Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

[MerricB]

For the design goals of 1e, 1e is balanced. It is woefully unbalanced for the design goals of 3e or 4e.

For the design goals of 3e or 4e, those games are balanced. They are woefully unbalanced for the design goals of 1e.

That makes no sense.

AD&D is balanced over the period of a campaign from 1st to 10th level.
D&D 4E is balanced over the period of the encounter and the campaign.

D&D 4E thus has balance both for the period AD&D does and for smaller periods as well.

This is not to say that the amount balance that 4E has is something that all players want, but I'd like to see how it fails to be balanced for "1e design goals" - fails other goals of 1e, certainly, but balance?

Cheers!

 

[nightwyrm]

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?

Perhaps I should rephrase. I think as one moves from old to modern editions, the time frame over which "player fun" or "player power" (or whatever index you're using) is averaged is shortened. In old editions, you may be expected to take the average over several years real time. In new editions, you're averaging over a session or an encounter. This is rather abstract and I encourage people to think of this graphically.

One outcome or perhaps correlation of this shortening of averaging time frame is that player balance has become character/class balance.

 

[Bullgrit]

Gygax on AD&D1 balance

For what it’s worth:

Absolute balance between classes is not possible, but I surely did seek to keep the various types at least reasonably on a par with eachother.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ers-beat-up-my-role-player-6.html#post3657438

In UA, you see an attempt to balance the fighter against the Magic-User, Cleric, and other spellcasters. The new classes are designed to be on par with those classes. It is an attempt to create a balance that, if balance was truly the holy mantra that some would have it be, should make us applaud the intent if not the execution.

Ah, at last!

Someone that understands the thrust of the UA work. . .

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ers-beat-up-my-role-player-6.html#post3657389

[Game balance] covers character creation, means that no class of skill is substantially more powerful or useful that other. This continues on through character progression to higher level or greater degree of skill.

Balance extends to monsters and problems as well. As with characters, the challenge faced should be balanced for the characters facing them.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/31466-game-balance-2.html#post487833

Why did you have different XP progressions for each class? Also, some of the XP tables seemed to "speed up" at some points while others "slowed down" at others. What was the rationale for this?

Simply put, it was all for game balance, and it worked reasonably well, I opine.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/161566-gary-gygax-q-part-x-21.html#post2919177

Balance should be built into the system, relatively unobtrusive, completely so in play.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/125997-gary-gygax-q-part-ix-12.html#post2223547

Bullgrit

 

[cattoy]

And there we have it. This poll is nothing but a trap for the unenlightened to fall into a position that cannot be maintained, for the OP has the Words of the Great Designer himself and that is evidence that cannot be debated, doubted or questioned.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

And there we have it. This poll is nothing but a trap for the unenlightened to fall into a position that cannot be maintained…

But now, cattoy, by publicly calling it out as a bullgrit thread (heh), you have fallen foul of another classic trap (not the never get into a land war in Asia one), and may trigger the "I am wronged!" result.

 

[Doug McCrae]

the OP has the Words of the Great Designer himself and that is evidence that cannot be debated, doubted or questioned.

You have to admit, Bullgrit's Gygax quotes, plus MerricB's quotes from the text itself in post #160, are very strong evidence as to author intention. And that's what the poll is about.

 

[merelycompetent]

But now, cattoy, by publicly calling it out as a bullgrit thread (heh), you have fallen foul of another classic trap (not the never get into a land war in Asia one), and may trigger the "I am wronged!" result.

You forgot the only slightly less well known classic blunder: Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!

But seriously, cattoy, how else are we supposed to determine if balance was a design goal, unless we consider the thoughts of the author, and his stated intentions? If the author states that elements of the game were created or added with the intention of making the game more balanced, then it passes the OP's original question.

Complaining about evidence that cannot be debated, doubted, or questioned is unsound, and likely unbalanced. But I think that strawman has been burned enough.

Pointing out how efforts to achieve balance design goals succeeded or failed, on the other hand, is much more constructive. In spite of some designers' great words.

FireLance still has, I think, the best summary of design goals across the editions.

 

[Ariosto]

You don't have to admit that the designer achieved his intention. I think he largely did, though, understanding that the goal itself was different from that in a design that on point after point takes a very different (perhaps even directly opposite) approach.

 

[Bullgrit]

Over 160 posts into this discussion, I'm the only one who thought to do a search for EGG's own words in this forum? (Granted, I didn't think of it, either, until about 150 posts in.) These quotes even come from replies to some people posting in this discussion -- and they didn't remember or think to go back and look?

I really didn't expect "No" to get so many votes. Like a couple others in this thread have said, I thought it was completely obvious that AD&D1 was designed with game balance intended. But, in many threads, here, through the years, there's been a lot of statements that AD&D1 design didn't worry about game balance, often with the follow-on statement or insinuation of "and it didn't need it."

I would rather have brought in quotes out of the AD&D1 PHB and DMG (as MerricB did), but I have those books packed away for another couple of weeks. So I had to settle for searching this message board.

"Game balance" seems to be, to some, an unwanted and unneeded intrusion on the newer game editions by unwise or unimaginative or scared current designers. I always found this concept strange, because I saw obvious game balance intentions in the design of all D&D editions.

If I were to posit a theory, I think some don't/didn't see game balance in AD&D1 because we were younger and less experienced in gaming and game design. "Game balance," as a term, wasn't the buzz word for us when we were newer to the game. We might note that a rule was weird or just didn't work (for us), and we'd house rule it (often without thinking the house rule through completely) for our own game. (The rules that worked fine, we probably didn't think twice about.)

But really, isn't game balance an underlying foundation of every game (not just D&D or RPGs)? Whether you see it or not, whether the designers state it explicitly in the rules or not, game balance has to be intended for a game to work, yes?

Bullgrit

 

[Stoat]

Based on the posts instead of the votes in the poll, it looks like most folks agree that Gygax intended the game to be "balanced". It appears to me that a lot of folks are voting no because they think: (a) Gygax failed, 1E wasn't balanced or (b) Gygax's definition of balance is radically different from the current understanding of the term.

I'm not particularly interested in watching people fight over (a), but I'm curious about (b). What did Gygax (or anyone else in 1977) mean when they talked about game balance?