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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6403344" data-attributes="member: 4937">I largely agree with the direction you've been taking your argument in the last few posts, but you accidentally weaken it here with a strawman response to Hussar's strawman example, because your example of a balanced mechanic isn't actually balanced either.&nbsp;&nbsp; Balance requires both sharing and limits on the utilization of narrative resources, and your mechanic though more about sharing than Hussar's still leads to the opposite of sharing and has no limits.&nbsp; RPGs over the years have developed a lot of ways to balance their mechanics.&nbsp; None ever tried, &quot;Any time anyone preforms some trivial out of game activity they get infinite in game resources.&quot;, because it's trivial obvious this wouldn't be balanced.&nbsp; A moments thought about the game you just created would cause you to realize that it would drive a game toward a situation were everyone was holding their ear and arguing about whose statements had priority.&nbsp;&nbsp; This is occurring because there is still a lack of balance.&nbsp; We still haven't arrived a 'fair' game, which I would argue is a pretty good synonym for what is meant by 'balance'.&nbsp; A closer approximation to balanced control of the narrative might be, &quot;During play, one player is randomly chosen to hold the golden ticket.&nbsp;&nbsp; During any one proposition, the holder of the golden ticket can declare the outcome of the fortune mechanic bypassing normal resolution rules (or set the stakes, or narrate the outcome, depending on the mechanics of the game), but if they do so, they must hand the golden ticket to the player on their left.&quot;&nbsp; Similar mechanics evolve naturally in games if you watch 6 year olds play.&nbsp; They'll naturally develop on their own the notion of taking turns to share the narrative in the hopes that this will lead to balance.&nbsp; Of course, that breaks down because even though it might involve equal sharing, it imposes no limit on how the narrative may be shaped which tends to not be balanced.Since your straw man mechanic is also imbalanced, you can't really draw any conclusions from the fact that it produces no better result than an imbalanced mechanic.&nbsp;&nbsp; Balance is still the problem with both examples.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6403344, member: 4937"] I largely agree with the direction you've been taking your argument in the last few posts, but you accidentally weaken it here with a strawman response to Hussar's strawman example, because your example of a balanced mechanic isn't actually balanced either. Balance requires both sharing and limits on the utilization of narrative resources, and your mechanic though more about sharing than Hussar's still leads to the opposite of sharing and has no limits. RPGs over the years have developed a lot of ways to balance their mechanics. None ever tried, "Any time anyone preforms some trivial out of game activity they get infinite in game resources.", because it's trivial obvious this wouldn't be balanced. A moments thought about the game you just created would cause you to realize that it would drive a game toward a situation were everyone was holding their ear and arguing about whose statements had priority. This is occurring because there is still a lack of balance. We still haven't arrived a 'fair' game, which I would argue is a pretty good synonym for what is meant by 'balance'. A closer approximation to balanced control of the narrative might be, "During play, one player is randomly chosen to hold the golden ticket. During any one proposition, the holder of the golden ticket can declare the outcome of the fortune mechanic bypassing normal resolution rules (or set the stakes, or narrate the outcome, depending on the mechanics of the game), but if they do so, they must hand the golden ticket to the player on their left." Similar mechanics evolve naturally in games if you watch 6 year olds play. They'll naturally develop on their own the notion of taking turns to share the narrative in the hopes that this will lead to balance. Of course, that breaks down because even though it might involve equal sharing, it imposes no limit on how the narrative may be shaped which tends to not be balanced. Since your straw man mechanic is also imbalanced, you can't really draw any conclusions from the fact that it produces no better result than an imbalanced mechanic. Balance is still the problem with both examples. [/QUOTE]

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