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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6780468" data-attributes="member: 82106">Exactly! And nobody is saying all we did was 'houserule', for one thing you couldn't play OD&D out of the box, it literally isn't a playable game, so any concept like 'rules as written' and then you 'house ruled it' is utterly worthless when talking about anything before 1e (and I include Holmes Basic in that too, though at least its CLOSE to being playable by the book). Now, does 1e assume that NPCs have classes? It clearly provides the DM with straightforward rules that work in that context, but it also clearly doesn't model ALL NPCs, or maybe even most of them, as classed individuals. Even when it gives them classes it states flat out that PCs are 'special' and than NPCs don't normally advance, etc. (there's no precise rule, a henchman can advance, but a hireling doesn't get XP, its unclear if followers do or not, or at what rate, and its flat out stated in several places that other sorts of NPCs do NOT advance in levels, though this is also contradicted at times). NEVER is it stated, or even implied, that characters NARRATIVELY have a concept of class. Not once anywhere in the rules does that concept appear. A very literalist (and common) reading of AD&D would have NPCs putting out there class like a shingle as if they know they're modelled as a "level 7 magic user" or something, but its NOT part of the rules. Furthermore what IS part of the rules is "the DM makes up the world"I guess what I mean by that is, if the DM decides not to use the druid class to make the 'Great Druid' and does it ad-hoc his own way whatever, that's not a violation of some rule or a 'house rule', that's just world authorship. Likewise if he says "yeah, Fredigar can train your thief to level 3" he's not making a new rule by having Fredigar represented by some stat block instead of a character sheet written up to be a level 4+ thief. He's not even obligated to make up stats for Fredigar! If he decides later on Fredigar is a monk or just a dwarf monster stat block with a couple thief skills attached to it and some extra hit dice, that's not making up new rules, its just using the tools of the game as intended.</blockquote>

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