D&D (2024) Do players really want balance?

[tetrasodium]

This is very player dependent. My players understand and expect logical consequences to their actions. If they hit an orc stronghold and then leave to rest, they expect the bodies and missing items to have been discovered in their absence. They know the stronghold will be on high alert when they return and new defenses raised.

Absolutely, but it's not an easy conversation because it requires understanding of things players don't normally consider until they start GM'ing & do so long enough to start seeing the reasons those efforts to change it were made. That's made worse because as the game gets easier & easier by becoming harder & harder to fail or suffer lasting risk players start thinking that world of cardboard is what wotc intended with any deviation being some kind of killer/adversarial GM.

It sounds like you just need to come with better gritty rest mechanics. Maybe something where you get back parts of your health over a longer time, or there's mandated bed rest based on how severe the injury ultimately turned out to be. This also has the side effects of justifying downtime and encouraging players to have multiple PCs available for when one is convalescing.

Yea I was really hoping that the new PHB or new DMG would have some prepackaged variant for that kind of thing to head off some of the problems but I'm not super optimistic that that the new DMG has any variant/optional rules after three dmg videos and no ddb rules text spotlight posts like the PHB got.

 

[ptolemy]

In short, no. I don't want to play in games which are strictly balanced nor do I run them. Do I want a chance to run away, sure. Do I vary the stakes and difficulty? Of course. Can the PCs kill the dragon in a stand up fight just because they found out where its lair is? That's puerile nonsense. Or at least it is at my table. How will I control the tension in the room, give my players a sense of achievement, of excitement, if they know everything is balanced for them? And if one player is overshadowing the others and making it less fun then we need to talk about that and explore it. But it is far from a given that everyone wants the same thing. For example, there is a RuneQuest campaign on you tube which has a party of a couple of really tough fighters, a powerful shaman and a temple dancer for the underworld God who couldn't contribute to the fights but made sure all the dead enemies were given the proper send off to the afterworld when the others killed them. Nothing balanced about that, but lots of fun. Who am I to tell them how to play?

 

[cranberry]

The typical player doesn't really care about balance. They want to be superheroes with no risk of dying.

 

[The Sigil]

The typical player doesn't really care about balance. They want to be superheroes with no risk of dying.

Agreed, and this is usually couched in the language of “I want escapism/fantasy.” There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but we need to make sure we are having discussions where the language reflects this, players that want this style of game should not be talking about “balance” but instead “fantasy fulfillment.” And if the DM just wants to fulfill player fantasies, that is fine and dandy. But like everything else, communication is key so we can all agree on what we really want by using language that accurately describes our wants.

Some games, when I play, I want to have main character syndrome and I will come right out and say it. And the best way to get these is when there are no other human players that want the same. In other words, when this is what I want I shouldn’t be playing a collaborative game with other humans, I should be playing a one player game (probably with a computer).

Frustration and dissatisfaction result when we aren’t honest with ourselves and others about what kind of game we want. Let’s start by using the right language to describe what we want and “balanced” and “power fantasy” do not mix in such a discussion.

So to go back to the original question, “no, most players do NOT want balance.”

 

[Mecheon]

The typical player doesn't really care about balance. They want to be superheroes with no risk of dying.

I disagree with this. They very much care about balance, as a certain old edition (Of the "3.5e is more balanced if you ban every PHB class" infamy) showed us. Not caring about balance would be wanting BMX Bandit versus Angel Summoner situations

Folks want to be able to meaningfully contribute in their own way and not get overshadowed by another member of the party. They want to Do the Cool Thing, they don't want to be the one who got told "Woops, you picked that option so you can't do the cool thing and, in fact, are the worst now, and have to sit out fights while Punpun destroys everything because he knew how to pick a gamist combo that makes him god"

 

[Steampunkette]

Yes. Players want balance. Players don't want to feel overshadowed by their companions, nor crushed by their opponents.

They don't, however, specifically want a fine balance. Just a general sense of comparable power.

It's all a matter of degrees.

 

[Xenolith234]

Yes. Players want balance. Players don't want to feel overshadowed by their companions, nor crushed by their opponents.

They don't, however, specifically want a fine balance. Just a general sense of comparable power.

It's all a matter of degrees.

I think it’s important that each character has their niche. I’m not sure if “overshadowed by their companions” means that they don’t want to be overshadowed in any situation (i.e. the rogue being a better lock picker than the fighter). If we’re comparing a Wizard’s ability to use magic to a fighter’s ability to cast spells, then yes, I think the fighter should feel useless in that situation as it’s not their niche. Each character wants to feel important, but I don’t think they should always feel important in every single scenario. There’s a value in getting to be in the spotlight and not having to share the glory of wizardlyness with everyone else that took the Arcana skill. I theorize that the lack of strong class niche in 5e leaves characters feeling less important.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes. Players want balance. Players don't want to feel overshadowed by their companions, nor crushed by their opponents.

They don't, however, specifically want a fine balance. Just a general sense of comparable power.

It's all a matter of degrees.

This.

A few points of damage here and there won't matter. Lots will.

 

[Distracted DM]

I didn't phrase it in terms of challenge to the players. The way I put it was that I didn't like having to always throw 5-8 medium to hard encounters at them in a 24 hour period, which they agreed with. I let them know that 1 long rest a week allowed me to spread out the encounters while keeping the adventuring day balance intact. That it also lets me challenge them better is a side effect that I didn't bring up.

Oh I included the 5-8 encounters thing when I explained it, saying that it would slow down the game more etc. but I think it was just too much info for folks that don't think that way about the game. But yeah your not mentioning challenging them to your players as a motivation was probably a good call

 

[Distracted DM]

I really like the idea of lengthening long rests if you want people to wear down and make hard decisions…


Follow up question/ edit:

How to you do multi day recovery? Partial each day or non until multiple rests?

Once the players reach a place that they can rest for days/weeks without danger, say a town or city either:

If time is a factor,
They figure out how many long rests they need (someone has 4 levels of Exhaustion or Fatigue/Strife (in A5E's case); they know if a long rest takes two uninterrupted days they'll be there for over a week.
Or
If time isn't a factor,
I'll just tell them they have two/three/four weeks of downtime and will be fully rested at the end. Then they'll start thinking on downtime activities. Sometimes they'll discover they need more downtime to get things done, and that's cool too.

But if they're out in the wilderness they know at most they'll get one rest if they can find somewhere that's defensible and/or hidden from random encounters over a couple days. But they really don't try to get long rests out in the wild- they almost always try to get to some town.