Balance Meter - allowing flavorful imbalance in a balanced game

[Crazy Jerome]

Champions despite being classless and universalist system can generate characters that interact with very different mechanics. Compare a mentalist superhero with a brick, a brick with a flying energy projector. In both cases, they roll with combat values and power effect dice, but the flying energy projector interacts with turning radii and range, the brick doesn't. The mentalist is probably comparing his result to ego values to see how much mind control he exerts rather than counting up Stun and Body. And doing even get me started on a wizard hero with a variable power pool and skill checks to rearrange his points.

In the context of this discussion, I suspect the above could be a little misleading for those that aren't familiar with the Hero System. Hero would seem an odd bird to be claiming different subsystems for different characters, since Hero is generic, and the flavor is applied on top. An "energy blast" can be a fireball, lightning bolt, enhanced punch, laser beams, or any number of straight damage effects that aren't directly killers.

I'll partially grant you the mentalist one, though in the end note that is no more than "use this stat instead of this other stat for attack and defense." And historically, the effects across all powers have been handled one of 3 or 4 ways. A "mental attack" may be used to construct a mind-alterating chemical, injected physically.

So I put this down not to differences among clear sub system, but rather differences in the scope of the whole set of mechanics, which you can then add on any character you please. You may decide to limit certain effects (or advantages or limitations) to certain characters concepts in order to make these differences more stark, but that is a campaign decision, not a system one.

 

[billd91]

So quite explicitly you're declaring that it doesn't matter whether there's a huge difference between what magic does and what weapons/skills do. What matters to make them seem different is that they have to use "substantially different subsystems" else "too much is lost from the magic".

This does not match my experience with a huge variety of games.

Quite explicitly, yes. Magic is magic. Non-magic isn't magic. I don't want teleporting fighters unless they're using magic to do it. I don't want rogues levitating treasure off the bedside table and over to the window unless they're using magic to do it.

I also don't want my fighters and rogues and other martial characters hampered by limitations on how they do the things they do (or how often) to match the somewhat quirky structures created to put limits on magic. The fighter can only cover an ally allowing him to retreat once per encounter instead of any time he feels he needs to do so? Blech.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

But, that's where the rub lies. If you try to balance characters by saying that Class A is good in Situation A and Class B is good in Situation B, you are balancing apples with oranges. For one, how often do situations A and B come up? How often can they be reasonably expected to come up in most campaigns (since we can't really design for corner cases)? How long does it take to resolve A and B? How much do situations A and B appeal to the group as a whole rather than to the individual character (the classic Shadowrun Decker issue)? So on and so forth.

I said that a really good system is going to need to realize that sometimes you have to balance apples and oranges. And only a really good DM there managing the situation can do the best possible case-by-case job of that. Every DM starts out mediocre or worse. Lack of experience dealing with these issues would keep them there.

The purpose of this topic could be stated without undue strain as squaring the circle above.

My take on it is that apples and oranges are inherently unable to be balanced by system, but nonetheless the system must provide help in this regard--because what the system can't do, the people at the table must. The best thing the system can thus do is be entirely clear about what is going on.

Don't try to turn an orange into an apple, and apple into an orange, or mix them both up into a juice and call it a day. OTOH, don't sit there and tell the poor players that it is all "fruit," and they can pick whatever they want, and it will all work fine. Better, I think, is to explicitly tell people, "This is an apple in this system. It behaves this way, having these benefits and these drawbacks. Situations X, Y, and Z change it this way. Use it here, or mixed with this other thing, and you may not like it for these reasons."

In such a system, silos are like bins at the grocery store. (And if you've been on a large farm, that is really what silos are anyway.) They aren't designed to limit your choices, but to make your choices plain. 4E says that the fruits are arranged appropriately--so that all you need to do is pick a certain amount from each bin, by level, and it will work. This is true, but cuts out a lot of options. In contrast, 3E arranges the fruit in bins, but thematically instead of by function, so that you end up with "red stuff" in one bin and "green stuff" in another and so on. It then tell you that you get a certain amount of picks by level, but can pick anything you want, and it will mostly work out. This provides a lot of options, but is untrue.

 

[Hassassin]

I'm pretty sure you can get people to feel there's a difference between their characters/classes by having those classes/characters able to do different things.

Yes. I'm just saying how they do things also matters.

 

[Bluenose]

I agree with this.

But I also think there is negative potential in preconceiving either way.

If you make new subsystems as a means to the end of "different" then you have put the cart before the horse.
But if different abilities are all required to be expressed by different text on top of a universal system, then you have needlessly painted yourself into a corner.

A perfect world *probably* would have one "go to" system and would only use subsystems after carefully considering use of the core system. But it would also not be the least bit shy about going to subsystems when they are called for.

There's nothing that makes specific types of ability require different mechanics to differentiate them from other types of ability. Vancian magic being expended when used is no different to ammunition or spell points being expended when used. I don't regard "I expend the spell", "I expend the spell points", and "I expend the arrow" as differing in a meaningful fashion. Nor is there any reason they can't be resolved using the same mechanics, as a lot of RPGs do.

Quite explicitly, yes. Magic is magic. Non-magic isn't magic. I don't want teleporting fighters unless they're using magic to do it. I don't want rogues levitating treasure off the bedside table and over to the window unless they're using magic to do it.

Well, what you're arguing for is classes being able to do different things. Nothing you say requires different mechanics.

I also don't want my fighters and rogues and other martial characters hampered by limitations on how they do the things they do (or how often) to match the somewhat quirky structures created to put limits on magic. The fighter can only cover an ally allowing him to retreat once per encounter instead of any time he feels he needs to do so? Blech.

Do you prefer the warrior to be able to carry on repeating the same trick again and again, with their opponent never figuring out that they need to avoid it? Personally I prefer something that makes a closer approximation to realism.

 

[Bluenose]

Yes. I'm just saying how they do things also matters.

Why? You're expending a resource to achieve an effect. That might be an arrow from a bow, some of your spell points, a Vancian spell, or a Fate Aspect. Resolving these in different ways is unnecessary.

 

[BryonD]

There's nothing that makes specific types of ability require different mechanics to differentiate them from other types of ability.

No one thing, true. And I'd probably agree that anything *can* be done with unified mechanics. But sometimes it can be done *even better* with subsystems.

Vancian magic being expended when used is no different to ammunition or spell points being expended when used. I don't regard "I expend the spell", "I expend the spell points", and "I expend the arrow" as differing in a meaningful fashion. Nor is there any reason they can't be resolved using the same mechanics, as a lot of RPGs do.

I don't want to play a lot of RPGs. I want to play the best possible RPG.

Again, I'm on board with simplicity and unified systems as a starting point. But when you start closing off options for going other directions when it fits, you are losing ground.

 

[Hassassin]

Why? You're expending a resource to achieve an effect. That might be an arrow from a bow, some of your spell points, a Vancian spell, or a Fate Aspect. Resolving these in different ways is unnecessary.

Only if they work exactly the same. What you originally quoted was:

In D&D, weapon combat and spells occupied substantially different subsystems. I believe they work better when they do so because way too much is lost from the magic end of fantasy by constraining it into something that is designed to work with a non-magical character. I don't have a problem with fancy combat maneuvers by non-magical characters, but don't try to shoehorn magic into the same structure. It loses a lot in the translation.

If magic uses spell slots, martial is at will and psionics use power points, they all have a very different feel that the mechanics reinforce. Martial is consistent, psionics is adaptable, magic forces you to think ahead. Even if all of them have an ability that deals 1d6 damage.

 

[billd91]

Do you prefer the warrior to be able to carry on repeating the same trick again and again, with their opponent never figuring out that they need to avoid it? Personally I prefer something that makes a closer approximation to realism.

Then make repeated attempts a bit more difficult, like increase the difficulty 1 or 2 points for each previous attempt. Some tricks should work more than once a combat, particularly against different opponents. It's no more realistic for every opponent to cotton on to your trick when applied once than for it to be infinitely reusable against the same foe.

 

[dkyle]

I haven't read much past the OP, so maybe this has already been said:

Imbalance among players is bad, period. The hard part of balancing a game is recognizing the problems to begin with. If you've identified those "balance meters", then you're 95% of the way to fixing the balance. So just fix it.

The only way a "balance meter" makes any sense is if players are playing multiple characters simultaneously, to produce balance between each player's allotment of characters. One player might have 4 Fighters (at 50% each), and another a Cleric and Wizard (at 75% and 125% each). But that sounds like a mess.