How important is game balance to you?

[Tony Vargas]

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.

I've much more often heard that called "niche protection." It was a notorious feature of classic D&D. You 'needed' a cleric to heal & turn undead. You 'needed' a Thief to be killed by ..er Find/Remove.. Traps.

"Silo'ing," though. The way it started getting used was in contrast to spotlight balance or "balancing across pillars." It referred to balancing the classes within each pillar. So you could have an all-combat dungeon crawl, and the classes would be balanced, because they all have viable contributions (however unique & different) to make in combat; by the same token you could go all-intrigue, or all-exploration, or various, not tightly proportioned combinations. With balancing /across/ pillars, you need to calibrate balance to a particular mix of the pillars, if you assume combat is going to happen more often, for instance, you need to make sure combat-heavy classes have very little else going for them, or the non-combat types won't shine brightly enough to make up for their limited screen time (and taking that too far by shutting everyone else out entirely gets you the Netrunner Problem). So Silo'ing may not get you a more balanced game, but it will retain its balance regardless of the emphasis of the campaign - it'll be more robustly balanced.

 

[Celebrim]

I've much more often heard that called "niche protection." It was a notorious feature of classic D&D. You 'needed' a cleric to heal & turn undead. You 'needed' a Thief to be killed by ..er Find/Remove.. Traps.

Someone needs to compile an official dictionary.

"Silo'ing," though. The way it started getting used was in contrast to spotlight balance or "balancing across pillars." It referred to balancing the classes within each pillar. So you could have an all-combat dungeon crawl, and the classes would be balanced, because they all have viable contributions (however unique & different) to make in combat; by the same token you could go all-intrigue, or all-exploration, or various, not tightly proportioned combinations. With balancing /across/ pillars, you need to calibrate balance to a particular mix of the pillars, if you assume combat is going to happen more often, for instance, you need to make sure combat-heavy classes have very little else going for them, or the non-combat types won't shine brightly enough to make up for their limited screen time (and taking that too far by shutting everyone else out entirely gets you the Netrunner Problem). So Silo'ing may not get you a more balanced game, but it will retain its balance regardless of the emphasis of the campaign - it'll be more robustly balanced.

That's interesting, and I can see that as a useful term defined in that manner, but I went back and looked at you and ratskinner's conversation around the term, and it is still not at all clear to me that either of you were using the term strictly to mean that, much less that you both understood the term in that way.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That's interesting, and I can see that as a useful term defined in that manner, but I went back and looked at you and ratskinner's conversation around the term, and it is still not at all clear to me that either of you were using the term strictly to mean that, much less that you both understood the term in that way.

Sorry I was unclear, but, yeah that was the idea. Came out of the playtest and the floating of the 3 Pillars concept, IIRC.

 

[Sunseeker]

Game balance is important to the degree that, across games, your choice of primary options (race, class, background) does not predispose you to always playing catchup, or always succeding. In a single came, a single class can certainly be a better choice than another. Over the course of many games, the fact that Bob played a Cleric and you played a Monk should not be the determining factor in your ability to meaningfully contribute to the adventure on a regular basis.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Yet if everyone is equally powered in dimensions X Y and Z what do they need the rest of the party for?

The whole point of the party concept...well, other than sheer strength in numbers, in which case you're better off playing 6 characters each...is that each character brings one or two particular strengths and hopes the others can compensate for their lack of strength in other areas. In this way silos and niche protection are good things; and if you don't have a particular competency in the party once everyone has figured out what they want to play (e.g. you have no Thief or no Wizard or no Cleric) then you'd better go recruiting; that's what party NPCs are for.

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.

Early D&D was imbalanced in some ways, sure, but in others it had balances the later editions could take a lesson from. Casters of all kinds, for example, were greatly kept in check by their being so easy to interrupt. No such thing as combat casting, and spells took time during which other people could mess you up. Later editions (most notable 3e) took away those headaches and had/have no end of issues with overpowered casters.

The staggered level-advancement tables, where Thieves bumped almost twice as fast as MU's, were also a balancing influence.

Lanefan

 

[Campbell]

Gygax's AD&D is a pretty solid game. It knows what it's about, has rules targeted with engaging its premise, and a reward structure that fits the gameplay it is after. The text did not do the best job at communicating its premise to those not part of Gygax's cultural group though. There was also significant drift amongst play groups who were not ultimately interested in Gygax's game. Some of that can be blamed on scenario design and early attempts to make D&D a cross-media property. I'm not only speaking of Castle Ravenloft and Dragonlance, but also the Greyhawk novels and the Giant and Drow series. Over the lifetime of 1st edition the game became less about the players and more about setting exploration and plot heavy scenarios. To be fair, the Greyhawk adventures never really assumed a particular path in the same way that Dragonlance did. 2e would make Dragonlance style games the point and strip out a good portion of AD&D's exploration rules and gut the game's reward structure.

Of course, I missed all that. I started playing with 2e in 1997 with a railroady Dragonlance game! I did come back to 1e years later in 2012, and really enjoyed it despite it not being quite my jam. That same group played in a Mentzer B/X game that I felt worked much better for the same sort of play. I definitely consider it a superior text. Frank Mentzer knows how to write a game. I've also gone back to 2e since and drifted the hell out of it. You just have to ignore everything the game tells you to do, and the reward structures are all off. Still, it was a better experience than trying to do the same with 3e. 4e drifted that way pretty easily. All in all, I consider them all phenomenally different games. B/X is probably the best from a pure design perspective. I consider Gygax's AD&D second best from a pure design perspective. I enjoyed 4e the most, but ignored half the text, and drifted the hell out of it. I haven't played 5e yet. My impression is that in spirit it matches 2e the most. I might eventually take a look at it to see if there's something I can hack, but my desire for text clarity and kneejerk reaction to enshrining the Golden Rule has left me hesitant.

 

[Celebrim]

Yet if everyone is equally powered in dimensions X Y and Z what do they need the rest of the party for?

I would guess the idea is that the pillars of gameplay can be sliced, so that regardless of which pillar you are playing, and which class you are playing, you can expect your class to be able to contribute to that pillar in a (somewhat) unique way. So your character has single target high damage ranged combat, keen perception, and detect untruths and a different character has area effect attacks, know lore, and chutpah, and another character has powerful melee attacks, break stuff, and intimidation. Depending on the 'tactical situation' in each pillar, each character's silo could shine.

The staggered level-advancement tables, where Thieves bumped almost twice as fast as MU's, were also a balancing influence.

That's a bit of a myth. When Thieves hit 11th level, M-U's hit 10th. In typical games, you never had a separation of more than 1 HD with M-U's, and no more than about 2HD with Paladins and Barbarians. It gets slightly better after that, and you might get separation of up to 3HD later on, but in 1e after name level the benefits of increasing level were very small for non-casters (and thieves especially). Because everything improved so slowly for thieves, and because they had no irreplaceable utility, there was never any real balance between thieves and other classes after about 2nd level. That point where you were 2nd level and everyone else was for maybe one session 1st level was the best it ever got. The longer the game went, the worse the class became.

 

[Bobthelaw]

Interesting!

 

[Tony Vargas]

Gygax's AD&D is a pretty solid game.

The books sure were. My DMG is battered but still in one piece, I can't say the same thing about all my later-era D&D books.

Yet if everyone is equally powered in dimensions X Y and Z what do they need the rest of the party for?

Neither over- nor under-powered does not mean exactly equal nor identical. A sufficiently overpowered (particularly if also overflexible) option renders others non-viable 'traps.' So if you have many balanced choices along each dimension or within each pillar (or pick your terminology/metaphor), you can have many unique characters who are balanced with eachother in each of those areas, and the GM can emphasize different aspects of the game without worrying about sidelining anyone unfairly.

The whole point of the party concept...

I'm not so sure there /is/ a "whole point" to it, I think it just sorta happened. If we go all the way back to what's public knowledge (or rumor) about the earliest D&D games, there were a lot of wizards being played, and someone wanted to play a vampire - and someone else a Van Helsing type (and got the Cleric).

I suspect the main point of the 'party' is to accommodate multiple players. It's also the main point of balance in that context. (Though, in a single-player game, there's still a point to balance.)

Early D&D was imbalanced in some ways, sure, but in others it had balances the later editions could take a lesson from.

Mostly in the sense of learning from the mistakes of history, sure. ;P
But,

Casters of all kinds, for example, were greatly kept in check by their being so easy to interrupt. No such thing as combat casting, and spells took time during which other people could mess you up. Later editions (most notable 3e) took away those headaches and had/have no end of issues with overpowered casters.

There has been a steady trend away from restrictions on casting, and it seems like the impetus wasn't to make casters more or less powerful, though it does the former quite noticeably. 3e loosened up restrictions on casters substantially but barely reigned in the power of spells, and full casters ruled Optimization Tiers 1 & 2, possibly overpowering and overshadowing everything else. 4e /further/ loosened up most restrictions on casters, but more or less balanced them by reducing the power/versatility of spells, and greatly increasing the peak power/flexibility of non-casters. 5e further loosened up restrictions on casters (not that there was a lot left to loosen) and partially restored the high-power/flexibility of casting.

So even though spellcasting restrictions have been on a straight-line road to oblivion, balance has not tracked them.

The staggered level-advancement tables, where Thieves bumped almost twice as fast as MU's, were also a balancing influence.

....

That's a bit of a myth. When Thieves hit 11th level, M-U's hit 10th. In typical games, you never had a separation of more than 1 HD with M-U's, and no more than about 2HD with Paladins and Barbarians. It gets slightly better after that, and you might get separation of up to 3HD later on, but in 1e after name level the benefits of increasing level were very small for non-casters (and thieves especially).

Nod. Double the experience meant about a level behind until name level, where it prettymuch stopped mattering for non-casters. It was a surprisingly neat system: it helped minimize the consequences of PC death (your character died at 5th, your new 1st-level character would be 6th by the time the highest level PC was 7th or 8th); kept the MCing system basically functional (in terms of hps & saving throws, for instance); made dual-classing remotely practicable; but it didn't much 'balance' classes with different rates of advancement.

 

[Celebrim]

.... Nod. Double the experience meant about a level behind until name level, where it pretty much stopped mattering for non-casters. It was a surprisingly neat system: it helped minimize the consequences of PC death (your character died at 5th, your new 1st-level character would be 6th by the time the highest level PC was 7th or 8th); kept the MCing system basically functional (in terms of hps & saving throws, for instance); made dual-classing remotely practicable; but it didn't much 'balance' classes with different rates of advancement.

I've considered bringing back exponential XP costs to level for my 3e house rules, for exactly that reason.

It's also fabulous for campaign demographics if you have a simulationist bent, because it neatly levels off the distribution of NPC's of high level in a way that linear increases don't.

The only reason I don't is that I don't want to bring back wealth as XP and 1e style force feeding the party with gold to force leveling, and I'm not sure how I'd well balance XP for challenges when that XP would need to increase exponentially.