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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6571953" data-attributes="member: 82106">But we know from examining the source material that OD&D HAD a stance. Its possible it was a largely happenstance, but it was a stance of some sort! The level names of PCs makes that clear, the fact that PCs were drawn from the exceptional singular figure rules of Chainmail, and the mere fact that they could advance whereas it was explicit that most NPCs didn't ever advance. While its possible to say that NPCs and PCs use the same rules (henchmen are built using PC rules for instance, as presumably are many hostile NPCs though it isn't really stated) PCs are consciously designed to promote the game's agenda, not 'just like NPCs'. Beyond that we can look at other games of the time and we can see that the idea of these agendas, maybe not yet formally declared as such, was quite active. Tunnels & Trolls has COMPLETELY different rules for NPCs, En Garde! also treats NPCs (to the extent they exist) differently too. This is quite common in 70's era game design, actually. In fact you can probably find almost every technique used in 4e somewhere in one of the widely known games of that era. There were games with 'minions', games with creatures as purely stat blocks (BRP/RQ/CoC springs instantly to mind), etc. My point is, game designers were quite aware of agendas right from day one at Gygax's kitchen table. He was a pretty insightful guy, and while he might not have articulated it as "there is this range of choices I could make" he certainly knew WHY he did what he did.</blockquote>

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