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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bardolph" data-source="post: 5031037" data-attributes="member: 2304">In my experience, it was usually in retrospect that players realized how gypped certain classes were. Wizards and thieves usually had a short life span, but were almost universally chosen by new players. Players that wanted to play for the long term usually chose a fighter, cleric, or some variant of either. Or, they would roll up a wizard or thief, die, then reroll a cleric or fighter.Long-term thieves and wizards were played by casual players. Sometimes they were there, sometimes they weren't. But it didn't matter much, since their usefulness was so limited anyway. They did add plenty of flavor, though.Another variant I encountered often was the NPC Thief Henchman that the DM ran most of the time, but would "lend out" to guests whenever someone new wanted to play but didn't have time to roll a new character. This situation was usually very entertaining, since the guest player would invariably do what they do best, which is set off traps and/or steal stuff from the party, so if the traps didn't knock them out, the party fighter would (aided by the cleric, of course)!Agreed. A major design goal of the later editions was to give the game more longevity without needing the DM to resort to these kinds of techniques.</blockquote>