D&D General What did D&D teach you?


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Yeah, I still remember this...
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Seeing the 1e polearm list always reminds me of when a friend and I were hex editing Pool of Radiance circa 1989, and we did something wrong, causing something called a "flail flail fauchard fork" to appear in a character's inventory. It had a horrific THAC0 of like 50, but it did an impressive 1d10 + 35 damage or so. We could only assume that the fauchard fork had a flail on each tip of the fork, making it incredibly unwieldy, but, man, when you did hit, it was doing all sorts of damage!
 

Seeing the 1e polearm list always reminds me of when a friend and I were hex editing Pool of Radiance circa 1989, and we did something wrong, causing something called a "flail flail fauchard fork" to appear in a character's inventory. It had a horrific THAC0 of like 50, but it did an impressive 1d10 + 35 damage or so. We could only assume that the fauchard fork had a flail on each tip of the fork, making it incredibly unwieldy, but, man, when you did hit, it was doing all sorts of damage!
I never tried hex editing save files, but lots of the first programs I ever wrote drew random lines in random directions on the screen and the colors were limited to earth and water colors so I could generate cool maps. Very much inspired by D&D. This back in the late 80’s or early 90’s.
 


Facetious answer: it taught me to cast Magic Missile once then try to look unimportant for the rest of the day.

Serious answer: it taught me that if I wanted to have fun I would have to play something else.
Looking back now, I can’t recall how I played. I know I always had a 1st level magic user and had the same issue. But I was having so much fun. I wonder if it was because it was all new to me and it’s not like I had tons of other entertainment options?
 



What a gazebo is. ;)
Better that than trying to make use of the Head of Vecna.

Seriously:

Probability and statistics (large numbers of dice illustrate the central limit theorem and law of large numbers well, and 1-2e NPC level demographics are a classic exponential distribution)
Names of polearms (the picture was in Unearthed Arcana, before that you just kinda had to guess what a glaive-guisarme was).
Various archaic and fell words, though this was likely not for my weal
 

Better that than trying to make use of the Head of Vecna.

Seriously:

Probability and statistics (large numbers of dice illustrate the central limit theorem and law of large numbers well, and 1-2e NPC level demographics are a classic exponential distribution)
Names of polearms (the picture was in Unearthed Arcana, before that you just kinda had to guess what a glaive-guisarme was).
Various archaic and fell words, though this was likely not for my weal
I had to look up the central limit theorem, and keep looking until I found a version I understood. Found one here: https://statisticsbyjim.com/basics/central-limit-theorem/
That is fascinating- I took statistics in college, but it’s been a long time and it never really stuck with me.

Also I loved the pole arm pic in UA.

Another one: I still think sometimes about how Gygax said he had the intelligence to know smoking was bad but lacked the wisdom to stop.
 


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