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One thing that's interesting historically is that it's really hard to tell how literate commoners were because, well, they don't write about it much, so there's not much to reference. Also while today you tend to either be fully literate or never learned to read at all, and 'functional' literacy...

IMO one of the hilarious things about 1e is that there really isn't even a consensus on how basic things like the initiative rules work. With 2e-5e you may have some people who refuse to agree about fiddly things, and lots of people using house rules, but there aren't any parts of the rules...

The problem with '1e was like THIS' comments about leveling speed, difficulty, likelihood of dying, and the like is that there wasn't a unified rule system with a core philosophy of advancement. There were multiple rules that sort of fit together, modules written by companies or people with...

There wasn't a reach mechanic. If the dagger wielder chose to charge then the pike guy could get one attack set vs charge, but the dagger wielder could just move in instead of charging.

1e was even weirder, BTW. A guy swinging a dagger actually could swing TWICE AS FAST against an opponent carrying a fairly heavy weapon as he could against an unarmed or dagger-wielding opponent, and three times as fast against someone carrying an awl pike (the only weapon that speed factor ever...

Largest single-DM game I've played in was about 35, but that was spread across multiple tables at a thing the guy was doing as an event. It was fun but completely unsustainable. The largest ongoing game was around 10 people in high school and college, where there were several who would routinely...

It is funny to me how people take old 1e rules quirks and treat them as reflecting reality more than well-documented history. There really aren't 15 pound 2-handed swords and 10 pound morning stars out there that were actually used, but a number of people who started on old D&D think the actual...

Modern police forces and prison sentences really only date back to the 19th century, they weren't around in medieval time. Sentencing people to long Jails for holding people were common, but they were intended to hold someone until trial and punishment could occur. Punishments, especially for...

Yes, 2 switched to pounds, and gave us 7 pound battle axes and 10 pound morning stars. Except they went on to define a coin as 1/10 of a pound, which ties them right back to a real measure of weight. Whether this was later BECMI or AD&D that did the 10 coins = 1 pound I don't remember, but...

Are the rules really ridiculous if a lot of people want to play under those rules? I'm not being facetious here, I don't think it's fair to tell people that playing under a set of rules that they like and a bunch of other people like a 'ridiculous'. I'm generally more in favor of a low amount of...

Yes, 1e didn't actually give weights, they gave 'encumbrance values' in coins (tenth of a pound) that represented the difficulty of carrying the item. A lot of bulky or irregularly shaped items got a higher value because they were assumed to be harder to carry, not that they actually weighed X...

Must have been OD&D, as AD&D and BECMI did overnight rest. The red cover Basic set Player's manual p25: "In more advanced games, adventures may last more than a day. In such cases, a Cleric can gain spells each morning, if completely rested. Any and all spells may be changed at this time, if...

I don't like it, and more importantly I don't think there's anything realistic about the kind of narrow weapon proficiencies that 1e and 2e had. People who were competent, experienced melee fighters didn't need large amounts of training to switch from a sword to a spear to an axe, or worse from...

If the character they had in mind ruins someone else's fun then it does, regardless of whether it was intended or not. If Jimmy wants to play a star fleet officer or gnome in a game where shoehorning in star fleet officers or gnomes will make the game not what other people playing (including the...

Casters having to wait a week to recover spells isn't like any edition of AD&D that I've experienced; 'sleep to get back your spells' is extremely traditional. If you want to use that to make adventures progress slower it's a standard variant rule, and will result in a slower game based around...

Why do you think no one would play it? There's already a computer game of checking immigration paperwork at a border checkpoint in a fictional dystopian country, and of course the classic Paranoia game. I think it would probably be a setting that would be reasonably popular...

I certainly can and do assume that people who play games are playing them because they enjoy playing games. There may be additional motivations, and motivations for why they're playing this game instead of another game, or their enjoyment may derive from something like 'spending time with this...

It's overall flatter, but actually less gradual. The fighters maximum number of attacks is half as much in 1e PHB as in 5e (2 vs 4), but the jump to halfway, then max happens at levels 6 and 13 in 1e. In 5e they're spread between 5, 11, and 20.

I don't care about the difference between them in the context of this discussion. Whether a difference is jarring is up to the people involved in a game, it's not an objective matter that you get to sit back and arbitrate whether people jarred by it are wrong. I simply don't accept your...

No, it's simple fact. Doing stuff you enjoy instead of stuff that benefits other people is inherently selfish, it's not a generalization it's simply what the words mean. Talking about games becomes much simpler when you acknowledge that people are playing to do stuff that's fun for them, and not...