CAFRedblade
Explorer
A very good (although Video Game centric) talk on game design concept of creating Perfect Imbalance.
Penny Arcade - Extra Credits – Perfect Imbalance
Balance is a tricky thing to design, and while you don't want things to directly fall back into a version of Rock/Paper/Scissors, I do think that each class should do something(s) really well, and can/could be countered by another class under the right set of circumstances. ( not that I'm advocating pvp )
But this hearkens to the idea that each character should be able to "shine" at different points of an adventure.
I think this concept should be reflected in some monster design as well, as a few monsters of old required certain counters to combat them effectively.
I think the initial 4th edition mechanics might have gone too far in this respect of perfect balance in the mechanics, making everything the same format, they improved upon it with the essentials versions of the base classes. Although some of the class structure is now fixed. (trade off of good and bad)
And similarly for 4th ed Monster design, they eased back on the traditional save/die mechanic, which allows for safer use of these monsters in combat, but, in my opinion reduces their effectiveness.
I realize that some of this is partial to play style of particular players, but the idea of Perfect Imbalance should be there in the core system to some degree for both Class/characters, and World Design/Monsters.
Penny Arcade - Extra Credits – Perfect Imbalance
Balance is a tricky thing to design, and while you don't want things to directly fall back into a version of Rock/Paper/Scissors, I do think that each class should do something(s) really well, and can/could be countered by another class under the right set of circumstances. ( not that I'm advocating pvp )
But this hearkens to the idea that each character should be able to "shine" at different points of an adventure.
I think this concept should be reflected in some monster design as well, as a few monsters of old required certain counters to combat them effectively.
I think the initial 4th edition mechanics might have gone too far in this respect of perfect balance in the mechanics, making everything the same format, they improved upon it with the essentials versions of the base classes. Although some of the class structure is now fixed. (trade off of good and bad)
And similarly for 4th ed Monster design, they eased back on the traditional save/die mechanic, which allows for safer use of these monsters in combat, but, in my opinion reduces their effectiveness.
I realize that some of this is partial to play style of particular players, but the idea of Perfect Imbalance should be there in the core system to some degree for both Class/characters, and World Design/Monsters.