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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4788593" data-attributes="member: 80487">In old-style play, there was definitely an element of skill. Some campaigns could be exceptionally easy ("monty haul") or hard due to the DM. With a common basis there, one could take character advancement as a general indication of a player's ability. When it was not so, that tended quickly to become evident in play. High-level "stats" were no substitute -- and, especially for spell-casters, more rules in play meant more chances to display ineptitude.That's the main reason the Tomb of Horrors was recommended for high levels. Players undertaking the challenge ought to have at least a couple of years of "learning the ropes" behind them.The basic skills to acquire at low levels included:* Teamwork, planning and time (and other resource) management.* Alertness, observation and investigation.* Assessing risk and reward, balancing caution and boldness.* Creative problem-solving.There were also bodies of knowledge to acquire. The most important was the D&D equivalent of "common sense", which in general character resembled the rules of thumb front-line soldiers learn in modern warfare. The accumulation of data about particular kinds of monsters and magic was also helpful.So was lore peculiar to a campaign (geography, history, social structures and customs, current events and powerful figures, etc.). However, a player who had developed skills for navigating the environment was likely to do better in any context than one whose familiarity with a particular context was due simply to long exposure.Getting a character to second level for the first time tended to be a key rite of passage. Luck played a significant role, but mainly a negative one; the odds were stacked against survival. The number of characters one lost before attaining that first milestone had a strong correlation with how quickly one "got" the game.</blockquote>

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