dragonlance modules were basically hex and dungeoncrawls, with a railroad wrapped around them.

What 2nd edition most certainly was not was an era of iconic modules. Off the top of my head - Erm... Night Below and....?!?  And there is a fair argument that a lot of play style is learned from modules.

But here we are, 23 years since WotC declared curtain call on D&D as we knew it and released 3rd edition, starting a tradition of new editions being essentially different games rather than refinements of previous editions.

So what if Douglas Niles thought storygaming was interesting in 1995 and Hickman felt you probably should railroad your players to advance your plot here and there. The Old School has run its victorious course all across the subcultures of D&D. We all know the basics by now.

The bottomline is that in 2e, you still have a ruleset that is in many ways the most refined and and well-tooled expression of TSR D&D in its totality. It plays well. Really well. And has a very underrated aesthetic. Why should Hickman's adventures stop us from playing the better ruleset today?

And with that said, we turn our eyes attempting to answer that question with the most incendiary part of this whole topic - Generational analysis.

I do believe that one reason that 1e old schoolers proudly proclaim the virtues of the old style of play whilst no one sticks up for 2nd edition as being good for anything is simply to do with the generational gap. Those who grew up on 0D&D and 1e were late boomers/early Gen Xers. 

Those who grew up on 2nd edition were Gen Xers and early millenials. And what do Gen Xers have to say about anything generational really? Not much. Boomers on the other hand...

I want to be sure I am understood here - I mean this as a critique of Gen X. I think the Revival movement would have been better off if there had been a somewhat proportionate amount of 2nd edition gamers as willing to play RPG archeologists and philosophers on the game they grew up with, and then write blogs crowing about it and make superior games following  those principles.

But it seems that the Gen X of D&D just split down the middle and diffused into various corners, hitching a ride to the Old School way or moving on to newer editions without much fuzz. There does seem to be a fair amount of 2nd edition gamers still out there. Some of them even of some OSR repute. Noisms of Monsters & Manuals plays 2nd edition it seems. But for the most part, 2nd editioners seem content to play their games quietly into the night and just avoid the topic of 2nd edition, even as they engage in old school/new school dialogues.

It's a pity I think. There is lots to be uncovered and re-visited from the 2e era.