AD&D 1E Three Things that can't be Fixed in 1e AD&D

It's pretty easy to add such rules - especially to 1e AD&D where I had back in the day worked on the problem - and in my opinion not including them is not an oversight. Indeed, Gygax explicitly says in the DMG that not including them wasn't an oversight but a deliberate choice, and for the most part it's one I agree with.

The problem is that a game that involves levelling up while being a stay at the home time practicing your profession isn't really a roleplaying game. You play it out in spread sheets not in character, and it involves doing nothing for decades as the world moves on without you. It's not social. It's may be a game but it is a stretch to call it "play". As much of a simulationist as I am, I really can't endorse that as a style of play.
I'm not suggesting that stay-at-homes are what the players play as their PCs. Adventuring is the fast-track (and risky!) way of gaining lots of xp and levels quickly, and so they are who gets played as PCs; while stay-at-home advancement is very slow - maybe a level every few years of constant work - but usually quite safe. Which reflects reality, too - keep doing anything and you're likely to get better at it over time whether you want to or not. And having such a system in place helps explain all the levelled NPCs out there, from the 2nd-level Cleric in the village to the powerful Mage in her tower to the long-serving militiaman who has worked his way up to 4th-level Fighter.
 

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Or we just assume the existence of an Artificer class or profession, as a non-adventuring or post-adventuring sub-class of MU. (I actually wrote this stay-at-home class up for my game)
Rather than "assume", you have to invent it. The DMG and PH do lay out some magic item creation procedures, and for the most part (at least for powerful items) they're so onerous and expensive that generally no PC is going to bother doing them.
 

For the most part I agree, though I think there are ways it can be done in the right game.

As I recall Ars Magica is specifically organized for campaign play to pass in Seasons, during some of which the Magi of the Covenant (and any accompanying Companions and Grogs) may go on adventures and find magics and harvest Vis, and during some of which the Magi stay at home and do research and make magic items and longevity potions and so forth. And there are mechanics for how much experience/skill advancement they can get while home studying, and how much magical stuff they can produce per unit of time, etc.

But dovetailing with your thesis about doing it in D&D being anti-social and forcing the Wizard players into reduced or non-participation, I think part of the reason it works in Ars Magica is that the players are ALL expected to have a Magus character as their primary, and/or to go into it with their eyes open if they choose to have a Companion and NOT have a Magus character, so all the players have the same motivation and opportunity for using that downtime and doing magical research and production.

It's called "Troupe Play" and I've done it before in high level 1e AD&D (by coincidence).

At high level almost by accident our above name level characters diverged into their own stories and to continue playing it out, we played many sessions with one main PC and their routine of mid-level henchmen and retainers as adventuring parties.
 

Rather than "assume", you have to invent it. The DMG and PH do lay out some magic item creation procedures, and for the most part (at least for powerful items) they're so onerous and expensive that generally no PC is going to bother doing them.

What's worse about them, and what really infuriated me at the time, is that they are incoherent. They are so punishing that no M-U should ever be manufacturing magic items for fighters, since the sacrifice of doing so is enormous. If we are to take the RAW as the explanation for where magic items come from, the vast majority of magic items in existence should be those that are most useful and only employable by M-U's since logically that's what M-U would make given the rules. But, in fact the treasure tables make the vast majority of magical treasure to be the sort only employable by fighters, so we must imagine I suppose a world where high level M-Us are perpetually enslaved to fighters and forced to labor on their behalf... which I'm pretty sure isn't the world Gygax meant for us to imagine or himself ran.
 

It's called "Troupe Play" and I've done it before in high level 1e AD&D (by coincidence).

At high level almost by accident our above name level characters diverged into their own stories and to continue playing it out, we played many sessions with one main PC and their routine of mid-level henchmen and retainers as adventuring parties.
Well, Troupe Play is the concept of having multiple characters you can switch between, more specifically. Where generally each player in AM runs one or more Grogs (fighter bodyguards) alongside their real PC (a Magus or Companion), and sometimes players have multiple real PCs (Magi and Companions). As opposed to the Seasonal play with mechanics for downtime study and production I was focusing on.

But yeah, I agree that AD&D's precedent of having an open world game during which your high level characters might be occupied for long periods doing magic item production or something does create a situation which incentivizes players to create lower-level characters or run the higher level ones' henchmen as secondary PCs to play while the high level ones are busy and out of the action. And that this undoubtedly inspired Lion Rampant (Rein-Hagen and Tweet) to make a more coherent, intentional system for something similar in Ars Magica.
 

I'm not suggesting that stay-at-homes are what the players play as their PCs. Adventuring is the fast-track (and risky!) way of gaining lots of xp and levels quickly, and so they are who gets played as PCs; while stay-at-home advancement is very slow - maybe a level every few years of constant work - but usually quite safe. Which reflects reality, too - keep doing anything and you're likely to get better at it over time whether you want to or not. And having such a system in place helps explain all the levelled NPCs out there, from the 2nd-level Cleric in the village to the powerful Mage in her tower to the long-serving militiaman who has worked his way up to 4th-level Fighter.

Well, that's just RAW per Gygax's explanation of why training gave no XP in the DMG, and why levelling up through adventuring was largely unrealistic and yet supported by the rules. My point though is that he deliberately gave no mechanics for players doing any of that.

As for "a level every few years of constant work" it would have to be much slower than that, otherwise you end up in a Forgotten Realms situation where every merchant and barkeep is over 10th level and you have incoherence about what meaning 1st level characters would have in such a world (to say nothing of normal orcs) - season up a few years and come back at 7th level sort of thing.

Imagining that there is something that a character can do to earn 1 XP a day (and if you've read my 3e posts on NPC classes you'll see where this is going, but it works even better for 1e because of the exponential leveling), then a fighter levels up after 2000 days of training - about 7 years or so. He then levels up again after another 7 years, then again after another 14. He's now perhaps 45 to 50 years of age (persumably he's now also the veteran of several real combats as well) and a Captain and civic leader. He levels up again, but is now in his 70's and aged and his body failing him and he's not able to employ his vast experience as his Strength has fallen to a mere average level and his Dexterity and Constitution are mere 6's. His hit points are lower now than they were when he was lower leveled and youthful. This is very much my demographics in 1e or 3e (A)D&D.
 

The procedure in 1E is really arcane and not clearly explained. See PH p10.

If I read/recall correctly basically each time you get access to a new spell level (including 1st level), you go through that entire spell level in any order you choose, and check whether you can potentially learn each given spell (except Read Magic, which all M-Us automatically start out knowing, and your other three randomly-generated spells in your beginning spell book). Once you hit your Max Spells Known based on your Int score, you stop. If you fail too many rolls and don't meet your Minimum Spells Known then you can re-try failed ones until you hit your minimum, again in whatever order you choose.
If you hit your max spells on your first go through you stop.

If you don't meet your minimum you go through again as you say until you hit your minimum number then you stop.

"Minimum Number of Spells/Level states the fewest number of spells by level group a magic-user can learn. If one complete check through the entire group fails to generate the minimum number applicable according to intelligence score, the character may selectively go back through the group, checking each spell not able to be learned once again. This process continues until the minimum number requirement has been fulfilled. This means, then, that certain spells, when located, can be learned — while certain other spells can never be learned and the dice rolls indicate which ones are in each category. Example: The magic-user mentioned above who was unable to learn a charm person spell also fails to meet the minimum number of spells he or she can learn. The character then begins again on the list of 1st level spells, opts to see if this time charm person is able to be learned, rolls 04, and has acquired the ability to learn the spell. If and when the character locates such a spell, he or she will be capable of learning it."

It then becomes incoherent because it says immediately thereafter:

"Acquisition of Heretofore Unknown Spells: Although the magic-user must immediately cease checking to determine if spells are known after the first complete check of each spell in the level group, or immediately thereafter during successive checks when the minimum number of spells which can be known is reached, it is possible to acquire knowledge of additional spells previously unknown as long as this does not violate the maximum number of spells which can be known. New spells can be gained from captured or otherwise acquired spell books or from scrolls of magic spells. In the latter event the scroll is destroyed in learning and knowing the new spell or spells."

So if you encounter a new one and have not hit your maximum you can learn it, even though you rolled before that you could not.

Unspecified here whether you need to roll on these newly acquired heretofore unknown spells.


However there's also some implication that you don't actually check for a given spell until you encounter its formula (on a scroll or in a spell book) in play, so the exact timing is a little ambiguous and the DM needs to figure out how they want to run it.
The 1e DMG page 39.

"Thus, if Redouleent the Prestidigitator, intelligence 15, has a repertoire of 7 spells and finds a scroll with yet another, there is a 65% chance that the spell can be understood by that worthy."

Also it is particularly vague on the spell gained at level up and does not specify whether the MU picks the spell or needs to roll to learn it.

"Naturally, magic-user player characters will do their utmost to acquire books of spells and scrolls in order to complete their own spell books. To those acquired, the magic-user will add 1 (and ONLY 1) spell when he or she actually gains an experience level (q.v.)."
 


It then becomes incoherent because it says immediately thereafter...so if you encounter a new one and have not hit your maximum you can learn it, even though you rolled before that you could not.

It's coherent as I read it if and only if you can keep a checklist of all spells which exist, which makes sense only if you have a finite list like those in the Player's Handbook. They way I read the minimum spells known rule is that once you've finished the whole checklist, you can retry on previously encountered spells until you meet the minimum, but before that you have to keep looking for previously unknown spells.

Unspecified here whether you need to roll on these newly acquired heretofore unknown spells.

I believe it reads you always have to roll.

Also it is particularly vague on the spell gained at level up and does not specify whether the MU picks the spell or needs to roll to learn it... Naturally, magic-user player characters will do their utmost to acquire books of spells and scrolls in order to complete their own spell books. To those acquired, the magic-user will add 1 (and ONLY 1) spell when he or she actually gains an experience level (q.v.)."

Although I didn't play with the training rules because of that I also didn't play with automatically acquiring any spells. As I understand it, a standard procedure would apply. They could pick the spell, would have to check if their PC could learn it, and if they failed they'd have to pick a different spell and try that one, with the first success indicating which spell was known.
 

Although I didn't play with the training rules because of that I also didn't play with automatically acquiring any spells.
The acquiring a spell per level is its own rule (DMG page 39) separate from the training rules (DMG page 86) which includes both training under a higher level character and self training.
As I understand it, a standard procedure would apply. They could pick the spell, would have to check if their PC could learn it, and if they failed they'd have to pick a different spell and try that one, with the first success indicating which spell was known.
That could be one way to to do it, but that is never specified.

Generally you train under a specific higher level MU, and they have their own list of spells they know.

In my longterm 1e campaign I ran in the 80s I rolled randomly on the UA chart when the MU leveled up and that was what he got. I remember him being disappointed in rolling Sepia Snake Sigil and then later Secret Page and not Fireball (he eventually got fireball and fly from a captured spellbook).

My long-term AD&D wizard did not get any spells at level up that I remember, they were all in game acquisitions.
 

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