White Box gives the player a choice of making their character one of three classes. The Fighting Man excels at combat with the highest hit points and the best combat scores to hit creatures, even gaining multiple attacks at higher levels against 1 hit die monsters. The Magic User throws arcane spells and although weak in combat due to a lack of armor and fewer hit points, at higher levels the damage dealing spells this class commands can make them the most powerful class. The Cleric is a spell caster of a different sort relying on divine magic which is more geared to a supporting role. The Cleric falls between the Fighting Man and the Magic User in combat effectiveness and has the unique ability to turn away undead things. What they all have in common is they are "Adventurers" - a sort of super class.
An Adventurer is a player character, a game piece. Each player controls one or more player characters of the above 3 classes. White Box has no skill system and I assume all Adventurers have the basic dungeon delving skills, exploration skills and survival skills or they wouldn't be Adventurers. After all, a cobbler can make shoes, a butcher can prepare raw meat and a tailor can sew clothing. Although it isn't explicitly stated in the 3 LBBs, it stands to reason that Adventurers have some skill at creeping down hallways, listening at doors, climbing a rope, riding a horse or mule, making a camp for the night and following tracks in the snow, mud or tomb dust. If the referee wants to have the player make a die roll because the outcome could be meaningful or dangerous, the mechanic to do so is left open for interpretation. (Tom Moldvay suggests in his Basic rolling a d20 against the most appropriate ability score.)
Supplement 1, Greyhawk introduces the Thief class and muddies the waters some. The Thief has printed skill levels for various tasks, which until reading Supplement 1 seemed to be universal among Adventurers. Specialization up until Greyhawk has been the ability to cast magic spells or turn away undead. Moving silently or hiding in a shadowy alley is something any character can do, heck the players themselves can probably do them, more or less. Because of this (and players who steal from the party), I have never been a fan of the Thief as a class. As a role in society, sure. It can be great fun to play a thieving character of any class. In fact I had great fun with a thieving Magic User during the early 1980s.
Later editions of The Game (and many other systems) add a number of skill scores at character generation. Players may choose what skills their character has and that choice may go a long way toward defining the character and their role in the adventuring party. Some players in these systems like to "specialize" and develop certain skills at the expense of all others. Some players prefer a more rounded character build and have a basic competency in a broad array of potentially useful skills. In a system that is built around skill choice and development there are advantages to either approach. Specialists are really good at what they do, but require other specialists to cover the skills they don't have. Generalists have a wider array of skills, but are not as accomplished in any one skill as a specialist might be. White Box, by default, seems to assume everyone is a generalist in basic Adventurer skills.
Assuming everyone in an adventuring party can follow tracks (or any other skill) can lead to players who each take their turn at rolling to track until someone succeeds. This can be tiresome if each player rolls every check for every character, but even in a skill based system with specialists there will be times when the specialist fails and all the other characters take turns casting near impossible rolls on the off chance they can "get lucky". I like to as the players which character is taking the lead on any given group task and have that player roll the die.
The mechanical solution I currently favor in my old school game is to use a d6 for skill checks and every character has a 1 in 6 chance of doing something/anything reasonably possible. If a player is interested in specializing their character we negotiate how this comes about and they can get a skill bonus making their chance 2 in 6 or even higher. It isn't an original idea, but one I am finding I like. My players have quickly caught on and I believe they seem more apt to try something imaginative assuming they will have a 1 in 6 chance for it to succeed. I am all for encouraging imaginative play. Perhaps if they succeed in a dramatic way they will become the character who is good at that particular thing and receive a bonus from then on when using that particular skill.
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