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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RainOfSteel" data-source="post: 5701080" data-attributes="member: 24460">Pursuit of game balance is not a cult undertaking.  Assigning the word cult to game balance places it in a derogatory category.Game balance is a critical aspect of game design for many, many reasons.One aspect of game balance is between character classes, or within whatever character construction system is being used.  If player A builds a super-duper do-everything out-shines all others all the time character (several Rifts classes nearly qualify), and player B who is new to gaming and only lukewarm to what to do in a game campaign picks Vagabond, he's going to enter the game and discover he has virtually nothing at his disposal when player A is cleaning house and saving the day with every encounter.  Even players C, D, and E, who only made so-so OCC/RCC choices and builds will find themselves standing in the shadows.  This sort of thing causes game groups to implode.  It is one of many reasons for desiring game balance.I never actually saw anyone pick a Vagabond OCC myself, or even a Rogue Scholar, for that matter.  Hatchling Dragons, Cyber-Knights, Full Conversion Borgs (there is little reason to do Partial), and Mind-Melters were all extremely popular, along with other OCC/RCCs from later books.  I saw a couple of City Rat picks, but they didn't last long.  It isn't that those characters died, but that the players realized they had been hosed by their OCC choices in comparison to the other classes, and so they switched to new characters.I had some arguments with fellow Rifts enthusiasts about potentially correcting the situation by adding a Contacts system to the game, where the highest-powered OCC/RCCs got none or almost none, and the low-powered OCC/RCCs would get a slew of them.We decided it would not necessarily be well received by all players as Contacts are external NPCs beyond the control of individual characters, and GMs never run interactions with contacts the same way, whereas the high-powered characters derived all of their powers inherently.The GMG does cover "some things", but does not cover how to handle super-star characters in the same party as Ed the Vagabond (or similar).  Aside from extremely artificial setups, it really doesn't work.A GM can shine a spotlight on any character, but if the Vagabond player's perception of the situation is that his or her character isn't doing anything comparable to the other player's characters, that spotlight will seem like a repeat highlighter for how insignificant, or carried, the Vagabond really is.Possible, but neither easy nor likely.  Getting four hits on the same skill in one term was quite a remote chance.The early Gamma World was meant to have some zany comedy in it.  If you're all in it for a laugh, then it doesn't matter.For more serious games, I never saw anyone using verbatim mutation rolls.  The GM always fudged it to keep out character crippling rolls.</blockquote>

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