Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

[evileeyore]

I could have a hardbound volume gathering dust beside countless others on retailers' shelves next week, if I had the money to burn.

Please look up the argument to which this was specifically a counter-argument, rather than take it out of context.

There is a difference between a supplement and a house rule.

One is mass marketed and is often used in games beyond your table, the second resides pretty much soley at your table.

 

[Gimby]

No surprise there, as a "campaign of a certain level" was just nonsense in the original context. But wherefore this assumption that it's a one-way street?

How well does 4e fare in that very same context? Not so well, aver the designers in the DMG.

Different designs for different balances for different goals for different games.

Quite. The point was made in response to RC, that somehow the design assumptions that go into 1e make it free of limitations in a way that say, 4e is limited.

You demonstrate quite clearly that this is not the case - both games have limitations for balance which require running the game in accordance with those limitations if you want those balancing factors to apply.

 

[Bullgrit]

There are some people here who have drastically different opinions than I do, but I can at least understand their point of view. I can have an informative (and even fun) conversation with them even if we come to different conclusions on the evidence.

But Raven Crowking . . . his apparent reality is so completely different than my reality that I can't even understand his point of view. What he puts forth as evidence for drawing conclusions is often completely nonsensical to me. For instance:

The designers of 1e chose to go with fewer limitations, and less inherent “balance”;

This is completely opposite of everything I know about AD&D1. AD&D1 was rife with limitations -- specifically to construct more inherent balance. That he states the opposite confounds any attempt by me to understand him. It's like listening to a discussion of global geography where one person insists that the world is flat.

Bullgrit

 

[Raven Crowking]

Quite. The point was made in response to RC, that somehow the design assumptions that go into 1e make it free of limitations in a way that say, 4e is limited.

But Raven Crowking . . . his apparent reality is so completely different than my reality that I can't even understand his point of view.

Probably because you are taking the quote out of context, as is Gimby. Or perhaps the idea is simply harder to understand than I think it is. Maybe I am not explaining myself well.

When designing a role-playing game, one chooses how much balance is inherent in the rules, and how much balance has to be created at the table. Balance inherent in the rules occurs through a process of eliminating emerging properties that might otherwise damage that balance. Whatever emergent properties you believe the GM can handle can remain in the design. This is true no matter what the game system, and whether or not the designer(s) thought about it in these terms. It must be true. There is no other way to create game balance than by controlling emergent properties that would threaten that balance.

This is simple to demonstrate. A game like checkers has the same pieces, and the same rules, for both players. If each player were allowed to choose three “balanced” house rules that their pieces could follow from a pool of nine, the interaction between those extra rules would create synergies that would allow some combinations of three to be better than others. Farther up the scale, one deck in Magic the Gathering may be far better than another.

Once each player is using different game pieces (i.e., all characters and classes are not the same), emergent properties arise that threaten balance. Controlling those properties is done, because it must be done, by making those characters all more similar to each other. Flattening the curve between them.

Many of the limitations in 1e – racial level limits, for example – exist explicitly to generate a specific type of game rather than to simply balance the game. What AD&D 1e specifically allows is the creation of a number of different character types which, perforce, have different ways of handling the challenges of the game milieu. Not different “fluff”; entirely different methodologies. These limitations do not flatten the curve between characters – quite the opposite. And they can be (again, explicitly) dismissed with by any given GM without the entire system falling apart. The GM is merely advised to try to understand the system first, so that it can be rebalanced to taste.

The argument, for example, that the 1e thief is unbalanced hinges upon the idea that the thief ought to be able to do X because some other class can do Y. However, the value of both X and Y are based upon specific approaches to the game....and not those at which the thief shines. The thief, like the magic-user, should not be seeking out combat. The thief player should be one who enjoys using her brain as much as the dice, because, at the end of the day, it is her brain that is going to tell her to still distrust Door A if her Find/Remove Traps roll turns up nothing.

The play experience at 8th level is different than at 1st is not evidence that the above is incorrect. It shows, again, that the PCs are allowed to be different, and that the design has not constrained these choices for balance.

Conversely, 1e does not allow dragonborn as a choice. I am only talking about a particular type of choice.

 

[Gimby]

The play experience at 8th level is different than at 1st is not evidence that the above is incorrect. It shows, again, that the PCs are allowed to be different, and that the design has not constrained these choices for balance.

Ok, I think I'm understanding where you are coming from here.

What seem to be saying is that a desire for balance as part of the rules structure limits the design elements that can be part of that rules design, correct?

So balance being important at the design stage means that the game faces more limitations at that point than a game where balance isn't important.

The point I was (trying to, poorly apparently) make above is that while that is true, and is as you say tautological, when we move to the play stage of the game, the balance that's encoded into the rules allows for more freedom as to how the DM actually want to frame and run his game. The DM doesn't have to rebalance the game based on his group but can run the game out of the box.

So essentially:

Balance not important at design stage: Freedom of mechanics and systems
Balance important at design stage: Freedom of setting and framing

Would you agree?

Personally, the second is more important to me as I'm more interested in results than processes. If you killed that goblin with astral fire I don't particularly care if it was a Vancian spell, a Sorceror spellslot, a Warlock SLA or whatever. All I'm concerned about is describing his roasting corpse. I do care if your astral fire is winning all the fights by itself though.

edit - As a side point, a balanced game doesn't break down if you deliberate unbalance it. It just goes from a balanced game to an unbalanced one, much as how an unbalanced on would go to a worse balanced for the same changes.

If you put a 5th level character in a 1st level group then you will face issues of him being more powerful in any edition. If you put a 20th level character in a first level group you will face the same issues, just exaggerated and again, the same in any edition.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Indeed. Because starting characters above first level is something that never comes up ever and is a wild, crazy idea.

New players never join experienced parties, after all. Characters never die and are replaced. Players never get bored of characters and want new ones. No, thats all crazy talk.

edit- If your point is that new players/characters should start at 1st level, then thats fine. Its just that that represents a limitation enforced by balancing at the scale of the entire campaign.

All of these situations are possible. Characters die, characters leave the campaign, new players join, etc.

Starting at 1st level is just a guideline. If an experienced player would like to join the game using a higher level character the DM is free to permit it.

The older D&D rulesets were much more flexible and friendly with regard to characters of varying levels adventuring side by side. The rules didn't need to assume that the party would all be the same level together.

The assumption of ever scaling defenses and gratuitous numbers bloat that results in lower level party members being unable to contribute or even survive is more limiting IMHO than the older systems.

In a 1E game if my 7th level character dies, I can rejoin the game at any point between 1st and 7th without the party falling apart. Try having a 1st level party member along on a 7th level 4E adventure and see how it goes.

 

[Raven Crowking]

What seem to be saying is that a desire for balance as part of the rules structure limits the design elements that can be part of that rules design, correct?

Close enough for government work.

So essentially:

Balance not important at design stage: Freedom of mechanics and systems
Balance important at design stage: Freedom of setting and framing

Would you agree?

No.

That would require that setting and framing are enhanced by restricting the mechanics and systems available, which I would argue is self-evidently not true. Or, at least, not if one has an expectation for the setting and frame to matter.

Otherwise, "flip a coin" would be the last wod in setting and frame.

edit - As a side point, a balanced game doesn't break down if you deliberate unbalance it. It just goes from a balanced game to an unbalanced one, much as how an unbalanced on would go to a worse balanced for the same changes.

If the feature that sells the game is its balance, unbalancing the game breaks down its selling feature. But otherwise, I would agree. Indeed, for certain types of play (sandbox), I have recommended that DMs break 4e's carefully structured balance systems.

Breaking and rebuiding the 4e balance is, IMHO, the only way to make the game satisfying for certain types of setting and frame.



RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

IMHO, the biggest problem 3e has is that, while the designers flattened the curve between classes, they increased the curve between levels. That steep curve between levels is at the root of all 3e's problems (IMHO). I find that Pathfinder increases this curve, which came as a disappointment to me.


RC

 

[Gimby]

No.

That would require that setting and framing are enhanced by restricting the mechanics and systems available, which I would argue is self-evidently not true. Or, at least, not if one has an expectation for the setting and frame to matter.

Otherwise, "flip a coin" would be the last wod in setting and frame.

Familiar with Wushu? Does a good impression of flip a coin and you are pretty much free to set and frame as you choose.

The point with restricting the mechanics and systems available is that it allows you to better predict what the capabilities of a given group of characters given a small number of metrics (just level and role spread in 4e, for example).

The examples I gave in my earlier post are based on this - with a game balanced at the play stage then you can present them with any mix of challenges, start at any level, finish at any level, have any mix of archetypes and so on. You don't have to worry so much about whether or not critical players are missing this session, or ensuring that appropriate challenges are in place for players of certain classes. You can trust the game will handle all that on its own and focus on other aspects of the session (dungeon layout design, NPC characterisation, that kind of thing). Thats the freedom I'm talking about.

 

[Raven Crowking]

with a game balanced at the play stage then you can present them with any mix of challenges, start at any level, finish at any level, have any mix of archetypes and so on. You don't have to worry so much about whether or not critical players are missing this session, or ensuring that appropriate challenges are in place for players of certain classes. You can trust the game will handle all that on its own and focus on other aspects of the session (dungeon layout design, NPC characterisation, that kind of thing). Thats the freedom I'm talking about.

Agreed.

But what happens when a game is balanced at the design stage?


RC