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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7348443" data-attributes="member: 82106">Yeah, and I have said the same thing a few times here too. So I think we agree that the messaging was a little confusing, but just reading the 'wrapper on the tin' you would certainly expect a game of heroes and heroic adventure. I will add, as an aside sort of, that I started in 1975 with OD&D, and it was less like that. There wasn't a clear message. It was more like "look at this neat variation of a wargame!" and we were all just struck by the infinitely flexible nature of play where the rules were only a starting point and not the whole story. I GUESS we kind of expected some sort of fantastical experience, but I don't recall that what I got was somehow surprisingly different from what was advertised. The oeuvre seemed to be more 'delving into dungeons is stupid dangerous, you will probably die!' I think its hard to say how many types of play there really are! Probably depends on how you draw the lines.I was just going by what the game presents. Your fighter is a 'hero' at level 4, the illusionist a 'Master Trickster', the thief is a 'Robber' and the cleric a 'Curate' (these are 1e level titles, but I think the earlier ones are about the same). Now, maybe I came to D&D by a different route than later folks, but TO ME the portrayal of NPCs with levels was a simple convenient convention. It stems from Chainmail where normal figures are basically equated to levels 1-3 (10 characters to a figure). That makes a level 1 fighter the equivalent of 10 veteran soldiers (though when you do that fight in D&D itself using the d20 combat system it obviously doesn't quite work out that way). The point is making the town guards 'level 2 fighting men' is just a way to create an elite warrior with 2 hit dice, it doesn't imply that they are heroic figures who advance in level. In fact 1e explicitly states that such people are not in fact eligible to advance, not being heroic material.Yes, there must, of necessity, be an endless supply of heroes for D&D's meat grinder, and so for henchmen as well (though its VERY hard to get many in any one place, you have to move around a LOT by the DMG). I would argue this has more to do with the incoherence of D&D (heroic concept, meat grinder low level cannon fodder implementation) than it does with what is stated as the intent.I mean, I don't think you're wrong about what game Gygax was actually designing, just that people certainly don't EXPECT it to be that game when they read it! I think it is literally impossible for such people to exist! What we call in reality an 'adventurer' is someone who's traveled to 5 or 10 exotic locales and done a few memorable and mildly (by D&D standards) dangerous things. No real world human being would survive the travails of a D&D character for even a month, it would break you even if you managed to actually survive the danger itself.BRAINSSSSSSSSSS.....Now, see I see it the opposite way. I'm an average guy in real life, in my gaming time, I want to be special. Sure, I want to make up and play out what really makes me special, but I never want to be a feckin level 1 AD&D character again as long as I live, BORING! As for what the challenge is, I just don't see dying as being a part of it. I mean, death happens, that's fine, its part of the story, but one more character death, maybe number 846 or so, don't mean much! It means something though if its me dying to save my friends, or failing to do so BY dying. Now its interesting! I don't give player's 'plot protection', I give them the chance to shape the plot, and if they don't play well or get really unlucky, it will shape in the form of a tragedy!</blockquote>

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