Can somebody explain the bias against game balance?

[Ariosto]

This might be fine in competitive wargames and board games, where the game starts again every so often, but can be more difficult in an RPG intended to support long-term campaign play with a high level of ongoing player/PC attachment.

Tunnels & Trolls is "an RPG intended to support long-term campaign play with a high level of ongoing player/PC attachment" -- as was the original Dungeons & Dragons game.

So is 4e, and so are a lot of other designs different from those three!

T&T players tend to consider it plenty "fine" for the game to be in that regard as it has been for 35 years. Horses for courses.

 

[Garthanos]

removed snarky post... I dont even care about.

 

[pemerton]

Tunnels & Trolls is "an RPG intended to support long-term campaign play with a high level of ongoing player/PC attachment" -- as was the original Dungeons & Dragons game.

So is 4e, and so are a lot of other designs different from those three!

T&T players tend to consider it plenty "fine" for the game to be in that regard as it has been for 35 years. Horses for courses.

I know that T&T has that intention. As does O/AD&D.

I was just pointing out that, depending on player preferences, it can produce problems. Just as I also pointed out that, depending on player preferences, mere esteem rewards for "winning" may not be enough.

The point of all my posts in this thread has been that balance is a complex notion that is highly relative to player preferences. Until the post to which this is a reply, I had thought that we were in agreement on that.

 

[Lanefan]

To have classes that would be as much use as a chocolate teapot ...

I just had to highlight this, mostly as it's a wonderful expression I'd never seen/heard before!

Meaning that the specific adventure needs to be written for the party.

Or that the party needs to learn how to choose its fights, and that sometimes the best course is to back off from an adventure that exploits their weaknesses and try something else.

What I'm objecting to are that your criticisms of 4e appear to indicate that you have not understood a damn thing about it that wasn't in the PHB1 or DMG1. And if you only had those two books (and possibly the MM1) and they comprised the whole of 4e then you would have a point. But the PHB 2 seriously and both obviously and subtly expanded the range of what was possible in 4e to heights not seen in any previous mainline edition of D&D (FantasyCraft and M&M don't count). The DMG2 is the best damn book on running an RPG it has ever been my pleasure to read (the second being Robin's Laws of good GMing - Robin Laws being the common factor here).

I've only got the first round of 4e's core three, along with some 4e adventures - I thought that would be enough to give me a fair idea of how the game is intended to work; particularly seeing as for the first year or so that *was* the game. So yes, my opinions of 4e as a system are also based on the first round of releases; much as my thoughts on 3e as a system (and 2e, for that matter) also ignore a lot of the bloat that came after the initial release.

And to get back to the original question: I don't think there's much bias against game *balance*, but there certainly is a bias against game *blandness*; and as well documented elsewhere this thread the two seem to somewhat go hand in hand.

Lan-"still unbalanced after all these years"-efan

 

[Garthanos]

also ignore a lot of the bloat that came after the initial release.

That might be appropriate if what came after release was indeed just bloat....
But for those who are up to date... It makes your argument appear quite worthlessly out of date. Note I don't really blame you for it... If I lacked interest in a game because it wasn't my thing... why would I even spend 12 dollars for an update on it. (The one month subscription to DDi could be seen as a minimalist... what is new in 4e excursion - between character builder - monster builder apps and the download of back pdfs there is an incredible amount of content. It still would only hint at things in DMG2 like character builder has an option to toggle inherent bonuses so if you have a magic item minimalist campaign the characters aren't out of sync with the encounter building guidelines)

 

[Jhaelen]

T&T players tend to consider it plenty "fine" for the game to be in that regard as it has been for 35 years.

All two of them?

 

[LostSoul]

I don't think there's much bias against game *balance*, but there certainly is a bias against game *blandness*; and as well documented elsewhere this thread the two seem to somewhat go hand in hand.

That's my position, with player choice and optimal solutions and all that.

If everything's balanced for your level, it doesn't matter if you fight goblins or undead - the risk is more or less the same and the rewards are more or less the same.

That kind of balance breaks a game.

It does do some interesting things, opening up space for other kinds of choices; but then I have to ask, why have hour-long combats? Why not play Prime Time Adventures set in the D&D world?

 

[avin]

I think it's mostly a GM vs players thingy.

People who plays more often than GMs will often accept imbalance as a tool to make their characters more powerful than others.

This kind of behavior happens in any system or edition I ever played, sometimes leading campaign endings because one player does everything while the rest just watches.

 

[Garthanos]

LostSoul, If your undead and goblins feel the same in a fight I dont know what game you are playing.. I would say a feature of 4e is the monsters definitely do not feel the same in battle.

I find combat is far far less bland in 4th edition than it ever was in AD&D ... and in fact more interesting than in completely different games I have played... it is also more team oriented and tactical and position aware (realistic in that regard but necessarily what I was used to ... though we always kept track on paper drawing scene features then using coins and dice for positions... so its not completely new.

The above leads me to be more tolerant of longer battles than I might be otherwise ... still you hear a lot of house rules and even monster design guideline changes from WOTC in later DMG's specifically to address this.

Why not play Prime Time Adventures set in the D&D world?

huh?

 

[catastrophic]

Ladies and gentlemen, ignoring moderator warnings and doing your best to start edition wars gets you banned for a considerable time. I'll leave this post up as an example of what not to do. ~ PCat

There's nothing bland about 4e.

Like most of the criticisms leveled at 4e, this one is just an excuse people use to bash 4e. That's where the hatred of game balance came from- 4e has vastly superior balance, making for a far better, more playable game, so then the 4e haters decided balance was a bad thing, or resulted in dull games.

Like all issues of irrational 4e hate, it's a very fludid concept, so it changes over time. First is was game balance, and then it morphed into dullness, later on after a few more arguments people will change terminology again.

It's just another excuse for the endless, perpetual, comunity damaging, issue concealing, terminology hyjacking temper tamtrum which is 4e hate.

The truth is that none of the people who habitually bash 4e ever really gave it a chance- most of them have never even read it really, let alone played it. They hate it for existing, they have wotc for making it, and everything else is just window dressing.