Happy New Year, Happy New Characters

With a new year comes new possibilities.  I have been watching the Open Gaming License and retro-clone for a while now, and I thought I would do something special.  For the first post of the year, I will make two characters, let the dice fall where they may, one using First Edition AD&D, the second using the OSRIC rules that are an attempt to simulate (partially) the first edition rules.  It should be noted that the rules do not entirely match up, with some variation in character advancement and experience award, but I will do my best here.  I believe the OSRIC rules have later 1st edition Gygax rules sets in mind, rather than early stuff.  I have to make an effort to recover the orange-bound first edition players and dungeon masters manuals to help verify similarities, but for now I'm using the black-bound original cover books.

This post will be the AD&D character, the next post, in a day or two, will be an OSRIC character.  Once I go through both processes, I'll have something more profound to say about the similarities (besides the obvious ones) and differences between the two products.  I hope to discover something shocking!

Product: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook
Date: 1978 (6th printing)
Product #2: Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide
Date: 1979 (Revised Edition)

Ailell Ruadh: 1st-level fighter/1st-level magic-user, elf; ST 12, IN 15, WS 13, DX 17, CN 13, CH 16; AC 5 (Dex, studded leather armor); Move 9"; HD 1; hp 2; #AT 1; Dmg 1-8 long sword, 1-6 short bow; SA spells (Jump, Read Magic, Shocking Grasp, Write), elf abilities; AL CG.
Equipment: Belt, Cloak, High soft boots, Iron rations (1 week), Large belt pouch, Large sack, Light riding horse with saddle and harness, Long sword, Oats (1 week horse feed), Rope (50'), Short bow and 2 dozen arrows, Saddle blanket, Small saddle bags, Studded leather, 4 gp.
Weapon Proficiencies: Long sword, short bow, staff, dagger; Secondary Skills: No skill of measurable worth; Age: 210; Height: 4' 8"; Weight: 98 lbs.

It took me almost an hour to make this character, partially because my first-edition character-making skills are somewhat rusty.  I noted that a lot of the character creation material is in the Dungeon Masters Guide.  Ability scores, for example, are discussed in the DMG to some extent, and the options are given to the DM as to which method to choose.  Because I wanted a fairly random development of character, I chose method III - roll 3d6 6 times for each ability and save the highest of each set.  That gave me a character with some high stats!  I was dismayed that I missed qualifying for a paladin by one point on Charisma!  Spell selection, too, was determined by random table in the DMG, but the rest I chose based on the scores I had generated and the fact that I didn't want to make another thief. 

My hit points were low (again!) and I didn't have an outrageously high Constitution to fix that problem.  This character is pretty well equipped, but could die easily in the first encounter.  It's a dangerous world out there!  Those high ability scores can only protect a character so far (in this case, with a two point bonus to AC).

At any rate, I see a tendency to keep some information out of the hands of the players.  Remember, this is a time when the world was created and designed by the DM, who was solely responsible for knowing the rules.  This gave the DM power to fudge those rules from time to time, usually in the player's favor (who wants their hour-long created character to come to a quick end on the first adventure?).  This also gives the players more focus on the story, moving through the world, and not worrying about a list of numbers or list of abilities.  Instead of only thinking about what their stat block tells them they can do, the players would actively engage the world and make decisions based on that engagement. In time, of course, players became knowledgeable of all the rules.  Maybe it was a little naive to think that everything would be kept secret from players, especially if they all had dreams of becoming DMs some day.  I suppose it did cut out the rules lawyers (and what a pain they can be), but I'm sure just as many DMs played the part of tyrant god-king too often...

All-in-all, I do know that this character (and the Basic D&D character I made for my last post) needs to find a party before he runs off into the unknown.  I see him as being a bit apprehensive in his early adventuring days, leaving some work to others, and he'll have a longer road to travel for advancement.  But that's an elf for you.