Tony Vargas
Legend
I am talking about choice of class being weighted.
Conversely, if you get 1 point with which to buy your class, you can use that point for nothing else, and every class costs one point, they are equally weighted choices.
D&D General The Importance of Verisimilitude (or "Why you don't need realism to keep it real")
- Thread starter Alzrius
- Start date
TwoSix
Everyone's literal second-favorite poster
It's undesired but simultaneously completely expected, precisely because perfect balance is impossible.
Where it can be concerning is if the delta between the tiers is too much, as it was almost inarguably in 3e but is much closer in 5e (although I'm sure some will argue with that).
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Okay, presuming that I'm understanding you correctly with regard to a character level being an "equally weighted" choice between character classes...I'd say that, if we trace things back to where that term first entered the discussion here, that the issue of having that choice lead to different degrees of "viability" in terms of contributing and potentially harming everyone else's chances of success is another instance of trying to systematize a pastime which is far too variable in what it allows for to make such analyses meaningful beyond the absolutely broadest strokes. There's a reason why, despite people online agreeing that the fighter loses out to the wizard, it's also the most popular class (which doesn't necessarily mean that people like it per se, but rather than they find it to be a more palatable choice than other classes).
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Unless, in trying to replicate a real-ish feeling world, one specifically wants to include that inherent imbalance as a fact of game-world life.
For this reason alone, randomly-rolled stats will forever be a feature of my games.
Tony Vargas
Legend
The choice of class is equally weighted. In 5e, without MCing turned on, it's a single choice, made a 1st level.
Since D&D classes are equally weighted choices, the fact they sort into starkly different 'Tiers' is evidence the they are badly imbalanced.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Right, but I'm not sure what the salience of that is, beyond a design philosophy that what you're choosing from should be (presumably equally) "viable" with regard to what they bring to the (game) table. I'm suggesting that such a thing can't be systematized to any meaningful degree, at least not without restricting the scope of play to the point where it's going to hurt verisimilitude for a lot of people.
In my experience, people don't mind a modest (however they define that) lack of balance so long as the methods of interacting with the game world are varied enough, and understood sufficiently, that they have various options open to them, beyond what's on their character sheet.
I once was in a small group that was facing a swarm of flesh-eating insects, who were too small to be vulnerable to weapon damage. In theory, our mage should have had the situation well-in hand with an AoE damaging spell, whereas there was nothing my barbarian could have done. But the mage hadn't prepped any such spell, and the rogue didn't have any alchemist's fire or other non-magical attacks. So I thought outside the box, and decided that since the bugs were crawling along a flat stone floor with no grooves, overturning a big heavy table on them would squish them. The GM loved the idea, it saved the party from a lot of damage, and my character took the table as a shield for himself, appending "Tableshield" to his name (ripping off Tolkien, as all gamers do at some point).
It was great, and it had nothing to do with balance and everything to do with verisimilitude.
Tony Vargas
Legend
Exactly that. Equally-weighted player-facing choices can be readily, even quantitatively evaluated for balance.
Unlike verisimilitude which is wholly subjective. (OK, to be clear, the way you're using it, "to refer to a world that "makes sense," often despite its fantastical elements" it is wholly subjective ... actually, it's also arbitrary.) The dictionary definition, it's just back to realism)
I mean, there are 12 classes. You pick one. They gain abilities as you level that are delineated. What's the obstacle. That you can declare actions no covered by the rules? Sure, there are an infinite number of actions that you could declare that have no effect on the progress of the cooperative game. I don't see how that matters. TTRPGs are interesting in that players can take them in almost any direction, but they still present finite sets of tools with which to do that, the actual system (which is, by definition 'systematized'). That system can be evaluated for balance among other qualities, some quantitative (like some measures of balance), some qualitative, some objective, many subjective (like verisimilitude).
How can you determine how many people's verisimilitude will be harmed by a game that is not radically imbalanced? When verisimilitude is a subjective perception, in the first place?
Last edited:
Remathilis
Legend
Has it?
Gygaxian D&D was designed with the expressed notion that magic users were inferior at low levels but dominant at name and higher. Mundane fighters and thieves were designed to become obsolete as magic users and clerics came online.
I view the problem as the Jedi problem; you can be as cool as Han Solo and still be outclassed by Luke come Episode 6. He's a better fighter, pilot, and can still use the Force to do amazing things Han can never do. You cannot be true to the Lore and not have Jedi dominate the game eventually. The only way you achieve partiality is to have everyone be Force sensitive and able to do cool things or to remove it as a choice. You can't balance Luke with Han or Leia or Rey with Poe and Finn, your only choice is all Jedi (Anakin, Obi wan and Ashoka) or no Jedi (Rogue One).
Put back into D&D terms, either you strip magic to be barely better than mundane methods OR you give everyone some type of "magic" and take off your chains.
