Achieving Balance

Balance by the Law of Averages: By rolling up a great many characters, over time things will even out. Even in Stormbringer, if you play enough. This assumes a high character turnover a la the 'old school' interpretation of early D&D.
 

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BTW, in this specific case, was this because the double-point skillset turned out as valuable in-game as the other; or because the guy with the single-point character was fine with being half as useful as the other guy?

Without knowing the players, I'd give pretty good odds it's the former.

Yes, it's the former naturally...
I've seen players who didn't care that their PC was half as effective or less. Or, at least, didn't complain about it. They were both female players, incidentally.
 

Game balance can be influenced by the mechanics but meaningful balance can only be achieved by the group actually playing the game. The OP provided a nice overview of how mechanics can influence balance but neither example survives contact with players on it's own.

The utility of balance and what gets sacrificed in it's name depends on the group playing and the style of game being run. A group of strangers getting together for a one shot may want or feel the need for more system based balance than a group of close friends that have playing together for a long time.

After gaming with many types of personalities I have found that no balance mechanism found in a rulebook will prevent "that guy/girl" from being a royal pain in the butt once said player has set out to do so. If a problem player feels the need to hog the spotlight all the time then he/she will find ways to do so regardless of the mechanics in play.

Another problem with purely system based balance is that assumptions about playstyle and what is enjoyable for a player HAVE to be made in the underlying mechanics that drive the balance. It is not possible to create mechanics with the intent of preserving fun for the player without a definition of said fun. If the definition given by the rules matches that of the players then the fit can be perfect. If not, there will be issues.
 

Couple of points, then I'll dive back in.

Do we "need" balance. IMO, yes, we do. There needs to be, in every game, some metric that can be used in order to make sure that you don't wind up with Angel Summoner and BMX Biker. The problem with the idea that the DM can just "make it all balance" is twofold. First, it's lazy game design. The designer is basically saying, "I can't be bothered doing the math behind this game, so, here, you do it for me." The second problem being not all GM's or players are created equal. Yes, a good or even great GM/DM can make the system work. But, that's the problem right there. It shouldn't require a good or great DM to make it work. It should require an average DM to make it work, a good or great GM should make it work like magic.

On the other side of the argument, whether or not we can actually achieve balance. Well, it's absolutely true that we can never achieve perfectly balanced rules sets. It cannot happen. But, just like objectivity in history or in journalism for that matter, it's still the goal to aspire to. It is not a failure not to reach perfect balance.

Now, back to business here, now that I'm no longer having my ankles chewed upon. :D

3. [/u]Setting Balance

This method works best, again IMO, in games that are specifically tied to a given setting. I find it more problematic in generic systems. Essentially, you are using the in game reality to place limitations on abilities. It could be something like the Honor system in Oriental Adventures. While OA characters are considerably more powerful than stock D&D characters, the limitations of honor tend to make those powers less attractive and less useful.

Another example might be in my favourite setting - Scarred Lands. The SL abilities are very high octane. You get some pretty heavy duty bonuses and whatnot for very little cost - pray to the right god and you get straight up pluses to die rolls for example. This is balanced by the fact that SL is a bloody lethal setting where you should be fighting to scrape along pretty much most of the way. It's like in the old Dark Sun setting where characters started at 4th level because the setting was so lethal.

There are a couple of problems with this method though. First, if you try to import from setting to setting it gets very difficult to judge the power levels. Because the limiting factors aren't present within the elements themselves, it can be easy to misjudge the power level of an element. A warforge's ability to not eat or drink isn't a big deal in Eberron, but would be considerably more powerful in Dark Sun for example.

The other issue with this is it assumes that the GM and the players are familiar enough with the setting that they will be able to understand how these elements are balanced. If the balancing is very clearly explained in the text, that's not a problem so much, but, sometimes it can get buried under the verbiage.

5. Genre Convention Balance

Ok, I'll be honest. I hate this one. I think it's a complete waste of time. The idea is, because the players have agreed to play within a given genre, they will abide by that genre's conventions and deliberately choose options which are frequently illogical. Take Batman as an example. In the comics, he won't kill. Or, well, he'll never deliberately kill anyway. Let's not split hairs, and just work with me on this. :)

So, in the comics, Bats catches the Joker, chucks him into Arkham Asylum, the Joker breaks out and wash, rinse, repeat for decades of fun.

Now, instead of a writer, we put a player in the Batsuit. After the third time he's caught the Joker and the Joker's escaped, even the most genre minded individual is likely going to take the logical and pragmatic step of launching the Joker off a convenient rooftop and making sure he goes splat. It's just the nature of anyone playing a game that they're eventually going to make choices that, well, make perfect sense.

Old World of Darkness was one that always bugged me for this. It was ridiculously easy to break the system. To the point where you actively had to avoid making certain choices to not break the system. Unless of course you wanted to play it as a night time supers game, in which case, smash away. :D

Presuming that players will deliberately make choices that are obviously not the right one, just for the sake of genre convention is poor design. You can get away with it a few times, but, at a certain point, it just gets ridiculous.

6. Balancing Combat with Non-combat

Ok, here's one that's likely going to annoy people. The idea is, if you are good at combat, you are bad out of it and vice versa. Slide the bar up on one side and the slider on the other side moves down.

The good side of this is... sorry, I'm drawing a blank here. I've never really understood why we do this. These are two fundamentally different areas of the game, any game, that share almost no mechanics. Why should they be used to balance each other? If I'm using one set, I'm most likely not using the other at any given time.

Or, to put it another way, how much damage is find traps worth?

I do not like this method of balance (surprise!). I think it's one that has been done far too many times in far too many games because it makes a certain amount of common sense. You cannot be a super talker if you're a super fighter! That wouldn't be fair!

To me, that's just asking the wrong question. I'm a super talker when we're talking. I'm a super fighter when we're fighting. They are fundamentally two separate parts of the game. If I'm a super talker, maybe I'm a poor information guy. Maybe I'm the super talker, but, my computer skills are the pits. But, I've never been able to fathom how its balanced to say that I'm a super talker, so I cannot punch you in the nose.

Anyway, it's late, I'm sleepy, so, off to bed I go.
 

A perfect DM can always achieve a good game experience.


A good DM can often achieve a good game experience. he can do it more often if he works under better conditions. Good players, a good rules system that works for him and his players.
And that's where game balance comes in.
This is very well said.
 

Game balance can be influenced by the mechanics but meaningful balance can only be achieved by the group actually playing the game. The OP provided a nice overview of how mechanics can influence balance but neither example survives contact with players on it's own.

The utility of balance and what gets sacrificed in it's name depends on the group playing and the style of game being run. A group of strangers getting together for a one shot may want or feel the need for more system based balance than a group of close friends that have playing together for a long time.

After gaming with many types of personalities I have found that no balance mechanism found in a rulebook will prevent "that guy/girl" from being a royal pain in the butt once said player has set out to do so. If a problem player feels the need to hog the spotlight all the time then he/she will find ways to do so regardless of the mechanics in play.

Another problem with purely system based balance is that assumptions about playstyle and what is enjoyable for a player HAVE to be made in the underlying mechanics that drive the balance. It is not possible to create mechanics with the intent of preserving fun for the player without a definition of said fun. If the definition given by the rules matches that of the players then the fit can be perfect. If not, there will be issues.

Totally agree with everything you said here. I'd posrep you but, I gotta spread the loving around. :)

One point though. I think it is a strength of a system that defines fun while playing that system. Any gaming system is going to have to do that really. You cannot create a system without thinking about how people are going to play it to some degree and thus you want to reward the things you think they'll enjoy.

There has to be a fair degree of responsibility on the part of the players to choose a system that fits with their definition of fun.
 

To me, that's just asking the wrong question. I'm a super talker when we're talking. I'm a super fighter when we're fighting. They are fundamentally two separate parts of the game. If I'm a super talker, maybe I'm a poor information guy. Maybe I'm the super talker, but, my computer skills are the pits. But, I've never been able to fathom how its balanced to say that I'm a super talker, so I cannot punch you in the nose.
I think this one works if fighting and talking are roughly equally important and represented in the game.

It doesn't usually work that well in D&D because D&D is all about killing monsters, punctuated with a bit of talking, so being a crap fighter but a super talker means you're crap most of the time in exchange for being super only rarely.

But in general principle, it isn't that different from saying that you can't be both a super swordsman and a super bowman.
 

It doesn't usually work that well in D&D because D&D is all about killing monsters, punctuated with a bit of talking, so being a crap fighter but a super talker means you're crap most of the time in exchange for being super only rarely.

This is a playstyle assumption that can be reinforced and supported by the mechanics and balance decisions or not.

But in general principle, it isn't that different from saying that you can't be both a super swordsman and a super bowman.

Great example. If balance decisions are entirely combat focused then the particulars of that combat balance get more divided and narrowly defined.
 

One thing that has -- for, I think, complex reasons -- largely fallen by the wayside is the equality of opportunity naturally producing inequality in outcomes determined by the combination of player skill and chance.

Even starting (as, for instance, in The Fantasy Trip) with the equality of resources in a character generation system utterly lacking a random factor, one in which what you get is no more nor less than what you pick, the courses of subsequent careers are bound to vary greatly. Some characters survive and thrive; others achieve relatively little; some perish in their first ventures.

That provides a key part of the context in games (such as the original D&D) in which options are so different from each other as to make "equality" nonsensical and the "balance" one of very disparate factors. Risk and reward figure, some choices being more conservative and others more daring.

It also puts into perspective the variation in starting conditions due to chance, a feature familiar from such other forms as card games. There is a range in which the effects of those largely wash out once the vagaries of actual play are brought to bear; "stat" rolls serve mainly to shape selection of strategies.

The importance of ability scores increases when significant bonuses and penalties kick in closer to the average score. When there is little game-mechanical difference between a score of 7 and one of 14 -- as opposed, say, to a difference of 4 points on attack and damage rolls -- the chief function is to inform the shaping of a persona for role-playing.

"Stats" of all sorts become more important as using them becomes more centrally the means of play. When they are often bypassed in favor of a direct correlation between dialog about a situation as cause and change in the situation as effect, they do not matter so much. When, regardless of the action taken in the narrative of events, success or failure ultimately depends on a skill rating or the like, those ratings count for a lot! (So much, indeed, that it can sometimes be like pulling teeth to get some players to engage the narrative at all.)

In Traveller, for instance, skill ratings -- production of which is the immediate object of the involved, heavily chance-driven character-generation system -- tend in my experience to serve mainly a persona-portrait function. Lack of expertise is easily made up by hiring experts. The course of events depends much more on the choices players make, especially their navigation of the social milieu. If one considers the similarity of that to our current real world, the reasons why are not too hard to discern!

A high rate of character mortality (as is common among low-level characters in old D&D and some other games) broadens consideration to a sum of many histories. A practice common in my experience is the keeping of a "stable" of characters in a campaign (although typically only one is played in a given session). That is due in part to the tracking of time, which may leave Character X either "elsewhen" or indisposed when Character Y undertakes an adventure. (I note, though, that the custom was addressed most explicitly in Tunnels & Trolls, which does not emphasize accounting of the calendar as does old D&D.)

I raise these points to give some historical perspective to consideration of older (and today largely obscure) game-forms, and their related rules sets, by folks unacquainted with them. Different goals naturally tend to call for different arrangements!
 
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Thus, you could create a Superman character but the other guy who plays a Jimmy Olsen will actually have more impact on the campaign ...
That strikes me as a bad example in part because it contradicts the source material (to the extent of my perhaps antiquated familiarity with it). How is that role-playing? Is "I'm more powerful than Superman" really part of the boy-reporter role?

In SotC, you only gain Fate points if you have something bad happen to your character. Since Fate points are so important to the game, it is in the player's best interest to gain more of them.
So, the more I screw up my life, the bigger a winner I am? I think the obvious term for such a character is "dysfunctional". I'll take a pass on that, preferring the "Karma" system in Marvel Super Heroes any day of the week!
 
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