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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 6237919" data-attributes="member: 177">That last, is of course, true.&nbsp; Balance does not equal fun.&nbsp; And I already said that the issues lack of balance creates can often be handled by the GM.But, this admits that the issues *exist*, and are not a figment of the forum's imagination.&nbsp; And fixing this way requires the GM be aware of the potential issues, and how to fix them.&nbsp; Dealing well doesn't happen automatically.&nbsp;&nbsp; So, as a designer, it usually behooves you to at least make some nods to minimizing the problem, so your GMs don't have to have so much expertise up-front.&nbsp; Yes... and no.&nbsp; If you're making a game for yourself, or for your particular group, you can say things are totally subjective, yes.&nbsp; But, the larger the market you're going with, the more statistics becomes relevant.&nbsp; There are points of design that become good or bad, based on how well they work for how many people.&nbsp; And not all of that is merely fashion - there's some pretty well established factors of human interaction that we can say are broadly applicable, and should be taken into consideration.&nbsp; If you fail to do so, you'll have what is, for the intent and purpose of selling D&amp;D, a bad design.&nbsp; If you take them into consideration properly, you're more likely to have what your market will consider a good design.As an example - I am highly educated in mathematics.&nbsp; You could produce a game that requires players to solve differential equations, and I might have fun with it.&nbsp; But really, for anyone who doesn't have college-level mathematics education, it would be phenomenally bad design.&nbsp; The number of people such a design would be good for is so small, that it should be disregarded, and we should just call that a bad design, and be done with it.Moreover, we also ought to admit that not all of our problems with a game have to do with the game design.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 6237919, member: 177"] That last, is of course, true. Balance does not equal fun. And I already said that the issues lack of balance creates can often be handled by the GM. But, this admits that the issues *exist*, and are not a figment of the forum's imagination. And fixing this way requires the GM be aware of the potential issues, and how to fix them. Dealing well doesn't happen automatically. So, as a designer, it usually behooves you to at least make some nods to minimizing the problem, so your GMs don't have to have so much expertise up-front. Yes... and no. If you're making a game for yourself, or for your particular group, you can say things are totally subjective, yes. But, the larger the market you're going with, the more statistics becomes relevant. There are points of design that become good or bad, based on how well they work for how many people. And not all of that is merely fashion - there's some pretty well established factors of human interaction that we can say are broadly applicable, and should be taken into consideration. If you fail to do so, you'll have what is, for the intent and purpose of selling D&D, a bad design. If you take them into consideration properly, you're more likely to have what your market will consider a good design. As an example - I am highly educated in mathematics. You could produce a game that requires players to solve differential equations, and I might have fun with it. But really, for anyone who doesn't have college-level mathematics education, it would be phenomenally bad design. The number of people such a design would be good for is so small, that it should be disregarded, and we should just call that a bad design, and be done with it. Moreover, we also ought to admit that not all of our problems with a game have to do with the game design. [/QUOTE]

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