Why the Heck is your 1st Level Wizard Just Standing Around?!

  Not too long ago someone I was discussing gaming with was very dismissive of 1e, 2e, OSRIC, S&W, etc. because low-level mages had so few spells and could not do damage in combat more than once. They felt that all the caster did was 'stand around' while important stuff (i.e., fighting) went on.

  I hesitate to write about how wrong this is for reasons related to length of post, breadth of topic, and losing my ever-lovin' mind to rage-induced psychosis. Mainly because there is a lot more to RPGs than combat. But also because there is a lot more to combat than damage density AND mages are better at melee than you think.