Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

[Bullgrit]

Jack7, and all others who voted "No, AD&D1 was not designed for game balance," what was the purpose of:

Different xp necessary for level advancement

Demihuman level limits

Armor and weapon restrictions

Ability score requirements

And all the articles and comments from the designers through the years in Dragon magazine about game balance

Bullgrit

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

There are many dependencies in 1e. For instance, lots of monster abilities are based on spells. If I change the spell then the monster ability also changes, which may be unintended.

Actually, that's not entirely true. Monster or magic item abilities might use the same name as a spell but could (and surprisingly often DID) work differently. If a spell were changed in 1E/2E then it would naturally be up to the DM to decide IF monsters and magic items should use the new version of the spell. It would just be yet another exception in a game RIFE with exception-based rules. In 3E/4E it would not really even be up for discussion - of COURSE the new spell would apply across the board.

This gets back to the original question. Someone upthread phrased it much better than I - AD&D attempted balance only in regard to the PLAYERS, WotC D&D approaches balance in regard to the CHARACTERS.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Jack7, and all others who voted "No, AD&D1 was not designed for game balance," what was the purpose of:

Different xp necessary for level advancement
No idea. They're pretty strange. I always assumed the weirdness of MU table was meant to show a slow apprenticeship, followed by a faster progression as magical fluency is achieved, and then another slow patch as mastery is accrued. You can argue that the different rates are there for "balance," but there's no "balance" reason for the non-linearity (or non-log-linearity, iirc).

Demihuman level limits
To maintain an otherwise nonsensical humanocentric world.

Armor and weapon restrictions
This one might actually be balance. But given how badly it achieves that, it's really more easily explained as flavor maintenance. Wizards are supposed to be frail guys in robes. Priests are supposed to not shed blood, etc.

Ability score requirements
This is entirely the anti-balance, even by the standard of the time. If I roll awesome, I am not merely rewarded by that inherent benefit. No no. In addition, I just get even more awesome!!! "Look all these 18s!!! Say Hello to Paladin Sir Awesome McKickaZZ!!!"

I now flashback to old AD&D CRPGs where you were rewarded infinitely if you just spent lots of time re-rolling stats when you built your character until awesomeness occurred "organically." Ah... wasted youth.

And all the articles and comments from the designers through the years in Dragon magazine about game balance

The only thing I can assume is that they were talking about something very different than the modern term "game balance." As others have already pointed out, "fairness" might be a better way to describe the term they were using.

This discussion has been illuminating, especially in combination with the Tomb of Horrors discussion that was around the other day. When this poll went up, I really did honestly believe there was zero attempt at balance in early editions of D&D. However, since some of y'all actually are experienced DMs (a rare species I have never met IRL), you have opened my eyes somewhat. If you played the game as written, with tons of character deaths, these mechanisms probably did supply some degree of balance. "Paladin Sir Awesome McKickaZZ" is still going to die relatively suddenly at some point, and when his player re-rolls, he'll roll some 3s and end up with "Farmer Bill the (sorta) Fighting Man" who is the equivalent of a speed bump for the monsters. (Don't put your lucky character rolling dice away too quick. You'll need them again soon)

That's Kool and the Gang if it's your cup of tea. But man... I think my middle school DM was smart to roll a different way. If some of the kids at the table lost their characters even a tenth as often as necessary to maintain that kind of balance, the game would have broken up in tears and vitriol in about 3 sessions. Character death proved to be the Yoko factor for every group I was ever in as a kid.

 

[Ariosto]

I expect some old hands say "no" because when the new school says "no" it's clear that "game balance" means something different to them.

"Where do you see similar balances in other games?" might be interesting and even helpful.

 

[Jack7]

Jack7, and all others who voted "No, AD&D1 was not designed for game balance," what was the purpose of:

BG, all of the things you mentioned could be described as emphasizing the very opposite of balance, as it now is commonly defined. Then again one might argue they imposed a sort of superficial, or I prefer the term mytho-poetic balance, as applied to and on a game that was not "technically balanced, nor desired to be" in the modern sense.

By mythopoetic I mean the fact that the Paladin doesn't have to be the equal of the Ranger in every way. Or vice-versa. The Paladin is a Demon-killer, the Ranger is a Giant-killer. They are by nature different in function and abilities. Just as thieves are naturally different in nature and capabilities from the Wizard. They don't need cross-over capabilities, their function is Mythopoetic and peculiar to their individual nature as characters and classes, not Geek-interchangeable, as is common thinking where one technologically, "trades out and exchanges parts as required by the situation." In Star Trek a Geek centered world, one trades out parts and roles as needed to solve a problem. In mythopoetic situations only the Knight can slay the dragon, and only the Wizard can work the magic, and only the Thief can effectively footpad. Roles aren't interchangeable or balanced, they are unique and indispensable. And in time fantasy-games have become Geek-incentivized. Not myhtically and historically incentivized. I'm just offering this as a social and psychological evaluation of how the idea of balance has changed over the years within game design.

The Geek sees your list of items and says to himself, "see there, it's proof that the game was trying to be balanced by artificially correcting built in and obvious imbalances." (Read, Paladin slays demons, Thief steals treasure.) The Nerd sees the same items and comparing them to modern standards says, "this is the very opposite of balance, it displays the obvious and intentional imbalances in design." (Because Paladins shouldn't have powers that resemble those of thieves. And yes, I'm only using this analogy in the metaphorical sense.)

Although I might not have used the same term(s), I thought Canis answered this pretty well:

The only thing I can assume is that they were talking about something very different than the modern term "game balance." As others have already pointed out, "fairness" might be a better way to describe the term they were using.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I suppose in situations where you rolled %age dice (e.g. thieves skills) you were rolling low, but there was never a disconnect because you were trying to get under a percentage - and this continued into 3e unchanged anyway!.

Can you give some examples where a high d20 roll would be bad in an earlier edition?

Ability checks were in basic D&D (1980 Moldvay edition) Page 60: "The DM may want to base a character's chance of doing something on his or her ability scores (Strength, Dexterity, and so forth). To perform a difficult task (such as climbing up a rope or thinking of a forgotten clue), the player should roll the ability score or less on 1d20. The DM may give a bonus or penalty to the roll, depending on the difficulty of the action (-4 for a simple task to +4 for a difficult one). A roll of 1 should always succeed, and a roll of 20 should always fail."

Ability checks appeared in 1e modules (for example, I3, Pharaoh), and obliquely in the 1e Player's Handbook in the "Dig" spell description, p. 76: "Any creature at the edge (1’) of such a pit uses its dexterity score as a saving throw to avoid falling into the hole, with a score equal to or less than the dexterity meaning that a fall was avoided."

Also, if we're not talking in-game rolls, there were times when you wanted to roll high on percentiles: rolling for psionics and exceptional strength. Didn't psionic combat use percentile dice and higher was better?

 

[nightwyrm]

The idea behind early edition is that the game would be fair to all the players over a long stretch of time. More powerful classes have higher stat requirement, thus making them rarer, but a player is expected to go through several characters and thus will play some powerful classes and some weaker classes over time. Similarly with levels, some classes have to go through painful periods of weakness while being powerful over other periods. The entire assumption is that when you averaged over a long period of time, each player should be about the same.

Old editions don't use the modern concept of balance, instead they use the concept of fairness in place of it. In a sense, it's very similar to gambling amongst a bunch of friends who are about the same skill level. One of you may win big any particular night, but over a long time, it evens out and each player would have the same expected payoff.

To take the gambling analogy further, poker isn't balanced. Some hands are clearly better than others. But it's fair to all the people sitting around the table playing the game. That's the same way old editions are designed. Its concept of "balance" is that the game is fundamentally fair to all players (note I say players instead of characters). Modern concept of balance has moved beyond that and includes more stuff in it.

 

[Ariosto]

Old editions don't use the modern concept of balance, instead they use the concept of fairness in place of it.

Except that fairness = balance in games as I think is still the common usage in the wider culture beyond D&D. So, the puzzle remains:

What the heck is this "modern concept of balance" in D&D?

 

[ggroy]

What the heck is this "modern concept of balance" in D&D?

Is there a precise mathematical definition of "balance" in the context of (A)D&D?

 

[MerricB]

"The characters and races from which the players select are carefully thought out and balanced to give each a distinct and different approach to the challenges posed by the game." - AD&D PHB page 7.

"Clerics and fighters have been strengthened in relation to magic-users, although not overly so. Clerics have more and improved spell capability. Fighters are more effective in combat and have other new advantages as well. Still, magic-users are powerful indeed, and they have many new spells. None of these over-shadow thieves. All recommended subclasses... are included to assure as much variety of approach as possible." - AD&D PHB page 7.

Cheers!