I'm with all of you about U.A, but give the guy a break, moreover, sadly, he's right, Gary penned it, even if it sucks, though it has a great cover...
- Jeez, I'm exploring, with the help of Foster and few others, whether 2d6 is a better platform than d20, all that's about the spirit of the game, which is bigger than Gygax himself, btb just isn't always the end of the conversation about this game, and it's easy to confuse the two.
I think over again my small adventures. My fears, those small ones that seemed so big, for all the vital things I had to get and to reach, and yet, there is only one great thing, the only thing, to live to see the great day that dawns, and the light that fills the world. - Old Inuit Song
“Superstitions are religious forms surviving the loss of ideas. Some truth no longer known or a truth which has changed its aspect is the origin and explanation of all. The name from the Latin, superstes, signfies that which survives, they are the dead remnants of old knowledge or opinion” - Eliphas Levi (138 The History of Magic).
“Let no one wake a man brusquely for it is a matter difficult of cure if the soul find not its way back to him”, the Upanishads of ancient India ( 58 Our Oriental Heritage, Durant).
"Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that's what makes it so boring" – Edward Gorey.
"The bright day is done and we are for the dark" - Shakespeare
"No lamp burns till morning" - Persian proverb.
“The living close the eyes of the dead, but it is the dead that open the eyes of the living”— Old Slavic saying.
'The best place to hide a light is in the sun' – old Arab proverb.
'To thee, thou wedding-guest!
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best,
All things both great and small:
For the dear God, who loveth us,
He made and loveth all' - Samuel Taylor Coleridge (VII Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner).
The question isn't whether or not UA is an official "BtB" source. It is. Achijusan's question seemed to be whether you have to be using UA to be considered "BtB," and at least for purposes of this board the answer to that is No. Because when we talk about "BtB" we're not concerned with what's official (if we were, we'd presumably all be playing 4E Essentials now) or with establishing an single, objective, dogmatic canon with a single, universally agreed-upon interpretation (which will never happen) but rather something much simpler and more straightforward, which is: in a "BtB" thread, answers to questions and discussion of rules should be based on what's actually in the books (with acknowledgment that different books might say different things, and that there are often multiple ways to interpret exactly what the books say) rather than how you've added to or modified what's in the books for your own game. Which isn't to say that it's forbidden to mention house rules in a BtB thread (especially if the "BtB answer" to a question is that there is no BtB answer because the books don't address it) but it shouldn't be the main focus (note: you can feel free to start a parallel thread on the house rules board), and you shouldn't ever tell someone that they're wrong for using the BtB rules instead of your house rules (or rules you adapted from some other game or later edition).
The Mystical Trash Heap - blog about D&D and other 80s pop-culture The Heroic Legendarium - my book of 1E-compatible rules expansions and modifications, now available for sale at DriveThruRPG
Thats why many of us go the extra length to say "pre-UA". Though, it should probably be assumed when discussing rules its assumed pre-UA.
"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."
Thomas Jefferson in letter to Madison
Back in the days when a leopard could grab and break your Australopithecus (gracile or robust) nek and drag you into the tree as a snack, mankind has never had a break"
** Stone Giant
