Game Balance, what is it to you, why is it important, and what if you all but threw it out?

[DEFCON 1]

And a lot of people asking, "Why? We have lightning bolts and flying dragons. Why the arbitrary rules for realism here but not there?"

Yes, indeed, I think you've hit it on the head. What you state here is the universal stumbling block towards creating a Dungeons & Dragons game that works for everyone (or almost everyone). Because every single person has a different idea of what parts of realism (or what one might also call 'real-world science') are necessary to have in the game world that allows one to not only suspend disbelief, but also remain true to the genre tropes that D&D is trying to get across. All the while also trying to be a fun "game" that one plays.

The "fool's folly" (as you put it) is in anyone thinking or believing that there's a singular system of "realism" in the Dungeons & Dragons game that can be designed which almost every single player will be happy or agree with. One that can be printed and published that will make every person happy with the result. But we all know (or should know) there isn't. So what I think really needs to happen is for every person to actually realize and accept that any one specific game (D&D or otherwise) is not necessarily the game that will give that to us and that we just might need to change which games we play to get closer to the ones that will (assuming that need for "realism" in whatever form one needs is really that important.)

But for every game that one changes to, that potentially shrinks the pool of players one has to play with. Smaller player pool, smaller number of options. And which is why so many people cling to Dungeons & Dragons even though it's not really giving them what they want, just because there are so many more options available. And sometimes expediency ends up being more important than precision.

 

[Morrus]

. In my own game dragons have hundreds and often thousands of HP, and hit multiple targets at once, and have multipliers on dmg. Suffice to say there have been very few dragon slayers in my world lol.

I mean sure, if you don’t want your fellow gamers to have the awesome experience of fighting dragons. Kinda defeats the point for me, but it’s your game!

 

[Neonchameleon]

Game balance is information. There is nothing inherently unbalanced about either a goblin or the Tarrasque (or one of your ultra big dragons). It's not even imbalanced to throw the Tarrasque at a level 3 party and watch them run - that's what the fiction indicates should happen.

It would be unbalanced if a level 5 party were to take on the Tarrasque using only their expected resources (so no dropping a mountain on it or feeding it a nuke) and win e.g. by action trading with it or mind controlling it because part of the point of the Tarrasque is that it should literally be able to crush mid level PCs. It's also unbalanced if six basic orcs can reliably overwhelm a party of fifth level PCs - that's again not the expectation from the fiction.

It's also unbalanced for PCs to be overwhelmingly different in power when a game implies they should be similar levels of usefulness. No one cares that Ars Magica Wizards are much more powerful than fighters; that's an explicit and open setting conceit within the game. But D&D 3.5 has classes presented as alternatives and the same XP to reach the same level - but a level 15 fighter is not a match for a level 13 druid. The balance is bad because the information presented is wrong.

 

[overgeeked]

What kind of balance are you after?

Mechanical balance between PCs? That’s dead simple. Most rules light games have it built in. Hell, even D&D 4E managed it, mostly.

Mechanical balance between the PCs and monsters? Again, dead simple. Rules light games and 4E have you covered.

Spotlight balance between PCs? That’s all up to the referee.

Balance between the PCs re: how much effect they have on the fiction? I guess that’s down to the referee but generally down to the dice.

Throw out balance completely? Good news, that’s most games. Look at games from the OSR/NSR scenes for unbalanced games done extremely well.

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

I don't have my players "fight" full-aged dragons much. I think the one time I did, the dragon dealt MASSIVE exhaustion out in the form of lair action/legendary. To the point of where one player doffed their armor and actions were spent not drowning... IMO if you write ahead of time the scaling of adult dragons allows for more fun "change of challenge direction". There isn't much reason I can typically think of that a dragon would ever have to stick out a fight to the death... so with that level of opponent I say motivation becomes realism... not HP

 

[timbannock]

Overpowering the PCs is easy for the GM. It takes no skill, nuance, understanding, or imagination for a GM to dial an adversary up to 11. In that sense, your dragon is unimpressive.

For a traditional RPG, it is very useful for a game to provide for the GM, not so much balance, as a clear understanding of how hazardous adversaries are, and tools for tuning adversaries to the desired level of hazard.

It is also very useful for a game to provide a certain amount of balance between the PCs - if one PC is always more or less effective than the others, that makes work for the GM to even out spotlight time and such.

All of this.

Perhaps related: Based on my early formative experiences in RPGs, I wish "roll out in the open" and "don't hide information" had been principles that more of my GMs and Players followed/respected. I learned so many bad lessons that I carried for something like 20 years, and by extension, taught those bad lessons to other players/GMs. Having now done the opposite, I enjoy the game much more, and "balance" is easier to achieve because there's greater trust among the group members. That trust is perhaps the most "balancing" factor of play.

Unrelated: Take a look at a game like 5E that strives for some kind of mathematical balance (whether or not it succeeds) and a game like Cortex Prime. They do such different things, strive to make PCs equal, but one game is easily and often "broken" and the other requires hard work and a fundamental (maybe even purposeful) misunderstanding of the rules to "break" it. It's a really interesting dichotomy to compare for game designers.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The "fool's folly" (as you put it) is in anyone thinking or believing that there's a singular system of "realism" in the Dungeons & Dragons game that can be designed which almost every single player will be happy or agree with.

Yes, this. But also from a game designer's perspective. That road only leads to frustration lol. Creaet a bunch of rules and mechanics that sound awesome, and look like they do what you want. Then in actual play, you quickly realize you're cutting out large parts of them and leaving them on the cutting room floor because they either don't work as expected, or change the game play experience to be a not so great one.

I'd be willing to bet most designers at one point, when trying to incorporate a more "realistic" mechanic, have said to themselves after writing/testing them, have said, "This would be great in a computer game, where the computer does all the calculations." Problem is, we're designing tabletop rules not done by a computer

 

[overgeeked]

Yes, this. But also from a game designer's perspective. That road only leads to frustration lol. Creaet a bunch of rules and mechanics that sound awesome, and look like they do what you want. Then in actual play, you quickly realize you're cutting out large parts of them and leaving them on the cutting room floor because they either don't work as expected, or change the game play experience to be a not so great one.

I'd be willing to bet most designers at one point, when trying to incorporate a more "realistic" mechanic, have said to themselves after writing/testing them, have said, "This would be great in a computer game, where the computer does all the calculations." Problem is, we're designing tabletop rules not done by a computer

There’s a solution for that. You don’t need all the complex rules mechanics to emulate physics. Let the referee decide. With a lifetime of experience most of us have a fairly well developed sense of the real world and how things work. We don’t have an intuitive sense of the maths, but we can fairly easily intuit that yes, falling 100ft into lava is a one-way ticket to dead.

Worried the referee will abuse that? Don’t play with jerks.

 

[1QD]

I mean none of you are playing my system currently, so when someone says, Oh I wouldn't play a game like that....it really isn't that much of a take. I mean, um ok? I have literal decades of people playing my game, having fun and coming back for more. When people come back to your table every week for a decade, you have to be doing something right. Like I have said in the past if you are DnD based, my system may not be for you! That stated, I find it interesting that the immediate go to is that the Dragons are unbeatable. While I would definitely NOT recommend fighting one, pretty much ever, there are those players who have done it, repeatedly. They do so, not by me game balancing them out of existence, rather they made the odds fall in their favour.

Now it has been mentioned that there are alternative ways to deal with a creature of this nature. I favour that idea, but within my game system there are ways to make yourself exceedingly powerful and critical hits are also a thing. Add a well oiled co-operating team, and it can be done. My issue is that for...game balance purposes.... the DnD dragon was down played, terribly. All of the strategies they suggested to make up for it, were easily usable by a powerful wizard and did not stand out as uniquely Draconic in nature.

Even the HP argument .... doesn't sit well with me, in part I equate mass with HP. So I have 1/4 and 1/2 sized mod creatures in my world as well as commonly 1-10X size mod creatures. This is balanced out with often my encounters are there for a reason, not just milling about waiting for someone to drop by... The worst time to meet a dragon is when you crit fail an encounter roll. No time for planning and caught off guard. Dragons being sentient often like discourse with the players and how they handle the encounter will often determine if they live to see another day.

I have a sense of balance but it relies more on player investment and story line. Actions have consequences, but players almost always have options, rarely is anything impossible. I find the major difference between DnD's sense of balance and my own, is 2nd ed DnD dictates the answers. All goblins are kinda the same, all 12th lvl fighters are the same and there is a set path or encounter and it is often to be played a certain way. My system in counter, tells you all the ways you can create your own path, or solution. There are less limits on what you can do, and more ways to express your character. And I put few caps on that. Like you wouldn't see a healer and a necromancer multiprof combo typically....but even then I am flexible, and in fact there was a character who was both, and he had multiple personalities. By day he was a healer, by night he was a necromancer.

I also, politely, challenge the notion that players should all be equal. If you want to shine as a character, then do so, why should you be held back? I mean, some people are more comfortable taking less of a front stage, or being responsible for ideas that might go south. I think to a reasonable degree we must factor that people all have different personalities as well. If Player A) wants to spend 30 Hrs leveling up their character and Player be spends 10 minutes before the game, it does not make sense to treat them as equals, rather it makes sense to treat them with respect to the amount of work they put in. Now out of the two players, who do you think is going to take a lead role between these two?

Attempting to balance out players can also punish those who are naturally skilled in character design, leadership and problem solving. Now to be fair, I do game with adults. There is less of an ego driven push when it comes to my players. I also will note that my experiences in DnD led to players wanting to play the 1 man army. Players that can do it all. Team work was, just who could help that player reach his goals and that was pretty much it. In my system I encourage role taking, and strategic use of defences spells and attacks.

Lastly I will address the, fools folly. I have never judged myself by the inability of others. Just because you have tried and failed at something, does not make it unachievable, a bad idea nor not worth undertaking. I was also told I could never make my own system, have my own book, have my own copyright, have my own trademark. I mean, that type of opinion, is a dime a dozen. So it carries little weight for me. Now if you explain why, and present something constructive, I am indeed humble enough to listen, but critiques from someone who has never even tried my system only go so far. So, I listen for sound advice, and leave the unhelpful stuff where it is. That video was gold btw lol!

 

[Celebrim]

Game balance is the juncture of two ideas. That everyone at the table should have fun and that the game is a social game and that the most fun overall is had when everyone is playing. And without game balance, too often too much of the time someone isn't playing.

In the case of the dragon, the sort of blow that can kill a barn sized beast with an adamantium military pick (or warhammer spike side active) doesn't differ that much with the sort of blow that kill as a man. You punch a hole a foot deep in a skull, the target is going to notice. What's really telling is whether you can actually place that killing blow on them

How tough a dragon is to kill has nothing to do with balance directly though. The only thing that matters from a balance perspective is in an encounter with a dragon to the players get to meaningfully play? In a balanced encounter they certainly do. They have a ton of meaningful choices. In an unbalanced encounter, they have only the choices the GM gives them.

But I don't even think that's the crux of the issue you bring up. The crux of the issue is that skillful play for a GM isn't creating foes with larger numbers but creating challenges for players with the smallest numbers and least resources he can bring to the encounter. GMs have infinite resources. There is nothing impressive about 100th level characters or monsters with 10,000 hit points or kobolds with perfect logistics and 1000's of g.p. worth of burning oil. What's impressive is using very finite very limited resources in an interesting way and creating challenges that are both balanced and organic (by which I mean, it feels like the encounter should be that way and wasn't forced to be that way).