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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4708090" data-attributes="member: 80487">Different strokes for different folks. There are various tastes in "good" or "fun," and apparently even in "fair."It sometimes seems here that folks are presenting a concept of "balance" as an absolute of "playability" even though it runs counter to how certain games were designed and played for a decade or more before that concept was widely embraced. (It was central to Champions in 1981, but took a while to catch on in other circles.)D&D, for instance, was designed to produce a lot of character mortality, especially at low levels. When characters have 1d6 hit points and a hit does 1d6 damage, that's an average 50% kill rate per first hit. Avoiding the capriciousness of the dice was a survival skill. It helped that dice-rolls were prescribed for only a few activities.The DM was empowered to modify probabilities before hand, or to waive rolls -- but that's a different matter from calling for a roll and voiding it afterward. A basic assumption, taken for granted in the war-game hobby of which D&D was a part, was that the basis for such adjustments should be "simulation" of the situation. To base them on whether they favored one side or the other was considered clearly improper.Losing a character was not the calamity it might seem in another context, a sort of "losing the game" event. It was more like losing a round. How one did in the long run, over the whole course of play with multiple characters, was the key perspective if one wanted to "keep score."In that long run, random factors tend to even out. The average was still pretty risky, and there were plenty of opportunities to get characters killed in more deterministic ways. The difference between a random choice and an informed one might depend on taking unusual steps to gather information.So, most characters died before attaining high levels. The ones that became notably powerful were exceptional. Moreover, the selection pressures tended to make the accomplishment reflect a notable degree of skill at play. ("Monty Haul" campaigns were exceptions to that rule.)That's a factor in considering, for instance, Tomb of Horrors. Although there's some benefit in the game-mechanical assets likely to be possessed by characters of the recommended level, what is thereby implied of the players is most telling.To have earned characters of that level should have taken a considerable amount (probably more than a year) of careful play. The Tomb is a test of the game-mastery to be expected of such experienced and successful players. Presumed rather naturally was experience and success in just such a milieu as that for which the game was designed. In their essence, the puzzles, tricks and traps were pretty typical of dungeons. The wrong choice might more often result in sudden death, but the process of determining the right choice was not extraordinary. Some errors could be avoided by applying what ought (in the D&D context) to have been mere common sense well before that stage in the players' careers.In that infamously deadly dungeon, it makes relatively little difference whether characters are 1st level or 21st. Its appropriateness is mainly geared to a certain (and somewhat elite) level of players.</blockquote>

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