In AD&D, there was a training requirement to advancement that didn’t reflect how people actually learn. In this column I’ll talk about how the real world works in this context.
In the rough and tumble world of adventuring, few characters are scholastically trained. Originally, bards attended bardic colleges. It was always implied that wizards learn their spells through some form of formal education, separate and distinct from the later sorcerer and warlock who received their magic from other sources. And although clerics are presumably a member of a religion, education is oddly separate from it (perhaps to further distinguish wizards from clerics), even though religious institutions were traditionally a place of higher learning.
Add all this up, and it’s more likely that heroes advance through real life experience than reading about it at a desk.
Computer role-playing games approach training differently. A column in PC Gamer magazine written years ago expressed a preference for computer-platform RPG skill-based development systems in which players improve in the capabilities that they use, rather than allocate experience points to whatever improvements they choose. It made much more sense that you improve in the things you actually do than those you train for.
This approach is a rejection of Dungeons & Dragons’ leveling up, in which characters hit a plateau before advancing all their abilities at once. It’s a compromise between having “grades” of advancement, much like higher education, and collecting real life experience that gets you there. No wonder games set in modern times traditionally discard level-based advancement for skill development systems.
It is not an uncommon assumption that formal training is the only way to learn a craft or trade. Not surprisingly, this is propagated by institutions responsible for that form of training. Certifications and licenses help regulate an industry and bolster confidence in customers who might hire someone in a skill. Some disciplines require a lot of education before you can gain experience by doing. Law, History, and other academic disciplines come to mind.
But adventurers don’t often live in such a formal world; more likely, they learn by doing. In some cases, what they do is unique enough that there are no teachers; in others, it’s dangerous enough that few people survive long enough to teach others.
We can find “untrained” people in many disciplines who excel in spite of their lack of formal education–for example, Hans Zimmer is one of the great composers of our time and completely self-taught. Game design itself is one of those fields: GMing is a discipline where we learn from experience, either as player or as GM. I certainly never had the opportunity to take any game design classes, but I do pretty well at it and know enough about it to write a well-received book on the subject (which I finished in 2011; I know a lot more now).
Training certainly has its place in games, particularly in large institutions in which navigating the rules is as much as an adventure as fighting monsters. But D&D has traditionally been less about large institutions, who lurk in the background, and more about personal advancement and experience. Forcing training on characters feels artificial because it means heroes need to be certified and licensed to do what they do best. No wonder later editions of D&D minimized training requirements for advancement. We'll discuss what replaced the AD&D system in the next article.
Your Turn: How do you handle training in your games?
To Train or Not to Train?
One of the more notable abandoned rules in RPGs is the training requirement, originally of AD&D:It doesn’t reflect at all how people actually learn something like adventuring, and turns adventurers into mere money-grubbers. Moreover, it failed from a game design point of view. It disappeared from later editions of the game.
In the rough and tumble world of adventuring, few characters are scholastically trained. Originally, bards attended bardic colleges. It was always implied that wizards learn their spells through some form of formal education, separate and distinct from the later sorcerer and warlock who received their magic from other sources. And although clerics are presumably a member of a religion, education is oddly separate from it (perhaps to further distinguish wizards from clerics), even though religious institutions were traditionally a place of higher learning.
Add all this up, and it’s more likely that heroes advance through real life experience than reading about it at a desk.
How Realistic is It?
As a retired college and graduate school teacher I recognize that a good teacher can convey their experience to enable someone to avoid the lessons of the “school of hard knocks.” I also recognize that it’s possible for someone to do something over and over but to do it poorly in a way that does not lead to improvement—though if you did that as an adventurer, you’d soon be dead. Despite that, once they start working, most people who are good at practical disciplines become better primarily through experience, not training.Computer role-playing games approach training differently. A column in PC Gamer magazine written years ago expressed a preference for computer-platform RPG skill-based development systems in which players improve in the capabilities that they use, rather than allocate experience points to whatever improvements they choose. It made much more sense that you improve in the things you actually do than those you train for.
This approach is a rejection of Dungeons & Dragons’ leveling up, in which characters hit a plateau before advancing all their abilities at once. It’s a compromise between having “grades” of advancement, much like higher education, and collecting real life experience that gets you there. No wonder games set in modern times traditionally discard level-based advancement for skill development systems.
Schooling or Experience?
In today's world, schooling is often a substitute for experience, and a way to acquire knowledge when someone wants to enter a discipline but knows little about it. But it's just the start of a career in that field, a minor component for actual practitioners who want to become better at their discipline.It is not an uncommon assumption that formal training is the only way to learn a craft or trade. Not surprisingly, this is propagated by institutions responsible for that form of training. Certifications and licenses help regulate an industry and bolster confidence in customers who might hire someone in a skill. Some disciplines require a lot of education before you can gain experience by doing. Law, History, and other academic disciplines come to mind.
But adventurers don’t often live in such a formal world; more likely, they learn by doing. In some cases, what they do is unique enough that there are no teachers; in others, it’s dangerous enough that few people survive long enough to teach others.
We can find “untrained” people in many disciplines who excel in spite of their lack of formal education–for example, Hans Zimmer is one of the great composers of our time and completely self-taught. Game design itself is one of those fields: GMing is a discipline where we learn from experience, either as player or as GM. I certainly never had the opportunity to take any game design classes, but I do pretty well at it and know enough about it to write a well-received book on the subject (which I finished in 2011; I know a lot more now).
Training certainly has its place in games, particularly in large institutions in which navigating the rules is as much as an adventure as fighting monsters. But D&D has traditionally been less about large institutions, who lurk in the background, and more about personal advancement and experience. Forcing training on characters feels artificial because it means heroes need to be certified and licensed to do what they do best. No wonder later editions of D&D minimized training requirements for advancement. We'll discuss what replaced the AD&D system in the next article.
Your Turn: How do you handle training in your games?
