I've been going through the OD&D reprint (books 1-7, or more accurately, books 1-3 and supplements 1-4), and something else struck me as odd: the sheer amount of ink spilled on classes and abilities that player characters were very unlikely to get. I'm talking about Supplement 1's Paladins and Supplement 3's Psionics.

Let's look at the chance of Psionic abilities. To qualify as potentially psychic, a character has to have an unmodified score of 15+ in Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma. I'm assuming that the group is doing the official standard character creation method, rolling 3d6 six times, in order, for the Attributes, and modifying them using the tradeoff system given in Book 1: Men and Magic. In other words, no rerolls, no roll 4d6 and keep the highest, and no swapping the order.

If you're rolling unmodified 3d6, the chance of 15+ for a given score is ([1 in 216 chance of 18] + [3 in 216 chance of 17] + [6 in 216 chance of 16] + [10 in 216 chance of 15]) 20 in 216, simplified to 5 in 54, or roughly 9.25%. Now, the chances of getting an unmodified 15 for any one of the three scores (either Intelligence OR Wisdom OR Charisma, it doesn't matter which one) is a little higher, roughly 25%.

Characters with those scores then have a 10% chance of being Psionic, if their players choose to make the roll (they need a 91-100 on 1d100). So, roughly 2.5% of all characters created will be Psychic.

It's even worse for Paladins. To be a Paladin, a Fighting Man must have at least 17 Charisma and be of a Lawful alignment. Since Charisma can't be adjusted in OD&D, this has to be an unmodified score. The chance of getting a 17 on unmodified 3d6 is ([1 in 216 chance for 18] + [3 in 216 chance for 17]) 4 in 216, simplified to 1 in 54, or 1.85%.

A player could easily roll up twenty or more characters and not get one that actually had Psionic powers or qualified to be a Paladin, using the rules-as-written. And the rare Psychic or Paladin character could easily roll low first-level hit points and die the first time he or she took damage.

Now, I suppose this is part of the "make it and take it" nature of OD&D. Psychics and especially Paladins were seriously powerful. The Paladin was a better healer than the party's Cleric. After a few levels, she was a superhero, invulnerable to magic (when using a Holy Sword) and frequently able to lop off limbs with a single hit. Psionic abilities were a little less overwhelming, but still really useful, with little drawback. If you won the "high attributes" lottery, this was your bonus prize.

Still, it makes me wonder if how many people played it straight back then, and how many people decided to make house rules to let the players play the characters they wanted.

I can certainly understand the attraction of both approaches. After all, my Tarafore System's Subjective Character Creation System eliminates the "scarcity-based" model of character creation, allowing the player to create exactly the characters they want within the limits of the upcoming or ongoing game.

But that's about as un-D&D as you get. It almost doesn't feel like D&D if the game doesn't start during character creation. Rolling poorly on an Attribute or (Tiamat forbid) starting Hit Points roll is like failing a saving throw in-game, in a way. And rolling really well is like a critical hit that stays with you.

It's just another of those things that were so stark and flavorful about early editions of D&D that have mostly been modified (or even abandoned) in the intervening years. I'm having a lot of fun exploring OD&D, and with every step I'm finding myself more and more thankful for the variety of RPGs out there: from the crustiest, cruelly Darwinian old-school games to the plottiest story games, to mechanic-less free-forms, and everything in between.