More on the whole Issue of balance in a moment:
When it comes to OD&D a lot of people are viewing it thorough eyes that either did not start with OD&D or started with OD&D but switched almost immediately to Holmes or B/X or BECMI or 1st Ed AD&D. Then another group of people never looked at OD&D until after they had spent years with Holmes or B/X or BECMI or 1st Ed AD&D or RC or 2nd Ed AD&D and only came to OD&D much later. Still another group started with 3rd Ed or later or with other competing games first and then only later looked at OD&D. All of these different groups view OD&D in a completely different way that those who played only OD&D and as such take many preconceptions from those games and try to apply those preconceptions to OD&D and that is where many misconceptions and misunderstanding come from. An additional source of misunderstandings and misconceptions comes from the fact that many if not most started playing these other versions of D&D and other games in high school or younger and that also completely changes the experience.
I am (in some ways) in a unique position because I played OD&D in college as a young adult with a large starting group of 12 players and that group grew to 16-18 players on a regular basis and sometimes as high as 30 players in one game at one time . In addition, we were a 50/50 split men and women the entire time. I started playing in the fall of 1975 and played with this group for four years. After college I moved got a job and pretty had no one to game with until the 1990's other than solo creation, that is I played OD&D with a touch of Arduin from then until around 1990 or so before I ever saw or knew about Holmes or AD&D or B/X or BECMI etc. until long after they were published, I only had access and knowledge of OD&D for about 20 or so years before I again got to game with others and then I went searching for more info and discovered all of the things that had been published in that 20 year period. One result of that is my long sojourn about 20 years with only OD&D with a touch of Arduin unhindered by exposure to any other RPG. Another result is I have trouble remembering that Holmes, B/X, BECMI and the RC don't all predate 1st Ed AD&D.
OK, back to the issue of balance:
One point people make in arguing that balance was always part of the game is the whole concept of dungeon level with progressively deeper dungeon levels being progressively more dangerous. Even though I do not buy the whole balance argument I do have to admit that this is a valid viewpoint and that it does have its merits.
People also point out that the modules were balanced and designed for a certain number range of PCs at a certain range of levels. Again I don't buy the whole balance argument, but again I have to admit that this is a valid viewpoint and that it does have its merits.
Yes, dungeon levels and so forth were present and the premise was that deeper levels were tougher, but since there was no explicit direction, it was not uncommon back in the 1970's for our games to include high level monsters against low level parties. I remember parties of 15 players ranging from 3rd to 5th fighting to the death against balrogs and such. The other thing for us was the guy (he bought the game in April of 74 and played in high school and then brought us the game in college in September of 75) that taught us the game never ran dungeons since none of us had any connection to the founders so it was all wilderness, then a couple of months in he let me read the rule books (the only one in the whole group besides him that ever had or read them) and after I reffed for a couple of months I created my first dungeon with nothing but the rules to go by with no other exposure to the concept. They were very deadly dungeons the same as our wilderness adventures. TPKs happened and lots of characters died, until we started to get a few people to 6th level and then the death rate went down some. Of course we had 12 players minimum and often 16 - 18 or even 20 players in each game session plus henchmen so as we started to gain some traction on higher level we became formidable.
I said all that to say my group in college never gave a thought to balance. A few of us fighters would go toe to toe with a foe that was 2-6 levels higher than we were and sometimes we would win or at least get help before we died. I had a player 4 years ago IMC fight one on one with 35 HPs against an 80 HP monster and roll well enough to win the fight. He had one HP at the end of the fight but he was still standing. That is a great feeling of accomplishment when you win against overwhelming odds! You can't get that feeling in a balanced game where you are expected to win.
More in the next post:
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