Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Worlds of Design: A Question of Balance
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 7912439" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>No. If you take an action that would make anything "overdone," <em>that isn't balance anymore</em>. It's something else--or, you have used a tool or method intended to produce it incorrectly, and thus created non-balance.</p><p></p><p>Like, take sound balance. There is no absolute "perform this action to create more balanced-ness, which can go too far into excessive balanced-ness." You can shift the volume (and, for a speaker array, direction) of sound one way or another, and finding the correct point for a given context produces balanced sound. Any motion <em>away</em> from that point produces <em>unbalanced</em> sound. It can be unbalanced left or right, up or down, loud or quiet, bass or treble, but it can't be <em>excessively</em> balanced.</p><p></p><p>If you wish for more precise terminology: imbalance is <em>distance away from context-appropriate balance</em>. It is a measure of "far-ness." There is no such thing as excessive "close-ness." You can <em>absolutely</em> argue that the wrong center has been chosen (e.g. Celsius temperatures are useful for everyday use, but inappropriate for calorimetry), that there are extra criteria that weren't considered and thus the whole fails to achieve balance (e.g. "sure, you balanced the center two speakers, but the front speakers and back speakers are now out of balance with them"), or that a particular method is unreliable for achieving balance when used incautiously (e.g. "making all speakers have the same <em>average</em> output doesn't help if you're trying to balance for sound <em>position</em>"). But for something to be "overly balanced," it must become imbalanced--likely in a different <em>way</em> than it was imbalanced before, but still.</p><p></p><p>Hence my Aristotle quote. Balance IS the mean; context tells you <em>what kind</em> of mean(s) you're looking for (sets the parameters), and analysis tells you how to <em>find</em> the mean(s).</p><p></p><p></p><p>Great adage, but not particularly useful. Courage is not one pole with cowardice as the other. Courage is the mean (chosen for each context) between cowardice and rashness. It is not possible to be <em>too</em> courageous, because courage lies in avoiding both deficiency (cowardice) and excess (rashness). It is not possible to be <em>too</em> sincere, because sincerity lies in avoiding both deficiency (dishonesty) and excess (discourtesy). It is not possible to be too magnanimous, because magnanimity avoids both deficiency (pusillanimity) and excess (profligacy).</p><p></p><p>Balance is not itself a virtue; it is "being at the mean, chosen for each context." The status of "balanced" means that the thing in question (be it a game, a person, a collection of massive objects in a gravitational field, whatever) <em>is</em> actually located at the context-appropriate mean for as many parameters as possible (this is, after all, <em>practical</em> wisdom, not <em>theoretical</em> wisdom). If there is a presence of excess, <em>then it is not balanced</em>. It may be excessively precise, or excessively verbose, or excessively complex, but it cannot be "excessively avoiding excess and deficiency." You can't excessively balance a scale; either the two plates are in (effective) equality, or they are not, and once you reach equality, <em>the only direction you can move is away from it.</em></p><p></p><p>And if you <em>want</em> to actually talk about what really is in excess, please, do so! Because that's actually a useful thing to do, as it gets us closer to the state of "as many things as possible are neither too much nor too little."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 7912439, member: 6790260"] No. If you take an action that would make anything "overdone," [I]that isn't balance anymore[/I]. It's something else--or, you have used a tool or method intended to produce it incorrectly, and thus created non-balance. Like, take sound balance. There is no absolute "perform this action to create more balanced-ness, which can go too far into excessive balanced-ness." You can shift the volume (and, for a speaker array, direction) of sound one way or another, and finding the correct point for a given context produces balanced sound. Any motion [I]away[/I] from that point produces [I]unbalanced[/I] sound. It can be unbalanced left or right, up or down, loud or quiet, bass or treble, but it can't be [I]excessively[/I] balanced. If you wish for more precise terminology: imbalance is [I]distance away from context-appropriate balance[/I]. It is a measure of "far-ness." There is no such thing as excessive "close-ness." You can [I]absolutely[/I] argue that the wrong center has been chosen (e.g. Celsius temperatures are useful for everyday use, but inappropriate for calorimetry), that there are extra criteria that weren't considered and thus the whole fails to achieve balance (e.g. "sure, you balanced the center two speakers, but the front speakers and back speakers are now out of balance with them"), or that a particular method is unreliable for achieving balance when used incautiously (e.g. "making all speakers have the same [I]average[/I] output doesn't help if you're trying to balance for sound [I]position[/I]"). But for something to be "overly balanced," it must become imbalanced--likely in a different [I]way[/I] than it was imbalanced before, but still. Hence my Aristotle quote. Balance IS the mean; context tells you [I]what kind[/I] of mean(s) you're looking for (sets the parameters), and analysis tells you how to [I]find[/I] the mean(s). Great adage, but not particularly useful. Courage is not one pole with cowardice as the other. Courage is the mean (chosen for each context) between cowardice and rashness. It is not possible to be [I]too[/I] courageous, because courage lies in avoiding both deficiency (cowardice) and excess (rashness). It is not possible to be [I]too[/I] sincere, because sincerity lies in avoiding both deficiency (dishonesty) and excess (discourtesy). It is not possible to be too magnanimous, because magnanimity avoids both deficiency (pusillanimity) and excess (profligacy). Balance is not itself a virtue; it is "being at the mean, chosen for each context." The status of "balanced" means that the thing in question (be it a game, a person, a collection of massive objects in a gravitational field, whatever) [I]is[/I] actually located at the context-appropriate mean for as many parameters as possible (this is, after all, [I]practical[/I] wisdom, not [I]theoretical[/I] wisdom). If there is a presence of excess, [I]then it is not balanced[/I]. It may be excessively precise, or excessively verbose, or excessively complex, but it cannot be "excessively avoiding excess and deficiency." You can't excessively balance a scale; either the two plates are in (effective) equality, or they are not, and once you reach equality, [I]the only direction you can move is away from it.[/I] And if you [I]want[/I] to actually talk about what really is in excess, please, do so! Because that's actually a useful thing to do, as it gets us closer to the state of "as many things as possible are neither too much nor too little." [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Worlds of Design: A Question of Balance
Top