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<blockquote data-quote="Edena_of_Neith" data-source="post: 4727874" data-attributes="member: 2020">I always went by the rule of:&nbsp; If it's fun, it works.&nbsp; If it is not fun, it doesn't work.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; The Vancian system of spellcasting was never intended to be balanced, in the sense most people talk about today.&nbsp; It was a balance of imbalance, instead.&nbsp; The wizard was the weakest character at low level, the most powerful at high level.&nbsp; 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.)&nbsp; &nbsp; Just commenting ...&nbsp; How much balance would I forego?&nbsp; A lot.&nbsp; But monsters are the ultimate balancing tool.&nbsp; I found that no matter what the players had or did, appropriate monster challenges kept the game interesting.&nbsp; So, in our games it was ok for game balance to slide a lot, because the monsters came in and balanced things out.&nbsp; Edena_of_Neith</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Edena_of_Neith, post: 4727874, member: 2020"] 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 [/QUOTE]

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