Balance - A Thing of the Past?

[Crothian]

So why would you choose to start the game standing in a deep hole?

Because I can accomplish more by starting farther behind. Naked and on Fire!! Baby!!

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Because I can accomplish more by starting farther behind. Naked and on Fire!! Baby!!

"When you are on fire, people get out of your way." --Richard Pryor

 

[diaglo]

And I can do it going backwards in high heels, buddy boy!

i love that quote. i can just never remember who said it.


but the point i was trying to make and i'm guessing you picked up on it was the fact that even with all of the glaring errors and stuff still today in the rules the referee/DM/GM doesn't have to know all the rules or even make rulings on all things if the players don't want or need or even bother to use all of them.

why have a rule for going to the bathroom. if neither the players nor the referee want to roleplay that. yet... if the need arises to separate the party members for a particular encounter this may come into play. and when it does it still boils down to what the group is willing to trust works.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

...

I know that balanced designed has been a boon for me and my play group, and I am sure that it has been for others. Whether that would even cover the majority I do not claim to know nor care.

I do not see what the downsides would be.

If you are really are the kind of player/DM who not stoop to care about such tawdry things as balance, I find more than a little difficult to believe there could be a downside. Surely you are Fred Astaire when it comes to dancing past rules quirks, yes?

The downside is a lot of time and effort wasted on trying to balance things when the effort could have been put into better settings, adventures, etc. Not to mention all of the whining we have to put up with because people are so focused on everything being perfectly balanced. (This is not aimed at you personally BTW)

 

[Hussar]

I doubt I've seen much lost in the wash with balance. Considering the sheer volume of material published for 3e, I would say that balance, and the quest thereof, has had absolutely zero impact on the quantity or quality of publications.

Actually, with the fact that designers have one eye on balance, we haven't seen the unbelievable power creep that destroyed both 1e and 2e. There are no Cavalier rules in 3e like we saw in 1e. There is no Faiths and Avatars allowing clerics to use Druid xp tables while casting fireballs in chainmail.

Think about it, with the thousands of PrC's out there, dozens of base classes, the number of truly broken of either are very, very few. Most require some fairly shifty rules interpretations and pulling from several sources. It's not like we see NPC classes in Dragon anymore.

The difference between optimal and suboptimal in 3e is usually not all that much. Taking a dagger will not make you competely inneffective in 3e. A dex based fighter can hold his own - he hits more and gets hit less. It also depends on the campaign. Yes, I agree that Power Attack and 2handed weapons is probably the optimal choice, but, sword and board isn't that far behind and neither is two weapon fighting.

In earlier editions, the longsword absolutely ruled. To the point where modules called it a "normal" sword. Best damage, best speed factor, best of everything. To the point where it was blatantly better.

That's my point about balance. Sure, some options might seem better than others. But, in a balanced system, no choice is so much better that any other choice is deliberately handicapping. Sure, players might take a dagger wielding fighter in 2e, but, they were useless. I never played with people who felt that being dead weight in a party was a good thing.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

The look of shock and horror on their faces when I spread the intestines of their beloved PC's across the landscape is just worth it. Make me read three pages (front and back) of badly hand written background will you?

You. Are. My. Hero.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The downside is a lot of time and effort wasted on trying to balance things when the effort could have been put into better settings, adventures, etc. Not to mention all of the whining we have to put up with because people are so focused on everything being perfectly balanced. (This is not aimed at you personally BTW)

There is an important distinction between two different kinds of balance I would make here. My apologies if I have been unclear.

First, there is balance in game design in terms of professionally published material. With so much free material to be found on the internet, I do not see why I should give one red cent to a game designer who has not demonstrated some basic competence with the mechanics of the system. Here balanced game design has enormous potential upside, and probably zero downside.

Second, there is balance within a particular group's campaign. That is a more complex subject. I do not claim to know if balance by normal yardsticks will be useful in a particular campaign. Balanced design in the game mechanics is a tool that helps accomplish many things that most players and DMs like. But it is hardly the only way to accomplish those ends. If you want to throw some of the game balance mechanics because you have a cool idea, I am not going to try and stop you.

There are gray areas.

Consider Ars Magica. In that game mages are immensely powerful relative to everyone else. That is unbalanced by one yardstick. But it is balanced in the sense that the play style takes it into account -- everyone is expected to play a wizard much of the time.

Consider a game where the DM wants to run a low magic world. Balanced game design helps us understand that certain character classes will tend to be relatively powerful compared to "normal" and certain character classes will tend to be weaker. Balanced game design suggests certain possible mechanical tweaks that may prove useful to compensate. The DM can always do whatever he wants. A good DM has many tools in his toolbox and the "balanced design" widget is only one of them.

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

In 2E, being a two weapon fighting specialist wasn't so bad in comparsion to being a throwing dart grand master. Sheesh, that was crazy. I think being a thri-kreen or a drow made it worse.

 

[D'karr]

Second, there is balance within a particular group's campaign. That is a more complex subject. I do not claim to know if balance by normal yardsticks will be useful in a particular campaign. Balanced design in the game mechanics is a tool that helps accomplish many things that most players and DMs like. But it is hardly the only way to accomplish those ends. If you want to throw some of the game balance mechanics because you have a cool idea, I am not going to try and stop you.

This was my original point when I stipulated that balance is a matter of perspective. Balance is greatly subjective. What might seem balanced for campaign X (core + options Q-Z) does not even come close to balanced in campaign Y (core + option A-C). It is completely for the gamemaster to decide what is balanced or not for his campaign.

And within those two extremes you have the players who will either chose to play the "uberoptimized", the "average" or the "underoptimized. The DM is the only one that can and should try that balancing act.

It is places like this, where the simple notion that something might be "overpowered" is immediately carted out as "broken", that put an undue amount of emphasis on balance. For every piece of anecdotal evidence that "X option is so good that nobody would ever choose anything else", there is usually an equal amount of evidence that "people still choose other options".

I've seen many options in the game all the way from OD&D to 3.5 that seemed to be so overpowering that everyone would want to play them. However, that never panned out. People still played what they wanted to play whether it was "uberoptimized" or not.

I don't see a lack of balance as a "sky is falling" event. It does not even come close to registering on the radar.

I'd rather see exciting concepts implemented in the game rather than bland average stuff. IMO the quest for balance has given us many bland concepts and not enough exciting ones.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I'd rather see exciting concepts implemented in the game rather than bland average stuff. IMO the quest for balance has given us many bland concepts and not enough exciting ones.

I do not see that blandness is a requirement of balance.

Perhaps it is all not exactly mindblowing material, but the amount of innovation that 3e has precipitated in last half a dozen years is greater than entire post-AD&D PHB to 3.0 era IMNSHO. How many distinct magic systems are out there that plug right into the d20 system?

And if I really felt a strong urge to really change the feel of the game, I would. By playing a different RPG. I do not think it is realistic for a single RPG to be everything to everyone. It is foolish to even try IMO.

My personal experience is that poor balance in has a real effect on game play fun. Even if the sky did not fall, I have been burned enough to not feel enthusiasm for what I see as largely preventable pain. YMMV.