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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6403621" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, I can't say how you've seen the term used, but my magic card example is indicative of how I've seen the term used.&nbsp; &quot;Chuck Norris&quot; isn't balanced, even if all participants have equal access to &quot;Chuck Norris&quot;.&nbsp;&nbsp; By the common usage of the word &quot;balance&quot; as it is applied to games, I consider that pretty straight forward.I'm fine with accepting that as a working definition for the purposes of getting on the same page, but &quot;constructive balance&quot; is hardly a common term of art.&nbsp;&nbsp; I think what you are calling &quot;constructive balance&quot; is normally baked into the term, and what you would call non-constructive balance most people would agree is not balanced because it trivially leads to a degenerate game state.&nbsp;&nbsp; With &quot;Chuck Norris&quot; for example, it leads to &quot;zeroth turn wins&quot;.&nbsp; With the &quot;ear rule&quot;, it renders all of rhetoric and debate tugging on ones ear and claiming you did so first.&nbsp; In Magic Cards one will often here it said that a particular mechanic is &quot;inherently unbalanced&quot;, meaning that it can't be incorporated into the game without destroying the games integrity.&nbsp; In a game like WoW, it's not enough to say that Discipline Priest are available to everyone and so they are balanced.&nbsp; Their presence also cannot render all other choices invalid and unnecessary.&nbsp; In your terms, if they are not balanced well, then they are inherently destructive and so can't be constructive.&nbsp;&nbsp; But I don't think in common usage many persons would agree that something that is imbalanced is &quot;balanced, it's just not balanced well&quot;, especially in the case of something like &quot;Chuck Norris&quot; or the &quot;Ear Rule&quot;.In my defense, in my first post in this thread I began to establish an argument for why I thought you couldn't have anything but a lousy game without balance.&nbsp; Of course, since we don't seem to mean the same thing by 'balance' when we use the word, I'm not sure that means much to you.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6403621, member: 4937"] Well, I can't say how you've seen the term used, but my magic card example is indicative of how I've seen the term used. "Chuck Norris" isn't balanced, even if all participants have equal access to "Chuck Norris". By the common usage of the word "balance" as it is applied to games, I consider that pretty straight forward. I'm fine with accepting that as a working definition for the purposes of getting on the same page, but "constructive balance" is hardly a common term of art. I think what you are calling "constructive balance" is normally baked into the term, and what you would call non-constructive balance most people would agree is not balanced because it trivially leads to a degenerate game state. With "Chuck Norris" for example, it leads to "zeroth turn wins". With the "ear rule", it renders all of rhetoric and debate tugging on ones ear and claiming you did so first. In Magic Cards one will often here it said that a particular mechanic is "inherently unbalanced", meaning that it can't be incorporated into the game without destroying the games integrity. In a game like WoW, it's not enough to say that Discipline Priest are available to everyone and so they are balanced. Their presence also cannot render all other choices invalid and unnecessary. In your terms, if they are not balanced well, then they are inherently destructive and so can't be constructive. But I don't think in common usage many persons would agree that something that is imbalanced is "balanced, it's just not balanced well", especially in the case of something like "Chuck Norris" or the "Ear Rule". In my defense, in my first post in this thread I began to establish an argument for why I thought you couldn't have anything but a lousy game without balance. Of course, since we don't seem to mean the same thing by 'balance' when we use the word, I'm not sure that means much to you. [/QUOTE]

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