Game Balance, what is it to you, why is it important, and what if you all but threw it out?

[DEFCON 1]

And a lot of people asking, "Why? We have lightning bolts and flying dragons. Why the arbitrary rules for realism here but not there?"

Yes, indeed, I think you've hit it on the head. What you state here is the universal stumbling block towards creating a Dungeons & Dragons game that works for everyone (or almost everyone). Because every single person has a different idea of what parts of realism (or what one might also call 'real-world science') are necessary to have in the game world that allows one to not only suspend disbelief, but also remain true to the genre tropes that D&D is trying to get across. All the while also trying to be a fun "game" that one plays.

The "fool's folly" (as you put it) is in anyone thinking or believing that there's a singular system of "realism" in the Dungeons & Dragons game that can be designed which almost every single player will be happy or agree with. One that can be printed and published that will make every person happy with the result. But we all know (or should know) there isn't. So what I think really needs to happen is for every person to actually realize and accept that any one specific game (D&D or otherwise) is not necessarily the game that will give that to us and that we just might need to change which games we play to get closer to the ones that will (assuming that need for "realism" in whatever form one needs is really that important.)

But for every game that one changes to, that potentially shrinks the pool of players one has to play with. Smaller player pool, smaller number of options. And which is why so many people cling to Dungeons & Dragons even though it's not really giving them what they want, just because there are so many more options available. And sometimes expediency ends up being more important than precision.

 

[Morrus]

. In my own game dragons have hundreds and often thousands of HP, and hit multiple targets at once, and have multipliers on dmg. Suffice to say there have been very few dragon slayers in my world lol.

I mean sure, if you don’t want your fellow gamers to have the awesome experience of fighting dragons. Kinda defeats the point for me, but it’s your game!

 

[Neonchameleon]

Game balance is information. There is nothing inherently unbalanced about either a goblin or the Tarrasque (or one of your ultra big dragons). It's not even imbalanced to throw the Tarrasque at a level 3 party and watch them run - that's what the fiction indicates should happen.

It would be unbalanced if a level 5 party were to take on the Tarrasque using only their expected resources (so no dropping a mountain on it or feeding it a nuke) and win e.g. by action trading with it or mind controlling it because part of the point of the Tarrasque is that it should literally be able to crush mid level PCs. It's also unbalanced if six basic orcs can reliably overwhelm a party of fifth level PCs - that's again not the expectation from the fiction.

It's also unbalanced for PCs to be overwhelmingly different in power when a game implies they should be similar levels of usefulness. No one cares that Ars Magica Wizards are much more powerful than fighters; that's an explicit and open setting conceit within the game. But D&D 3.5 has classes presented as alternatives and the same XP to reach the same level - but a level 15 fighter is not a match for a level 13 druid. The balance is bad because the information presented is wrong.

 

[overgeeked]

What kind of balance are you after?

Mechanical balance between PCs? That’s dead simple. Most rules light games have it built in. Hell, even D&D 4E managed it, mostly.

Mechanical balance between the PCs and monsters? Again, dead simple. Rules light games and 4E have you covered.

Spotlight balance between PCs? That’s all up to the referee.

Balance between the PCs re: how much effect they have on the fiction? I guess that’s down to the referee but generally down to the dice.

Throw out balance completely? Good news, that’s most games. Look at games from the OSR/NSR scenes for unbalanced games done extremely well.

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

I don't have my players "fight" full-aged dragons much. I think the one time I did, the dragon dealt MASSIVE exhaustion out in the form of lair action/legendary. To the point of where one player doffed their armor and actions were spent not drowning... IMO if you write ahead of time the scaling of adult dragons allows for more fun "change of challenge direction". There isn't much reason I can typically think of that a dragon would ever have to stick out a fight to the death... so with that level of opponent I say motivation becomes realism... not HP

 

[timbannock]

Overpowering the PCs is easy for the GM. It takes no skill, nuance, understanding, or imagination for a GM to dial an adversary up to 11. In that sense, your dragon is unimpressive.

For a traditional RPG, it is very useful for a game to provide for the GM, not so much balance, as a clear understanding of how hazardous adversaries are, and tools for tuning adversaries to the desired level of hazard.

It is also very useful for a game to provide a certain amount of balance between the PCs - if one PC is always more or less effective than the others, that makes work for the GM to even out spotlight time and such.

All of this.

Perhaps related: Based on my early formative experiences in RPGs, I wish "roll out in the open" and "don't hide information" had been principles that more of my GMs and Players followed/respected. I learned so many bad lessons that I carried for something like 20 years, and by extension, taught those bad lessons to other players/GMs. Having now done the opposite, I enjoy the game much more, and "balance" is easier to achieve because there's greater trust among the group members. That trust is perhaps the most "balancing" factor of play.

Unrelated: Take a look at a game like 5E that strives for some kind of mathematical balance (whether or not it succeeds) and a game like Cortex Prime. They do such different things, strive to make PCs equal, but one game is easily and often "broken" and the other requires hard work and a fundamental (maybe even purposeful) misunderstanding of the rules to "break" it. It's a really interesting dichotomy to compare for game designers.