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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 5322689" data-attributes="member: 177">Don't confuse the lack of a clearly stated baseline from the lack of an actual baseline.Gygax, et al., probably had some pretty solid assumptions of how the game was supposed to run, at least in some ways. But, they were still pretty new at writing books for such a complex game.  The problem with being the first to do something is that you make some mistakes - they probably didn't yet fully understand the value of clearly stated assumptions to someone who didn't learn the game from them.  Heck, I think that value was only really recognized fairly recently.  1e, 2e, early White Wolf, and most other games from the 1980s and much of the 1990s lack clear statements of their baselines. There are two different things one might refer to as "baseline".Baseline assumptions: the basic assumptions about how the play will proceed or be structured.  For example: the rules of 4e are designed with the idea that the basic four roles (defender, striker, leader, controller) will be filled.  If you don't have all of them filled, things may go rough for the PCs unless you make allowances.Baseline performance:  How the system behaves if you run it "by the book", using the baseline assumptions.For example:  if you have the basic 4 party, and they go through the assumed number of encounters per session, and you play one session per week, you'll reach level 20 in (on average) some particular number of months of play.</blockquote>

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