How important do you think game balance is?

[beaver1024]

Why should I pay $$$ for gaming material that I have to alter heavily later because it contains horribly unbalanced material that will derail my campaign? The more unbalanced the material is the more work for the DM to do integrate it into the campaign. The more work the DM has to do the more unpalatable it is to DM. Without a DM you have no game.

Better not buy the unbalanced work in the first place or not play at all. Either way it means the same thing to gaming companies, their books will not be purchased. That fate for some of the books out there at the moment, like 2e, is well deserved.

 

[glass]

I voted extremely important, but with the caveat that I would say it is extremely important most of the time, but not always.

Assuming the OP mean 'game balance' in the sense of balancing power. Balancing power is probably the easiest way to balance player 'screen time', and as such is very important, but there are other methods.


glass.

 

[WayneLigon]

I think it's pretty important so that one class or race or combo doesn't outshine everything else around it. Balance, however, comes both from the rules and from the GM; a PrC that's unbalancing in one campaign might not be so in another. A major contribution to lack of balance is the failure of some lazy GM's to act as a balacing force in their game. (Which is not the same as being a brake by nerfing everything you can't deal with).

Order of the Bow, for example. Do you think that you just go to the monestary, learn this secret bow technique, then it's hidey ho, see you guys later and I'm back off to live my life as I did before? No, it's not, and if you treat it that way then you deserve the unbalanced play that might result from someone with those abilities. Some may say that 'roleplaying penalties don't count' but they do when you make them count. To do otherwise is being lazy.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

One thing that annoys me about the balance arguements is the egocentric claims that often go along with balance claims.

Just because it is not balanced for one person's game, does NOT mean it is not balanced in everyone's game.

And tossing around "munchkin" and "power gamer" while it's the Inquisition and those labels will get the heretic drug off and burned at the stake on top of a pile of ELH's really gets on my nerves.

Like proudly living in the gutter is something to be proud of.

Balance is often a way to negligently dismiss something that doesn't fit in the world of those doing the loudest of the screaming.

 

[diaglo]

Not very. Just as long as things aren't abused, its okay.

that's why i voted somewhat.

most of the group is pretty well balancing themselves.

but you get the extremes in every group.

read the story hour in my sig. if it wasn't important the story would be all about one PC and the rest of the party would be his Panchos.

 

[just__al]

In my groups we are all equally here to have fun. Equally here to participate (for the most part), and equally here to game.

If balance is wayyy out of wack somebody is dominating the fun, participation, or spot light time and that's not going to fly where we game.

 

[Odhanan]

The designers at WotC think game balance is extremely important for a roleplaying game. How important do y'all think it is?

I don't know what WotC designers are thinking specifically about this issue. I hear a lot of people claiming they know, however.

I voted "somewhat important", because game balance is one of many means that combine toward one end: that everyone around the game table enjoys the game. When one PC outshines the others repeatively, some players may very well be unhappy with the game they're playing. This is the only justification of game balance in my eyes.

Now you can have players who do not care about that. Or players that actually see "game balance" in other aspects of the game than just the rules. I'm one of these. And there are a many more different types of gamers. As much as the number of gamers there is, in fact.

So "rules balance" can be important for some game tables' game balance. For other tables that may not be so important. My job as a DM is to know who cares for it and how at the game table, and to run the game accordingly.

 

[tetsujin28]

In D&D I think balance is pretty darn important. In Call of Cthulhu? Not so much.