Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

[Fifth Element]

But that doesn't actually change my point or improve the analogy in any way. And I'm guessing you're still not getting it, right?

You still seem to be missing my point. In my example, the first draw affects the results of subsequent draws. So it's not balanced. The player who wins the first draw gains an unbalancing advantage in subsequent draws.

 

[howandwhy99]

AD&D is not a combat simulation game. It is a roleplaying game. If you attempt to make it a simulation game, then you get 4e DDM. The 4e RPG is a small storygame RPG. It is a different category of game than AD&D, one which uses a different definition of roleplaying. Within the 4e storygame rules is a siloed off card-based, miniatures combat game. This is most of the rules. These are rightly balanced as a simulation game, but it is not a roleplaying game. It is a poor combat game as it is neither a competitive game nor a cooperation game, but a game of enforced cooperation. If you steal from or kill your fellow PCs, there is no penalty or reward. I can choose to play as badly as I wish in this simulation game and I will still be rewarded if everyone else plays well. This is bad cooperation game design. All my comments were in regards to the cooperation aspect of the game, about how cooperation is meaningless within it because there is no choice but to cooperate. It is a rule telling me how I must play a simulation game meant for competition rather than one letting me follow the rules and end up winning or losing based upon the strategies I use. The "Lord of the Rings" boardgame should be a primer for RPG designers as almost every storygame is now designed as enforced "cooperation" games. How on earth can you tell if a person is following the rule "cooperate"?? It is a bad rule and only bad games include it.

That's so not true.

4E certainly reduces the variance in how much you can affect the situation: in combat, everyone is always useful. (Out of combat, it varies more). However, they are useful in different ways, and there are times when you really need one person's abilities more than another.

Honestly, out of combat it varies virtually not at all. If a DM uses rules so every PC has the same number of skill points, then there is virtually no variation in the game at all. It becomes the skill challenge game of guess a option from the list and hope it's a low DC for your roll. Guess which ones I will always guess first? The ones I have the highest number and I'll work down from there. Any other strategy is a poorer one. If I can use the same skill more than once, guess what? I will now explode to the maximum one skill and always use it whenever a skill check or Skill Challenge occurs.

Moreover, far worse the game gives a choice to the DM enabling him or her to penalize or benefit individual players as they see fit. This is a +2 or -2 whenever they want on whomever the want. I don't like Bob, so he gets a -2 on every roll. My girlfriend? She gets a +2 on every roll. There is no rule against this, simply advice that a DM should not play the p.42 game according to their own desires. Personally, that's horrible game design. It is sheer player fiat built in for one player to give other players a bad day. Games requiring players to not play within the full scope of the rules, but rather asks them to always play a certain strategy otherwise the game will not be "fun" are bad games. Page 42 removes impartiallity from the DM role and is built in discrimination.

In AD&D, you would have combats where the magic-user or cleric could basically end it all with one spell. (Sleep being the classic low-level option). Against that, you'd have combats where the magic-user would be very limited in usefulness (no spells, or spells that just weren't worth casting).

Thank god AD&D does not expect anyone but the fighter classes to excel in combat. It means they actually included more game for those who don't care for combat. If you don't want fighters in your game you can drop the combat system from AD&D and still play. I mean, no class is designed to excel at combat in AD&D other than the fighter classes. They are the only reason this system is in there. This is a good thing. Otherwise other classes can make another class irrelevant. A roleplaying game with multiple classes needs niche protection. In 4e, all characters are fighters. And all characters may be wizards too, if they have the spellcasting feat. Clerics have been removed from the game completely.

In 4E, a character is very unlikely to be using "I win" effects or be in a "I suck" position. However, depending on the situation, certain characters are more effective than others. When you're being attacked by swarms of minions, the ability of the wizard to cast Scorching Burst and kill many each turn is far superior than that of the rogue whose extra damage against one target is wasted. Then, against the solo or elite creatures, the rogue comes into his own.

Out of combat, things are less clear. I think it is safe to say that the 4e skill system allows each character to have clear areas of competence, and areas where they're not particularly useful. Thus, if there is a challenge that requires an athletics check, then some characters will be able to do it easily and others won't. Rituals also change the parameters, but do all characters have access to all rituals? Of course they don't!

So, the assertion that every character can contribute equally to out-of-combat challenges is also false.

The skill challenge system (which is not used for every out-of-combat challenge) is intended to allow a wider variety of characters to participate, but it would be still false to say that every character can participate equally. There are times when your character just doesn't have any applicable skill; there are times when you can blitz it with your particular skill set.

With regard to player challenges as opposed to character challenges, there even is a section in the Dungeon Master's Guide about them (more than in previous DMGs). Yes, it also offers advice as to making them character challenges, but this is not mandatory: it really does depend on your group.

Almost everything you say here is about simulation games, not RPGs. In regards to character versus player challanges, all games are player challenges. Characters can not be challenged. They do not exist. If something in a game occurs without human intervention, then it is not part of the game. It is simply art on the gameboard. Players don't play Agricola because they like farming. Farming is just color. In a roleplaying game where one can play the role of farmer, then farming is the entire scope of the game for players in that role.

This is a false statement. Your ability to affect the game world is directly controlled by the DM. As far as having one character for an entire campaign, that to is not unwavering. I allow an encourage a character stable. How you create your character and how you use your resources during the campaign will also affect the your characters abilities. This is true of all RPGs

Garmon, it sounds like you have a DM who is cheating. A DM has no choices at the game table. If they did, then they would be neither impartial nor a referee. For running more than one PC at the same time, that is certainly okay, but it is not the norm. It is like making "Lord of the Rings" a one-player, single perspective game. It is possible, but then cooperation between those characters is irrelevant because it is all just one person. It stops being a cooperation game as a person cannot choose to cooperate with his or her self. Cooperation games require multiple players and in an RPG the referee doesn't count. They never cooperate.

The point in the text of mine you quoted is that individual choices are not rewarded as all rewards are received collectively no matter how any one individual plays. That is the context of the last sentence and refers to how cooperation can be made meaningless as in many current RPGs. See the first paragraph of this post for more info.

 

[Garthanos]

That's your personal issue. It has very little or nothing to do with AD&D.

It is indeed a personal issue (though the bit about not coming up with a character background was echoing somebody else who once named there characters Mikel and Mikel the second, so it was kind of evil of me to mention),

But actually the low investment and fragility resulting in casual disconnect with the characters is directly fuelled by human nature. And directly relates to this discussion, since running through a bunch of characters has been given as one of the sources of balancing in AD&D.

It resulted in quotable quotes like this one
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ld-times-hardships-obstacles.html#post3631222

And this one.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ld-times-hardships-obstacles.html#post3631829

NOTE: In spite of what the above sounds like, I think AD&D was already trending away from this balance on the backs of piles of steaming pc corpses ... see the starts of that trend of changes in D&D by comparing OD&D to AD&D ...

• Are there more choices during character creation (far more classes, and classes and races now being separate) ?
• Are the characters immediately dead at zero hit points? or is there a buffer where they sink down to -10 (or was that added in AD&D2)
• Are the characters created using straight 3d6 and you get what you get? or are you already starting to get choices like where to put that lucky 17 (which now has some actual impact compared to OD&D) .

Did Gygax think of high character attrition one of the tools his game employed to achieve balance?

There is more reason to invest in characters in AD&D than there was in earlier D&D. Yes still fragile but less so than before...still easy to create a character but more choices/options already introduced.

 

[howandwhy99]

Did Gygax think of high character attrition one of the tools his game employed to achieve balance?

In a way. I believe he correctly saw the need for the challenges coming from the referee needing to be more difficult than those coming from other players. A cautious group of 1st level players can have their PCs survive if they work together. Players creating conflict within the player group are simply hurting their own chances for advancement and other forms of success. To be a cooperative game this unevenness is required to tip the balance in favor of cooperative strategies rather than competitive ones.

 

[Lanefan]

You still seem to be missing my point. In my example, the first draw affects the results of subsequent draws. So it's not balanced. The player who wins the first draw gains an unbalancing advantage in subsequent draws.

OK, let's define things a bit differently here.

Your initial draw of a hand (well, one card in this case) obviously affects how you play that hand. But it does not affect your next *draw*; which in this analogy 1e assumes you will have. Repeatedly.

Another thing to keep in mind from a 1e perspective is that there were ways to somewhat mitigate a bad "draw" - they were called henches, hirelings, followers - or second characters where the DM allowed such.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Garmon, it sounds like you have a DM who is cheating. A DM has no choices at the game table. If they did, then they would be neither impartial nor a referee. For running more than one PC at the same time, that is certainly okay, but it is not the norm.

Speak for yourself...

Cooperation games require multiple players and in an RPG the referee doesn't count. They never cooperate.

Er...wha...? Not everything the party (or single character) meets is automatically an opponent, and it's also perfectly sound strategy to go and recruit an NPC to fill a hole in the party's composition:

"OK, you're a magic user and I'm a locks-and-infiltration specialist...crap, we need some muscle! And some healing! Let's ask around town and see if anyone like that wants to join us on our quest." Which means the DM can (and in this case probably should) lob at least one NPC into the party to cover one or both of those bases...and from that point on, the DM has a reason to co-operate (or not) within the party.

NOTE: In spite of what the above sounds like, I think AD&D was already trending away from this balance on the backs of piles of steaming pc corpses ... see the starts of that trend of changes in D&D by comparing OD&D to AD&D ...

***Are there more choices during character creation (far more classes, and classes and races now being separate) ?

***Are the characters immediately dead at zero hit points? or is there a buffer where they sink down to -10 (or was that added in AD&D2)

***Are the characters created using straight 3d6 and you get what you get? or are you already starting to get choices like where to put that lucky 17 (which now has some actual impact compared to OD&D) .

All true. Death at -10 was, I think, originally optional in 1e but very quickly became the norm; there were all kinds of houserule options for what happened if you were between 0 and -9. And the 1e PH had something like 6 different methods for rolling stats, including 4d6-drop-lowest 6 times then rearrange to suit.

However, all this does nearly nothing to slow the death rate!

Lan-"there's always more room in the body bag of holding"-efan

 

[Beginning of the End]

Look, I could extend the simple analogy thusly: Instead of the winner being determined by the first draw, the game proceeds for 10 draws and whoever wins the most draws wins the game. While it is true that winning the first draw will make it more likely that you will win the game after that point (since you now have to win 5-out-of-9 while your opponent needs to win 6-out-of-9), this doesn't actually change the fact that the game is 100% perfectly balanced.

But that doesn't actually change my point or improve the analogy in any way. And I'm guessing you're still not getting it, right?

You still seem to be missing my point. In my example, the first draw affects the results of subsequent draws. So it's not balanced. The player who wins the first draw gains an unbalancing advantage in subsequent draws.

You are joking, right? I mean, you must be.

Or maybe not. Perhaps you'd care to cite the rule in which the ability scores for your previous character has an effect on the ability scores for your next character.

It is indeed a personal issue (though the bit about not coming up with a character background was echoing somebody else who once named there characters Mikel and Mikel the second, so it was kind of evil of me to mention),

Reminds me of Herbert the Second in an OD&D game I was playing in last year. Rapid character death, followed by the predictable "Son of Herbert" replacement character.

The catch? Herbert was a dwarf. Herbert the Second was a human... who had been adopted by dwarves... and now thought he was a dwarf.

Much hilarity and some great roleplaying ensued.

Character mortality can be an opportunity or a liability. Depends on the context.

Looking beyond this to the wider issue: High PC mortality rates isn't the only way for players to have multiple PCs in the same campaign. Gygax's and Arneson's players frequently had multiple PCs in the same campaign at the same time.

 

[Garmorn]

Garmon, it sounds like you have a DM who is cheating. A DM has no choices at the game table. If they did, then they would be neither impartial nor a referee.

What? A DM created the world. He could easily run a killer campaign and or he could run a milk run campaign. The DM determined the pace of advancement by placement of treasure, how the world reacted to the party and the amount of magic in the campaign. He could control the players gaming style by punishing or rewarding behaviour that he disliked/liked. He chose and made the house rules on everything.

AD&D is not a combat simulation game. It is a roleplaying game. If you attempt to make it a simulation game, then you get 4e DDM. The 4e RPG is a small storygame RPG. It is a different category of game than AD&D, one which uses a different definition of roleplaying

AD&D was not a roleplay game as orginaly designed. It was just a different type of game. Gygax and crew did not design it as a roleplaying game. They were just making up a new type as they went. AD&D shows lots of the traits of a table top war game. Balance by armies (mulitple characters over the lenght of the campaign) not individuals. It had less support for out of combat activities the any RPG since. Gygax him self spoke up against large number of character deaths, so that was not an intentional part of the balance. Sure some character death and changing was. He even recommened that you rolled until you got stats that allowed the character you wanted.

 

[Fifth Element]

You are joking, right? I mean, you must be.

Or maybe not. Perhaps you'd care to cite the rule in which the ability scores for your previous character has an effect on the ability scores for your next character.

Read my previous posts. That's not what I'm suggesting.

It's not the ability score rolls for subsequent characters that are affected, it's subsequent rolls made by that character that are affected. A fighter who rolled an 18/00 Strength has a very significant advantage over a fighter who rolled a 16 Strength. Attack rolls, hit point rolls, anything that's affected by a character's ability scores is affected by that first draw of the cards.

I understand that you're arguing that over the course of many characters, it's balanced. But if you roll a character with several high ability scores, you're less likely to need to roll new characters, since that character's surivivability is affected by its ability scores.

 

[Fifth Element]

A DM has no choices at the game table. If they did, then they would be neither impartial nor a referee.

You are joking, right? I mean, you must be.

A DM is not a computer who takes inputs from the players and outputs appropriate responses from the NPCs. A DM makes choices at the table all the time. He has to. Players constantly come up with ideas that the DM did not anticipate, and he has to react to those. Impartiality may be a desirable quality, but to suggest that there's one right way to DM is ridiculous.