D&D General On Powerful Classes, 1e, and why the Original Gygaxian Gatekeeping Failed

[AbdulAlhazred]

At my table, you couldn't roll by yourself. Someone had to witness the rolls. You could retire a character if the rolls sucked (they went off to become a farmer). We used 3d6 and you could pretty much keep rolling until you got a keeper or someone would witness for you(which wasn't very long for 15 to 17 year olds) . It was expected that you would have at least one 18, or a couple 16 and 17, but you probably had one to two very bad rolls. Don't remember if we ever implemented the 4d6 because I let them retire undesirable characters, I do think I let them pick where they wanted to put the rolls.

People still almost certainly fudged, because 3d6 will only produce one 18 in 216 rolls. So you need to roll up 37 PCs roughly to get a single 18. 17s are twice as common, and 16s about 3x more common than that, but until you get into the 100's of PCs rolled up you are really unlikely to get even 2 ability scores of 17 and higher. You'd probably have a couple of characters with 2 16s, or a 16 and a 17. at 100 characters. You have to get into the 10's of thousands to be likely to have a character with 3 stats above 16. I wrote a code on my C64 to do it, even with 100k full PC rolls I only got 2 characters with double 18s IIRC (sorting all the results was the hardest problem).

 

[House_Of_Dexter]

Yeah...that sounds about right...It seems like we would have about 50 characters rolled before you got a keeper. Players had their favorite dice that weren't loaded but definitely had a bias to roll 6's.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's exactly correct. If you were coming from OD&D and transitioning to AD&D, you likely used the 3d6 as a default and were just adapting the new rules.

The four methods of rolling in the DMG (which is why the UA method is, of course, Method V) are listed as alternatives to the assumed baseline of 3d6, in order.

After discussing how 3d6 can create marginal characters that might discourage new players, the DMG says "Four alternatives are offered for player characters:" (emphasis mine).

To put it more bluntly- AD&D is a codification and expansion of the OD&D rules (despite whatever certain lawsuits might have alleged). 3d6, in order, is the default, and acknowledged as such. The methods proffered in the DMG are alternatives to the default.

Whether it's because it was listed first, or because it's by far the easiest to implement, 4d6k1 became the alternative that most people were familiar with. Perhaps because rolling twelve characters and selecting the one you want sound annoying (Method IV).

Right, I certainly played a lot during the transition period. At that time we saw the Monster Manual as simply a deluxe encyclopedia of cleaned up monster descriptions replacing the horrible table-based format (with multiple addenda) of the original rules (and IIRC Holmes had also a similar format, though he might have cribbed from Gary). The 'Advanced Dungeons & Dragons' text that was on the cover didn't really mean anything to us, it was just an 'advanced' book (IE better than the old books). The Player's Handbook made it a lot more clear that AD&D was a kind of 'new version' of D&D, but we simply took it at face value as a canonicalization of rules that already existed. 1e really is NOT that different from classic D&D in rules structure. Especially if you don't have the DMG! So it was certainly true that we just (as far as I can remember) continued to roll 3d6 in order, or do whatever we were already doing.

Honestly, I never saw a group that consistently used anything but Method 1 either. Even before the DMG this method had already been floating around. We may even have used it ourselves, although I seem to recall that we just rolled 4d6d1 IN ORDER, and the DMG method where you got to arrange the numbers was kind of a revelation because it meant you got to PICK YOUR CHARACTER CLASS whereas before you pretty much got what you rolled (IE high DEX, you're a thief, maybe a fighter, high WIS your a cleric, etc.). Sometimes you'd get stuck picking a non-optimal class because "that's what we need today", but with choosing the order of stats, that was the biggy, because now you put the high number in STR or CON and even if your numbers were kind of crappy, at least you probably had SOME sort of bonus someplace, or could pick a favorite race, or something.

The DMG really did revolutionize play a bunch. Mostly it doesn't do anything radically new, but the combat system was MUCH better explained (it is still cryptic, but the old rules were utterly obtuse). Also the whole structure of how a campaign was imagined to be played was presented, even if most of us ignored a lot of it.

 

[smetzger]

1) Troup Play - yes, I remember doing this. Also, if someone died your new character started at level 1, even if everyone else was level 8. If you lived you just leveled up that much more quickly.

2) In general we used 4d6 drop lowest arrange as you like for PCs. I do distinctly remember having a Dwarf Fighter that befriended a human boy and wanted him to be one of my followers. I really wanted him to be a Paladin. DM said ok, roll 3d6 in order... ended up rolling a 17 for Cha, so Paladin he was.

3) I am not sure what the point of the observation about gatekeeping is... Is it bad? I don't know, at the time 1e and 2e worked well enough for me. Traveller also had gatekeeping... your character could die in in character creation... so you had to weigh the benefit/risk of staying in for more skills and possibly dyeing or mustering out. This is just how the games were played back then, you rolled up and then role played what you rolled. Would it fly now, probably not. Was it wrong, bad, fun... not really.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The DMG really did revolutionize play a bunch. Mostly it doesn't do anything radically new, but the combat system was MUCH better explained (it is still cryptic, but the old rules were utterly obtuse). Also the whole structure of how a campaign was imagined to be played was presented, even if most of us ignored a lot of it.

I think what many people don't realize is that OD&D is incredibly difficult for someone to play "out of the box" today because it was based on the assumption that, 1) you were well-versed in the wargaming and hobby aesthetics and gestalt of the era; 2) were familiar with other products, like Chainmail; and 3) kept up with various hobbyist publications or news (either hanging out at the local store, or Strategic Review / Dragon, or whatever).

Or you learned it from someone who knew! I mean, Holmes did a good effort cleaning some of it up, but that wasn't until near the end of the lifecycle.

Which is why AD&D (1e), and the DMG, was really the first codified way to play the game. That's why the DMG preface starts thus:
What follows herein is strictly for the eyes of you, the campaign referee. As the creator and ultimate authority in your respective game, this work is written as one Dungeon Master equal to another. Pronouncements there may be, but they are not from "on high" as respects your game. Dictums are given for the sake of the game only, for if ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is to survive and grow, it must have some degree of uniformity, a familiarity of method and procedure from campaign to campaign within the whole.
(emphasis mine).

So as cryptic as 1e often was, it was really a massive clarification, elaboration, and standardization of OD&D.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

3) I am not sure what the point of the observation about gatekeeping is... Is it bad? I don't know, at the time 1e and 2e worked well enough for me. Traveller also had gatekeeping... your character could die in in character creation... so you had to weigh the benefit/risk of staying in for more skills and possibly dyeing or mustering out. This is just how the games were played back then, you rolled up and then role played what you rolled. Would it fly now, probably not. Was it wrong, bad, fun... not really.

There is a big difference in Traveller though, older characters are not NECESSARILY stronger. You could keep going through more 'tours of duty' and probably boost your skill ratings, but you would CERTAINLY get older and your physical stats would degrade, and those were vital because they are your hit points. A character that spent 8 terms (32 years) in his career would have lost several points in CON/DEX/STR (and they were 2d6, so that would be pretty significant).
I think the dying part was more to make the career system more fun as a mini-game. You got to 'gamble' and if you got unlucky, then you had to go back and start again. We spent endless hours just rolling up PCs because it was FUN. Eventually you'd get mustered out/layed off and then you'd have to go play the actual RPG, which I think was the real point of that rule. So, yes, really excellent characters were a random, and more uncommon, occurrence but it is more just "this is the random distribution of rolling dice" vs "certain things are walled off." I mean you could ALWAYS be a Space Marine, you just said "I'm going into the Space Marines!" You might get booted after 1 term with nothing but basic weapons training, but at least you wouldn't have aged, and you were an ex-Marine, which was probably the RP you were after.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Dunno. I'm not sure where the stats I saw came from. Maybe @Rob Kuntz can shed some light on the stats of PCs in Gary's games. Not specific values, but whether they were generally higher than the DMG methods would produce, or whether they used the DMG methods.

In both our games either as co-Dms or DMs, we used a 4d6 roll for PC stats and dropped the lowest die roll,; in addition to this we sometimes rolled over on 1's, and sometimes we used 3d6 roll over on 1's, and/or on 1's and 2's. NPCs were always 3d6 straight up. Note: this is part of a House Rules document that I will publish someday which includes my use of opposing dice checks long before T&T came up with the system, and other such tweakings.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

If you’re familiar with that story, you know why it’s disingenuous to call it a rare.

[/QUOTE]

I'm sorry, but if you get it instead of the card in the rare slot, what would you call it? You also intentionally miss the point. Rare cards arent remotely balanced amongst themselves.

That’s just silly. Obviously that would be an absurd card. Rarity is a balancing tool in a limited environment. Rarer cards are able to be more individually powerful when access to them is not guaranteed. In a constructed environment, where players have unlimited access to the entire card pool, rarity is not a balancing tool, because no card is actually any less accessible than any other.

Sure, it's a balancing tool. A naughty word one. You can also "balance" on whoever has the longer beard, or is the older player, anyone who rolls doubles is kicked out of the group.

I don't get the rose colored navel gazing fascination with 1e's awful design.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

In the old days, having a special character was at least in theory supposed to be a rarity. Now it's the norm, and so The Incredibles maxim holds demonstrably true: when everyone is special no one is.

This is typically spouted by those who want to ensure someone else isn't special so they get to feel special. Feel free to lower your scores or not level up. I don't show up to a game to play the BMX Bandit.

 

[Maxperson]

In both our games either as co-Dms or DMs, we used a 4d6 roll for PC stats and dropped the lowest die roll,; in addition to this we sometimes rolled over on 1's, and sometimes we used 3d6 roll over on 1's, and/or on 1's and 2's. NPCs were always 3d6 straight up. Note: this is part of a House Rules document that I will publish someday which includes my use of opposing dice checks long before T&T came up with the system, and other such tweakings.

Thank you for your response. Re-rolling 1's and sometimes 2's makes a difference. You'll qualify for the harder to reach classes more often.