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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Henry" data-source="post: 2607348" data-attributes="member: 158">Mouseferatu has the right of it, in that PC vs. opponent balance gets confused between PC vs. PC balance. "Balance" to me implies (1) no one party member controls the spotlight all the time by virtue of character abilities, and (2) the DM can set up challenging situations without it being either a cakewalk or a massacre. Cakewalks the DM sets up can be fun sometimes (it's a reminder that you've matured from being 1st level 'weenies') but the DM needs enough controls at his disposal to set the challenge level.Even a game where PCs are gods needs a balance control. For instance, Aetherco's continuum has a brilliant one: Frag. The PCs are time travellers, tasked with making sure the universe follows a nice, causal existance. Within this parameter, they can do the most outrageous godlike things with their command of time and space (and the players LOVE it, once they get a feel for it). But that constraint of causality ("The Universe IS" is a motto for the game) is what allows the DM the control to set up a challenge, or let the players create and solve challenges all their own, with the DM able to keep a handle on the game without throwing his hands up in frustration. PCs who do not mind their causality can destroy their own very existances, and opponents can challenge them by causing fragmentation to the PCs as a means to distract or harm them. Bullets can still kill, they're still mortal, though their power means that it doesn't happen often; it's the threat of non-existance that scares a member of the Continuum more.You can still have disproportionate powers between characters, and still have balance, though. Even if one character is godlike, and the others aren't, there are ways to set up the PCs so limitations or special abilities can cause codependency between PCs. Buffy's Unisystem exemplifies this: There's only one slayer, but the other "scoobies" are compensated with more Drama points, which allow them to alter the situations a bit.So balance is important, in that without it, you don't have a social game, and you don't have a means by which a GM can properly challenge his/her players.</blockquote>

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