The 2e books have no random encounter tables! This is a cornerstone of OSR play! They have no random stocking tables for dungeon generation either. Random encounter tables by level were a feature of all core rule books going back to the original 3 LBBs.
The 2e PHB and DMG each devote an entire chapter to Encounters, but those chapters only have guidelines for writing and general advice. The DMG chapter assigns the DM homework to write encounter tables himself, using the guidelines in the book!
Compare that to the massive chapter in the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, Encounters and Evasion, which is full of amazing charts and practical procedures for handling this step of the game. And so many tables of wandering monsters. Or the famously good AD&D 1e appendices.
I strongly defend 2e in the OSR space but this is a heavy strike against it. The tragedy is that 2e’s 2d10 method, based on rarity, is a better random generator than 1e’s straight rolls, and 2e’s reaction tables are better than all the other games’.
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