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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 8396296" data-attributes="member: 15700">Yep. There are a lot of legit reasons to like 1e, and more than just nostalgia. But we can't ignore how the game was actually written to disparage other editions. Maybe I'm just tired of the same old edition wars, I dunno. I don't even like 4e, but I try to be honest about my criticisms. B/X was rules lite. 1e was very much not. I am convinced that it felt rules lite to people because many were learning the game during 1e as their first exposure to an rpg (because they were still a relatively new thing), and the rules were so wonky, complex, and overly confusing that most people just ignored most of them and just winged it. THAT'S where the rulings over ruled came from; certainly not from the rules themselves. As I said upthread, 1e was my preferred game from 1981 to 2012 when the next playtest was announced, and that whole time, I never played with more than half of the rules. I don't think my situation was unusual. But let's be honest. Many of the things people complain about in newer editions: flanking rules, opportunity attacks, skill checks, magic item bloat, etc?  They all existed in 1e.</blockquote>