How important is game balance to you?

[Tony Vargas]

An unbalanced game can be tons of fun if run well.

A good enough DM running for the right players can make any game fun, no matter what problems that game suffer from mechanically (or in any other sense). It doesn't mean those problems don't exist or don't matter, just that they can, like any challenge, be overcome.

By the same token, a brick can fly given enough velocity. But aeronautical engineers only rarely design aircraft to fly like bricks.

A good GM should design a campaign to showcase each player's style and character in fair portions.

A good GM can do that. He shouldn't be forced to do so just to cover for a bad system (not that imbalanced mechanics are the only things that make a system bad), though. The better-balanced the system, the less the GM will have to distort his campaign to achieve that result.

Game balance isn't an issue if everyone shows up to have fun.

Oh, it can be. If one player's definition of fun is to "derail/ruin/bully/etc. if they can break their character." Or if options are chosen for the perceived fun of the concepts rather than the viability of their mechanical support. Or if the game stalls on a surprise TPK. Etc...

Good campaign design doesn't mean fiddling with the rules it just means putting value on what the players want to do instead of their strengths within the rules.

And a balanced game facilitates the latter, while an imbalanced one cries out for the former.

First, I think that "balance" is a very unclear term WRT D&D and most other RPGs, because its unclear in what dimension the various players or characters should be "balanced."

Ideally, whatever dimensions are relevant to the play of the game (and specific campaign) in question. Preferably each independently, so the campaign can vary in emphasis without needing to re-balance the system.

it makes it very difficult to "balance" character abilities like "Kill things with Axe" and "Sell Air Conditioners to Eskimos".

If you 'silo' one into the 'combat pillar' and one into the 'interaction pillar' you don't need to balance them against eachother.

Edit for clarity: That is, if you 'silo' "Kill thing with Axe" away and balance it with other traits like "Kill things with a Spell" or "Kill things with a Harsh Word" or "Save your Friend from being Killed" or what-have-you. And silo "Sell "Air Conditioners to Eskimos" with other traits useful in the same 'pillar' (to use recent D&D terms), like "Deliver a rousing speach" or "Inflict Years of Therapy with a Single Cutting Remark." Things within the same silo need to balance with eachother, things outside that silo don't need to be balanced with them.

Which is not to say that you can't balance a game for one purpose or another, but in traditional rpgs, I don't think its as important to ensure strict balance as it is to avoid rampant imbalance/brokenness.

It's a matter of degree, of course. Perfect balance is impossible, adequate balance is essential. What's 'adequate' varies with group and style, so the more styles a game means to support, the harder it should try for balance...
...and GMs can always try to fix up or work around balance issues one way or another.

 

[3ArmSally]

I think this is a philosophical difference. I think fun is the only essential part of gaming. Different priorities and experiences are probably the only thing making this a conversation at this point. I don't disagree with any of your points and you echoed a lot of my sentiments. I'm on a mobile device and it's entirely too much work to dig up quotes from this thread for me so I'll just say I agree emphatically.

 

[Celebrim]

Since traditional rpg mechanics tend to focus on defining the combat/physical capability of characters in quasi-simulationist terms, it makes it very difficult to "balance" character abilities like "Kill things with Axe" and "Sell Air Conditioners to Eskimos".

Before the two things can be balanced, the two things have to be equally important equally often. That is, either literally or figuratively, "Killing things with an Axe" has to be as useful for solving problems as "Selling Air Conditioners to Eskimos".

That's one level of difficulty. Suppose you address that and both hitting things with an axe and persuading people to do things have reliable narrative force. You can make propositions and get useful outcomes.

Now you have to also address the problem that depending on what the GM imagines, things that were balanced can become unbalanced in a different situation. "Selling Air Conditioners to Eskimos" might be a super-power of persuasion, but if the fiction involves interacting with mindless zombies, mechanical traps, and things with which you share no common means of communication, it might seem rather unbalanced for the player of the persuasive character. The reverse could of course happen to in a campaign filled with political intrigue where tempting someone to get out their axe to hit something with it, leading to the person's censure, arrest, and so forth was more common than actually using said axe to solve a problem.

But there is a further reason that is even more important why most games don't even bother and that is that only "hit things with my axe" tends to create a pillar of gameplay that invites participation from all the players. Persuasion and negotiation tends to involve only a single person whose efforts will be ruined by someone with lower skill. Unless your game is geared around one GM and one player, whatever pillar of game play you highlight the most should be a pillar where everyone can and should work together on the problem.

I think it's trivially true that balance is very important. What I think is less obvious is whether a game system ought to strive to make characters balanced within each of its pillars of game play (so that you can play any sort of character regardless of the style of game being played), or whether each pillar of gameplay ought to be treated separately so that I can 'realistically' create someone who is useless at one but awesome at another.

 

[Ratskinner]

If you 'silo' one into the 'combat pillar' and one into the 'interaction pillar' you don't need to balance them against each other.

Before the two things can be balanced, the two things have to be equally important equally often. That is, either literally or figuratively, "Killing things with an Axe" has to be as useful for solving problems as "Selling Air Conditioners to Eskimos".

I disagree that silos are a solution. Firstly, that doesn't fix the "spotlight time" problem, nor does simply attempting to ensure they both have equal problem-solving capacity. If dimension X (usually the social) is resolved quickly and with less mechanical finesse than the dimension Y (usually combat), then the X player is left shining for only those brief moments while playtime is consumed by dimension Y resolution. So then you are forced to balance all the dimensions for all characters, so that they can equally participate in all pillars....but then you have the converse problem of the guy who wants to be king of dimension X not being able to shine because the dimension Y guy shines just as brightly in dimension X. (I grant that may not be a problem for all players or tables.)

But again, that's only a problem if you are seeking some kind of perfect balance within a traditional rpg framework. There are other (usually rather abstract) systems out there (Capes is the one I'm most familiar with.) That skip the whole issue through innovative (usually more abstract) mechanical structures. The most popular rpgs seem to simply avoid being extremely unbalanced and only seek a rather sloppy balance. I suspect that is true for a variety of historical and marketing reasons.

But there is a further reason that is even more important why most games don't even bother and that is that only "hit things with my axe" tends to create a pillar of gameplay that invites participation from all the players. Persuasion and negotiation tends to involve only a single person whose efforts will be ruined by someone with lower skill. Unless your game is geared around one GM and one player, whatever pillar of game play you highlight the most should be a pillar where everyone can and should work together on the problem.

True enough, but is that an inherent characteristic of the combat pillar, or a characteristic of the game design? I've heard good reports of the Leverage rpg making all of its aspects hit well. Capes also seems to have little issue with it, seemlessly flowing from one to the other. Considering the history of rpgs, I have difficulty believing that the traditional structure was equally concerned with all our modern pillars through game design.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I disagree that silos are a solution.

Depends on the problem. Silo'ing abilities that are most significant in similar circumstances (the 3 pillars, are a prime example), allows them to be balanced against functionally 'like' abilities, a much more plausible task than balancing lethality with salesmanship.

Firstly, that doesn't fix the "spotlight time" problem

I guess that depends, (again, sorry, I don't mean to be flippant), on the "spotlight time" problem. Spotlight-'balance' (balance-of-imbalances) can be a solution, rather than a problem: the GM manipulates situations to assure that each PC gets a time to shine, regardless of the degree of machanical imbalance among them. Silo'ing used successfully to improve balance wouldn't 'fix the spotlight time problem' so much as 'reduce the need for the spotlight-balance work-around.'

If dimension X (usually the social) is resolved quickly and with less mechanical finesse than the dimension Y (usually combat), then the X player is left shining for only those brief moments while playtime is consumed by dimension Y resolution.

A character that's over-powered in dimension X and underpowered along dimension Y would have that problem, yes. However, if the game is balanced in each dimension independently - competence in one dimensions isn't used to balance incompetence in another - that wouldn't be the case.

then you have the converse problem of the guy who wants to be king of dimension X not being able to shine because the dimension Y guy shines just as brightly in dimension X.

Character concepts that insist upon imbalance are problematic, yes.

The most popular rpgs seem to simply avoid being extremely unbalanced and only seek a rather sloppy balance. I suspect that is true for a variety of historical and marketing reasons.

Ours is a small, aging, hobby. Most of us have lots of practical ability when it comes to coping with imbalances. Because the earliest, most enduring, games (obviously, D&D being the elephant in that room) were wildly imbalanced. So you learned to cope or you didn't stay with the hobby very long.

True enough, but is that an inherent characteristic of the combat pillar, or a characteristic of the game design?

Game design. A game could be designed with combat almost exclusively revolving around duels, for instance, and with each duel being resolved with a single contested check.

 

[Celebrim]

I disagree that silos are a solution.

First we better define 'silo', because while a 'silo' and a 'pillar' can be congruent, they don't have to be. A silo is simply an area of game play which is served especially by one class and no other class is allowed to shine in it. An example of congruence is deciding that no other class could be better than the fighter in the combat pillar. I'd like to point out that D&D doesn't really do that, as instead the combat pillar itself gets broken up in to all sorts of tasks. No one character is both best at bashing iron golems and fending off hellwasp swarms. But, presumably in some hypothetical RPG, 'combat' could be a skill that one class does, and every other class during combat has only a supporting role. In D&D, the rogue ('thief') has a silo'd 'find traps' ability and the ranger has a silo'd 'follow tracks' ability, but neither of those silos holds an actual pillar of the gameplay. Each is just a very small part of the 'Exploration Pillar' that is the 'dungeon' part of 'Dungeons and Dragons'.

I don't very much like silo's either, because putting anything in a silo has a tendency to make that portion of the game a solo game with no real interaction. But I wasn't actually talking about silo's, nor really suggesting it. In fact, I prefer a design that allows a character - indeed all but forces a character - to be at least a little bit useful in each intended pillar of gameplay. I was talking about the tension between forcing each character to be useful in all aspects of play - which you might do in cooperative game like 'Zombiecide' or in a linear solo game with multiple well defined mini-games, and allowing a player to play a more narrow character that only excels in certain areas. That is, do we allow a player to create unbalanced characters? Some game systems I think inadvertently demand that a player create unbalanced characters, creating narrow savants that can only do one thing but do it very well.

I don't very much like 'silos', but I do like archetypes. For example, in 1e the fighter all but completely had a silo on non-magical combat, leaving the rogue utterly inept by comparison by the mid-levels. Compare with the 3e design, where the rogues BAB progress 3/4 of the fighter and it gets iterative attacks, but at a slower rate and it has situational damage burst capability. The fighter (in theory, if not in practice) could still shine in combat, but the rogue is not so helpless in that situation as the thief was. Conversely, the 3e fighter has some 'skills' and might be able to do some exploration things that the thief can't (although in my opinion that fighter got too few skill points).

Firstly, that doesn't fix the "spotlight time" problem, nor does simply attempting to ensure they both have equal problem-solving capacity. If dimension X (usually the social) is resolved quickly and with less mechanical finesse than the dimension Y (usually combat), then the X player is left shining for only those brief moments while playtime is consumed by dimension Y resolution.

Worse, it's very hard to predict between tables how much focus any particular pillar is going to have. The game may have minigames that make for compelling stealth, evasion, crafting, negotiation, navigation, and so forth minigames. But there is no guarantee that a table or GM will think that is in any fashion important, leading to characters that are stealthy, evasive, charismatic, crafters that are judged on how well they kick down doors, kill monsters, and take their stuff. Or to put it another way, it's like designing a fish and then judging it by how well it rides a bike. One of the problems I had with free form skill based games is that skill based systems often imply pillars of gameplay that don't even exist in the system, much less at a particular table, leading to completely dysfunctional characters. With a class based game where you have to put at least a little into every area of play, especially early on, every character is well balanced. The wizard might not be very good at swinging a club, but he's probably only 50% as good as the fighter. The same is not going to be true in a skill based system (or in the late stages of a class based system progression). The 5e design seems to me to be in part an attempt to address that problem.

So then you are forced to balance all the dimensions for all characters, so that they can equally participate in all pillars....but then you have the converse problem of the guy who wants to be king of dimension X not being able to shine because the dimension Y guy shines just as brightly in dimension X. (I grant that may not be a problem for all players or tables.)

With true 'ego gaming', there is nothing you can do to solve that problem. But I think you can allow one class to shine a little bit more than others in certain situations. Just don't make it the only class that can shine, or you are pretty much forcing the party to have that class (see cleric and the traditional silo around healing).

There are other (usually rather abstract) systems out there (Capes is the one I'm most familiar with.) That skip the whole issue through innovative (usually more abstract) mechanical structures.

Narrative mechanics have their own issues. A lot of them depend on a table agreement that defines 'winning' away from success. They work fine when you have a group of players with a solely dramatic aesthetic of play, but I think they offer competitive aesthetics of play less well than simulation games offer dramatic aesthetics of play. I don't think you could play most narrative games I've seen with true power gamers at the table, and I think they do rather poorly with fridge logic (or at least no better than action movies or comic books, which often themselves ignore the fridge logic problems, so maybe that's genera emmulation)

True enough, but is that an inherent characteristic of the combat pillar, or a characteristic of the game design?

I think it's inherent to the combat pillar. I've seen to many attempts to design around it that failed to make me think otherwise.

 

[Euphractus]

A game that is obviously unbalanced can feel unfair or boring depending, but I would agree that other factors can mitigate minor imbalances.

 

[Campbell]

I don't believe there is anything inherent in the fiction that makes combat more of a shared activity than any other. I also think we need to be careful when we talk about games with "narrative" mechanics. There is a vast ocean of games attempting to create a particular narrative structure, not all of which are meant to be played to lose. Monsterhearts, Masks, and Blades in the Dark are games that fly in the face of both these assumptions.

Monsterhearts is probably the most visceral example. It is a game about the emotional turmoil of teenagers. The entire game is built on an economy of strings, which represent having a form of emotional power over someone. All the moves in the game reflect this, even Lashing Out Physically, the only combat related move in the game. Monsterhearts is very much a game that wants you to play to win. It can be uncomfortable at times, or at least it should be, but you should be pushing to gain strings on others, use them to manipulate them, and avoid letting others gain emotional leverage over you. Some players will play to lose, but the entire reward structure is built to encourage playing to win.

In Masks you play teenage superheroes who struggle with finding out who they really are in an environment where adults are trying to define that for them. The fundamental struggle of the game is carving out a vision of who you are and fighting to stay that way. Instead of ability scores, Masks uses labels which are a measure of how characters see themselves to determine success. There are a number of moves that interact with a character's labels - shifting one down to shift another one up. Eventually characters can gain the ability to lock a label in, firming their self perceptions. Supervillain encounters are more about challenging perception than drag out fights. Teammates often work together to reinforce their perceptions. It absolutely can be played to win.

Blades in the Dark is about a group of daring scoundrels carving their path up the criminal underbelly of Duskwall. In Blades the scoundrels undertake scores for turf, payback, money, and other resources. Between scores we go to a downtime phase with a pretty elaborate economy where the scoundrels angle for advantages on their next score. During this time the various factions of Duskwall move their project clocks forward. Every score has the potential to effect PC standing with the various factions and can cause them to gain heat which may cause trouble for them down the road. During scores there is no significant action economy. Instead there is a stress economy. Stress is used to mitigate consequences as a result of failures. Smart play is all about fictional positioning and choosing which failures to mitigate. Stress can also be used to retroactively prepare for stuff. In Blades whenever something can not be resolved by a single action roll we use variable length countdown clocks. For example, we could have a clock for 'The Blue Coats Are Coming' with 8 segments and another clock called 'Escape The Manor' with 10 segments. PCs would use fictional positioning to either delay the Blue Coats or push forward out of the manor with the degree of success and amount of risk taken of relevant Action Rolls having an effect on both clocks.

I'm doing a rather poor job of explaining how Blades works. I'll probably start a new thread to talk about it soon. It's an interesting game. You come for the heists, but the real fun is positioning your crew and dealing with the fallout from scores. My favorite part of the game is that there is no way for you to win anything without someone else losing. It's a game about struggle and taking things.

At the end of the day, I believe that you can focus the game on anything that would fictionally make sense as a shared activity. You just need to build an economy and reward structures around that thing. I also believe you can have a game that is built around a particular narrative structure and still allow the players to play to win. Those are my favorite sorts of games.

 

[Ratskinner]

Narrative mechanics have their own issues. A lot of them depend on a table agreement that defines 'winning' away from success. They work fine when you have a group of players with a solely dramatic aesthetic of play, but I think they offer competitive aesthetics of play less well than simulation games offer dramatic aesthetics of play. I don't think you could play most narrative games I've seen with true power gamers at the table, and I think they do rather poorly with fridge logic (or at least no better than action movies or comic books, which often themselves ignore the fridge logic problems, so maybe that's genera emmulation)

I don't think I actually disagree too awful much with most of the other things you said. However, I will quibble with the "winning" not being "success" on the grounds of "What constitutes success?" I think that's actually one of the core differences between traditional rpgs and Narrative rpgs. Traditional rpgs define success at either the point of game design or the point of adventure design (leaving it in the GM's hands), whereas narrative rpgs almost universally can't define success outside of a player or character. That ends up divorcing (to some extent or another) character and player success. However, success and winning are (or can be) factors in play. Capes, for example, is imminently competitive at the player level, even while two characters are working the same side, their players can be in hot competition for control of the narrative.

I do agree that most of the power gamer types I have seen seem to have difficulty with narrative games and mechanics. I'm sometimes actually confused as to exactly how it is that they are having so much difficulty, but there it is nonetheless.

I think it's inherent to the combat pillar. I've seen to many attempts to design around it that failed to make me think otherwise.

I tend to feel like its more a facet of game design and assumptions of the designers. Games that avoid those assumptions seem to avoid that effect, IME.

 

[Ratskinner]

Ours is a small, aging, hobby. Most of us have lots of practical ability when it comes to coping with imbalances. Because the earliest, most enduring, games (obviously, D&D being the elephant in that room) were wildly imbalanced. So you learned to cope or you didn't stay with the hobby very long.

Absolutely.