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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ridley's Cohort" data-source="post: 3119889" data-attributes="member: 545">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.</blockquote>

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