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General Tabletop Discussion
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Worlds of Design: A Question of Balance
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 7907333" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>As usual, someone criticizes "balance" and then (a) only ever talks about strawman versions of the concept, and (b) talks up all the positives of allegedly avoiding "balance" without ever considering the many, sustained, and significant downsides of being completely blind to balance.</p><p></p><p>To paraphrase HL Mencken, "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." Game design is a complex problem. Platitudes like "variety is the spice of life" and "it's a cooperative game, stop trying to make it competitive" are an example of a clear, simple, and wrong solution.</p><p></p><p>Because it's <em>totally irrational</em> to (a) define the goals you intend a system to support, (b) establish metrics by which you can check how well you've met those goals, and (c) iteratively design until those goals have been met. That's what "balance" means. But of course, it must always be cast as taking the toys away, as killing the <em>magic</em>, as turning players against one another. Nobody <em>ever</em> got upset or felt left out when a cooperative game failed to let them cooperate the way they wanted to, so if anyone does it must be because <em>they're</em> the bad guys! They're ruining our cooperative feel-good fun with their competitive, gotta-be-the-best attitude!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 7907333, member: 6790260"] As usual, someone criticizes "balance" and then (a) only ever talks about strawman versions of the concept, and (b) talks up all the positives of allegedly avoiding "balance" without ever considering the many, sustained, and significant downsides of being completely blind to balance. To paraphrase HL Mencken, "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." Game design is a complex problem. Platitudes like "variety is the spice of life" and "it's a cooperative game, stop trying to make it competitive" are an example of a clear, simple, and wrong solution. Because it's [I]totally irrational[/I] to (a) define the goals you intend a system to support, (b) establish metrics by which you can check how well you've met those goals, and (c) iteratively design until those goals have been met. That's what "balance" means. But of course, it must always be cast as taking the toys away, as killing the [I]magic[/I], as turning players against one another. Nobody [I]ever[/I] got upset or felt left out when a cooperative game failed to let them cooperate the way they wanted to, so if anyone does it must be because [I]they're[/I] the bad guys! They're ruining our cooperative feel-good fun with their competitive, gotta-be-the-best attitude! [/QUOTE]
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