BlackBat242 wrote:AxeMental wrote:Remember, this is not a willy nilly rule. Its based on the need to keep the game "human centric" (most of the players choose humans most of the time) and explains why long lived races don't rule the planet (ie. why isn't that 1,200 year old elf a 50th level wizard, 50th level fighter, etc.).
And just why
is there a "need to keep the game human centric"?
The whole purpose for the game to have demi-humans as PCs seems to be to allow them as PCs... to then try to use restrictive rules to discourage players from playing them always seemed to be one of the less-rational things put into the game.
As for that point anyway... as I mentioned before (and the
pout-rage at my sacrilege and heresy seemed to ignore), with the removal of the prohibition on human multi-classing (there I go again),
human characters were still more common than any other race... and close to or equal to any TWO other races in numbers!
Not that that was an important feature in any of our games or campaigns... the sheer rabbit-like reproduction rate of humans compared to any of the demi-human races insures their longer-lived "rivals" can't dominate them anyway.
Black Bat, a fair set of questions. As I see it, AD&D is a game not only in its rules but in its feel (which has much to do with implied behavior of races classes and monsters). The game "as is" discourages players from being non human...love it or hate it, its one of the most destinct rule sets of the game. You can change that rule, but then you won't be playing the homogeneous Gygaxian world shared, More or less between groups of players over several decades. The gritty experience of 1E remains the same (why 10 year olds with no experiance in RPGS can pick up the three core books role up PCs and have an identical experience to the ones we had in 78'...just like Risk or Monopoly it is a game defined by its rules). This is the advantage 1E has over OD&D, it is Gygax's vision more clearly layed out and not as subject to altering (as balance is greatly desturbed)...it is more of a uniform game experiance then OD&D.
The logic as to why level limits exist isn't really relevant (its a rule) but It could be that the other races just don't have the ambition or concentration (with so many other things to look forward to why take the huge risks of high level advancement). TFoster had a quote he put up years ago that was my sig for some time, I think it was in response to another level limit debate. It went something like: "Human mortality is a blessing in disguise in that it leads men to do much with the short time they're given" or something like that.
AD&D was designed in a very similar manner to 70s and earlier Sci Fi in that humans are the center of interest, alien races exist to play up the "human character". We the reader (or in this case player) can better see our humanity by comparison in juxtapose. Level limits were a well thought out tool, they say a lot. Players simply have to adapt to the limits just as the guy who wants to play a human thief has to adapt to not having infravision (good luck sneaking around a pitch black dungeon). Playing demihumans is playing "monsters". We get to see whats so special about being human by noticing the differences in play...and one of the differences is human ambition.
One additional point, level limits for races only apply to PCs. Also consider this: most humans never become "adventurers" and never progress in levels in any class. Only the very rare do so (gygax says as much in the rules). With demihumans class levels seem more common (not to mention the race advantages.
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