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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9455066" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Pretty sure the Millenials coined that. It's at least twenty years old now.[URL unfurl="true"]https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/yolo[/URL]One could argue that the Heroes in DDG&H are legendary examples to aspire to.  The title is referring to NPCs in the book, not to PCs.  And the potions bestow heroic qualities onto someone, which implies they're not already.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />But your other points are dead-on.  The mid 80s is definitely the period when the default assumption shifted to heroic as in goodly.  While OD&D and 1E assumed that a majority of PCs would be heroic, by 2E they were de-facto discouraging anything else, while OE and 1E left being villainous or amoral more of an open option.  They did discourage it in subtle ways, though. I think one of the issues in this discussion is what we mean by "heroic". Are we just talking about lawful and good, or are we talking about supernormal, extraordinary, and even magical?  Protagonists who have abilities above and beyond, and often MUCH above and beyond, those of an ordinary person?  Both have been discussed.Evil characters being able to use (powerful) poisons is arguably an area where AD&D gives an incentive to playing villains, but because the DMG hammers on the limits and restrictions and enforcing downsides, it's a pretty weak example.   The henchmen morale rules are more subtle, but the loyalty modifiers on page 37, particularly alignment of liege adjustments, are concrete incentives to play lawful and good characters. Things like being able to ally /group up with powerful Rangers and Paladins vs the much weaker Assassins are more player-facing and obvious.  Yes, pretty much.And the original rules absolutely were intended to simulate heroic (as in extraordinary, mythic) fantasy fiction.  The whole invention of Hit Points was because one of Dave Arneson's players was dissatisfied when his heroic knight character got killed in a single round of combat against a troll.  As two major examples from AD&D, we can refer to Gary's explanations of the nature of the game, and of and saving throws, which are both very clear that it's intended to be heroic fantasy.  (bold emphasis mine)(Bolding for emphasis mine.)That's a whole lot of verbiage making clear that the entire purpose and function of the saving throw is to support heroic (as in extraordinary, wonderful, mythic, epic) narrative play.</blockquote>

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