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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7990614" data-attributes="member: 42582">Yes. I've already made this point a few times in the thread.Perhaps it's no surprise that it seemed to get more traction with those posters whom I know (from their posting history) have a bit of experience with non-D&D or D&D-clone games!I'm not one to eschew a good Rawlsian argument, having written my PhD on (among other authors) Rawls and having just given a lecture on Rawls on Thursday. But on this occasion, <a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/" target="_blank">I go to Ron instead</a>: Balance: the sort-of issue "Balance" is one of those words which is applied to a wide variety of activities or practices that may be independent or even contradictory. . . . [T]he assumption that Gamist play is uniquely or definitively concerned with "balance" is very, very mistaken. Overall <ol style="margin-left: 20px"> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Compare "balance" with the notion of parity, or equality of performance or resources. If a game includes enforced parity, is it is balanced? Is it that simple? And if not, then what?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Bear in mind that Fairness and Parity are not synonymous. One or the other might be the real priority regardless of which word is being used. Also, "Fair" generally means, "What I want."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Are we discussing the totality of a character (Effectiveness, Resource, Metagame), or are we discussing Effectiveness only, or Effectiveness + Resource only?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Are we discussing "screen time" for characters at all, which has nothing to do with their abilities/oomph?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Are we discussing anything to do at all with players, or rather, with the people at the table? Can we talk about balance in regard to attention, respect, and input among them? Does it have anything to do with Balance of Power, referring to how "the buck" (where it stops) is distributed among the members of the group?</li> </ol> They can't all be balance at once. Within Gamist play <ol style="margin-left: 20px"> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Parity of starting point, with free rein given to differing degrees of improvement after that. Basically, this means that "we all start equal" but after that, anything goes, and if A gets better than B, then that's fine.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The relative Effectiveness of different categories of strategy: magic vs. physical combat, for instance, or pumping more investment into quickness rather than endurance. In this sense, "balance" means that any strategy is at least potentially effective, and "unbalanced" means numerically broken.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Related to #2, a team that is not equipped for the expected range of potential dangers is sometimes called unbalanced.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">In direct contrast to #1, "balance" can also mean that everyone is subject to the same vagaries of fate (Fortune). That is, play is "balanced" if everyone has a chance to save against the Killer Death Trap. Or it's balanced because we all rolled 3d6 for Strength, regardless of what everyone individually ended up with. (Tunnels & Trolls is all about this kind of play.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The resistance of a game to deliberate Breaking.</li> </ol>Edwards goes on to talk about other (non-Gamist) approaches but I think the bit I've quoted covers most of the terrain of this thread: parity, equality of starting point in outcomes vs chances, and the problematic idea of fairness.</blockquote>

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