Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

[Jhaelen]

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.

I think you're making stuff up. AD&D was an RPG from the very beginning.

Have you been thinking of Chainmail or something?

 

[howandwhy99]

Speak for yourself... 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.

Lanefan, you're right that NPCs can be assets, but they are not PCs played by the DM. They are fully scripted unlike the players. Cooperation games occur when two more people are better off choosing to compete against an outside challenge rather than one another.

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.

This is all prior to play. Not at the table as I said.

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.

AD&D was not designed as a storygame. It was labeled a roleplaying game by Mr. Gygax as he was in a crowd of wargamers who already roleplayed regularly. That they engaged in convergent Roleplay Simulation as that practice was retitled in the 1990's does not invalidate AD&D as an RPG or our hobby as a one about roleplaying.

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.

No, I am not joking. You are right that a DM cannot be a computer. However, in AD&D there is an expected behavior for every DM. Unfortunately, Mr. Gygax desired for everyone to additionally follow only his hidden rules for the DM when he published AD&D. That is why I prefer OD&D. Please understand, I am not going to tell anyone they cannot play any game however they wish, but the rules for D&D are not freeform storytelling. Considering the number of rule options printed over the decades in our hobby, I find this position mind boggling.

 

[Garmorn]

I think you're making stuff up. AD&D was an RPG from the very beginning.

Have you been thinking of Chainmail or something?

No, it evolved into a role playing game. There is a vast difference. Gygax had to create and/or adapt things as he went along. He could not just sit down one day and say I am going to design a RPG. No one even knew what and RPG was. To say that his orginal creation is the end all of what is a role play game is like saying a Wright Brothers Flyer is the end all of what a aircraft is.

This is all prior to play. Not at the table as I said.

No it is done at the table also. I have seen it and rarely have done it my self. One example where I would have used it follows.

A Ranger and a Paladin are on guard with bows. They here the approach of a unknown group. We are not expecting an attack. With out warning or cause they attack the source of the sound with their bows. If I was the DM (due to previous out of characters I would have immediately change the encouter to three or four high level clerics and paladins of the paladins religion and striped him of his powers.) This is a the table top action not before. Are do you believe that the DM has no choice? Or does role playing have nothing to do with this?

AD&D was not designed as a storygame. It was labeled a roleplaying game by Mr. Gygax as he was in a crowd of wargamers who already roleplayed regularly. That they engaged in convergent Roleplay Simulation as that practice was retitled in the 1990's does not invalidate AD&D as an RPG or our hobby as a one about roleplaying.[qoute]

Yes AD&D evolved into a role playing game. Fine but that does not invalidate 4e also being a role playing game. There are several games that rely on player cooperation to work right. Since that don't have competition between characters/players they are not role playing games?

No, I am not joking. You are right that a DM cannot be a computer. However, in AD&D there is an expected behavior for every DM. Unfortunately, Mr. Gygax desired for everyone to additionally follow only his hidden rules for the DM when he published AD&D. That is why I prefer OD&D. Please understand, I am not going to tell anyone they cannot play any game however they wish, but the rules for D&D are not freeform storytelling. Considering the number of rule options printed over the decades in our hobby, I find this position mind boggling.

If I am understanding you the DM is suppose to completely stay out of any thing but creating the module? And running the monster as close to there abilities as possible? What is the DM suppose to do?

 

[BryonD]

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.

Didn't the original Oriental Adventures have something related to this? It has been a VERY long time, so I may be mixing things up. But it seems like OA had a rule regarding character honor and basically let replacement characters have boosted stats based on the honor of a prior character.

 

[howandwhy99]

No it is done at the table also. I have seen it and rarely have done it my self. One example where I would have used it follows.

A Ranger and a Paladin are on guard with bows. They here the approach of a unknown group. We are not expecting an attack. With out warning or cause they attack the source of the sound with their bows. If I was the DM (due to previous out of characters I would have immediately change the encouter to three or four high level clerics and paladins of the paladins religion and striped him of his powers.) This is a the table top action not before. Are do you believe that the DM has no choice? Or does role playing have nothing to do with this?

Certainly many people do as you say, but I don't. I'm not calling to stop this, but we are talking about how AD&D was balanced not how individual DMs choose to run their own games. I've pointed out how it was designed for cooperative play and niche protection by class. You mentioned how these did not matter as everything is up to the whim of the DM and I denied that. You are free to view the game's design as you wish, I am stating my understanding as to why AD&D is designed and balanced as it is.

Yes, I believe the DM has no choice at the table. This does not mean he or she is not roleplaying. Roleplaying does not require improvisation for all participants. Claiming all roleplaying is improvisation is a misinterpretation of the act embedded in one current theory pushing for all RPGs to be storygames. Storygame design has virtually nothing to do with the first 25 years of RPG design. If you remember D&D in the 80's there was a belief that the DM did not roleplay. I don't believe this as the DM is taking part in the activity.

 

[Garmorn]

Certainly many people do as you say, but I don't. I'm not calling to stop this, but we are talking about how AD&D was balanced not how individual DMs choose to run their own games. I've pointed out how it was designed for cooperative play and niche protection by class. You mentioned how these did not matter as everything is up to the whim of the DM and I denied that. You are free to view the game's design as you wish, I am stating my understanding as to why AD&D is designed and balanced as it is.

Yes, I believe the DM has no choice at the table. This does not mean he or she is not roleplaying. Roleplaying does not require improvisation for all participants. Claiming all roleplaying is improvisation is a misinterpretation of the act embedded in one current theory pushing for all RPGs to be storygames. Storygame design has virtually nothing to do with the first 25 years of RPG design. If you remember D&D in the 80's there was a belief that the DM did not roleplay. I don't believe this as the DM is taking part in the activity.

No, we were miss communicating.

You and I where also talking past each other about the role of a DM. I was speaking of the role about game control, providing hooks, story line, setting up the campaign world so the players could run in dungeon or what ever. The DMs responsibility to keep the game flowing, making house rules or what ever is needed. The DM responsibility to provide the environment. I meant that the players in a RGP should and normally do not have control of the environment. They can only affect it to the extend of the character abilities and what the DM allows. (A good DM can allow a lot even in a 'Railroaded' game, a poor one give up to much or not near enough control.)

You seems to think I was saying that 1/2e was not balanced. I would agree that 1/2e was balanced different. None of my statements where meant to mean that. You had to me seem to state that competition between players was required to make a game a RGP and was important to balance. Again we seem to have been miss comunicating.


You seemed to be saying that 4e is not a RPG but a story game which is not true. Amber is a story telling game. There having balance between character types is not related to a game being a role playing or not. What is important is do the rules laid down concert (simple or other wise) rules that allow some one who is not part of the game to compare the characters to non player character/monsters. Most games that are called RPG's concentrate on combat rules because they are the most concrete and were details rules pay of the most at the current state of the arts. D&D in all of it forms does this. Sure the early ones don't have social skills but that was not part of the early RGP experience. In Amber there is no means but that used to compare the players and even then it is a mean ranking system.

 

[howandwhy99]

I acknowledge we are not clearly communicating with each other. There doesn't appear to be much more to talk about though, so I am going to bow out. Take care.

 

[Lanefan]

Lanefan, you're right that NPCs can be assets, but they are not PCs played by the DM. They are fully scripted unlike the players.

An NPC within the party - at least, those I run - is no more nor less scripted than the PCs are. Sure, it has a basic characterization going in, but then pretty much all PCs do as well. But it still has a personality, and a brain, and is allowed to use both.

No, I am not joking. You are right that a DM cannot be a computer. However, in AD&D there is an expected behavior for every DM. Unfortunately, Mr. Gygax desired for everyone to additionally follow only his hidden rules for the DM when he published AD&D. That is why I prefer OD&D. Please understand, I am not going to tell anyone they cannot play any game however they wish, but the rules for D&D are not freeform storytelling. Considering the number of rule options printed over the decades in our hobby, I find this position mind boggling.

Yet even with that, one of the true beauties of the system is that it is flexible enough to support a freeform storytelling type of game if so desired. It's also flexible enough to support some pretty hard-core rules mongering, if that's the type of campaign you and your players are looking for.

An example: today during an unusually rough ferry crossing I got to thinking about how I've handled water-walking in the past in situations where the water is not calm. Up till now I've hand-waved it, sometimes asking for a dex check or just saying outright it's too rough; but sitting on the ferry looking out at the whitecaps I came up with a basic system for what one can hope to do (and by what mechanic) given differing water conditions.

So consider this: I might never use this new system and instead just continue with on-the-fly rulings, or I might tighten my ideas up and bring them in to the campaign: my point is that the game system can support either option.

That flexibility is, arguably, achieved at some cost in game balance; but I can live with that.

Lanefan

 

[Rel]

i acknowledge we are not clearly communicating with each other. There doesn't appear to be much more to talk about though, so i am going to bow out. Take care.

lol

 

[Hairfoot]

Gygax had to create and/or adapt things as he went along. He could not just sit down one day and say I am going to design a RPG. No one even knew what and RPG was. To say that his orginal creation is the end all of what is a role play game is like saying a Wright Brothers Flyer is the end all of what a aircraft is.

That's a category error. Games don't progress linearly the way technology does, which is why Monopoly, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit are nearly identical today to their original incarnations.

A better comparison is with sport. You could say that Gygax invented sprinting, and that many modern sports now include a sprinting component along with other, more complex rules. But would anyone really argue that, say, NFL football is a direct, linear improvement on athletics which renders sprinting obsolete as an event?