Can somebody explain the bias against game balance?

Krensky · Mar 29, 2010

Zinovia said:
"Balance" means different things to different people. As is so often the case, we're not using the word in quite the same way.

And far too often, anyone that doesn't find 4e's way of balancing acceptable or desirable get's vilified to one degree or another. The OP is a case in point.

Zinovia said:
Balance can mean having characters that are all competent, but not all the same. My 3.5 rogue started out 2 points worse in BAB than the paladin at level 1, and wound up 8 points worse at 15th level, with half the number of attacks per round, as well as lacking most of my damage against oozes, constructs, undead, etc. He hit on a 2 when I needed a 10. By that point, there wasn't anything my character could do out of combat that a wizard couldn't do better. So how is that balanced? How is it more fun or flavorful? When does that character get to shine? It's not a lack of opportunities placed by the DM; his hands are tied. The system itself forces this discrepancy because by that level there isn't anything the character is good at that someone else can't do as well or better. It's unbalanced.

Yes, but for many 4e goes way too far in the other direction. It's form of balance says everyone must be great in combat, and that anything out of combat is really immaterial.

Zinovia said:
Balance is too often seen as synonymous with bland homogeneity, and it's in that context that it is seen as negative and something to be avoided. I use it to mean "Not sucking at everything compared to the other characters in the group" and thus see it in a positive light. Balance is as balance does.

Where as I use it to mean "Everyone has their own abilities and time to shine. For some this means not being all that good at combat in exchange for being awesome out of it."

Umbran · Mar 29, 2010

thecasualoblivion said:
On its most basic level, people who are ill served by a balanced game are people who want to be more powerful than the other players, and those who want to be free to make a weaker character that is a burden to the other players. I don't really have any sympathy for either of those.

Well, there are those, yes. However, there are others, too.

When faced with the command, "Don't do that!" a great many people don't react well. Balance says that, a lot.

It doesn't need to be about being more or less powerful. Balance has many good qualities, but one of the mixed blessings is constraint. Yes, you characters are balanced against one another, but only if you stay within the confines of the system. Even if what you want isn't particularly unbalanced, the system may simply not go in that direction - either what you want isn't allowed at all, or it takes work to implement it.

Neonchameleon · Mar 29, 2010

Krensky said:
Missing the point. Why does a class have to be starkly limited in combat role.

Which class is "starkly limited"? Classes have things they do well and things they do less well. But it's possible to heal with any class (although leaders will always be better), to tank with most classes (Invokers have it tough), to do damage with any class, and to force bad choices on the enemy with any class. The role indicates what they can do best, not their absolute limits.

Why do classes even need combat roles? Why does everyone have to be a combatant?

Because this is Dungeons and Dragons. If it were Courtiers and Merchants it would be a different game. And not everyone has to be a combatant. You can play The Load if you like - it just takes dumping your primary stat. And sit there like a lemon while the game is in combat (a significant proportion of the time) and your character is hiding under the table. Or you can simply refuse to use your powers.

Gygax wrote a thief, not a rogue. Also, why do we need to slavishly follow design decisions over thirty years old?

We aren't slavishly following it. If we were then the rogue would be hard coded into his own mini-game.

Ah, the old 'just re-skin it' argument. Why should you have to re-skin it?

Because the alternative is to make everything vanilla out of the box (so you aren't reskinning so much as skinning). Or you need a literally infinite number of feats. As you seem to be requesting.

Why can't choice of faith, skills, feats, and abilities have the same effect?

Because none of those deal with the character's overall approach. Which is what Class indicates. Which is to open up design space without warping the game into a pretzel and make it easy to build competently with minimal skill. (Seriously, a 4e Shaman would be near-impossible in a pointbuy system.)

You can play classless. I'm a fan of both GURPS and Spirit Of The Century. But having classes brings its own advantage - I'm also a fan of 4e and Feng Shui. Classed is easier to get into and set up. And if done well it doesn't rule out a lot of design space.

And an Invoker doesn't fill the mark because I said a paladin, not an divine wizard.

OK. A greatweapon fighter with the Paladin multiclass feat. He's a Paladin and does a hell of a lot of damage. And then he's God's Vengeance wielding a martial weapon. And that's only if you need heavy armour as part of your core concept (Thaneborn Barbarian MC Paladin fits what you want even better if you don't mind Hide Armour, and then there's the Avenger).

Again, misses the point.

What point? That you want infinite flexibility in character generation. And a pony?

The point is that a good class-based system (and 4e is one) is a hell of a lot more flexible than you seem to think.

Who said anything about housecats. There's a big gap between that and not having any combat focused abilities.

Pre-4e an average first level wizard who had no combat spells available could be beaten up by the average housecat by the RAW.

And if I don't want a boatload of semi-magical combat powers? I said non-combatant. Also this seems needlessly complex and fiddly.

You want to play a non-combatant in a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Are you also complaining that Librarian: The Return makes it hard for you to play an illiterate PC?

OK. Non-combatant recipie: Put your sword down and only use weapons you aren't proficient in.

All game worlds will have a system to work. It's human nature.

So not only do you want a classless system, you want a specific system to each gameworld. And the homebrewers need to come up with their own? Fortunately 4e is a bit more flexible than that.

Again, more build fiddling. What if I want that at 1st level?

Then you want to be incredibly knowledgeable about everything at 1st level. (Although starting with six out of seven trained skills from that list should be possible for any bard - and Streetwise isn't necessarily part of the core concept). What if I want to be tough enough to beat up a dragon single-handed at 1st level?

The merchant with no combat abilities beyond swinging a sword (or shooting a bow) and harsh language.

... is playing the wrong game.

Seriously, it sounds as if your objection to 4e is that it is Not GURPS. And that it doesn't have rules for everything you can come up with.

Barastrondo · Mar 29, 2010

Raven Crowking said:
A simple example of the problems that come with maintaining balance throughout a game can be demonstrated with the simple game of Snakes & Ladders.

I'm not sure that lessons learned from competitive games can always be applied to what are theoretically cooperative games. If the point of a game is for all players to pool their resources and abilities to achieve mutual success, "balance" is about whether everyone is given equal opportunities and comparable resources, not about who crosses the finish line first.

But if we are drawing from competitive games for game balance theory, I can't pass up the opportunity to promote this classic.

"Commentary: Po Yi sat down to play a game of Talisman with his generals. He said: At this moment, each of us has an equal chance of winning. When we choose our character cards, we will no longer have equal chances."

Mournblade94 · Mar 29, 2010

It is my Opinion the Jedi should be the most powerful. That is how he was in teh story. If the jedi is balanced with everyone else, the jedi loses its magesty.

I have never seen an incident of a member of my group not having fun because they are not playing the Jedi. I don't buy the argument of the players not having fun because the classes are not balanced.

Raven Crowking · Mar 29, 2010

Barastrondo said:
I'm not sure that lessons learned from competitive games can always be applied to what are theoretically cooperative games.

First off, excellent link.

Second off, I'm not at all certain that D&D is (or should be) a cooperative game, in the same sense that Bus Depot Diner or Secret Door is a cooperative game. At least, it is not (or should not be) in a sandbox-type environment, where a player's ability to improve his character(s) is fundamentally linked to his abilty to "steer" the environment.

Finally, I note again that a game in which no one is allowed to demonstrate any form of personal excellence, while it might be cooperative, is very much liable to bore some folks. And the minute Sue starts showing personal excellence rather than Bob, the game either ceases to be fully cooperative, or fails to reward Sue for her excellence.

Unlike Bus Depot Diner, Secret Door, and similar games, where each player's "turn" is in fact a group turn, and the idea that anyone has a seperate "turn" is largely illusory.

RC

Krensky · Mar 29, 2010

Obryn said:
I don't think 4e is the best system for a skill-heavy game, or any game in which combat is rare at best. I think there are better systems for those sorts of games, and I'd encourage anyone looking to run a skill-heavy game to look at those, first. Trying to make 4e work well for that sort of game is like jamming a square peg into a round hole - it can be done, but you're losing a lot. As I mentioned, I'd recommend WFRP2, some FATE variety, or GURPS. I'm unfamiliar with FantasyCraft, but if it fills your requirements, that's awesome.

I wasn't suggesting cramming 4e into any hole. If you don't want what 4e offers, look at other games. I was responding to the implication by the OP that if you don't like 4e's style of balance, you're either a bad person or ignorant. Lots of people like 4e and don't mind it's playstyle or balance descisions. I don't, so I don't play it. That doesn't make me a munchkin or slacker the way the OP says, or ignorant the way others have implied.

Obryn said:
Like I said, there are better games to model this than 4e - or, IMO, any of the other D&D flavors.

If they don't like the 4e playstyle, and if 4e doesn't fit their requirements, they should, indeed, be playing something else. OTOH, I think 4e works great for what I do with it, and don't think it needs rules expansions to allow for total noncombatant PCs.

This is absolutely not to say that you can't do all sorts of crazy stuff with 3e or 4e or any other game. I just think, like I've said over multiple posts for over a year, that game systems matter and that you're best off picking a game system which best fits the kind of game you and your players want to run, rather than trying to force a system to run a campaign it's not particularly well-suited for.

Of course it matters.

If it didn't there wouldn't be debates over what game to play. The problem is that the OP, and many people siding with him seem to get inordinately upset that there are people who dislike their system of choice either wholly or partially because of it's design philosophy about what balance is and how it should be achieved.

Garthanos · Mar 29, 2010

Mournblade94 said:
It is my Opinion the Jedi should be the most powerful. That is how he was in teh story.

Too far afield for me.... closer to home.

Power comes in Flavors... One of them is pure luck.

Frodo was gifted at choosing who to trust.. Gandalf rather sucked at it. This was central to the story.. because the writer worked to make it so.

Frodo like many hobbits was gifted with a mild mannered disdain for the trappings of "power" and the DM errrr writer made that central to the story line.

Frodo is fighting evil with luck and grit... he still single handedly tears down a towers worth of goblins... sure was lucky they turned against one another so there were very few left when Sam showed up with the ring... right. If Aragorn was there tearing down the tower would have had a different style and if Gandalf was there it would have had a different style again.

But them goblins was doomed.

I think Fate is probably the only game I can properly play that out in....

Krensky · Mar 29, 2010

Neonchameleon said:
Which class is "starkly limited"? Classes have things they do well and things they do less well. But it's possible to heal with any class (although leaders will always be better), to tank with most classes (Invokers have it tough), to do damage with any class, and to force bad choices on the enemy with any class. The role indicates what they can do best, not their absolute limits.

Pretty much all of them, because they're all combatants. You find enough flexibility in them for you. That doesn't make those of us who don't wrongbad people.

Neonchameleon said:
Because this is Dungeons and Dragons. If it were Courtiers and Merchants it would be a different game. And not everyone has to be a combatant. You can play The Load if you like - it just takes dumping your primary stat. And sit there like a lemon while the game is in combat (a significant proportion of the time) and your character is hiding under the table. Or you can simply refuse to use your powers.

Ah, tautology. Because this is D&D you must go into dungeons and fight dragons. If you want to do otherwise, you're playing the game wrong and a bad person who ruins everyone else's fun. Why exactly is a non-combatant a drag on the other characters if he's valuable and contributes in other ways? There's more to a game then combat. Why vilify or belittle those who think balance should extend beyond the combat encounter and be done in a different way then 4e did so?

Neonchameleon said:
We aren't slavishly following it. If we were then the rogue would be hard coded into his own mini-game.

Ah, the good old days.

Neonchameleon said:
Because the alternative is to make everything vanilla out of the box (so you aren't reskinning so much as skinning). Or you need a literally infinite number of feats. As you seem to be requesting.

Actually, I dislike this aspect of 4e because, to me, the classes are too homogenius. Everyone's a full up combatant. I've seen class and level based
systems who hit the balance I want here, and I play them and not 4e for that reason. The issue is not what I want 4e to be, or what it is or isn't, but why, according to the OP, I'm a bad person for disagreeing with it's design philosophy.

Neonchameleon said:
Because none of those deal with the character's overall approach. Which is what Class indicates. Which is to open up design space without warping the game into a pretzel and make it easy to build competently with minimal skill. (Seriously, a 4e Shaman would be near-impossible in a pointbuy system.)

You can play classless. I'm a fan of both GURPS and Spirit Of The Century. But having classes brings its own advantage - I'm also a fan of 4e and Feng Shui. Classed is easier to get into and set up. And if done well it doesn't rule out a lot of design space.

And yet 4e has. The whole non-combatant thing.

Neonchameleon said:
What point? That you want infinite flexibility in character generation. And a pony?

I want a system that balances based on the team and adventure using spotlight sharing, not on the individual and combat round using homogenization. And a Donkeyhorse.

Neonchameleon said:
The point is that a good class-based system (and 4e is one) is a hell of a lot more flexible than you seem to think.

I never said it was a bad game. Just that I don't like it partially because it's balance philosophy puts me off. I own and play several class-level systems with more flexibility and with balance philosophies that better fit my preferences.

Neonchameleon said:
Pre-4e an average first level wizard who had no combat spells available could be beaten up by the average housecat by the RAW.

Shenanigans. Pre 3e. Cats do less then 1 point of damage in 3e.

Neonchameleon said:
You want to play a non-combatant in a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Are you also complaining that Librarian: The Return makes it hard for you to play an illiterate PC?

I want said characters to be possible. I want a game that doesn't consider combat to be the central element of the game that everything must be balanced around. And, as I said, I have one. The issue is why does the OP and others consider me a bad person for this desire.

Neonchameleon said:
OK. Non-combatant recipie: Put your sword down and only use weapons you aren't proficient in.

Cute.

Neonchameleon said:
So not only do you want a classless system, you want a specific system to each gameworld. And the homebrewers need to come up with their own? Fortunately 4e is a bit more flexible than that.

I already have the game I want. It's not classless. I have no idea where you get the gameworld thing. What I want to know is why I'm a bad person for disliking 4e's definition of balance. Why my views on balance render me into a muchkin or slacker. Oh, and you may find 4e flexible, I do not. Again, that doesn't make me a bad person, or a fool.

Neonchameleon said:
Then you want to be incredibly knowledgeable about everything at 1st level. (Although starting with six out of seven trained skills from that list should be possible for any bard - and Streetwise isn't necessarily part of the core concept). What if I want to be tough enough to beat up a dragon single-handed at 1st level?

How large a dragon, and to what narrative end?

Neonchameleon said:
Seriously, it sounds as if your objection to 4e is that it is Not GURPS. And that it doesn't have rules for everything you can come up with.

My objection to 4e is that I find it boring, fiddly, miniature and combat centric,too expensive, and because of it's design descisions regarding balance and class structure that it doesn't handle the sort of games I and my friends want to play. Purely subjective, I know. Don't try and convert me, that's not the topic. The topic I haven't seen answered is why do the OP and his supporters feel I'm a bad person for not liking the design philosophy of 4e?

Dannyalcatraz · Mar 29, 2010

Obryn said:
Ack! No, please!

A stat penalty would only be appropriate for genre- or campaign-specific reasons...

And personally, I see modeling races that are nearly 8 feet tall and approaching 400lbs as a potential reason for using unusual balancing tools, as opposed to merely making them slightly stronger than Gnomes and Halflings that are a quarter of their mass or less.

That's a LOT of shoe-horning going on there.