TSR Why would anyone want to play 1e?

[Emerikol]

I think every edition has it's flaws and strengths. I played the first four editions.
1e: General Playstyle was a strength but mechanics were pretty much spaghetti.
2e: Lots of worlds and supplements but lots of garbage in the mix. Also rules were not spaghetti but maybe lasagna.
3e: Lots of options and build variability and rules that were systemic. Massive bloat especially third parties. Also started eliminating 1e playstyle elements. Bad things happening to PCs was considered "unfun".
4e: DM's life made better. Monster approach vastly better. Recharge. But..dissociative mechanics and a uniform class structure were bad for me.
5e: (Never played it so keep that in mind). Simplified from 3e. Advantage. But..messed with magic in major ways. Despised the entire healing and rest system. Messed with a lot of core tropes of D&D.

If forced, I'd probably houserule 3e by bringing back in the 1e playstyle and also bring back level drains and rust monsters. I'd strip out a lot of feats. Ban all third parties and any books beyond the core unless approved. I like bounded accuracy but 5e goes too far.

After 4e and the initial publication of 5e, I realized that WOTC was not trying to target me so I sought other games in the third party D&D clone world.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It was a natural evolution of what was going on by late 2e. You had a wide variety of race options, classes, kits, alternate uses for proficiencies, a ton of NWP's, a massive library of spells, psionic wild talents, lots of crazy good weapons (not that anything was better than TWF, really, beyond ancient celtic spear throwing)- and that's not even getting into the Player's Option stuff.

So I would say that, to a very limited extent, character builds and character optimization has always been present in D&D since the beginning. Back in 0E, I can remember one person who read the supplement Gods, Demogods & Heroes and invariably had his characters worship Uller because it granted a 2" bonus to movement.

That said, I think that that the prevalence of random rolling for stats (usually in order) prevented the idea of "character builds" being, well, a thing. Also the fact that magic items were so important to your abilities, and they were pretty random. Between these two factors, character builds ... it was a different world. Other than creating higher-level characters for one-shots (for example), it never occurred to me to "build a character," because I always would discover the character through serendipity and discovery through play- first the rolls that would reveal what strengths and weaknesses that PC had (and help guide me to a class), and then the magic items would further move me in certain directions.

I'd argue that the first sea-change wasn't 2e (although I agree that by late 2e, it was definitely "a thing"). Instead, the major mental shift I saw occurred with the most accursed of books, the original hardcover Unearthed Arcana (1e, 1985). Why? Because I saw it happen. Well, until all the pages fell out after two months...

Ahem. Anyway, I'd argue that there were three major changes that happened, listed in order of importance:

1. Method V to create the PC. This was the infamous introduction of "Choose your class, roll up to 9d6, automatically get the minimum score" generation. In other words, AFAIK, this was the first official way in D&D to choose a class, then get your ability scores. Did Gygax restrict it to humans? OF COURSE HE DID! Did people read that, and ignore it? YEP.

2. Weapon Specialization. Before UA's weapon specialization, martial characters would often end up with using the best and coolest magical weapon they found. Yeah, there were a LOT OF SWORDS. But also some weird stuff, just because that's what you found. After specialization, characters would choose their weapon, and just ... you know, keep on looking for a magical version of that particular thing.

3. Demi-human expansion. There were more demi-humans, they were allowed into more classes, and they level limits (which weren't always ... observed) were raised. So suddenly "building" race + class became much more of a thing.


Obviously, this wasn't building in the same way that it was later on. But I'd argue that 1e UA was the genesis. IMO, YMMV.

 

[Sacrosanct]

So I would say that, to a very limited extent, character builds and character optimization has always been present in D&D since the beginning. Back in 0E, I can remember one person who read the supplement Gods, Demogods & Heroes and invariably had his characters worship Uller because it granted a 2" bonus to movement.

That said, I think that that the prevalence of random rolling for stats (usually in order) prevented the idea of "character builds" being, well, a thing. Also the fact that magic items were so important to your abilities, and they were pretty random. Between these two factors, character builds ... it was a different world. Other than creating higher-level characters for one-shots (for example), it never occurred to me to "build a character," because I always would discover the character through serendipity and discovery through play- first the rolls that would reveal what strengths and weaknesses that PC had (and help guide me to a class), and then the magic items would further move me in certain directions.

I'd argue that the first sea-change wasn't 2e (although I agree that by late 2e, it was definitely "a thing"). Instead, the major mental shift I saw occurred with the most accursed of books, the original hardcover Unearthed Arcana (1e, 1985). Why? Because I saw it happen. Well, until all the pages fell out after two months...

Ahem. Anyway, I'd argue that there were three major changes that happened, listed in order of importance:

1. Method V to create the PC. This was the infamous introduction of "Choose your class, roll up to 9d6, automatically get the minimum score" generation. In other words, AFAIK, this was the first official way in D&D to choose a class, then get your ability scores. Did Gygax restrict it to humans? OF COURSE HE DID! Did people read that, and ignore it? YEP.

2. Weapon Specialization. Before UA's weapon specialization, martial characters would often end up with using the best and coolest magical weapon they found. Yeah, there were a LOT OF SWORDS. But also some weird stuff, just because that's what you found. After specialization, characters would choose their weapon, and just ... you know, keep on looking for a magical version of that particular thing.

3. Demi-human expansion. There were more demi-humans, they were allowed into more classes, and they level limits (which weren't always ... observed) were raised. So suddenly "building" race + class became much more of a thing.


Obviously, this wasn't building in the same way that it was later on. But I'd argue that 1e UA was the genesis. IMO, YMMV.

And I'd say UA was just an evolution of what we were already seeing with Dragon Magazine. All of those NPC classes? Everyone just used them as PC classes. So even before UA, we saw stuff like the anti-paladin in 1980. Which makes sense, seeing as how UA was largely just a compilation of DRAGON stuff

 

[Mannahnin]

That said, I think that that the prevalence of random rolling for stats (usually in order) prevented the idea of "character builds" being, well, a thing. Also the fact that magic items were so important to your abilities, and they were pretty random. Between these two factors, character builds ... it was a different world. Other than creating higher-level characters for one-shots (for example), it never occurred to me to "build a character," because I always would discover the character through serendipity and discovery through play- first the rolls that would reveal what strengths and weaknesses that PC had (and help guide me to a class), and then the magic items would further move me in certain directions.

We always rolled ability scores (with, of course, generous house rules) in 3.x. The biggest factor in "character builds" IME was prestige classes. Each had prerequisites, from as simple as a certain race to a minimum BAB or caster level, to more in-depth like having specific feats or x number of ranks in particular skills. If you wanted to qualify for a given prestige class it behooved you to pre-plan and make sure you acquired the prerequisites efficiently so you could qualify as soon as possible. This necessitated pre-planning advancement.

That plus a la carte multiclassing created a totally different advancement environment from 1974-1999 A/D&D, in which almost all of your character advancement was pre-set at first level.

1. Method V to create the PC. This was the infamous introduction of "Choose your class, roll up to 9d6, automatically get the minimum score" generation. In other words, AFAIK, this was the first official way in D&D to choose a class, then get your ability scores. Did Gygax restrict it to humans? OF COURSE HE DID! Did people read that, and ignore it? YEP.

I never knew anyone who allowed this method, though in fairness I didn't play a lot of 1E. I had the books, but by the time my brother and I found a regular group we were on to 2E.

2. Weapon Specialization. Before UA's weapon specialization, martial characters would often end up with using the best and coolest magical weapon they found. Yeah, there were a LOT OF SWORDS. But also some weird stuff, just because that's what you found. After specialization, characters would choose their weapon, and just ... you know, keep on looking for a magical version of that particular thing.

TBF the weapon proficiency rules in the PH already push this pretty hard. Even the Fighter non-proficiency penalty of -2 is crappy. But yeah.

In 2E we had the same phenomenon, arguably worse with the Complete Fighters Handbook in play, which allowed use of extra languages from Intelligence to be applied as extra proficiencies instead, but also gave weapon style specializations (including ambidexterity and TWF) to spend them on.

One of the things I really like about B/X and co is the general "fighters and thieves just use any weapon" style of weapon proficiencies, so you can use whatever cool magic stuff you find with no penalty. I appreciate that 5E didn't perpetuate weapon specialization. The fighting styles still can incline players to limit themselves, but not as much so.