The Problem of Balance (and how to get rid of it)

[Hussar]

wait a minute...the kryptonite is used as a macguffin not to "nerf" superman in my example he would still have to handle the super-being before trying to save himself anyway, because that's Superman.

It is one scenario. Look, the investigative stuff can happen together (perhaps Superman can't get a thug to divulge info, but Batman scares it out of him and of course they have their "moral discussion moment" for roleplaying purposes). I mean even the battles can happen within the same area, with them fighting different foes (I'm not writing a whole module out to answer a question on a forum). Or do you feel they have to be fighting the exact same enemies in the exact same place at the exact same time... now that's limiting.

As far as why not just have balanced characters... because something has to be sacrificed to achieve this artificial balance... and sometimes I want to play Batman, because he's cooler than Superman to me... and the power difference doesn't matter because IMO, that's what makes Batman cool.

I have a real problem when the game presumes that players will deliberately handicap themselves in service to other people's fun. Because that's what you're talking about. Superman, ignoring the telepathy bit for a second, if played by a Player and not a Writer, flies above Gotham, listens to the city with his super hearing, spies on the enemies with his x-ray vision, mops up the thugs in 2 seconds then goes and deals with the big bad guy.

IME, players are far and away more pragmatic than any writer.

You have mentioned more than a few times that you think "Aid Another" is good enough. Can you not understand that for many people it isn't? Reducing my character to a 1st level commoner is not fun for many people? Plus, in order to Aid Another, I have to expose myself to threats, which means that the enemy that can challenge the fighter can likely kill my rogue in one round.

So, the DM either kills Bats every single time, or he plays his enemies as brain dead. Neither option is particularly appealing to me. Sure, you shouldn't play your baddies at 110% all the time (well, you can, but, that's a particular style of game), but, pretending that Lex Luthor is a drooling idiot is another thing too.

Balance is good.

Hegemony is not.

/snip

I believe the word you want to use is homogenity. Hegemony means something entirely different.

I would agree. I don't want everyone to be exactly the same. But, by the same token, balance =/= homogenity any more than imbalance equals creativity.

I was accused upthread of beating a dead horse. Then please explain where I've missed the point. It seems to me that there are those claiming that imbalance makes a better game. That by having balanced characters, you wind up with homogeneous characters.

I beg to differ. To me, imbalance leads far more often to homogeneous characters because, unless the player is deliberately handicapping himself, he will choose the better option every single time.

Going back to superheroes for a second. Which would you rather play with - Superman's powers or Batman's powers? Note, I did not say anything about personality, since mechanics in no way dictate personality (typically). If you could play Batman's personality, with Superman's suite of powers, I'm thinking the vast majority of players would choose that over playing standard Batman.

 

[Remathilis]

Well.. except that now "combat" and "magic" are all exactly the same. Now EVERYONE has "spells".

No. "Combat" and "magic" use the same mechanical resolution system. Fighters cannot shoot beams of magical force up to 50 feet away, deal extra damage to undead (and prevent their regen), strike large amounts of foes at range, or heal allies with a minor action (or trigger saving throws off turn, etc). And that's not even getting into flight, teleporting, invisibility, etc.

The big difference though is before, you could shut down a particular class with a specific type of monster/challenge. Wizards were useless against drow, demons, golems, and any other creature with high SR. (Alternately, high energy resistance or energy immunity was good as slowing down a mage). Similarly, fighters got shut down with odd combination of DR (magic + bludegon, good + piercing, Silver + lawful, etc). Rogue's got hosed by high DR AND crit-immune foes. Clerics suffered from high SR and DR.

Those are gone now, its harder to shut down a PC using "gotcha" immunities like SR or DR. And if you think its limited to combat recall this: in 3.X, you needed a rogue (or later classes like artificer or beguiler) to find and remove traps. If your rogue died, you needed a new ROGUE or to start wasting spells and resources on trapfinding. In 4e, there is no "trapfinding" mechanic, a ranger with training, or even a fighter untrained can attempt to pick locks or find traps. Rogues are still better, of course, but not a necessity.

 

[billd91]

Bingo! THIS is what happens when you ignore game balance.

And behavior that makes no sense is what happens if you follow just game balance.
3e got this one right. Bows were martial weapons, crossbows were simple. Character classes that didn't learn the martial weapons relied on the crossbow for ranged attacks... as you would expect for people with relatively little weapon training.

 

[Hussar]

Remalthalis - Y'know, it's funny, even before the release of 4e, I took out the restriction on rogue's sneak attack. When my 5 players made characters, I got two rogues right off the bat and third one was planned.

Guess my players don't buy into the idea that "aid another" is a viable option.

 

[billd91]

See, because there is a large number of people out there who want to roleplay AND win. Which means they create effective characters based on what the campaign is all about. That's just being a good player.

I fail to understand how winning or losing relates to role play.

Or by your examples, it sounds like what they want is winning all the time. Even in a system with weaker niches, as long as there are player choices in character build, there are times when they might not have something useful to do compared to a character who makes that his niche.

Honestly, are we getting to the point where people expect to be able to make choices with no trade-offs? No opportunity costs?

 

[Hussar]

And behavior that makes no sense is what happens if you follow just game balance.
3e got this one right. Bows were martial weapons, crossbows were simple. Character classes that didn't learn the martial weapons relied on the crossbow for ranged attacks... as you would expect for people with relatively little weapon training.

Maybe in your experience. In my experience, beyond about 3rd level, no one ever used a crossbow again. The wizard and the cleric had ranged spells that were far and away better than any crossbow and no self respecting rogue ever bothered with a crossbow.

So, basically, crossbows were kinda like the 2 weeks iron rations you write on your character sheet and then immediately forget about because they are utterly inconsequential.

 

[billd91]

Whereas me, we played Vampire: TM for about four or five sessions, realized how ridiculously easy it was to break the system (this was the first edition of Vampire) and dropped it like the bad egg that it was. Sorry, the chargen system in Vampire is a poster child for what I'm talking about.

Taking as high a generation score (I believe that was the term) was just so much better a strategy than anything else you could possibly do that it wasn't funny. So, suddenly, we're all eigth gen vampires running around who can obliterate 99% of anything we face.

And, guess what? In Vampire violence solves SO many problems.

Some people pick games because they actually like the genre conventions the rules reflect. Not everybody turns every game into a combat boardgame.
Maybe Vampire wasn't the game for you... but then, maybe AD&D wasn't either.

 

[billd91]

Seen it, and in my opinion, we could just as easily throw Superman and Batman up there for an opposing viewpoint. Probably the same disparity in actual power levels, yet through creativity, intelligence and resourcefulness Batman can not only hang with Superman... he's actually one of the few humans who can outsmart and beat him.

Superman's player was a munchkin.

But having run superhero games with no real character balancing mechanics (Villains and Vigilantes using random power rolls), it's not that hard to have a game in which every player and PC contributes and has a lot of fun. It's part of the superhero genre to have wacky devices and defenses in place by the supervillains/masterminds that can deal with even the most powerful character (and yet have vulnerabilities to other weaker ones). And that's not nerfing the stronger PC - it's challenging the team. That's the genre convention.

Used to be that the genre convention in D&D wasn't just kicking in the door, killing things, and taking their stuff. It was exploring dungeons, overcoming devious tricks and traps, kicking in doors, killing things, and taking their stuff. Anyone who limits it to the last three has a faulty memory.

 

[billd91]

The big difference though is before, you could shut down a particular class with a specific type of monster/challenge. Wizards were useless against drow, demons, golems, and any other creature with high SR. (Alternately, high energy resistance or energy immunity was good as slowing down a mage). Similarly, fighters got shut down with odd combination of DR (magic + bludegon, good + piercing, Silver + lawful, etc). Rogue's got hosed by high DR AND crit-immune foes. Clerics suffered from high SR and DR.

I've rarely found a character to be completely shut down. Direct attacks may not always work with, for example, spells and high spell resistance but in every edition, indirect attacks have worked just fine. It's not a question of being neutralized as much as the tactics necessary in such circumstances not being to taste or didn't make use of the character's carefully analyzed min-maxed awesome build.
In the old days, I found that a DM could throw encounters at a set of PCs that forced them to rethink their offense because of the defenses or qualities of the creatures. Now, if everybody's powers work roughly the same most of the time against most creatures, what changes in offense do the players ever have to make? Now, I start to understand why the terrain is now being pushed so hard as an element of making interesting encounters...

 

[Hussar]

Superman's player was a munchkin.

But having run superhero games with no real character balancing mechanics (Villains and Vigilantes using random power rolls), it's not that hard to have a game in which every player and PC contributes and has a lot of fun. It's part of the superhero genre to have wacky devices and defenses in place by the supervillains/masterminds that can deal with even the most powerful character (and yet have vulnerabilities to other weaker ones). And that's not nerfing the stronger PC - it's challenging the team. That's the genre convention.

Used to be that the genre convention in D&D wasn't just kicking in the door, killing things, and taking their stuff. It was exploring dungeons, overcoming devious tricks and traps, kicking in doors, killing things, and taking their stuff. Anyone who limits it to the last three has a faulty memory.

Speaking of faulty memory. Villains and Vigilantes specifically points out that characters with less abilities should be given far greater latitude than those with many abilities. That you should balance the game by letting the guy with 3 powers have those three powers count for a lot more than the guy with 6.

Overcoming devious tricks and traps? Really? What devious tricks and traps are there in the Caves of Chaos? Queen of the Demonweb Pits? A1? B4? Other than the S series, "devious traps" weren't really a staple in that many adventures.

But, let's assume you're right for a second and that exploring and devious traps is a major element. Well, exploring consists of "You walk down a 40 foot corridor, it ends in a T junction, do you turn left or right?" and devious traps consists of, "Hey Thief Guy, roll your Find/Remove traps". 10 seconds and done.

Not exactly a major part of any game. "Hey, Jim, remember that passage we walked down last session. Man, that was a high point of the game."

Some people pick games because they actually like the genre conventions the rules reflect. Not everybody turns every game into a combat boardgame.
Maybe Vampire wasn't the game for you... but then, maybe AD&D wasn't either.

Thing is, I liked the genre and loved the concept. The mechanics were crap though. Again, a game you have to ACTIVELY work to not break is bad design. When the most powerful choices are the best choices and also blatantly obvious is poor game design.

Like I said, start a D&D game where one player gets a 40 point buy and everyone else gets 15 point buy and tell me that game balance is not interesting.