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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 9674809" data-attributes="member: 15700">OK, the title is a bit click baity.Background: I started playing in 1981 with BX and quickly moved to AD&D. I've been saying for years that one of my favorite editions is 1e but I always have a disclaimer: "With 2e elements."Note: This is not an edition war thread. Please don't make posts about "this edition just sucks" and leave it at that. This is meant to be an honest discussion about why one would prefer 1e over 2e.I was playing another session of 1e yesterday and something that's always been in the back of my mind really came out. Why would anyone still play full 1e when 2e is right there? 1e is painful by comparison.  Again, I say this as a fan! But let's be real.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">THAC0 is more intuitive than attack matrix tables</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1e has a ton of rules and charts that slow the game down to a crawl and are handled better in 2e. Rules and charts that pretty much everyone ignores anyway.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1e thieves are garbage. You suck at everything you're supposed to be good at until you get near name level, but 95% of the game is played before that, so....</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">2e cleans up that mess by being able to distribute your points at at least be decent at a few things.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Don't get me started on 1e bards (even if I am not a fan of the class to begin with)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If you're a fan of psionics, stay away from 1e's rules <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> </li> </ul>So what does 1e have that 2e doesn't?<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Aesthetic: Trampier, Otis, etc. I get this, because I prefer the art of 1e more than 2e, but I don't think it's a reason to stick with 1e rules.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Gary wrote 1e, Lorraine was in charge of 2e. Weird reason, because Gary and Lorraine don't game at your tables. Pretty sure they don't care which rules you are using. (also, Lorraine didn't design 2e, Zeb Cook did, who is regarded as one of the best designers of all time--look at his portfolio).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Devils and demons and assassins and half orcs. Yeah, 2e was sanitized, but it's super easy to use demons and devils in a 2e campaign. Why you would use 1e rules just for this reason is kinda weird.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Classic modules. 2e was designed intentionally to be backwards compatible. You can run 1e modules without conversion in a 2e game.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Nostalgia.  This one I get, because I love me some good nostalgia. </li> </ul>And yet, we see a lot of 1e clones, but IIRC, there's only one 2e clone, and almost every single OSR group I've seen plays a 1e version and not 2e. Does it really come down to "Gary's edition vs. Lorraine's edition?"  Or I'm hoping it's more for nostalgia and the memories.</blockquote>

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