Can somebody explain the bias against game balance?

[Nifft]

It occurs to me that "niche protection" is a form of short-term "suck now, win later".

I'd call it more a form of circular reasoning.

"Rogues are special, because nobody else can disarm traps!" <=> "All dungeons have traps, so the Rogue has something special to do!"

Cheers, -- N

 

[billd91]

I recall that people used to talk about the necessity of "System Mastery" as though it were a good thing.

System mastery will always exist in any game that requires decisions to be made. Players who can discern and implement good strategies will generally fare better than ones who cannot unless you introduce more random elements to trip them up in favor of less skilled players.

Personally, I think a bit too much has been made out of designers' statements about 3e and system mastery.

 

[Bluenose]

I recall that people used to talk about the necessity of "System Mastery" as though it were a good thing.

Cheers, -- N

With regards to D&D, it doesn't seem to have been a major concern before 3rd edition.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Except that BMX Bandit might be an inherently fun and interesting concept. But not in games where someone else gets to play Angel Summoner. The mere presence of Angel Summoner has destroyed what would be a number of fun and interesting ways to play the game.

This assumes that everyone playing the game can only have a fun and interesting time when playing with equal power distribution. Any number of fun and interesting concepts can remain in games with varying power levels without destroying anything.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

With regards to D&D, it doesn't seem to have been a major concern before 3rd edition.

Because there was no standardization to the system. As I've said before, I never played at two tables that were playing remotely the same way. Getting really good at playing at Bob's table only mattered at Bob's table. You go play at Jim's table and almost nothing is the same (barring people cursing at the THAC0 table. That was standard issue).

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

This assumes that everyone playing the game can only have a fun and interesting time when playing with equal power distribution. Any number of fun and interesting concepts can remain in games with varying power levels without destroying anything.

Depends on the table and the people playing.

It is very easy to get into the Superman effect (or the Neo in Matrix 2 corollary). You can't put the Heavy in the party in danger without automatically killing everyone else. So you're trapped into always pulling the Heavy away from the group and basically putting him in one-on-one fights with Planet-killing monstrosities while his friends mop up the inexplicable and unnecessary minions.

You have to really not mind being the sidekick/comic relief to play alongside such a Heavy. Being the best computer programmer in the world is cool, but it's far less visceral than channeling unlimited cosmic power. I would put it to you that more people are interested in having a serving of the visceral thrill than not.

 

[Nifft]

System mastery will always exist in any game that requires decisions to be made.

IMHO it's a matter of degree. In 4e, for example, it's relatively easy to make a character that is highly effective, and relatively hard to make one that is significantly stronger than the default baseline.

This assumes that everyone playing the game can only have a fun and interesting time when playing with equal power distribution. Any number of fun and interesting concepts can remain in games with varying power levels without destroying anything.

Those systems certainly do exist. I've been wanting to play Buffy forever, which is an example of such a system.

I'd question if D&D is among those systems, but I guess you could play it as though it were one anyway, if all your players were cool with that.

With regards to D&D, it doesn't seem to have been a major concern before 3rd edition.

Agreed, and also agree with:

Because there was no standardization to the system. As I've said before, I never played at two tables that were playing remotely the same way. Getting really good at playing at Bob's table only mattered at Bob's table. You go play at Jim's table and almost nothing is the same (barring people cursing at the THAC0 table. That was standard issue).

Yeah. Reading through explanations of how the Basic / Expert / AD&D rules actually worked leads me to deeply question my old group's actual understanding of those rules. It's not that we wanted to heavily house-rule everything, it's more that we had the attention span of 10 year old boys, because... well...

Cheers, -- N

 

[innerdude]

That's probably because balance in combat is easy to talk about, because it's easy to verify.

But all your follow-on assumptions are invalid: I'm not only talking about combat. I'm talking about the ability to solve any obstacle, any conflict, any problem just-plain-better than another PC.

Cheers, -- N

To a point, I agree with you, characters/players should have as many meaningful choices as possible--but I don't know if I agree with the underlying assumption implied by this statement, which is, "A game's rule system should allow all characters to have an equal opportunity at every encounter/problem/choice to have the same probability of success as any other character." Why have a DM at all if this is the case? Doesn't that change the game from an RPG to something else at that point? If the rules can completely govern "balance," you don't even need a referee (think: chess).

Well, if this is the case, why would anyone with this mindset play ANY pen and paper RPG with a group? Why even have other characters, if your character (and conversely, every other character at your, and every other game table) is equally likely to be able to solve any encounter? If taken too far, this type of rules design ethos can fall into the trap of "everyone's special, so no one is." If everyone gets to "have the spotlight" on them all the time, then no one does.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's important for characters/players to have as many meaningful choices as possible. But one of those meaningful choices is to choose to play a character that interests you, regardless of the "mechanical" consequences. And if this means the GM has to adjust encounters/play style to let that character have fun, well then that's why we have a GM in the first place.

 

[Nifft]

"A game's rule system should allow all characters to have an equal opportunity at every encounter/problem/choice to have the same probability of success as any other character."

Fortunately for both of us, that's not my position at all.

IMHO, each character ought to be able to contribute to most encounters, ought to be able to shine a few times per session, and ought to have exactly the right tool to perfectly solve a problem perhaps once every few session.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Raven Crowking]

Most of what you said was awesome on awesome good stuff.

Thanks. I'm still not giving you a kidney.

Calling something a fad is an attempt to implicitly discredit... ie implying the new is bad or intrinsicaly temporary. I reacted negatively to the old balancing methods... 30 years ago... this is not a fad response.

Nah. Calling something a fad is intended to recognize that it is transitory, and that its value is subjective to the time in which it is popular, rather than inherent.


RC