What do you do without balance?

[Hereticus]

Also, 7 years of hardcore MMORPG-playing has caused me to see balance as much more important than it really should be. Messageboards such as ENworld too. Actually, we talked about this last week (in my group), and the main concensus was that the internet (and especially boards like these) were probably the best and the worst thing that happened to our D&D.

For "old timers" like me who had been playing since 1980, what had made the game great was (#1) player interaction, and (#2) interesting character choices. The issue of balance never really came up, but we had plenty of house rules.

Regarding MMORPG-playing (I'm guessing that is a video or on-line game), I've never played one in my life. To me from what I noted, they violate both things I like the most about gaming... human interaction with friends, and they were bland in comparison to what we did in our games.

When I first played 4.0, my impression was that it is sterile, and missing the variety and color of earlier editions. It seems to me that the game was designed to role play a video game, which is not.

But hey... to each their own.

I certainly agree with the previous poster who suggests that the net in general, and online multiplayer gaming in particular, might have made some of us hyper-sensitive to balance issues which may not, in the grand scheme of things, matter to many players. It most assuredly applies to me.

Heh... the designers took what was not broken, and destroyed it.

 

[Hereticus]

I argue that a group that is less focused on combat is more likely to accept balance over time. I would also argue that if a group is more focused on optimization is less likely to accept balance over time.

Bullseye !!!

If a player goes into a game thinking of it as a short term hack-n-slash, then balance matters, because they will be looking for optimization.

But if you are playing a character for the long term and the campaign includes non-combat activities, then variety and color matter.

 

[Hereticus]

Just as when I add paprika to my gulyas, I find adding colorful words to posts helps to "spice things up".

Ahhh... finally someone who knows what gulyas leves is, that it is not American chop-suey (aka ghoulash) with noodles and hamburger meat.

In the 4.0 campaign that I've been playing, I was asked by the DM to design the city my Eladrin Wizard was from. I took Mithrendain, modified it for uniqueness, and renamed it Székesfehérvár (white castle city).

My Warlock is named Arnyek Isten.

 

[Remathilis]

Bullseye !!!

If a player goes into a game thinking of it as a short term hack-n-slash, then balance matters, because they will be looking for optimization.

But if you are playing a character for the long term and the campaign includes non-combat activities, then variety and color matter.

Non-combat activities? I assume you mean things like sneaking around (invisibility vs. hide in shadows), obstacle removal (find traps vs. find/disable traps), exploration (find the path vs. dungeoneering, knock vs. open locks), social encounters (friends or charm person vs. diplomacy), discovery (true seeing vs. search), reconnaissance (divination vs. gather info), hazard avoidance (spider climb vs. climb walls), research (comprehend languages vs. decipher script), "aggressive negotiations" (cause fear vs. intimidate), and item creation (major creation vs. craft)?

Boy, I'm glad wizards are only good for flinging fireballs and clerics are only good for healing, because if it wasn't for combat, there'd be no place for a fighter or rogue!

 

[billd91]

Ah yes, the "one-armed, blind, narcoleptic warrior with a +200 to damage" model. The bane of point-buy of course is flaws and truly min-maxed PCs. These kind of mutant-PCs (and their other point-buy cousin, "I spent 1 point on everything so I suck at it" average model) is why I don't like purely point-buy games.

Still, its a fair bit more "balanced" than 3d6, roll in order, roll hp, starting gold, and minimum race/class ability requirements, at least I was trying to define it.

Not even close to what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the character who invests heavily in his intelligence and science skills compared to the one who invests in his Dex and HT and invests heavily in fighting skills. Neither is some kind of twisted point-whoring munchkin eking the most out every half-assed disadvantage and advantage in the book. They're just completely and utterly divergent in focus. They are the potential output of every point buy system on the market from Hero to GURPS and beyond.

 

[Hussar]

Would I include muggle or squib characters in a Harry Potter game? Sure. Why not? But it would depend on the focus of the game. It wouldn't work out too well at Hogwarts since only wizards are going to attend and the only squib we know about there is Filch. There simply won't be a squib or muggle student there.
But once you're outside Hogwarts, I can see plenty of possibilities for a game involving squibs, muggles, and wizards. But it's important to note that there are plenty of things that a wizard couldn't do and really wouldn't understand that muggles can do. Wizards, for example, are woefully ignorant around technology - usually more ignorant than either squibs or muggles. Jo Rowling simply didn't detail enough of the Harry Potter universe and how the interface between muggles and wizards really works for us to conclude that wizards really can do everything muggles can do faster and better.

Oh, sure, I'm sure you can make it work. And the Ars magica comment is probably the direction you'd have to go with it. To me, that's pretty telling. In Ars Magica, the balance is maintained by handing off the "god" character to everyone at the table at one time or another. We each take turns playing the "god" character.

But, if you didn't go that route, it's pretty hard to think why anything a muggle could do, a wizard couldn't do better. You have a gun, I have protection and instant death spells that never fail. You have the internet, I can summon spirits to directly answer questions. You have airplanes, I can teleport. On and on.

Yes, we could go back and forth on this, and I'm sure we could probably come to some sort of means of making the Muggle viable (would likely require massively restricting the wizard), but that's the point. The only way to make the Muggle a really viable class that people (outside of a very small minority of gamers who enjoy playing a deliberately gimped character) would want to play is to radically change the balance between the classes.

In other words, you wind up with the ANgel Summoner BMX Biker situation.

 

[Hereticus]

Non-combat activities? I assume you mean things like sneaking around (invisibility vs. hide in shadows), obstacle removal (find traps vs. find/disable traps), exploration (find the path vs. dungeoneering, knock vs. open locks), social encounters (friends or charm person vs. diplomacy), discovery (true seeing vs. search), reconnaissance (divination vs. gather info), hazard avoidance (spider climb vs. climb walls), research (comprehend languages vs. decipher script), "aggressive negotiations" (cause fear vs. intimidate), and item creation (major creation vs. craft)?

I would consider any skill, feat or action used under stress (potential combat) to be a combat activity.

I have had the good fortune to be involved in a few games with good DMs and many good players. Since we were in it for the long term (years rather than weeks), our characters became involved with the power structures in the campaign, in temples, guilds, militias, and then in leadership roles in cities and nations. Sure we liked our hack-n-slash, but after time we started looking for more.

But if you never played in such a game, please ignore this post.

Boy, I'm glad wizards are only good for flinging fireballs and clerics are only good for healing, because if it wasn't for combat, there'd be no place for a fighter or rogue!

Hmmm.....

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Another game that didn't care much for balance after PC creation was the first incarnation of Stormbringer.

Race was determined with a percentile roll. Why? In order to simulate the vast disparity in power that shows up between some of the races in the Elric books, the game designers made some races much more powerful than others. The system's sole consideration of balance, then, was of equal opportunity to make a good roll.

Melniboneans and Pan Tangians were incredibly powerful. However, you only had a 1% chance of being a Melnibonean and a 2 or 3% chance of being Pan Tangian.

How did this work if someone rolled that luckily? That Melnibonean or Pan Tangian was pressed into service as the guy supplying all the magical goodies to the rest of the party. That also meant that he took all the risks associated with binding a Demon, Virtue or Elemental into an object. Fail that control roll, and...

Another one to look at would be Classic Traveller. A player could take his PC through career paths several times until mustering out or getting killed. This meant that starting PCs could have a wide range of starting wealth, skills and equipment.

Were these games fun? Heck yeah!

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

When it came to combat, I used standard modern mixed-force tactics.

That is a good approach and the sign of a good GM that takes the power discrepancies into account. But how do you make sure the MDC characters don't attack the non-MDC foes?

I wasn't bored when I played Rifts because my character couldn't take out a tank in one hit. I was bored because the opponents I could take out were wiped out by the dragon PC before I could blink. Then she would move on to the more dangerous foes.

This may be a spot-light hog issue, but it was able to occur because of the imbalance in the game. Your game was fun because you recognized the imbalance and worked with it and I assume you had players who shared the same viewpoint.

 

[Remathilis]

Not even close to what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the character who invests heavily in his intelligence and science skills compared to the one who invests in his Dex and HT and invests heavily in fighting skills. Neither is some kind of twisted point-whoring munchkin eking the most out every half-assed disadvantage and advantage in the book. They're just completely and utterly divergent in focus. They are the potential output of every point buy system on the market from Hero to GURPS and beyond.

Ah. At that point, the game would begin to fall into "niche-protection" style balance and the gun-toting PC blows everyone away in combat where the scientist cowers in fear, but the scientist can hack a computer system to stop a missile launch while the gun-toting PC yawns and looks for lab-animals to practice his aim on.

IMHO, that's an acceptable form of balance, as long as it can be achieved. However, I can see potential problems (PCs who become good at more than one niche and squelch singlely specialized PCs, screen time, making a challenge so simple no one else need roll).

Again, no RPG system designed by man is immune to problems.