Balance : GM's job or everyone's?

[Ylis]

Ultimately, it's the DM's responsibility. Now, the players COULD be nice and help out, but..

We have a relatively new DM, who has given our 8th level party a Ring of Fire Elemental Command, which I currently possess. Yes, a 200,000 gold piece magic item, for an 8th level character. I asked him if he meant for us to have the thing, given its power level, but he has no qualms about it, numerous times, so I kept it. It's been REEEAAAL handy being able to toss out a 15 hit dice Flame strike every now and then. In all, however, it has not unduly unbalanced the game, because the party as a whole is pretty well equipped; I rarely use it for anything except the flame strike, the wall of fire, and the fire resistance, and we've NEVER faced a fire elemental at all, so some of its major powers get unused.

Hehehe...I remember being like that when I started GMing Now if I do that, the players tend to get scared, lol...

 

[Wombat]

While the GM has a lot of the burden placed upon him/her/it by virtue of the position, games are cooperative ventures (or at least should be). As such, play balance is everyone's concern and should be.

Then again, my games are not "my games", but rather "our games", with everyone contributing background and ideas about the gameworld, much less adventure notions.

 

[dreaded_beast]

I believe a key issue to maintaining balance is to keep in mind the needs and wants of the players as well. There may come times when a DM's need to maintain a sense of balance results in a lessening of fun for the players.

In my opinion, I believe that some DMs are unable to handle the power level of their players, in terms of abilities, spells, skills, etc. In order to regain control, they may "overcompensate" by nerfing said abilities of a player character.

In one campaign I have played, the DM had a tendency to introduce new rules that "nerfed" abilities, but hardly introduced rules that gave players more "options". It felt as if players were being punished for playing their characters the way they wanted to or for using abilities or powers inherent to that particular class. In this case, I believe the DM nerfing also resulted in a difference in playing-styles and goals for the campaign.

I totally agree with maintaining balance within a campaign, but I dislike when it seems more like "nerfing" or the deliberate weakening of powers or abilities because the DM may not be able to deal or handle it.

I know DMing is not an easy job, but I also believe that if your players are not having fun because of too much "balance", then there may not be a game left to balance.

 

[diaglo]

all those playing at the table.

the referee takes the brunt of it...but it is the players also who must speak up.

i've had DMs hand out major artifacts to the group. i destroy those items as fast as i can.

 

[the Jester]

i've had DMs hand out major artifacts to the group. i destroy those items as fast as i can.

Hey, those aren't 'balance issues'- those are plot devices!

 

[Altalazar]

There is somewhat of a group responsibility for that, but I'd say 90% of it falls to the DM - especially with the tone is set from the beginning.

For instance, if the DM advocates point buy versus random dice rolls, and allows characters in that have a wide variation in "point value" for their stats, that makes things unbalanced within the party from the start, in a way that can't easily be fixed.

So based on how things are set up and what is allowed in from the beginning, the "balance" of the game is either set or toppled.

Of course, if none of the players try to make particularly "unbalanced" characters, the DM's job is easier, but as indicated above, sometimes things can get unbalanced anyway based on certain DM decisions.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

It depends on the group. I think it should be a group effort; some are always better than others at moving things along, keeping track of things etc.

I had an incident last week where I forgot that casting a spell within 5 ft of an opponent could provoke an attack of oppurtunity. I *should* have remembered this, since every character I've ever played, except one very short lived one, has been a spellcaster. But I forgot and the GM reminded me & let me get away with it...once.

I think that's fair. Although, I'll admit, I'm more the type of player to say, NO I MESSED UP! LET THE DICE FALL WHERE THEY MAY. So had he not reminded me, I would have taken the attack and dealt with whatever damage resulted from it.

I think it would be annoying if the GM constantly held the players hands through all the rules and keeping track of spells etc. But I also think it would be annoying if the players needed such hand holding. Or , if the GM had no clue, as one GM I played with did...er...didn't. Whatever. He would pretty much tell us he was making it up (rules included) as he went.

So, I say group effort, all the way. Both groups I game with are pretty good about this now. One more than the other, but neither are terrible by any means.

 

[clark411]

Given my experiences, I have to agree that it is the responsibility of the players to ensure balance at the table as well.

I've seen players who focus on making 'living' characters that evolve, take feats to reflect what's happened in the story, and aren't based on maximizing certain powers they can get (they won't try to be the absolute Best tripper, then refine all their tactics around tripping... or they won't go the route where they are amazing with two shortswords but can't handle anything else well). I've seen these players sitting across from players who are into Power builds, and literally have a binary opinion of everything in the books as either "Optimal" or "Not Worth It." They chart out their classes for all 20 levels at level 1, and draft and draft and draft with prestige classes and rearranging levels to ensure the best array of BAB, Save, Sneak Attack, or whatever they want.

Now, neither of these stances can be looked at as "wrong" in any objective manner, but when the two sit at the table together, typically I've found that the optimizers wipe the floor with combat while the evolvers depend upon describing nifty actions to remain in the game, sometimes actions they technically aren't allowed to do by the rule set. The DM on the other hand, has the tightrope to walk between entertaining the optimizers and not outright killing the evolvers without (Big Without) making it seem like he's picking on the optimizers and sparing the evolvers. This results typically in the optimizers getting a bit paranoid, questioning how their neigh omnipotent builds are constantly on the brink of death while the clearly inferior PCs at the table seem to be getting along rather well. The result is either complaints of being singled out for maximum punishment, or the belief that clearly the build isn't powerful enough and, should the optimizer die, and even MORE powerful build is needed.

Now, if it's wrong in general for the DM to cater his game to both sides of this is a great question... and it ultimately comes down to the degree of pressure they recieve from the players. In what I've seen, optimizers tend to demand challenge, but expect success. If they do not get challenged, they get bored. If they do not succeed, they get irritated. It's a bit of a catch 22... so in effect nothing the DM does can be correct, and the only solution that seems reasonable is to chuck the self-centered stance of the Optimizers out of the window. That leaves catering to the Evolvers, while juggling to some extend the passive aggressive mentality of the Optimizers when Initiative rolls around.


Long story short, as mentioned before, different powerlevels and even "philosophies of gaming" at the table can cause major problems. I've seen deathspirals where DMs and Players have gone back and forth, both building more impressive monsters to fight more impressive 5th and 6th string characters whose feats and equipment become more impressive. Have also seen players not so involved in the mechanics get absolutely blown away by adventuring in such an environment. It isn't pretty- and my only nod to gaming in general is that at least most gaming groups aren't quite so dysfunctional... and that even these problems only rear themselves at most, once a week. ^_^

 

[Steverooo]

If the GM or rules take away a power or ability that I formerly received at first level, in order to counter-balance one I would receive at 13th (but my PC won't see until post-Epic 25th, due to PC decisions), and thereby unbalances and weakens my PC, can/should I "balance" him? No?

Then balance is (and must remain) primarily the DM's concern. Sure, I can tell the GM how I feel (and get labelled a "whiner" or "complainer"), or ask for something else to "balance" my PC (and get labelled a "powergamer"), but we ALL know who's going to win any arguements about what is, or is not, balanced... The GM!

That's why he's primarily responsible.

 

[Ogre Mage]

Well, like CRGreathouse said, balance can encompass both a) how well the party is balanced against encounters and b) how well the PCs are balanced against each other.

For encounter balance, I think that falls pretty exclusively in the hands of the DM. It is his job to regulate treasure distribution and design appropriate encounters based on the abilities of the party.

For PC vs. PC balance, however, I think the players have some responsibility, too. The DM certainly has a role to play in terms of rules for character creation, allowing prestige classes, etc. but it is also the responsibility of the players to craft characters who bring complimentary talents and not simply reduce the game to an exercise in creating the most powerful character possible that renders everyone else irrelevant (a dedicated munchkin can do it, even in point buy) or have it become a "my fighter is always better than your fighter" type of situation.