When I was playing 2e walking around town (even if we had a month of downtime) my fighter would everyday walk in chain and have his longsword at his side and shield (or second weapon) because you never know when the evil DM would spring a surprise attack... as time went on we realized that we not only didn't WANT our characters to be that paranoid, but since most times it didn't come up it was dumb anyway...
what we found since was on the occasion that something happened and we were not equipped it made for better stories as we got to said equipment.
Now that isn't to say no one EVER has a weapon... sometimes 1 character or another (I would say spread between all of us for 20 years it is most likely like 5-10% of the time at most) made the story better because it made sense we would have the knife or the armor.
We also have wizards and clerics that have 'downtime prep' lists and 'travel prep lists' and 'going to pick a fight prep lists' and if a fight breaks out they may not have all of there combat spells ready.
what we found since was on the occasion that something happened and we were not equipped it made for better stories as we got to said equipment.
Now that isn't to say no one EVER has a weapon... sometimes 1 character or another (I would say spread between all of us for 20 years it is most likely like 5-10% of the time at most) made the story better because it made sense we would have the knife or the armor.
We also have wizards and clerics that have 'downtime prep' lists and 'travel prep lists' and 'going to pick a fight prep lists' and if a fight breaks out they may not have all of there combat spells ready.