D&D (2024) Do players really want balance?

[Distracted DM]

I actually have a hard time having that conversation with my players, at least having it in that way. We are very focused on what makes logical sense in the fiction, and that often has little to do with exactly how many resource-expending encounters happen over a given period of time. What you're describing is a very anti-immersion conversation from our point of view.

Yeah, if you've spent a lot of time and effort building verisimilitude/immersion etc. that the world is a "real place" and what is encountered there is what makes sense to be there for the world, not encounter design, it can be tough to have a conversation talking game balance and design. I spent a lot of time building that image of "this is how things would be, I'm not designing things to be balanced," and honestly decoupling rests from sleep only HELPED me with that...

But as you said, actually explaining the cogs and wheels behind the scenes can be tough and immersion-breaking.

I do sometimes wonder if my players think "you know, why was it a young dragon that confronted us and not an adult? Was it because we could defeat a young dragon but an adult would toast us?" Ofc I've had situations where PCs have encountered things they really shouldn't fight... But sometimes they DO choose to fight those things, and in 5e they can actually win unless the gap is 15+ CR.

Tangent: level 12-13 party, I thought "ok they'll have to non-combat their way through this to get the mcguffin from the dragons hoard; better make it ancient, they'll try to fight an adult and probably win." Turns out the idea of an ancient dragons hoard was too tempting, they're going to try to fight it even though I said that.. would be... Really really dangerous.
A5E Ancient Shadow Dragon is CR24... But they have some potent gear, summons, and boons now. If 5e has taught me anything it's that they might just slay it handily :')

 

[Xeviat]

Players want some measure of balance between players and between their choices. If X is better than Y in every way, then players of X feel let outshined by players of Y. Likewise, if Option X is better than Option Y in every way, that's not good for anyone.

I've seen this happen a number of times in 20 years.

The other time balance makes things less fun is if something is so ludicrously overpowered that it outshines everyone, or if something is so weak that it makes a player feel like their character is worthless.

Players want to play the game.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I think it’s important that each character has their niche. I’m not sure if “overshadowed by their companions” means that they don’t want to be overshadowed in any situation (i.e. the rogue being a better lock picker than the fighter). If we’re comparing a Wizard’s ability to use magic to a fighter’s ability to cast spells, then yes, I think the fighter should feel useless in that situation as it’s not their niche. Each character wants to feel important, but I don’t think they should always feel important in every single scenario. There’s a value in getting to be in the spotlight and not having to share the glory of wizardlyness with everyone else that took the Arcana skill. I theorize that the lack of strong class niche in 5e leaves characters feeling less important.

I think making all the classes capable in combat was A Bad Idea Actually.

People may like their bard or wizard being powerful combatants, but I’m not sure it was actually good for making interesting gameplay by downplaying character niches.

 

[Steampunkette]

I think it’s important that each character has their niche. I’m not sure if “overshadowed by their companions” means that they don’t want to be overshadowed in any situation (i.e. the rogue being a better lock picker than the fighter). If we’re comparing a Wizard’s ability to use magic to a fighter’s ability to cast spells, then yes, I think the fighter should feel useless in that situation as it’s not their niche. Each character wants to feel important, but I don’t think they should always feel important in every single scenario. There’s a value in getting to be in the spotlight and not having to share the glory of wizardlyness with everyone else that took the Arcana skill. I theorize that the lack of strong class niche in 5e leaves characters feeling less important.

Niches are one thing.

I'm more referring to the Ranger existing in a sorry state feeling weaker than all the other martial characters at the table. THAT kinda stuff leads to -endless- theorycrafting and forumtalk about how to "Fix Rangers".

 

[Xenolith234]

Niches are one thing.

I'm more referring to the Ranger existing in a sorry state feeling weaker than all the other martial characters at the table. THAT kinda stuff leads to -endless- theorycrafting and forumtalk about how to "Fix Rangers".

Ah, yeah. If there was focus on more stuff than just combat, then the ranger would get to have his niche in a really cool way, IMO. Stuff outside of only combat is interesting to me. I was just thinking yesterday that the extreme focus on balance and nailing down every mechanic and spell removes a lot of the “magic” I remember from the game in the late 90s. Spells and magic items aren’t so mysterious and nebulous now as they were in 2e or B/X - they all have to have a firm rule with all the rough edges sanded down. We can’t just have a cloak that lets you meld into a shadow - it instead just gives you Advantage on Stealth rolls, or a +X modifier. To me that’s very, very boring. A stingy DM could use nebulous rules to be a jerk, but nothing stops a bad DM from behaving poorly in 5e either.

 

[tetrasodium]

Niches are one thing.

I'm more referring to the Ranger existing in a sorry state feeling weaker than all the other martial characters at the table. THAT kinda stuff leads to -endless- theorycrafting and forumtalk about how to "Fix Rangers".

Ranger had a niche, an important one. When 5e simplified the mechanical hooks for that niche away it wasn't the ranger "being weaker than other martial characters", it was the shortsighted simplifications coming home to roost.

 

[FrogReaver]

IMO. Every player has their own unique multivariable tolerances for imbalance, making balance something other than an all or nothing proposition. Players want things balanced within their personal tolerances, but not trivially or boringly so. There needs to be balance within their tolerance level, but there also needs to be a puzzle that can be worked at, though one that is elusive to universal solutions. Instead the precise initial parameters should be capable of changing the solution. Which also happens to be where most disagreement about 5e and 2024 optimization lies - the initial parameters.

So to answer the question posed in the thread, players want balance but not if it comes at the expense of too much uniformity. There will also be other limiting factors that players might reject balance if it gets in the way of those.

 

[Xenolith234]

Ranger had a niche, an important one. When 5e simplified the mechanical hooks for that niche away it wasn't the ranger "being weaker than other martial characters", it was the shortsighted simplifications coming home to roost.

Absolutely. Simplifying can be good, but it went too far. Simplify things for the player side, but give the DMs an ocean of material to use to challenge the players/characters. Don’t rely on design by committee because it cheapens the product and makes the system weaker. I see this in the TV/movie world a lot in the past decade or so; if you try to appeal to everyone and take every single person’s desires into account, your end product is a mishmash of nothing without a strong vision. A well-designed product needs a designer’s firm hand.

 

[Steampunkette]

Ranger had a niche, an important one. When 5e simplified the mechanical hooks for that niche away it wasn't the ranger "being weaker than other martial characters", it was the shortsighted simplifications coming home to roost.

When?

In 3e when their niche was "Fighting Specific Enemies" (that may not show up in the game) and "Moving in Specific Terrain" (that may not be where the game takes place)?

Or in 2e when their role was to be slightly worse fighters and slightly worse rogues but decent at both in the wilderness?

In 4e they had a kind of niche, more or less, as a martial/primal striker/controller. Though their narrative niche became muddier than ever as both tried to get reconciled in three different ways (two of which were hybrids in a system where discrete categories were the soup du jour)

Rangers have kind of always been trapped between pillars because the game is built largely around specific character classes holding up specific pillars rather than everyone partaking in every pillar equally.

I can't think of an edition where they had a clear narrative role and mechanical niche, in D&D and Pathfinder, that wasn't ham-handed at best.

The best versions I've seen are in A5e and Tales of the Valiant. And I honestly kinda give ToV the edge on it, even without martial maneuvers.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh I included the 5-8 encounters thing when I explained it, saying that it would slow down the game more etc. but I think it was just too much info for folks that don't think that way about the game. But yeah your not mentioning challenging them to your players as a motivation was probably a good call

Unfortunately from my point of view, a lot of folks apparently just don't enjoy being challenged. Like I said above, simplicity and power fantasy are the fastest path to profit, and profit is the overwhelming priority for the big dogs (dog?).