Ask the Grumpy Wizard: What’s the deal with level recommendations in modules?

This week I answer reader email!

Michael asks…

I was hoping you could help me with some of these OSR era modules and their level recommendations.

What is the criteria for determining a module’s recommended party member and level listing? If encounters are not balanced is this a subjective thing?

Sometimes we want to run games at a higher level or play an old TSR module. Whether choosing someone else’s module or writing my own how I can determine a reasonable character level and party size?

Any help or recommended reading would be greatly appreciated.

Good question, Michael.

I pinged a designer who worked at TSR back in the olden times and he told me that it was mostly the designer’s intuition. The other gauge that he used was caster levels. If a certain spell or package of spells was needed for the adventurers to tackle a certain location or…