D&D 1E Favorite Obscure Rules from TSR-era D&D

[Snarf Zagyg]

One long-serving PC of mine has, during his career, entered 4th level five times: twice from below and three times from above.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The alignment restrictions on Rangers make no in-setting sense. A criminal banished from town who has had to make his way in the woods half his life should be able to become a Ranger simply through living that lifestyle, while still being an evil cuss at the same time.

Again, Rangers were Aragorn. So it makes perfect sense!

If one looks at Druids as being Nature Clerics, alignment restrictions don't make any sense there either: various deities of all alignments would, one would think, support Nature Clerics.

Gygax believed in a "muscular neutrality," so I understand where this came from.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, I think that, especially reading between the lines of the AD&D DMG and OD&D books, and in context with modules from the period, that the default expectation was that games would be a bit more roulette-like.

Big gambles, losses AND big wins.

A principle that has sadly been almost completely discarded over the editions since.

If it wasn't a game of luck, it wouldn't use dice.

Magic items, ability scores, character levels, were ALL "easy come, easy go". You could get drained by a Wight in one room and then find a fountain on the same level where just drinking from it gave you a level. Or find just one of them. Or neither. You could find an awesome magic sword then have it destroyed by a rust monster.

Yep, and that's just how I like it!

 

[Alzrius]

This isn't an obscure rule so much as an obscure rule-of-thumb (well, not really, but I wanted to use that phrase):

Ecology articles that added new abilities to monsters.

Nowadays, you'd just have an alternative stat block, or change their feats or spell-like abilities, or just decide that those details were too small to be formalized (making a unique NPC if you needed something really different). But back in the AD&D days, every so often Dragon would have an "Ecology of" article that was inevitably peppered with footnotes that had all sorts of additional rules for monsters, adding in various twists and new applications of powers, or even granting new ones altogether.

I always enjoyed those, and while we still see ecologies for monsters, the lack of new mechanics being liberally sprinkled in wherever the writer thought it was appropriate is something I miss now.

 

[Lanefan]

Slightly more seriously, I've spoken to at least one person who said that back in the days of AD&D (and even OD&D), there was an expectation that the group was larger than any one player. Your PC might die, but the party continued on, and so you rolled up a new character and looked for a way to join the other PCs.

This is the way I've always seen it and still see it today: the party is the thing, while individual characters come and go.

 

[Lanefan]

Again, Rangers were Aragorn. So it makes perfect sense!

Only if Aragorn is the only Ranger in the setting.

We don't get to see many (or any?) other examples of Rangers in Tolkein's works, to see how they might have varied from the one example we do get.

Gygax believed in a "muscular neutrality," so I understand where this came from.

As do I, though I don't necessarily agree with it.

 

[James Gasik]

Do you have an UA page number for that? I remember that and had a PC drow cleric MU in my longtime 1e then later 2e campaign I ran in the 80s but I can't seem to find the chart or listing of options in my PDF UA copy.

Sure, the tables on page 9.

 

[the Jester]

Gygax believed in a "muscular neutrality," so I understand where this came from.

And this brings up another interesting 1eism: clerics could be any alignment except True Neutral, and druids had to be True Neutral.

 

[James Gasik]

Which really gets crazy once True Neutral deities started popping up.

"I am Neutralis the Uncaring, I care for nothing."

"Wow, True Neutral! Can I be your Cleric?"

"I could care less."

"Sweet, I'll be True Neutral."

"Alas, that is something I care about. No."

 

[Voadam]

Sure, the tables on page 9.

Huh,

I wonder if my PDF is from some weird printing of UA that was missing some stuff. It dates back to when WotC ran their own PDF store for D&D stuff in the early 2000s before shutting down and sending everything over to rpgnow.