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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9675468" data-attributes="member: 6799660">At the same time, 2e included all but the most broken stat generation methods 1E and 1.5 had in the book as methods. I know 2e called 3d6 the default, but at this point in my life, I just can't get behind an optional vs. non-optional dichotomy. They included said rule in the rulebook, but did/didn't suggest you should always follow it -- what exactly does this supposedly prove? I certainly don't remember more 2e groups feeling beholden to that default than 1e groups. That and, by now, everyone is using the rules they think optimal. I think this highlights an important point. If you take specific X (1E bard or ranger, BECM elf, AD&D weapon charts, xp=gp) the games end up playing out very much the same -- which is to say, most people used half the rules, ported half the rest over from other versions, and mixed in a massive amount of group-specific house rules or playstyle changes. Oftentimes without even knowing it. Case in point:Not the case. Per 2e PHB p.16, chance to learn spell is alive and well and matches 1e up to a score of 19. It's possible that you remember it that way because your 2e DM simply didn't use the rule (and also didn't when they were playing 1e, if they ever did). Generally my point is that we talk now, well after the (initial) fact, about little nuances like default attribute or XP rules, whether 1e bards (that weren't played much) were better than 2e bards (that were still pretty infrequent*), or similar. These are all important points to the discussion of which one any of us might generally prefer. However, I don't think (so, let's be clear, IMO) it really answers why anyone would play one over the other or why OP sees so much more 1e than 2e in the osr discussion. *as they couldn't actually replace the thief class, so you needed 2 people interested in playing rogue-ish charactersTo that, I think this might be an important point. I don't actually know that I agree with this 1E/2E distinction, but I readily agree that there are people who are/have been 1E people*, and those who decisively made the switch to (/started with) 2E. *who might have played 2E in '89-whenever, but then re-gravitated to a self-image as a 1E playerThe categorical distinction I consider most convincing is that the 2e people were more likely to have gone on to 3.0 and maybe further. Thus, when they started exploring the OSR, were less likely to have had their AD&D mindframe sitting on the back burner the whole time. I think a lot of them then said, 'sure, let's strip this back to bare bones while we're re-exploring this general notion' and ended up associated with one of the BX-derived games.</blockquote>

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