Quote from: estar;1002880And yet it says on page 10



Your interpretation of changing the attributes would have it gain the other bonuses given to high attributes.

But then in support of how you view things



I don't about other folks but this sounds like about a trade of X points of one ability for 1 point of another. But yet there that pesky "for the purpose. ... only"

And in terms of how it looks in-game it make sense that a fighter with a high intelligence and wisdom should have a bit of an edge. That fighting is not all about being the strongest person around. That having wits and foresight counts as well at least in terms of earning experience.

And to be clear, I am not saying you are wrong. Only that in the case of OD&D several sections have two or more reasonable interpretations for what they mean.

Weird. I always assumed it meant you actually trade the points. But now that you've shown me the second option I suddenly see it as the obvious reading. I kind of like it... as if a Cleric's Strength will add fortitude to his efforts as a Cleric, or Wisdom will, of course, help a Magic User or Fighter increase in ability as they adventure.

Quote from: estar;1002880Your interpretation of changing the attributes would have it gain the other bonuses given to high attributes.

And to be clear, I am not saying you are wrong. Only that in the case of OD&D several sections have two or more reasonable interpretations for what they mean.

That is correct, this is exactly the way we played it, but only during character generation. I decided that my newest character with a strength of 11 and Int of 13 and wisdom of 13 should be a fighter, so I trade 4 points of intelligence at 2-1  and three points of wisdom at 3-1 to receive a three point boost to my strength. So my starting stats are as follows: Str 14, Int 9, and Wisdom 10. My fighter gets to add 5% to earned experience, and according to Greyhawk receives a +1 bonus to hit, can carry an extra 100 Gp worth of weight before becoming encumbered.

The section stating "...for the purpose of gaining experience only" is only relevant when you are trading Strength away to boost Wisdom for Clerics so the clerics who trade thusly make better clerics, but worse fighters as they lose their STR enhancements for combat. When you are trading INT and WIS to increase STR there are no similar limitations however, and I'm pretty sure this was deliberately put into place to make clerics either a really good cleric casting holy spells and turning undead, or a really good holy fighter thrashing on the infidels and unbelievers, but not both, which ended up being a real problem in AD&D and 3e.

And yes, there were so many variations on play because of the rules ambiguities, that we had our house rules written down, and would provide them for guest players from other clubs and gaming groups, and similarly expected to be provided a summary of house rules in their games when we were visiting their clubs. Tournament modules and adventures had their own rules, of course, which may or may not have been in the white bookset depending on who organized the adventure in the tournament.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1002883...
His stats are 9 Str and 15 Wis for the purpose of exp bonus only.

The actual stats remain 18 Str and 12 Wis for everything else.

.....
IMO, you can go way the hell overboard with this "rabbit hole" stuff.  These are not the writings of Nostradamus.

I agree with your sentiment, but you just demonstrated yet a third interpretation of the text. Hence the origins of whole talmudic reading of the OD&D rules meme that get floated around.

Which I been stressing, it will work if you are comfortable with rulings not rules. All of these issues are easily solved by just deciding how YOU, the referee, want to handle. And in my opinion far more in the spirit of the  time period prior to the release of D&D than any reconstruction of the rules.

As a sidenote it becomes even more problematic which people trying to figure out how Dave Arneson ran the Blackmoor. Because Dave was far more "seat of your pants" than Gygax was. His rule book was a binder full of pages of jottings meant to remind him of how he adjudicated things. Which is why Judges Guild's First Fantasy Campaign was so rambling.

And yet another reason why I say if you want to play like the old days, figure out the setting and kind of campaign you want to play, make up some rules, and start playing. If there a gap make a ruling and note it for later. Rinse and repeat over and over again.

Yeah, the part about certain classes being able to "use" certain attributes "in their respective prime requisite areas", "for purposes of gaining experience only", and "Units so indicated above may be used to increase prime requisite total insofar as this does not bring that category below average, i.e. below a score of 9." always seemed extremely cryptic.

Looking at it now, I think I would interpret it as not changing what your attributes are, but ONLY for the purpose of figuring out your experience bonus for your class, you calculate your effective Prime Requisite by taking the usual attribute plus a fraction of the mentioned secondary attributes that may be over 9.

For example:
Name: Examplio
strength: 12
intelligence: 13
wisdom: 13
(other attributes irrelevant to determining Prime Requisite)

If he's a fighter, his Prime Requisite as a fighter would be Strength + (IQ - 9) / 2 + (WIS - 9) / 3 = 15.
If he's a Magic-User, his Prime Requisite as a Magic-User would be IQ + (Wis - 9) / 3 = 14.
If he's a Cleric, his Prime Requisite as a Cleric would be Wis + (Strength - 9) / 3 + (IQ - 9) / 2 = 16.

The effect of this would only be to determine the experience bonus (and the highest tier is 15+, so none of that's needed unless you're below 15 in your class' Prime Requisite). The abilities would stay what was rolled for all other purposes, because this is just how you calculate Prime Requisite for experience bonus purposes.

So for another example,
Name: Keplo the Krafty
strength: 11
intelligence: 15
wisdom: 12
As a fighter, his Prime Requisite would be 10 + (15-9)/2 + (12-9)/2, which is 11 + 3 + 1 = 15, which is as good as an 18 for the experience bonus (and I don't see any other effect of strength in the books I have).

Another great example of a rule that is cryptically written and can defy interpretation unless you talk to people who already know what's meant from other sources and/or from decades of discussion.

Quote from: Skarg;1002923Another great example of a rule that is cryptically written and can defy interpretation unless you talk to people who already know what's meant from other sources and/or from decades of discussion.

We played it as actually changing the stats, not just applying it to stats for purposes of determining the experience bonus, because 3d6 straight up. Rolling 3d6 right down the line often meant having a suboptimal character. Being able to trade attributes to boost the prime attribute for our character class was seen as a benefit. It saved time instead of re-rolling new characters up, we could roll our character then modify or adjust, ...somewhat, because the trade-offs were not actually favorable towards overall attributes, ...to suit the character class we wanted to play.

Also like I mentioned about the Cleric, The Cleric could have either a good Strength and be a Holy Warrior or Holy Defender, that knew a few spells, or he could buff his Wisdom and become a much more powerful Spellcaster, but not receive the bonuses for strength that a strong and burly fighter would have. It was seen in our group as an early attempt to "balance" the classes and prevent any kind of preference for playing a specific class.

When the AD&D Players Hand Book came out in the Autumn of 1978 the play style instantly changed and there were a lot more Fighting Clerics that formed the core of adventuring parties. This was because from 1-12th level or so, the Cleric was tremendously overpowered when compared to the other three core character classes. They were powerful spellcasters who could also fight extremely well, and stand in the front line with the fighters, and beserkers, in battle. This imbalance favoring clerics continued up until after 3rd edition in 2006, and resulted in adventure parties having a disproportionately high number of clerics in the party, and very few parties without a cleric in it.

Wizards were generally very weak and vulnerable, right up until about 12th level or so, when the power of their magic would then often eclipse what the rest of the party could contribute (but only because most people were not playing wizards right, they would just pick the spells out of PHB or Men and Magic, instead of making the players roll to learn the spells based on their characters intelligence). This incorrect style of pick and play resulted in Wizards being way overpowered, especially at higher levels. After that Wizards were subsequently nerfed after 2nd edition, and had their power level, and the power and effects of their spells scaled down dramatically. All of the Wizards in fiction though, were very high powered characters. I would also add, that having Wizard's and Clerics create their own unique spells was an inherently awesome part of the game, and even being physically weak, the other players were reluctant to attack Wizards because they could potentially have a very lethal or embarrassing surprise spell for defense, and play was really enhanced when the Wizard cast some awesome new spell that no one had ever seen before, and this really added to the Wow! effect in playing a session or game, even for veteran D&D players.

Some of the best games I have played included Wizard's or Clerics who had a spellbook where just about none of the spells came out of the D&D core books, either 0D&D or AD&D.

Luke Gygax talked about this in the recent Geek & Sundry videocast with Satine Phoenix where he talks about how and why he chose to create spells like Melf's Acid Arrow and Melf's Minor Meteors, and Melf's Unicorn Arrow. he also talks about his house rules that he uses for his AD&D games.

Wonderment in D&D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD6FHnf1Xyc

Melf's Unicorn Arrow Spell
https://dndtools.net/spells/players-handbook-ii--80/melfs-unicorn-arrow--2933/

Another thing I liked about Wizards and Clerics is Wizards and Clerics that would create new magic items, for themselves, and for the other players in their adventure company, but this should be a separate thread.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1002877Right, rulings, etc... That doesn't answer the question...

What did Gygax actually mean by that Str/Wis thing?  It can't be unknowable, we're not talking about hieroglyphics from the Tomb of Ramesses II, people are still living who played with the man using his rules.

There are plenty of people who did, and my guess is that what they did with attribute exchanges in Holmes, B/X, BECMI, etc. are a good indicator (although I'm sure they did in some cases take they way that other people interpreted things and say, 'yeah, that makes more sense.')

However, and this is basically death of the author literary analysis, writ small, but, Does it matter? Does it matter what Gary actually meant? If he didn't put it down on the page, is there any reason to give his interpretation any specific primacy over anyone elses'? I guess that depends on what we're trying to do of course, but it is worth asking.

Quote from: estar;1002850And it was never printed on the Reference Sheet which had plenty of room to do so.

I suspect that at the point that the reference sheet was put into the boxes, everyone who was buying them was being taught to play by someone who already had it figured out (or was using the ready reference of Greyhawk alternatives.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1002872The OD&D books are a lot of fun to read and totally usable as the core rules for a game IF you already know how to play. If you don't, they are pretty hopeless. And I personally think it is stupid to pretend we don't all know why: they are just really badly written and organized. ('gasp!!!'). It's not like no one had ever written an instructional manual for a game before. Or, say, a paragraph in English. Gygax was a genius and we all owe him tons. And I love his goofy syntax and creative way with words. But the dude simply could not explain shit in anything like a straightforward and rational way.

I think it is worth noting that Gygax, at the time, had no idea that this odd little supplemental sub-game variation of the fantasy subsection of his historical miniatures battle rules would take off, become a cottage industry that would massively influence another growing industry (how much of computer games were influenced by D&D...), and that we'd all be analyzing this close to 45 years later.

The writing is not good. The writing is not clear. Even those of us with great affection for the thing can say that. But it probably was a rushed job pushed out the door because there was a deadline and who knew that they weren't going to get a second chance to clean it up if this thing really took off?

I kind of like this ambiguity as it means the ref can't be wrong in his interpretation and a big middle finger to rules lawyers.

I'm thinking about trying out an OD&D game with just the original books from 1974 similar to running Traveller with only Books 1 through 3 from 1977.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1002933Does it matter what Gary actually meant? If he didn't put it down on the page, is there any reason to give his interpretation any specific primacy over anyone elses'?

It can be useful to know what the author intended to inform your own decision.

I often said fuck the rules when as it pertains your setting and your campaign. Do what make sense for what you are trying to do. Not what the rules say and certainly not with what some author says. Having said that taking the time to learn how the hobby developed and what Arneson and Gygax doing in their own games was useful to me.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1002933I suspect that at the point that the reference sheet was put into the boxes, everyone who was buying them was being taught to play by someone who already had it figured out (or was using the ready reference of Greyhawk alternatives.


....

The writing is not good. The writing is not clear. Even those of us with great affection for the thing can say that. But it probably was a rushed job pushed out the door because there was a deadline and who knew that they weren't going to get a second chance to clean it up if this thing really took off?

Some historical footnotes here:
1) The reference sheets were included in the first printing.

2) By the summer 1973, the idea of tabletop roleplaying was wildly popular among the wargaming community of the upper midwest. The Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaigns had dozens of players with mobs showing up for each session. Plus stuff was converging from the wider national wargaming community. People were making wargame or running campaign where the focus was on the players playing individual characters. Plus Gary's economic situation wasn't good.

All these factors combined to push Gygax into publishing D&D as soon as possible after the summer of 1973. His best friend, Don Kaye was his partner in trying to get the rules published. But they had barely enough money to pay for the printing with nothing for expenses like postage.

So they tried selling another wargame Cavaliers and Roundheads, figuring that it would generate just enough profit that when added to their capital would allow publication of D&D. But sales were slow and it would not be until 1975 that the sums would be enough to pay for the print run of D&D.

But Brian Blume was interested in help and had the cash. So he was brought as a equal partner. Now Gygax had enough to pay for the printing and all expenses.

Finally during the printing process the manuscript was turned over to be typeset. Gygax thought he made it clear that he wanted some professional editing done and the printer agreed to do this. But when the books came back, they were not edited. They were just type in 'as is' from the original manuscript.

Also in conjunction with above, the rules were refined through extensive actual play and Gygax felt he was making progress but it wasn't quite there. But the pressure listed above pushed him to take the rules in the state they were in late 73 and go with that. Something I can emphasize with due to the work I am doing for my own stuff.

We always played it as Holmes put it, trading points to raise prime attributes. But our group really started play with Holmes. For us Holmes was the Rosetta Stone that unlocked 0D&D. Then we switched to AD&D when that came out. Issues of Dragon, etc and contact with other gaming groups ere pretty much non-existant in our little town.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1002933The writing is not good. The writing is not clear. Even those of us with great affection for the thing can say that. But it probably was a rushed job pushed out the door because there was a deadline and who knew that they weren't going to get a second chance to clean it up if this thing really took off?

Well, TSR's position was that they DID get a second chance to clean it up - AD&D on the one hand (for the "serious" hardcore gamers) and the various D&D Basic (et al.) sets on the other (for beginners, kids, and less-hardcore gamers). The 1981 D&D Expert Set in particular was clearly intended as a direct replacement for the D&D white-box.

The D&D Basic Set was originally released in 1977 and was intended as a way to help beginners (players and DMs alike) make sense of D&D, so it includes a lot of examples and explanatory text and advice and intentionally covers only the simplest aspects of the game - dungeon adventures for character levels 1-3. But it was a weird stand-alone thing that directed readers to consult AD&D for higher-level play even though its rules weren't really consistent with AD&D (which was still being written and wouldn't be fully released for 1-2 more years). It would've made more sense to refer the readers to the D&D white-box but in Dragon magazine they said that they decided not to do that because they knew readers would be confused by the white-box and figured they'd have an easier time with AD&D (when it was eventually released).

In 1981 TSR revised the Basic Set. The 1981 version has pretty much the same content as the earlier version (as far as classes, spells, monsters, and magic items) but the writing is clearer and the editing and organization are much better. Plus, instead of pointing readers to AD&D, it points to new a book specifically designed as a sequel/companion - the D&D Expert Set. If you look at the D&D Expert Set and the D&D white-box side by side the former is pretty much literally just all of the rules from the latter that were left out of the Basic Set - the rules for wilderness (and waterborne and aerial) adventuring, the rules for building castles and acquiring a retinue of hirelings, the rest of the monsters and magic items, and the XP charts, spells, and combat & saving throw tables for levels 4+. There are a couple of new spells (in order to make the lists have a consistent number of spells per level) and a handful of new monsters that presumably came from the editors' home games (my favorites being the bronze golem and devil swine), but 95% of the content is just straight out of the D&D white-box, lightly edited to match the format and style of the Basic Set.

It's no coincidence that it's only when the D&D Expert Set was released that TSR finally took the white-box out of print. As far as they were concerned, the combined Basic + Expert Sets (not to mention AD&D) rendered it fully obsolete. The thing they had no way of knowing was that decades after the fact people would decide to reject the fixed/cleaned-up versions and return to what they at the time considered to be, effectively, the "beta-test" version.

Quote from: T. Foster;1002947It's no coincidence that it's only when the D&D Expert Set was released that TSR finally took the white-box out of print. As far as they were concerned, the combined Basic + Expert Sets (not to mention AD&D) rendered it fully obsolete. The thing they had no way of knowing was that decades after the fact people would decide to reject the fixed/cleaned-up versions and return to what they at the time considered to be, effectively, the "beta-test" version.

Pretty much the point I was trying to make. No one warned them that we'd consider the future games separate editions or something and be going over EGG's initial guidebook looking for flaws. It was flawed (as anything written on a deadline is), but who knew that it would matter?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1002952It was flawed (as anything written on a deadline is), but who knew that it would matter?

It mattered right away as TSR was literally spammed via letters and phone with gamers asking questions about the game.

Quote from: estar;1002955...literally spammed...

Literally?
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Quote from: estar;1002955It mattered right away as TSR was literally spammed via letters and phone with gamers asking questions about the game.

Matter, as in my original point that no one knew we'd be looking back 40-odd years later and critiquing the thing. I am sure, in their minds, if the thing caught on, they'd get a chance to re-edit the thing, and put it out again, and people wouldn't consider it a separate edition or however we now separate out oD&D, B, B/X, BECMI, AD&D, 2e, etc.

If they were making the thing with the goal of making themselves free from critique 40 years in the future, they would have done things differently. As you pointed out, they had immediate financial concerns that were more pressing.

And yes, it had plenty of downstream consequences, both immediate and long term.

Quote from: estar;1002955It mattered right away as TSR was literally spammed via letters and phone with gamers asking questions about the game.

Right. By early 1975 TSR was already well aware that a lot of people were confused by the D&D rules and needed (or at least wanted) a lot more guidance - a lot of stuff in the Greyhawk supplement seems intended to provide that, plus various explanatory articles in "The Strategic Review" (e.g. "The Questions Most Frequently Asked About D&D" in issue #2 and "The D&D Magic System" in #7) and various fanzines (e.g. "How To Set Up Your D&D Campaign" from Europa #6-8). And by mid 1976 TSR was already promising a new/revised edition that would make everything much clearer, even though it took them a couple-three more years to actually get that version (i.e. AD&D) written, edited, and released. The D&D set as released at the beginning of 1974 was, effectively, a proof-of-concept placeholder for TSR, released as-is in order to get something onto the market to forestall anybody else from doing so first. That it was so immensely popular and paradigm-shifting, despite being nigh-incomprehensible without a ton of oral tradition, proves that their instincts were correct and the concept was a winner, and if they'd waited another year+ to release it someone else almost certainly would've stolen the moment from them. But they always knew from day one that the initial release was sort of a mess, that it was incomplete and a lot of it had already been superseded in their home-campaigns before it was even released, and felt that given more time and resources they could do a much better job of it - AD&D on the one hand, the Basic & Expert Sets on the other.

EDIT: FWIW I like playing with the D&D white-box, because it's so simple and focused on the pure elemental core of D&Dness - adventures in dungeons and the wilderness fighting (and/or running away from and/or negotiating with) monsters and gathering treasure. Because I know the rules (what there are of them) pretty much by-heart I can get a game running in about 5 minutes and don't need to refer to the text at all. To me, playing white-box D&D isn't about depth or detail (in the way that my AD&D games are), it's about getting immediately into the action with a minimum of fuss. Sometimes that's all I want, and at those times white-box D&D satisfies that itch in a way that none of the later versions (even the B/X sets) do. Where I differ from the hardcore OD&D-only fans is that my understanding of this version is always filtered through and projected back from the later versions - I'll pretty much always fill in holes and resolve ambiguities the way they were resolved in the later editions (e.g. stat points are actually traded, hit points are cumulative and rolled as you gain levels, elves split their XP between fighter and MU, clerics don't need spell books, hold person causes paralysis, etc.). I have no interest in Talmudic study of the OD&D text to divine (or create) alternate interpretations or to try to recreate (or invent) some ur-game that was "lost" in the later versions; nor do I try to hold the holes and ambiguities up as some sort of intentional Zen riddle the point of which is to ultimately reject the text and make up your own game. White-box D&D isn't some mysterious or mystical text to me - it's just a really simple, no-frills version of the game that I find ideally suited to casual "beer & pretzels" play, as an occasional break and palate-cleanser from AD&D.