Rewards, Fun, and Balance

[Frostmarrow]

I've stumbled upon a problem in game design. I like to keep it simple. I wouldn't mind if D&D Next went back to the old "you have a 1 in 6 chance of spotting the secret door" with no modifiers at all.
At the same time I really enjoy Pathfinder right now. Pathfinder is littered with small rewards that gives you bonuses to anything all the time. It's nice to add stuff to your character be that items, traits, substituted traits, retrained feats and whatnot.
The problem lies in for there to be many rewards they must be small and circumstantial - almost insignificant.
Big rewards must be kept rare or they will quickly destroy the delicate game balance that can be quite hard to achieve and maintain.

Are there other ways to solve this gordian knot? I.e. is there a way to reward players often without tipping the scales?

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Are there other ways to solve this gordian knot? I.e. is there a way to reward players often without tipping the scales?

Make the rewards bigger but conditional--you've got a wand of detect secret doors that just works, but it only has so many charges. Then you go back to the simple roll.

Make the smaller bits, or most of them anyway, something that doesn't affect the roll. Instead of a feat or skill bonus that lets you find secret doors more accurately, get one that lets you search a bigger area, or search faster, or combine trap and secret door searching together, and so forth.

Have a few "classes" or "tiers" or even "levels" of secret doors, such that some are harder to find that others, but not so many such divisions that you can't easily keep it straight in your head. Maybe "simple," "standard," and "complex." Eventually, you can stack enough small mods to make "simple" secret doors trivial to find, but you never quite reach that for "standard," and "complex" ones are always iffy.

Make the process of finding "secret doors" not always something that boils down to a roll. Sure, a lot of times it is find the right lever disguised in the wall or even noticing that the door is concealed. Once you make that skill check, you can get through. But other times, make the mechanism more complex, the door more concealed, etc. That way, a mix of success and fail in the rolls leaves the party knowing something is there, but not how to navigate it yet. (This might be a replacement for "skill challenges" with specific challenge mechanics for "searching/operating" in this example, also useful for traps. Have other such skill challenge replacements for other broad tasks.)

 

[howandwhy99]

The problem lies in for there to be many rewards they must be small and circumstantial - almost insignificant.
Big rewards must be kept rare or they will quickly destroy the delicate game balance that can be quite hard to achieve and maintain.

Are there other ways to solve this Gordian knot? I.e. is there a way to reward players often without tipping the scales?

It depends on what kind of balance you're referring to.

If you mean equality among the players, that used to be up to the players to determine, treasure allocation and all that. Currently treasure is parceled out like XP so everyone has the same amount. That's another legitimate method.

If you mean balanced challenges, then that depends upon setting and adventure design.

a. Many significant rewards could be called Monte Hall gaming, but that's legitimate game play too. The trade off is most success will likely come from magic item use than personal abilities.

b. Sandbox play random items sprinkled in with random creatures, I think averaging to more or less appropriate rewards for the challenges. Then the players decide what level of challenge to face. They are still in a barometer-like world, but they have some control.

c. You mention Paizo and their Pathfinder adventures can balance significant rewards with challenges according to how wide or narrow the adventure path is designed to be.

I prefer more significant rewards. I don't think most people care for the 5 cent plastic toys made for kids, but all of that is somewhat relative. If groups want to track small bonuses and prefer accumulating many treasures to more significant effects, I think that should be possible too. There can be some value and fun in that.

 

[Ellington]

The secret to giving out a lot of small rewards is to hand them out in the form of different resources. That way they don't add up in a single area and don't tip the scales.

- Finding a secret door leads to hidden treasure = gold

- Finishing a flagon of ale in ten seconds impresses the dwarf ranger at the bar, making him more friendly = NPC relationship bonus

- Killing 50 gnolls grants you the Gnoll Slayer achievement trait: +1 to attacks against gnolls = minor mechanical bonus

- Coming up with a clever solution to stall the town guard = XP

Etc. As long as you don't go overboard in a single field, you can give the players a lot of fun, small bonuses without tipping the power scales.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Great suggestions all around. Exactly what I was looking for. Crazy Jerome can't have XP from me so he'll have to settle for a pat on the back and a hearty "well done". Thanks!

 

[CM]

Instead of using the D&D Fortune Cards "as-intended" I use them as a reward, letting players draw a card for good RP or good ideas. They provide small but meaningful single-use benefits.