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How balanced should a game be?
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<blockquote data-quote="GMMichael" data-source="post: 6345457" data-attributes="member: 6685730"><p>Let's put on the game-designer or game-editor hat here:</p><p></p><p>If an option is clearly UP (under-powered, sub-optimal), then very few people will choose it. And if you have a block of text in your book that very few people use, you've probably wasted valuable art-space on your page.</p><p></p><p>This is the only reason that weapons belong in a game-balance discussion. If a PC picks up/buys a weapon that obviously stinks, even after a few uses, he can just get a different one. However, if a PC picks up a character feature that obviously stinks, then depending on how the game is written, he just might be stuck with it.</p><p></p><p>Stuck with UP feature = having less fun.</p><p></p><p>So 1) game balance should really be a discussion of more permanent or persistent game features, and 2) on the character creation side of things, you -need- to be looking at making all options viable (not UP). From the game mechanics perspective, any rule is a balanced rule, as long as all characters have access to it or to equally balanced rules.</p><p></p><p>Example: if a game has rules for fighting with weapons and without weapons, and fighting without weapons is clearly UP, then any characters who don't have access to the with-weapon-fighting rules should have access to other options that are just as useful as the with-weapon-fighting rules.</p><p></p><p>Is the horse dead yet?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="GMMichael, post: 6345457, member: 6685730"] Let's put on the game-designer or game-editor hat here: If an option is clearly UP (under-powered, sub-optimal), then very few people will choose it. And if you have a block of text in your book that very few people use, you've probably wasted valuable art-space on your page. This is the only reason that weapons belong in a game-balance discussion. If a PC picks up/buys a weapon that obviously stinks, even after a few uses, he can just get a different one. However, if a PC picks up a character feature that obviously stinks, then depending on how the game is written, he just might be stuck with it. Stuck with UP feature = having less fun. So 1) game balance should really be a discussion of more permanent or persistent game features, and 2) on the character creation side of things, you -need- to be looking at making all options viable (not UP). From the game mechanics perspective, any rule is a balanced rule, as long as all characters have access to it or to equally balanced rules. Example: if a game has rules for fighting with weapons and without weapons, and fighting without weapons is clearly UP, then any characters who don't have access to the with-weapon-fighting rules should have access to other options that are just as useful as the with-weapon-fighting rules. Is the horse dead yet? [/QUOTE]
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