Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
What makes us care about combat balance in D&D?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Diamondeye" data-source="post: 6660545" data-attributes="member: 60019"><p>The problematic assumption you are making is that Rule 0 involves the DM making arbitrary judgements on the fly that the players are aware of, and in areas where rules are already clear. Usually at least one, and most often more than one, or all of those things are not true when Rule 0 is invoked; most often the latter. Game rules cannot anticipate all, and often not even most game situations, or don't reflect the preferences of the DM, players or most often both for the game world before play even starts.</p><p></p><p>Furthermore, the system doesn't present the world as the characters understand it - only a vague overview of it. The characters are probably ignorant of most or all of what can actually happen in the world. If something changes in the game in that way, it's essentially a discovery for the characters much like a new scientific revelation in real life</p><p></p><p>Like most complaints about rule 0, you are complaining about it being invoked in a certain way - a way that has nothing to do with the fact that game systems are designed for DM customization and tailoring.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Your example has nothing to do with balance. Your example refers to an inconsistency in a game. Balance has nothing to do with "whether the world is built on a lie."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Balance does not, in fact, work like that. It's been a regular assertion in PF and several versions of D&D that casters are unbalanced, yet everyone does NOT play a caster nor is everyone in that world a caster. Furthermore, balance is not related to internal consistency.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Actually no, it has nothing to do with that primarily because "imbalance" isn't actually a problem in comparison to absolute advancement and because unrest isn't "growing". It seems like it is because it's the unrest that's immediate on our television and because we get to see it in 100% real time all the time with the advent of internet and 24 hour news. It's just a different variant on the same problems that have always been around. The "imbalance" problems in real life are about people inventing a solution they want to work, then looking for a problem for it to solve.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Balance does not impact plausibility at all. Balance has nothing to do with coherence; it has to do with the proportion of player relevance, and whether they are facing meaningful but beatable challenges.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That's a good solution, becuase if you are sitting at my table measuring your usefulness against everyone else's and complaining about it, you'll find yourself departing very rapidly. The simple fact is that your character won't be equally relevant all the time. There are lots of reasons for this and balance is almost always not the reason. Players joining an ongoing session, being timid, being unfamiliar with the rules (generally or for the class they're playing) or simply building a terrible character are far more frequent - but hardly the only reasons, and the last is not a balance issue either. Some people just fall in love with a ridiculous character concept and won't give it up no matter how much good advice they get.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No one is saying any such thing. Houserules about character capabilities are properly put out before play starts, and if adjustments are necessary group input is taken. You are engaging in a blatant strawman here.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Every wizard in the world is not a member of the PC's party, and that wizard and that rogue are the only ones important. NPC wizards can knock open all the doors they want. Every wizard in the world does not need to have every spell and it is perfectly reasonable for the PC wizard to simply not run across it. If he does, there's no reason he should necessarily memorize it since he DOES have a rogue friend. If he insists on memorizing it, he can save it for a lock that the rogue can't pick in a timely fashion.</p><p></p><p>I am pretty sure you knew all that already anyhow though. I clearly didn't say "every wizard eschews the knock spell", I said the PC wizard either doesn't have it or avoids using it very much because the player has some basic consideration for the guy playing the rogue. It's not like there aren't plenty of other very useful spells to use instead. All you did was create a strawman.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No it doesn't. It has nothing to do with anything of the sort. The DM not giving out a scroll of "knock" or saying to the player "maybe you should choose a different spell" or the player saying "maybe Invisiblity, Web, and Summon Monster II today.. I don't need to prepare 'knock'" have literally nothing to do with what the characters understand about the world. You are making wild assertions about consistent worlds that are totally irrelevant. Your entire argument has been one massive strawman.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, even in the "unbalanced" systems you're complaining about, people still played rogues and NPC rogues still existed. Not all players want to play a caster and not all NPCs have the talent to be a wizard - most don't, as a matter of fact, and many more don't want to engage in years of study, or can't secure the training. Others become other types of casters such as clerics and druids, and sorcerers with limited spell selections may AVOID knock if they know a rogue that can do it for them. </p><p></p><p>Your extrapolation of what SHOULD happen demonstrably ISN'T what happens, and it's because you engaged in an overly-simplistic analysis that did not consider all factors affecting the result. In the real world, professional football players make way more money than waiters, so everyone should be a pro football player, according to your logic. I don't think I need to explain why this isn't true in practice. Technological systems replacing each other (and housekeeping is still a very real function on modern systems even if they don't use tapes any more) is not an actual equivalent. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>All you are doing is using prejudicial language to beg the question. DM adjustments to rules are not "lies" or "useless tissue" or do they involve some social awkwardness of "playing the DM". They're common to almost every group, and book rules are not somehow better just because they're in a book. The only thing "hackneyed" here is people declaring balance problems by "fiat" and repeating that things are "Broken" over and over because they don't like them.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ineffective people survive quite well in real life, even in places where little social support is available. This is not an important question at all - especially since they are not "congenitally unsuited to the world". Ineffective people make the bulk of the world's population - you need lots of pesants feeding everyone else.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You are inappropriately conflating social interactions between the players at the table with the internal game world mechanics. The game world does not know that the players exist. Furthermore, the player making a specific decision about what spell to memorize, or the DM making a decision about what spell might be on a scroll does not actually have any implications for how the world works. In fact, knock even being a spell at all does not - nor does the rest of the spell list. What matters is, does the DM arbitrarily ban it after the player already has it and uses it. That would be an arbitrary jarring change, but simply asking the player to consider different options is not.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You do not, so far as we know, have a player anywhere designing you as a character. Your inability to socialize your way to real-life skills has no bearing on whether you can get Schmetlap sitting next to you at the table to stop knocking open every chest just because he likes being a troll.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>More blatant strawmanning. The DM making houserules is not robbing the player of anything. The player is not entitled to a set of unaltered book rules. He's entitled to have whatever rules - book or house - enforced fairly and consistently and to not be subject to arbitrary changes midstream (arbitrary meaning in cases other than unanticipated situations where no clear rule is available). Furthermore, if one player is intentionally making choices to eliminate participation by everyone else, that's a social problem. There is no reason they NEED to make those choices to keep the world internally consistent.</p><p></p><p>I</p><p></p><p>Once again, this has nothing to do with balance whatsoever, and your premise that any DM alteration to the world or any interplayer negotiation somehow violates the world's internal consistency is utterly without merit or any support from the arguments you've listed. You basically jsut don't seem to understand the difference between balance and consistency or understand that choices cannot be derived in advance from a simple assessment of power.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Diamondeye, post: 6660545, member: 60019"] The problematic assumption you are making is that Rule 0 involves the DM making arbitrary judgements on the fly that the players are aware of, and in areas where rules are already clear. Usually at least one, and most often more than one, or all of those things are not true when Rule 0 is invoked; most often the latter. Game rules cannot anticipate all, and often not even most game situations, or don't reflect the preferences of the DM, players or most often both for the game world before play even starts. Furthermore, the system doesn't present the world as the characters understand it - only a vague overview of it. The characters are probably ignorant of most or all of what can actually happen in the world. If something changes in the game in that way, it's essentially a discovery for the characters much like a new scientific revelation in real life Like most complaints about rule 0, you are complaining about it being invoked in a certain way - a way that has nothing to do with the fact that game systems are designed for DM customization and tailoring. Your example has nothing to do with balance. Your example refers to an inconsistency in a game. Balance has nothing to do with "whether the world is built on a lie." Balance does not, in fact, work like that. It's been a regular assertion in PF and several versions of D&D that casters are unbalanced, yet everyone does NOT play a caster nor is everyone in that world a caster. Furthermore, balance is not related to internal consistency. Actually no, it has nothing to do with that primarily because "imbalance" isn't actually a problem in comparison to absolute advancement and because unrest isn't "growing". It seems like it is because it's the unrest that's immediate on our television and because we get to see it in 100% real time all the time with the advent of internet and 24 hour news. It's just a different variant on the same problems that have always been around. The "imbalance" problems in real life are about people inventing a solution they want to work, then looking for a problem for it to solve. Balance does not impact plausibility at all. Balance has nothing to do with coherence; it has to do with the proportion of player relevance, and whether they are facing meaningful but beatable challenges. That's a good solution, becuase if you are sitting at my table measuring your usefulness against everyone else's and complaining about it, you'll find yourself departing very rapidly. The simple fact is that your character won't be equally relevant all the time. There are lots of reasons for this and balance is almost always not the reason. Players joining an ongoing session, being timid, being unfamiliar with the rules (generally or for the class they're playing) or simply building a terrible character are far more frequent - but hardly the only reasons, and the last is not a balance issue either. Some people just fall in love with a ridiculous character concept and won't give it up no matter how much good advice they get. No one is saying any such thing. Houserules about character capabilities are properly put out before play starts, and if adjustments are necessary group input is taken. You are engaging in a blatant strawman here. Every wizard in the world is not a member of the PC's party, and that wizard and that rogue are the only ones important. NPC wizards can knock open all the doors they want. Every wizard in the world does not need to have every spell and it is perfectly reasonable for the PC wizard to simply not run across it. If he does, there's no reason he should necessarily memorize it since he DOES have a rogue friend. If he insists on memorizing it, he can save it for a lock that the rogue can't pick in a timely fashion. I am pretty sure you knew all that already anyhow though. I clearly didn't say "every wizard eschews the knock spell", I said the PC wizard either doesn't have it or avoids using it very much because the player has some basic consideration for the guy playing the rogue. It's not like there aren't plenty of other very useful spells to use instead. All you did was create a strawman. No it doesn't. It has nothing to do with anything of the sort. The DM not giving out a scroll of "knock" or saying to the player "maybe you should choose a different spell" or the player saying "maybe Invisiblity, Web, and Summon Monster II today.. I don't need to prepare 'knock'" have literally nothing to do with what the characters understand about the world. You are making wild assertions about consistent worlds that are totally irrelevant. Your entire argument has been one massive strawman. Again, even in the "unbalanced" systems you're complaining about, people still played rogues and NPC rogues still existed. Not all players want to play a caster and not all NPCs have the talent to be a wizard - most don't, as a matter of fact, and many more don't want to engage in years of study, or can't secure the training. Others become other types of casters such as clerics and druids, and sorcerers with limited spell selections may AVOID knock if they know a rogue that can do it for them. Your extrapolation of what SHOULD happen demonstrably ISN'T what happens, and it's because you engaged in an overly-simplistic analysis that did not consider all factors affecting the result. In the real world, professional football players make way more money than waiters, so everyone should be a pro football player, according to your logic. I don't think I need to explain why this isn't true in practice. Technological systems replacing each other (and housekeeping is still a very real function on modern systems even if they don't use tapes any more) is not an actual equivalent. All you are doing is using prejudicial language to beg the question. DM adjustments to rules are not "lies" or "useless tissue" or do they involve some social awkwardness of "playing the DM". They're common to almost every group, and book rules are not somehow better just because they're in a book. The only thing "hackneyed" here is people declaring balance problems by "fiat" and repeating that things are "Broken" over and over because they don't like them. Ineffective people survive quite well in real life, even in places where little social support is available. This is not an important question at all - especially since they are not "congenitally unsuited to the world". Ineffective people make the bulk of the world's population - you need lots of pesants feeding everyone else. You are inappropriately conflating social interactions between the players at the table with the internal game world mechanics. The game world does not know that the players exist. Furthermore, the player making a specific decision about what spell to memorize, or the DM making a decision about what spell might be on a scroll does not actually have any implications for how the world works. In fact, knock even being a spell at all does not - nor does the rest of the spell list. What matters is, does the DM arbitrarily ban it after the player already has it and uses it. That would be an arbitrary jarring change, but simply asking the player to consider different options is not. You do not, so far as we know, have a player anywhere designing you as a character. Your inability to socialize your way to real-life skills has no bearing on whether you can get Schmetlap sitting next to you at the table to stop knocking open every chest just because he likes being a troll. More blatant strawmanning. The DM making houserules is not robbing the player of anything. The player is not entitled to a set of unaltered book rules. He's entitled to have whatever rules - book or house - enforced fairly and consistently and to not be subject to arbitrary changes midstream (arbitrary meaning in cases other than unanticipated situations where no clear rule is available). Furthermore, if one player is intentionally making choices to eliminate participation by everyone else, that's a social problem. There is no reason they NEED to make those choices to keep the world internally consistent. I Once again, this has nothing to do with balance whatsoever, and your premise that any DM alteration to the world or any interplayer negotiation somehow violates the world's internal consistency is utterly without merit or any support from the arguments you've listed. You basically jsut don't seem to understand the difference between balance and consistency or understand that choices cannot be derived in advance from a simple assessment of power. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
What makes us care about combat balance in D&D?
Top