I've had very little time lately, SilverCat, because of work, so I admit up front I didn't have the opportunity to read the whole thread. So forgive me if I've reiterated other points already spoken. To me, though, it's
to hell with balance. Especially in heroic fantasy.
But I really also have to admit I never got the idea of creating balanced characters, and to me that isn't what I think of as balanced. Then again balanced characters bore me silly, the very idea of it does. The concept that all character classes or professions must be balconied seems to me to skew the very idea of
"Heroic Dispersal." That is, that within an heroic fantasy, game or literary work, etc, everyone does the same basic thing or are all basically equally effective in most given situations, only the techniques of, or applications of, effectiveness varying.
You never see that in either heroic fantasy literature or in myth. People's talents, capabilities, interests, and abilities are "dispersed" and for good reason, each then becomes a sort of archetype of a peculiar personality aspect of heroism. A combatant is a combatant because he is aggressive, trained for war and combat, and is fearless, in a given way, such as during occasions of open hostility. A Wizard is not a combatant, he magically reshapes reality and thereby displays and produces an entirely different method of "facing the world," as well as an entirely different facade of what it means to be heroic. Cunning, stealth, guile, open-heartedness and honesty, honor, courage, faith, all have their own particular expression and way of
"measuring the man."
Inherent in that same measure are the various weaknesses and liabilities that accompany the strengths and advantages of that particular individual. And classes, or professions (what they truly are) are really just masks or "character aspects" of the nature of the individual. Attempts therefore to measure out balance to all individuals is to by very definition lessen the import of individualism which is the true message behind heroic fantasy in the first place. By making everyone even it's a little like making everyone communist, yeah, everybody has assured gruel or wormy corn-meal,
but is that the meat of heroism?
But when natural, human aspects of individual variance are in play then everyone has a moment at which they can and should be heroic. It's just it won't be in the same circumstances. Some men thrive as leaders, others as powers behind the throne, some as clever manipulators, some as strategists, some as logicians and magicians. But the more everyone becomes alike the less likely they are to be themselves, and the less likely anyone is to be himself, the less likely he is to be heroic peculiar to the demands and potentials of his own nature. At best when everyone is balanced you have a plenum of the
pre-calculated class-man, but a dearth of the
extraordinary individual. I think therefore that a lot of the impetus to balance is a modern democratic one (by that I mean the political philosophy) of holding all individuals equal. But heroism is not about holding all individuals equal, it is about holding all individuals equally capable of different expressions of their individual nature, including acknowledging their decided weaknesses and inabilities as part of the very core of their heroic nature. To be heroic you have weaknesses to overcome in your own self, not just monsters to overcome in the wider world. You can't overcome your own weaknesses by setting out with the goal of
"balancing yourself" against all others. Your goal as a hero is not to balance-out your assets and liabilities, it is to overcome your faults and expound upon your virtues.
But when I think of balance my first thought is, as the game has recently developed, not inter-class equilibrium, but party- to-monster/challenge equilibrium, which I find equivalent to the doctrine of, not train as you fight, but train as you might without getting hurt.
Every encounter with the dangerous is by very nature a decided "risk." When you set out to balance your fights all you end up with is a series of basically non-lethal training simulations in which you're not even really bothering to fire live ammunition. Your real mettle is never tested, it is coaxed and massaged as if in a spa, or a virtual reality simulation, not bent and hammered on as in a real fight.
(Yes, I know, someone is saying right now, none of this is real anyway. No, it isn't, but then again that is a specious point, because it is not the physical test that is the challenge of how a man reacts to a risk in an imaginary environment, it is the mental test of how he reacts. If every criticism is dismissible simply by saying that nothing is really real anyway, then I can similarly dismiss the whole conversation of this thread, any arguments engendered, no matter how valid, any point, or any other aspect of debate. As a matter of fact I can dismiss debate itself as unreal, unless one is debating only facts, and real facts don't need "debating," merely exposure and interpretation. For instance the very idea of game balance or imbalance in an imaginary scenario concerning an unreal/fantasy game - the postulate itself regarding such discussions, the entire set of coordinates regarding this matter from start to finish is devoid of true reality - other than that set of realities imposed by the participants, by that measure. Such a retort however still does not address the assumed reality of that imposed by the participants without which this conversation would be meaningless anyways, and therefore this entire thought-process exercise vapid and substanceless. Words themselves are not real when it comes to that. Words are not things. Not like copperheads and oak trees. But they nevertheless represent real things, and they can thus be examined for meaning and purpose, as can the ideas they transmit and encapsulate.)
But no fight is balanced. It is balanced only to the extent that one party can balance their strengths, skills, capabilities, and objectives against the corresponding factors employed by the enemy or competitor. Balance therefore is never "written into" any fight worth fighting, it is created during the course of the conflict, or it is exceeded by that party determined to be the superior at the conclusion of hostilities. A balanced encounter would by very definition go on until such time as a state of imbalance is reached, or is forced. Only then can it really be decided, no matter the apparent advantages or disadvantages of the various parties before the engagement erupts. Therefore "balance" should never be the intentional point of any conflict, or the conflict proceeds as a disastrous drain of resources and manpower on both sides - indefinitely. Imbalance should always be the ultimate aim of every conflict. The imbalance of the victor over the loser and it is the job of the participants to decide that state of imbalance through their own clever exploitation of their inherent capabilities. It is not the job of the referee to assure conflict balance, it is the job of the participants to assure that a state of imbalance is exploited in order to win against the enemy.
Therefore I favor this kind of balance even less than that of class-equilibrium. (By the way, in nature, when most things reach a state of fixed and especially artificial equilibrium one of two things happen, stasis - in which no real progress is made, or constant friction which means things will dissolve or wear down by their own force eventually anyway, thereby killing equilibrium. Something to think about especially concerning things involving human effort and potential, like heroism, real or fantastic.)
Therefore I much prefer that state of dis-equilibrium, and that state of natural and progressive imbalance, which tests players and characters to exceed their current and previous limitations.
Well, I gotta go.
