I was playing D&D (nominally 2E) a couple of weekends ago with some fellows who are all old hands (or at least middle aged hands
). We have a natural agreement on the rules of D&D:
1) Play your character.
2) The DM
is the rules.
The DM's 2E PHB (and "house" rules) took precedence during the quick character generation (stats, race, class, equipment of a weapon and whatever few other items the DM deemed appropriate to our poor characters on errands near their village), although the players had brought 1E books. Once the game was underway, the books were scarcely cracked. We rolled dice when the DM asked us to, and he was pleased to rely on our collective memory when occasional questions arose.
So what if 2-7 for Cure Light Wounds was from the "little brown books"? The average is the same as 1-8, and even 1-6 or 2-9 would probably have been close enough for the moment.
We just wanted to play, and the choices we made in character were more important than scrutinizing dice-rolls. "I'll try this; what happens?"
That's not for everyone, and maybe for some only some of the time. For us, though, it was a blast -- and we plan to do it again this coming weekend.
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