Willie the Duck
Hero
Mind you, the existence of the wargames (and Braunsteins, FKS, etc.) that inspired D&D in the first place suggests that people find tracking funds and properties and the like can be a form of entertainment.I always thought the presence of strongholds in D&D was a strange holdover from it's tactical wargaming roots. I mean, players play D&D to get away from thier real life responsibilities of property, home, work, etc. Why would they want to recreate that in their fantasy game!? Irresponsible adventurers forever!
However, knowing that most D&D players (particularly after a certain point) weren't coming straight from wargaming, I think that depends on whether Gary thought people were going to regularly run the strongholds, or if it was just an explanation for what your character was doing in their retirement.
Certainly the addition of level 7+ spells and high-level planar adventures suggests that Gary and the future devs were aware that many people weren't exclusively retiring or playing king & commander at name level.
See, I don't think that's really true. Because in B/X and AD&D, gold is pretty useless.
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That's why training costs were a common house rule. It gave you something to spend all those cubic yards of metal discs on.
In AD&D training costs weren't a house rule.
The 2e AD&D DMG explicitly lists Training as an optional rule in Chapter 8. B/X has no rules at all for training, let alone training costs, and BECMI's "Training" refers to it's own Weapon Mastery system. Similarly OD&D had no training costs; the only limitation that I can recall was that you had to level up between adventures.
There are training costs in the 1e AD&D DMG! However, in 1e AD&D everything was an optional rule. After all, weapon speed, weapon vs armor type, and multi-attack's effect on initiative segments weren't presented as optional rules, either, but I never saw anybody use them longer than one or two sessions. A.D.D.I.C.T. is quite deservedly a joke to most people.
All rules in all editions are optional. That doesn't change the fact that training costs were baked into AD&D as a use for gold and set high in order to motivate treasure hunting.
That's just it, though. It doesn't really do that. I feel like you haven't actually looked at just how silly the math is. I don't think Gary did.
- You stated that Gold was worthless in BX and AD&D, and that giving a use to gp after you acquired it was the reason for training costs as a common house rule.
- Reynard stated that they were not a house rule in AD&D.
- You made statements that, while interesting and most being true*, are not germane to whether the rules were listed in AD&D, and thus not house rules. *re: 1E being the one where everything was optional: 1e is perhaps the only edition where it's actually stated that you ought to follow all the rules. That no one did is true, but not specific to 1E.
- Reynard pointed out that optionality does not change that the rules were there in the books, with the purpose of creating a use for the gp acquired.
- You stated, without apparent evidence other than they did not agree with you, that Reynard must not have looked into the rules.
- At no point did you clarify that you were talking about some other training rules other than the published rules as the house rules; nor why the initial house rules do not count as a use for gold.
Regarding whether Gary looked at the math, that's a difficult call. The AD&D rules are clearly not as well playtested as the oD&D rules were. However, it's entirely possible (and not entirely out of character) for him to have deliberately made it such that you could not meet the requirements by straightforward action. He was all about hard decisions, and there are plenty of other examples of 'you're not going to win this by playing fair' kind of moments in the game rules.
Maybe it was intended that one should have to borrow funds, or agree to services rendered in exchange for training (there are rules for that in the training rules as well), or selling ones' precious magic items ... or just plain have to waste a bunch of earned XP while you acquire additional GP to reach the training costs for the level-up you've otherwise already earned.
I have to agree, mind you, about how this works when the rubber meets the road. Especially looking at the multiplier for behavior. A thief, for instance, can get a poor rating for either boldly engaging in combat or for being cautious, leaving a very tenuous middle ground in which for them to work.