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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8698525" data-attributes="member: 6877472">When I played AD&D, most people didn't really understand the game.  Not that they didn't understand the rules (well, most of the time, at least), but that the actual...."meta", for lack of a better term, wasn't grokked.It took awhile before someone realized that two-weapon fighting was flat out busted.  Or that longswords were a superior weapon choice.  Or that, really, your choice of weapon didn't matter at all, as the ways characters did damage was due to multiple attacks and high static damage.I saw a lot of Fighters specialized in some very wonky weapons, as people looked at the weapon list and somehow assumed every weapon was somehow viable.  I saw a guy specialize in whips once, and he was very confused why his character wasn't effective!The value of a given race wasn't really seen either.  Most people played humans because they didn't want to run into level limits, despite the fact that high level play was incredibly rare!  It was simply the very idea that a game could progress to a point where your Elf could no longer progress as a Fighter made gamers turn up their noses a the idea.By 2e, level caps were raised, and most groups didn't really even worry about them much.   They either used rules like "single-classed demihumans have their cap increased by 2", or "exceptional ability scores raised the cap", or even "you earned half xp past your limit".  Oh and the use of wish to raise one's limit was popular as well.**Some of these rules were in the books, presented as core or optional, mind, but whether or not any rule was on the table was something you had to find out for yourself upon bellying up to a new table.Multiclassing was vaguely understood- players felt that the slow advancement of the first few levels would remain constant, when in actuality, all that happened is that your Fighter/Thief might be a level or so behind a single classed character- punishing at low levels, but at higher levels, it didn't matter much.  You just had to put some thought into your hit point totals, and how your table calculated them.Had a guy play an Ogre Mage once out of the Complete Book of Humanoids.  Everyone kept telling him that his character would be the worst, because he earned half xp to pay for all his bennies.  By 6th level, the jeers had turned into grumblings about how much more powerful the Ogre Mage was compared to their own characters.There's a lot more, but the reason I'm being so long winded is that the value of Gnomes and Halflings was often overlooked.  Most games, a -1 Strength isn't going to matter much.  The difference between 18 Strength and 16 (the maximum a Halfling is allowed to have at start) is +1 to hit and damage.  Weapon choice wasn't a big deal either- oh, I have to use a long sword in two hands?  I can't use shields as a Thief anyways!Those saving throw bonuses against poison and magic were worth their weight in gold as the game progressed, and the racial benefits for a Halfling Thief were equal to about half a level of Thief on their own (and given how Dex bonuses scaled, that +1 Dex could be worth an ENTIRE level at the top end!).Gnomes had a few advantages that most players didn't even notice, like not having any limits on Strength at all!  You could legally (in 2e) have a Gnome with 18/00 Strength as a Fighter, and they had a few interesting multiclassed options to work with besides.  No other race in the PHB could be a multiclassed specialist mage (the absolute spell power of a Cleric/Illusionist is something to behold), and no other race could be a Cleric/Thief (a strange combination I've never seen in play, but one that sounds like a great support character).So ultimately, there were few reasons not to play a shorty in AD&D, and a lot of reasons to do so, but what held them back was player perception.  People thought Gnomes were weird, Halflings were weak, and Dwarves were...uh....beardy?</blockquote>

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