Not particularly any more optional than anything else the down to -3 range was explicitly optional but knocked to zero and being comatose for hours and disabled a week regardless of hit point restoration was not called out as so.
I'm confused as to what you mean by "never presented it as an option". He literally offers it as a possibility, one might say an option, in the 1E DMG. Do you just mean it doesn't get broken out in a neat sidebar saying "Optional Rule" in a bold header? Despite not being so signposted, it's definitely an optional rule.
I mean, the only thing he says that you could optionally do is the "-3 hit points thing". Otherwise, it's just smack dab in the text along with everything else in the DMG. I can't guess at his authorial intent, since he says both that the game is your own, do with it what you will and that if you're not using all of the rules you're not playing D&D.*
He literally presents it as an option, for DMs unsatisfied with death at 0.
Oh I see what you're saying. How strange. So if you're brought to 0 you remain alive til -10 (or optionally if reduced to -3) but if you're reduced to -4 you just die instantly? Mea culpa, that is not how I read it at first. What a strange rule...He literally presents it as an option, for DMs unsatisfied with death at 0.
No disagreement at all that it's presented more clearly in 2E; that's kind of the point of 2E.
Right. Ja. He defines a safety zone to allow for the possibility of characters being knocked unconscious and bleeding without being instantly snuffed. But it's not guaranteed. If you take a big enough hit, even under this optional rule, and get dropped past the unconscious and bleeding range, you're still just dead.
my bet is that everyone that started late 3e 4e or here in 5e would say this about 3/4 of the AD&D rules
The thing is, I actually played 1e, but like most groups, I bet, we didn't use most of the rules that were in the books.
