Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

[Raven Crowking]

In recent months, I have been frustrated as a player by the "encounter balance" routine.

The obvious corollary to making a "too hard" fight easier is what?

Why, making arbitrarily harder one that has turned out to be "too easy"!

As a game player, I prefer to have my strategies actually make decisive differences.

If I discovered a GM doing that, it would be a deal-breaker for me. I don't want hard encounters made easier, or easy encounters made harder. If the GM made a mistake and misjudged the difficulty of an encounter, well, chalk that up to a learning experience.....but let it stand!


RC

 

[Bullgrit]

Candyland is a game with absolutely no challenge. No player decision, other than playing in the first place, matters a whit to how the game is resolved. It's pure chance.

Although my acquaintance with the game is fleeting, IIRC that is not precisely true -- as it would be in the case of, e.g., Snakes (or Chutes) and Ladders.

Having young children, I can affirm that Candyland has absolutely no challenge, and no player decision-making, just like with Chutes and Ladders. That's why a 2 year old can "play" and "win" the game "against" adults.

Bullgrit

 

[ExploderWizard]

In recent months, I have been frustrated as a player by the "encounter balance" routine.

The obvious corollary to making a "too hard" fight easier is what?

Why, making arbitrarily harder one that has turned out to be "too easy"!

As a game player, I prefer to have my strategies actually make decisive differences.

My problem with encounter balance is similar. A game is played by people. A game structured as part of well balanced mechanical breakfast seeks to challenge collisions between sets of statistics rather than the person playing the game. My character sheet is an object. The numbers written there have no need or care to be challenged.

Connected with this is the terrible evil known as DM fiat. To those who would question why they should put any trust of success into the DM's hands I say this: As a player do you think your ideas and plans should have any influence on the outcome of your action?

If the answer is yes then rulings/ DM fiat is your friend. Anyone who has ever played in a game and succeeded due to a well executed plan when the numbers said you should have crashed and burned knows this.

So it comes down to degrees of mechanics vs. rulings. The heavier the mechanics and statistics get the less relevant the people on either side of them are.

So a balanced rules-heavy system supposedly allows inexperienced DMs to run smooth games, at least thats what I keep hearing. A smooth running game does not always equal a rewarding or satisfying game.

 

[Gentlegamer]

If the answer is yes then rulings/ DM fiat is your friend. Anyone who has ever played in a game and succeeded due to a well executed plan when the numbers said you should have crashed and burned knows this.

"I love it when a plan comes together!"

 

[Ariosto]

Thanks for the clarification. Yeah, I think I got Candy Land confused with another game involving cards. Or maybe there was a "house rule" version of CL. Mostly just an unreliable memory, though!

 

[Ariosto]

AD&D did not stand out to me as notably "unbalanced"; if anything, it was notable for giving more attention to weighting factors certain ways.

Compare it for instance with RuneQuest. What replaces classes and levels is a really wide open system with essentially no guarantees. I recall that being a pretty common model, before Champions put the points system (as seen in The Fantasy Trip) into a context even more rigorously mechanistic than D&D's.

Then there were the SF games -- Traveller, Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World -- in which initial conditions (with big element of chance) largely determined differences likely to last throughout characters' careers. Players might overshadow those numerical factors with attainments in play not dictated by them, but that seems only to make matters "worse" from a more "modern" perspective.

 

[Gimby]

My problem with encounter balance is similar. A game is played by people. A game structured as part of well balanced mechanical breakfast seeks to challenge collisions between sets of statistics rather than the person playing the game. My character sheet is an object. The numbers written there have no need or care to be challenged.

True, but those numbers are generated and manipulated by a person. Plus in some cases it's more appropriate to challenge the entity created and defined by those numbers, depending on how much you want the play to be about the players-as-characters rather than the players-as-themselves.

Theres also an irony in that this can be read as "I don't like balanced encounters as the game isn't *enough* of a tactical wargame".

Connected with this is the terrible evil known as DM fiat. To those who would question why they should put any trust of success into the DM's hands I say this: As a player do you think your ideas and plans should have any influence on the outcome of your action?

DM fiat is, in my experience, a tool. It can be used well or badly. If I have crunched the numbers and set up my abilites such to execute a plan well and it is fiat-failed, then this is probably a bad use of it. If I am setting a situation up to deliberately fail (maybe its a appropriate to my characterisation) and it fiat-succeds, this is also a probably a bad use of it.

You have to trust your DM, and part of that is trusting them to rule consistently. Otherwise you risk playing Mother-May-I.

If the answer is yes then rulings/ DM fiat is your friend. Anyone who has ever played in a game and succeeded due to a well executed plan when the numbers said you should have crashed and burned knows this.

Honestly, I don't agree. If, in fiction, a plan has a one-in-a-million chance of succeeding, then it will always work. In the game, if the players make a plan with a one-in-a-million chance of succeeding, then surely they should either a) ride those odds, its their plan after all and to do otherwise is to negate thier choices and actions or b) come up with a plan with a better chance of success.

So it comes down to degrees of mechanics vs. rulings. The heavier the mechanics and statistics get the less relevant the people on either side of them are.

So a balanced rules-heavy system supposedly allows inexperienced DMs to run smooth games, at least thats what I keep hearing. A smooth running game does not always equal a rewarding or satisfying game.

No, it doesn't. But a game that does not run smoothly does not always equal a rewarding or satisfying game either.

As an analogy, lets take motorbikes.

My father owns two. One is a Norton Commando. Its a classic British bike and the ride and engine tone are incredible. You can fiddle with the engine to your heart's content and so on.

The other is a Kawasaki, and compared to the Commando its a souless hunk of metal. Engine is all black boxes and it sounds awful.

However, if you go out touring, the Norton is much more likely to break down, less fuel efficient and doesn't handle as well. You need to be sure you are carrying spares and the kick start, while fun, stands a good chance of skinning your shins. The Kawasaki on the other hand, is a much less stressful ride - it just works so you can spend your time enjoying the scenery and relaxing into the ride.

So, which is more satisfying/fufilling? Matter of taste. If you are interested in the visceral experience of the ride, the Norton, hands down, no contest. If you are more interested in the journey and destination, then probably the Kawasaki. If you were starting out in bikes, then the Kawasaki is probably a better choice for you too as it's vastly less work.

Essentially, thats why I prefer a balanced/smooth running game - I'm more interested in the journey than the mechanics. If I can trust the game to run with minimal input from me, then I can spend more time worrying about worldbuilding or whatever.

 

[Ariosto]

Honestly, I don't agree. If, in fiction, a plan has a one-in-a-million chance of succeeding, then it will always work. In the game, if the players make a plan with a one-in-a-million chance of succeeding, then surely they should either a) ride those odds, its their plan after all and to do otherwise is to negate thier choices and actions or b) come up with a plan with a better chance of success.

I am afraid I really cannot follow this.

With what are you disagreeing?

What does (a) mean, at all? Can you put it in different words? Are there some predicate assumptions not stipulated here?

Whatever that meaning is, how does it coexist with (b)?

How do (a) and (b) relate to the preliminary statement regarding fiction?

 

[Gimby]

I am afraid I really cannot follow this.

With what are you disagreeing?

What does (a) mean, at all? Can you put it in different words? Are there some predicate assumptions not stipulated here?

Whatever that meaning is, how does it coexist with (b)?

How do (a) and (b) relate to the preliminary statement regarding fiction?

The idea that DM fiat is good for players because it allows unlikely (but cool) plans to work.

The fiction comment comes from that Discworld quote - "Million to one chances pop up nine times out of ten". The heros come up with an impropable, desperate plan and it works, not due to the inherent probabilities but due to narrative neccesity.

But in a game with dice rolls, if the players have a plan that has an inherent low probability of success, it is not likely to succeed (by definition). If you, out of a desire to let this plan succeed because it is cool, give fiat success to it then you have essentially negated their strategic decisions - as you say here:

As a game player, I prefer to have my strategies actually make decisive differences.

As this surely applies to both good (high probability of success) and to bad (low probability of success) strategies.

If your plan is actually good, then you *haven't* beaten the overwhelming odds. You have adjusted the odds until they are in your favour and then beaten those new, favourable odds. This should require no fiat-success.

 

[Garthanos]

So the non-charismatic player doesn't get to experience the power of being charismatic .... even if his character is conceived a charismatic because the game doesn't include mechanics for it... he has to rely on DM fiat to give him it ... because the game designers didnt consider that to be a valid goal (he is supposed to be here to kill monsters and take there stuff thats what all the challenge and rewards are defined in terms of if not he must be an "inferior player" who doesnt want to be challenged).