What do you do without balance?

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

[snip]

I'm not sure who you're responding to, Jack7. I never said anything about everyone having to be the same. I said that if two similar options were presented to me than them being balanced means that there should be no clear choice which I should pick in regards to how effective I'll be.

But if the two options aren't supposed to be similar then we're not talking about balance. In class function we'd probably be talking about niche protection, and that's not balance. If the wizard is supposed to manipulate the battlefield to herd enemies and the fighter is supposed to step up to them and kill them then they don't need to be balanced so long as each sticks to their niche. But if you give the wizard a "step up and kill them" capacity then you either need to balance his utility against the fighter or protect the niches and remove that capacity.

 

[Jack7]

I'm not sure who you're responding to, Jack7. I never said anything about everyone having to be the same. I said that if two similar options were presented to me than them being balanced means that there should be no clear choice which I should pick in regards to how effective I'll be.

I should have made that clearer Cat.
I was responding to your thread and initial set of questions in part, but to more general comments in other sections.

I sort of took the whole thing at once and didn't respond in a specific order, but rather to the general ideas.

Something I'll do from time to time when pushed for time.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

I'm very curious: in various discussions about editions of D&D and discrepancies between spellcasters and non-spellcasters there are people who wish there wasn't so much focus on balancing things. So that leads me to the following question:

How much balance would you be willing to forgo before you'd no longer be satisfied with the game?

(For the purpose that I using it here I define balance as "when presented with two or more similar mechanical options there are no clear better or worse choices".)

I always went by the rule of:

If it's fun, it works. If it is not fun, it doesn't work.

Since different players have different ideas of what is fun (balanced or not balanced, or balanced in various ways) a DM has to be very adaptable.

The Vancian system of spellcasting was never intended to be balanced, in the sense most people talk about today. It was a balance of imbalance, instead. The wizard was the weakest character at low level, the most powerful at high level.
The famous fighter/mage (elves!) was the mechanism by which most players overcame this problem, and enjoyed themselves, but it created a further problem in that elves became predominant in the game (which is why we have so many kinds of elves, from Arctic Elves to Sky Elves to Tropical Elves to Deep Elves.)
Just commenting ...

How much balance would I forego? A lot.
But monsters are the ultimate balancing tool. I found that no matter what the players had or did, appropriate monster challenges kept the game interesting.
So, in our games it was ok for game balance to slide a lot, because the monsters came in and balanced things out.

Edena_of_Neith

 

[Jack7]

How much balance would I forego? A lot.
But monsters are the ultimate balancing tool. I found that no matter what the players had or did, appropriate monster challenges kept the game interesting.
So, in our games it was ok for game balance to slide a lot, because the monsters came in and balanced things out.

That's a good observation.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

The Vancian system of spellcasting was never intended to be balanced, in the sense most people talk about today. It was a balance of imbalance, instead. The wizard was the weakest character at low level, the most powerful at high level.

I've been reading along and generally agreed with this statement. But then I thought back and wondered how we kept the imbalance from frustrating the players and the DM alike.

Pre-3E D&D had two factors in place that helped keep spellcasters in check. The first was static saving throws. It did matter what level the spell was or how intelligent a wizard you were. That equally high-level fighter had the same chance to save against your spell as he did against your apprentice's spells. When 3E changed this it seemed like a good idea. In the end with a multitude of ways to push your spell DCs higher and higher, the poor fighter with his weak saves fell to far behind to resist your magic. And even if he did there were more and more spells that avoided saves altogether.

The second factor was spell disruption. A smart 3E wizard could go his whole career without having to make a Concentration check. But I seem to remember many a 1E spell being disrupted by an enemy archer or a charging fighter.

Both of these gave a bit more balance between classes than it seemed back then.

I basically agree with avin. No player should be left wondering why they bothered to show up at the table. I also add that no player should feel they are handicapped because they can't afford to buy all the books or don't have the time or inclination to read a slew of splatbooks.

Real-life examples:

2E AD&D Kits: The players who didn't have the time or inclination to search for the "best" kits felt cheated. And the disparity in power between kits was terrible. One of the FR kits made the cleric in the group a better illusionist and thief than the I/T because it plopped the entire illusion school into his known cleric spell-list and added thieving skills to his repertoire at no cost to his normal cleric abilities. While the "archer" kit went something like +1 with bows, -5 to attack with all other weapons, have a nice day!

3E Feats/Prestige Classes/New Classes/Multiclassing/Spells: This wild mosh pit allowed those with the time to pour through every new book to come up with Angel Summoner characters while the other players were BMX Bandits. If I challenged the latter, the former would step in and make them feel useless by anihilating the foes. If I challenged the former, the others would feel useless as they were unable to contribute effectively and often had to hide or die. This problem didn't exist so much at the onset of 3E, but grew over time. And our group likes new options, so please no cries of "you should have banned this/you should have stuck with core." I believe a system can present new options in a balanced way and I believe 4E is achieving that so far. Only time will tell.

Rifts: I wanted to play a mutant animal. I had my cool concept. The GM approved and liked my PC. His girlfriend played a dragon. Tanks. Not Thanks, tanks. As in mobile artillery units. I could have run up, dodging gunfire, climbing onto said vehicle, ripping open the top or bluffing my way in to fight the crew. But long before I could get there the dragin would take out three at a time with a tail sweep. Oh, so I should go take care of the ground troops right? Nah! She'll just breath fire on them and take out 50 at a time. I sat there bored and useless and would find it hard to play the game again unless I was sure I was playing with a stellar GM.

All of the above talk of balance goes out the window when you are looking at a game that doesn't focus on combat. In games that focus more on the role-playing side everyone can contribute to the fun of the game no matter what the combat-power disparity is. As long as everyone plays along with the RP aspect of the game.

 

[Hussar]

All of the above talk of balance goes out the window when you are looking at a game that doesn't focus on combat. In games that focus more on the role-playing side everyone can contribute to the fun of the game no matter what the combat-power disparity is. As long as everyone plays along with the RP aspect of the game.

Yes and no. I understand what you're getting at here, but, this assumes that role play invokes no mechanics.

This was certainly the way that earlier editions of D&D did it. You didn't have skill checks to determine how well (or how badly) you presented your case to the Baron. You just talked it out and the DM judged things accordingly. If you had a good DM, everything was fine, and if you had a bad or even mediocre DM, things were... difficult.

But, really, I think game design has moved past this. We've had social mechanics in RPG's for a couple of decades now. Whether it's games like GURPS or Vampire, or newer games and indie games, we've been adding in mechanics to cover role play and by and large the consensus seems to be that this is a good thing. It's pretty rare to see a game anymore that doesn't have any social mechanics.

So, balance does come into things when you're talking about RP. If character X takes a much greater penalty to social skills than character Y, then that balance is every bit as important as combat balance. I think the biggest mistake RPG's have historically made, and D&D is no exception here, is the idea that you can balance characters by mixing combat and out of combat mechanics. That is you're good at combat, you are automatically bad outside of combat.

They are two fundamentally different endevours and should not be used to balance each other.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Rifts: I wanted to play a mutant animal. I had my cool concept. The GM approved and liked my PC. His girlfriend played a dragon. Tanks. Not Thanks, tanks. As in mobile artillery units. I could have run up, dodging gunfire, climbing onto said vehicle, ripping open the top or bluffing my way in to fight the crew. But long before I could get there the dragin would take out three at a time with a tail sweep. Oh, so I should go take care of the ground troops right? Nah! She'll just breath fire on them and take out 50 at a time. I sat there bored and useless and would find it hard to play the game again unless I was sure I was playing with a stellar GM.

Ouch! That's what I'm talking about: if the disparity is that bad what are the mechanics for?

All of the above talk of balance goes out the window when you are looking at a game that doesn't focus on combat. In games that focus more on the role-playing side everyone can contribute to the fun of the game no matter what the combat-power disparity is. As long as everyone plays along with the RP aspect of the game.

So long as the RP side doesn't also have unbalanced mechanics. (For the record: Not having unbalanced mechanics includes not having any at all, since if they don't exist they can't be unbalanced.)

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Yes and no. I understand what you're getting at here, but, this assumes that role play invokes no mechanics.

I can understand this. I'm looking from a slightly skewed viewpoint. I've mostly played combat-centric games, while the games I've played that don't fall in this category are light-hearted to say the least (Paranoia). I haven't experienced some of the serious purely roleplaying games like Hero's Banner.

IME, roleplaying in games that are normally combat-centric tend to become collaborative. Since the goal is to overcome another challenge the other players tend to chime in to help the spotlight character achieve their goal. And as DM I support this style for a couple reasons. First, It keeps everyone in the game involved in the scene. You don't get the Shadowrun Decker Syndrome. Second, I believe it actually helps simulate that character's abilities. Most of us real-world folks aren't ranging in the super-human stat range that our characters are. A collaborative effort can help make up for the difference in ability between our PC and ourselves. The player of the character still has the final say as to how his character acts, he just has the benefit of others' input.

So it hasn't really ever been an issue for me when there is a disparity outside of combat. But I agree with you completely that problems arise in systems that try to balance combat and non-combat aspects simultaneously.

 

[Ariosto]

But, really, I think game design has moved past this.

I think the fashion has changed, and it is fashion's wont to change again. It has gone from "beer and pretzels" to "monster games" and back, then started the bulking-up all over; from wargames to RPGs to collectible card games to storytelling and back to miniatures; and so on.

I have seen it suggested that many more 10-14 y.o. kids today are playing online, free-form narrative games employing actual social skills than are playing D&D. What might that mean for the market for RPGs as we know them?

 

[Hussar]

I think the fashion has changed, and it is fashion's wont to change again. It has gone from "beer and pretzels" to "monster games" and back, then started the bulking-up all over; from wargames to RPGs to collectible card games to storytelling and back to miniatures; and so on.

I have seen it suggested that many more 10-14 y.o. kids today are playing online, free-form narrative games employing actual social skills than are playing D&D. What might that mean for the market for RPGs as we know them?

Disclaimer - I've been gaming pretty much exclusively online through virtual tabletop for about six years now and this is one of my evangelistic topics -

IMO, I think that the internet has had one massively huge effect on gaming - the ability to connect to other gamers outside of your circle. Pre-internet, other than maybe some Forum letters in Dragon or some other gaming magazine, it was extremely difficult for the vast majority of gamers to talk about anything related to gaming outside of their group of gamers.

SO, groups developed their own playstyles and preferences pretty much in a vacuum distinct from everyone else.

Now, you have sites like this one with tens of thousands of members, probably hundreds of thousands of hits and readers per day, certainly per week, all discussing "the game". That has an enormous impact. Rules are discussed, dissected, gone over, folded, spindled and mauled on a daily basis. That right there has a huge effect on someone's personal game. People read these threads, then apply whatever they take away to their own game.

But, then there are the higher level discussions outside of specifics - all the sensawunda threads, edition wars, discussions on higher altitude issues like campaign design or "what is a role playing game?" and things like that. All those things get batted back and forth as well.

I would say that the average gamer is likely a heck of a lot more informed about the game (whatever game he or she actually plays) than they ever were. If you want to run a game, it's not like you're stumbling around in the dark out of ignorance, you can find a wealth of information on how to run a game that suits your style in minutes.

And I think the Internet has become ubiquitous enough in recent years that the average 14 year old just getting into the hobby would have no real problems hopping on, reading forums like EN World or WOTC, or listening to a podcast or on and on and on.

So, coming back to your question, I would say that the game designers have to be a lot more aware of what they are doing. If you pump out a crap game, you will find out about it pretty much instantly, and so will everyone else. Gone are the days when you could publish a D&D clone, garner a decent sized following and then never update your rules for twenty years. It just won't work anymore.