D&D General Do you care how about "PC balance"?

[Reynard]

Fairly regularly, threads appear that are mostly interested in examining character options -- classes, mostly -- relative to how competent or powerful they are relative to other character classes, etc... The most common is martials versus casters, but there are lots of variations. The thing is, outside of message boards, I have never encountered a player that actually cares about these things relative to other PCs. I have encountered many players who are concerned about how they stack up to the adventure or the world, but that makes a lot of sense since (to use video game parlance) D&D is essentially a PvE experience.

So, do you, as a player, actually worry about how your character stacks up to other players' characters? If so, in what ways? What about it is important to you? By what metric do you judge? What do you do if you feel your choices aren't as good or your character isn't as competent?

Thanks.

 

[iserith]

The only "balance" I care about as a DM or player really comes down to niche protection and spotlight. I don't want characters who spill into other characters' unique roles too often and I want screen time shared more or less equitably over time. Beyond that, I don't care about "balance" to the degree that some people seem to take it.

 

[prabe]

While many (most?) players might not think about it before they make whatever decisions they make, I suspect a good portion of them will notice in play if their character is notably less-capable than others in the party. They might not have the vocabulary to express why they feel less-capable, but they'll notice that other characters are overwhelming the opposition and they aren't.

Personally, as a player, I don't care much.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I do not care at all about if another PC has an extra bonus, or a higher stat, or whatever. Am I able to have fun in the game? Is there an opportunity to have each PC have a moment? Then that's all I care about. One thing I really don't like is when players assume their PC can't do action X because another PC has an extra bonus in that skill. That's not how it happens in real life, and it's not how people act organically. "Well, George the fighter will never talk. To anyone. Ever. Because Jane the warlock has an extra +2 in persuasion." Screw that noise

 

[Derren]

Depends on the rpg.
D&D forces everyone to make a combat character so the differences are never really big.

But in Shadowrun or Rifts the gap can be much wider and as GM you have to ensure that all characters are at least in the same ballpark or that the game regularily switches to allow different characters to shine.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The thing is, outside of message boards, I have never encountered a player that actually cares about these things relative to other PCs.

Wow, really?

I've been meeting them since I was like, 12, in 1990. Seriously.

But I suspect if you're honestly claiming "never", the issue is that you're framing it too narrowly. I've almost never seen a player say "Your character is overpowered and should be nerfed" (I say almost never, because I have seen it happen). But I often see players who are sad because their PCs suck compared to other people's PCs. Sometimes they express it clearly if it's discussed, sometimes they just assume that's "how it is".

Here's a good example for you:

For the last nearly-30 years I've played with some of the same people (30+ in some cases). One of them habitually played Thieves/Rogues for most of that. Whole of 2E, he never once complained outright about being crap compared to the other PCs (even though he clearly was). You could see he was a little sad about it sometimes, when like his awesome backstab did less damage than the Fighter did in two swings or whatever, but he never complained.

3E, he branched out a bit but mostly stuck to Rogues (indeed, every character he played was at least Rogue multi-class), and he did end up complaining a bit. Mostly because he just didn't feel as effective as he did in 2E (which is fair - the gap in effectiveness in 3.XE was a lot further), and actually felt like his PC was less skilled.

It wasn't until 4E, though, that he finally "tasted blood" - 4E Rogues were total badasses who were as good as other PCs, instead of frequently being objectively worse at stuff than other PCs (even their own stuff, sometimes). Suddenly, he learned how to optimize, and really enjoyed it. He totally loved 4E, had a great time, played the character he'd always wanted to play, and finally understood what he was missing.

In 5E, he started with a Rogue, but didn't enjoy it much, and has now tried a lot of classes (and is loving Warlock particularly). He's now clearly aware of the difference in effectiveness between characters, and tries to optimize his PCs much more now, because he can see that leads directly to them being more fun to play.

It's not like he's sitting around whinging about other people's PCs, but he is actively attempting to make PCs which are closer in balance, and is doing so because he knows it's enjoyable. You can see a similar pattern with a lot of the players. There's been a distinct drop in people willingly/intentionally playing "useless" characters, or even weak ones, as people understand what is going on more, and understand that being mechanically effective is, in most RPGs, more fun than not being that.

But in Shadowrun or Rifts the gap can be much wider and as GM you have to ensure that all characters are at least in the same ballpark or that the game regularily switches to allow different characters to shine.

Yeah it was Rifts that really made our group aware of it. Rifts itself highlighted them a bit, but always insisted PCs of different power levels could play together - and yes, they "could", but only in the sense that it was technically possible, rather than desirable or effective or reliably fun. The power disparities were bad in the corebook and just got completely insane by the time stuff like South America was out.

After that there's no way we could "not care" about PC balance at all. There are many games where it barely matters, or basically automatically exists, from CoC to most PtbA stuff, but in ones where it is an issue, it produces a more fun game for everyone if some attention is paid to it.

With 5E I intentionally only play support characters with my main group, because I don't want to be a spotlight-stealer, which might easily happen if I optimized a DPR or toughness and DPR-centric character (Warlock, Fighter). Especially as there's a lot of "shallow" optimization in that group (i.e. stuff that sounds good, but isn't that effective - still, you do see stuff like EB+AB, GWM and so on, they're not idiots).

What do you do if you feel your choices aren't as good or your character isn't as competent?

I haven't made an outright-bad character design choice or accidentally made an incompetent character since about 1993. If a PC performs suboptimally for me, it'll either be by design, which means I'm usually into it/enjoying it (for example, a number of SW D6 PCs of mine), or because I totally built the wrong character for the campaign (i.e. they're optimized/functional, but what they're good at is irrelevant - i.e. a Shadowrun Decker but the campaign features almost no Decking). Usually in the latter case it's fine because they're good at enough other stuff that it doesn't matter. But if they're entirely useless, I'd probably ask to re-roll/re-spec - one of my players often goes through 2-3 PCs in a campaign before he finds the one he really enjoys (which does seem to be connected to effectiveness).

 

[billd91]

I generally don't like to see vast differences in capabilities in the same niche - which speaks to character development - and I also generally don't like to see one player running roughshod over the others, particularly in the same niche - which speaks to player behavior.
Ultimately, the most important metric, to me, is a certain degree of spotlight balance. Are all of the characters equally important in the campaign as far as driving the stories and interaction? That's the most important form of balance in an RPG, if you ask me.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So, do you, as a player, actually worry about how your character stacks up to other players' characters? If so, in what ways? What about it is important to you? By what metric do you judge? What do you do if you feel your choices aren't as good or your character isn't as competent?

Like some others the only think I don't want is to feel everything my PC can do, others can do. What is my PC's role in the party? I don't give a lick about balance of power but if I feel my PC isn't contributing in one way or another, the game isn't as fun. I also like to make certain others have their "thing" as well. A certain amount of overlap is good, but too much isn't.

But as far as things like "numbers envy" or whatever, no, I don't care at all. If another caster is +9 on spell attacks and I am +7, odds are I am better at something else and since we're rolling d20s for most things, a +2 difference isn't the end of the world.

 

[Reynard]

Wow, really?

I've been meeting them since I was like, 12, in 1990. Seriously.

But I suspect if you're honestly claiming "never", the issue is that you're framing it too narrowly. I've almost never seen a player say "Your character is overpowered and should be nerfed" (I say almost never, because I have seen it happen). But I often see players who are sad because their PCs suck compared to other people's PCs. Sometimes they express it clearly if it's discussed, sometimes they just assume that's "how it is".

This is why I made the distinction between how the player feels about their character's apparent capability versus the world rather than their capability versus other PCs.

For example, my brother recently returned to tabletop RPGs after many years away, joining my Descent into Avernus campaign. He is playing a battlemaster fighter. At first he did not feel like he was filling the role of "bad ass fighter" because some of the other PCs were pretty effective combatants. After talking to him a couple things became clear: being new to 5E, long removed from tabletop D&D and much more familiar with CRPGs, his expectations were based on assumptions rather than the game system itself (so we re-designed his character to better reflect what he wanted to play). He also found his niche outside of his mechanical role which greatly increased his enjoyment in the game.

So yes, of course, I have encountered people that weren't entirely happy with how their character was performing, and sometimes the seed for that discontent was other characters' performance. But no, I have never seen a real player at the table build a character because they need to outperform the wizard, or whatever.

 

[Mort]

Fairly regularly, threads appear that are mostly interested in examining character options -- classes, mostly -- relative to how competent or powerful they are relative to other character classes, etc... The most common is martials versus casters, but there are lots of variations. The thing is, outside of message boards, I have never encountered a player that actually cares about these things relative to other PCs. I have encountered many players who are concerned about how they stack up to the adventure or the world, but that makes a lot of sense since (to use video game parlance) D&D is essentially a PvE experience.

So, do you, as a player, actually worry about how your character stacks up to other players' characters? If so, in what ways? What about it is important to you? By what metric do you judge? What do you do if you feel your choices aren't as good or your character isn't as competent?

Thanks.

Interesting, as a DM the only balance I really care about is between PCs. Mostly in terms that @iserith stated above.

Each player needs to be able to have their character effectively contribute. If one player's character is strictly better at the main shtick of another's character - that can cause problems.