Well, maybe I was just ahead of my time then because I'm pretty sure that I thought there were a lot of... questionable design decisions when I was playing the game 30 years ago. Surprise & initiative. Racial level limits class and multiclass limitations. Ability score requirements. Etc. I may not have understood clearly WHY I didn't like them, because yes I just did not have enough experience yet with how/why things were as they were, but I knew I wasn't alone in my perceptions even then.
How long ago did you guys play?
I actually DON'T recall that happening much at first. It was a SMALL group overall at first, and most ideas for new rules either went into someone's own RPG they created and printed themselves, or were put out for general consumption.
LATER on, when more of the fantasy RPG people who had no connection to wargames or anything dealing with balance came into the scene, they created all sorts of unbalanced rules for RPGing. Most of those RPG's died before D&D ever came into it's later days.
New design ideas came into evolution, and you see that evolution in 3.X, but prior to that you had all sorts of other ideas going from very complex in nature (Rolemaster) to very light in nature.
Of course then again, if it was 30 years ago that would be around 1982, at which point it was the middle of the fad and everyone was playing the game in their own way. AT that point there were too many to know everyone anyways or how everyone played.
I know many people didn't play with racial level limits but normally that had NOTHING to do with their ideas of balance or anything else, normally it dealt more with what they felt was fair or what they just personally desired (they wanted to have a level 30 elf Fighter/Thief/Magic-User) and so it came about.
Balance problems wargamers may have had originally dealt more with the fantastical rather than anything dealing with limited Hits that one could take or deal out. More wargamers had gripes about it not being a wargame or history, then level limits.
Level limits and other such ideas of "Balance" really haven't gotten as much attention than they started too later on, especially when 3.X hit the market.
As such, I find that many who hate these things tend to come from the newer generations rather then the older generations. Newer generations tend to try to find reasons to say it's a balance thing when in truth the REAL causation behind the elimination or extension of level limits had nothing to do with "balance" and more to do with...I WANT...I WANT...I WANT.
There's NOTHING wrong with that, if you want to play a 45th level Elf, then that's the system you would want to play with...balance or not.
Gygax knew wargames and knew balancing about them. He would of course be MUCH more polite about such statements against him, or attacks against his character and abilites...
But then, back then most didn't aggressively attack Gygax with such accusations and such blatent personal affronts...those didn't really come around until the 80s gamers.
Even then, most of the time they just left and created their own "additions" or even their own RPGs to suceed or fail.
You might not understand the balance of the system, or how the system of balance even worked...but then that wouldn't be because the system itself didn't work as it was intended or wasn't balanced as intended...it would rather imply that the way you utilized or played the game made it so that it was unbalanced for your style.
There's NOTHING wrong with simply saying...one didn't like level limits because they felt it limited the way that they wanted to play. There's NOTHING wrong with saying that one didn't like level limits because they didn't play it as such and let things occur that unbalanced the game as they played it in an unintended fashion. There's nothing wrong with saying that perceptions of balance have changed since then and the way you like your games balanced are different than how they balanced the game back then.
However, levelling accusations that the game wasn't balanced at all, or it was flawed...is actually pretty darn offensive.
Gygax was perhaps polite to the extreme to those who went about like that, but I think he'd probably just laugh and continue onwards polite as ever to the next comment.
Which is what I should do...but I will add I didn't meet someone like you back when I played originally...and didn't see that type of thought even really exist back then (in regards to...Balance). When I did see those who did away with LL it was NEVER about balance, and always about Fairness...or how they played or what they wanted.
Two sides of the shoe I suppose.
Gygax was one of the FINEST Wargame designers I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. For his time he KNEW what created and what didn't make balance...better then just about any hobby wargamer and DEFINATELY better then small individual RPG groups.
I would say that your flaws are not flaws...but your dislike and likes rather than any real balance issues.
Gygax more than anyone knew that knowing the rules and being able to then twist and change them to be USED by you was the important thing in an RPG...and in that if you did away with LL that was perfectly fine. That didn't mean a flaw in the game...that meant being able to play what you wanted.
As I stated before, there were different design philosophies behind 3.X and D20 and games that have come after and the early days of D&D. One was by wargamers (who I may say are almost consumed by the idea of balance in as far as numbers go...FAR more than just about anything I've ever seen come from Roleplayers who aren't wargamers) and the other was more by Roleplayers (who also can be consumed by balance, but then it's more of a roleplaying and taste thing rather than a numbers thing).
That said...4e actually had quite a bit of the wargame type ideas of balance tossed in there...so I suppose Roleplayers will design with a numbers idea of balance....but then I think many prefer the flavor and taste to simply numbers as seen from how many choose to stay with 3.X or go to pathfinder.
But I have to once again strongly disagree with you on the entire balance and flaws thing and also wonder how our experience in seeing the gamers and who was playing were so different...unless you're talking about the 80s as opposed to the mid to late 70s.
Edit: Just to be clear...I love playing D20 games and Pathfinder as well as 4e and earlier editions of D&D. This was posting to re-iterate that there were different design philosophies behind the different editions. Applying the philosophy of a D20/3e game to an earlier game such as AD&D or OD&D really doesn't work and sometimes such ideas will clash. That doesn't mean flaws or problems as much as differences of outlook and goals of the system. That should be recognized and understood before one starts blindly calling something names...and especially before trying to dish out on a very respectable person's rendition of the game.
