[Not a Troll] An Honest Question (really) About Game Balance

[brun]

Rules, ultimately, are a tool, ora mean for peopleto understand each other. They are there to help de GM make wise decisions, wathever that means (balanced/unbalanced, fair/unfair).

It is possible for people to get around a table and start a story, without any sort of dice or books or rules, where one person would make all the calls, decide which actions fail and which succeed. This would be roleplaying at its best.

But to make something like this work, you'd need a hell of a GM and even better players, who would all have agreed on what they are looking for in the game.

Since the possibilities of this happening are very slim at best, rules were inplemented. It is a guide on which the DM will make calls. It is a way for the players to expect, at least a bit, what their caracters will be good at, or what they can resonably achieve.

Rules were made for groups that include at least one less-than-perfect player a GM. They are meant as a tool for players and GM to understand each other and, ideally, agree with each other.

They can be balanced or not, as they are a mere tool, but they exist for ease of understanding, and a way to for communication between all who play.

 

[Tyberious Funk]

And strangely enough, some people still like Rifts, because they prefer other ways of sharing the spotlight than simply laying down the smack.

I don't doubt it. But certain classes in Rifts are overwhelmed in *every* department by some other classes... whether it is laying down the smack, or trying other ways to shine. If I wanted to feel like a loser that is outclassed in every task I attempt, I'll stick to real life. When I roleplay, I want to be a hero. I want to be useful at a few things at least.

 

[Victim]

Why shouldn't some level of fairness be dictated by the rules? Why should every burdern fall on the DM and players?

Anyone can create an arbitrary set of rules or decide to just make things up. But people pay money for RPG rules. They expect publishers to do better than what they can do themselves. If I'm making things up myself, I can abitrarily make each person shine.

There's little reason not to have balanced rules. Unbalanced rules, in most cases, are poor design. One exception might be when the game is intended to simulate something else - for example, elves have additional powers that normal humans don't in Middle earth, and this is reflected in the LotR game. On the other hand, that situation can also be reflected in world building terms - elves could have a level cost because of their greater abilties, but because of their long life spans and such, the average elf is also higher level than the average human. I think that the same effect would created, but 2 player characters could still be balanced.

 

[Paradoxish]

Hmm.

I guess it largely depends on what kind of game balance you're talking about. Do I think that all of the classes should perform equally well in all situations? No! I'm often frustrated with players who take this attitude. Arguments such as "Bards suck! My fighter can kick your bard's ass!" are the biggest issue in my game. I know it's not (usually) a problem with veteran gamers, but newcomers often don't like the idea that someone elses character might be better than their's in some ways. So, in a nutshell, I don't think things like classes or races need to be balanced in the sense of equalizing them.

On the other hand, I think the game needs to be balanced enough so that everyone can have fun, no matter how they want to play. A player who enjoys playing magic using characters shouldn't be left out because fighters are somehow "better" nor should a player who enjoys supporting the rest of the party be left out since the rest of the group doesn't need support. This kind of balance is ultimately up to the DM, though. I try to mix my adventures up a bit - sometimes the situation will call for magic users to take the front stage with the tanks backing them up and other times the martial characters are doing more while the magic users offer support. Other times I let the roles be equal so everyone is doing about the same amount of work.

Of course, I also think that the DM needs to keep adventures and the campaign as a whole balanced. I hate when I get a group of players who want loads of loot and insane amounts of experience. I've never met a single player who's actually had a truly overpowered character and enjoyed playing it for more than a session or two. Letting the power levels of the group get out of balance, either by making them too powerful or too weak, takes everybody's fun away.

 

[Mark Chance]

Me explaining (sort of)...

Could you explain? Why wouldn't D&D work well if the PCs were not the same power level?

I'm not saying it wouldn't work. I'm saying I don't think it work as well as other systems. D&D (at least in the core rules; the various splatbooks are anotehr matter entirely) make great effort at ensuring that all character classes are more or less equal in the overall scope of a game.

The rules for XP and ELs also are balanced to reflect the capabilities of the characters assuming there is a basic equivalence in character level.

Consider a group of 1st-level characters being led by a 10th-level characters. At least in combat, encounters that would challenge the 10th-level character would be absolutely deadly to the 1st-level characters. Scale the combat to the 1st-level characters, and the 10th-level character gets no (or at best very little) XP.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

For me personally, game balance is dependent on a variety of factors.

1. Classes should be balanced so that everyone has a purpose or skill they are good at. For example, in D&D the fighter is the best a weapon combat, the rogue is best at scouting and finding traps, cleric is the best healer, and wizard is the best offensive caster.

Each class has unique abilities that allow them to participate effectively in an adventure. I believe this is an important aspect of game balance.

2. Though I don't believe that all classes should be balanced in a way that makes them equal in power or the ability to kill, I do believe that classes of a similar nature should be balanced against each other for the most part.

I don't care if the wizard is more powerful than the fighter. However, I do care if the Paladin or Ranger is significantly more powerful than the Fighter. Why? Because these classes basically fulfill a similar role in the group.

I feel it is damaging to the overall game if one class with a similar nature to another is better in most respects another class of the same type. Now, I don't mind the Paladin being better against evil, but being just a generally better fighter would be bad.


That is about all I concern myself with when thinking about game balance. The only spell we have modified is Harm and we employ a few flavor house rules. Otherwise, D&D seems fairly balanced.

 

[Deadguy]

Like bret saud, I don't think it's necessary in all aspects of a game, although I think fairness among the player is necessary.

I'm another Ars Magica fan, and I like playing grogs and companions, as long as I know that at some point I'll get to play the mage.


I'll play a combat-weak bard, knowing that at some point there will be urban adventures where I can shine, or encouters the party wants to talk its way past.

I would suggest that you've effectively asnwered the question of whether balance is important to you in RPGs, Maerdwyn. For you, balance equates to chances to shine, to be in the limelight, as it were. And, yes, that's very much the way that Ars Magica is balanced. So long as everyone gets to be the magus sometimes, we accept playing the grogs.

Of course, it's more complicated than that, since individual stories may not even involved magi, and so we are concerned with the balance between grogs and companions, companions and companions, and between grogs and other grogs.

Ars Magica is a challenging game to run, since it does allow a wide variation between characters, even members of the same tier (being a 25-year old magus around a couple of centenarians is interesting!). The balance here has a lot less to do with the balance of the rules (even though there is a strong point-buy quality to the rules), and instead depends upon the Storyteller structuring the sequence of adventures and events to call upon the skills of all the characters (and by extension, or perhaps primarily, all the players).

Perhaps this emphasises that 'balance' means different things to different groups and different games. The 'spotlight time' balance tends to be pre-eminent as a measure, but different games try different ways to achieve this. D&D3e tries to make the DM's work lighter by using the game mechanics to balance the play, but it's not the only approach, as Ars Magica demonstrates.

 

[WizarDru]

Are the challenges the province of the rules, or the province of the players? Is it better for the game to set the difficulty of the encounters the group faces? Is it better for the group to decide on the encounters they wish to face, even when they know their prospective opponent out classes them?

I think you need to go back and read Meardwyn's message and then consider that, and specifically, look at answering his question.

The rules are a common frame of reference to be used in wide and diverse ways. Since you're using the term 'balance' to refer to several exceedingly different topics, it's hard to answer your question in all but the most broad or extremely specific ways.

Moreover, you need to be more specific about your question. When you ask "Is game balance really necessary in an RPG?", you don't specify the most important part, namely: "necessary for what?"

Do you mean:

• "necessary for everyone to enjoy the game"?
• "necessary for everyone to enjoy the game equally?"
• "necessary to be considered a good example of RPG design?"
• "necessary for the game to fulfill it's intended design purpose?"
• "necessary to facilitate a game with the least amount of effort?"

Without knowing the actual meaning of the question, any answer you get will be similarly confused. You may have meant the first question, but you got an answer on the assumption of the third.

In general, the rules do not have to be balanced in the sense that each character has a player of equal ability to perform actions within the game, and to be an 'event enabler'. A combination of a good DM and players can overcome the limitations of any RPG's lack of balance. Conversely, no matter how good the ruleset, it can be turned on it's ear by those who play it. Maerdwyn's point, I think, was that you can't point to things like 'challenging encounters' as a sign of balance; it's voodoo. RPGs are an odd hybrid of wargame, simulation and theatre. Trying to pinpoint the quality of a game session based on the underlying system used to present it is folly. Some groups will intentionally play a game without balance, often circumventing established checks and balances within the rules to do so. Leave alone the fact that precious few can agree on how balanced a particular game is. One merely need click to the Rules Forum to see how some things are argued constantly, such as the Harm, Haste, Archer and Ranger debates.

That said, the amount of work a group has to perform to compensate for rules that aren't balanced, IMHO, reflects on it's desirability. If I perceive an imbalance in a game, and my group and I work around it or compensate for it, then I consider that less desirable than a system that doesn't make me do that. But even that doesn't tell you anything, since some groups don't care about that, either.

 

[Gez]

Yes, game balance is necessary in RPG.

However, game balance is not defined. In D&D, game balance is primarily combat balance -- all characters should be about as useful in a combat (I think that's the closest definition we can have of D&D balance).

But other definition of balance could be used. In fact, the important thing should be that each character in the party has a roughly similar share of spotlight and usefulness.

The other question is whether balance should be put over realism (or setting accuracy) or not. In D&D3, designers have happifully answered yes. That's why you have several things that are perfectly reasonable from a balance standpoint, but are rather discutable otherwise. Like hugely similar humanoids subcategories being considered distinct for purpose of favored enemies, while things as diverse and dissimilar as aberrations or magical beasts are lumped together (here for realism) or the fact that drow magic items are no longer destroyed by sunlight (here for setting accuracy).

Of course, each time flavor is prefered to balance, then elves get twinked a bit more, so the 3e designers probably made the better choice.

 

[mmu1]

Game balance (between characters) is desirable because it allows players to achieve things on their own without feeling like they're being given something.

When the DM has to adjust things or tailor encounters excessively to make sure weaker characters get a chance to shine, it usually ends up being pretty obvious, and in my experience doesn't sit well with a lot of people. Sometimes it's the guy with the weaker character who resents feeling like he's being patronized, sometimes it's the strong player with a good character who doesn't like the fact his reward for being competent is that he doesn't get as many breaks as the rest of the group... Either way, balance is good.