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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6178001" data-attributes="member: 6681948">So it should be unlikely, if not impossible, for those characters to grow and change as a consequence of the campaign events? Perhaps that warrior tires of battle and death, while that dilettante becomes motivated by some in campaign event(s) and becomes a leader of men to accomplish his new goals. Perhaps not, of course, but I find players who play their characters like caricatures - their views, opinions and motivations are exactly the same at 15th level as they were at 1st level, regardless of any experiences in the interim, because that half page character sketch written up with the L1 character sheet is the eternal be-all and end-all of the character - pretty dull, if not frustrating, to game with.Should Gimli, at the end of Return of the King, have the same opinion of elves in general and Legolas specifically as he had at the beginning? Should the Dwarves at the end of the Hobbit still see Bilbo as one of those homebody hobbits? Should Merry and Pippin have arrived back at the Shire and just fit in perfectly with all the other hobbits, completely unchanged by their experiences? Or is the growth, or potential for it, whether the directions are expected or not, part of the fun?Even if I agreed with you, is the possibility of an effective Halfling warrior or Bard adventurer an element so much more fantastic than a firebreathing dragon, gods walking the earth or wizards shattering mountains with a few arcane words and gestures? Perhaps to the occasional person, but I suggest this is far from universal - and the default game rules should cater to a broad group of gamers, not a few with very specific views. Include a balanced Bard, and effective Halfling warriors and let those who don't want that ban or weaken these options in their own games. This, to me, is the clear better choice than designing a game with scattered power levels, no guidance to players and GMs as to which choices are effective and which are deliberately sub-optimal, and leaving it to each group to rebalance these choices should they wish to do so.If the war hero is the clearly superior character, then the player can express a desire to play a more powerful character merely by selecting that type of character, then pushing for "niche protection" to force the other players into characters that are not "the best adventurers". He never has to explicitly say "I want a more powerful character". Much more common are players who recognize that all the players want relevant characters, but who want to play characters who are not sub-optimal, so they will not select a character option which, by the rules as written or by the conventions of the specific GM/group, will be comparatively underpowered.Sure - what port do you suggest? I assume it's not as far as the Coin Toss Campaign. How does an array of character choices which are reasonably balanced, one against the other, make the game play faster and/or easier than a game which provides an array of character choices, some of which are more powerful, some less so, and some just traps unless your goal was to be useless against the game challenges.It seems to me a lot of gamers have greatly supported greater balance because, at least in their eyes, it makes the game easier. As an example, having a Challenge Rating system facilitating the design of encounters at a given level of challenge is perceived as making the game easier by many gamers (on the assumption the characters are balanced, and the CR's appropriate). Many supporters of 4e (pemerton, please clarify or contradict if appropriate) highlight the very specific encounter design mechanics as making the design of appropriately challenging encounters much faster and easier. In fact, many detractors of some 3e products, especially later releases, comment on "power creep" making the old CR ratings less reliable, and making it more difficult to have characters who are comparably powerful, such that the CR system can be rationally applied. To them, this power diversity made the game the opposite of "fast and easy".Viewed from this perspective, building in balance is an aspect of making the game "fast and easy", rather than a potentially competing or conflicting objective.Finally, I'm not sure "fast and easy" is a goal of many gamers.  A lot of RPG players I know don't like board games because they are too fast and/or not sufficiently complex to engage them.  While there is certainly an "overcomplexity" that makes the game too slow and/or difficult, there is also a risk of "undercomplexity" where the game becomes too easy to attract and maintain proponents of a more complex, and thus more engaging (at least to them) game.  Some people are engaged by blackjack - very fast, certainly easier than most RPG's.  Should RPG game design strive to reduce the complexity to match blackjack?  Some people like the more simple game of Snap, or War.  Others like more complex games.  I think the "ideal level" of complexity of an RPG (or games in general - Talisman or Monopoly or Candyland?  Snap or Cribbage or Magic?) varies markedly between possible players, and even between potential RPG gamers.</blockquote>

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