Broken and balanced

[Corinth]

Power=Spotlight Time=Fun; More Power=More Spotlight Time=More Fun.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Another kind of balance is the balance between options. In 2E, the longsword was flat-out better than the battle-axe. So, few fighters ever carried a battle-axe. Just about all of them carried a longsword (or, more commonly after Complete Book of Fighters, 2 longswords). 3E fixed that by ensuring that there was no One Best Option (and then fixed its own error of the mercurial greatsword).

Spells have frequently had the problem of One Best Option, which can normally be solved by bumping up spell levels or by adding competing options. 3.5 beefed up Shocking Grasp to the point where it, as a touch spell, can plausibly compete with the no-hit-roll nothing-resistant ranged attack of Magic Missile (before, SG did less damage at levels 5 and 7-12; now, it does equal or more at all levels). Haste was fixed so that it is still useful, but no longer the automatic "must-have" spell.

This doesn't matter to some people. Some players, and even some designers think it's fine for there to be one option that is simply better than all others. Myself, I like a little more variety in the tactics and aesthetics of the game, so I prefer having balance between options. I don't mind there being some options and feats that are less useful than others, but I just don't like seeing other options that are so optimal that they always dominate. I'm sketching out racial variants for a game (28-pt buy, with most races including humans getting a net +2 or a strong +2/-2), and I've been trying to do it in such a way that no sub-race is the automatic best choice for any class.

 

[Vaxalon]

...player's have to be reasonable with their character generation and tweak it to suit the dm's game...

Clearly, they don't HAVE to be, as anyone here can attest; powergaming happens all the time.

People OUGHT to be coordinating their character creation with the other players, to make sure that noone is ending up with a character that will steal spotlight from someone else; this often does not happen.

People OUGHT to be coordinating their character creation with the gamemaster, to make sure that it is in line with his vision of the game; this does not always happen.

The less balanced a game system is, the more important that these things happen. The reason gamemasters want balanced systems is to relieve some of the requirements for this kind of coordination.

 

[DragonLancer]

Balance is the tough part of the game IMO.

The DM has to ensure that the game being run is suitable for the levels and abilities of the party he has. But I find that falls to the players as well. They have to ensure that they make a balanced party comforming to the play style of the group.

But when it comes down to spells or feats or monster CR's, thats up to the DM to consider and decide whether such should be in his games. The corebooks are pretty well balanced together, its when you add additional or third party materials to that mix that the game can lose balance.

 

[swrushing]

My take on "balance" is that actual, real, "as seen in play" balance is going to be or not be based on the GM.

The game system can, if the Gm is not paying attention, screw up balance, but it cannot ever create it, foster it, or insure it.

The reason is fairly simple. The merit, value, worth, power, efficiency etc (whatever adjective/noun you want to use to convey "measure of worth") of a trait, of any trait, is dependent completely on the challenge presented to it. If i had the first level character +10 plate mail and he needs to sneak past some guards, that plate mail does him no good.

The game system, no game system i have ever seen, dictates the scenario, the challenges, the campaign flavor to any significant degree. In DND all of the following are reasonable campaign themes and stories and all three profoundly affect the "balance" between classes.

1. undead invasion where the primary antagonists at high. medium and low levels are undead. (Rogues... tough. Clerics...wahooo!)
2. Giant invasion... (Mages cool... rogues still tough... others vary)
3. Drow invasion (mages tough... others vary)

Its going to be primarily up to the GM to judge and implement his view of balance and this is going to come primarily from how well he gauges the interaction of "the threats capabilities" vs "the party's capabilities" in each and every given encounter. odds are, most encounters favor one or two players over the other and how much he recognizes this and makes the encounters balance out overtime... the spotlight balance... will determine whether his game plays out as balanced. if every player is satisfied his character gets enough opportunities, or at least as many opportunities as everyone else, at making "meaningful choices", at being the guy who "makes it happen" etc, he will do fine.

So what does the system do for you? Well it can screw you up.

See the Gm doesn't need "balanced" from the system. A lot of effort is spent on creatiung "a balanced DND" but that DND is not one anyone every plays. Its a theoretical thing supported on a deck os cards that basically assumes "the challenges are presented in balanced manner".

What the Gm needs the system to do is to provide him "BALANCEABLE" elements. The system needs to provide him with PCs that are "balanceable in play", not "balanced on a theoretical stage." To accomplish this, all the system needs to do is to provide that no combo is going to be so far out of whack that the Gm cannot with "reasonable" scripting provide the mixture of scenarios that makes one guy "the guy" one session and the other guy "the man" the next.

As an example, if a longsword is better than an axe in literally "every way" then the Gm cannot easily create a reasonable scenario that makes the axe guy better than the longsword guy.

So really, what the game needs to do is just get you close, or maybe even not go totally off its rocker, but most importantly, provide that everything has drawbacks. Every class needs strengths to be sure, but they also need weaknesses. Thinkl of it this way, you should be able to list three "reasonable scenarios" where any given class/character should be at a serious deficit and three where he would be "on top of the world" when compared to the others.

If you cannot do this, you might have balance problems in the system.
If you can, you probably will be fine, if you have an adequate GM.

I mean, the old adage of "if everyone in your game would take it means its probably unbalanced" is fine but that might be because the thing itself is unbalanced OR it might mean your scenarios too frequently emphasize that thing as a key or vital element.

IMX, playing and GMing, the vast majority of the actual in play imbalances have come from script, not system, and thats regardless of system... though complex point buy games tend to have a higher % of systemic ones, IMX.

 

[J_D]

Another kind of balance is the balance between options. In 2E, the longsword was flat-out better than the battle-axe. So, few fighters ever carried a battle-axe. Just about all of them carried a longsword

Well, that depends on what kind of character you're playing, or should at least. If I'm playing a dwarven fighter (and I do and did) he gets an axe, period, regardless of whether the longsword is statistically better or not. It's a matter of good roleplaying. Dwarves don't use logswords. And I don't let equipment stats influence what race I play either; if I decide I want to play d a dwarf fighter, I'm not going to be dissuaded from that simply because a longsword is better than an axe and dwarves don't use longswords. Character concept comes first, before equipment. People who let game mechanic statistics influence their character conceps are poor roleplayers, in my opinion.

This doesn't matter to some people. Some players, and even some designers think it's fine for there to be one option that is simply better than all others.

Right. It doesn't matter to me. Besides the idea that good roleplayers don't let mechanics influence their character concepts, attempts to balance the game mechanics in this manner often strike me as arbitrary and contrived. Just for one example, suppose we sit down and examine the comparative physics and history of use of the logsword and battleaxe, and reach a conclusion that one is dramatically better than the other in most objective measures. In my opinion, as a matter of verisimilitude (which is very important to me) that disparity should be reflected in the game mechanics rather than trying to come up with some false and artificial sense of balance just to make all weapons more or less equally attractive. To good roleplayers, this won't become an issue.

It's an oft-stated principle that "if everyone takes a particular option, it's unbalanced and broken", and I reject that principle as nonsense. There is a sufficiently wide variety of character concepts and archetypes that there is no such thing as an option that literally everyone will take. If you restrict everyone to mean, e.g., "everyone playing dwarven fighters", then the options that "everyone" takes (using a battleaxe) are part of the concept and not balance issues.

Myself, I like a little more variety in the tactics and aesthetics of the game, so I prefer having balance between options. I don't mind there being some options and feats that are less useful than others, but I just don't like seeing other options that are so optimal that they always dominate.

You can have plenty of variety in tactics and aesthetics without trying to contrive an artificial sense of balance. 3rd Ed D&D proves this, as the system provides a great deal of variety in options yet many people complain about this imbalance or that.

I'll say again, the only kind of game balance that matters is that the DM can provide challenges appropriate to the group, and other kinds of balance enforced in a game system just annoy me because they're pandering to poor roleplayers. I know others will disagree, but I'm firm in that conclusion.

How the players interact is a matter of player psychology than of game system mechanics. The DM should give each player the opportunity to participate and contribute and have fun, but that has nothing to do with the game system and it's plainly and simply not possible for any game system mechanic to enforce that.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Character concept comes first, before equipment. People who let game mechanic statistics influence their character conceps are poor roleplayers, in my opinion.

Depends on how you are looking at it. If longsword is a better weapon in every way than an axe, then the people in the world would realize that and use what they felt was the most useful.

It doesn't say anywhere in any of the book that "Dwarves use axes". It's just that in movies and books they might, so people attempt to emulate those characters.

If I was a character in that game system and I picked up all the weapons and attempted to use each of them and see which one was better, I'd figure it out, because IN THAT GAME WORLD that weapon IS better.

And, believe it or not, the amount of people that become powergamers when they realize how crappy their characters are in comparison to the other players is pretty high.

I generally run planned adventures that don't depend on the CHARACTERS abilities. When I plan adventures and plots, I think "Ok, an evil wizard is trying to conquer the country, he has craft construct, so he has created golems to guard his tower." I like to create a scenario and see how characters that I have no control over whatsoever handle it. Yes, it is possible that the rogue might suck in the adventure, or they might be very useful to disarm all the magic traps the wizard put there.

When I make an adventure, I like to put my faith in the rules to make sure no one feels left out. In 3.5E D&D, I can be mostly sure that no matter what class someone is playing, they will have something to do that will assist the party in a significant way in that wizard's tower. Not only that, but once combat starts, 95% of the time, everyone in the party has SOMETHING to do that is useful. Each class has their own bonuses and advantages in certain situations, but no one is completely useless.

On the other hand, in certain other non-balanced systems it was fully possible to play a character who had no uses whatsoever when combat started. The players of those characters would tend to leave the table and watch TV for the next hour while we finished the battle.

I've also seen players make up characters they were happy with and had a lot of fun playing, but when battle started, they ran up and said "I hit for 3" when another person in the party said, "I hit 4 times for 30 damage each". I, as a DM, don't want to spend all of my time to look through each and every character that someone makes for my game in order to tell them whether their character is too powerful or not powerful enough for my game. Plus, I don't want to see players annoyed that the characters they made up aren't as useful as other characters in the group. You are right, that TRUE balance won't happen. But it is a good goal to have CLOSE to true balance.

Most people will choose whatever they think is the best. For instance, someone brings a character into a group and they pick axe because they feel that dwarves use axes and they are going to be the tough fighter dwarf who is a great fighter, one of the best in the land. They join a group of people wielding longswords. He consistantly does less damage than the rest of the party because of his decision. The "hardened fighter dwarf" is outdone by the "I hate fighting, but have no other choice human" because they happen to be the same level and the human uses a BETTER weapon. Does it make sense story wise? No. Unless there is a reason in THAT world that axes are better. If they aren't...then, well, they shouldn't do more damage. Just because YOU are willing to take a poor choice for story reasons doesn't mean most people are. I have known at least 5 different role players in that dwarf's position who retired their characters after a couple of sessions and made up someone who used a longsword (well, figuratively speaking. There were varying reasons they felt underpowered)

In short, balance is about less work for a DM who has to continually check and double check everything he allows into his game, it is about more fun for the players because they feel useful and not outdone but the other players, and it's about story consistency.

Majoru Oakheart

 

[J_D]

Depends on how you are looking at it. If longsword is a better weapon in every way than an axe, then the people in the world would realize that and use what they felt was the most useful.

There are limits to that based on the physical limitations and culture of the various races. I think that a dwarf is going to be a little awkward wielding a longsword, but it's possible, but dwarven culture would steer a dwarf away from a logsword regardless of any statistical superiority. For a more extreme example, there's no way a halfling is ever going to wield a greatsword even if the greatsword is statistically far and away the best weapon in the whole world, and if a player brought a greatsword-wielding halfling character to the gaming table he deserves to be laughed away with derision.

It doesn't say anywhere in any of the book that "Dwarves use axes". It's just that in movies and books they might, so people attempt to emulate those characters.

No, it doesn't, but just about every portrayal of dwarves in literature - from which I think most people draw inspiration for their character concepts - portrays them as axe or hammer wielders, not sword wielders. If dwarves were going to wield swords at all, I think a shortsword would fit better.

When I make an adventure, I like to put my faith in the rules to make sure no one feels left out.

That's not the job of the rules, in my opinion. That's the job of the DM. The job of the rules is just to provide mechanics that will allow objective resolution of events and actions in the game world with a reasonable degree of verisimilitude. Nothing more. If you want more than that from the book rules, you're expecting too much of them.

In 3.5E D&D, I can be mostly sure that no matter what class someone is playing, they will have something to do that will assist the party in a significant way in that wizard's tower. Not only that, but once combat starts, 95% of the time, everyone in the party has SOMETHING to do that is useful. Each class has their own bonuses and advantages in certain situations, but no one is completely useless.

It's not the game system that insures this, it's the DM providing the adventure and the way the players work together to resolve it that does this.

On the other hand, in certain other non-balanced systems it was fully possible to play a character who had no uses whatsoever when combat started. The players of those characters would tend to leave the table and watch TV for the next hour while we finished the battle.

Combat isn't the only thing there is to an adventure and even in combat there's more than one way to be useful besides dealing immediate damage. Sounds like the DM and/or the player wasn't doing his job. If the player cares about his character and the game, why didn't he use his imagination to come up with other ways he could contribute? If the DM is providing combat-heavy adventures when one of the characters isn't a combat character, that's more a fault with the DM than the game system, yet you're blaming the gaming system for not providing "balance". Now maybe there might be portions of an adventure where one character isn't very useful, but isn't this to be expected? Or do you expect every character to be equally useful to the others in every situation so all players are involved at all times? Personally, I think this latter is too much to expect.

I've also seen players make up characters they were happy with and had a lot of fun playing, but when battle started, they ran up and said "I hit for 3" when another person in the party said, "I hit 4 times for 30 damage each".

In and of itself, as long as the second person isn't cheating, I don't see that this is inherently a problem. Maybe the first character contributes in ways other than dealing damage. Frankly, this is what I mean about the jealousy and envy part. As long as both players are getting their time in the round to do their thing and all the players are kept busy and involved and act in-character, it doesn't matter that one can do 3 points while another can do 120.

I, as a DM, don't want to spend all of my time to look through each and every character that someone makes for my game in order to tell them whether their character is too powerful or not powerful enough for my game. Plus, I don't want to see players annoyed that the characters they made up aren't as useful as other characters in the group.

While the DM shouldn't have to give every character sheet a detailed examination every session, it's the DM's job to have a basic knowledge of the general abilities of all the characters, enough at least to have a general idea if the player's cheating or not. There are a lot of ways to be useful, and a good adventure requires a broad range of skills to get it all done. When the DM does his job, every player is going to have his moments for glory. When a player just focuses on a round of combat and whines that some other character does a lot more damage than his does, that's just jealousy and envy and not legitmate grounds for the player to be annoyed. Tell him that such things aren't welcome at the table and that he should quit whining and play his character.

You are right, that TRUE balance won't happen. But it is a good goal to have CLOSE to true balance.

I think a good goal is to have a game system that will adjudicate actions in an impartial and believable manner (and to a fair degree of detail for my personal tastes), and that's all I ask for or want from the mechanics of a game system. Everything else is - and should be - up to the DM and the players. In terms of inter-party balance, the only thing that should be important is that every player is given the opportunity to participate in the playing of the adventure, participate in role-playing, and through participating have fun. That's it. Not some micromanaged balance of damage per round. And, bottom line, no game system can provide for this proper kind of balance. Only a good DM and good players can do this. You expect too much of a game system to do this mechanically, and expect not enough of players to behave maturely when not all things are equal.

Most people will choose whatever they think is the best. For instance, someone brings a character into a group and they pick axe because they feel that dwarves use axes and they are going to be the tough fighter dwarf who is a great fighter, one of the best in the land. They join a group of people wielding longswords. He consistantly does less damage than the rest of the party because of his decision. The "hardened fighter dwarf" is outdone by the "I hate fighting, but have no other choice human" because they happen to be the same level and the human uses a BETTER weapon. Does it make sense story wise? No. Unless there is a reason in THAT world that axes are better. If they aren't...then, well, they shouldn't do more damage. Just because YOU are willing to take a poor choice for story reasons doesn't mean most people are. I have known at least 5 different role players in that dwarf's position who retired their characters after a couple of sessions and made up someone who used a longsword (well, figuratively speaking. There were varying reasons they felt underpowered)

As long as a character has some niche that he specializes in and it comes into play during the adventure so the player can participate, that should be enough for any player. That a longsword does more damage than an axe -- that an axe-wielder will do less damage in combat -- is frankly a pretty pathetic reason to dump a character that is otherwise a decent concept.


I guess, in the end, we just expect and find enjoyment in different things out of our games.

 

[Aaron L]

Thorin Oakenshield used a longsword, and so do my dwarves.

 

[woodelf]

Oh my. The Rifts arguement. I'm surprised that it's still as popular as it is, given the fallacies inherent to it.

First, The DM (y'know, that really nice person who spends all that time and effort creating a world and adventures for you) is only human. I know this seems to shock many "a good DM can overcome anything" people, but the DM only has so many hours in a day, so time spent poring over the latest new release and pondering what should be included is gaming time not spent... well, making the game better. Add to that everything that looks hunky-dory on the surface but breaks the game in practice, and you're expecting an awful lot from someone who's already bending over backwards for your fun.

On the flipside, the game designer is also only human, so there's no particular reason, IMHO, to assume the game designer has done any better job of balancing than the GM could. IOW, if you're really concerned about this style of play, don't you need to pore over everything anyway, because you never know when the designer screwed up?

Second, widely divergant power levels actually inhibit options. If I'm to ban everything more powerful than X, and everyone who plays something weaker than X is punished, then well, everything that's not X is effectively cut from my game. So while the occasional mistake can be tossed out easily, if a book has vastly varying power levels for random things throughout it, that translates to a very small band of stuff that's actually playable. And since they're unlikely to repeat an archetype at different power levels, that means the odds of everyone getting to play what they actually want to is rather slim indeed.

No, widely divergent power levels don't necessarily have anything to do with options, fun, or the ability of the characters (and thus players) to contribute. One way to get equal spotlight time for all players is for them to all play equally-powerful characters. But that's not the only way, and may not be the best way--since what you really want to balance is the players' fun, you're working through a proxy of a proxy doing it this way (degree of player contribution is a proxy for fun--not everyone needs to contribute equally to have equal fun--and character power is a proxy for player contribution). In some genres (supers) and with some playstyles (troupe-style), inherently unequal character power is not a problem, and may actually be a feature.

The other problem of trying to ensure everybody has the same fun via character-power balancing is that it's so fragile. Take D&D3E as an example: all it takes to "break" the balancing mechanisms is play in a setting where violence simply isn't an option (royal court intrigue, perhaps), and suddenly the classes are wildly out of whack.

It's much better to cut right to the real goal, and attempt to balance player fun or, at furthest remove, character contributions. And power level is not the only, or best, way to balance character contributions. In many genres/settings/playstyles, niche protection is actually the best way to do that. It doesn't matter if Batman is as good at picking a lock as Superman is at lifting things, it only matters that Batman is noticably better at picking a lock than Superman is at picking a lock, and the team-up works.

And I don't think I need to say what happens when one player has inordinate power, say, and spotlight focus in the game.

See, now those aren't necessarily correlated. One character can have inordinate power, and yet her player doesn't get more spotlight time. And one player might get more spotlight time, and yet the others might still be having just as much fun--not everyone needs the same amount of spotlight time to enjoy themselves RPing, and some actually shy away from it.