Quote Originally Posted by Doug Lampert View Post
The original game did NOT have races as classes, a halfling could be a fighter, or magic user, or cleric, just like anyone else including elves and dwarves.

Nor do I recall any level limits for non-humans in the original game.
AD&D did.

n 1980, the second "Basic" D&D was published, edited by Tom Moldvay. This is the first of the classic Basic rulebooks. It took oD&D as a base, but cleaned up things dramatically. This is the first version where races-as-classes was properly stated. Your options here were Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User, Thief, Dwarf, Elf or Halfling. This retained the 3-alignment system from original D&D. Along with the "Basic" rules (levels 1-3) came the Expert rules (levels 4-14, sort of).
Respectfully,

Brian P.