I am not knowledgeable with the earliest D&D editions, but reading this struck me as strange, as if magical knowledge was binary. Either your succeed in learning or you'll never be able to learn it ever again.
That was in fact literally the case. Your magic-user's Intelligence ability score gave you a percent chance to succeed for each spell you attempted to learn: 55% at INT 13-14 (which would quite a good score in the strict roll 3d6 in order days), 65% at 15-16, 75% at 17, 85% at 18.
If you failed the roll to learn that particular spell, that's it. Your magic-user could NEVER learn that spell.
(However, your poor woebegotten 1st-level magic-user did get to spawn into this cruel world with 4 spells automagically in his or her spellbook. Those were the only spell for which you didn't have to roll %-chance-to-learn.)
Because "learn you multiplication tables until you either know them of fail to understand multiplication, like, forever, sounds strange.
We all reach our limit at some point. Mine came in college when my brain just refused to grok Linear Algebra. I had to admit: that's it. I'm done learning any more math. Hopefully I can get through the rest of my life with nothing beyond calculus.
Or maybe studying the spell involves the risk of being snatched by extradimensional beings happy to feast on our souls, which would reduce the number of rich dilettante studying it for fun.
I mean, with the number of ways in D&D you can be snatched up, plus the number of weird monsters that live on other planes but can mess with people on the Material Plane, people should go missing all the time. Kind of like how in Star Trek, starships or sometimes
entire planets just disappear out of our universe's space-time continuum for various reasons.
Carr's day:
8:40 Read a list consisting of 6 items, for a total of 9 words
23:52 Ends thorough reading session.
Hahahaha! I almost made that exact same joke but decided to leave the softball hanging out over the plate for you to crush.
As it turns out, apparently for any spell we want to learn, we're expected to have already studied the spell prior to the lesson. That could explain why it takes until midnight every night to prep for class the next day.
I've met people in real life who seemed to make random choices in important things [...] I guess they were WIS 3, so this part totally reflects OUR Carr Delling.
You have truly internalized the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Gamebook ethos. OUR Carr Delling will be different from anyone else's because OUR Carr Delling is being properly role-played as a COMPLETE DOOFUS.
Isn't light a cantrip nowadays?
Yes, it is.
But back in the 1e AD&D days, there were no cantrips.
[Edited to add: Cantrips were introduced to AD&D in Unearthed Arcana (1985) which just predates this gamebook's publication date. And, in fact, Carr can learn Cantrips if he takes that path. However, Light was still a 1st level spell in AD&D.]
So at 1st level spells there was no differentiation among "make something glow" (Light) vs. "unerringly strike a foe anywhere within line of effect for 1d4+1 damage which is potentially enough to kill low-level foes" (Magic Missile) vs. "make an existing nonmagical fire brighter or softer but without affecting its heat so that's neat I guess" (Affect Normal Fires).
It would explain Arno's reaction at us trying to sit at their table: imagine a 15 years old going to sit with PhD students at the cafeteria.
That sometimes happens in real life! You hear about prodigies and geniuses.
There was a kid in my high school advanced calculus class who was 12 years old vs. 17-18 for the rest of us.
(This was before I got to college and failed my roll to learn Linear Algebra.)
