Juton wrote:Doom wrote:Ditto here...you didn't achieve balance by "rocks fall" on the weaker classes. You achieved balance by giving a "+5 axe of uber resistance" or the like to the weaker classes.
The anecdote they told me was about a thief character who started with the very lowest rolls possible to make a thief. This was using the method where you rolled your stats in order. The resulting character was very pathetic and the player whined a bit about it so at the beginning of the next session rocks fell and that player got to roll up a new character. Notice that I am saying MCs made rocks fall on weak characters not weak classes. I take it that this type of mercy killing wasn't particularly common.
anecdotes are like opinions, and assholes...everyone has one, and many stink.
rolling 3d6 in order doesnt make a class weak either, it just gives a low probability for the extremities.
go look over how hard it was to get to get those super-wizards,-fighters, -thieves, etc
"very lowest rolls possible", so this person got all 3's rolling 2d6 in order?
your anecdote is half there and just meaningless if you dont have any more info that vague speak.
also 1st edition had more than one method of rolling, 2nd added even more.
seriously your anecdote just sounds like the worst group of players commented on the worst possible case scenario.
how many really did random treasure, random dungeons,random whatever?
Gary designed his shit for people to play through. people played adventures that had PLACED treasure, or designed their own.
random generation was aded so that people could get into the game quickly, and in case they ran out of planned stuff, they wouldnt have to wait on the DM to design a full dungeon to keep playing.
do you really think, as your anecdote suggest, that people likely just played in random geomorph dungeons?
when you have a worst-case character rolls, MOST DMs would tell someone to re-roll it or just pump the stats to make something worth playing. nobody with common sense was forced to play a character with all 3's. nor did anyone with common sense even have the character played just long enough to be killed by rocks or blue bolts, or something else, so the player could roll a new character.
the only time "hazard death" came from a player that didnt like their character was in the event it just really wasnt working for some strange reason, and they were EXTREME case, not normal ones. and more times than not, the PC just wandered off, and another one under the same player was found in that city, along the next path, or what have you.
you cant use anecdotes from bad RPGers as some sort of, "this is how it was", because people unable to use the system are not proving faults with a system.
hydro-electric power plants are not flawed because the Ethiopians you gave them to dont know how to use them, and dont have enough water for them to work.
also your anecdote doesnt show that it was a balance issue. it doesnt mention the wizard making the thief less balanced, the thief class itself being a problem...jsut that there was bad dice rolls at char-gen.
it doesnt matter what game you play, you are going to have problems if you use a lower quality device. it isnt about class balance, its about the method used to roll characters and a group of bad players or bad DM that didnt see that the thief with all 3s wasnt meant to be played..