teitan
Legend
Except in the case of 2e it was nearly universal that minis were not standard and a luxury. If you find offense in my comment in this regard that's on you. SPeaking in terms of the average experience should not be offensive when it's a generally accepted fact. 2e did not encourage the use of miniatures and full rules for them really only emerged late in 2e with Combat & Tactics. Sure we had Battlesystem but that was a game in and of itself. As was the skirmish version. Both were published as their own game.I mean, maybe assuming that your experiences were universal is a bit of a stretch?
As someone pointed out above, even BECMI made little references to miniatures other than you might want to have some to show marching order but they weren't necessary. EVen the 1e DMG mentions them but only for about half a page in total to say hey, these exist and this is how the floor scale works but they aren't necessary for play. The default expectation has always been Theater of the Mind until, honestly, 3.5 where movement was changed from feet to squares to reflect the open adaptation of battlemats and the D&D Miniatures line as an integral part of the game. 3.0 was handy with minis but they weren't required or called out for use. So high horses really should be dismounted because being offended by my general comment is... on you.