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<blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5043810" data-attributes="member: 80487">That's a curious difference. In 1e, slow advancement is -- by the standard rule -- a product of little treasure.That risk-reward balance is probably the most fundamental in the game. You can go safe and slow, or take high casualties (even 50% per expedition, maybe) and have the survivors rocket through the ranks.Gary Gygax and Tim Kask quite often took to task the &quot;Monty Haul&quot; and &quot;Killer&quot; DMs. Despite the gold-piece values in the DMG, Gygax at least once stated that magic items should &quot;almost never&quot; be for sale.Gary was especially concerned about too easy and rapid piling up of power. He stated his worry that it was most likely to lead to quick boredom, as people felt that they had exhausted the game's most interesting possibilities.One problem was that the game really had not been designed or tested for very high levels. Players in the Greyhawk campaign mostly retired their characters ca. 12th-14th level, and (IIRC) Gary said that his and Rob's (and Ernie's?) most famous ones were exceptional but got only up to 16th. That would mean, for instance, no PC m-us running around with 9th-level spells.So, if you pressed on past that point you were &quot;on your own&quot;. Even before that point, Gygax left an awful lot of stuff up to the DM. How long does ghoul paralysis last? Spell and magic-item descriptions often require careful adjudication, what might constitute &quot;abuse&quot; depending greatly on the particular campaign. There's a lot of practice along the way, both for players and for DMs, in effectively taking over responsibility for creating their own game.In a sense, the &quot;Advanced&quot; books might be characterized as basic training for the original game -- which offered much less &quot;hand holding&quot; and prescriptive or proscriptive Words From On High but was addressed to peers.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ariosto, post: 5043810, member: 80487"] That's a curious difference. In 1e, slow advancement is -- by the standard rule -- a [i]product[/i] of little treasure. That risk-reward balance is probably the most fundamental in the game. You can go safe and slow, or take high casualties (even 50% per expedition, maybe) and have the survivors rocket through the ranks. Gary Gygax and Tim Kask quite often took to task the "Monty Haul" and "Killer" DMs. Despite the gold-piece values in the DMG, Gygax at least once stated that magic items should "almost never" be for sale. Gary was especially concerned about too easy and rapid piling up of power. He stated his worry that it was most likely to lead to quick boredom, as people felt that they had exhausted the game's most interesting possibilities. One problem was that the game really had not been designed or tested for very high levels. Players in the Greyhawk campaign mostly retired their characters ca. 12th-14th level, and (IIRC) Gary said that his and Rob's (and Ernie's?) most famous ones were exceptional but got only up to 16th. That would mean, for instance, no PC m-us running around with 9th-level spells. So, if you pressed on past that point you were "on your own". Even before that point, Gygax left an awful lot of stuff up to the DM. How long does ghoul paralysis last? Spell and magic-item descriptions often require careful adjudication, what might constitute "abuse" depending greatly on the particular campaign. There's a lot of practice along the way, both for players and for DMs, in effectively taking over responsibility for creating their own game. In a sense, the "Advanced" books might be characterized as basic training for the original game -- which offered much less "hand holding" and prescriptive or proscriptive Words From On High but was addressed to [b]peers[/b]. [/QUOTE]

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