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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 6153772" data-attributes="member: 1210">First off, to [MENTION=21169]Doug McCrae[/MENTION], I believe that the 1e 'named' spells were named because their developers- pcs all, I believe, though I could be wrong- were proud of them, and because their names were going into the books as a published part of D&D's lore. Wouldn't you want your character's name in the PH??That said, I don't have a copy of the 1ed Rogues' Gallery, but maybe someone who does can see if e.g. Bigby knows Mordenkainen's faithful hound or Tenser's transformation. It would be interesting to know how much they actually did trade spells.In general regarding the topic- I think the "wizards don't much trade spells" rule comes from an earlier bit of D&D philosophy. The game has changed a lot since the 1e days. In 1e, there were no free spells learned on leveling up- you had to learn new spells from scrolls or other spellsbooks. [EDIT: Holy cow- I just discovered, as I pulled out my 1e DMG to put in the quote below, that I am and always was wrong about this! Hidden in the DMG is a rule neither I nor anyone in any of my 1e groups ever noticed- you gain 1 freebie per level!] By the time you were 10th level, you'd often only know about 8 1st level spells! You might be the only wizard within 100 miles to know dispel magic  or teleport. When your high-level rival mage is likely to be voraciously buying up any spells that get let out for sale and he's already the only guy around to know web, cloudkill and minor globe of invulnerability, why would you give up what few advantages you have by selling the formula for dispel magic to another wizard who might well sell it (at an exorbitant price!) to your rival?Later editions made it far easier to acquire spells, which made it far more difficult to justify the "don't trade spells much" meme.Gygax actually has a fair amount to say about trading spells in the 1e DMG:Level titles changed for clarity for those unfamiliar with them.So- IMO- it's a relic of a earlier time that is easiest to justify when spell acquisition is severely limited.</blockquote>

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