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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9136000" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Conversely, I would say that 0, 3, 3 is not balanced. By definition. These three are the &quot;pillars&quot; of the game. They are what the game was made for being. Choosing genuinely 0--literally having nothing to contribute--means rejecting the fundamental premises of play. At that point, you should be playing some other game, because you are openly saying you oppose the things the game is built to do.That's my serious issue with a lot of this sort of thing...and the idea of spotlight balance. Asymmetrical is good--necessary, even--but &quot;completely opt out of core gameplay patterns&quot; is neither.Instead of fostering &quot;spotlight balance,&quot; where one person gets to be awesome and everyone else gets to hurry up and wait, we should be fostering something more like...&quot;floodlight and flash&quot; balance. Everyone is reasonably competent. Not amazing, not impressive, just basic, ol' reliable performance. But you have flashes of being especially impressive in what you've chosen to be great at. From there, choosing to become great at more things or choosing to be especially great at what you already know should both be valid choices.&quot;Spotlight balance&quot; just encourages people to keep the spotlight on themselves as long as possible, and to make it so the group gets more benefit when the spotlight shines on them than it does when it shines on anyone else. Game design that encourages and rewards such selfish, even narcissistic behavior should be avoided, not celebrated.Instead of making 0, 3, 3 work, I say we move toward a system where you have 9 points, max 5 in any category, and you must have a minimum of 1 in everything.So you can do 1, 3, 5 or 3, 3, 3 or the like. You can't choose to be incompetent at anything, but you also can't choose to be overwhelming at anything (aka 1, 1, 7)--the absolute bottom and top end are disallowed. This permits a spectrum of options; indeed, a pretty significant variety:1, 3, 51, 4, 42, 2, 52, 3, 43, 3, 3</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9136000, member: 6790260"] Conversely, I would say that 0, 3, 3 is [I]not[/I] balanced. By definition. These three are the "pillars" of the game. They are what the game was [I]made[/I] for being. Choosing genuinely 0--literally having [I]nothing[/I] to contribute--means rejecting the fundamental premises of play. At that point, you should be playing some other game, because you are openly saying you oppose the things the game is built to do. That's my serious issue with a lot of this sort of thing...and the idea of spotlight balance. Asymmetrical is good--necessary, even--but "completely opt out of core gameplay patterns" is neither. Instead of fostering "spotlight balance," where one person gets to be awesome and everyone else gets to hurry up and wait, we should be fostering something more like..."floodlight and flash" balance. Everyone is reasonably competent. Not amazing, not impressive, just basic, ol' reliable performance. But you have flashes of being especially impressive in what you've chosen to be great at. From there, choosing to become great at [I]more[/I] things or choosing to be [I]especially[/I] great at what you already know should both be valid choices. "Spotlight balance" just encourages people to keep the spotlight on themselves as long as possible, and to make it so the group gets more benefit when the spotlight shines on them than it does when it shines on anyone else. Game design that [I]encourages[/I] and [I]rewards[/I] such selfish, even narcissistic behavior should be avoided, not celebrated. Instead of making 0, 3, 3 work, I say we move toward a system where you have 9 points, max 5 in any category, and you must have a minimum of 1 in everything. So you can do 1, 3, 5 or 3, 3, 3 or the like. You can't choose to be [I]incompetent[/I] at anything, but you also can't choose to be [I]overwhelming[/I] at anything (aka 1, 1, 7)--the absolute bottom and top end are disallowed. This permits a spectrum of options; indeed, a pretty significant variety: 1, 3, 5 1, 4, 4 2, 2, 5 2, 3, 4 3, 3, 3 [/QUOTE]

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