Unpopular opinions go here

[Aldarc]

I don't know how many more different ways there to explain that in a TTRPG that there are so many ways beyond core game mechanics to make an impact and contribution to shared goals that the need for balance becomes vestigial.

Tell that to my players at my table past and present who didn’t have fun in various games because of mechanical imbalances. I’m sure they would love to have their experiences invalidated by your platitudes. So maybe just maybe your argument for any of your arguments don’t hold much water.

Seriously though, I can’t help but hear “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.”

 

[Umbran]

The problem here is that the Wizard has plenty of limiting factors that aren't often taken into account by Gap Truthers.

Mod Note:
Please refrain from dismissing people by slapping a condescending or insulting epithet onto them.

 

[Squared]

Re: Balance. I find that balance is only important to ensure that everyone is within spitting distance of each other. Too much focus on it will harm the game, homogenizing it or simply making the choices boring. Not enough focus on it will leave some players not having fun. It’s all about….balance… between those two extremes.

More importantly is ensuring that everyone gets to be involved. I find the best way to do that is to always have an initiative order, even in non combat scenarios.

^2

 

[Reynard]

If equal time and energy was given to all modes of play -- combat, exploration, social interaction, etc -- combat balance would not be a big deal and the shifting spotlight would be a compelling balance tool on its own.

 

[Tony Vargas]

balance - in some sense of a comparable degree of mechanical capacity enjoyed by players, in virtue of their PCs, to impact the fiction of the game

Hey, look, it's a definition of balance.

Sometimes I wonder if some of the honest disagreements about the desirability of balance generally, or the degree of balance achieved by a specific game, aren't more a matter of disagreeing about what balance is.

Another definition I've encountered that I find useful is: balance is maximizing the meaningful and viable choices available to the player.

 

[Umbran]

Another definition I've encountered that I find useful is: balance is maximizing the meaningful and viable choices available to the player.

Huh. I don't recall ever seeing that one before.

I'd think that these days, around here, talking about choices is more about "agency" than "balance".

We might sometimes talk about "balance" in terms of adventure design as well - if the GM is throwing really powerful opponents that the PCs can't handle, we might call that an "unbalanced encounter". Do that, and the players' choices become narrowed down to run or die, so I guess I can see where that use might come from. It just isn't one I have run into much.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I can't comment on the hobby as a whole. But I play, or have played, plenty of RPGs in which some important characters' principal strengths are not combat - Classic Traveller, Prince Valiant, Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, to some extent Rolemaster, even to some extent the invoker/wizard ritualist in my 4e D&D game.

While someone can question my experience of course, I'm going to say Traveller--where one of the two commonest campaign models (the other being merchants) was playing mercenaries is still pretty heavily combat oriented. Nothing I've seen suggests that isn't routinely true about Rolemaster either. I won't speak of the others because I only know them by reputation, but I don't think they change my position in general

I don't think that this has much to do with balance, though. The significance of balance - in some sense of a comparable degree of mechanical capacity enjoyed by players, in virtue of their PCs, to impact the fiction of the game - doesn't go away because the game involves situations and conflicts that are not combat-reltaed.

Well, I think the poster I was responding to was suggesting balance could include competence in different areas--but even in games that aren't as combat oriented, I don't think that helps much; it just moves around what the important areas are, but I'd be willing to put a substantial bet that games where activities don't heavily lean into one particular area are rare. In the above merchant oriented Trav games, for example, it just moved the target from combat abilities to ones having to do with finding and moving product.

 

[Gradine]

Tell that to my players at my table past and present who didn’t have fun in various games because of mechanical imbalances. I’m sure they would love to have their experiences invalidated by your platitudes. So maybe just maybe your argument for any of your arguments don’t hold much water.

I'm aware that my experiences aren't universal, just add you and yours aren't. It sucks to not have fun have a game. That said, my experiences do prove that game balance isn't necessary for fun or to make great contributions in a RPG.

Another definition I've encountered that I find useful is: balance is maximizing the meaningful and viable choices available to the player.

I could get behind this. I will still argue that any TTRPG is going to have numerous opportunities to meaningfully contribute without interacting with the game rules in the slightest.

 

[Amrûnril]

Huh. I don't recall ever seeing that one before.

I'd think that these days, around here, talking about choices is more about "agency" than "balance".

We might sometimes talk about "balance" in terms of adventure design as well - in the GM is throwing really powerful opponents that the PCs can't handle, we might call that an "unbalanced encounter". Do that, and the players choices become narrowed down to run or die, so I guess I can see where that use might come from. It just isn't one I have run into much.

I think of it this way. If the player has a choice between two options, but one of those options is consistently more effective than the other, the player hasn't actually been given an interesting choice. If the options are similarly effective, the player has more freedom to make that choice based on personal preference or situational dynamics.


Coming from this perspective. The argument that balance is homogenizing doesn't make very much sense to me. Balance will, of course, make options more similar in quantitative effectiveness, but that's the least interesting way for options to differ from one another. In terms of qualitatively distinct effects, homogenizing options makes them harder to balance, whereas differentiating them actually makes this easier.

To draw an analogy to ecological theory, the more two competing entities are pushed into the same niche, the smaller the fitness/effectiveness differences necessary for one to exclude the other. The greater their niche differences, the more potential there is for dynamics like complementarity and context dependence to make both of them viable.

 

[Tony Vargas]

my experiences do prove that game balance isn't necessary for fun or to make great contributions in a RPG.

Balance is a necessary quality if you're actually engaging the game to do so. The way most of us play TTRPGs, tho, moving beyond the game, itself, is common. I'd argue, because the premier TTRPG, D&D, has been perennially very imbalanced (among other failings).

I could get behind this. I will still argue that any TTRPG is going to have numerous opportunities to meaningfully contribute without interacting with the game rules in the slightest.

Agreed. That doesn't make the game balanced, but it can arbitrarily make the play experience better-balanced - so long as the DM provides sufficient opportunities that redress the imbalances inherent in the system. In D&D, it's traditional for DMs to change or override the rules more or less at will, and that can be used to make the play experience better, in spite of how imbalanced the system is, if the DM is sufficiently skillful & principled.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Huh. I don't recall ever seeing that one before.

I encountered it in some video-game designer blog or something quite a few years ago, I believe the article was actually primarily about "ludonarrative dissonance," which I had been comparing/contrasting with the muddier idea of "dissociative mechanics," but it did touch on that definition of balance.

I found it helpful, because it precludes the reductive idea that "perfect balance" would be a choiceless game where all players are identical under the rules. Instead "perfect balance" becomes an (obviously impossible) game where you can do literally anything you can imagine (unlimited number of meaningful choices), without in any way obviating what everyone else is imagining (all those choices are viable).
That and the qualifier of meaningful clarifying how balance always has a partially subjective aspect.

I'd think that these days, around here, talking about choices is more about "agency" than "balance".

They sound like closely allied concepts, yes. An imbalanced game will likely lead to some players having more agency than others, like pemerton said, "mechanical capacity enjoyed by players, in virtue of their PCs, to impact the fiction of the game"

We might sometimes talk about "balance" in terms of adventure design as well - in the GM is throwing really powerful opponents that the PCs can't handle, we might call that an "unbalanced encounter"

Sure, in D&D, the distinction between say, Class Balance, which the game had attempted from the beginning, and generally hasn't delivered, and Encounter Balance, which 3.0 (or maybe late 2e?) first attempted as CR, with a low degree of success that 5e has not improved upon, much if at all.

Encounter Balance is a separate idea, as it's about DM tools more than player experience (oh, it affect player experience, certainly!). That is, encounter balance helps the DM (or module adventure designer) create an encounter that is as close as possible to the level of challenge he intends. Bad encounter balance means an easy encounter TPKs, or a nigh-unwinnable one gets steamrollered. Obviously, imbalances experienced on the player side feed into that, too, as a party that leverages the game's imbalances to their advantage is likely more powerful than one that lacks the desire or system mastery to do so, and even a party largely blind to such imbalances can still blunder into particularly OP or worthless options relative to a given challenge....

 

[Gradine]

In fairness, the 5e DMG provides guidance and advice to the DM to ensure that all players receive an equal share of the spotlight.

I might quibble with the quality of that advice, but it seems that the intention is clear that every character can contribute meaningfully, and it's the DM's responsibility to ensure everyone has that opportunity. This isn't just a D&D thing though... it's a TTRPG thing. One important thing I'll say that DMG advice does do right, however, is that it hardly if ever brings up game mechanics. It's the kind of thing that's pretty much central to the core of medium and yet is almost completely disregarded by every tier list on the internet.

 

[Pedantic]

I will still argue that any TTRPG is going to have numerous opportunities to meaningfully contribute without interacting with the game rules in the slightest.

This is just smuggling in argument about what a TTRPG is or how they should be played as an argument about balance. I'm here to play a game with rules, and use those rules to do things.

 

[Gradine]

This is just smuggling in argument about what a TTRPG is or how they should be played as an argument about balance. I'm here to play a game with rules, and use those rules to do things.

My argument is that what TTRPGs are makes arguments about balance largely irrelevant

 

[Aldarc]

I'm aware that my experiences aren't universal, just add you and yours aren't. It sucks to not have fun have a game. That said, my experiences do prove that game balance isn't necessary for fun or to make great contributions in a RPG.

You are welcome to say that you have fun with imbalanced options, and I have never said otherwise, but it crosses a line IMHO when you deny that imbalance can negatively impact the enjoyment of a game for some players or throw out patronizing advice that sidesteps their issues by saying that there are other ways that they could contribute to the game or casting insults at people who disagree with you about the issue of class imbalance.

My argument is that what TTRPGs are makes arguments about balance largely irrelevant.

IME, arguments like this are often spoken from positions of privilege of those who prefer playing classes that often overshadow other classes.

 

[Tony Vargas]

TTRPG, or even RPG, aren't always well-defined in discussions either.

As always, I blame D&D's place in the hobby's history. ;P

Because D&D is held to be the hallowed First RPG, any definition of RPG, let alone TTRPG, must stretch and distort itself to include D&D, somehow. Even though D&D was a wargame (chainmail) adapted to be used something like an RPG.

(hey, Unpopular Opinions...)

 

[Gradine]

You are welcome to say that you have fun with imbalanced options, and I have never said otherwise, but it crosses a line IMHO when you deny that imbalance can negatively impact the enjoyment of a game for some players or throw out patronizing advice that sidesteps their issues by saying that there are other ways that they could contribute to the game or casting insults at people who disagree with you about the issue of class imbalance.

I think this here's the disconnect; I am not and will never deny that imbalance can negatively impact the enjoyment of a game for some players. I feel like I directly acknowledged that earlier as well.

My argument is that it shouldn't have to. And that an overemphasis on things like game balance (like the ludicrous 3.X "class tier list") sets people up for failure by making especially newer players feel like those things are vitally important to enjoying the game.

I apologize if I've been glib upthread; I'll drop that now. My firm belief is that an overemphasis on concepts like "caster supremacy" and "trap options" and color-coded class guides like D&D is video game are actively harming our hobby and making our games less fun for everyone.

I genuinely wish I could convince people to knock it off. Not because it's the wrong way to play the game (for them). It's not. But because it encompasses so much of the hobby and the advice that is offered for newer players that it actively shouts down alternative takes on how to enjoy playing role-playing games.

 

[Thomas Shey]

TTRPG, or even RPG, aren't always well-defined in discussions either.

As always, I blame D&D's place in the hobby's history. ;P

Because D&D is held to be the hallowed First RPG, any definition of RPG, let alone TTRPG, must stretch and distort itself to include D&D, somehow. Even though D&D was a wargame (chainmail) adapted to be used something like an RPG.

(hey, Unpopular Opinions...)

I've often thought D&D should be talked about almost entirely separately from the rest of the hobby.

Not because there aren't other games that take a tack similar to D&D in the hobby, but because it makes it almost impossible to talk about trends in the hobby and/or market as a whole because it dwarfs everything else. It too easily makes it seem like anything that doesn't fit the D&D model is irrelevant, rather than asking whether, once you move out of D&D proper, things that are different are popular or not.

 

[Pedantic]

My argument is that what TTRPGs are makes arguments about balance largely irrelevant

Yes...if one agrees with your assertions about what TTRPGs are. You're making an assertion, "a necessary and definitional part of TTRPG play is engaging without mechanical intervention" and assuming it's true. Then making an argument about balance after foisting that commonplace on everyone else.

I don't generally agree, and hold the arguable far more topical (in that it's definitely unpopular) view that TTRPGs aren't a special class of games that require players to exceed the mechanically mediated actions to be in the category.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You're making an assertion, "a necessary and definitional part of TTRPG play is engaging without mechanical intervention" and assuming it's true.

Nod. I mean, that's certainly a trait D&D has always had. You can't really play D&D for very long without ignoring/overriding or reaching beyond the mechanics. It was particularly true of the classic game that just left large swaths of possible PC actions with no resolution systems whatsoever. If you start with D&D, play it heavily, and internalize the way it's necessarily played, it'd be understandable to assume all TTRPGs must be played the same way. That the rules never really matter, anyway, because the DM can always override them, and a skillful player can generally work around them by choosing actions that encourage the DM to do so in his favor.

There is a perfectly legitimate way to RP, Freestyle Roleplaying, where you just cut to the chase and use no rules at all. Just describe your character, speak in character, and act in character. Resolution by consensus or moderator judgement.