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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Game Balance, what is it to you, why is it important, and what if you all but threw it out?
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<blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 9807972" data-attributes="member: 20564"><p>Game balance is, to me, all of the characters having equal opportunities to get the spotlight.</p><p></p><p>In games where failure is unfun, primarily those that have combat-to-the-death as common stakes for overcoming challenges, part of game balance is making all character feel like they can contribute equally and that the challenges are ones that they can overcome. In games without the forced storytelling of avoiding downbeats, it's just that everyone gets their moments.</p><p></p><p></p><p>This has zero to do with game balance.</p><p></p><p>Also, HP in D&D is at best only loosely correlated to do with how well you physically can handle wounds. If you look at 5e, a hit that does HP <em>literally is not hitting or hurting the PC</em> until they are under half. (2014 PHB pg 196L Hit Points and 197<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />escribing Damage). This is important because D&D isn't trying to simulate reality, it's emulating the tropes and archetypes of it's genre, and the 5e rules (for example) are emulating the Heroic Fantasy genre. Where it's perfectly on-brand for a heroic warrior to be very hard to kill. It's not because they can take the same amount of physical damage, it's that they have the other qualities that make up HPs.</p><p></p><p>The dragon isn't as weak as a human. The dragon is mighty! It's the hero that has heroic traits of grit and luck and favor that elevates them.</p><p></p><p></p><p>This is great -- either you're aiming for a different genre which is a good thing to do, or you are positioning dragons as not a combat challenge. Either of those are perfectly valid choices.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Blue, post: 9807972, member: 20564"] Game balance is, to me, all of the characters having equal opportunities to get the spotlight. In games where failure is unfun, primarily those that have combat-to-the-death as common stakes for overcoming challenges, part of game balance is making all character feel like they can contribute equally and that the challenges are ones that they can overcome. In games without the forced storytelling of avoiding downbeats, it's just that everyone gets their moments. This has zero to do with game balance. Also, HP in D&D is at best only loosely correlated to do with how well you physically can handle wounds. If you look at 5e, a hit that does HP [I]literally is not hitting or hurting the PC[/I] until they are under half. (2014 PHB pg 196L Hit Points and 197:Describing Damage). This is important because D&D isn't trying to simulate reality, it's emulating the tropes and archetypes of it's genre, and the 5e rules (for example) are emulating the Heroic Fantasy genre. Where it's perfectly on-brand for a heroic warrior to be very hard to kill. It's not because they can take the same amount of physical damage, it's that they have the other qualities that make up HPs. The dragon isn't as weak as a human. The dragon is mighty! It's the hero that has heroic traits of grit and luck and favor that elevates them. This is great -- either you're aiming for a different genre which is a good thing to do, or you are positioning dragons as not a combat challenge. Either of those are perfectly valid choices. [/QUOTE]
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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
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Game Balance, what is it to you, why is it important, and what if you all but threw it out?
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