D&D 5E Why the claim of combat and class balance between the classes is mainly a forum issue. (In my opinion)

[GMforPowergamers]

You, a poster to internet forums, told others your experience. You then also told them that, because they are posters to an internet forum, their experiences don't count. It's a vapid, vacuous argument. It's obviously not a good argument - because you're just one of the very same people you're saying don't count. You are the very "internet forum poster's opinion" that you are dismissing.

no I posted on the internent my thoughts and an antodit and was insulted for it... I NEVER SAID ANTODATAL evadance doesn't count...

you are either mistaken or the rudest person here making things up to argue about...

If anecdotal evidence is good (and that is what you are arguing, that your anecdotal evidence is good evidence), then MORE anecdotal evidence would be good too.

when applied to the game over all yes when applied to one game somewhere once no... the over whelming evadance was my game was no worse for my rules call... that doesn't mean the books should not have rules...

And you're getting that. A whole bunch of people gave you their anecdotal evidence in this thread, and much of theirs runs contrary to yours. And their opinions come from across the nation and even overseas.

hense my anology 100 people play the game 45 see a problem how do you convince the other 55 of it if they never saw it?

And their opinions come from all age groups, including people who have played more years than you have. And their opinions come from groups of players with backgrounds that differ from the backgrounds you have experience with. By any measure, if anecdotal evidence is a good way to draw conclusions on this topic, then you'd be taking in all those other experiences people are reporting and questioning your own conclusion.

almost like we need to find common ground to work from

But you're not questioning your conclusion. All you are doing is doubling down on telling others that their experiences don't count (because they are posting to an internet forum) and that your experiences do count (despite the fact you are also posting to an internet forum).

WHEN?!??!?!?!?? I have defended every opionon

 

[Derren]

I am still waiting for actual evidence, beyond personal anecdote, that this claim is true: " I'm talking about the myth that a lot of people somehow want all classes to be balanced when it comes to combat and damage."

Several (a lot of) pages ago someone linked to a poll here on ENworld about balance which showed exactly that.

 

[Mistwell]

I wasn't the OP and I NEVER SAID ANYTHING LIKR THAT!!!!!!!!!!!

You are right. I confused you with [MENTION=6762534]XunValdorl_of_Kilsek[/MENTION] . I apologize. None of what I said was directed at you, but was instead entirely meant for XunValdorl_of_Kilsek. Sorry about that.

 

[Mistwell]

Several (a lot of) pages ago someone linked to a poll here on ENworld about balance which showed exactly that.

Not that I have seen. Can you link to it again?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You are right. I confused you with [MENTION=6762534]XunValdorl_of_Kilsek[/MENTION] . I apologize. None of what I said was directed at you, but was instead entirely meant for XunValdorl_of_Kilsek. Sorry about that.

oh, ok in that case I'm sorry for yelling...

 

[DerekSTheRed]

I've not read this entirely long thread so please forgive me if this has already been brought up. I think the biggest issue is the change in how levels and XP in D&D are handled between 2E and 3E. Before 3E, each class had different XP progression rates. They also had different power curves. For example, the thief in 2E would level up faster than other classes, but a 7th level thief was much weaker than a 7th level wizard.

Once 3E introduced the common XP progression table and a more combat focused way to gain XP (the CR), it was much more common to see groups have everyone the same level (or close to it). This was especially true for RPGA modules (and later Pathfinder Society) which went out of its way to get tables of PC with the same approximate levels. The reason for this was because of the assumption that same class level meant same power level of the character. And by extension the same power level of the component classes that make up that character.

This change had several ramifications on things like multi-classing and IME team awarding of XP instead of individual rewards. It also created the assumption among players that every class had to be balanced against one another especially in combat where the lion share of XP was earned. This wasn't the case in 2E where treasure would also get you XP and not just killing monsters.

4E and now Next have continued the change from 2E XP to 3E XP and so the topic of class and combat balance remains relevant.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

You don't see the irony of this statement. YOU are the one that told people that THEIR experiences were myths. YOU are the one that told people that their opinions on the forums "don't count". And now you're complaining?

No, sorry, if this rubs you the wrong way, now you know how others felt when reading this thread title and your original post. You told them, "but that doesn't count, because it's not my experience it's just yours, and your experience doesn't count because you're posting to a forum, unlike my experience which I am also posting to a forum but somehow that one counts and yours does not".




No, lets not argue by analogy. It often isn't helpful. It's helpful when someone doesn't understand something obscure that you're saying and there is a need to relate it to something more common so everyone understands. But, we all understand what you're saying, so let's not do the analogy thing. We get it, you think your experiences are more representative of the total body of D&D players than our experiences.

You, a poster to internet forums, told others your experience. You then also told them that, because they are posters to an internet forum, their experiences don't count. It's a vapid, vacuous argument. It's obviously not a good argument - because you're just one of the very same people you're saying don't count. You are the very "internet forum poster's opinion" that you are dismissing.

If anecdotal evidence is good (and that is what you are arguing, that your anecdotal evidence is good evidence), then MORE anecdotal evidence would be good too. And you're getting that. A whole bunch of people gave you their anecdotal evidence in this thread, and much of theirs runs contrary to yours. And their opinions come from across the nation and even overseas. And their opinions come from all age groups, including people who have played more years than you have. And their opinions come from groups of players with backgrounds that differ from the backgrounds you have experience with. By any measure, if anecdotal evidence is a good way to draw conclusions on this topic, then you'd be taking in all those other experiences people are reporting and questioning your own conclusion.

But you're not questioning your conclusion. All you are doing is doubling down on telling others that their experiences don't count (because they are posting to an internet forum) and that your experiences do count (despite the fact you are also posting to an internet forum).

It makes no sense. At this point, if getting to the truth on this topic were your primary goal, you'd be at least vaguely questioning your conclusions. But you're not. You're just repeating your experiences and telling us why our experiences don't count, in a variety of ways, over and over again.

I'm the one that called it a myth, not GM. Also, what I call a myth is the whole balance concern that is supposedly floating out there amongst the majority. I never said that not a single person is concerned, I am talking about it as a wide phenomena and I stick by exactly what I said.

The majority of gamers that I have come in contact with could give a rats ass about tight balance in a game. Working towards balance is not the problem, making balance the end all to everything is where the problem exists.

 

[Incenjucar]

The point of the game is fun. Balance just makes getting to that goal easier and more consistent. There are other ways to do it, but balance is one of them. The only exceptions to this that I can think of are when your play style is specifically about locating and utilizing unbalanced options (whether extra-weak or extra-strong ones), when you want to apply balance post-rules (house rules, fudging, deus ex machina, etc), or when you want to be unable to predict the chances of certain outcomes.

The method of balancing is certainly a factor, and is especially affected by the play style of the individuals involved.

Whether or not someone "cares about balance" it will affect their gaming and whether or not they have fun, unless results have no effect on their fun to begin with. A game with very tight, symmetrical balance requires very little effort to develop content for and to run. The more asymmetrical, skewed, or random the balance, the more effort is required to get specific, predictable statistical outcomes (percent chance of party wipe, etc). Even if a particular group doesn't "give a rat's ass" about balance, it does affect the effort required and possible outcomes, and most people do care about the effort and outcome to at least some degree.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm the one that called it a myth, not GM. Also, what I call a myth is the whole balance concern that is supposedly floating out there amongst the majority. I never said that not a single person is concerned, I am talking about it as a wide phenomena and I stick by exactly what I said.

The majority of gamers that I have come in contact with could give a rats ass about tight balance in a game. Working towards balance is not the problem, making balance the end all to everything is where the problem exists.

First, you don't get to become a moving target here. The position you took was, "I'm talking about the myth that a lot of people somehow want all classes to be balanced when it comes to combat and damage."

You didn't say "a majority". "A lot" of people could be 1 in 5 people. "A lot" simply means "enough to make a deal about". I'm pretty sure WOTC would want to be concerned about 1 in 5 D&D players, right? That's one in every D&D group, roughly (a DM and four players).

Second, let me see if I get this straight:

1) In your experience, people are not that concerned with this balance issue we're talking about;
2) You post to message boards, and posted your opinion regarding your experience with this;
3) Many others have posted that their experiences differ from yours, and some have more years of gaming experience than you, and they all have a variety of players of different ages and backgrounds and geographic regions which vary from your own;
4) The opinions of those people who differ with you, which they posted to this board, should be dismissed as mostly a "message board" issue. Your opinion, which you posted on a message board, should be seen as more representative of the body of RPG players out there than the posts from these other people who say they have different experiences than yours.

Did I get any of that wrong?

Why is your opinion, posted on a message board, more representative of the whole body of RPG players than the opinions of others posted on that same message board concerning the same topic?

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm the one that called it a myth, not GM. Also, what I call a myth is the whole balance concern that is supposedly floating out there amongst the majority. I never said that not a single person is concerned, I am talking about it as a wide phenomena and I stick by exactly what I said.

The majority of gamers that I have come in contact with could give a rats ass about tight balance in a game. Working towards balance is not the problem, making balance the end all to everything is where the problem exists.

Balance is like oxygen. You only notice it when you don't have it any more. That's unless you're doing game design. And one of the ways round broken games is to not use the powerful options or strategies.