Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

[Ariosto]

The strongest mechanism for balance in 1e is the tension between DM fiat and the right of players to vote with their feet if they don't feel the DM is fair.

And the strongest mechanism for balance in 3e is what? How does making mechanics more complex create balance? Is it that the referee running the game -- just that -- is what "unbalanced" means, so that wearing down his stamina (by making him deal with such a burden of data) to make him more easily buffaloed is an improvement?

See, it looks to me as if the DM still sets DCs. That means the DM, not whether you have -2 or +20 on your character sheet, sets the probability. The DM still defines the environment. Is it "fair" for your character to meet a pair of ancient dragons when he ventures to the Mountain of the Ancient Dragons? If you think not, then who you gonna call? DM Busters?

 

[Ariosto]

I think you have me confused with someone else?

Yes, begging your pardon! I had in mind words from Canis.

 

[MerricB]

If you think not, then who you gonna call? DM Busters?

LOL! Very nice.

There are two types of game balance in a RPG. One is between the DM and the players, and the other is between the different players.

The first type is what Gary Gygax invokes when he describes Monty Haul and Killer Campaigns - games where the balance between the threats and rewards that DM provides the players with has broken down. One of the great failures of AD&D - in my opinion - is how Gary spends a lot of time talking about how AD&D means to set right these extremes, but precious little in achieving it. Indeed, there are times when what he said has been misinterpreted and caused styles of gaming that are not what AD&D was meant to be.

One example is in regard of the scarcity of magic items. AD&D is not a system in which magic items are rare! Why do some people believe it is? Because Gary spent some time discussing how at low levels they should be rare. This was then extended to higher levels which is quite against how the game was demonstrated in modules and other source material later.

The second type is invoked when Gary writes in the foreword and introduction to the Player's Handbook about how he was balancing the classes. In this area, I believe, he was quite successful. Yes, the low level magic-user is possibly a bit too limited, and the very high level magic-user is too strong, but in the main levels that AD&D was written for - 4th through 10th - the game works very well.

There are parallels between D&D and Squad Leader/ASL. With Squad Leader, you had one of the most successful wargames of all time - if not the most successful. (One source posits 200,000+ copies sold). However, with each expansion, the rules got more confusing and contradictory. Eventually, Advanced Squad Leader was released which completely rewrote the rules to be make sense as a whole.

D&D - with oD&D and its supplements - was in a similar state and so AD&D should have been like ASL. Unfortunately, I don't think Gary was up to the task of integrating everything successfully. There are too many areas where there are still contradictory or incomplete rule systems. Consider the monk's reduced chance of surprise. How does that integrate with the d6 surprise system? The answer is: it doesn't. At all. Initiative is a mess, especially as regards spellcasting, and then you have a small section about helmets which doesn't flow with the rest of the rules at all!

However, the major structures are there and you have an eminently playable game.

Cheers!

 

[Hussar]

I have seen both balanced and unbalanced play with both systems.

OTOH, I am not claiming that Gygaxian "balance" is easy to create, merely that it is substatially different than that meant when discussing "balance" in 3e or 4e.

RC, if you are claiming that Gygaxian balance (as you call it) is an emergent property, then it wasn't designed. Emergent properties are inherently chaotic and cannot be predicted.

So, are you claiming that Gygax actually DIDN'T design for balance but rather more or less achieved balance accidentally?

 

[Ariosto]

The degree of success in different endeavors in the AD&D books varies. I don't think Gygax tried very hard really to produce the clear-cut tournament rules set he bruited, and in any case the weight of evidence suggests to me that technical writing simply was not his strong suit. The DMG especially seems clearly to have wanted more copy editing, and changes due to the evolving design were never harmonized in the earlier volumes.

Psionics factors in the MM are a mixed up mess (See Supp. III). The x.p. values in Appendix E look to have been "eyeballed" rather than calculated. It was probably not until a few years after publication that Gygax actually used the rules for grappling, pummeling and overbearing enough (at all?) to find them tiresome.

I think the HD boosts were an overdue response to the boosts in monster damage from Supplement I. Basic D&D is "hard ball" in that regard! The MU was left out of that (but already had a significant improvement over the original set, except at 1st level). So was the ranger and so, IIRC, was the monk.

Those changes, and others, were clearly based on balance concerns.

What levels should one expect PCs eventually to attain? I think that crept up with Supplement I, again with AD&D, and yet again with Unearthed Arcana. By 1985, I think Gygax may also have had in mind the way in which AD&D was actually getting played -- as opposed to how he had played it. That change in fundamental expectations as to what a "campaign" meant in terms of space, time, number of players, number of characters, and so on, marked the emergence of "a different game" much more truly IMO than had the publication of AD&D.

There are things in UA that seem to me out of whack anyway, but pretty clearly the goal posts were moving.

A case in point, at least to my mind, was a letter to The Dragon complaining that some things had been okay for the magazine -- but became "official", and thus mandatory, when put into the book. Not only that, but UA was apparently the last straw in an overweening imposition of "Gary's campaign" upon all AD&Ders.

That's a bit odd to me, but I see the seeds of the view on which the Wizards' edifice seems to have been built. Nor do I think it totally at odds with Gygax's own pontification of the time.

 

[MerricB]

What levels should one expect PCs eventually to attain? I think that crept up with Supplement I, again with AD&D, and yet again with Unearthed Arcana. By 1985, I think Gygax may also have had in mind the way in which AD&D was actually getting played -- as opposed to how he had played it. That change in fundamental expectations as to what a "campaign" meant in terms of space, time, number of players, number of characters, and so on, marked the emergence of "a different game" much more truly IMO than had the publication of AD&D.

Very true.

Cheers!

 

[Lanefan]

Power and utility of different classes, even by the RAW, is radically different at any given time point, and the aggregate of a typical campaign will vary tremendously with how much time you spend at certain character levels, accidents of loot distribution, or any number of other factors.

Again, not a huge problem over a long campaign; much more an issue in a short campaign or one-off where there isn't time for things to even themselves out (as random things often do).

One of the biggest fundamental differences between 0-1-2e and 3-4e is that the earlier ones at least seem to have been designed for long (i.e. multi-year) campaigns, where the more recent ones are intended to last one or two years, tops. And as you can tell by my DM-ing record (see sig.), I prefer the former.

The vast and terrifying variance in table-to-table experience is probably what pushed designers to a more "simulationist" or constrained set of rules when 3e rolled around. Canalizing the experience from table to table creates more shared experiences and controls partially for the vast and yawning gulfs of experience that separate DMs.

And why do I as either player or DM give a flying fig what happens at any table other than the one I am sitting at? I mean, Keep on the Borderlands was a shared experience for many of us even though every single one of us probably played it in a slightly different game system; so that argument doesn't fly. The DM argument does fly, but I see the inherent problem there as one of players being less patient, less willing to allow a new DM to screw up - and thus learn - than in days of old.

In fairness, the 3-4e era has had to contend with the information-sharing behemoth that is the internet, where everyone can far more easily find out what goes on at many a table.

As for modularity in 1e design; believe me, it's not hard at all to modify significant things about 1e rules and still not have to worry too much about knock-on effects. For example, abandoning weapon speed and changing the initiative system in 1e to a straight d6, re-rolled individually each round: does that really affect anything else?

Then, ask yourself what happens if you do the same thing in 3e. Or 4e.

Overall, it speaks to a difference in base philosophy. In 0-1e days, and to some extent in 2e, the philosophy seemed to be one of "Here's the framework, but if it doesn't work for you then go ahead and design your own game around it."; where in 3-4e days it has become "Leave the designing to us. You just play it."

Lanefan

 

[Raven Crowking]

RC, if you are claiming that Gygaxian balance (as you call it) is an emergent property, then it wasn't designed. Emergent properties are inherently chaotic and cannot be predicted.

So, are you claiming that Gygax actually DIDN'T design for balance but rather more or less achieved balance accidentally?

No.

But I will happily claim that you know far less about emergence than you think you do.

@ Ariosto:

Any definition of "balance" which does not claim to be a definition of "good balance" will perforce apply to "bad balance" as well. Therefore, as with Scribble, we may agree to disagree.


RC

 

[MerricB]

Again, not a huge problem over a long campaign; much more an issue in a short campaign or one-off where there isn't time for things to even themselves out (as random things often do).

One of the biggest fundamental differences between 0-1-2e and 3-4e is that the earlier ones at least seem to have been designed for long (i.e. multi-year) campaigns, where the more recent ones are intended to last one or two years, tops. And as you can tell by my DM-ing record (see sig.), I prefer the former.

Given the sweet spot for 1e, the good campaigns would last 1-1.5 years anyway before a fair number of character types were no longer great.

Cheers!

 

[Raven Crowking]

Recall also the Gygaxian expectation of "10 levels = 5 year's play".


RC