Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9006272" data-attributes="member: 71699">That's rose-tinted. To the extent that concepts like game balance apply to PbtA games, I find them &quot;balanced-by-player-fiat&quot; not &quot;balanced-by-mechanical-design.&quot; For example, I found it extremely easy to break the occult moves in MotW six ways to Sunday, i.e. make counter-play thorny and not really be playing the real game. But I chose not to. I focused on the real game.Game balance does apply to games with mechanically detailed conflict. The 5e designers didn't know where their game balance lay at the time they published. On the DM side, in later publications such as in XGE they offered more accurate rubrics that landed in the same spot as those players had invented for themselves. What the 5e designers did do is dial the game difficulty to easy, but this did not prevent some of the painful downsides of lack of balance on the PC side, such as overshadowing and as you point out a narrower choice of viable strategies.And once again in GM-curated modes it comes down to GM. Our group played 5e for a couple of years and enjoyed some of the most tightly balanced play I've seen. Rule zero was exercised freely to take broken options off the table and buff others to make them viable. This rested on game knowledge and effort, and also on the sort of trust that folk who find GM-power successful at their table often talk about.A game that is balanced, is TB2. That's on a knife-edge.I sort of agree with you, but equally it's totally rose-tinted and some games are not really comparable due to differences between their modes of play. I mean, I could say FKR is perfectly balanced.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 9006272, member: 71699"] That's rose-tinted. To the extent that concepts like game balance apply to PbtA games, I find them "balanced-by-player-fiat" not "balanced-by-mechanical-design." For example, I found it extremely easy to break the occult moves in MotW six ways to Sunday, i.e. make counter-play thorny and not really be playing the real game. But I [I]chose [/I]not to. I focused on the real game. Game balance does apply to games with mechanically detailed conflict. The 5e designers didn't know where their game balance lay at the time they published. On the DM side, in later publications such as in XGE they offered more accurate rubrics that landed in the same spot as those players had invented for themselves. What the 5e designers did do is dial the game difficulty to easy, but this did not prevent some of the painful downsides of lack of balance on the PC side, such as overshadowing and as you point out a narrower choice of viable strategies. And once again in GM-curated modes it comes down to GM. Our group played 5e for a couple of years and enjoyed some of the most tightly balanced play I've seen. Rule zero was exercised freely to take broken options off the table and buff others to make them viable. This rested on game knowledge and effort, and also on the sort of trust that folk who find GM-power successful at their table often talk about. A game that is [I]balanced[/I], is TB2. That's on a knife-edge. I sort of agree with you, but equally it's totally rose-tinted and some games are not really comparable due to differences between their modes of play. I mean, I could say FKR is [I]perfectly[/I] balanced. [/QUOTE]

Verification