In this thread, Old Geezer opined that his biggest regret about OD&D was the lack of morale rules.  This led me to contemplate what my biggest regret was, and what -- had I been standing over Gary Gygax's shoulder and murmuring, "Dude, you really need to write this in" -- I'd have wanted to see in those rules.  So what's yours?

Caveat: we're talking first gen RPG, 1974.  The same publishing constraints apply, so you might be able to talk them into bumping the first or third books up a single sheet of paper (= 4 pages), and that's it.  Also, no massive rules rewrite; I'd love to say "skill system," and that could've fit, but that'd mean having to redo most of the first book.

That Chainmail wasn't included in the boxed set.

Four things come to mind any one of which would have helped quite a bit:

1. Poison rules. What does cobra poison really do? How about rattlesnake or black mamba or scorpion? How long does it take to effect you? What are the chances of survival? One time, back in my high school days in the mid 80's, I attempted to research such stuff. I looked in a dozen magazines, books, encyclopedias, etc. but couldn't find any hard, useable data.

2. Town and castle stats. How big and populous is a typical medieval village, town, city? How much of that population are farmers, fisherman, trade folk? How many guards would a castle have? How many maids and cooks would it need? How long does it take to construct a tower or wall? How many workers would that take? How much land does a Duke control vs. a Count or an Earl?

3. Emphasize, repeatedly, that magic items should be rare. Not everyone should have every body part covered with magic. No mid-level PC should go "Eh, another +2 sword, who cares? We also got a +1 ring of protection, anyone want? No? Right, we'll sell that junk too. 5 more pots, we'll test those out later..." My early games were too monty-haulish and I didn't know better.

4. Horse and boat data. How fast and far can a horse travel in a day? How much weight can one carry or haul? How fast is boat travel, upriver, downriver, across a lake? How about a medieval ship on the open seas? How large are those? How many crew and passengers and cargo?

Rules about how to play the game is great and all, but boy was I in need of hard data on what a realistic environment was like.

Alignment. I'd beg Gary to not include any rules for it at all. Have Law and Chaos as setting elements, sure, but codifying morality into the horrible 9 spoke system that would come later lead down a road to ruin.

I regret Don Kaye dying in 1975.

He was the only person who could tell Gary to pack it up his ass and make Gary listen.  The history of TSR would have turned out vastly different.

Quote from: Old Geezer;747616I regret Don Kaye dying in 1975.

Yes. This.

i) Guidance for ruling on the dozen or so most common non-combat activities (climbing, jumping, overland travel etc).

ii) Armour absorbs damage rather than increase AC - would aslo logically lead to a static defense increasing with level/class

iii) Avoiding the rabit hole of "new class to replicate beloved literary character" and find a way to cover that within the 4 base classes (so no Ranger = Aragorn but Aragorn is a fighter who can track and has some racial features). I think this would prevent a lot of later game bloat.

iv) Look at the 4 base classes and re-access their balance more logically
MU - No armour, weak combat, d4hd, powerful spells
Cleric - Armour, less weak combat, d6hd, less powerful spells
Thief - Weak armour, better combat, d8hd, no spells but theif skill (and handle these better)
Fighter - Armour, strong combat, d10hd, no spells

"Hey Mr. Gygax! I've got some great news. This thing is going to blow up big time. Seriously lots of folks are going to be playing it, not just war gamers. So could you know... Explain why some things are the way they are? Maybe write up a little something about how the game is supposed to be played instead of assuming everyone knows?"

"Oh and here are some hot stock tips and the next three Super Bowl and World Series winners, you don't need to let the blumes in"

Drop the "your-race-is-your-class" thing.

Quote from: Piestrio;747621"Hey Mr. Gygax! I've got some great news. This thing is going to blow up big time. Seriously lots of folks are going to be playing it, not just war gamers. So could you know... Explain why some things are the way they are? Maybe write up a little something about how the game is supposed to be played instead of assuming everyone knows?"

"Oh and here are some hot stock tips and the next three Super Bowl and World Series winners, you don't need to let the blumes in"

"Listen to this guy."

That I've never gotten to play

For my own part, while I would've wanted a complete overhaul in tone, the fact is that whatever we made of the game, it was written as a wargame for wargamers.  It's not that Gygax screwed up: it's that neither he nor anyone else knew any different then.  Yet.

As I said, I'd have loved for there to have been a skill system rather than class/level, but that would've been a completely different set of rules.  So given my caveats, my two choices would boil down to:

1) Forget alignment.  Completely.  Absolutely.  If there was one rule that had a poisonous, pernicious, lasting and idiotic sway over the hobby, this was it.  Alignment could without a drop of angst have been left out of D&D from the start, and at any time thereafter.  (The enduring irony of the protagonist of the books contributing most to the 70s Law/Chaos zeitgeist being a worshiper of Chaos invariably working for Law, something a lot of DMs would never permit, hasn't escaped me.)

2) The bigger single rule change, though, would be surprisingly simple: fixed hit points.  Something easy, say, HP = CON + 2 or 3/level?  IMHO, the most serious bar to roleplaying (vs wargaming) is that low-level OD&D characters had the survivability of chum in the water.  Make them likely to last past the first session, and there's incentive to invest in them.

Quote from: Ravenswing;747632For my own part, while I would've wanted a complete overhaul in tone, the fact is that whatever we made of the game, it was written as a wargame for wargamers.  It's not that Gygax screwed up: it's that neither he nor anyone else knew any different then.  Yet.

As I said, I'd have loved for there to have been a skill system rather than class/level, but that would've been a completely different set of rules.  So given my caveats, my two choices would boil down to:

1) Forget alignment.  Completely.  Absolutely.  If there was one rule that had a poisonous, pernicious, lasting and idiotic sway over the hobby, this was it.  Alignment could without a drop of angst have been left out of D&D from the start, and at any time thereafter.  (The enduring irony of the protagonist of the books contributing most to the 70s Law/Chaos zeitgeist being a worshiper of Chaos invariably working for Law, something a lot of DMs would never permit, hasn't escaped me.)

2) The bigger single rule change, though, would be surprisingly simple: fixed hit points.  Something easy, say, HP = CON + 2 or 3/level?  IMHO, the most serious bar to roleplaying (vs wargaming) is that low-level OD&D characters had the survivability of chum in the water.  Make them likely to last past the first session, and there's incentive to invest in them.

From everything I've read about Gary he'd probably look askance at wanting to "invest" in a character and so would probably not have any interest in incentivizing that.

my biggest regret about OD&D is that I never started with it

Quote from: YourSwordisMine;747631That I've never gotten to play

Fixed this one.

Everyone who's a fan of D&D should give OD&D a try at least once, methinks.