OD&D "Guidon" D&D Draft in "The Making of Original D&D"

I've been poking through the 1973 draft in the book (starting on page 85), and the most fascinating thing to me is the amount of gymnastics that the TSR folks had to go through to get to the hit matrix that they ended up with in the 1974 version - page 19 of Men & Magic. It's always seemed odd to me that in the TSR D&D line (not AD&D), the Fighter, Cleric, and Magic-User were all equally good at hitting things at least through level 3 unless the DM starts giving out magic swords at low levels.

bmfrosty said:

I've been poking through the 1973 draft in the book (starting on page 85), and the most fascinating thing to me is the amount of gymnastics that the TSR folks had to go through to get to the hit matrix that they ended up with in the 1974 version - page 19 of Men & Magic. It's always seemed odd to me that in the TSR D&D line (not AD&D), the Fighter, Cleric, and Magic-User were all equally good at hitting things at least through level 3 unless the DM starts giving out magic swords at low levels.

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Reading thst last night, a real head trip on a lot of ways.

bmfrosty said:

I've been poking through the 1973 draft in the book (starting on page 85), and the most fascinating thing to me is the amount of gymnastics that the TSR folks had to go through to get to the hit matrix that they ended up with in the 1974 version - page 19 of Men & Magic. It's always seemed odd to me that in the TSR D&D line (not AD&D), the Fighter, Cleric, and Magic-User were all equally good at hitting things at least through level 3 unless the DM starts giving out magic swords at low levels.

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D&D would have been very different if the designers had access to personal computers and the earliest versions of spreadsheets, although I think realistically, easy access to each was at least five or so years in the future for them.

The math through 1E was weird in a lot of ways.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

D&D would have been very different if the designers had access to personal computers and the earliest versions of spreadsheets, although I think realistically, easy access to each was at least five or so years in the future for them.

The math through 1E was weird in a lot of ways.

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Right. I think the most interesting thing about the math in AD&D is that they didn't change it, but appeared to have changed it. In OD&D and Basic, a level 1 fighter had effectively no bonus to hit, but in AD&D, the fighter had an effective +1 bonus to hit, but at the same time, armor class was 1 different so that the same roll was a hit at level 1 either edition. The differences coming in were that the scaling was improved for fighters in AD&D along with damage bonuses in various forms - like the 1 + 1/2 attacks and such.

What gets me the most about these is that the matrix/thac0/to-hit system that's become the standard was the alternative system, and the books really relied on chainmail's man/hero/superhero system for things. I can't make heads or tails of it, but I lack the patience to really carefully read chainmail to just get that. I'm certain that that reliance on chainmail had a lot to do with the popularity of the alternative system, and I wonder what could have been if the fighting capability column on page 17 and 18 of Men & Magic had used the alternative system instead.