Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

[Garmorn]

I think Gygax aimed for balance in 1e but did not know what made a balanced RPG. The only information he had was how wargames where balanced and his on games. There was not enough feed back, or customer base to do the very costly market research on.

As a result he went what looked like a good approach. Balance the classes over what seems to be the average levels of a campaign. The first version came out in 74. It was less then 3 years that afterwards that AD&D came out. He would have been writing, editing and printing the first book for about a year. (Based on the normal time require to currently put a book in print today.) How many campaigns did he play to completion in 2 years?

That he came close is great. But the approach was wrong for a large number of gamers.

 

[howandwhy99]

Sadly, I think one of the features now called balance is an equal ability to affect the game at any given time. This will never happen in AD&D, except perhaps by a million to 1 fluke. This is how 4E is "balanced" though, a sort of imposed equalitarianism upon any who play the game. Nothing you do will improve your ability to affect a situation, so levels, items, knowledge, and almost everything else largely become meaningless.

 

[Garmorn]

Sadly, I think one of the features now called balance is an equal ability to affect the game at any given time. This will never happen in AD&D, except perhaps by a million to 1 fluke. This is how 4E is "balanced" though, a sort of imposed egalitarianism upon any who play the game. Nothing you do will improve your ability to affect a situation, so levels, items, knowledge, and almost everything else largely become meaningless.

Can I just say huh? How is having unequal chance to affect things good for the game? Are you saying that one player should have the right to more of the spotlight then all of the rest of the player?

Please clarify what you are saying.

 

[howandwhy99]

Can I just say huh? How is having unequal chance to affect things good for the game? Are you saying that one player should have the right to more of the spotlight then all of the rest of the player?

Please clarify what you are saying.

?? Okay, so very basic. Every player has a Turn. These can be taken individually or collectively by the players. (here's your equal spotlight time) But pretty clearly not every player can affect every single situation to the exact same degree. The game doesn't even begin that way, but starting PCs are relatively equal. Once play has started everything gained is gained individually. Therefore it actually matters what you as a single player choose to do. The group's decisions don't invalidate your own by rewarding or penalizing one's own decisions simply because they are with smarter or dumber people.

 

[Garmorn]

?? Okay, so very basic. Every player has a Turn. These can be taken individually or collectively by the players. (here's your equal spotlight time) But pretty clearly not every player can affect every single situation to the exact same degree. The game doesn't even begin that way, but starting PCs are relatively equal. Once play has started everything gained is gained individually. Therefore it actually matters what you as a single player choose to do. The group's decisions don't invalidate your own by rewarding or penalizing one's own decisions simply because they are with smarter or dumber people.

Ok, we are miss communicating. (Common for me when talking to a person in a younger generation like Diablo or RC).

Let me see if I have figured this out. You are saying that every character starts out even and there is no chance for the player that plays smart to gain or improve past the players that don't play smart?

 

[howandwhy99]

Ok, we are miss communicating. (Common for me when talking to a person in a younger generation like Diablo or RC).

Let me see if I have figured this out. You are saying that every character starts out even and there is no chance for the player that plays smart to gain or improve past the players that don't play smart?

I don't care for computer games myself, but I do sometimes go back and play ones from my youth. Many are free now on the internet anyways.

Every player starts out with the same chances to affect the game similarly. Then they roll the dice and receive a nice distribution for ability scores and money. They also get to make a few choices that determine further abilities for them in the game, like race, buying equipment, height, weight, etc. Most importantly they choose a class. This is the role they will be playing and defines the entire scope of the game for them. So even though there is some chance for equality at start, no enforced equalitarianism occurs at the beginning of a game either. This is good. Variety is the spice of life. If a player makes another level 1 character later in the same game, then there will be even less equality amongst characters campaigning together.

So, in AD&D playing intelligently rewards individuals with greater ability to affect the gameworld. This is a good thing IMO. If it doesn't matter what you choose to do because you will always receive the same reward regardless, or worse, no rewards or penalties are every received, then the game is making choices meaningless.

 

[howandwhy99]

I should point out that AD&D is a cooperative game, meaning it rewards players for working together. It does not reward players collectively however. Characters do not share an XP party total, but rather have individual totals. If it did this, then I could choose to play poorly and still be rewarded for it because of other players' actions.

One important element to note in cooperative games is their rewarding of cooperation by enabling interdependency, not enforced dependency. Players must have the choice to work separately as well as together if cooperation is to ever be a rewarded behavior by the game.

An non-RPG example of this can be found in Reiner Knizia's boardgame "Lord of the Rings". Players are not required to work together. However, if they don't, their chances of winning the game are vastly reduced. Resources, cards in that game, are received individually. Player explicitly can not swap cards. This forces them to take individual actions rather than working as a group playing the game from a single perspective. It is not a 1 player game.

What the rules don't say is whether or not you can show your cards to other players. Believe me, it's much easier if you do. This is similar to D&D in that Player Record Sheets are the province of each individual players, but by sharing information and resources they improve their chances for success.

In D&D pretty much every single resource and ability can be swapped with another player, though depending upon the resource involved this is more or less easy to do. Swapping years of life? Very difficult and not possible at all, if you've not found a means to do so. Swapping weapons? Yeah, pretty easy. This is good. If success for everyone is most greatly rewarded by piling on everyone's resources to one PC in a given situation, then that should be possible. A game that does not change PC ability because of enforced character abilities regardless of actions in the game makes these choices meaningless.

 

[MerricB]

What the rules don't say is whether or not you can show your cards to other players.

They do, actually: you can't show your cards to the other players. You may, however, talk about what you have in hand as much you want.

Cheers!

 

[howandwhy99]

They do, actually: you can't show your cards to the other players. You may, however, talk about what you have in hand as much you want.

Cheers!

Dang it. I forgot that. But yeah, essentially the same ability is offered the players, but you never know whether or not your fellow players are lying. I like that. It rewards trust, another component to cooperation games.

 

[MerricB]

Sadly, I think one of the features now called balance is an equal ability to affect the game at any given time. This will never happen in AD&D, except perhaps by a million to 1 fluke. This is how 4E is "balanced" though, a sort of imposed equalitarianism upon any who play the game. Nothing you do will improve your ability to affect a situation, so levels, items, knowledge, and almost everything else largely become meaningless.

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.

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).

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.