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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DinoInDisguise" data-source="post: 9836267" data-attributes="member: 7045806">This is an odd position to take. That's not how balance is defined in any game with randomness. Balance is equality of opportunity and expected outcome, not equality of realized outcomes. If balance required identical results: poker would be unbalanced, chess with time controls would be unbalanced, every RPG ever written would be unbalanced.By your definition, the concept of balance cannot co-exist with dice. Which would make every balance discussion on these forums moot. Yet we have those discussions, using a different definition of balance. One that works on structural biases.You aren't wrong, but it's irrelevant here. Balance has never meant “identical outcomes.” It means:Same decision > Same expected payoffSame risk > Same rewardSame competence > Same effectiveness over timeIf two characters are mechanically identical, then any difference in outcome is attributable to variance, not the system. That’s exactly what balance is supposed to do. No one is claiming that both characters always do equally well every session. That would be an absurd claim.Dice introduce variance, not bias. Balance is about bias. Ability modifiers introduce bias.Variance = outcomes fluctuate around the meanBias = outcomes are consistently shifted in one directionI don't understand your use of these words.This fails in multiple ways. Rare events still matter in design. You dont just ignore outcomes because they are rare. Especially when the system explicitly allows them, your players experience them, and they cause persistent disadvantage.By this logic critical hits, character death, and TPKs "don't matter" because they are unlikely or rare.You are also applying the math inconsistently. You claim both that disparity is unlikely, so we can ignore it. And you claim that in-session chance that the weaker will out perform the stronger is "substantially higher."But even if we accept your premise it fails at all levels. Replace 8 and 18 with 12 and 16, 14 and 18, 15 and 17. These are common and still create consistent bias. That bias is a systemic imbalance.We have two things here.  Unbalanced systems and unbalanced outcomes. We can look at them here:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Unbalanced system: one player is more likely to succeed across the same actions</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Unbalanced outcome: one player happened to roll better tonight</li> </ul>Only the first of those two is a balance issue. Party A has noise, and no player is systemically disadvantaged. Party B has differences that are structural, and one player is structurally disadvantaged.Saying “they’ll both be unbalanced anyway” is like saying: since weather exists, gravity doesn't matter. Or because people sometimes slip, structural engineering doesn’t matter.Since randomness exists, mechanical equality doesn't matter. But that position is very odd. If that was the case:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ability scores wouldn’t exist</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Modifiers wouldn’t scale</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Optimization wouldn’t work</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dump stats wouldn’t hurt</li> </ul>It's almost like expected value governs player experience over time: like entire communities of optimizers exist because bias means something, like the designers didn't waste their time implementing non-sense mechanics.I'll state my case very clearly:Balance is not about guaranteeing equal outcomes. Never has been.Balance is about ensuring the system does not consistently favor one player over another for the same decisions.Dice introduce variance.Ability modifiers introduce bias.Removing bias improves balance even when variance remains.Claiming otherwise seems to just be tossing the widely accepted definition of game balance in the trash. As any game with variance becomes unable to be balanced. That is a view one can have, I guess. But I don't think it lines up with the reality we observe.[SPOILER="Said another way.."]If this is true:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">balance can’t exist if dice exist, and</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">mechanical mitigation of randomness is pointless, and</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">expected value doesn’t meaningfully affect play</li> </ul>It contradicts:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">probability theory</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">game design practice</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">decades of observed play</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">the existence of the game mechanics being discussed</li> </ul>[/SPOILER][SPOILER="Oh and this.."]If mechanical equality doesn't matter, why are we dropping the lowest of 4d6, and not just running 3d6? But really why have attributes at all? Hm.[/SPOILER]</blockquote>

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