D&D 5E How much should 5e aim at balance?

[FireLance]

Why would anyone play a figher, if you can play a MU who can deal out death from afar repeatedly at low levels?

Why indeed? It's almost as if the fighter and the magic-user need to be, you know, balanced.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Now this is an interesting point. Why do you believe that spotlight sharing would happen naturally?

Because there are people at the table. If you throw a bunch of people together, it's natural for them to work as a team. If one character is more powerful than another, the player of the first character will help out the second. If one character is dominating all the scenes, the DM will distract him with something or pull something out of the PCs' backgrounds to shift the spotlight. Bottom line, whatever course of behavior aggregates to producing the best experience for everyone is where the people at the table will gravitate, if they communicate well and set that as the goal.

For one, if someone is a total newbie, why on earth would you expect them to be able to create fun adventures? I know my first forays certainly were nothing to write home about.

I would not expect a beginner to create an adventure. I don't know that I've "created an adventure" in over a decade of DMing. I would expect a beginner to be able to run a game at the table. The first step to DMing is learning how to react to players and create story elements improvisationally. Any other structure imposed on that is optional, and makes things more complicated.

Without learning a few basics, you're basically saying we'd all be better piano players if we never learned to sight read music. Just sit down and play until we can make our own music. I'm very sure there are people who can do that, but, for the rest of us, learning from people who have already made lots of mistakes isn't a bad thing.

An interesting example, but D&D isn't as technical as music (I say this as someone who knows both pretty well). Virtually anyone could simply get together in a group and do some freeform interactive storytelling (whereas anyone could not necessarily produce decent music). D&D is simply imposing a set of game rules on storytime around the campfire; learning D&D is learning how to blend those rules with something you already know how to do (tell a story). Not everyone is equal as a storyteller, but in my experience, even people who are lacking in creativity, intelligence, or confidence can still produce relatively high-quality narratives with no training or experience at all.

As far as WOTC modules being crap goes, I'll not disagree too much there. Although, the Caves of Chaos modules they banged out last year were pretty fun for beginner adventures. They CAN make good modules, it's just that they tend to be very hit or miss.

But, at the end of the day, I'm fairly willing to admit that someone like Eric Mona or James Jacobs can write a better adventure than I can.

Better? In the eyes of the mass market perhaps. But I don't think that any game designer is likely to understand my style or my players. If I didn't have any prep done (and I usually only do a page or two of stat blocks per session and nothing else) I'd just improvise and make stuff up off the top of my head. My process hasn't changed at all since I was a young teenager picking up the game either; the results have simply gotten better. I'm very critical of my first campaign, but having had experience with (well-regarded) published adventure products, I'd take the stuff I made up as a beginner (or any of the campaigns other people in my group have run, largely as beginners and largely as teenagers) over Eric Mona or James Jacobs' best effort any day. The experience of running my own game and the product that came out, whatever their flaws, were still much, much more personal and much better.

Are you talking about 4e or 3e? Because, as it stands, everything you just complained about? It doesn't happen in 3e either.

Some (not all) of those things I cite as deficiencies are problems with 3e as well; I'm not defending it as a perfect system. However, 3e has a much broader variety of mechanics, and many variants out there that allow you to create the experience I want. If core 4e is 0% of what I want, core 3e may be only 30% or somesuch, but it's still much closer and much more amenable to being customized (as 5e supposedly will be).

 

[Ahnehnois]

In the creative medium in question - namely, the comic - there are authors, none of whom is also exercising protagonism in the course of authoring the fiction.

Really? I'd say many authors do put themselves in their characters' shoes, though processes vary.

RPGs are, in my view, quite different in this respect. There are players of player characters who, as part of playing the game and adopting the PC's role, have a definite interest in their PCs doing stuff - although what exactly the stuff is can differ markedly from game to game.

That assumption doesn't necessarily hold true. Some players just like to be there for the story and don't much care what they accomplish. Others prefer to be active but don't mind if things turn out well for their characters or not as long as they have fun. Some people truly adopt the perspective of their one character, but many others play with a broader perspective; both approaches are valid.

And there is a GM, who has a very different role: s/he is not an advocate for any particular character in the adventure, and nor is s/he any sort of protagonist. But s/he is in charge of providing antagonim for the PCs.

A DM(/GM) may very well play DMPCs or "advocate" for his NPCs (which can, but does not have to go badly). He also can, but does not have to provide direct antagonism for the PCs; many times the players create their own challenges, particularly when they're given freedom.

Hence their are conflicting interests: if player A pushes hard for his/her PC, s/he might overshadow player B and player B's PC; if the GM pushes hard with antagonism for the PCs, s/he is naturally going to clash with the desires of A and B that their PCs do their stuff, etc.

As long as everyone is on the same page, any of those outcomes can be fun.

I look to the a range of techniques and systems to handle these clashes of interest: PC build rules that guide the players in building their PCs; encounter build guidelines that give the GM a good and reliable idea of what it means to push this hard or that hard; action resolution mechanics that mean once the GM starts pushing, and each of the players starts pushing back, the conflicting interests combine to produce a satisfying experience.

I don't look at rules that way at all. I look at them as a way to introduce unpredictability (via the dice) and ground the game in a sense of reality (via the game rules that stand in for the rules of the world). I think all those player/DM dynamics are largely independent of the rule system.

My own feeling, based on my own experience, is that this tends to require at least one participant, perhaps more than one, holding back in some fashion or other. One or more of the players ceases to play his/her PC hard; the GM ceases to push the antagonism hard; etc.

I don't know about "holding back". For example, a spellcaster might decide that the best way to maximize party effectiveness is to cast some buff spells on the fighter. A DM might decide that since a certain character poses more of a threat, NPCs concentrate on neutralizing that character. No one's "holding back" in those situations.

Or, conversely, the GM not only frames scenes aggressively but exercises force in their resolution, in order to maintain the balance. For example, s/he adjudicates certain action declarations from Hawkeye's player more sympathetically than the same sort of action declared by Thor's player.

For better or for worse, that kind of bias happens unconsciously all the time, regardless of what the rules are or who's playing. It's human nature.

For me, neither approach is as satisfying as one in which the various clashes of interest are mediated via the mechanical systems of the game.

I know; you want "metagame rules". That's not an invalid approach (again), and I've done things in that vein, I just don't need that out of my D&D experience. I look at core rules as simply an explanation of how the fantasy world works.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Because there are people at the table. If you throw a bunch of people together, it's natural for them to work as a team.

A team to what end? Because if the objective is gamist or simulationist then I'd expect each person to pitch in where they can and not to patronise other PCs. Step on up or explore. And you keep The Load at home where he is safe.

You can not have unbalanced Step on Up play without the ability to step on up or without a massive skill disparity to counter this imbalance.

If one character is more powerful than another, the player of the first character will help out the second.

Of course. And depending how this is done, it can further underscore he power disparity.

Bottom line, whatever course of behavior aggregates to producing the best experience for everyone is where the people at the table will gravitate, if they communicate well and set that as the goal.

This means you can not have Step on Up as your goal - really bad balance doesn't bring the tools to step on up. And exploration is also a problem.

Virtually anyone could simply get together in a group and do some freeform interactive storytelling (whereas anyone could not necessarily produce decent music).

Have you ever seen a slush pile? Freeform interactive storytelling isn't as easy as you think.

D&D is simply imposing a set of game rules on storytime around the campfire;

If this was all I wanted from D&D I'd be playing Dread, 3:16, Wushu, or something else very rules light - or something like Dogs in the Vineyard, FATE, or something Cortex based (not Firefly) that adds to the narrative by tagging and aspecting.

I play D&D precisely because, to use Ron Edwards' terminology, it is incoherent. And therefore many people can get different things out of it at the same time (unlike Ron Edwards, I consider at least some level of incoherence actively helps campaign play).

But people only balance each other and spotlight share when working as a team if your only end is storytelling. By talking about this you are trying to restrict D&D to a genre where it is a bad fit (and ironically 4e is probably the best fit).

If core 4e is 0% of what I want, core 3e may be only 30% or somesuch, but it's still much closer and much more amenable to being customized (as 5e supposedly will be).

If Core 4e is 0% of what you want and core 3e is 30% of what you want, I wonder just what you do want. The games are very alike in most ways.

 

[Hussar]

And, I'm still baffled by the idea that 4e isn't easy to customize. How can it not be? The math is RIGHT THERE. You know exactly what's going to happen (or at the very least, you have some very good pointers) if you change something and, if you want to achieve a particular end, it's generally ludicrously simple. That's the beauty of a balanced, transparent system. It's very, very easy to customize.

I mean, look at Essentials. They take the core 4e engine and strip off very, very large chunks, and you can still run it alongside core 4e. Imagine, for a second, trying to do that in 3e. We're going to strip out Vancian casting, entirely, and then try to run those characters alongside Vancian casters. Good luck.

How much customization do you want?

 

[billd91]

How much customization do you want?

I used to ask the same question with 3e when people would claim it was harder to house rule. And the answer is probably the same - the more unified the mechanic, the wider the ripples of little changes. There aren't disparate subsystems that confine the changes like in 1e/2e.

I don't really agree with that assessment with 3e, but that was the rationale. Anyone who made that argument with 3e would probably make the same one with 4e. Plus, given the privileged position combat balance is given by the 4e design, they'd probably be concerned about upsetting it.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I used to ask the same question with 3e when people would claim it was harder to house rule. And the answer is probably the same - the more unified the mechanic, the wider the ripples of little changes. There aren't disparate subsystems that confine the changes like in 1e/2e.

I don't really agree with that assessment with 3e, but that was the rationale. Anyone who made that argument with 3e would probably make the same one with 4e. Plus, given the privileged position combat balance is given by the 4e design, they'd probably be concerned about upsetting it.

I think that the core problem is that 95% of house rules are simply bad - houserules as much as anything else follow Sturgeon's Law. The cleaner the background the more the badness of houserules are shown up - whereas against a background involving things such as Weapon Speed Factors and a Weapon vs Armour Type table bad rules aren't going to show up at all.

 

[Hussar]

I used to ask the same question with 3e when people would claim it was harder to house rule. And the answer is probably the same - the more unified the mechanic, the wider the ripples of little changes. There aren't disparate subsystems that confine the changes like in 1e/2e.

I don't really agree with that assessment with 3e, but that was the rationale. Anyone who made that argument with 3e would probably make the same one with 4e. Plus, given the privileged position combat balance is given by the 4e design, they'd probably be concerned about upsetting it.

Fair enough I suppose. I'm not in that boat because I know how robust the 3e ruleset is. You can do some pretty awful things to that ruleset and it still works pretty well.

So, yeah, I'd largely agree with you here. I mean, looking at either 3e or 4e here, there's a ton of supplements for both systems. Yup, 3e's got more, but, 4e's not exactly a slouch either. There's what, some 50 WOTC supplements for 4e? And both systems still work a HELL of a lot better with supplements than, say, 2e.

People who complain about "feat taxes" should be forced to play at a table where the Complete Priest is used.

 

[pemerton]

I'd say many authors do put themselves in their characters' shoes, though processes vary.

But an author who can't let go of his/her protagonist is compromising his/her integrity as an author. You might identify this as a type of narcissism. Whereas a player who lets go of his/her PC is, in a game driven by player protagonism, in effect dropping out of the game.

Bottom line, whatever course of behavior aggregates to producing the best experience for everyone is where the people at the table will gravitate, if they communicate well and set that as the goal.

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D&D is simply imposing a set of game rules on storytime around the campfire

<snip>

even people who are lacking in creativity, intelligence, or confidence can still produce relatively high-quality narratives with no training or experience at all.

Some players just like to be there for the story and don't much care what they accomplish.

<snip>

I don't look at rules that way at all. I look at them as a way to introduce unpredictability (via the dice) and ground the game in a sense of reality (via the game rules that stand in for the rules of the world).

<snip>

I look at core rules as simply an explanation of how the fantasy world works.

What happens when application of the dice to generate unpredicatability produces a poor narrative? Or, to take a step further back, who gets to decide when the dice are to be rolled?

I guess I don't have an entirely clear picture of how you see the rules working, and relating to the cooperative story endeavour (not that you're obliged to give me one, of course).

 

[Ahnehnois]

But an author who can't let go of his/her protagonist is compromising his/her integrity as an author.

Really? Seems to me that a lot of great authors can't let go of their protagonist and his/her perspective. I can see where that's not the only approach, but I don't see any integrity being compromised.

Whereas a player who lets go of his/her PC is, in a game driven by player protagonism, in effect dropping out of the game.

I don't think that's true at all. A player can "let go" simply by deciding to take actions that support the story but aren't necessarily advantageous for the character. The decision to work in a party is a classic example of such a conceit.

What happens when application of the dice to generate unpredicatability produces a poor narrative?

Them's the risks you take. Any creative process results in a great deal of garbage being produced (and unlike an author who has the luxury of drafts or a painter who can throw out his painting and start over again, you generally don't get second chances in D&D). The risk of failure is largely part of the fun. Even in the unlikely event that you do get a really poor narrative, it isn't the end of the world (though it may be in game).

D&D rather reminds me of watching Battlestar Galactica, in that there's dramatic tension in the world, but there's also a sense of "meta" dramatic tension, as the audience is often left to wonder whether the story has completely gone off the rails, only to find that it hasn't.

Or, to take a step further back, who gets to decide when the dice are to be rolled?

The DM, by convention. Then again, player suggestion is also important.

I guess I don't have an entirely clear picture of how you see the rules working, and relating to the cooperative story endeavour (not that you're obliged to give me one, of course).

I start out without rules, from a sense of cooperative storytelling (which I liked to do as a child). Then I ask myself: what do the rules add to that experience? My answer, from experience, is twofold.

The first thing the rules add is limits. Without rules, you'd have people saying "I kill the dragon", "I jump the chasm", "I seduce the general" and so on, and you'd have other people saying "but you can't do that", "that wouldn't work", "that doesn't make sense". D&D sets clear limits as to what your character can do, grounding your actions in some sort of reality (albeit a fantastical one). You're only so strong, and a sword can only cut so hard, and a spell can only do so much.

The other thing it adds is a sense of unpredictability. When you're watching a story unfold in the cinema, you don't always know what's going to happen, and that's exciting. If you're creating one with a group of friends, you know them and you know yourself, and that can become boring for precisely the same reason. The dice add an element of unpredictability. A character may die that even the DM wanted to live. A character may uncover a plotthat wa ssupposed to be drawn out for weeks with a simple lucky roll. Or maybe it just rains because of some percentile roll on a weather chart when you pictured the adventure playing out on a bright sunny day. Whatever the case, it spices things up to add in that random element.

That's what I use rules for.