B/X D&D on balance

pemerton · Apr 14, 2012

A recent interesting thread brought up some comparisons between 4e and B/X D&D as far as balance is concerned.

Moldvay Basic has this to say (p B45):

The DM may choose treasures instead of rolling for them randomly . . . The choices should be made carefully, since most of the experience the characters willl get will be from treasure (usually 3/4 or more). It will often be easier for the DM to decide how much experience to give out (considering the size and levels of experience of the party) and place the treasures to give this result. However, the monsters should be tough enough to make sure that the characters earn their treasure!

And under the heading "Everything is balanced", at p B60

The DM should try to maintain the "balance of play". The treasures should be balanced by the dangers. Some groups prefer adventures where advancement between levels is swift. In such a case, since the treasures are generally greater, the monsters should be "tougher". Other groups prefer adventures where character develoment is more important, and advancement is slower. If the monsters are too tough, and if the parties are reduced by many deaths, then few characters will ever reach higher levels.

The Cook/Marsh Expert book says some interesting stuff too (pp X43, 57, X59):

As the campaign goes on, the DM should be especially careful when placing treasures, as these will become even more important in determing the rate at which the characters gain levels and power. They can be the major tool the DM uses to balance the campaign.

. . .

The number of creatures encounterd will depend upon the size of the adventuring party.

. . .

An entire evening can be spoiled if an unplanned wilderness encouner on the way to the dungeon goes badly for the party. The DM must use good judgement in addition to random tables. Encounters should be scaled to the strength of the party . . .

A few things in particular stand out for me.

One is that no option is suggested for groups that want rich character development and rapid advancement.

A second is that the referee, not the players, is assumed to be principally in control of the rate of XP acquisition.

A third is that it seems to be taken for granted that it is the referee, and not the players, who has primary control over the difficulty of the encounters the PCs face - and that the referee therefore has a special responsibility to make sure that those encounters are appropriately balanced. (Appropriate to (i) party strength and (ii) desired rate of advancement.)

A fourth is that it seems to be assumed that most acquisition of treasure will require dealing with monsters - who should therefore be "tough enough" to make sure that the treasure is earned. Stealth-style looting without killing doesn't seem to be expressly canvassed.

Other thoughts? Is this as radically different from the 4e approach to scenario design and treasure placement as is sometimes suggested?

Olgar Shiverstone · Apr 14, 2012

I don't know that this is significantly different in basic philosophy than any edition. What eventually evolved, however, were more specific tools like CR and EL to help the DM figure out what was supposed to be balanced or appropriate. The early editions were pretty reliant on an experienced DM to make those judgments.

P1NBACK · Apr 14, 2012

pemerton said:
A few things in particular stand out for me.

A second is that the referee, not the players, is assumed to be principally in control of the rate of XP acquisition.

Of course. They place the treasure.

pemerton said:
A third is that it seems to be taken for granted that it is the referee, and not the players, who has primary control over the difficulty of the encounters the PCs face - and that the referee therefore has a special responsibility to make sure that those encounters are appropriately balanced. (Appropriate to (i) party strength and (ii) desired rate of advancement.)

The judge is placing the monsters. Therefore it's their responsibility to maintain the correct balance in this respect.

B/X is totally "Step On Up" gameplay, which means that the goal is to present a relative challenge and see if the players can overcome it.

It's pointless to do that if the judge puts an ancient dragon at the entrance to every 1st level dungeon.

This reminds me of Apocalypse World's "setting expectations" section where Baker says something to the effect of, "Hey, if I wanted to, I could be like, 'There's an earthquake, you all take 10 harm. The end.'"

That's not what I'm going to do, because we're here to play to find out what happens. The best way to do that is to allow the PCs to have reasonable challenges.

With that said, a lot of that depends on the campaign. In our B/X campaign, we're doing a sandbox style campaign. So, the balance isn't tailored to the party necessarily, but tailored by Gold to Monster ratio. A dragon will be protecting a large hoard of treasure, and a goblin hideout will have a much smaller reward. This allows the PCs to choose their "level of difficulty" as it were.

But, it's still the DM's responsibility to place appropriate monsters with appropriate treasure and whatnot.

pemerton said:
A fourth is that it seems to be assumed that most acquisition of treasure will require dealing with monsters - who should therefore be "tough enough" to make sure that the treasure is earned. Stealth-style looting without killing doesn't seem to be expressly canvassed.

See above about "tough enough" - but also, I think the "stealth-style" is an emergent feature, not a specific gameplay device. If it's to your benefit to avoid combat or heavily stack the odds in your favor, since they can be quite deadly and "swingy", then the players will learn to do that.

I stopped being surprised by player ingenuity a long time ago. I just expect them to come up with brilliant

to overcome my challenges nowadays.

pemerton said:
Other thoughts? Is this as radically different from the 4e approach to scenario design and treasure placement as is sometimes suggested?

I don't think it's radically different, no.

I do think the means and goals are different. Whereas, B/X says, "Here's a dungeon. Go get as much treasure as you can!" You aren't necessarily expected to overcome all the encounters, but it's certainly a possibility. And, the reward is getting out with the most treasure possible, with the least losses.

4E seems to be more, "Here's a string of encounters. Let's see you beat them!" Which is seemingly the same, but there's a big difference. This to me is far more "Right to Dream". The goal isn't for the PCs to see if they can overcome the challenge, but to see HOW they overcome the challenge, with all of their neat tricks and cool techniques for using those tricks. It's just expected that the 4E players will need to deal with these encounters (it's how you get XP after all) and overcome them. The real joy is watching the encounter unfold and seeing how the players do it. That's why there is rarely much retreat in 4E. Sure, things could go horribly wrong, but that's super rare (at least in my experience) combat is designed to be played out with all of the powers coming to fruition.

Hmmm. I'm trying to think of a cool analogy. 4E is like a Haunted House, with all these cool sets and scares and so on. You're expected to go through each and see the neat stuff that happens and get scared, sure, but mostly come out at the end.

Now, imagine if you could go into a haunted house and the goal wasn't to see all the scares. The goal is actually to make it out of the other end and get scared as little as possible and you can do whatever it takes to get there.

So, no. I think 4E and B/X do use very similar in balancing techniques. The difference is the end-goal and means.

I don't think either playstyle is bad, btw. Both have their upsides and downsides. Some people love playing the game where they come out in the end bruised and battered, but ultimately expected to win the day. Others prefer the challenge aspect, where victory isn't expected, but earned.

I also think you can play 4E that way - I've done it - but, you have to change a lot of the core to do it.

Iosue · Apr 14, 2012

pemerton said:
A fourth is that it seems to be assumed that most acquisition of treasure will require dealing with monsters - who should therefore be "tough enough" to make sure that the treasure is earned. Stealth-style looting without killing doesn't seem to be expressly canvassed.

I question that assumption. "Tough enough" to make sure the treasure is earned doesn't have to mean "a good fight"; it can also mean, "too tough to fight head on, so requires non-combative hoops to be jumped over to get the treasure".

MortalPlague · Apr 14, 2012

pemerton said:
One is that no option is suggested for groups that want rich character development and rapid advancement.

The way I read it, he seemed to imply that rapid advancement games have considerably more PC death. So he suggested that a group that wants to play characters for a long period would be better served with slow advancement, with less turnover.

Doug McCrae · Apr 14, 2012

D&D had, I think, been moving away from the mega-dungeon sandbox as the default mode of play since OD&D was published. 1e isn't strong on the mega-dungeon or sandbox, it mostly just hints at it. Moldvay Basic was published in 1981, so it was later than 1e.

In a non-sandbox game, the DM has more power over what the PCs encounter, and advancement rates, though adventures might still be 'mini sandboxes' like Keep on the Borderlands.

Consider this quote from the 1e DMG (pg 87), emphasis mine -

The testing grounds for novice adventurers must be kept to a difficulty factor which encourages rather than discourages players. If things are too easy, then there is no challenge, and boredom sets in after one or two games. Conversely, impossible difficulty and character deaths caus instant loss of interest. Entrance to and movement through the dungeon level should be relatively easy, with a few tricks, traps, and puzzles to make it interesting in itself. Features such as rooms and chambers must be described with verve and sufficiently detailed in content to make each seem as if it were strange and mysterious. Creatures inhabiting the place must be of strength and in numbers not excessive compared to the adventurers' wherewithal to deal with them.

I suspect that Mentzer Basic, published in 1983, is even more 'new school'.

pemerton · Apr 15, 2012

P1NBACK said:
Of course. They place the treasure.

The judge is placing the monsters. Therefore it's their responsibility to maintain the correct balance in this respect.

<snip>

With that said, a lot of that depends on the campaign. In our B/X campaign, we're doing a sandbox style campaign. So, the balance isn't tailored to the party necessarily, but tailored by Gold to Monster ratio.

The gold-to-monster ratio makes sense.

But I don't get a sandbox vibe from Basic at all, and the closest Expert comes (at least in my quick reread over the past couple of days) is when it mentions that, in a wilderness adventure, the PCs may go anywhere and the referee therefore has to be ready to deal with that.

P1NBACK said:
This allows the PCs to choose their "level of difficulty" as it were.

Again, this is something I don't get from the B/X books at all - at least, not expressly. It is there by implication, I guess, because the players choose when to have their PCs enter or leave the dungeon.

P1NBACK said:
I think the "stealth-style" is an emergent feature, not a specific gameplay device. If it's to your benefit to avoid combat or heavily stack the odds in your favor, since they can be quite deadly and "swingy", then the players will learn to do that.

Gygax talks pretty expressly about this sort of thing in the last couple of pages of his PHB.

Back when I switched from B/X to AD&D (as I think many others did too) I mostly paid attention to the upgrades in mechanical complexity. I didn't pay as much attention to the advice text. But I'm now starting to think they might be almost as different as the two editions of AD&D - despite resting on comparable mechanical foundations.

P1NBACK said:
B/X is totally "Step On Up" gameplay

<snip>

4E seems to be more, "Here's a string of encounters. Let's see you beat them!" Which is seemingly the same, but there's a big difference. This to me is far more "Right to Dream". The goal isn't for the PCs to see if they can overcome the challenge, but to see HOW they overcome the challenge

<snip>

I think 4E and B/X do use very similar in balancing techniques. The difference is the end-goal and means.

<snip>

I also think you can play 4E that way - I've done it - but, you have to change a lot of the core to do it.

Interesting.

I think that "right to dream" 4e is somewhat in danger of turning into the boardgame play that people compain about, as the fiction just drops away - the cool stuff becomes "I did X damage with my Y power!" rather than "Look how my guy just took out that wight with a holy blessing!"

I used to think that 4e couldn't do gamism at all (because of its treasure acquisition, XP acquisition, encounter design and related guidelines), but [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] has explained a type of "light gamism" to which 4e is well-suited. It's not a "survival/acquisition" challenge of the B/X sort, but more of a "look at my clever deployment of all these features of my PC - how cool was that!" challenge.

pemerton · Apr 15, 2012

Iosue said:
"Tough enough" to make sure the treasure is earned doesn't have to mean "a good fight"; it can also mean, "too tough to fight head on, so requires non-combative hoops to be jumped over to get the treasure".

I really don't get that vibe from the books. Not to say that you're wrong, but I think you'd have to have some other experience or expectation to read it that way.

Libramarian · Apr 15, 2012

pemerton said:
Other thoughts? Is this as radically different from the 4e approach to scenario design and treasure placement as is sometimes suggested?

No, not at all. I've noticed before that some of the advice in the Basic book is strikingly "new school". It also says the first step of dungeon design is to think up a "scenario" to give the players a "reason for adventuring".

Of course it's important to keep in mind that Moldvay Basic came in a box with B2 Keep on the Borderlands, ostensibly as an illustration of what a good Basic adventure looks like. That module is as sandboxy and crazylethal as old school play is generally described as (and works great with AD&D instead of Basic).

I think OSR people today just like Basic because it's a simpler system than AD&D. It's basically thought of and played as AD&D-lite.

ExploderWizard · Apr 15, 2012

pemerton said:
One is that no option is suggested for groups that want rich character development and rapid advancement.

Having both is certainly a possibility. Its known as a giveaway or Monty Haul campaign. The PCs reap disproportionately large rewards from not too tough encounters and thus level quickly.

We did this for a few games and had a good time power mongering just for the heck of it and it was good fun. That kind of game didn't hold my interest for very long.