Estimates for the amount of money 8th level adventurers had to accumulate exceed 40 tons! And given that experience point thresholds for advancement roughly doubled for each consecutive level, things escalated. On page 45 of the D&D Basic Rulebook (1981), Tom Moldvay estimated that characters might earn as much as three quarters ( 3/ 4) of their experience through accumulating treasure. Well, back in the day, characters used to earn 1 XP for each gp they collected, and this was a large part of how they advanced. No small amount of shock is likely to ensue when it comes to the amount of money the character has-likely exceeding 1 million gp! What was the idea there?
Drifting around the Internet, one might occasion upon a character sheet from way back in the first edition of the game.
