Torchbearer 1st Edition is much Better and Preferred

Torchbearer An Adventurer's Essentials
1

Hi all

I just heard of Torchbearer recently and I’m absolutely in love with it already. Watched and read all about it that I could. I’m a huge old-school fan, I love survival, and the concept of starting with real low fantasy and non-superheroes and how torches and rations really matter. Unbeatable!! :slight_smile: I absolutely love the concept. AWESOME!
If you guys hadn’t done it, someone else would have had to!
:slight_smile: Great!

Like a lot of people I find the first edition Torchbearer much, much better and nicer. And I don’t just say this in regards to the better rules like many others, since I haven’t even read them myself yet (orders are on the way). I love one big fat old-school style book much, MUCH better than that clutter of tiny booklets and a thousand things. Just like AD&D 1st edition! Nothing beats that style of big, hefty, beautiful books! :slight_smile: With awesome graphics, enough space and size and just general real quality and authentic old-school style. 1st edition Torchbearer just does all that much better! Who wants a bunch of tiny booklets and a ton of junk that can only get lost and damaged, if you can everything in one big awesome hi-quality book?
I feel that going from 1st to 2nd edition was a really, REALLY poor decision that needs to be reverted.
I feel the authors have been listening to the wrong people when they made the changes from 1st to 2nd edition. Yes, old-school (A)D&D is awesome, but no need to copy the worsening from 1st to 2nd edition AD&D with Torchbearer as well!

I’m not the only one who feels this way and I think Torchbearer should return to its original roots. Other people seem to think the same thing:

https://nerdburglars.net/question/torchbearer-1e-vs-2e-which-should-i-choose/

→ I also provided three links to online-discussions on Reddit, where people also agree that Torchbearer first edition is much better / preferred than second edition. Unfortunately the censoring forum settings prevent new users from posting more than two links in a post, so there you go…

I would like to ask the authors to start printing the first edition again. At least for people like me who strongly prefer the first edition! It is just so much better and nicer!

And also I would like to ask for the last updated PDF of first edition. I purchased the AWESOME book of first edition from ebay (along with several modules) and now I need the PDF to make adventures for it. Please offer the PDF for first edition again for download!

Can someone please post the PDF(s) for first edition?
They are no longer available and that version is just so much better.

Kind regards,
T.

2

Welcome to the forums, Tyler. I gotta be honest, I’ve never personally understood the Torchbearer edition wars. 1e and 2e are quite similar, with 2e only providing more clarity, more options, and more depth. Nothing is removed from 1e–It’s all additive. While I can understand a personal preference when it comes to form factor, I’d urge you to spend some time with the 2e books if you’re willing to–I think you’ll find that it’s quite intuitive how the rules are split between books. There’s enough there to give you the base 1e experience and much, much more.

5 Likes
3

You said you haven’t read the books, right?

3 Likes
4

Thanks for the welcome Erik! :slight_smile:

I can’t argue about the rules changes between 1e and 2e myself, as I have not had a chance to read the rules yet. I must rely on what those say who have read them (see the links).

Oh, I think I can post two more links now. How about Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/10pxel8/torchbearer_1e_or_2e/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Torchbearer/comments/t2bune/do_you_prefer_the_1st_or_2nd_edition_why/

Like I said, I just heard of Torchbearer two days ago and am a huge fan already.
I red several reviews about Torchbearer and watched about 5-6 youtube reviews about it. And I read about it on Reddit. Thereby I noticed, that the awesome and beautiful book of 1e apparently was replaced with much less nice, much smaller, multiple times split up books with much less nice art. There’s a whole bunch / load of small ‘junk’ with second edition that nobody, or at least I don’t need. I don’t care about miniature figurines, I don’t care about plastic toys, I don’t care about Magic: The Gathering style playing cards or any such toys.
And I hate the notion that RPGs need “toys” like for kids. Or that they were for kids only.

I like my role playing games in large, good quality books with an easy to read print. As is suited for consummation by adults. I don’t like rules needlessly scattered across multiple books and I don’t like playing cards and a bunch of other toys. All that crap, er, sorry, all that stuff just gets lost and clutters up my bookshelves. It’s extremely unpractical to maintain a bunch of toys in a bookshelf. Especially if you don’t like toys and are not set up for it. Yes, I realize they come in a box with 2e, as long as that box holds up and doesn’t fall apart when you use it - which it will, invariably (or the cards and toys get lost, etc.). All that is just not as practical, solid and adult-oriented as one big, solid, decently bound book! No arguing can change that, and that means something. In fact, it means a lot to me because it’s a statement about the brand.

In other words, I hate what you did with the beautiful one big book going from first edition to the second edition, splitting it up needlessly in countless, much smaller booklets, and adding a bunch of tiny cards and other toys that can only get lost and would never be used by me in any case. And the container to hold all that is just going to fall apart after enough use. I just hate it. And I don’t want to pay for it, if I already hate it now, just to look at it and confirm that yes, I hate it.
That’s why I ordered the outstanding, FANTASTIC ORIGINAL FIRST EDITION! EVERYTHING in ONE BIG GREAT BOOK! Can’t beat that! That’s just the BEST! :slight_smile:
I just need the PDFs and I ask the producers to return to this MUCH BETTER original and traditional format.

What sense is there in returning to the traditional way of playing PnP role playing games (classical BX / AD&D), with the same art, style, layout, style of play and mentality and everything, and then reverting to this horrible new fad of splitting up everything that fits perfectly in one nice big book into countless smaller booklets? And then adding a bunch of toys and playing cards, as if this were for preschool kids like Wizards of the Coast did to increase their profits?

I’m not suggesting the only reason for destroying the beautiful First Edition was to make more money and profits, although that probably might have been a driving factor. But it was a poor and wrong choice, ALL AROUND!
I am absolutely positive and sure of that.
No problem, everybody makes mistakes, for sure. Just return to what was better when you realize it! :wink:

Please return to the much greater style, looks, and mentality of 1st edition!
Don’t do what everyone else does! Do what’s right! No matter what everyone else does (selling tiny books). That’s what “Torchbearer” seems to be to me and that’s what I value about it.
Its uncompromising approach to what I think is really cool and right in RPGs! :slight_smile:

Yes: It is true that the majority of buyers of RPGs are teenagers. But that doesn’t mean you have to sell toys and playing cards. It doesn’t even mean you have to gear an RPG towards them or make it appealing to them. Because they like, what adults like! Because they want to become adults! So you can go on making and gearing games towards adults, AND teenagers will STILL BUY THEM! So stop gearing games to children or teenagers, please!
That’s just my two cents.

And PS: Please post the PDFs for first edition or make them available again. Even if it’s just for people who get the great first edition books used like me. - We are fans too!!! :person_frowning:

Kind regards,
T.

5

Over my many decades of playing many different systems, I’ve played games with a single rulebook and games spread across many and both have advantages and disadvantages: a single book has been great because one always has the rule one is looking for but also means one is also forced to carry all the rules one doesn’t need; multiple books are great because one doesn’t need to, for example, carry the weight of pages and pages of spells, enchanting rules, &c. to play a fighter but one can also accidentally leave the volume with a critical rule somewhere else. So, for me, Torchbearer’s transition to several books (with an edition that only includes the two core books players are most likely to need frequently) is a good balance between “here are rules for everything you might want to do” and “you only need to deal with the weight/volume of rules that apply to your game/character”. However, my perspective is shaped by many decades of often playing somewhere that wasn’t my home so I can understand people who always play in the room where their books are stored might have a different balance between comprehensiveness and heft.

Having experienced it in both 2e Torchbearer (which provides cards for the actions) and Burning Wheel (which doesn’t), I’ve found the cards can be useful but aren’t essential; similarly the condition cards can be a more obvious way to display what a character is suffering from so the player/GM doesn’t forget but duplicate something that could be written on a character sheet. So, again a differentiation between how individuals prefer to store information.

So, how the rules are bundled in 2e Torchbearer definitely isn’t the ideal way for everyone and I utterly support your right to prefer formats that suit your individual gaming approach but another way being “right” feels a little strong.

As an aside, when I started with RPGs they were still wet with the remains of the small-unit wargaming that they’d grown out of, so I lived through the acrimonious discourse over whether replacing miniatures and precise measurements with imagining scenes was the wrong direction to go; personally, I much prefer not having to have wardrobes full of minatures to hand to represent myriad enemies a group might encounter, but the most traditional version of RPGing measured by age is packed with toys.

2 Likes
6

I think you’ve given at least a few nickels, @Tyler.

Creators don’t owe nobody nothing. It’s a miracle to create and a gift to publish.

And you decided, before reading the rules, or playing the game, or looking at the free 2e intro chapter PDF, that not only should you not touch 2e at all, but you should also demand a 1st edition PDF, and berate the authors for their creative decisions from multiple angles.

If your backpack is overladen, put a tablet in your satchel, replete with PDFs, and you may adventure without the ill factors you so vociferously lament.

But… why do you need a PDF if you already have the perfect book?

2 Likes
7

Since this appears to be more a discussion about format than the content of the two editions I will stand up for 2nd edition and say that those books are works of art. Everything from the color scheme, to the ribbons and the full GM set is well-designed and delightful. On the contrary I find the first edition size and all of the supplements to be rather annoying to shelve precisely because of their size. It’s also somewhat amusing to argue Burning Wheel HQ is selling out because of the change of format of their latest games given that, well, Burning Wheel has been in the format the OP so hates since the beginning.

1 Like
8

While there are a lot of incendiary thoughts shared here, I do totally understand why some prefer 1e. Ultimately, I’m not even sure I prefer 2e.

There was something elegant about 1e and all the expansion for 2e is great if you use it. I also miss the single book approach in ways. Finally, I think the biggest shift was baking in the Middarmark setting more into the rules, for better and worse. That can alienate some folks though and I’d imagine Thor considered that “risk” and decided to make it more his own and less generic OSR fantasy blah blah.

Not sure why the initial poster is so fired up about it though. They’re both fun and pretty similar when you boil it down to the core elements. That said, I do get why some prefer 1e.

3 Likes
9

Not sure what the OP is referring to: just to point out that AD&D1e (and later incarnations of AD&D) is not exactly the example to take for “single book” games; PHB, DMG, and MM (plus Unearthed Arcana and MM2) are usually considered the “core” of the game; but at the very least you need 3 tomes.
And Moldvay Basic (like Holmes basic) only covered levels 1-3; more than that, you needed at least another book. The only single-book D&D was the Rules Cyclopedia which collected the first four Mentzer boxed sets.
So it doesn’t look like TB2e is doing anything different than it has always pretty much been done in D&D’s history.
Also, cards exist(ed) also for TB1e, but they were not required; pretty much like they are not required for TB2e (and they were only offered in the original big boxed set, not in the smaller two-books set.)

That said, I too prefer TB1e over TB2e, but simply because it’s less tied to the Middarmark setting (which I otherwise LOVE in the very sparse 1e form), and because of presence (and the way they work) of D&D legacy elements (some examples: clerics, magicians, elves, alignment) which make adaptation of old D&D material conceptually and thematically simpler.
I also appreciate the single book presentation, but I plan to make use/adapt the extra elements of the Lore Master’s Manual.

I missed the opportunity to buy any of the TB1e cards, and I would appreciate the possibility of at least buying the pdfs of those cards, but unfortunately only the 2e versions are available, which are not 100% compatible.

10

What is “presence”?

11

presence (i.e. existence) of D&D legacy elements.

12

Oh, I see. Sorry. I read that as an item in a list seperate from the D&D stuff. My mistake.