Fun vs balance [poll]

[Sacrosanct]

When it comes to fun vs balance, where do you fall? Oftentimes in game design, the designers give up some things that may be fun in order to keep the game balanced. For example, 5e wildshape. It's fun to be able to change into animals that can swim or fly, but you're prohibited until later levels for balancing reasons (flying seems to have been determined to too powerful at low levels.)

Are you willing to give up or defer fun because balance is important?

Edit for clarity
Of course balance can be fun, because fun is subjective and different for everyone. What I'm referring to, and hoped to convey with my example above, is something that is fun for you, but you can't/won't do it for balancing restrictions. How willing are you to throw balance out of the window if something seems fun to do but doesn't fit within those balancing guidelines. Kind of along the lines of "Class A can't do those cool things unless you give all classes cool extra things." vs "Go ahead and do that cool thing, even if it means that character can do something others can't."

 

[payn]

Framed like you have, its important to view the RPG design itself. For example, with D&D its a leveling system where power is slowly gained over time by playing. It makes sense to limit abilities and power them up as rewards. Many other RPGs are designed to have powerful characters right from the beginning. The balance is in the narrative control, and not general mechanical application.

So, I went with "other" because it really depends on design intent. I enjoy both systems that delay powerful abilities for the sake of balance, and those that don't balance because its not important to the play and/or experience.

 

[TwoSix]

I hate to play the "it depends on the game" card, but yea, it depends on the game.

Games where the character building aspect looms large and that are focused on overcoming challenges, whether combat or exploration based, are games where overriding those focuses in pursuit of an immediate charge of "fun" will make the game less fun overall. That's assuming people are playing those games because they have a motivation of overcoming challenge and engaging with systems, of course. But I assume people are trying to play games that match their gaming style.

If I'm playing something looser and more freeform (Troika! is the most recent game I've played in that vein), then balance concerns are pretty much out the window. It's all about play that's pursuing the next crazy thing to happen.

 

[payn]

Double post.

 

[Bacon Bits]

When I was younger, I would've voted, "Balance is the most important. Fun has to be done within that balanced window." I still think this is probably true for new players to a game or new players to a table. I didn't have confidence in the game and didn't have experience running it, and I bought into the 3e culture of the day. It was also coming out of AD&D, which was so arcane and inscrutable in its design that it wasn't possible to get a feel for the system at all, and also still carried a pretty heavy DM vs PC culture from the 80s.

As I grew older, I changed to, "Balance is important, but occasionally override rules to allow more fun." I was much more willing to step outside the safety of balance and less concerned about being overshadowed at the table.

Now I'm pretty solidly at "Override the rules for fun, unless it's obviously game-breaking." I'm interested in the rules, and I like to know them, but now I just treat them more like a strong suggestion for what to do.

I think part of that change was my maturity, part of the change was getting more experience with more TTRPGs, and part of it was genuinely being good friends with my game table. I don't care nearly as much if my character is overshadowed at the table anymore. If I want, I can play something OP. I just don't enjoy that much anymore. I sometimes play with some people who are pretty obnoxious power gamers. It's a boring way to play the game to me, but they like rolling big numbers. The one thing it has taught me is that combat DPS characters are hard to break outside of some really narrow situations. You can always adjust NPCs on the fly. At the same time, highly versatile spellcasters are basically impossible to beat. Fortunately, my group likes to hit things with a big stick.

 

[ninjayeti]

I really don't see how it is an "either/or" issue. In fact, seems like an excuse to do a poor job balancing a game: "it's not bad balance, it's good fun!"

The OP example of wildshape is a good example: druids can do the fun thing, it just happens at a higher level. By the same token it's fun for fighters to multiattack, and for wizards to cast fireball, etc. I don't think most people consider level-gating these abilities to "anti-fun." (Now, I think you could make an argument for letting characters get all their abilities out of the gate as opposed to gaining new abilities over time, but that is a different design choice.)

 

[Pedantic]

I really don't care for this framing. Both "fun" and "balance" are pretty darn vague, I'm not able to confidently assess what exactly is meant by either, much less whether they're in tension. If I were speaking in general about games and game design, I think I'd be most likely to use balance as one possible explanation of why a game isn't fun. Dominant strategies that can be executed consistently tend to lead to stagnant game states, or content that doesn't get used/explored.

Putting them in tension like this feels like it's more a defense of some particular mechanic than a legitimate design goal. I could see devaluing "balance" under a more specific definition (perhaps "approximately equal contribution to problem solving by all PCs") in favor of something else, but "fun" is way too broad.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I really don't care for this framing. Both "fun" and "balance" are pretty darn vague, I'm not able to confidently assess what exactly is meant by either, much less whether they're in tension. If I were speaking in general about games and game design, I think I'd be most likely to use balance as one possible explanation of why a game isn't fun. Dominant strategies that can be executed consistently tend to lead to stagnant game states, or content that doesn't get used/explored.

Putting them in tension like this feels like it's more a defense of some particular mechanic than a legitimate design goal. I could see devaluing "balance" under a more specific definition (perhaps "approximately equal contribution to problem solving by all PCs") in favor of something else, but "fun" is way too broad.

Your username is apt.

 

[CleverNickName]

Listing in order of importance (at my table):

Everyone's enjoyment > My amount of game prep required >> The Rules^TM > The abstract concept of "Game Balance"

 

[Clint_L]

I don't see them as incompatible.