Hot take: get rid of the "balanced party" paradigm

[Thomas Shey]

This appears to be very much a problem for games that lean more towards wargaming than storytelling.

Eh. Only if the storytelling part is entirely wrapped around the characters presented. That's not a given even with storytelling games. Monster of the Week is hardly wargamey, but coming out with a bunch of people clumped up around the same playbooks isn't liable to work well.

 

[pemerton]

In Prince Valiant, the default is that all PCs are knights, required to have skill in both Riding and Arms. When the players in our game built their PCs,

despite blind allocation - two players ended up with very similar characters (same B/P split, same skills, differing only that one had more 3 Arms and 1 Fellowship while the other had 2 in each), and one had described his PC as in his early middle age (but having accomplished little!) while the other was in his early 20s, the player of the younger one decided they were father and son.

The similarity in skills hasn't caused any issues. As the game has progressed, they have diverged a little bit - father has more Oratory, son more Courtesie and Healing - but they are no more different than two PCs of the same class in any WotC version of D&D.

The players have different ideas and aspirations for their PCs, and pursue them.

But Prince Valiant is not really a "problem-solving" RPG. Other RPGs work better when PCs cover different areas of expertise, so as to be able to deal with the different sorts of problems they might confront. Classic Traveller's a good example of this, I think.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But Prince Valiant is not really a "problem-solving" RPG. Other RPGs work better when PCs cover different areas of expertise, so as to be able to deal with the different sorts of problems they might confront. Classic Traveller's a good example of this, I think.

Wel-indl, that's the gig of course; even counting quasi-indy games, most are based around group based problem solving (usually with at least some violence there because they're based on adventure fiction where that's a staple). As long as you're dealing with a group that's going to be doing some problem solving (whether self-initiated or based on outside) there are strong incentives to, if not cover all ground, at least not have a lot of characters that are redundant.

 

[dragoner]

Depends, such as on a starship, if two players want to be the pilot, and make the pilot rolls, something has gotta give.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Depends, such as on a starship, if two players want to be the pilot, and make the pilot rolls, something has gotta give.

Depending on the system, this often applies to the "face" man; having two people making social rolls often just ups the likelihood of one of them messing up, even if both are good at it. Best you can do is have them addressing different issues in different place.

With the starship situation, you can end up having the "we only have one ship's gun" thing, too.

 

[dragoner]

Depending on the system, this often applies to the "face" man; having two people making social rolls often just ups the likelihood of one of them messing up, even if both are good at it. Best you can do is have them addressing different issues in different place.

With the starship situation, you can end up having the "we only have one ship's gun" thing, too.

Yes, it does, though with a good system, both can be relevant; such as task chains with the social rolls, and in starship combat, both the pilot and gunner can effect combat individually or together. It is one thing I made sure I did in Kosmic.

Though there is "forced balance" where obstacles have to be overcome by individual classes, and natural balance that merely emulates life with people's different skills and abilities.

Another thing is having the outcome be pass/fail without there being any in between, which is not a thing I like to do, precisely because it merely lowers chance of success, without any meaningful role play. Nuance is good.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes, it does, though with a good system, both can be relevant; such as task chains with the social rolls, and in starship combat, both the pilot and gunner can effect combat individually or together. It is one thing I made sure I did in Kosmic.

Well, the first is an example of what I was talking about, and of course the pilot and gunner are both useful; I was using it as an example of second gunner not being useful on a ship with one gun.

Ways of handling bridge crew so they're all useful was a solved thing decades ago with the FASA (if I'm not misremembering who did it) Star Trek game.

Though there is "forced balance" where obstacles have to be overcome by individual classes, and natural balance that merely emulates life with people's different skills and abilities.

Well, that's usually an artifact of class systems that wall of specific abilities in one and only one class. Wasn't a big fan of that a half a century ago.

 

[dragoner]

Well, the first is an example of what I was talking about, and of course the pilot and gunner are both useful; I was using it as an example of second gunner not being useful on a ship with one gun.

Ways of handling bridge crew so they're all useful was a solved thing decades ago with the FASA (if I'm not misremembering who did it) Star Trek game.



Well, that's usually an artifact of class systems that wall of specific abilities in one and only one class. Wasn't a big fan of that a half a century ago.

Get a ship with two guns. FASA Trek might have done something with the bridge crew, though that was a long time ago, I don't really remember. I remember Task Force Games Star Fleet Battles being played more. It might be an artifact of class systems, though it is very much in play right now, I'm not a huge fan, I recognize it exists, and it is important to delineate the difference between systems.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Get a ship with two guns.

Often you have no meaningful choice there. Even Traveler required some jiggery-pokey to allow PCs to have ships, and when they did it was usually specific ships with specific designs. Only places you see where spacecraft are cheap enough for PCs to actually buy them usually is outright space opera.

FASA Trek might have done something with the bridge crew, though that was a long time ago, I don't really remember. I remember Task Force Games Star Fleet Battles being played more. It might be an artifact of class systems, though it is very much in play right now, I'm not a huge fan, I recognize it exists, and it is important to delineate the difference between systems.

In the FASA Star Trek bridge crew personnel had specific kinds of rolls they made that contributed to combat in different ways. Not all were quite equal, but all or almost all provided at least some value.

 

[dragoner]

Depends on the trav setup, I often just give the players a ship, they are all crew, cut to action. I like the "tell me how you know each other and get a skill point" connections rule too. It throws the heavy lifting of the story back on to them: don't ask me why you are together, tell me. A lot of these discussions are nebulous without stating systems, because people start talking past each other.