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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NoWayJose" data-source="post: 5535445" data-attributes="member: 84810">Confessions of an anti-pro-balance person A competitive boardgame like Axis and Allies should have a fair and even playing field (I'm sure there's many game theories out there about why people feel they should win or lose based purely on skill and/or luck). However, in a cooperative rpg like D&D, I don't fret so much about fairness. Life isn't fair, and so maybe life in an RPG doesn't need to be 100% fair either, in terms of simulating in-game fiction. Like any good sci-fi/fantasy movie, the feeling of versimilitude and immersion can generate a wonderfully satisfying impression that gently washes over other meta-issues. In story-telling, you can have some exciting dramatic moments when a character who is weak or underutilized in certain circumstances finds his niche and proudly makes a name for himself. My parents told me: don't compare yourself to other people (OK, it's not that simple, but over-comparing can be erroneous and unhealthy, creates unhappiness, and is generally a self-destructive habit). Perhaps people who are really, really, really obsessed over game balance just might be a bit too concerned about comparing their characters to others. It only needs to be as competitive as much as you can make it out to be. Mechanically, I like balanced systems, because I don't like the conflict of interest of having to decide between an optimal mechanical build vs a preferred fictional build. It also depends how obvious is the balance discrepancy. I think it's possible to obsess a bit too much over a +1 or -1 here or there, since having lots of fun in-game can often override those small probabilities. I don't agree with the 4E paradigm that it's the most fun if everyone feels equally useful all the time. Part of fun in life is the waiting and hoping. Looking forward to that restaurant meal, hoping that lottery ticket will win, hoping the next punch will land a KO, etc. If everyone gets exactly what they think they want all the time, well, there's a word for that: spoiled. Secondly, for everyone to be equally useful all the time, it splits the spotlight. Now instead of one bright spotlight that shifts around, you have multiple weak spotlights. The ebb and flow of dramatic moments is now more like a ripple, instead of a wave. Waves are generally more fun and dramatic and combat-realistic for me than ripples. All that said, I would still be OK with balance depending on the implementation and measurement. At one extreme, you can have a world class chef and a champion UFC fighter and call them balanced because they are elite in their respective categories, but if the game takes place primarily in the octagon, then it's not really all that balanced. At the other extreme, you can have a green-painted UFC fighter and a blue-painted UFC fighter and call them balanced, but this is an undesired implementation if you don't want to play a UFC fighter with different coats of paint. At one extreme, you can have pure free market capitalism with a wide gap between the haves and have-nots. At the other extreme, you can have the Communist People's Department of Equal Opportunity Happiness and no TV and no western food and everyone being equal and the same.  For myself, in my humble subjective opinion, I personally believe that 4E addressed the balance issue by making moving everyone close together so that it's easier to compare and measure for balance, and that's not an implementation I can agree with in its current form and extent. I would like to see one set of rules for mundane combat, and another layer of rules for magic, and allow them to be different, allow all that colour and variety and contrast to yield something wonderful.</blockquote>

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