Do you miss old D&D class names?

[JRRNeiklot]

I miss the thief. Back then nobody spelled his name like he was a variety of makeup. Grrrrr.

 

[johnsemlak]

That was Fighting Man, wasn't it?

Yeah.

In my next campaign we're going to use the term fighting man instead

Really, I'm not sure if 'fighter' is any worse than 'magic-user'. Both are basically D&D jargon words. Warrior would be a more classic term for the archetype.

I see why people don't like magic-user (indeed, since we have both divine and arcane magic...) but I miss teh term Wizard being reserved for only those who had reached a certain level of power. That seemed to match what the word 'Wizard' meant to me.

 

[Wombat]

Don' make no nevermind to me.

I figured that either way the class names were simply convenient labels -- few people, if any, actually call themselves thief or rogue, so it doesn't really make much difference.

 

[cybertalus]

Dunno if I miss them exactly, but they did give a different feel. Tell me a tale about heroic thieves and magic-users and it evokes different things in my imagination than a tale about heroic rogues and wizards does. I can understand why "thief" was changed, (and I often disliked the term myself when it was in use), but I wish they'd gone with something else. Sneak, prowler, or scoundrel all would've worked better for me than rogue, although I'm sure all of those would have their detractors.

As for the level titles, I like the idea, but the original implementation would not work today. The list for magic-users, for example, included many titles which are now the names of specialist wizards. The bard list consisted of mostly Celtic sounding words, with one very Latin name sticking out like a sore thumb. Some of the lists (barbarian was one I think) consisted of the class name itself at every level.

 

[thalmin]

I always HATED the term magic-user. We didn't have a lock-pick-user or sword-user. We did have tree-lovers (who hated the nickname) and trap-finders (usually posthumously).

I do somewhat miss the level titles, at least "name level."

 

[Piratecat]

Whoops! I voted yes, but I mean no. What I DO miss is the concept of "name level" and of interesting titles as you go up in levels. They were poorly implemented in 1e, but I loved the idea.

 

[Piratecat]

I miss the thief. Back then nobody spelled his name like he was a variety of makeup. Grrrrr.

Yeah. Instead, he was spelled "theif." Constantly. I swear, it bothers me as much as "rouge."

 

[Li Shenron]

I don't miss them at all!

Magic-user sound so incredibly dead-cold to me, why was it chosen at that time? Was "Wizard" copyrighted? If they thought Wizard or Sorcerer would have been too specific (?) at least Mage or Magician would have made sense, but Magic-user is completely lame.

Fighting-man definitely sounds primitive and crude: "Me fighting-man!". I would have preferred Warrior instead of Fighter, but both are however way better than F-M.

Thief wasn't bad. Indeed Rogue is far better, for it doesn't necessary make people think that you have to steal things from others. In Italian D&D there is still a problem with this class, which AFAIK is still named "Ladro" (Thief) because there's no clear translation of Rogue ("Canaglia" has a distinctive negative connotation, "Avventuriero" is too generic...).

 

[MonsterMash]

I miss them and the level titles, even though the OD&D level titles were bit poorly thought out - 1st level fighter is a 'Veteran'?

I always thought that they worked better for Clerics and particularly Monks - given how most martial arts tend to have rigid hierarchies of experience and training.

 

[Li Shenron]

Ah yes... the level-based titles were nice

But in long-term gaming, I think it's better not to have them, and instead to try using titles in-character, which may be not related with class level at all.