Can somebody explain the bias against game balance?

[Krensky]

However, I don't think you can have robust mechanics that are imbalanced in the first place.

Sure you can. Ars Magica or the Buffy/Angel games, for example.

 

[Benimoto]

Item (3) is, AFAICT, the "modern" focus of niche protection. It is okay to suck a little now, and win a little later, but you should never suck too much (and consequently can never win too much either), for a game to be "well balanced". The theory is that, even if taking away the lows also excises the highs, you can get a consistantly acceptable experience. Sort of a "win a little all the time, suck a little all the time" approach to game design. This seems quite popular right now. I suspect that the current "bad-assery" of PCs in various games is an attempt to make the median feel more like "win" and less like "suck".

We can call this balance by hiding the median.

Going back a few pages to this point, I wanted to mention that as I see it, this is what systems that incorporate group synergies attempt to solve. The general idea is that when one person is doing well, through great luck or just plain good play, that person ends up creating opportunities or flat out granting bonuses that allow the rest of the group to do well.

Thus, what happens is that when the group is playing well together, they end up elevating the baseline so that there is much more "win" than "suck" for everybody. It's not necessarily a zero-sum game where for one person to kick ass everyone else has to be sucking, but neither is is a game where everybody kicks ass all the time.

To be successful, the system has to have some slack in it. There are still individual lows and highs. But, due to the group element, when you are at your individual highest peaks, the rest of the group is right there with you.

 

[pemerton]

With a game, you are selling the experience.

This might be true for something like the Dragonlance modules, or Expedition to Ravenloft. But taken literally it suggests that all RPGs are pastiche.

For some, mayble a lot of RPGs, the experience comes at the table. You're selling a set of tools and techniques for achieving that experience.

 

[AllisterH]

Sure you can. Ars Magica or the Buffy/Angel games, for example.

But again...those games EXPLICITLY tell you beforehand.

There's a big difference IMO between a game that says "ok, these classes/options are worse because that is how the "world" of the game functions" (or at least makes options cost different amounts) and a game that HIDES it either by not stating it or by implying that all options are equaly valuable.

 

[Hussar]

Sure you can. Ars Magica or the Buffy/Angel games, for example.

And, just to add to AllisterH's point, how robust are those rules? How much can you start futzing with these rules before they become so unbalanced that the game goes kerblooie. I'll be completely honest here and say I've never read/played those games, so, I have no idea if you can or not in those systems.

IME, when mechanics are unbalanced, any changes by and large only exacerbate the problem, not solve it.

 

[Krensky]

And, just to add to AllisterH's point, how robust are those rules? How much can you start futzing with these rules before they become so unbalanced that the game goes kerblooie. I'll be completely honest here and say I've never read/played those games, so, I have no idea if you can or not in those systems.

IME, when mechanics are unbalanced, any changes by and large only exacerbate the problem, not solve it.

The Unisystem comments are second hand, Ars Magica is fairly robust. Magi are the most powerful, Consori are the middle, and Grogs are the bottom. It specifically recommends a troupe style of plat with each PC running a Magus, a Consor, and a Grog or three. There's not really much to fiddle with, the system is similar to Storyteller.

We appear differ on what robust means, I guess. You seem to mean "I can take it apart, put it back together wrong (meaning different then how it was originally) and it still works."

I mean "It won't break down unexpectedly on me in the middle of a game because someone took three apparently innocuous things and put them together and blew up the power curve, and the game doesn't give me any tools to recover."

 

[Raven Crowking]

The general idea is that when one person is doing well, through great luck or just plain good play, that person ends up creating opportunities or flat out granting bonuses that allow the rest of the group to do well.

Thus, what happens is that when the group is playing well together, they end up elevating the baseline so that there is much more "win" than "suck" for everybody. It's not necessarily a zero-sum game where for one person to kick ass everyone else has to be sucking, but neither is is a game where everybody kicks ass all the time.

Nice description of hiding the median. The game is balanced so that you think you are doing better than you really are; the median is hidden. By making you think that 0 is at the centre of the number line, while the centre is really +4, you keep thinking "Wow, we're doing great!" when, in fact, you are doing average.


RC

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I'm not sure how group synergies hide the median, unless only the players get them, and their opponents do not. In which case it could just as easily be called "lobbing softballs" as "hiding the median."

 

[Nifft]

Sure you can. Ars Magica or the Buffy/Angel games, for example.

Aren't those cases of mechanics which exist to enable unbalanced characters to play out (in some sense) as though they were balanced?

The extra Drama points that a Scooby gets, for example, can be used to buy problem-solving (and therefore spotlight time), which the Slayer gets just by kicking things really hard. The Scooby can't use Drama points as often as the Slayer can kick, but often it's better to solve problems without violence, so it works out. (Except vampires. They are best solved with violence.)

Cheers, -- N

 

[Votan]

I think that places WAY too much on the DM's plate. The rules should be there to take that off the shoulders of the DM/GM and let him get on with actually running the game.

I think that this also makes the learning curve less steep for the system and encourages "casual play". Heavy system redesign can be done but I like the idea of a core base of heavily play tested rules that I can run out of the box. People can do odd things off of this base (I think of monster PCs in D&D 3.5 as the classic example) but at least you can start with something useful.

I do think that AD&D, as played, was closer to this standard than is commonly accepted.