OSR Old school wizards, how do you play level 1?

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Citation(s)?

The advice I recall from the 1e DMG pretty much amounted to "let the dice fall where they may" other than in extremely rare once-per-campaign-ish circumstances.

Moldvay X59: "A Common mistake most DMs make is to rely too much on random die rolls. An entire evening can be spoiled if an unplanned wilderness encounter on the way to the dungeon goes badly for the party. The DM must use good judgement in addition to random tables. Encounters should be scaled to the strength of the party and should be in harmony with the theme of the adventure."

Mentzer later adds on to the above in his Expert book, pg 25: "The DM may choose a number within a given die range rather than roll for the amount of damage, number appearing, etc. This may be necessary to allow for a more enjoyable game; heavy damage early in the game may spoil some of the fun."

Mentzer also included the following section in his Basic book, pg 16: "Whenever two or more events could occur and a decision is needed, or whenever a variety of results is possible, dice may be used to randomly select a result. Experienced Dungeon Masters may select results instead of rolling dice.
EXAMPLE: A character with 3 hit points is hit by a monster with a normal sword (damage 1-8). Death could easily result - through no fault of the player's, merely a random result of the Hit roll. To keep the character alive as long as possible, the DM rolls for damage - but ignores the result, and announces that 2 points of damage were done. The character retreats and the game continues.
...
The DM may select any number given in the range for Number Appearing, Damage, and so forth, depending on the situation."

 

[CleverNickName]

Moldvay X59: "A Common mistake most DMs make is to rely too much on random die rolls. An entire evening can be spoiled if an unplanned wilderness encounter on the way to the dungeon goes badly for the party. The DM must use good judgement in addition to random tables. Encounters should be scaled to the strength of the party and should be in harmony with the theme of the adventure."

Mentzer later adds on to the above in his Expert book, pg 25: "The DM may choose a number within a given die range rather than roll for the amount of damage, number appearing, etc. This may be necessary to allow for a more enjoyable game; heavy damage early in the game may spoil some of the fun."

Mentzer also included the following section in his Basic book, pg 16: "Whenever two or more events could occur and a decision is needed, or whenever a variety of results is possible, dice may be used to randomly select a result. Experienced Dungeon Masters may select results instead of rolling dice.
EXAMPLE: A character with 3 hit points is hit by a monster with a normal sword (damage 1-8). Death could easily result - through no fault of the player's, merely a random result of the Hit roll. To keep the character alive as long as possible, the DM rolls for damage - but ignores the result, and announces that 2 points of damage were done. The character retreats and the game continues.
...
The DM may select any number given in the range for Number Appearing, Damage, and so forth, depending on the situation."

This style of DMing is considered a design flaw nowadays but back in the earlier editions, it was essential.
The rules couldn't--and needn't--account for every possible thing. (I'd argue that this is still true.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Eh. I think there's some retrospective revisionism at work, but maybe not as much as you do.

Keep on the Borderlands was massively popular because it shipped in multiple editions of Basic sets. And the main reason it did so was so that Gary could get the sweet (and massive, after the James Dallas Egbert III incident kicked off the D&D fad) royalty money which Mike Carr had been raking in for B1 In Search of the Unknown. B1 is much more of an "explore this weird place and occasionally run into monsters" affair than B2's packed set of monster lairs. The layout also supports fleeing from, evading, and circumnavigating enemies, which the compact lairs of B2 generally don't/

Most modules showed smaller adventure sites and often ones packed tighter with encounters than the normal dungeon stocking rules would assume, in part because many of them were originally designed for tournament sessions with relatively tight 4hr time limits. B1 was a bit of an exception, being designed by Carr to more closely replicate the kind of dungeons OD&D and the Basic sets expected DMs to construct for themselves.

I certainly think a lot of groups (especially younger players who didn't come in until the 80s and used modules like B2 for models) did have a lot of combat, but I really don't think those editions are designed for it to take up the majority of the session. Very much to the contrary, I think combat is supposed to be important but only take up a fraction of the play time. In part because when you do have combat, those fights are short, especially at low levels.

How a pending lawsuit changed the original Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set

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Whatever the origins of B2, the fact remains that, starting in December 1979 -- 43 years ago -- the adventure nearly everyone entering the game played, often many times, was incredibly combat dense. If combat wasn't taking up the majority of the sessions centered on the Caves of Chaos (because the rest of the Borderlands content can be used up pretty quickly), I would be shocked. What did your groups do instead of combat at the caves?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don’t remember you at our table?

If you were using the low level adventure modules that were ubiquitous in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I didn't need to be. There simply aren't a lot of libraries or laboratories in T1, B1 (which does have some cool investigation opportunities), B2, L1, N1, U1, etc.

N1 and U1 in particular have stuff to do that's not combat, to be sure, which is likely why they're so well-remembered, but they still have more than one major combat, meaning those AD&D magic-users would still be facing the problem that M.T. raised: After they cast their magic missile, charm person or sleep (or, god help us, read magic), they either hand to hang out in the back and contribute nothing in particular, or their player had to try and get them killed off so they could bring in another character.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My lone single-class, by-the-1e-PHB magic-user who survived to 2nd level carried a yo-yo, and sometimes performed gravity checks when feeling particularly bored/useless.

When able, he liked to throw things - preferably molotov cocktails. Sometimes he used a heavy crossbow, with a dexterity bonus mitigating the non-proficiency penalties.

Once cantrips were introduced, I used those for another pure magic-user.

A magic-user with a yo-yo is a great image. That mage deserved to get to level 2.

 

[darjr]

Whatever the origins of B2, the fact remains that, starting in December 1979 -- 43 years ago -- the adventure nearly everyone entering the game played, often many times, was incredibly combat dense. If combat wasn't taking up the majority of the sessions centered on the Caves of Chaos (because the rest of the Borderlands content can be used up pretty quickly), I would be shocked. What did your groups do instead of combat at the caves?

Combat at the caves of chaos as a default was a TPK.

I’ve seen and hear people play it as set pice battles but those kobolds down the hall can hear you and go fetch help. H*ck the Ogre is there AS backup if the fight is on.

I’ve had many tables who discovered that sneaking and trickery and even negotiating with some of the monsters was ultimately the safe way through.

I’ve also had a table that sided with the high priest and went back and sacked the keep from within.

Look, just because you only see one way doesn’t mean we all did.

 

[Voadam]

My lone single-class, by-the-1e-PHB magic-user who survived to 2nd level carried a yo-yo, and sometimes performed gravity checks when feeling particularly bored/useless.

When able, he liked to throw things - preferably molotov cocktails. Sometimes he used a heavy crossbow, with a dexterity bonus mitigating the non-proficiency penalties.

Once cantrips were introduced, I used those for another pure magic-user.

A single classed MU could not use a crossbow in 1e. Were you using a house rule that just put non-proficiency penalties on weapons not useable by the class?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Combat at the caves of chaos as a default was a TPK.

I’ve seen and hear people play it as set pice battles but those kobolds down the hall can hear you and go fetch help.

The tree outside the kobold lair has more than a dozen kobold archers in it! By the RAW, they can essentially lock down the mouth of the valley and end any low-level adventurers who show their faces.

Look, just because you only see one way doesn’t mean we all did.

OK.

I still call BS on the notion that combat didn't dominate D&D/AD&D low level play during the "you only get one spell a day at first level" era. (It could be worse, of course -- there was a time when clerics got zero spells at level 1.) That doesn't account for every table, of course, but I am confident which style predominated overall.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Also, it is way too hard to find a GIF of Ted Lasso throwing darts, which is presumably because he ran out of spells earlier in the day.

 

[darjr]

The tree outside the kobold lair has more than a dozen kobold archers in it! By the RAW, they can essentially lock down the mouth of the valley and end any low-level adventurers who show their faces.

OK.

I still call BS on the notion that combat didn't dominate D&D/AD&D low level play during the "you only get one spell a day at first level" era. (It could be worse, of course -- there was a time when clerics got zero spells at level 1.) That doesn't account for every table, of course, but I am confident which style predominated overall.

I saw this with a lot of new players, sure. In fact my first game ever my older sister ran me and my friends and my brother through the caves of chaos and we were going to go kick some but!

It ended in a near TPK at the first encounter. My friends character, who I think was a hireling, ran fir his life. The only survivor.

The next go around we were much more cautious.