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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Agback" data-source="post: 2606582" data-attributes="member: 5328">Interesting. I don't see balance issues as applying between the GM and the character-players, or rather, I don't see those as being determined by the rules. In my campaigns, for example,, the balance is determined by how much the character players try to bite off. If it is more than they can chew, then they are overwhelmed. In other GMs campaigns it may be determined by where they go. In others by the obstacles the GM chooses to put in their way.Rather, I see balance issues as applying principally between options available to the players, and secondarily between different characters. I don't want players to feel pressured to avoid good story and character options on the grounds that to choose them means giving up too much capacity to achieve character and story goals. Any option so feeble that no player in his or her right mind would take it ought to be left out of the game.Everybody plays to have fun, nobody to watch someone else have fun. This being the case, setting up the game so that any of the players misses out on his or her share of [what he or she considers to be] the good stuff is bound to lead to resentment.Final comment. There is an asymmetry between balanced rules and unbalanced rules. Designing balance options is hard, whereas I can come up with unbalanced rulings off the cuff. And a balanced set of rules is easily unbalanced when I want to favour particular option, whereas correcting the balance of unbalanced rules is at best hard, and quite possibly beyond my capabilities. I pay game designers to do hard and tedious work for me. I do not pay them for things I could do myself without effort.So: "Better to have game balance and not need it than to need game balance and not have it".</blockquote>

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