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<blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 5021743" data-attributes="member: 114">I think that Firelance summed up perfectly the focus of balance in the various editions.I voted 'No' in the poll itself, as I consider the design of AD&amp;D1 being primarily about 'fun' and fidelity to certain sword and sorcery tropes. I don't think that balance in the sense in which the term is used today was really considered at all.However, I don't think it was detrimental to the game at all. The groups of people I played AD&amp;D with (and OD&amp;D before that) all had a stable of characters, with different adventures in different campaign worlds (or different parts of the same campaign world). Some people had better attributes than others, but by and large the main focus of the ability scores was as a role-play hook rather than anything else!The xp tables were a bit screwy, because although wizards required more xps than anyone else to reach 2nd level, and also again at the upper levels, round about the 6th/7th/8th level region they needed less than the fighters!I'm not convinced by the argument that new DMs benefit from more hand-holding or systems to make it easier for them to run games well since, well, being a DM isn't exactly rocket science! Tens of thousands of people were running fun games of D&amp;D back in the 70's and early 80's with what little support and advice was available back then.Cheers</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Plane Sailing, post: 5021743, member: 114"] I think that Firelance summed up perfectly the focus of balance in the various editions. I voted 'No' in the poll itself, as I consider the design of AD&D1 being primarily about 'fun' and fidelity to certain sword and sorcery tropes. I don't think that balance in the sense in which the term is used today was really considered at all. However, I don't think it was detrimental to the game at all. The groups of people I played AD&D with (and OD&D before that) all had a stable of characters, with different adventures in different campaign worlds (or different parts of the same campaign world). Some people had better attributes than others, but by and large the main focus of the ability scores was as a role-play hook rather than anything else! The xp tables were a bit screwy, because although wizards required more xps than anyone else to reach 2nd level, and also again at the upper levels, round about the 6th/7th/8th level region they needed less than the fighters! I'm not convinced by the argument that new DMs benefit from more hand-holding or systems to make it easier for them to run games well since, well, being a DM isn't exactly rocket science! Tens of thousands of people were running fun games of D&D back in the 70's and early 80's with what little support and advice was available back then. Cheers [/QUOTE]

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