Broken and balanced

[Saeviomagy]

Oh, balance....
Differing levels of power within a group does not automatically result in spotlight hogging, if the players are mature enough to handle it. The campaign I play in has characters of widely varying power levels, because it's a long-running campaign that has progressed to the second generation of PC's. Last year, one of my first-generation characters, a Wiz20/Clr10, went out on a mission with a number of the second-generation PC's that averaged about 5th level or so. My 1st-genner was personally interested in the 2nd-genners; some were her children, and some were such close friends of the family that she helped raise them and were the next thing to stepchildren to her. It was a close-knit family group. I did not hog the spotlight with the character; she let the kids take the lead to get the mission done and concentrated mainly on healing them and keeping them alive. At the climax of the mission, the DM provided my 1st-genner with an evil leader that was quite a challenge and let the 2nd-genners take on the minions. As it turned out, my 1st-genner was the only one that got seriously hurt.

So in other words there was basically no real reason why you couldn't have done the entire thing all by yourself?

And in fact the only reason you didn't was because of a sense of "letting the other people have a go".

At a guess, you basically did nothing except talk and act as a heal engine for the entire adventure up till the final fight, right? Sounds like a lot of fun.

And the bad guy avoided targeting your goons why? And you avoided targeting his goons why?

I've seen this argument before, and it doesn't work without a serious impact on verisimilitude. A 20th level wizard can quite easily wipe out an army of low level opponents at the same time as injuring his main target, and if the only reason he doesn't do so is because 'it wouldn't be fair', then something is a bit funny.

But all the characters had their roles to play and no one hogged the spotlight. That's what happens, despite any difference in relative power levels, when you have mature players who work well as a team. Now, the next adventure we're looking forward to will have this same 1st-genner as well as some others. Two of the others are about 40th-character level, while three others are at about 16th. I fully expect it to be a good adventure despite this disparity in levels.

No, what you've got is the lower level characters asking themselves "why are we even here?".

Our group's problem with balance is that occasionally we'll have one group member look at his sheet and say one of two things:

a) "If I do this, the entire encounter's over. Any reason why I shouldn't?"

or

b) "I guess I may as well hang back and not take part - there's nothing I can do anyway"

Either of those is a problem. If there's intra party balance, neither of those situations occur.

 

[Saeviomagy]

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.

If a weapon's statistics in a game are significantly better than other weapons, then chances are that the expert combatants in the world KNOW this. Warfare and survival have never been about what is 'cool', they're about what works. To that end, playing an effective character is almost NEVER bad roleplaying unless he is making some sacrifices for his optimal choices. Sleeping in the street so he can buy an expensive sword is probably bad roleplaying unless your character is an ascetic. Choosing a battleaxe over a kukri as a primary weapon is just common sense.

J_D - for all your cries of "I'm a true roleplayer", you seem to be using non-role justifications for a lot of your characters choices and actions...

 

[Brother MacLaren]

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.

"Good roleplaying"? Good typecasting, maybe. I could just as well say my dwarf is from Al-Qadim and uses a scimitar. But in any event, I did play an axe-wielding dwarven fighter in 2E, and I did accept that I'd do less damage against large monsters than the human fighter. Although it was only 2 pts average damage, rolling d12s for damage is just, well, fun.

I honestly appreciate what 3E has done to make you not feel penalized for picking a "flavor" option. There is no one best martial one-handed weapon: the rapier, longsword, flail, battleaxe, scimitar, pick, and warhammer all have their strengths. Even the simple shortspear can make a case for itself. It really wasn't that hard to even out the options a bit, and I appreciate that WOTC has done that.

 

[Saeviomagy]

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?

But the chances that the efforts of the designer PLUS the efforts of the DM will balance the game are much, much higher than if either one tries on his own.

Further, if either one makes no effort to balance the game, then the job of the other is far, far harder.

Finally, not every DM has the skills to perform this balancing act - they're not vetted or interviewed before taking on their duties.

Game designers ARE.

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.

But if you stick within the basic premise of the game, you're fine. IOW - an inexperienced DM will be more able to run an enjoyable game within the rules, and within the appropriate setting if those rules have been designed with balance in that setting in mind.

If you choose to deviate wildly from that, then you're not an inexperienced DM, and it should be expected that you understand the difference that your shift makes. And, of course, if you find yourself unable to cope, you can always go back to the basic premise.

A balanced game system can be used to run an unbalanced game with ease. The same can certainly not be said for an unbalanced game system.

Oh, and superman teaming up with batman - or indeed being in the same universe as any of the other heroes - never sat well with me. It takes a serious suspension of belief to make it work, one of such a magnitude that it's far beyond me.

 

[Majere]

Just my 2c:
Balance = people being able to play out a character concept and not be punished.

To explain.
Ive just started playing 3E with an interesting player who is very big on "character concepts". Im even playing in a game he is running. And it has made me think a little about the line between roleplaying, rollplaying, and powergaming.

Now, Im not a fan of 312 different classess, Im of the opinion that if your a good roleplayer you just play the role, you dont ask someone to write you a class telling how to play the role.
Example:
If I wanted to play a ninja character I would just play a rogue, I would rename sneak attack damage assasination damage. I would take ranks in climb, move silently, open locks, search, disable devise, spot, listen, hide. I would use shurikens and short swords and dagger ad insist on calling my sword a katana. I would wear my pyjamas all day.
I dont need someone to write a ninaja class for me. I can role play it.

Thats what D&D is, its fun, its taking on an extraordinary role. And players should not be punished by the game mechanics for picking their chosen role. Which is why its good that all (core) weapons are balanced. Yes you can argue that its "bad roleplaying to always pick the best weapon" but why should you be punished for wanting to use an axe or scimitar or rapier ? Anyone who has played a character which hasnt contributed to the party knows how frustrating it is, and that you feel bad for not pulling your weight. I dont see why someone should be made to feel that because they want a dwarf with an axe, or a dwarf with a pick, or anything else.

Thats why classess need balance, to allow roleplaying without that nagging guilt that your the dead weight in the party.

Majere

 

[Humanophile]

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?

Riiight. Because every GM I know can take his sweet time poring over the quirks of the system, and can always call on more playtesting if he feels the need. (Okay, I'll grant that deadlines can rush the game designer. My core point still stands. If this guy ends up pulling his mechanics out of his ass the week before the project's due, he has no right to call himself a game designer.) I'm willing to accept that designers and playtesters mess up on occasion, especially if they errata it after the fact. But it's the DM who has to deal with all that stuff in the moment, he should expect at least a good faith concerted effort. Anything else, and he (at least I) wonder why I paid money for the book in the first place.

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.

True... with a but. A good group (emphasis on group, not GM, although a good GM is vital too) can make a group with ...specialty imbalances play well. To use your later example, Superman can lift, Batman can pick locks. So long as Superman is as good at lifting the things he's called on to lift as Batman is to pick the locks he's called on to pick. This requires good reason, both in-game and out, for Superman not to just kick in every locked door, though, and in larger groups stands a very real risk of everyone sitting around bored waiting for their turn to be Just The Right Guy to come up. (And say what you will. Being bored is not fun for anybody.) So you need a good GM to cycle the challenges well, and a good group to make sure one player doesn't lord over the others or use his area of specialization out of turn. (Go to any more freeform system's boards, ask about their generic combat-type character, and hear all sorts of moaning about how the "munchkin" makes stealth and social types useless by fighting/threatening at every opportunity.) And while there are good GM's with good groups, there are far more self-centered "I'm a good role-player!" circle-jerks out there, I've learned it's better not to tempt fate.

...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.

Yes, that is true. Ironically, in non D&D games, I tend to gravitate towards the "cleric" role of healer/buffer quite often. (Ironic because D&D clerics have always sat wrong on me*.) But while that rationalizes a cleric-like option; if you will, a "worse" option for someone who gets their jollies off strategy and pats on the back from their friends, it doesn't mean that the guy who wants to pattern himself after Conan should have to take the leftovers of the guy who wants to pattern himself after Gandalf**. Gandalfand Conan are both Protagonists, most people who play D&D do so to be grandiose heroes, and it's disingenous to claim otherwise. We go see Spiderman to see Spiderman, not pedestrian #3 who gets a minute of screen time. Players feel very much the same way about their characters, no matter how much you and J_D may piously claim otherwise. The players you invoke are a tiny minority of the gaming public, and the majority of games should be developed for the majority of players. Simple, no?


*wrong primarily because cleric-types should be nice, not a necessity, but this is hardly the place for that.

**I'm well aware that Gandalf was primarily an advisor type who didn't throw a fireball throughout the whole story. He's just the first name to come to mind. Insert the pyromaniac of your choice here if you prefer another one. Or just realize that a character based off a nigh-divine being will still trump anything that'll challenge a character based off a heroic mortal.

 

[woodelf]

Frankly - why pay for the game if it doesn't give you what you need.

Or if it gives you what you don't need.

In a balanced game, they all get to play, they all get to achieve, and none of them have the feeling that they can't use these nifty powers they have for fear of breaking the game.

Agreed. What does that have to do with the mythical chimera of balance? You've just described niche protection, not equal power level. Try playing the single-classed bard in a large party sometime, and you'll see how power balancing without niche protection can fail to provide everyone their chance to contribute--being the 3rd-string healer, 2nd-string fighter when we already have 3 awesome fighters, backup trap-guy, and 3rd-string spellcaster rarely makes for a satisfying play experience, without some serious contortions on the GM's part.

The DM spends all his time making sure that the monsters never target the weak guys, or even accidentally hit them, and never have a sensible plan.

Only game i've ever played (out of the dozens of RPGs i've played on a (semi-)regular basis) that this was ever a problem in: D&D3E. I've played games where balance was much fuzzier, or non-existent, but in those the players always solved the problem (i.e., "keep the medic protected or he'll be hamburger!"). If I was putting any effort into preserving characters running other systems, it wasn't even conscious. I'm not claiming this is because of D&D--i'm fully aware this is anecdotal evidence. But do keep in mind, i've played RPGs that make Cops'n'Robbers seem structured [ok, that's hyperbole--but not by much], without ever running into the problems you describe, so neither is the lack of mechanically-grounded balancing mechanics a recipe for disaster.

 

[woodelf]

Riiight. Because every GM I know can take his sweet time poring over the quirks of the system, and can always call on more playtesting if he feels the need. (Okay, I'll grant that deadlines can rush the game designer. My core point still stands. If this guy ends up pulling his mechanics out of his ass the week before the project's due, he has no right to call himself a game designer.) I'm willing to accept that designers and playtesters mess up on occasion, especially if they errata it after the fact. But it's the DM who has to deal with all that stuff in the moment, he should expect at least a good faith concerted effort. Anything else, and he (at least I) wonder why I paid money for the book in the first place.

Agreed. But a good-faith concerted effort, with hordes of playtesters, may not be sufficient with a complex system. How many playtest groups went into D&D3E? And it still was discovered to have some major imbalances in fairly basic, fundamental areas, like common feats and core classes, in fairly short order. I'm not saying "can't get it 100%, so don't bother doing it at all". I'm saying that even with the best of intentions, the designers can make mistakes. And, moreover, they don't know your group, so even if no "general" errors are made, it still might not be balanced for your group. Given those two facts, if you're really concerned about strict game balance, you have to be just as on your toes for problems as if the system hadn't been playtested at all--the degree of problem is likely to be less in a well-designed system, so fixing it when you find it will be easier, but i'm not convinced that the likelihood of a balance problem is significantly less.

True... with a but. A good group (emphasis on group, not GM, although a good GM is vital too) can make a group with ...specialty imbalances play well. To use your later example, Superman can lift, Batman can pick locks. So long as Superman is as good at lifting the things he's called on to lift as Batman is to pick the locks he's called on to pick. This requires good reason, both in-game and out, for Superman not to just kick in every locked door, though, and in larger groups stands a very real risk of everyone sitting around bored waiting for their turn to be Just The Right Guy to come up. (And say what you will. Being bored is not fun for anybody.) So you need a good GM to cycle the challenges well, and a good group to make sure one player doesn't lord over the others or use his area of specialization out of turn.

How is this different from D&D3E? You still need to cycle the challenges, because if they're all combat challenges you'll have some bored players, and if they're all social challenges you'll have more bored players, and so on. Niche protection doesn't become less important just because the characters are more-or-less balanced, does it?

(Go to any more freeform system's boards, ask about their generic combat-type character, and hear all sorts of moaning about how the "munchkin" makes stealth and social types useless by fighting/threatening at every opportunity.)

Huh. Never heard that problem. And i spend a lot of time hanging out where i'm talking to gamers who think Over the Edge is overly structured for an RPG. Not saying it doesn't exist, just that i've never run into it.

And while there are good GM's with good groups, there are far more self-centered "I'm a good role-player!" circle-jerks out there, I've learned it's better not to tempt fate.

But, you're right: the problem is the group, not the system. Give a crappy group the best-tested, most-tightly balanced system out there (which, in fairness, might very well be D&D3.5E), and they'll still be upsetting one another, and having problems with characters overshadowing and being overshadowed, and so on--we hear about it all the time on the EnWorld boards, and that's usually with groups that merely have one crappy player.

Contrariwise, give a good group any system, and they'll play it well, with everyone having as much fun as they want and not stepping on each others' toes. And they'll probably do this in ways that are completely separate from whatever mechanisms the system might provide for ensuring "fair" play.

Yes, that is true. Ironically, in non D&D games, I tend to gravitate towards the "cleric" role of healer/buffer quite often. (Ironic because D&D clerics have always sat wrong on me.) But while that rationalizes a cleric-like option; if you will, a "worse" option for someone who gets their jollies off strategy and pats on the back from their friends, it doesn't mean that the guy who wants to pattern himself after Conan should have to take the leftovers of the guy who wants to pattern himself after Gandalf. Gandalf and Conan are both Protagonists, most people who play D&D do so to be grandiose heroes, and it's disingenous to claim otherwise. We go see Spiderman to see Spiderman, not pedestrian #3 who gets a minute of screen time. Players feel very much the same way about their characters, no matter how much you and J_D may piously claim otherwise. The players you invoke are a tiny minority of the gaming public, and the majority of games should be developed for the majority of players. Simple, no?

****warning, the following could be considered spoilers for Spiderman 2, though i don't think they give anything away****

I obviously wasn't clear.

Spoiler

I'm not talking about someone who wants to play the equivalent of the kid Spiderman rescues. I'm talking about someone who wants to play the equivalent of Mary Jane--a pivotal character, with significant contributions to the ongoing story/game, but considerably less screentime than some other main characters.

I'm not claiming there's anyone who wants to play a walk-on--though there probably are such people. I'm claiming that not everyone--and, IME, not even the majority--necessarily want equal time. I'm not talking about splitting the spotlight time in a group 70/10/10/10, but perhaps 30/25/25/20 is fine, and actually makes everyone (including the '20' guy) happier than equal time would.

 

[woodelf]

So in other words there was basically no real reason why you couldn't have done the entire thing all by yourself?

And in fact the only reason you didn't was because of a sense of "letting the other people have a go".

At a guess, you basically did nothing except talk and act as a heal engine for the entire adventure up till the final fight, right? Sounds like a lot of fun.

And the bad guy avoided targeting your goons why? And you avoided targeting his goons why?

I've seen this argument before, and it doesn't work without a serious impact on verisimilitude. A 20th level wizard can quite easily wipe out an army of low level opponents at the same time as injuring his main target, and if the only reason he doesn't do so is because 'it wouldn't be fair', then something is a bit funny.

No, what you've got is the lower level characters asking themselves "why are we even here?".

Same reason it happens in literature--why, pray tell, didn't Gandalf just dump the ring in Mt Doom? Or, to borrow a .sig line i once saw, why didn't the King of the Eagles fly Frodo there, instead of waiting until he'd done all the work to show up and fly him away? Literature is *full* of contrivances--whole genres are basically built of them (action-espionage, mystery, reality TV). Some are more blatent than others, and any given person will be bothered more by some than others. For you, someone not using their abilities to their fullest at all times breaks SoD. For others, so long as there's a plausible reason, it's not a problem. Oh, and on the snide stab: you know, perhaps getting into character, and not participating meaningfully in the encounters, was fun for that player--it's at least reasonable to assume she wouldn't have done it otherwise. Just because you wouldn't enjoy it doesn't mean it "isn't fun." I'm bored to tears by rollercoasters and the like--doesn't mean i complain when my friends want to go to Six Flags, i just don't go with them.

Our group's problem with balance is that occasionally we'll have one group member look at his sheet and say one of two things:

a) "If I do this, the entire encounter's over. Any reason why I shouldn't?"

or

b) "I guess I may as well hang back and not take part - there's nothing I can do anyway"

Either of those is a problem. If there's intra party balance, neither of those situations occur.

Unless, of course, that balance is achieved by having each character have different strengths. Let's take an example that everyone here is probably familiar with: D&D3[.5]E. Let's say you have a group of 15th level characters, and they get in a big fight. Now, let's further assume i'm playing the wizard of the group, and i've built the character to be fun for me. That means she has few or no spells useful in combat--let's say that the combat-worthy spells were all used on the previous encounter. Ta-da, i'm in your situation B: my wizard certainly isn't going to engage in melee with anything that can give a 15th level fighter or barbarian a challenge, and i probably can't even hit if i use a missile weapon--plus, i'm just likely to attract attention.

My point with this example is two-fold. First, that it doesn't take much effort in a well-balanced system to create a character that has nothing to contribute in some encounters. [The combat-and-adventuring-optimized fighter, similarly, might be completely useless when the party petitions the emperor's court.] It is an unreasonable goal to have everyone contribute to every encounter, because to do so you'd have to have characters that are more homogeneous than most people want to play.

Second, that you can't make a blanket "if you have nothing to do, something's wrong" statement about intra-party balance. I, frex, am bored to tears with combat in complex tactical systems. So i almost always make a non-combat character--not one who's not very good at combat, but one who is utterly useless in, and/or psychologically incapable of, combat. Only time i enjoy combat in RPGs is when i don't have to deal with all that crunch--systems like Over the Edge, Everway, or Four Colors al Fresco. So, if i have my character hide in a ravine and i go make a sandwich during combat, i'm actually having *more* fun than if i stick around at the table and participate in the combat. Likewise, there's the apocryphal "wake me up when the killing starts" player, who is not only not unhappy to not participate in the social stuff, exploration, and so on, but is actually happier not to. Such a player has no problem with non-combat scenes in the adventure--they understand that they make the other players happy, and/or stitch the combats together and give them meaning--they just don't personally have in investment in them. Somebody being left out is only a problem if they don't want to be left out.

Ok, now back to situation A, above: what does this have to do with intra-party balance? Seriously--i don't understand how that's an intra-party balance point. That sounds like a problem of the GM forgetting the characters' or monsters' capabilities, and might be indicative of a balance problem, but is more likely just a sign of poor planning.

 

[woodelf]

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.

Historical note: as a general-purpose weapon, the sword *is* better than the ax, and it takes some fairly specific circumstances to make the ax preferable. That's why the sword, in some variation, was the primary militar yweapon for a couple millenia, at least. Why did axes survive as long as they did? Because they have other advantages that have nothing to do with their combat effectiveness. It takes better skill, better materials, and more time/effort to make a good sword than a good ax. You can make an ax out of shell, flint, obsidian, bone, crappy iron, and a whole lot of other materials that you basically can't make a sword out of. Also, an ax is better at doing several things than a sword, such as chopping wood. Sometimes, the "balancing factor" comes only when you look at the whole situation. Much as a fighter is just plain better in combat than a bard, maybe a sword should be just plain better than an ax. Because there's more to RPing than just combat, so the bard--and the ax--will still have their place.

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.

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

See my other post--it's not necessarily bad if someone plays a character useless in combat. In fact, it's probably a feature, not a bug. At least in every situation i've seen like that, it's because the player chose to play someone without combat ability. While i've seen plenty of systems that don't enforce everyone having some ability in every area (as D&D3E tries to do), i don't think i've seen an example of a system that specifically forces you to not have abilities in areas. IOW, they may provide tradeoffs (specialized at the cost of other areas vs. jack-of-all trades), but they don't force you to be useless in combat. If they wanted to participate in the combat, they'd make a combat-worthy character--which clearly can be done, because the other players have managed it.