What was the reason for Demihuman level and class limits in AD&D?

Weiley31 said:
I thought it was because of the fact that compared to dwarves/elves/gnomes/etc, etc was that of all the races, Humans were "newish."

As a result, because the Human race was so much "young," their potential for growth were far greater compared to the Eldar Races who were pretty much "stagnant" in their potential.
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Have you played the boardgame small world? It sort of simulates this as you have something like 3 ages of different fantasy races building and expanding an empire, but every time you advance an age, you pick another race and the previous one stops expanding and slowy contracts as new races appear and expand their empire. That's sort of how I feel with dnd races, elves and dwarves have peaked and are now in decline while humanity is the new kid on the block expanding outwards. 3e forgotten realms even had an event that spurred the dwarven races into expansion (or at least no longer contracting) reversing their decline which I think is an interesting addition to the setting.
 

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Someone already gave the Gygax answer, that it kept the world humanocentric.

To add on, early DnD was very simulationist in its approach. You had ability scores requirements for classes because that would cut down on the number of characters that could qualify for a class in the world- it literally made those classes "more rare" as adventurers, NPCs, etc in the world, as if the GM was populating the world's adventurers by rolling up thousands upon thousands of statlines.
 

howandwhy99 said:
D&D originally is a game of unknown abilities. The players are given a body, not a personality, not an identity, but a creature they control. This creature has abilities, strengths and weaknesses, needs and desires, that are built into its design. That is, a designed game element. Many, if not most, of these abilities are unknown to the players. All rules and designs (builds) are hidden from them. This is the core conceit of the game.
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Until recently, Desires were not part of D&D character generation. They were often, but not always, part of play.
The only needs were breathable air, food, and water... and those not even spelled out until midway through AD&D 1E's run...
 

Distracted DM said:
To add on, early DnD was very simulationist in its approach. You had ability scores requirements for classes because that would cut down on the number of characters that could qualify for a class in the world- it literally made those classes "more rare" as adventurers, NPCs, etc in the world, as if the GM was populating the world's adventurers by rolling up thousands upon thousands of statlines.
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I'd agree with this with a qualified 'sort of.'

DMs definitely populate NPCs-built-as-PCs by rolling up statlines. However, NPCs can also be statless 0th-levels, or attribute-less human/demi-human monster manual entries. Between this, and simply nothing in the early books stating it as such, I've not found much reason to believe that the attribute-determining mechanism for PC creation matches world-level demographics.

For instance, AD&D elves get +1 Dex, and the minimum Dex for a thief is 9. Thus with 3D6 down the line, elves have a 74% chance of qualifying to be a thief instead of 63%. Does that mean elves have 100x(74/63-1)=17% more thieves* than dwarves or humans? Potentially, but I don't see anything in the rules supporting it.
*simplified for ease and clarity. It'd actually be much more complex that that, with rolling up stats and choosing between all possible options for each race, then comparing totals. Elves would also have more thieves than humans would simply because some of those 9+ dex humans would be illusionists and rangers, etc.

This is my problem with shoehorning classic D&D into GNS-style framing. It's generally not Narrative, but it's Simulationist some of the time, Gamist at others, and undefined/can-find-arguments-in-multiple-directions for broad swaths.
 

Willie the Duck said:
I'd agree with this with a qualified 'sort of.'

DMs definitely populate NPCs-built-as-PCs by rolling up statlines. However, NPCs can also be statless 0th-levels, or attribute-less human/demi-human monster manual entries. Between this, and simply nothing in the early books stating it as such, I've not found much reason to believe that the attribute-determining mechanism for PC creation matches world-level demographics.

For instance, AD&D elves get +1 Dex, and the minimum Dex for a thief is 9. Thus with 3D6 down the line, elves have a 74% chance of qualifying to be a thief instead of 63%. Does that mean elves have 100x(74/63-1)=17% more thieves* than dwarves or humans? Potentially, but I don't see anything in the rules supporting it.
*simplified for ease and clarity. It'd actually be much more complex that that, with rolling up stats and choosing between all possible options for each race, then comparing totals. Elves would also have more thieves than humans would simply because some of those 9+ dex humans would be illusionists and rangers, etc.

This is my problem with shoehorning classic D&D into GNS-style framing. It's generally not Narrative, but it's Simulationist some of the time, Gamist at others, and undefined/can-find-arguments-in-multiple-directions for broad swaths.
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Yup. I think the first edition to try to give those kind of demographic breakdowns for adventurers in the population was 3E.

Distracted DM said:
Someone already gave the Gygax answer, that it kept the world humanocentric.
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...in theory. At least, that's the closest thing Gary ever gave to an explanation, in the The Monster as a Player Character section of the DMG.

Distracted DM said:
To add on, early DnD was very simulationist in its approach.
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Gary said exactly the opposite, on page 9 of the DMG. "Of the two approaches to hobby games today, one is best defined as the realism-simulation school and the other as the game school. AD&D is assuredly an adherent of the latter school. It does not stress any realism (in the author's opinion an absurd effort at best considering the topic!). It does little to attempt to simulate anything either. ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is first and foremost a game for the fun and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity."

Distracted DM said:
To add on, early DnD was very simulationist in its approach. You had ability scores requirements for classes because that would cut down on the number of characters that could qualify for a class in the world- it literally made those classes "more rare" as adventurers, NPCs, etc in the world, as if the GM was populating the world's adventurers by rolling up thousands upon thousands of statlines.
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The old "the rich get richer" phenomenon. The DMG advice for NPCs, of course, is to set the ability scores as the DM chooses, particularly for high level and powerful NPCs. "Scores for high level NPCs must be high - how else could these figures have risen so high?" (DMG p11). For "general characters" to use 3d6 but to treat 1s as 3s and 6s as 4s, and for henchmen to use 3d6 with the full 3-18 range, but for the ability scores which are germane to their class, to use either the same method as PCs, or add +1 to each die to each die that rolls under a 6. (same page).
 

Mannahnin said:
Yup. I think the first edition to try to give those kind of demographic breakdowns for adventurers in the population was 3E.
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A couple 2e books took a stab at it. These are taken from the World Builder's Guidebook

WBGB1.jpeg

WBGB.jpeg
 

Of course, those numbers don't reflect what's going on in all settings. According to the 2e Forgotten Realms Adventures book, the city of Arabel has a total population of 24,600 people.

Going by the World Builder's Guidebook, we'd expect there to be, say, 1,845 NPC's with class levels in that bunch, with 923 1st-levels, 461 2nd, 231 3rd, 115 4th, 58 5th, 29 6th, 14 7th, 7 8th, 3 9th, 2 10th, and one 11th level (roughly, I'm rounding up the fractions).

What's really there? The named NPC's are:

Myrmeen Lhal, Ranger 12
Baron Thomdor, Fighter 17
Duthar, Fighter 11
Jestra, Wizard 18
Mellomir, Wizard 27 (!)
Myschanta, Wizard 14
Theavos, Wizard 17
Daramos Lauthyr, Priest of Tymora 11
Asgetrion, Fighter 1
Blaskin "The Bold", Fighter 1
Doust Sulwood, Priest of Tymora 9
Elmdaerle, Wizard 2
Islif Lurelake, Fighter 9
Khelve, Fighter 2
Peraphon of the House of Thond, Fighter 3
Thurbrand, Fighter 8
Westar, Fighter 5

Also there's garrison of 2,020 Purple Dragons, 2000 militia (with 220 serving as the city watch), and the Red Raven Mercenary Company (110 swords strong).

From what has been said of the Purple Dragons, the first-rank "Blades" are all 1st level Fighters after completing their training. The second rank "First Swords" are 4th-level, the third rank "Swordmajors" are 7th-level. There should be one 4th-level First Sword for every 10 Blades, and general officers are at least 10th-level.

However, to be fair, Cormyr's military has always been kind of ridiculous, without even getting into the War Wizards.
 

joethelawyer said:
Does anyone know why? The only thing I could think of was that Gygax and Co. wanted to make a human-centric world, and simply made a game mechanic which limited the power demihumans could achieve.

Thx
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Because multiclassing was more immediately beneficial and more powerful than Dual classing where you had to stop doing any of the old class till you passed it in level. it was an attempt to balance out in the long term the wierd multiclass/dual class mechanics
 

nevin said:
Because multiclassing was more immediately beneficial and more powerful than Dual classing where you had to stop doing any of the old class till you passed it in level. it was an attempt to balance out in the long term the wierd multiclass/dual class mechanics
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Which was always a silly idea, of course. It just makes the game unbalanced in favor of the demihumans at the levels everyone plays, and unbalanced in favor of the humans at levels almost no one plays.
 

aramis erak said:
Until recently, Desires were not part of D&D character generation. They were often, but not always, part of play.
The only needs were breathable air, food, and water... and those not even spelled out until midway through AD&D 1E's run...
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Suffocation by drowning rules were probably in a couple early modules, maybe pre-1e. Food, water, rest, shelter... These were in OD&D Outdoor Survival from the start.

Rations were tracked.
 

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