Welcome to THAC0 . . . with Advantage! We’re two friends that have been playing D&D a long time. While we both love lots of other RPGs, D&D is the crucible that trained us in the tabletop RPG disciplines.

We’ve looked at the kind of background details you can add to divine and arcane spellcasting characters, and what questions you should ask about your setting when adding these details. It’s easy to assume that characters like fighters and rogues don’t need these kinds of details on the origins of their abilities, but martial character backgrounds can still add a wealth of details to your game setting. Shields high, we’re charging into martial character backgrounds!

The AD&D 1e barbarian couldn’t rage, an ability that didn’t appear until D&D 3e. Dragon Magazine #133 did introduce a 1e Berserker class, meant for NPCs. These Berserkers had a rage feature similar to what we now think of for Barbarians, except that the Berserker couldn’t stop raging early, meaning they might start walloping their allies. A Berserker also couldn’t enter a rage voluntarily, but had a percentage chance to rage in stressful situations. You wouldn’t like them when they’re angry.