Been a long time since hung up my Dungeonmaster hat, but I recall some stuff from back then.

The limitations placed on the species/races were there to make it worthwhile playing a Human character. After all, why play a Human Fighter when Dwarfs are so much tougher? Why play a Human Magic-User when an Elf has spells and can use a decent weapon? Why play a Human Thief when you can have a Halfling one?

I made a lot of changes! I created a Magic Point system and got rid of the whole 'memorising and forgetting spells' nonsense. Each spell had a point cost equal to its' level. Wizards rolled for points on a D8 at each level, Clerics and Druids on a d6, Elves and Rangers on a D4. Demi-Humans did not have classes, no Dwarf Clerics, Halfling Rangers or Elf Druids. I took infravision off Elves but gave them a hearing advantage. I imposed movement penalties on Dwarfs and Halfings because they've got short legs. I boosted Dwarf spell resistance but forbade them to use any kind of magic at all - no scrolls, no magic weapons and only a very few potions. Even Cure spells wouldn't work on them, though healing potions did. Other classes could only use scrolls if thecharacter had stated at creation that they could read the language the scroll was written in. Elves could only wear leather armour and could only use longbow and longsword. Dwarfs were restricted to axes and hammers and could only have crossbows. Thieves were restricted to shortsword and shortbow. If the players got into an argument about what to do next, I made them do what the person whose character had the highest Charisma wanted to do, but if it went badly, the character lost Charisma points.

I was a little git!