D&D General The Crab Bucket Fallacy

[Micah Sweet]

D&D is a cooperative TTRPG, mere fairness is entirely inadequate.

You said balance was important in a competitive game earlier, but D&D is (usually) not a competitive game. I was confused.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The thing I keep running into with this is the hacker problem. In D&D combat, everyone has something to do. They have different roles, but everyone can contribute. In exploration and social, not so much. A few classes utterly dominate both pillars. Sit there and do nothing while someone else does everything for 20-30 minutes is both terrible design and boring as hell. It’s why, over time, every class was buffed to have plenty of things to do during combat. So why not do the same with the rest of the game?

Because social is more, well, social than mechanical generally, and because WotC doesn't care about exploration no matter what they say. Move beyond WotC, and D&D has all sorts of exploration options.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Asymmetrical design/balance is not a sin.

It's just not good balance.

For a given definition of balance.

If you're not just saying that to imply that there's no such thing as balance because you can just make up an arbitrary definition that makes any example of imbalance or unfairness 'balanced,' how about a definition?

The one I've encountered that makes the most sense to me is: a balanced game maximized the number of choices presented to the player that are both meaningful, and viable.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You said balance was important in a competitive game earlier, but D&D is (usually) not a competitive game. I was confused.

I suppose it could have better phrased it:

I take it as an axiom of basic game design that any game should be balanced. Or, in the case of straightforward, competitive games, at least fair.

 

[Tony Vargas]

, and because WotC doesn't care about exploration no matter what they say. Move beyond WotC, and D&D has all sorts of exploration options.

This is one of those posts, where I want to like it, because this bit is so on-point.

Because social is more, well, social than mechanical generally

But I just have to disagree with this bit.

If you decide to handle the social pillar by just, well, socializing, it's like handling the combat pillar by fighting (with boffers or something, stay safe), or the exploration pillar by delving into your school's old steam tunnels. It works, it might be a tad unfair to the player whose just bad at that sorta thing, but, you're not really playing your character, anymore, you're playing yourself.

 

[SteveC]

You said balance was important in a competitive game earlier, but D&D is (usually) not a competitive game. I was confused.

My take on it is that you want balance so different characters can interact at about the same level and have as much time to do things in a game session. I would really like it if we would fully expand the social and exploration pillars so that each class has something they can do during a session, but that seems unlikely. If a fighter doesn't have anything to do in the social or exploration parts of the game (and by that I mean they have no class features that apply there) I would expect them to be awesome in combat. If a game is a mix of all three pillars, then the fighter can feel awesome when you say "roll initiative" while the bard can be awesome in social situations and the rogue or ranger can be great at exploring. To me, that's balance.

The problem that I have seen is unless you run an adventuring day outside of where I've really ever seen, the fighter isn't at the top of class performance in combat. And more than that, different fighters (say a champion versus rune knight or echo knight) have significant variation within the same class.

So I guess the balance is in terms of where an individual character gets to excel at something in a session. I just came out of a game where there was a player with a fighter who gradually became more frustrated because they weren't the best in combat.

 

[Scribe]

It's just not good balance.
If you're not just saying that to imply that there's no such thing as balance because you can just make up an arbitrary definition that makes any example of imbalance or unfairness 'balanced,' how about a definition?

The one I've encountered that makes the most sense to me is: a balanced game maximized the number of choices presented to the player that are both meaningful, and viable.

I think Asymmetrical balance is fine, It is a kind of balance.

You get 6 points, to put in 3 containers, and no contain can have more than 3.

Social
Explore
Combat

You can go with 2,2,2. You can go with 1, 3, 2, you can go with 0,3,3. All are 'balanced' for the definition that everyone gets 6.

Its a consideration of the game/adventure design, to ensure that each are acceptable/viable choices, but also one of player expectation.

 

[overgeeked]

I think Asymmetrical balance is fine, It is a kind of balance.

You get 6 points, to put in 3 containers, and no contain can have more than 3.

Social
Explore
Combat

You can go with 2,2,2. You can go with 1, 3, 2, you can go with 0,3,3. All are 'balanced' for the definition that everyone gets 6.

Its a consideration of the game/adventure design, to ensure that each are acceptable/viable choices, but also one of player expectation.

In a perfect world, maybe. But that’s not how D&D is designed. Every class gets a 2-3 in combat and classes get between 0-3 in social and exploration. And the totals are not equal. Oh, and combat is mechanically far more important than the other two combined, takes up far more time than the other two combined, and is the focus of the game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I don't believe a Fighter or Barbarian should be remotely on par with a Bard or Rogue, in the Social pillar, any more that a Bard/Rogue, should be able to keep up with a Fighter/Barbarian in Combat.

You don't have to be 'on par' to be meaningfully contributing in a given pillar, because there's a lot of things to do in a given pillar. Combat is the one D&D has most thoroughly developed. In combat, the fighter "tanks" in the front line, the Barbarian rages and swings for the bleachers, the Bard buffs them with a song, maybe heals them if they're hurt, and the Rogue sneaks around and backstabs the enemies engaged with the fighter.
They're all functional in combat. The game has varied with how well each class those their respective thing, but that's been something it's leaned towards from the beginning, when it was just the Fighter (tanky tanky), Cleric (heal & turn), and Magic-user (solve any problem with a spell, iff he knows the right spell and has it memorized and hasn't cast it yet and can spend 6 to 54 seconds of the 1 minute round stand upright, babbling/waving his hands/playing with batshit/whatever without taking a single point of damage from any source).
Out of combat, the Fighter takes a nap (to get back his Action Surge, I guess), the Barbarian gives some tribal wisdom if you're in the right area of wilderness, otherwise he goes drinking or something, the Rogue has some contacts if you're dealing with the shady underworld or just steals stuff if you're not, and the Bard goes full Diplomancer...

You can go with 2,2,2. You can go with 1, 3, 2, you can go with 0,3,3. All are 'balanced' for the definition that everyone gets 6.

That's not a definition of balance, it's just a specific example of a rule. It might be an example of fairness, in that everyone gets the same number of choices.

Its a consideration of the game/adventure design, to ensure that each are acceptable/viable choices, but also one of player expectation.

If you sufficiently constrained adventure design that each pillar got "equal time" in some (maybe not literal) sense, fine, you could impose balance on that example. You're doing so at the expense of the players (especially the GM in a typical TTRPG) opportunities to play the game/"tell the story" they want.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is one of those posts, where I want to like it, because this bit is so on-point.

But I just have to disagree with this bit.

If you decide to handle the social pillar by just, well, socializing, it's like handling the combat pillar by fighting (with boffers or something, stay safe), or the exploration pillar by delving into your school's old steam tunnels. It works, it might be a tad unfair to the player whose just bad at that sorta thing, but, you're not really playing your character, anymore, you're playing yourself.

I agree, but more mechanical means of social interaction (beyond simple skill checks) seem to be unpopular with players, and we all know how the biggest RPG publisher decides what to design and release.

Personally, I mostly use reaction rolls with modifiers (a la TSR) combined with free roleplay.