Why does the party need to be balanced? [Archive] - Page 2

ezekielraiden

2019-10-06, 10:06 AM

1 is a non-sequitur to me because that assumption that 'you must first define a preference that you will hold to no matter what, then smash that against the system and see where you end up' is not at all how I approach RPGs (nor would I suggest anyone approach RPGs that way).
So...you've never, not even once ever, heard of a person who just likes playing Fighters or Paladins or something, and will seek that out in most games they play if there's any reasonable approximation thereof? Because...yeah. Lots of people really do play that way. One such person is me.

If I were to approach a game of Mage with the desire to play a mundane, I think that would be inherently unreasonable, because it goes against the stated premise of the system.
Is this even vaguely comparable to D&D-alikes, where...there are lots of other explicit classes besides mages?

I wouldn't have any problem with D&D saying 'yeah basically this is a game about cool magical stuff - that can be spells, items, supernatural martial arts, etc, but if you don't engage with that premise then you're missing the point'.
Except that "supernatural martial arts" is Monk. Which is actually in the mundane camp. For some inexplicable reason. This is exactly the crap I'm talking about. Why does the Fighter exist, and continually get press, freely dev-generated descriptions talkinga bout how awesome it is, and tons of D&D players who love it, if D&D is fundamentally "not about that" and hasn't been for two of the last three editions?

Now, that said, I do have preferences. However, those preferences are only weakly impacted by my choice of character class.
Then, in my experience, you are somewhat unusual. There is a significant number of people who will never be happy unless they're playing an entirely non-spellcasting class explicitly labelled "Fighter" on their character sheet. They were a significant factor in 5th edition ending up the way it looked.

Again it sounds like you're talking about point #3, not point #4 (which was about invalidating other players or players invalidating you).
I'm not. The system itself equips spellcaster+ archetypes with vastly more tools than non-spellcasters. To use your own (snipped) example: anyone can have conversations. Only spellcaster+ archetypes can invalidate your ability to have a conversation in the first place, by simply reading someone's mind, sending an invisible all-seeing scout, conjuring up a targetable scanning screen, or literally asking the gods. Oh, and good luck as a mundane character trying to guarantee that that conversation you had was truthful...something that a spellcaster+ archetype can do with a single low (2nd) level spell.

That's absolutely what I was talking about--or at least trying to. If you play a non-spellcaster, there is at least one spellcasting class that can always do everything you wanted to do, but better. It's rarely (Cleric and Druid aside) all available to the same class, but...why would the games continually push the idea that Fighters are worth playing when Clerics can do literally 100% of what Fighters do, and yet also have WORLDS more tools? Everyone can, again to use your example, have conversations. Everyone, that's a fundamental of roleplaying. Why do we make classes that are LIMITED to the fundamentals, while having other classes that can do all the fundamentals, and yet also have a TON of extra stuff too?

I don't expect D&D to support a Conan archetype.
Doesn't really matter if you don't, because Gygax himself did (http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2010/06/gygax-on-conan.html), and several (http://conandandd5e.blogspot.com/2015/02/king-conan-ability-stats-for-5e.html) other people (https://www.enworld.org/threads/mythological-figures-conan-the-barbarian-5e.665826/) have also created (http://kootenaygamer.blogspot.com/2013/08/creating-high-level-d-next-character.html) their own versions, or have asked (https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/35448/what-is-conans-class-and-stats-the-howard-busiek-et-al-character) others to (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?384648-Conan-The-5e-Build-Challenge!) do so (https://www.reddit.com/r/mattcolville/comments/5ycwnw/conans_class/). A significant number of players think D&D not only can, but should (perhaps with some tweaking) represent Conan--in fact, not just Conan in general, but at various points in his life!

(There were also a myiad of other forces, but I gave the party 13 elven fighters and a 17th lvl elven wizard for backup but used them to basically hold off the things forces so it didn't turn into an unwinnable drag-out fight.)

Edit: Okay, I was...allowing my emotions to control my response. Long story short, the fact that you felt you needed a much higher-level elven wizard for backup, just to make the adventure "not automatically (but boringly) unwinnable," severely harms your case. It...makes it sound like the Paladin is only allowed to kick ass because she/he has a much more powerful Wizard running interference for him/her.

NichG

2019-10-06, 10:44 AM

So...you've never, not even once ever, heard of a person who just likes playing Fighters or Paladins or something, and will seek that out in most games they play if there's any reasonable approximation thereof? Because...yeah. Lots of people really do play that way. One such person is me.

Yeah, I know of lots of different types of players out there, but what does this have to do with my personal answers to your questions?

IME, those people who come in with a strong image of what they want to be playing before they even get an idea of what the game is going to be about often find themselves miserable a short distance into the game. YMMV, but I'd strongly advise that fitting what you play to what you're playing will generally lead to a higher level of satisfaction and compatibility with the game than expecting the game to fit what you want to play. That applies not only for game mechanics and systems, but DMs. How many stories are there about someone bringing a rogue into an undead-heavy dungeon crawling campaign? If the DM doesn't say in advance 'this campaign is going to be about fighting lots of undead', then it's the DM's fault. But if the DM clearly says that in advance and the player still brings in a character who will be totally ineffectual, I'm not going to have much sympathy for the player.

Is this even vaguely comparable to D&D-alikes, where...there are lots of other explicit classes besides mages?

Except that "supernatural martial arts" is Monk. Which is actually in the mundane camp. For some inexplicable reason. This is exactly the crap I'm talking about. Why does the Fighter exist, and continually get press, freely dev-generated descriptions talkinga bout how awesome it is, and tons of D&D players who love it, if D&D is fundamentally "not about that" and hasn't been for two of the last three editions?

This comes down to the system doing a poor job of communicating what it actually is, which is the point we agree on. The devs of 3ed/3.5ed famously included intentional trap options in order to reward system mastery, something which I don't actually support. Then add splat books and diverse authorial patterns and so on, and the devs really can't be trusted to communicate about what the system actually is. Of course they can say what they had in mind, and to that extent their mental image was at best stable for a couple of years but didn't hold up to a decade of theorycrafting by the community.

That is to say, the Monk is not really supernatural martial arts by the standards of fully splatted out D&D 10+ years after its initial publication. Unarmed ToB character, Incarnum user, Oriental Adventures mix, even using Monk for a 2 level dip for X stat to Y purposes, etc. D&D tells you that the Monk is 'supernatural martial arts', and I won't defend it sending that message. But I don't think its inherently wrong for the Monk to exist in the system, or for straight Monk (or, even more broadly, any character based primarily on taking the attack action) to be generally at a lower tier of world-shaping ability than other options. I think it still can serve a purpose in the overall design space even so, especially given the diversity of players.

Then, in my experience, you are somewhat unusual. There is a significant number of people who will never be happy unless they're playing an entirely non-spellcasting class explicitly labelled "Fighter" on their character sheet. They were a significant factor in 5th edition ending up the way it looked.

I mean, I've played a couple of monks before. It's appropriate for a particular mood. The one in particular was a Doomguard who refused magical healing out of principle. It was a zany 3-shot mini-campaign, and I knew what I was getting into.

I've also played wizards, clerics, rogues, barbarians, swordsages, etc. I would make the choice to bring each out for a different kind of campaign, based on the table, the setting, etc. If we're doing high powered cosmic superhero action, then I'm going to be doing something like StP Erudite shenanigans. If this is 'rural civilians meet at an inn and have a not entirely voluntary exciting adventure', then other options will better fit that feel. I'm not going to want to play a wizard when the campaign ceiling for cosmic introspection is low, because no matter how effective or powerful the character is, I'm going to feel like there's not actually a way to explore what they'd rather be doing within the confines of the premise.

I'm not. The system itself equips spellcaster+ archetypes with vastly more tools than non-spellcasters. To use your own (snipped) example: anyone can have conversations. Only spellcaster+ archetypes can invalidate your ability to have a conversation in the first place, by simply reading someone's mind, sending an invisible all-seeing scout, conjuring up a targetable scanning screen, or literally asking the gods. Oh, and good luck as a mundane character trying to guarantee that that conversation you had was truthful...something that a spellcaster+ archetype can do with a single low (2nd) level spell.

I'm not really threatened by any of that. I find that it's less effective than actually paying attention and surprising the GM. Those kinds of tricks are in principle marginally useful, but its really easy to be lulled into a false sense of security by having rules text behind your reasoning. That 2nd level spell has SR, saves, other spells that render someone immune, etc - anything worth talking to is going to crush it. The thing that can't really be faked or taken away is being able to be confident enough even as a Lv1 Commoner talking to an overdeity during a prophethetic vision to come up with something to say on the spur of the moment that will actually make the overdeity think twice and change their plans.

For me at least, that kind of moment is where the real gaming is. The rest is props and backdrop.

Doesn't really matter if you don't, because Gygax himself did (http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2010/06/gygax-on-conan.html), and several (http://conandandd5e.blogspot.com/2015/02/king-conan-ability-stats-for-5e.html) other people (https://www.enworld.org/threads/mythological-figures-conan-the-barbarian-5e.665826/) have also created (http://kootenaygamer.blogspot.com/2013/08/creating-high-level-d-next-character.html) their own versions, or have asked (https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/35448/what-is-conans-class-and-stats-the-howard-busiek-et-al-character) others to (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?384648-Conan-The-5e-Build-Challenge!) do so (https://www.reddit.com/r/mattcolville/comments/5ycwnw/conans_class/). A significant number of players think D&D not only can, but should (perhaps with some tweaking) represent Conan--in fact, not just Conan in general, but at various points in his life!

I mean, it does matter if I don't because, as a result, I don't generally try to play Conan in D&D when I'm not looking for a challenge, and as a result I don't make myself miserable by holding expectations that the system won't meet...

If other people push 'hey, you can totally do this, if you fail its your fault', then it comes back to that whole miscommunication thing that I'm not defending. I agree it's a problem if D&D says 'hey, you can be Conan and it'll be great'. I don't agree that D&D has to let you be Conan and have it be great.

Quertus

2019-10-06, 04:51 PM

@ezekielraiden - I really want to reply to your post, but there's a few misunderstandings we need to clear up first.

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"I really don't care much about the opinions of people whose fun requires other people forced into an inferior position."

I mean, I don't much care for them, either. And I'm batting for team Lawful Evil, so I'll guess I "don't care for them" more than you do. :smallwink:

But here's there thing: you're assuming that imbalance has to involve force, that people can only be forced into a state of imbalance. That's just plain wrong. Many people actively seek imbalance - at both ends / all points on the spectrum. Yes, my most iconic instantiation of seeking the low end was my Sentient Potted Plant, but probably the most prevalent examples are those who do not want to be forced to participate in the "talky bits", who take characters with no social skills - or who even create characters who are spectacularly unsuited to conversation (deaf and mute, brain-dead zombie, etc). Or, even more common, if slightly silly, people who do not want to be forced to participate in the "BBEG kidnapped your background character", who build orphans from destroyed villages.

And, to expand on something NichG said, some players (including me) care most about things that aren't represented in game mechanics (well, or at all). NichG's example of "the strategic layer", of "what questions are we asking, and how are answering them" is certainly one of the best examples, but not the only one. For some players who care about non-mechanical portions of the game, being "equal" (let alone "superior") can, at times, actively detract from their enjoyment of the game. For various reasons.

Some players care about the stories that they tell. And the story of a group of equals is a valid story… but it's only one of oh so many possible stories. The role of "an equal" is a valid role… but it's only one of many possible roles. Some players enjoy more variety to their stories / roles.

Many people seek out inequality in a game, for various reasons. Some systems make creating such imbalance more difficult than others.

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"Balance to the table. If you do that, do any of these "problems" still exist?"

"What on earth does that even mean?"

I'm so used to saying this uncontested… thank you for the opportunity to evaluate and expand upon my premise.

So, balance is a range, not a point. There us no such thing as a "balanced" character - there is only "balanced to this group". It's subjective. Some tables would consider a hyper-optimized Tainted Sorcerer BFC God Wizard to be not just UP, but not even contributing, because their entire concept of "balance" hinges on how much damage you deal.

Anecdotally (and anecdotes are 100% valid proof when explaining how something being subjective works), I had a character whose net contribution to the game was exactly 0 - and I couldn't get the group to comprehend my concern, because that wasn't part of their conceptual vocabulary.

So, each group measures balance differently. But let's ignore that, and pretend that there was one universal, measurable measure of a character. So, suppose I have a character whose UBI (Universal Balance Index) is 30. Is that character balanced?

We have no way to answer that question.

What we need to know is, what is the group's balance range, and what are the UBI of the other characters.

So, if the group has a balance range of 10, and the other characters are [25,27,32,35] or [33,35,37,40] or even [20,20,20,20], then the character is balanced to that group. Same balance range - 10 - but, this time, the group's UBI are [145,147,142]. The character with UBI 30 is clearly not balanced to the table.

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Once we get on the same page on these topics, then maybe we can have a productive conversation on the broader issues.

Morty

2019-10-06, 05:51 PM

In all honesty? People who have gotten used to being just better than other people, purely due to their preferences being different from those other people? I have zero care for them. It's not petulant to ask for equal treatment from the game's designers, particularly when (as noted above) basically every game designer ever, of any game with even moderate popularity, at VERY least pays lip service to "balance" even if their work falls short. If your (generic your) fun is dependent on being just better-off than other players, maybe D&D-alike games that tell the players they're supposed to be very roughly equal contributors aren't for those players. Maybe that's a toxic cultural element that needs to be addressed. Maybe it's time we had a frank and open conversation between designers and players, to see if players actually do want such permanent, entrenched inequality, or if it's primarily lingering due to (sub)cultural inertia.

I think that's the clincher. And I don't think it's even just the players who desire to be superior to others at the table. I think that, while 3.X D&D is a very poorly-designed, mistake-riddled game, the imbalance between casters and non-caster is ultimately intentional on some level. The power fantasy of a super-wizard who solves problems and wrecks enemies while the Muggles gape is a major part of D&D. Later on, other spellcasters got the join the club. I mean, just look at the fiction for high-level characters. Descriptions of high-level wizards gush about how totally awesome they are, while descriptions of high-level fighters... on epic levels, the book manages so say they're "more than mere sword-swingers" okay. The notion that non-casting classes are there for people who can't or don't want to play the real ones is pretty deep-seated. I believe there's accounts of how people tried to sneak it into 4E.

AdAstra

2019-10-06, 06:10 PM

Mechalich

2019-10-06, 07:06 PM

I mean, it does matter if I don't because, as a result, I don't generally try to play Conan in D&D when I'm not looking for a challenge, and as a result I don't make myself miserable by holding expectations that the system won't meet...

If other people push 'hey, you can totally do this, if you fail its your fault', then it comes back to that whole miscommunication thing that I'm not defending. I agree it's a problem if D&D says 'hey, you can be Conan and it'll be great'. I don't agree that D&D has to let you be Conan and have it be great.

The thing is, a warrior who relies on strength and cunning is possibly the most common form of fantasy protagonist there is. If your fantasy kitchen sink system can't support that archetype properly then you have a problem, a big one. Fighter is the most commonly chosen D&D class - this is a statistical fact, 538 did a study and everything - so the fact that the Fighter class can't work in gameplay is a massive problem.

I think that's the clincher. And I don't think it's even just the players who desire to be superior to others at the table. I think that, while 3.X D&D is a very poorly-designed, mistake-riddled game, the imbalance between casters and non-caster is ultimately intentional on some level. The power fantasy of a super-wizard who solves problems and wrecks enemies while the Muggles gape is a major part of D&D. Later on, other spellcasters got the join the club. I mean, just look at the fiction for high-level characters. Descriptions of high-level wizards gush about how totally awesome they are, while descriptions of high-level fighters... on epic levels, the book manages so say they're "more than mere sword-swingers" okay. The notion that non-casting classes are there for people who can't or don't want to play the real ones is pretty deep-seated. I believe there's accounts of how people tried to sneak it into 4E.

At the end of the day wizard and warrior are unequal concepts. 'Trained combatant' simply does not have the same capability to manipulate the fictional world as 'master of the arcane arts.' Lots of fantasy fiction acknowledges this openly, and does not even pretend to one to one balance between the best warriors and the best wizards. Wizards tend to be rare, massively outnumbered, or simply shunted into the villain or adviser role rather than the center of the action. Even D&D initially accounted for this, as a becoming a high-level wizard required considerably more XP than becoming a high-level fighter and in the initial iterations of D&D fiction wizards (and magical abilities of any kind) were quite rare indeed. In the Dragonlance Chronicles - the cornerstone of early D&D fiction - magic is sufficiently rare that in many towns the party travels through Raistlin is the only wizard the populace has ever encountered. However, things changed gradually during the 1990s, due in large part to the growing popularity of FR, and D&D moved more and more towards a high-magic world in which wizards were all over the place and regular fights with wizards became common gameplay events. BGII included at least one high-level spellcaster antagonist in pretty much every dungeon.

The end result, by the time 3e came out, was an circle that could not be squared. High level spellcasters were everywhere, but at the same time so were almost entirely mundane characters. The FR example is again relevant: the most famous characters being Drizzt and Elminster, who despite both being very high level are nowhere near each other on the power scale. There was no real way to make both types play nice with each other. Any real solution required either A. turning the martials into superhero types or B. massively nerfing the spellcasters. However, either of those options was guaranteed to anger a massive portion of the playerbase, as experiments like Tome of Battle and later 4e proved, leaving WotC with no good options. 5e used a set of kludgy design compromises like bounded accuracy to try and maintain the illusion of balance, which is honestly probably the best option available.

kyoryu

2019-10-06, 08:07 PM

'Trained combatant' simply does not have the same capability to manipulate the fictional world as 'master of the arcane arts.'

Not necessarily.

I mean, it's inherent that wizards can do stuff not bound by normal physics. That's kind of what they DO.

But there's a whole range for that, in terms of power, accessibility, frequency, reliability, etc.

I mean, just take "summon fire". That could be anything from "Sure, a mage can summon a small fire, but it takes an hour of prep, will exhaust him for the day, and still has a high chance of failure, and the side effects can be horrifying" to "a mage can summon meteor storm all day without breaking a sweat". Where you choose to put the mage on that scale is totally up to the game designer.

Cluedrew

2019-10-06, 08:15 PM

In all honesty? People who have gotten used to being just better than other people, purely due to their preferences being different from those other people?I mean... I feel like I have definitely seen these. Still I wouldn't call them a sizeable proportion of the wizard's defenders.

At the end of the day wizard and warrior are unequal concepts."Magic is limited only by your imagination, any thing you can imagine can limit it."

Which is to say: we actually get to set the value of both of these concepts, because its a fantasy world of our own creation. (And yes we cannot set them arbitrarily, but a level 20 fighter has nothing on some of the mythic warriors of old.) So if they are unequal concepts it is because we (or the authors of the work) decided they would be.

I write a lot of fantasy and one moment that really hit this home for me is when I had a fight scene between an armoured knight and a mage on top of a train (it was a magic train, but the setting was also just approaching its industrial revolution). And the knight was supposed to attack the mage and drive her off. So I was a little worried about that, because a magic user verses a guy who had some magic in his armour but still fought by swinging a stick around. Also had some ranged weapons but no time to get them out. The only hard limit I had on magic for that setting at the time is that it was always elemental. So yeah the fight wasn't even close, every attack the mage could throw out the knight had a reply for or could just ignore.

Fireball? Heavy armour with seals eats most of that, use a shield to cover your face if need be. Lightning will stay mostly to the conductive armour. Ice is weaker than steal. What sort of wind spell is going to do more than what the train's speed is already doing? Some sort of earth throwing spell might do it but that feels like it might take a bit longer to set up when you are rushing by the earth like that. I could just say the mage does it, but that would rapidly push magic so high it would break the setting. So the mage managed to cast a protective spell and jump off the train where the knight could not follow.

Duff

2019-10-06, 09:01 PM

If you want to talk mechanical balance, you can look at it this way:

If your game has 10 classes, and 2 of the classes can do their job, but also be just as good, if not better than, the jobs of the other 8 classes, then you have a mechanical balance issue.

If your game has 10 classes, and 1 or 2 of those classes can regularly, by X level, put out more damage than the other 8 or 9 classes combined, then you have a mechanical balance issue.

I'm going to disagree on the your 2nd point - There's a few ways the characters can (satisfactorily in my opinion) be balanced.

The first being non-damage contributions. If my character gets the enemy in a wrestling grip while yours pounds on it until it's defeated, I'm going to say there's no balance issue (for that fight).
The second, as alluded to, is different contributions in different fights. If my wrestler is contributing more in most fights (say, by locking one enemy down completely while still killing it almost as quickly as your sword swinger, but there's enough fights with ghosts I can't grab etc, then we get balanced out across the adventure or across the campaign. Some will find that problematic, but I think most of us are OK with that to a high extent
Then there's non-combat roles. I know if my character is the party "face" or gets to do the scouting, I have no problem with my role in combat being a "supporting act". Again, this sort of balance won't work for everyone all the time.

I'm going to suggest if you're not happy with both of the first 2 to quite a large extent, you're asking for a very restricted system/play style where characters either all have the same set of "tools" or the GM designs every encounter to carefully make everyone's different tools equally relevant in each encounter.

The last one is certainly going to vary more depending on the amount of scouting the scouts do for the party, how deeply the social scenes get roleplayed, as well as how much you enjoy (watching other members of your group do that) and (your ability to read the GTPG forum while that's going on).

Mechalich

2019-10-06, 09:25 PM

Not necessarily.

I mean, it's inherent that wizards can do stuff not bound by normal physics. That's kind of what they DO.

But there's a whole range for that, in terms of power, accessibility, frequency, reliability, etc.

I mean, just take "summon fire". That could be anything from "Sure, a mage can summon a small fire, but it takes an hour of prep, will exhaust him for the day, and still has a high chance of failure, and the side effects can be horrifying" to "a mage can summon meteor storm all day without breaking a sweat". Where you choose to put the mage on that scale is totally up to the game designer.

As you note, the wizard concept will always be broader than the warrior concept. That's the fundamental inequality. It's true that if you keep sufficient limits in place that versatility need not overpower the warrior concept. Unfortunately, doing the latter is hard because you really, really have to limit the wizard concept carefully and many of the most useful nerfs, like prep time, function poorly with gameplay desires (people really want their wizard to actually be able to use some kind of magical attack). The heart of the problem is that many fantasy concepts traditionally have access to extremely powerful abilities - shapeshifting is a good example - that are superpowers all by themselves and taking them away or limiting them means you can't play traditional concepts.

There's also the worldbuilding issue, which bleeds over into the design issue, especially as a legacy aspect. Wizards and other spellcasting types are traditionally very rare, while warriors are quite common. Wizards are also traditionally rather disinterested in the normal aspects of temporal power because they're off playing in other dimensions and such, while warriors very much want to conquer and rule. As a result fantasy worldbuilding has a long tradition of placing a handful of mighty wizards in distant towers being generally meddlesome but not distorting the world, but when you try to place the warriors on a scale that goes from zero to Heracles you get a straight up superhero setting with all the issues that entails. And while some forms of fantasy have been willing to go all-in on superheroes, D&D and many similar properties seem determined to resist it.

"Magic is limited only by your imagination, any thing you can imagine can limit it."

Which is to say: we actually get to set the value of both of these concepts, because its a fantasy world of our own creation. (And yes we cannot set them arbitrarily, but a level 20 fighter has nothing on some of the mythic warriors of old.) So if they are unequal concepts it is because we (or the authors of the work) decided they would be.

Okay, yes, you can develop magical and martial systems that are equal, but you cannot do that in a fantasy kitchen sink. So yes, one can balance those concepts in other systems, but you can't make it work in D&D because the kitchen sink demands wizard occupy a design space larger than warrior.

D&D, and pretty much any fantasy that attempts to produce the standard quasi-medieval world while allowing for high magic, is carrying around a sort of inherent conceptual dissonance. However, it seems like to some degree this dissonance is what the customer wants.

I write a lot of fantasy and one moment that really hit this home for me is when I had a fight scene between an armoured knight and a mage on top of a train (it was a magic train, but the setting was also just approaching its industrial revolution). And the knight was supposed to attack the mage and drive her off. So I was a little worried about that, because a magic user verses a guy who had some magic in his armour but still fought by swinging a stick around. Also had some ranged weapons but no time to get them out. The only hard limit I had on magic for that setting at the time is that it was always elemental. So yeah the fight wasn't even close, every attack the mage could throw out the knight had a reply for or could just ignore.

Fireball? Heavy armour with seals eats most of that, use a shield to cover your face if need be. Lightning will stay mostly to the conductive armour. Ice is weaker than steal. What sort of wind spell is going to do more than what the train's speed is already doing? Some sort of earth throwing spell might do it but that feels like it might take a bit longer to set up when you are rushing by the earth like that. I could just say the mage does it, but that would rapidly push magic so high it would break the setting. So the mage managed to cast a protective spell and jump off the train where the knight could not follow.

This sounds like your wizard isn't being creative. If you can produce fire for any sustained period of time you can superheat the air. Superheated air is one breath = death for human beings. Ice can freeze the train surface turning it into a grease slick so the knight falls off. Wind sheer from another direction could easily be destabilizing since you can't brace in two directions at once.

NichG

2019-10-06, 10:00 PM

The thing is, a warrior who relies on strength and cunning is possibly the most common form of fantasy protagonist there is. If your fantasy kitchen sink system can't support that archetype properly then you have a problem, a big one. Fighter is the most commonly chosen D&D class - this is a statistical fact, 538 did a study and everything - so the fact that the Fighter class can't work in gameplay is a massive problem.

The disagreement is as to the nature of the problem. I think its completely valid to have a fantasy RPG system that says for example 'Conan archetypes work in power range 1-3, Hercules in 3-5, Merlin archetypes in 4-7, Gandalf/Sauron in 6-12, etc'. It doesn't matter how common Conan is in other fantasy - each system gets to do its own thing and explore its own space, and is under no obligation in my eyes to carry forward all of the assumptions that came before.

The Fighter class can absolutely work in gameplay. If you play a Fighter with the expectation of having a character whose mechanics are particularly simple and don't require much expertise to apply consistently, you can receive that. If you play a Fighter with the expectation of being a strong contributor to tactical combat in a game whose level range is 1-6, you can receive that. If you play a Fighter with the expectation that you're going to have an uphill optimization battle at high levels and engage with that battle (resulting in ubercharger-like shenanigans, for example), you can receive that. If you look at Fighter and say 'this is a class which fundamentally buys extra feats at the cost of being mediocre otherwise', and use it as a dip to augment a build, you can receive that.

But it doesn't work in gameplay if you have prior expectations that the system isn't going to meet, and then approach the game with the belief that your expectations should count for more than what the system actually is. That could be all sorts of things, because players bring in all sorts of baggage: maybe they think that Chuck Norris should be able to beat up Sauron (see, e.g., the katanas meme and the section of the fanbase that wants them to be able to cut through tanks), maybe they think that the top end power for casters is going to be Merlin rather than Sauron and so having someone who hits things skillfully will be enough, maybe they think that taking Fighter will end up with them being Cu Chulainn rather than being Bruce Willis in Die Hard, maybe they think that systems are designed so that every option delivers equal performance for the same level of optimization investment, etc.

The system has some responsibility to communicate what it's options actually are about. D&D does this poorly, and I won't defend the explicit design choice to have trap options and things like that. However, it's not the fault of the designers that the D&D playerbase brings in a lot of baggage from outside and some players are more stubborn about taking the system at its word that 'this will not work' than others. As long as the system makes some attempt at correctly establishing what it actually supports, I don't think it's good for it to bend over backwards to meet external expectations.

If D&D said on the tin: 'this is a game which supports a range of scales, from the low-end of quests of daring and martial prowess, to the high-end of god-wizards shattering the rules of reality', then I have no problem with it making 'wizard' simply operate on an arbitrarily different power scale than 'fighter'. I find a system that says 'there are all sorts of ranges of power in the cosmos, and with this system you can choose to play at any of them (but, specific themes apply at each range)' to be a compelling design target, much more so than e.g. 4ed's 'you can have a martial power source or a magical power source or a demonic power source, but really they're all more or less equally potent'. If someone who sells their soul to a devil for power isn't actually any more powerful than someone who picks up a sword and trains for 10 years, then it undermines what makes that kind of premise interesting. I can agree it would be unfair to players if 3 were forced to play mundanes and the 4th got to sell their soul, but there need be no such compulsion. You can have a campaign of 4 mundanes, or a campaign of a risen demon, a soul-seller, a wizard who has uncovered Atlantean reality-warping secrets, and the chosen of a god, or even a campaign that freely mixes those things but where the players are all on the same page as to the fact that that's what their choices mean.

Lord Raziere

2019-10-06, 10:05 PM

If D&D said on the tin: 'this is a game which supports a range of scales, from the low-end of quests of daring and martial prowess, to the high-end of god-wizards shattering the rules of reality', then I have no problem with it making 'wizard' simply operate on an arbitrarily different power scale than 'fighter'. I find a system that says 'there are all sorts of ranges of power in the cosmos, and with this system you can choose to play at any of them (but, specific themes apply at each range)' to be a compelling design target, much more so than e.g. 4ed's 'you can have a martial power source or a magical power source or a demonic power source, but really they're all more or less equally potent'. If someone who sells their soul to a devil for power isn't actually any more powerful than someone who picks up a sword and trains for 10 years, then it undermines what makes that kind of premise interesting. I can agree it would be unfair to players if 3 were forced to play mundanes and the 4th got to sell their soul, but there need be no such compulsion. You can have a campaign of 4 mundanes, or a campaign of a risen demon, a soul-seller, a wizard who has uncovered Atlantean reality-warping secrets, and the chosen of a god, or even a campaign that freely mixes those things but where the players are all on the same page as to the fact that that's what their choices mean.

I would only accept this if we got a second fighter class that was just as powerful as wizard as well as the normal fighter. even this is no excuse.

kyoryu

2019-10-06, 11:30 PM

If only there was a thing in D&D already that denotes overall power and scale of characters.

OH WAIT.

But fundamentally, I think the issue is that there's two (probably three) divergent goals/wants/needs in mind here:

1) "I want to play a game where I can play a broad range of archetypes, and feel that I am contributing meaningfully."
2) "I want to play a game where wizards are clearly superior to martial types, even if that means martial types cannot meaningfully contribute"
3) "I want to play a game where I can outshine the rest of the party."

Goal #1 is not compatible with #2 and #3 (well, theoretically #1 and #3 could be compatible, but I've never really seen a game where martial types outshine magical ones).

Ultimately WotC has to choose which game they're making, and which audience they'd rather have. Frankly, for a broad game like D&D, I think that the first choice is "correct". That will alienate some people, sure, but for a broad game, I think I'd rather alienate "people that want to outshine the rest of their cooperative group" rather than "people who want to be able to meaningfully contribute to a game."

(I'd also note that the games that DO have such disparity, such as old school D&D and Ars Magica, also have slightly different structures that mitigate this issue to some extent).

Mutazoia

2019-10-07, 12:29 AM

I write a lot of fantasy and one moment that really hit this home for me is when I had a fight scene between an armoured knight and a mage on top of a train (it was a magic train, but the setting was also just approaching its industrial revolution). And the knight was supposed to attack the mage and drive her off. So I was a little worried about that, because a magic user verses a guy who had some magic in his armour but still fought by swinging a stick around. Also had some ranged weapons but no time to get them out. The only hard limit I had on magic for that setting at the time is that it was always elemental. So yeah the fight wasn't even close, every attack the mage could throw out the knight had a reply for or could just ignore.

Fireball? Heavy armour with seals eats most of that, use a shield to cover your face if need be. Lightning will stay mostly to the conductive armour. Ice is weaker than steal. What sort of wind spell is going to do more than what the train's speed is already doing? Some sort of earth throwing spell might do it but that feels like it might take a bit longer to set up when you are rushing by the earth like that. I could just say the mage does it, but that would rapidly push magic so high it would break the setting. So the mage managed to cast a protective spell and jump off the train where the knight could not follow.

Unless said armour had heat sinks and built in refrigeration, your "seals" are not going to be eating squat...unless they are actual seals (with fur and flippers, but that's only going to help if your mage castes Fish ball). Nothing like being trapped in a super-heated metal box to make your knight into a broiled lobster. Ice is the same. Ever touch your bare finger to a piece of metal that has been super cooled, only to have it stick, and your flesh peeled off? (I sure hope not.) Imagine your dangly bits in that flash-frozen cod piece. Hell mix the super heated metal from the Fireball, with the now suddenly super-cooled Ice attack and see what happens to that steel suit of armour now.

But this is all moot, as you are talking about a story, and we're discussing RPGs. Quite different animals. In a story, your characters are as strong or as weak as you want them to be. In an RPG, your characters are as strong, or as weak, as the rules make them.

NichG

2019-10-07, 01:00 AM

I would only accept this if we got a second fighter class that was just as powerful as wizard as well as the normal fighter. even this is no excuse.

I mean, its entirely possible that a game might not be able to give you the particular gaming experience that you want to have. I think that would be a reason to not choose to play that system, but I don't think its a fundamental criticism of the game's design - that is, I don't think its wrong to design a game that won't satisfy all possible players.

Quertus

2019-10-07, 06:27 AM

Quertus, while I broadly agree with your assertion that some players seek imbalance, those examples don’t really work very well. Choosing to play a character unable to participate in a specific mode of play isn’t imbalance, it’s that player seeking mechanical enforcement for a behavior/archetype they were seeking to play. You don’t need class imbalance to play a mute character, you can just not talk. Even the most balanced systems allow you to make preposterously weak characters, just by making poor choices or ignoring abilities you have. Even if you handed a player a perfectly-built god wizard in 3e dnd, they could still decide to not cast a single spell, grab a sword, charge into melee, and get slaughtered accordingly.

Overall, while imbalance is not always detrimental, it’s far easier to create imbalance through gameplay than to remove it. And usually, it’s far more organic than fixing rules imbalances, which require rules-level tinkering, or other players holding back, or contrived situations/boons in most instances. A player who actively wants to be weak? They can just make poor decisions (on either a character-building or in-character level) on purpose, which rarely even requires effort.

Choosing to play a character unable to participate in a specific mode of play is simply a form of imbalance that I believe easy to understand; choosing to globally "fail at character creation" apparently isn't part of some people's conceptual space. So it's intended as baby steps towards understanding, not as the whole of truth itself.

And I'm specifically *avoiding* throwing player skill into the mix. I am exclusively discussing creating stronger and weaker playing pieces.

But, in order to make "poor decisions on… character-building", there have to actually be optimal and suboptimal choices. There have to be components with different value to choose from. And that - the existence of these unbalanced components - is what I am advocating. (And what I failed to discuss in my previous post :smallredface: - now I need to go back and see if it was intentional or not)

I would only accept this if we got a second fighter class that was just as powerful as wizard as well as the normal fighter. even this is no excuse.

So, what if the Fighter were clearly labeled "suboptimal / useless after level X"? And what is there was a second "Fighter" class, labeled the "Demigod", that was balanced with the Wizard? It gets d4 HP, cannot wear armor, and you eventually get to choose from cool abilities like Flight, or the ability to open portals to other planes (for travel, or to allow allied minions to come and fight for you). Would you accept this?

If only there was a thing in D&D already that denotes overall power and scale of characters.

OH WAIT.

But fundamentally, I think the issue is that there's two (probably three) divergent goals/wants/needs in mind here:

1) "I want to play a game where I can play a broad range of archetypes, and feel that I am contributing meaningfully."
2) "I want to play a game where wizards are clearly superior to martial types, even if that means martial types cannot meaningfully contribute"
3) "I want to play a game where I can outshine the rest of the party."

Goal #1 is not compatible with #2 and #3 (well, theoretically #1 and #3 could be compatible, but I've never really seen a game where martial types outshine magical ones).

Ultimately WotC has to choose which game they're making, and which audience they'd rather have.

While the goals are not compatible at a given table, all 3 have been successfully implemented by 3e. That is, 3e allows you to play with any of those goals, or with any combination of those goals that is compatible.

Also, 2e (and some 3e tables) definitely has had martial characters outshine magical ones.

Lastly, I had a character who contributed exactly nothing. I damaged one opponent, before another character AoE one-shotted all the foes. I was the Wizard, the other character was a martial. And this wasn't D&D. So I've seen martials outshine Wizards in many systems.

Cluedrew

2019-10-07, 07:45 AM

Okay, yes, you can develop magical and martial systems that are equal, but you cannot do that in a fantasy kitchen sink. So yes, one can balance those concepts in other systems, but you can't make it work in D&D because the kitchen sink demands wizard occupy a design space larger than warrior.

D&D, and pretty much any fantasy that attempts to produce the standard quasi-medieval world while allowing for high magic, is carrying around a sort of inherent conceptual dissonance. However, it seems like to some degree this dissonance is what the customer wants.More I think people have gotten so used to this broken formula that no one questions it. And by no one I mean not enough people critically enough to force it to change, but I do and so do others. Put it a different way, would anyone really complain that much if the world we were supposed to be treating as real make sense?

This sounds like your wizard isn't being creative. If you can produce fire for any sustained period of time you can superheat the air. Superheated air is one breath = death for human beings. Ice can freeze the train surface turning it into a grease slick so the knight falls off. Wind sheer from another direction could easily be destabilizing since you can't brace in two directions at once.Yes the mage is capable of producing fire for sustained periods of time. She has around 3 seconds which I wouldn't really count as a "sustained period". You don't have to brace against two directions of wind, because they will just mix and come at you from an in between direction. Combine it with the ice thing though and that might actually work. That would require two spells after thinking of the plan which... creativity takes time and the short time frame the mage has definitely is swinging the odds.

On the other hand I could just say the knight is good enough to keep his balance anyways... he's not just like the mage wasn't good enough to whip up those spells in the time she had. I could push either of these concepts higher.

But this is all moot, as you are talking about a story, and we're discussing RPGs. Quite different animals. In a story, your characters are as strong or as weak as you want them to be. In an RPG, your characters are as strong, or as weak, as the rules make them.So in one case they are as strong as the narrative says they are and in one case they are as strong as the rules say they are? You are acting like rules are fixed and immutable, that the author of the system has less control over it than I do when writing a story. Both are created by people, we can change it. We can make it better.

PS. The armour totally has heat sinks, it has a tiny fire elemental in it. And it was designed in a world where the knight was expected to go head to head with magic users so it involves a lot of defences historical armour does not have.

On Levels: In agreement with some others, I think levels are the solution that has not been utilized to this problem. Levels, at least since they united the XP tables, are supposed to represent power level and the fact that they don't represents a failure in design to me.

Calthropstu

2019-10-07, 07:59 AM

Edit: Okay, I was...allowing my emotions to control my response. Long story short, the fact that you felt you needed a much higher-level elven wizard for backup, just to make the adventure "not automatically (but boringly) unwinnable," severely harms your case. It...makes it sound like the Paladin is only allowed to kick ass because she/he has a much more powerful Wizard running interference for him/her.

Actually, the elven wizard just gave him a fly spell. He was there, but his single contribution was a prismatic spray to clear the area in front of the portal, and a pair of called angels to assist the elven fighters.
The healer cast a blade barrier to give the elven wizard some peace and after that he concentrated on altering the portal's destination from gehenna to the fae realm, killing 2 birds with one stone so to speak (the energies there flowing in would help repair the damage the daemons did to the forest.)
So nothing much else.
If things had gone south and the elven fighter line started going down letting in the main forces he would have boosted that, but he never needed to.

FiberPilot

2019-10-07, 11:22 AM

The party never needs to be balanced, the game needs to be balanced for the party. It's part of a GM's job.

Quertus

2019-10-07, 01:22 PM

"Balance to the table. If you do that, do any of these "problems" still exist?"

"What on earth does that even mean?"

I'm so used to saying this uncontested… thank you for the opportunity to evaluate and expand upon my premise.

So, balance is a range, not a point. There is no such thing as a "balanced" character - there is only "balanced to this group". It's subjective. Some tables would consider a hyper-optimized Tainted Sorcerer BFC God Wizard to be not just UP, but not even contributing, because their entire concept of "balance" hinges on how much damage you deal.

Anecdotally (and anecdotes are 100% valid proof when explaining how something being subjective works), I had a character whose net contribution to the game was exactly 0 - and I couldn't get the group to comprehend my concern, because that wasn't part of their conceptual vocabulary.

So, each group measures balance differently. But let's ignore that, and pretend that there was one universal, measurable measure of a character. So, suppose I have a character whose UBI (Universal Balance Index) is 30. Is that character balanced?

We have no way to answer that question.

What we need to know is, what is the group's balance range, and what are the UBI of the other characters.

So, if the group has a balance range of 10, and the other characters are [25,27,32,35] or [33,35,37,40] or even [20,20,20,20], then the character is balanced to that group. Same balance range - 10 - but, this time, the group's UBI are [145,147,142]. The character with UBI 30 is clearly not balanced to the table.

-----

Once we get on the same page on these topics, then maybe we can have a productive conversation on the broader issues.

Now, to continue that line of thought.

So, in order to have these divergent UBI, we need to have components we can select that provide different values. But suppose we didn't care about having divergent UBI - suppose we only cared about perfectly balanced characters.

Well, we could implement that trivially by making all characters identical. But that's no fun.

So, instead, how about if we make everything within a given "area" (like, say, "skills") equal, and give everyone equal access to each area? Here, again, we would produce balanced characters…but they would feel, if not samey, then formulaic. And it would invalidate numerous archetypes, like the "skillful" character, for example.

To make a "skillful" character, we want that character to have a better selection of skills. We explicitly want imbalance in this area. So now, we have two options: we can give them access to *more* skills, or we can give them access to *better* skills. That is, we had achieved balance by giving everyone an equal number of equal skills; to create imbalance, we can remove the equality of the number or types of skills.

Note that, up until that last bit, it didn't matter if skills were useless, or the only thing that mattered, because every character got equal skills. Now, instead of just balancing options within a given set, we need to actually universally balance options against one another. Just wanted to throw that out there.

Let's say that we do both. So, different characters get different access to different levels of unequally useful stats, skills, combat maneuvers, gear, spells, etc. But they all end up at exactly the same UBI.

Except… we don't even all agree what the "correct" point buy for stats is. In fact, I'd argue that many of us believe that the answer varies with the intended tenor of the campaign. So, even if we want the characters in a party to be perfectly balanced, and even if we agreed how to measure balance, we wouldn't all agree on the correct balance point. So, even with the goal of making parties of perfectly balanced characters, we would want the ability to make characters stronger or weaker, to match the table's / campaign's intended balance point.

But some people explicitly want imbalance. Once we have all these tools, it is trivially easy to satisfy them (and those who inconceivably have a different concept of "balance" than our perfect UBI) simply by not enforcing balance, and letting that be handled at the table level.

-----

Food for thought: could we satisfy people who desire different point buys by making them higher or lower level? Why / why not?

Could we satisfy people who want to run high/low magic campaigns simply by making them higher or lower level? Why / why not?

Morty

2019-10-07, 02:46 PM

At the end of the day wizard and warrior are unequal concepts. 'Trained combatant' simply does not have the same capability to manipulate the fictional world as 'master of the arcane arts.' Lots of fantasy fiction acknowledges this openly, and does not even pretend to one to one balance between the best warriors and the best wizards. Wizards tend to be rare, massively outnumbered, or simply shunted into the villain or adviser role rather than the center of the action. Even D&D initially accounted for this, as a becoming a high-level wizard required considerably more XP than becoming a high-level fighter and in the initial iterations of D&D fiction wizards (and magical abilities of any kind) were quite rare indeed. In the Dragonlance Chronicles - the cornerstone of early D&D fiction - magic is sufficiently rare that in many towns the party travels through Raistlin is the only wizard the populace has ever encountered. However, things changed gradually during the 1990s, due in large part to the growing popularity of FR, and D&D moved more and more towards a high-magic world in which wizards were all over the place and regular fights with wizards became common gameplay events. BGII included at least one high-level spellcaster antagonist in pretty much every dungeon.

The end result, by the time 3e came out, was an circle that could not be squared. High level spellcasters were everywhere, but at the same time so were almost entirely mundane characters. The FR example is again relevant: the most famous characters being Drizzt and Elminster, who despite both being very high level are nowhere near each other on the power scale. There was no real way to make both types play nice with each other. Any real solution required either A. turning the martials into superhero types or B. massively nerfing the spellcasters. However, either of those options was guaranteed to anger a massive portion of the playerbase, as experiments like Tome of Battle and later 4e proved, leaving WotC with no good options. 5e used a set of kludgy design compromises like bounded accuracy to try and maintain the illusion of balance, which is honestly probably the best option available.

This is broadly correct, I think. D&D won't have a better solution than 5E's to this, whether one likes its solution or not.

Though I do think 5E is better balanced, especially if, once again, we put spellcasters aside for a moment and consider balance between, say, a warrior with a two-handed weapon and a shield, two weapons or a single weapon. Or other concepts 3E hamstrings for no good reason. To come back to the Drizzt example for a moment, he's a complete joke when you put him next to a fighter or barbarian with a two-handed weapon of even lower level, because dual-wielding and finesse fighting are both so weak in 3E. And it can't be fixed without splatbooks that wouldn't come out for years after his 3E stats were published. In 5E you can dual-wield scimitars right off the gate, and while it's still reportedly somewhat sub-par, at least you won't suck at your one and only job.

AdAstra

2019-10-07, 04:43 PM

The idea that wizards and warriors in dnd are inherently unequal, both in power and breadth of capability, is true. The idea that wizards are inherently considered superior to warriors in overall human culture is pretty demonstrably bogus.

One can look at figures like Hercules, who despite being a demigod, still had no powers other than prodigious physical strength, skill, and cunning. He made rivers with his fists, strangled he nemean lion to death, held up the sky, and ascended to godhood. Diomedes wasn’t even a demigod, and he still managed to defeat gods in single combat and cut through armies (though that was with athena’s favor, iirc). That’s not even counting the warriors who were statesmen, politicians, hunters, spiritual leaders. The most powerful wizard-equivalents in greek myth were merely very good diviners and seers, like Tyresias. Very useful, but far from solo world-shapers. Other uses of magic usually amounted to using magic items, or getting the aid of gods, neither of which are very wizardly, and usually very limited in the actual things they personally could do.

Wizards and warriors may be inherently different concepts, just like firefighters and accountants, but to claim that this means that wizards are or should be better/broader than fighters is both inaccurate, and a bad idea in general. In a world where a character had the Prestidigitation cantrip and no other noteworthy skills, that person would most likely be described as a wizard or mage of some sort. They would also be pretty demonstrably inferior to a seasoned warrior at almost everything, and wouldn’t be able to do nearly as many things as the warrior could. They might be able to start a fire in seconds, or entertain people with short-lived trinkets, but that’s about it. An especially competent and well-rounded warrior, which in many cultures is exactly what a warrior should be, could do far more things more effectively than our hypothetical wimp wizard.

Basically, the premise that fighters “need” to be weaker or more specialized than wizards due to some cultural imperative is just, wrong, on every level. Wizards are way better than fighters in 3e dnd because the designers of that game had a conception of wizards that was inherently better (in the sense of being stronger and more versatile) than their conception of fighters. They chose that. Other people could, and I believe should, chose differently.

Satinavian

2019-10-08, 01:41 AM

Now, to continue that line of thought.

So, in order to have these divergent UBI, we need to have components we can select that provide different values. But suppose we didn't care about having divergent UBI - suppose we only cared about perfectly balanced characters.
Just use point buy. And let everyone use the same points.

Now you would probably say that even in point buy systems the same point values are not always equal. And that is true. But assigning the right point values to powers and character options is just difficult task and is basically exactly the same task you have to do to arrive at fair UBI values. So UBI won't be more accurate then point values of point buy systems.

Food for thought: could we satisfy people who desire different point buys by making them higher or lower level? Why / why not?Hust use a point buy system with different points. If you absolutely have to use a level system, using different levels would be the best you could do but it is inferior in many ways because levels are often linked to a lot of other rules and you might not want those consequences.

Could we satisfy people who want to run high/low magic campaigns simply by making them higher or lower level? Why / why not?No. Magic prevalence is only weakly linked to experience or level and running higher/lower level has far more other unintended consequences.

Better to use variant rules. E.g. Splittermond has a high magic rule variant option that consist of :
-double mana points for everyone
-double mana regeneration
-earler access to spells from casting skill (bot not lowered DCs to actually cast the spells)
-reduced cost to learn magic
-additional maxed out free casting skill for every character
-severely reduced potential negative side effects of magic

That rule variant will make magic more common. And stronger. And it will effect every character. But by ensuring that everyone has magic and several of those rules benefitting hybrid characters more than ones relying mostly on magic it ensures that the balance beween archetypes still is not shifted too far, even if the game will feel quite different. Only someone refusing any magic out of principle would be hurt when you can get significant free self-buffing without investing a single build point in this high magic game.

Splittermond also provides similar variants for things like "deadly game" where healing is severely restricted or "only mortals" where benefits adventurers get over random not plot relevant NPCs are cut.

Just using different levels in D&D does not work similarly. You would have to seriously rework the whole system because it is all way too rigidly interconnected. But if you did you could play high/low magic on every level. There are quite a lot of overhauls that try to do so.

Cluedrew

2019-10-08, 07:33 AM

To Quertus: I've said it before, but really all you need is the power to make meaningful contributions. Characters don't have to be balanced in any area. In fact for all your worries of samey I found one of the best balancing tools is to be so difference no meaningful power comparison can be made. Admittedly that level of difference is hard, but you can do a lot by having very different options. One of my favourite examples comes from Android: Netrunner. What is stronger, starting with +1 Link or if you preform the same action 3 times on one turn you may preform the same action a fourth time without spending any action points?

To AdAstra: I've read a lot of mythology and a lot of... everything I can get my hands on really. And pretty much the only tradition I can think of where wizards consistently beat warriors is modern western fantasy. Even eastern fantasy has pretty good odds of warriors being super-human enough to beat up the casters. So yeah, we might be in the one place where it the convention. And so its not wrong (I might of been harsh my last post) but to act like it is the only way that's wrong most definitely.

Quertus

2019-10-08, 12:42 PM

To Quertus: I've said it before, but really all you need is the power to make meaningful contributions. Characters don't have to be balanced in any area. In fact for all your worries of samey I found one of the best balancing tools is to be so difference no meaningful power comparison can be made.

So, I strongly agree about "meaningful contributions". Although this gets a bit interesting when different players have different ideas about what "contribution" means. It works great for a Playgrounder playing an optimized Tainted Sorcerer BFC God Wizard in a party that consider him UP, but not so well when the group thinks that a character is contributing, but their player does not.

Fully agree that characters don't have to be balanced, let alone in any area.

Although I word (and think about) it differently, I suspect one could argue that "no meaningful power comparison" is at the heart of "they're playing tactical basketball simulator, I'm playing highschool romance drama".

So… in broad strokes, I agree?

Mechalich

2019-10-08, 06:46 PM

To AdAstra: I've read a lot of mythology and a lot of... everything I can get my hands on really. And pretty much the only tradition I can think of where wizards consistently beat warriors is modern western fantasy. Even eastern fantasy has pretty good odds of warriors being super-human enough to beat up the casters. So yeah, we might be in the one place where it the convention. And so its not wrong (I might of been harsh my last post) but to act like it is the only way that's wrong most definitely.

I should note that I said 'trained combatant' versus 'master of the mystic arts' not 'warrior' vs. 'wizard' which is important.

The thing is, in quasi-medieval fantasy worlds, 'warrior' tends to be defined as a 'trained combatant.' Meaning a guy (or occasionally girl) who is at best a really good fighter based on authorial understanding of medieval combat capabilities and fighting styles with perhaps some very small level of augmentation. This is very much not the same as the way warriors are presented in myth. This should not surprise us, because quasi-medieval worlds are deliberately not mythic in design, in part because mythic worlds present verisimilitude problems in world-building terms and because mythic settings are essentially superhero settings and there's a considerable aversion to that approach for a variety of reasons.

If you are doing a mythic setting - say Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive - then this particular balance issue disappears, but it simply becomes a superhero balance issue where you have to make sure the powers are equivalent in efficacy.

Different kinds of settings place different demands on party balance. D&D, unfortunately, is something of a worst of all possible worlds case because it's zero to hero kitchen-sink setup means that a D&D world is several different kinds of setting at once.

AdAstra

2019-10-08, 08:21 PM

To Mechalich

Well that’s kinda the problem isn’t it? Only accepting one conception of warrior while allowing wizards/casters to embody the full range of cultural archetypes? First-level wizards in pretty much all editions of dnd are are far from impressive. Weak, minimal magical capacity, and in 3e can be killed by a housecat if they’re not careful. They pretty accurately embody the “weak” wizard. Not perfectly, since usually weaker wizards in culture have very “indirect” powers, not just weak ones, but close in terms of overall effectiveness. But unlike warriors, especially in 3e/derivatives, they grow out of that box entirely. They get world-changing power, have a tool available for every situation, and if adequately prepared are nearly impossible to challenge without equally-capable opponents. Warriors get to be better at the thing they could already do, and usually, they don’t even do that as well as magic users. Neither of these ways is wrong, but I think it’s a bad idea to mix these power-scales together.

Warriors or trained combatants COULD be able to turn into superheroes as they level up. Jump mountains, command armies, cleave time or the space between spaces, these are things that while fantastical, do not fundamentally break the idea of a mythical trained combatant. Wizards COULD gain minimal powers as they level up, or only gain improvements to things they could already do. Go from teleporting 5 ft. to avoid an attack to teleporting 30 ft. through a wall, or your firebolt can now blast areas. One could do either, and I think 5e comes closer than some others, but not quite enough to close the gap. But the gap can be closed, and if you do it by ramping up warrior progression, you get Quertus’s variable balance in the bargain, since you can have people start at different levels, and thus have different scopes of capability.

Cluedrew

2019-10-08, 09:01 PM

So, I strongly agree about "meaningful contributions". [...] Fully agree that characters don't have to be balanced, let alone in any area.This may or may not be important but I feel I should clarify that "everyone can still make meaningful contributions" is my guide-line for figuring out if people are balanced. So I actually feel balance is very important, I'm just using a more general metric for it.

I should note that I said 'trained combatant' versus 'master of the mystic arts' not 'warrior' vs. 'wizard' which is important.

[...] This should not surprise us, because quasi-medieval worlds are deliberately not mythic in design, in part because mythic worlds present verisimilitude problems in world-building terms and because mythic settings are essentially superhero settings and there's a considerable aversion to that approach for a variety of reasons. [...]No disagreement about the types of characters D&D currently displays. I feel the need to point out that most casters are stronger than their mythic counterparts (or the actual gods). So if we can but that in a quasi-medieval setting, I think we have room to crank the fighters up another notch or dozen. Also its not like this would be the first "verisimilitude problems in world-building" seen in Dungeons & Dragons, and I find myself either in the mood to just run with it or not.

I also think there are significant differences between a mythic setting and a superhero setting, even if you put them on the same power level. There are many other ideas that set them apart on a setting level and the form of character powers. Mind you people could just not like the "mythic" setting as well so in general it doesn't actually matter.

I do agree D&D often finds itself in weird middle grounds a lot though... maybe it should go even more kitchen sink and include the mythic fighter beside the quasi-medieval one.

banice

2019-10-09, 01:25 AM

How does party balance work out for non-DnD games?

Morty

2019-10-09, 03:29 AM

How does party balance work out for non-DnD games?

This really depends on the game. But in my experience, many if not most games aim for some kind of balance. The question is where the line is drawn. Even if there's a kind of character that's just better than others (usually some kind of supernatural character), they'll still be balanced among each other and there's no expectation of playing them alongside the weaker kind.

Though personally I still feel like "doing what it says on the tin" is a better measure than balance. Does an option let me do what it advertises it does? Playing a Complete Warrior Swashbuckler doesn't, because it promises a daring fencer and gives me someone who might as well slap an enemy with a wet noodle. Playing a physical-focused vampire in Requiem 1E doesn't, because physical Disciplines are anemic. And so on.

Mechalich

2019-10-09, 04:21 AM

How does party balance work out for non-DnD games?

The big divide, outside of D&D is between class-based and class-less systems. Many class-based systems have issues similar to D&D, in that one class or group of classes will be overpowered to certain other classes. However, outside of D&D and systems derived from D&D classes are relatively uncommon.

In a class based system you have some broad character concept, the class, that comes with a whole package of abilities that broadly determines how the character will function. If the mechanical package doesn't hold up compared to others, or if it can't fulfill the archetype needs of the class concept, then you have balance issues.

In class-less systems you don't have that, because players take their character concept and build it using a set of abilities bought with points of some kind. In systems like this balance is mostly an issue of the powers themselves. For example, in Vampire: the Masquerade the principle powers are the Disciplines, and every character gets a certain number of points into disciplines. However, the Disciplines themselves are wildly unbalanced with some of them (Dominate, Thaumaturgy) being incredibly powerful, and others (Potence, Protean) being rather lousy. D&D, of course, also has this problem, as various powers (spells, and various class and race abilities mostly) are wildly unbalanced, especially at higher levels.

However, while class-less systems can very easily produce builds that are wildly unequal in power, there's more precedent for the GM to step in during chargen and steer players this way and that in order to avoid building characters who are massively underpowered or overpowered. GM assistance doesn't always work though, especially in the more complex class-less systems like Eclipse Phase or GURPS where it is difficult to know what's actually good (D&D, due to its general popularity, is one of relatively few rules heavy systems where five minutes on the internet can give a complex novice access to a massively cheesy high-optimization build). Of course, there still tend to be problems no matter what, especially at the higher ends of the power scale among games. Superhero systems tend to have a rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock problem where characters in a party will have wild variance in their ability to survive different types of attack, such that a villain who attacks the entire party with the same move will kill one, injure modestly a second, and be totally ignored by a third.

Though personally I still feel like "doing what it says on the tin" is a better measure than balance. Does an option let me do what it advertises it does? Playing a Complete Warrior Swashbuckler doesn't, because it promises a daring fencer and gives me someone who might as well slap an enemy with a wet noodle. Playing a physical-focused vampire in Requiem 1E doesn't, because physical Disciplines are anemic. And so on.

I agree, this is very important, and I think it's a big part of the issue why such discussions predominate D&D. Martials, warriors, or whatever you wish to call them are an exceedingly common fantasy archetype. The 'warrior' may outnumber all other fantasy concepts combined when considered in terms of protagonists across the genre, with the rogue slightly behind and all spellcasters considerably further back. The failure of 3.X D&D to offer viable martials (outside of very late production supplements like Tome of Battle of 3rd party material like Path of War) creates a problem because people want to play those characters, especially newer players, and the inability to set such concepts up for viability alongside the casters is a huge problem.

Compare this to either version of Vampire. Physical-based characters aren't a good build option in either one, but since far fewer players, and especially far fewer new players, are committed to playing a Vampire street fighter that design flaw is much less impacting.

NichG

2019-10-09, 04:23 AM

How does party balance work out for non-DnD games?

There's plenty of imbalances in almost every game I've ever played. The thing that tends to matter more is whether the game is more focused on the individual characters or on the team. If the game is about the narrative of each character and how they wind together, then that tends to tolerate a greater level of imbalance by default than a team 'everyone on deck or we die' type of premise.

For example, L5R has Courtiers, Samurai, and Shugenja. Courtiers may end up being totally useless during a fight (possibly with the exception of some odd builds), and their effectiveness in social situations can vary wildly based on the GM and the campaign. If someone is playing a courtier being dragged by their team into the shadowlands to kill tainted monsters, that's not going to work. If there's a courtier who is doing things and has some friendships/rivalries with some samurai and shugenja, then even if the samurai aren't going to ask that courtier to help them beat up bandits, the courtier can proactively pursue their own kinds of thing.

From what I've seen of World of Darkness, options are generally underwhelming except that there will be one or two utterly broken or potentially broken things, and often hidden in some unobvious way. Such as in (new) Changeling where your powers generally kind of suck, except that every changeling is empowered to make contracts with mortals (no XP investments needed), and those powers can grant ridiculous benefits such as converting your average middle-class person into a multi-millionaire. So if you push the right things, you're basically playing a totally different game than everyone else. I think Mage has some similar characteristics at least if you look at the rotes - there are a couple of things that are sort of like 'oh, by the way, game changer buried here'.

7th Sea has a bunch of martial styles, of which maybe 2 or 3 are worth considering. The sorceries are also all over the place, and they're fairly expensive, so a player picking Sorte thinking they're going to tie the fates of everyone together like a ball of yarn will find that they have good information gathering powers, but their actual gameplay mechanics is adding a handful of dice to people's rolls or penalizing rolls a bit (and they get to risk wounding themselves with the backlash). The fire magic looks like it will be awesome and flashy, but its so high investment that you won't really see that very much in practice. But the Ussuran shapechanging has a lot of potential right off the bat, and Porte can in principle be totally transformative if you're clever with it. Stat-wise, Panache is actions, so there are some obvious 'if you plan to be hitting things in combat, figuring out how you're going to get 6 Panache is more important than almost anything else you could do' (with the exception of counter-attack builds where you use other peoples' actions to attack them). But in practice, a 7th Sea character's story isn't really determined by their raw combat output, and there are even metagame reasons to want to lose or be threatened by things (undergo some drama, justify gaining a free Background, and increase your XP gain...)

Numenera is basically the same kind of fiction as D&D - the wizard-equivalent is just better than the fighter-equivalent and rogue-equivalent in terms of actually being able to engage with what the game is about. But every character also gets something like a template that gives them a second track of abilities, and those templates are generally speaking more significant than the 'class' choice. So you could get fighty toughness from being a Glaive (fighter), but then get all your versatility from a focus that lets you craft your imagination into physically real objects, or speak the language of machines, or other crazy stuff. The Strange made the rogue-equivalent also pretty epic, with fairly absolute abilities to warp NPC perceptions of a scene in various ways. The fighter still sucks.

Mechalich

2019-10-09, 04:38 AM

From what I've seen of World of Darkness, options are generally underwhelming except that there will be one or two utterly broken or potentially broken things, and often hidden in some unobvious way. Such as in (new) Changeling where your powers generally kind of suck, except that every changeling is empowered to make contracts with mortals (no XP investments needed), and those powers can grant ridiculous benefits such as converting your average middle-class person into a multi-millionaire. So if you push the right things, you're basically playing a totally different game than everyone else. I think Mage has some similar characteristics at least if you look at the rotes - there are a couple of things that are sort of like 'oh, by the way, game changer buried here'.

Extreme wealth is broken in pretty much any game that allows you to leverage it in any sort of significant way, simply because games generally aren't constructed to operate on the societal level where the extremely wealthy stand. You play the party of adventurers, not the guy who hires the party of adventurers. A game that allows you to play as the latter while all the other characters are the former isn't going to work, and any power that allows you to generate extreme wealth in game without some sort of massive attendant cost is almost always going to be OP.

Quertus

2019-10-09, 05:00 AM

How does party balance work out for non-DnD games?

Short answer: not well.

No matter the system, balance is generally this mythic pipe dream. And this should be pretty obvious because, as I've stated before, everyone measures balance differently. So, even if the game designers rigorously tested their game, and "succeeded" in creating a perfectly balanced game according to their measure of balance, in accordance with the preconceptions and playstyle of their testers, well, a different group, with a different playstyle and different notion of balance? They will consider it a failure.

So looking for "balance" in a game is a pipe dream. But some systems have some rather innovative attempts to produce balance.

For example, ShadowRun fairly successfully achieved a type of "balance": starting characters are generally limited to a single silo (astral space, driving, decking). When that character is doing their thing, everyone else sits around and twiddles their thumbs. Although everyone can technically participate in combat in meat space, in early (good) editions of the game, the Street Samurai claimed their spotlight time by going first… and second… and sometimes third, every combat round (and maybe got a 4th action, while everyone else got 1 or maybe 2). For a balanced mission, with x characters, everyone gets to actually play the game 1/x of the time. Perfect balance.

Thus why I brought up introducing chess clocks to RPGs, enforcing balance by ensuring that everyone consumes their share of game time. Isn't spotlight time what should be balanced? Don't you want to implement this revolutionary advancement to role-playing in your RPG?

In short, what does your group want to balance? Decide what that is, then make choices as a group to make that happen. Because game designers cannot be counted on to balance that particular attribute to your satisfaction.

I'll be waiting with my revolutionary chess clocks when you realize that "spotlight time" is the "correct" answer.

This may or may not be important but I feel I should clarify that "everyone can still make meaningful contributions" is my guide-line for figuring out if people are balanced. So I actually feel balance is very important, I'm just using a more general metric for it.

But… do those meaningful contributions need to be balanced? In effect or frequency or any other way? If not, then, well, I find it odd to discuss them as "balance".

For me, I *still* prefer groups with a huge balance range: I put together one (well, technically, two) pieces of this huge jigsaw puzzle. I contributed. I'm happy.

EDIT: in short, I find contribution (note that that's "positive contribution", not the negative contribution of "getting the party in trouble", or burning jigsaw puzzle pieces or whatever) mandatory, but I have little concern for the balance of that contribution beyond "it exists". (Which is part of why I harp about the character with exactly 0 contribution, and the group that couldn't comprehend the nature of my complaint)

Morty

2019-10-09, 05:39 AM

I agree, this is very important, and I think it's a big part of the issue why such discussions predominate D&D. Martials, warriors, or whatever you wish to call them are an exceedingly common fantasy archetype. The 'warrior' may outnumber all other fantasy concepts combined when considered in terms of protagonists across the genre, with the rogue slightly behind and all spellcasters considerably further back. The failure of 3.X D&D to offer viable martials (outside of very late production supplements like Tome of Battle of 3rd party material like Path of War) creates a problem because people want to play those characters, especially newer players, and the inability to set such concepts up for viability alongside the casters is a huge problem.

D&D 3E non-casters are pretty wimpy even without comparing them to casters, really, which is what I keep harping on. If you run a swashbuckler without any caster ever appearing, they're still going to be as effective as the aforementioned wet celery. And there's really nothing that can be done about it. That's why 5E is on the whole more balanced, even if the caster/non-caster dynamic is largely the same. Because there's a few logs thrown under the latter's feet.

Compare this to either version of Vampire. Physical-based characters aren't a good build option in either one, but since far fewer players, and especially far fewer new players, are committed to playing a Vampire street fighter that design flaw is much less impacting.

I am specifically speaking about Requiem 1E and 2E, not Masquerade. In the first edition, the physical disciplines were weak; in the second this was acknowledged and fixed, precisely because if the player's desired fantasy is a scary physical undead monster, those disciplines being weak gets in the way. Thus the expectation of balance is there, if not the execution.

Though yes, the fact that playing someone who can only hit things is purely optional and in no way suggested helps.

Talakeal

2019-10-09, 05:53 AM

How does party balance work out for non-DnD games?

Typically much better.

Satinavian

2019-10-09, 06:16 AM

How does party balance work out for non-DnD games?
Often, non-D&D games tend to pay not that much attention to formulation of rules. It is more common to end up with vague rules or ones that could be understood in different ways. Instead the games often assume that the players will recognize the non-broken interpretations as the intended ones.

Then there are a lot of games that simply are unbalanced and don't really care about balance. But honestly, that is far less common than it once was. Most modern games that are not narrative in nature, care about balance.

Then many non-D&D games have old editions as well. And as in D&D they often have their own holy cows. Which often lead to balance problems. In general, a new game without older edition has an easier time to build a balanced framework from the ground up, but might make more mistakes with the estimation of the potential of specific powers, where games that have older editions can build up on experience with the powers that exist in the system/setting, but might be compelled to keep more baggage.

But if you really care about balance, moving away from D&D might be a good idea. There are many options that do this particular thing way better.

Cluedrew

2019-10-09, 06:38 AM

NichG

2019-10-09, 06:51 AM

Extreme wealth is broken in pretty much any game that allows you to leverage it in any sort of significant way, simply because games generally aren't constructed to operate on the societal level where the extremely wealthy stand. You play the party of adventurers, not the guy who hires the party of adventurers. A game that allows you to play as the latter while all the other characters are the former isn't going to work, and any power that allows you to generate extreme wealth in game without some sort of massive attendant cost is almost always going to be OP.

Its less about wealth in particular and more that you've got an ability that costs XP and adds +1 to things and is front and center in the things a player usually reads the rules for, versus a sidebar buried in a fluff section that says 'oh, by the way, all characters are basically genies and can freeform grant wishes as long as it's for a mortal'. It's not completely freeform, but it basically allows you to, among other things, increase any merit a human has by 2 points (merits are on a 5 point scale, and include things like generic social status, wealth, contacts, henchmen, etc). So you can e.g. say 'okay, you're now a confidant of a high-ranking general' or 'you just inherited a mansion in Florida' or 'you just got promoted to be the CEO of your company'. This is not only effectively free for you, but it actually gives you resources in most cases (and the more resources you gain and constraints you place on the mortal, the more powerful the set of boons you can grant).

The high op strategy is, ignore the character building mechanics and do all of the stuff that genies would do to benefit from the wishes they grant. But you wouldn't necessarily realize it's even an option.

Just to be clear though, to me this is actually a plus. If the system didn't have that (and oneiromancy, and goblin market trading shenanigans, and...) I wouldn't be very inspired to play it, because the actual 'buy stuff with XP' parts are, while balanced, boring. It would be nice if they just out and said 'hey, this stuff is the actual meat of the supernatural aspect of your character, not the fact you can spend glamour to buff a persuasion attempt by a few dice'

Morty

2019-10-09, 07:32 AM

On Non-D&D: Umm... you realize that's not like a couple of systems right? We can talk about particular systems but trying to generalize everything from GURPS to Roll for Shoes to the Powered by the Apocalypse games is ridiculous. So really it varies a lot.

This is another reason why I prefer to call it "working as advertised" or similar. D&D's wonky class balance is obviously a case of the system not working as advertised, but it's just one possible form of it.

Satinavian

2019-10-09, 12:47 PM

Quertus

2019-10-09, 02:41 PM

This may or may not be important but I feel I should clarify that "everyone can still make meaningful contributions" is my guide-line for figuring out if people are balanced. So I actually feel balance is very important, I'm just using a more general metric for it.

Sounds reasonable.

To meaningfully contribute, you need the power to impact the situation. Which in traditional (non-narrative etc.) games means that your character has enough power to impact the situation in ways that are actually relevant next to the actions of other characters. Balance guarantees that everyone has such power.

There's a lot of argument over power from martial vs psionic vs magical vs technological vs ki vs… sources, but I think that, for this discussion, a completely different division of sources is in order. Several people have already hinted at it.

There's the power that the character gives you. Then there's player skill. But tools can also come from the module, the system, or even directly from the GM.

When we're taking about "contribution", the tools with which to contribute can come from any of these. And, arguably, from other PCs - often in the forms of buff spells, but any sort of "creating an aspect" / setting people up also provides the opportunity for contribution. "You left the door open; now I can run away with the McGuffin".

It's only when every other aspect - groups, systems, and content writers - are all blind to creating opportunities (and for whatever reason the player cannot utilize player skills) that "contribution" is strictly limited to character ability.

I consider the optimal setup to be one in which every power source is utilized - where, if the player wants to contribute, at any given time, they can expect to utilize aspects from their character, the system, the module, or ones created by their fellow gamers.

More importantly, it is very difficult for a player with access to so many contribution pools to find themselves unable to contribute, if they so desire. On a related note, players who don't like to feel forced to contribute to certain parts of the game (most notably "talky bits", but it could be anything) can simply not give their characters any character-specific buttons to push, and can just sit back and let everyone else push the system / module level buttons… or jump in with those, if they get the urge. Wins all around.

So, getting to "able to contribute" - which is all I care about - should be trivially easy. But if you're interested in making contribution balanced? You've got to make the contribution of the guy who ran out the door with the McGuffin equal to that of the guy who just ran away, the guy who chose to sneak attack an undead, and the guy who chose to hold an action to pown the evil Wizard when he attempts to cast a spell? That sounds like quite the challenge. Hopefully, you're not trying to do that.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-10, 06:19 AM

There's a lot of argument over power from martial vs psionic vs magical vs technological vs ki vs… sources, but I think that, for this discussion, a completely different division of sources is in order. Several people have already hinted at it.
<snip>
So, getting to "able to contribute" - which is all I care about - should be trivially easy. But if you're interested in making contribution balanced? You've got to make the contribution of the guy who ran out the door with the McGuffin equal to that of the guy who just ran away, the guy who chose to sneak attack an undead, and the guy who chose to hold an action to pown the evil Wizard when he attempts to cast a spell? That sounds like quite the challenge. Hopefully, you're not trying to do that.
Nobody wants that latter thing. This sounds an awful lot like a more thoroughly-articulated recap of the common conversation-ending pro-imbalance argument: "Perfect balance is either impossible or trivially awful, so it's never worthwhile." Except that no one who asks for balance wants perfect balance. Or if you prefer, as close to "no one" as you can get on any issue, since humans are notoriously difficult to hem into boxes--no one arguing in good faith is asking for perfect balance, so saying or implying that that's what pro-balance people want is at best ignoring what people directly say. I know I personally have explicitly said at least once (and, IIRC, multiple times) in this very thread that perfect balance is not what anyone is asking for. But, sure, let's take this taxonomy, it's got some worthwhile stuff in it and I think it does a pretty good job of focusing on my complaint.

However, I have one serious disagreement, before we get to that. I don't think it's even slightly fair to count "buffs received from other players" as a form of contribution. "Buffs given to other players" is, no question, but receiving a buff? Not a form of contribution. Even if you're only able to do Thing X because you received a buff, that ability is itself the manifestation of the buff-er contributing, not the buff-ee contributing. And guess who gets the vast majority of buffs in D&D-alikes? All that would do is create a separate category where, again, spellcaster-like classes are Simply Superior to non-spellcaster-type classes.

From there? There's a very key bit that your explanation elides over. You said (in part of what I snipped), "On a related note, players who don't like to feel forced to contribute to certain parts of the game...can simply not give their characters any character-specific buttons to push." This assumes that you HAVE those options to start with, and choose to give them away. In other words, you are in fact assuming everyone starts from a position of balance, and gives up the parts of that balance that never ever mattered to them, aka trading worthless junk for some other benefit. But that's not how it works in a heavily class-based game like D&D; right from the moment you create your character, you may be inherently denied entry to those areas regardless of whether you wanted them or not.

Now, several of the things you mentioned--player skill, DM favor, module/environmental resources--really do (in principle and in positive instances*) present equality-of-access to the players, where everyone gets roughly similar opportunities and may grab or ignore them as they like. But declarative abilities, which covers all of spellcasting and psionics and all the rest of what I called "spellcasting+" before? You are not "simply not giving their character any character-specific buttons" in that regard if you don't play the select set of classes with access to those things. You are denied access to them, by the rules themselves, solely because of the things you think sound fun to play.

If all you want is "somewhere, somehow, under literally any rubric of player choice, you can contribute" then you don't even need a system at all. Your criterion has been met by any game that is capable of being played. It is, quite literally, identical to saying "I would like for this game to be a game, and not a not-game." That's not enough for me, particularly if I'm paying someone a nontrivial amount of money to make the game for me. Hence why I use words like "meaningful" when I talk about contribution. Having literally any contribution whatsoeverr is a trivial goal. Making sure everyone is equipped to meaningfully contribute whenever, even if they choose not to, is what I'm seeking. Because those people you want to not "force" to contribute can choose not to use these abilities.

Why should the "I don't want to contribute" people, who can get literally every single thing they're asking for just by choosing to ignore the resources provided to them, get preferential treatment over the "I desperately do want to contribute" people, who cannot choose to contribute in areas, or by means, they are denied access to? Why is it better to take things away from people who really really really want them but don't fit into the pre-defined boxes, than it is to give things to people who won't use them? The latter group isn't forced to be social by having social abilities, nor forced to fight if they have combat abilities. They always get what they want; as it is, they feel no loss for abilities they never have. How do people who don't want to be "forced" to contribute lose by simply...ignoring the things they could contribute but don't care about? And even by your own metric here, doesn't this mean that people who don't want to contribute to talky-bits, but who like a mystical/magical archetype (say, Benders from A:tLA), are "forced" to endure a crapton of abilities they don't want and hate having? Under those lights, the criterion seems rather biased; the only mystical-archetype fans who get what they want are the ones who want declarative abilities, and likewise for non-mystical-archetype fans who don't want declarative abilities.

*"Player skill" can also be "rules lawyering." "DM favor" can be "DM playing favorites." It's worth noting that many of these things are just as easily bad as they are good, and just like with balance, we don't really like the extreme ends. And right now, there is an extreme end--in declarative abilities. Some archetypes get loads of powerful ones, other archetypes get nothing in that sphere, and the player gets zero choice about this. The only way to get those abilities is to stop enjoying the archetypes that never get such abilities, and start enjoying the ones that do.

kyoryu

2019-10-10, 10:50 AM

Nobody is asking for a perfectly balanced game. What most people don't want is "Angel Summoner vs. BMX Bandit". And, frankly, if you do, that's kind of a weird desire, to have the rest of the social group basically be observers while you do All The Things. Talking about "perfect balance" or putting out deliberately poor choices as "imbalance" is at best an unintentional strawman.

Here's a simple way to get your beloved imbalance - even within a balanced game!

Have a relatively balanced game. We'll assume class/level to start with - feel free to modify this idea as appropriate. Now the people that want a balanced game have it. But let's say that you want wizards to be Better because Wizards Should Be Better.

Institute the following house rules:

1) A wizard's effective level is always five higher than their actual level. So a level 1 wizard gets abilities/etc. as a level 6 wizard, but advances as per a level 1 wizard.

2) A non-caster is terrible and awful, and as such, their effective level is half of their actual level, rounded up. So at level 1 you are level 1, but at level 2 you gain no abilities. You gain your level 2 advancement when you hit level 3, etc.

2a) Alternately, cap advancement for non-magic classes at a fairly low level, like 6, or 8. Maybe give them a minimal bonus for leveling like that, but really, that's where they cap out.

There you have it! Lovely imbalance with minimal work in a "balanced" game!

Satinavian

2019-10-10, 11:44 AM

There's the power that the character gives you. Then there's player skill. But tools can also come from the module, the system, or even directly from the GM.
Sure, there are othr sources of power.

- player skill : You can't really influence player skill. Which means you can't modify player skill until everyone is powerful enough to contribute. Sure, people could play intentionally dumb but that is not what most players like to do and is impractible if most of the table needs to. Player skill difference is a problem you might have to compensate, not a solution to fix outher power imbalances.

- GM : GMs giving out what is needed to solve their own scenario in a way they imagine feels patronizing, boring and stupid. That is not helpful. A player who only can contribute because of special GM patronage likely won't be happy at all. So that is not helpful either.

- the system : what kind of power does a player get from the system that is not part of his character ? If you don't play one of those narrative games with heavy metagaming rules that is none. So that is not helpful.

- the module : the module is never written for a particular group of characters. Even if it ever gives out more power to some characters than to others, that is more likely to make the strong characters even stronger because those have more chances to interact with different parts of a module and get power this way because they are more versatile. So module does more harm to power balance than good.

There really basically is only character power that can be balanced to let everyone contribute, That is why people care for it.

Quertus

2019-10-10, 01:35 PM

@ezekielraiden - wow. Almost nothing you said has anything to do with any position I hold. Seems we have a lot more work to do getting on the same page before we can have a productive conversation than I thought.

I already lost one long post where I tried to step through how my position differs from your post. Maybe I'll try again later… but, for now, any comments on the posts I made specifically to try to get us on the same page?

EDIT: "However, I have one serious disagreement, before we get to that. I don't think it's even slightly fair to count "buffs received from other players" as a form of contribution. "Buffs given to other players" is, no question, but receiving a buff? Not a form of contribution. Even if you're only able to do Thing X because you received a buff, that ability is itself the manifestation of the buff-er contributing, not the buff-ee contributing."

I completely agree on your stance on buffs, in general. "Buffs" was poor word choice on my part. Let me try again (and I'll show what I was thinking with "buffs"):

We're fighting a vampire. You have a can of gasoline. That does you no good - it isn't blessed, it will only make the vampire wet and irritated before it rips your throat out.

However, during my turn, I lit a campfire, creating a "good lighting" buff for the party. You realize that you can use my buff to turn a mild annoyance into a major contribution on your part. My fire enables your gasoline to be a major contribution to dealing with the vampire.

Do you agree that soaking a vampire in gas and… trailing the gas to the fire, luring the vampire to the fire, pushing the vampire into the fire, whatever… would be a significant contribution?

Or that running out the door (that someone else left open) with the McGuffin could represent a major contribution?

Do you see why I say that, sometimes, someone else's actions can open windows of opportunity for contribution?

Nobody is asking for a perfectly balanced game. What most people don't want is "Angel Summoner vs. BMX Bandit". And, frankly, if you do, that's kind of a weird desire, to have the rest of the social group basically be observers while you do All The Things. Talking about "perfect balance" or putting out deliberately poor choices as "imbalance" is at best an unintentional strawman.

Here's a simple way to get your beloved imbalance - even within a balanced game!

Have a relatively balanced game. We'll assume class/level to start with - feel free to modify this idea as appropriate. Now the people that want a balanced game have it. But let's say that you want wizards to be Better because Wizards Should Be Better.

Institute the following house rules:

1) A wizard's effective level is always five higher than their actual level. So a level 1 wizard gets abilities/etc. as a level 6 wizard, but advances as per a level 1 wizard.

2) A non-caster is terrible and awful, and as such, their effective level is half of their actual level, rounded up. So at level 1 you are level 1, but at level 2 you gain no abilities. You gain your level 2 advancement when you hit level 3, etc.

2a) Alternately, cap advancement for non-magic classes at a fairly low level, like 6, or 8. Maybe give them a minimal bonus for leveling like that, but really, that's where they cap out.

There you have it! Lovely imbalance with minimal work in a "balanced" game!

Say I'm trying to represent Hawkeye, Thor, Batman, Superman, and myself*, as Fighters. All perfectly balanced by default. But that's not the feel that these characters should have (IMO).

So, do you think it would correctly capture the feel of these characters to have them all start at 1st level, but some get half features (no feats), while others get double features (two feats)?

This conversation ties back to that "food for thought" section that I wrote.

* Or, well, an alternate reality "soldier" me.

Sure, there are othr sources of power.

- player skill : You can't really influence player skill. Which means you can't modify player skill until everyone is powerful enough to contribute. Sure, people could play intentionally dumb but that is not what most players like to do and is impractible if most of the table needs to. Player skill difference is a problem you might have to compensate, not a solution to fix outher power imbalances.

- GM : GMs giving out what is needed to solve their own scenario in a way they imagine feels patronizing, boring and stupid. That is not helpful. A player who only can contribute because of special GM patronage likely won't be happy at all. So that is not helpful either.

- the system : what kind of power does a player get from the system that is not part of his character ? If you don't play one of those narrative games with heavy metagaming rules that is none. So that is not helpful.

- the module : the module is never written for a particular group of characters. Even if it ever gives out more power to some characters than to others, that is more likely to make the strong characters even stronger because those have more chances to interact with different parts of a module and get power this way because they are more versatile. So module does more harm to power balance than good.

There really basically is only character power that can be balanced to let everyone contribute, That is why people care for it.

Where to start? If you think that the party has to exist for the module to include tools, then you've completely missed what I'm trying to communicate.

Let me try again.

”Don't mind him," Baker Devin says, placing his muscular arm firmly on the beast's back to silence it. Peace returns to the canine's features, the white handprint on its black coat the only evidence of its previous outburst. "He can tell everyone's on edge, what with the recent murders and all." Dave spins a silver band on left ring finger absently. "But you're not here to talk beasts, you're here for some fresh bread, am I right?"

What tools did I give you in that paragraph?

Satinavian

2019-10-10, 02:15 PM

Where to start? If you think that the party has to exist for the module to include tools, then you've completely missed what I'm trying to communicate.No, i mean that the more powerful characters would more likely have the power to wield any specific tool the module provides. Which is why tools in modules only exceberate the problem.

Let me try again.

”Don't mind him," Baker Devin says, placing his muscular arm firmly on the beast's back to silence it. Peace returns to the canine's features, the white handprint on its black coat the only evidence of its previous outburst. "He can tell everyone's on edge, what with the recent murders and all." Dave spins a silver band on left ring finger absently. "But you're not here to talk beasts, you're here for some fresh bread, am I right?"

What tools did I give you in that paragraph?So there seems to be a murder, an animal, two NPCs and a jewelry item. What is this suppossed to be ? A murder mystery ? If so and we disregard any supernatural powers to extract evidence for a moment to keep it somewhat system agnostic, interrogating the NPCs would require social skills. Asking descreetly around about the silver band would also use social skills. Trying to get the dog to either show you something he has seen or to use his nose would require animal handling. Which measns characters that have those abilities can do something useful with this situation, others can't.

Yakk

2019-10-10, 03:47 PM

First, mechanics should line up with game fiction. And the players should be on board with the general rules of game fiction.

If your game fiction is "anyone who doesn't cast a spell is incompetent at what they do compared to people who do cast spells", that is one set of assumptions you can make in making a shared game fiction. On the other hand, if the players who want to play an awesome non-spell casting fighter joins that game, and isn't told that there are no awesome non-spell casting fighters in this game, that player is probably going to be disappointed.

Balance, in that sense, is about the idea that by default unless explicit, the various ways of participating in the game fiction should be apparent.

Given a game like D&D, you can play it with "anyone who isn't a wizard is relatively incompetent". But this does mean that players who want to play relatively competent fighters shouldn't play this game.

If the game has levels, or a point-buy system, there is already a "competence" metric in the game. Having "oh, competence-metric for non-casters is on a different scale" is, in a sense, a waste of design space.

Now, you could take this into account, and then simply state "non-spell casters gain the square of the competence points of spell casters, minus 1". So in this tweaking of D&D, you'd have an option of:

Mundane Spellcaster
1 2
8 3
15 4
24 5

if that is what is required to produce "even power levels". In this theoretical system, playing an "awesome fighter" who is relatively as competent as the wizard occurs.

But even with the above, it reveals another problem. Even if a level 24 fighter and level 5 wizard are "balanced", they are balanced in ways that might not let you play the game fiction you want to play. There will be a lot of "well, the fighter sits this one out, she cannot fly" or "the wizard dare not go over there, she'll die from the environmental damage, so he's sitting this one out".

Now, the other use of levels/character points could be to pace advancement. In that case, the idea that spellcasters "advance faster" than mundanes should again be part of the game fiction.

This can also work; you can see this in some older versions of D&D, where the XP table differed between classes. It was removed as a complication.

---

There is no wrong way to play RPGs. But there are RPGs that prevent certain kinds of play, and often the kinds of play they prevent isn't made clear.

When the game presents a bunch of character types as being options, and half of them have implicit game fiction of "you are relatively incompetent if you choose this" that comes from the mechanics, while the description of the options doesn't cover that, this is an issue.

There are RPGs where this kind of incompetence is made clear. In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Magica the "wizard" character is far more powerful, and the companions are far weaker, and this is made clear in the game fiction. In this game's default setup, the primary "wizard" character for each player sometimes takes time off, and you play a "secondary" less competent mundane when this happens.

---

Finally, the lane idea. Many games have tried this, and what often happens is that players get bored, because they have little to nothing to contribute when their lane isn't active; they "may as well not be at the table".

It has worked, and does work at some tables.

In the lane example, "balance failures" can follow when the lanes overlap, or one lane makes other obsolete. Take Angel Summoner (who can summon an army of angels to solve problems) and BMX Bandit (who is really good on a bike); when BMX tricks are needed, the Bandit rules. But there really aren't many cases where that happens.

kyoryu

2019-10-10, 05:01 PM

Say I'm trying to represent Hawkeye, Thor, Batman, Superman, and myself*, as Fighters. All perfectly balanced by default. But that's not the feel that these characters should have (IMO).

So, do you think it would correctly capture the feel of these characters to have them all start at 1st level, but some get half features (no feats), while others get double features (two feats)?

This conversation ties back to that "food for thought" section that I wrote.

* Or, well, an alternate reality "soldier" me.

I don't really know many games where you actually want Hawkeye and Superman in the same game. It can work in a comic book or movie, because the authors are in control, and there's no real people to actually get their feelers hurt.

That aside. Let's say you want to do this, and you actually find someone that wants to play Hawkeye. And really really wants to be Just Regular Hawkeye, a guy with a bow, without any compensation, in a game with Superman.

You could do like the DFRPG thing and give him a bunch of meta bonuses or whatever to compensate, but let's say you don't do that, and you Actually Do want Hawkeye to be totally outshined.

Why not just start Superman at level <lots> with the "progress as if you were level 1" mod described earlier? And if you really want, limit Hawkeye to level 2.

Again, a class/level has a measure to indicate "overall ability". It's "level". Why not just use it?

Quertus

2019-10-10, 05:34 PM

No, i mean that the more powerful characters would more likely have the power to wield any specific tool the module provides. Which is why tools in modules only exceberate the problem.

So there seems to be a murder, an animal, two NPCs and a jewelry item. What is this suppossed to be ? A murder mystery ? If so and we disregard any supernatural powers to extract evidence for a moment to keep it somewhat system agnostic, interrogating the NPCs would require social skills. Asking descreetly around about the silver band would also use social skills. Trying to get the dog to either show you something he has seen or to use his nose would require animal handling. Which measns characters that have those abilities can do something useful with this situation, others can't.

Ah. I think I see your perspective better now? Let's find out.

But, first, a completely different (RPG) take on the tools I provided: flour (great for finding invisible foes, air currents, etc), scent (similar, and more uses), alternate Sense Motive (also via scent), and materials for a silver bullet. And there's several other takes on tools, too. But kudos on your take - it's definitely one of the optimal ones. So let's stick with those two.

Now, let's see if I've got a better handle on your perspective. Although, yes, it's somewhat system dependent.

Interrogating NPCs probably *should* invoice PC social skills to some extent - even if only for an "initial reaction" to know how the NPC will respond. However, this one is actually HUGE. So we'll circle back to it.

Handling the "dog" requires animal handling. Which an NPC has demonstrated that he has. So, anyone who can use the "NPC" object (through social skills, financial capability, or even the power of friendship) has surrogate control of the "dog". But it doesn't take any such skills to notice when the dog becomes agitated.

Gathering information discretely takes social skills. Yup, gotta give you that one. Doing so less discretely might not, depending on how talkative townsfolk are.

Using flour to find invisible foes takes virtually no skill (although combat capable characters will likely be more successful at longer ranges). Detecting air currents… eh, just a modicum of skill required? Easily accomplished by "taking 20", if nothing else.

Forging a silver bullet likely takes skill. But there's probably a tool (ie, a blacksmith NPC) in town who can do that, with no real social skills required to convince him (unless, of course, you're trying to get him to do it for free…).

-----

Interrogating NPCs. Remember how I said social skills should play a part, but this was huge? OK, let's circle back to that now.

Basically, if the GM / module decides that a particular NPC will only divulge certain information if the PCs can succeed at a certain skill check, then they have gated that information behind that skill. However, if, instead, they decide that the NPC will reveal the information to anyone who asks, or anyone who presents them with the McGuffin information (ie, they gate it behind something that anyone could acquire), then that information is a universally accessable tool.

And that's huge.

Looking at your content - especially the "critical path" content - in terms of who can access what, in terms of how many universal tools vs how many skill-gated tools you have makes a huge difference in how the game plays out, how important buttons on the character sheet are.

And that's why I was saying that, while most content writers are blind to this, they easily could, and arguably should, provide plenty of everyman tools, that any character can access, regardless of skill. To ensure that people who want to participate, can.

And, if they want to guarantee that their module is solvable, they need to provide tools (ie, friendly-able NPCs) with any skills (etc) that are required on the critical path (such as the NPC Baker Devin, with handle animal skill).

Sure, there can be some challenges, and some bonus content, to encourage differentiation and reward specialization. But (IMO) there is little reason for the majority of content to be significantly skill gated - and plenty of reason for it to not be.

Satinavian

2019-10-11, 02:57 AM

And that's why I was saying that, while most content writers are blind to this, they easily could, and arguably should, provide plenty of everyman tools, that any character can access, regardless of skill. To ensure that people who want to participate, can.

And, if they want to guarantee that their module is solvable, they need to provide tools (ie, friendly-able NPCs) with any skills (etc) that are required on the critical path (such as the NPC Baker Devin, with handle animal skill).

Sure, there can be some challenges, and some bonus content, to encourage differentiation and reward specialization. But (IMO) there is little reason for the majority of content to be significantly skill gated - and plenty of reason for it to not be.
Honestly i think there is a system bias on your side.

D&D has always had crappy skill systems. The skills started being attached as an afterthought as some kind of open gimmick list instead of a comprehensible description of what characters can do, got expanded to a comprehensible system in 3.x but in a way that produced lots of stupid results and then got scaled back in later editions because it didn't really work and people didn't want to invest the time to make it work.
That is why D&D has so much handwaving for everything that is not combat. And people congratulate themself if they can convince a GM of complex solutions while avoiding any actual roll, just like in olden times when you basically failed if you have to roll anything.

Most of that is nonsense. If the module consists only of tools and potential solutions that everyone could use, it makes it kinda irrelevant what kind of characters are even played or how much experience they have/what level they are, doesn't it ?

That is not an ideal. And providing a friendly NPC for every useful skill or tools that every idiot can use, is not much different than providing a couple of powerful mageknights that can clobber any monster if the PCs just ask them so that PC combat ability is not required.
Letting NPCs solve an adventure and being reduced to the damsel in distress calling the brave NPC-heroes for help or at best be some henchman that moves a McGuffin from A to B in a way any untrained cohort or summon could do as well does not actually feel like contributing much. If everything a PC "contributes" is just another warm body, that is not enough.

A module should avoid that most of the times. Instead it should mostly account for solutions that do require skills and provide tools for those. It however should mostly consist of challenges that could be solved in different ways as to not require the group to have a certain special ability or fail. But there is nothing wrong with each or most of those ways actually require some competence or expertise.

Only when the modules has some linchpin where there only are one or two viable ways, all requiring certain skills or special abilities and you fail if you don't have them, only then should a friendly NPC or a tool that can do that be provided.

But let's ignore that even a moment. Even if most of a module is not explicitely skill lockes, it skill would never provide characters that can do less with more power and options than characters that can do more. So my point still stands.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-11, 04:43 AM

I didn't really feel I had all that much relevant to say WRT your last post to me, and it had been some time back, which is why I didn't respond. However, since you have asked, I will do so.

But here's there thing: you're assuming that imbalance has to involve force, that people can only be forced into a state of imbalance.
I'm saying that, whether it is balance or imbalance, it is a game design choice on the creators' part. And we are embarked--we must choose SOMETHING on the spectrum between "zero balance whatsoever" and "perfect immutable symmetry"--it is not possible to simply choose not to make a choice. Since balance is (pretty much self-evidently) more difficult to create and maintain, a balanced system is better to start from, as balance is much more easily broken than forged. And, as noted previously, no one forces you to use features you don't want to use, meaning simply by choosing not to act, literally anyone can create desired imbalance *from* balance.

probably the most prevalent examples are those who do not want to be forced to participate in the "talky bits"
Who is doing this? Who "forced" these people? Is someone really able to coerce them? That would be genuinely shocking.

And, to expand on something NichG said, some players (including me) care most about things that aren't represented in game mechanics (well, or at all).
Those were never subject to balancing in the first place, so why would they be relevant to the discussion of balance? We're talking about making it where it is possible, not trying to force it literally everywhere, even where it's completely ridiculous to create. And, yes, those areas can induce imbalance in the overall experience. That cannot, even in principle, be avoided, so there's no point worrying about it either way. There would be no point. Instead, focus on what you *can* address, provide tools and advice for the rest, and trust that players and DMs will (learn to) make use of those external, unpreventable things in the ways they like best.

For some players who care about non-mechanical portions of the game, being "equal" (let alone "superior") can, at times, actively detract from their enjoyment of the game. For various reasons.
Okay. Doesn't that mean that there's literally no right answer? Imbalance creates some archetypes that are inherently superior, to the point that even active involvement of the rules-external stuff isn't always capable of addressing the gap. Doesn't that mean imbalance is also forcing players to have what they don't want, and detracting from their enjoyment of the game? If it's going to be a problem for some portion of the players *either way,* why not accept that some people will be unhappy no matter which you choose, and create the system that does satisfy the ones who do want balance, and can be broken (perhaps with advice on how to do so!) for those who don't want it?

Some players care about the stories that they tell. And the story of a group of equals is a valid story… but it's only one of oh so many possible stories. The role of "an equal" is a valid role… but it's only one of many possible roles. Some players enjoy more variety to their stories / roles.

Many people seek out inequality in a game, for various reasons. Some systems make creating such imbalance more difficult than others.
Alright, since it seems it may not be as self-evident as I said above:
Do you believe that it is easier to create balanced systems, or imbalanced systems? I am of the opinion that it is literally a law of nature that imbalanced systems are always easier to create, except in trivial cases (e.g. an empty centrifuge is always balanced). Dynamic equilibrium that preserves a pattern, rather than simply sliding to the lowest-entropy point, is difficult to achieve.

So, balance is a range, not a point.
Agreed. As noted, no one really wants "perfect" balance. Even chess and friggin' go are not perfectly balanced. Similarly, no one wants games that exhibit no balance whatsoever (e.g. where one choice trivially wins, any other choice trivially loses, and both facts are immediately obvious to every player). "Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, while virtue finds and chooses the mean." (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Datalinks :smalltongue:)

There us no such thing as a "balanced" character - there is only "balanced to this group". It's subjective.
Once you have moved beyond rules-design and into play itself, which includes both the rules and player behaviors, yes. I'm not asking for us to balance player behaviors though, as I consider that impossible (or, if possible, so terrifyingly evil as to be worth literally fighting by armed uprising, but that's an entirely different topic). The rules themselves can be balanced, or not balanced, and the play that adopts and surrounds those rules can and will adjust them--especially if clear advice and effective tools are furnished to the DMs and players alike (often different kinds of tools/advice for each).

Your anecdote does not really apply to my concerns, because (as noted) they were about the play around the rules, and not really the rules themselves--or, they were *literally identical* to my concerns, because you were being denied contribution by the rules themselves, and could not address that meaningfully because the other players were unaware, and thereby trapped by imbalance that could not be addressed by rules-external adjustment.

Your "UBI" analogy is, again, something I consider irrelevant. You are exclusively examining the actual-play aka "post-design" part. I am exclusively examining the in-design aka "pre-play" part. We can balance the system, and equip players and DMs alike to adjust from there.

NichG

2019-10-11, 04:58 AM

I'm saying that, whether it is balance or imbalance, it is a game design choice on the creators' part. And we are embarked--we must choose SOMETHING on the spectrum between "zero balance whatsoever" and "perfect immutable symmetry"--it is not possible to simply choose not to make a choice. Since balance is (pretty much self-evidently) more difficult to create and maintain, a balanced system is better to start from, as balance is much more easily broken than forged. And, as noted previously, no one forces you to use features you don't want to use, meaning simply by choosing not to act, literally anyone can create desired imbalance *from* balance.

I'd argue that when it comes to design, its not a matter of picking a point on this spectrum and aiming at it, but rather it's a matter of picking very many things and weighting their importance in different ways. That is to say, a design philosophy de-emphasizing balance doesn't aim at 'zero balance whatsoever', but rather it says that if other elements (which contribute to the things which are being emphasized) would push the game in the direction of higher or lower levels of balance, the fact that those other elements impact balance wouldn't be taken as a valid reason to not include those things within the context of that design philosophy.

Or to put it more succinctly, I would argue for balance perhaps being seen as a means rather than an end, and that design approaches which take balance as an end rather than a means tend to sacrifice the elements of their franchise which are the most evocative and memorable, because those things are the ones that tend to most obviously be associated with imbalances and, if you're considering them purely from a balance perspective you may miss the reason why those things are effective at establishing the feel of the game or the joy of play.

It's sort of like Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

ezekielraiden

2019-10-11, 11:17 AM

I'd argue that when it comes to design, its not a matter of picking a point on this spectrum and aiming at it, but rather it's a matter of picking very many things and weighting their importance in different ways. That is to say, a design philosophy de-emphasizing balance doesn't aim at 'zero balance whatsoever', but rather it says that if other elements (which contribute to the things which are being emphasized) would push the game in the direction of higher or lower levels of balance, the fact that those other elements impact balance wouldn't be taken as a valid reason to not include those things within the context of that design philosophy.

Or to put it more succinctly, I would argue for balance perhaps being seen as a means rather than an end, and that design approaches which take balance as an end rather than a means tend to sacrifice the elements of their franchise which are the most evocative and memorable, because those things are the ones that tend to most obviously be associated with imbalances and, if you're considering them purely from a balance perspective you may miss the reason why those things are effective at establishing the feel of the game or the joy of play.

It's sort of like Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

Okay, so it's a collection of choices, rather than a "I'd like the number 7 please." That does not change the most salient parts: we have control over the result via design choices, we cannot make any choice that gets us off the spectrum, and we cannot choose not to choose at all. We are embarked, and the rules will fall *somewhere.*

As for the other key point you make, see my aforementioned distaste for the "we need to be Just Better than other players to have fun." If the flavor of D&D, a cooperative game, requires options that make some people Just Better than others, then D&D is a game with an identity crisis. Its identity is actively self-contradictory, and it will never fulfill its audience...because intentionally catering to players who require unequal treatment in order to be happy will piss off the guaranteed players who require equal treatment in order to be happy.

To use an MMO analogy: you can make a game that only caters to casual gamers, a game that only caters to hardcore gamers, a game that offers entirely separate content for both, or a game that offers a variety of distinct content pieces that cater to different points on that spectrum. But you cannot make a game that forces everyone through literally 100% of all the content and satisfy both groups. In D&D, it's as if we're requiring that hardcore raiders play alongside uber-casuals, through exactly the same content. The game actively encourages, even mandates pairing Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit. And isnt it just convenient how the preferences that always get catered to are those of "I can ONLY have fun if I get to play Angel Summoner and someone else has to play BMX Bandit" and "I tune out for a bunch of stuff so I'd rather play BMX Bandit while Angel Summoner deals with it," and NEVER the "I wish I could do magic stuff without HAVING to be Angel Summoner" nor "I wish there were an option like BMX Bandit that wasn't so incredibly limited..."

NichG

2019-10-11, 12:39 PM

Okay, so it's a collection of choices, rather than a "I'd like the number 7 please." That does not change the most salient parts: we have control over the result via design choices, we cannot make any choice that gets us off the spectrum, and we cannot choose not to choose at all. We are embarked, and the rules will fall *somewhere.*

The distinction is going in saying 'I am going to prioritize the balance I want first, then wherever (other thing) lands I'm going to be okay with that in exchange for having the balance I want' versus 'I am going to prioritize (other thing) first, and wherever balance lands I'm going to be okay with that in exchange for the thing I wanted more'.

To me, putting everything in terms of measuring player contributions against each-other moves the entire framing of the design into terms that I think are counter-productive in many cases, the exception being games designed explicitly as competitive endeavors. It's that framing which is responsible for the false dichotomy between 'care about balance vs cater to players who need to be Just Better than others' - even when I say 'its not about balance at all, its about not being bound by balance' that gets translated (in the balance framing) to a closest match of 'it feels good to be better than someone else', which is not at all the point.

Lets take something like the superhero genre. One way I could approach the game would be to have each type of power be one choice, and the level of the power be another choice such that I try to make every power taken at the same level to be basically balanced against every other power taken at that level, and then have synchronized progression where everyone becomes stronger in sync. Another would be to say 'powers are inherently different in their power scale - the guy with matter control is simply playing a different game than the guy whose only power is blindsight, but we'll be explicit about that fact in the rules and not actually pretend that the matter control guy started with some sort of weak version that just happens to be as potent as blindsight'.

In terms of the setting presented, the sorts of challenges faced by characters in that world, etc, it's a fundamentally different kind of place if there's this conceit that there are waves of supers each with basically synchronized power levels which are growing together, versus if someone can just win the power lottery and suddenly that beggar who everyone spat on has the power of Karmic Backlash and can kill everyone up to the 7th generation who slights him.

Or to go even further, there are some kinds of powers that are basically impossible to balance - powers that let you steal powers, powers which can be banked to grow over time, powers which let you invent powers, powers which let you grant powers, time travel, alternate reality traversal, universe creation, etc. Once you inject a power like that into a game, a character's power doesn't reflect any kind of static level anymore, it's entirely dependent on the player's will. Or even the discussion earlier about how wealth can be unbalancing - from a balanced-focused point of view it would be very easy to convince ones-self that it's a necessary thing to have something like a 'wealth by level' (people get very obsessed with this in D&D in particular), and miss that you could in fact make a bold stroke and allow a player to say, at character creation, 'I want to basically have money: yes' and just see what happens, what sort of things can remain challenges for that group and how the nature of challenge changes as a result.

The potential of actually handing players those kinds of abilities lives in the blindspot that a balanced-centered design philosophy tends to miss out on. And in the end, that kind of game can actually find its own kind of balance, but it almost by definition can't be a balance that originates from the rules - it's a balance that originates organically from the players' minds. I know a DM who, for example, when running D&D told their players 'assign your stats entirely as you like within the 8 to 18 range - put down whatever values you want. If you want all 18s, go for it.' It's interesting that what happens when you do that generally isn't an entire table of people with all 18s.

Quertus

2019-10-11, 01:37 PM

Honestly i think there is a system bias on your side.

Oh, completely true… albeit probably not quite the way you think.

just like in olden times when you basically failed if you have to roll anything.

So compare

"Officer, what's up?"
"There's been a murder."

with

"Officer, what's up?"
Roll +cool
On 10+, "There's been a murder." (And you can ask 2 questions about the murder)
On 7-9, "There's been a murder." (And the officer considers you a suspect)
On 6-, "like you need to ask" (and the office wants to bring you in for questioning)

I don't actually know if either of those would be valid in Fate, but both are conceptually valid ways to run a (non-fate) game.

IMO, there's a time and a place for a Face, but I think it's best for the health of most games if you don't make the stakes so high, or the roles so common, that no-one except the Face dares open their mouth around NPCs.

Most of that is nonsense. If the module consists only of tools and potential solutions that everyone could use, it makes it kinda irrelevant what kind of characters are even played or how much experience they have/what level they are, doesn't it ?.

Not at all! (Although you've combined two things. I'll try and tease those apart)

So, I think we largely agree, but are approaching it differently.

Suppose the module *requires* the party to use the "dog". And suppose doing so is gated behind high Animal skills. And suppose that there are no NPCs with animal skills. Then, if the party doesn't have animal skills, they cannot complete the critical path, and fail the module.

Suppose the module requires the party to create a silver bullet. And suppose the module contains no silver, and no silversmith. Then, if the party didn't bring silver, and have silversmith skills, they cannot complete the critical path, and fail the module.

There are two (ok, 3) solutions to making the module less "you failed at character creation/selection". First, you could include all the necessary components (animal handling, silver, silversmith) in the module. Second, you could make there be multiple possible paths to success - or even make success conditions very open. (OK, third, you could also explicitly say "you need x Y and z to successfully complete this adventure").

I am suggesting doing both (of the first two). Or, rather, making that your starting point.

But wait, you say, doesn't that make PC ability meaningless? Not at all! If you want to use Baker Devon, you need to convince him (face, money, friendship), and you need to keep him alive. Whereas, if the PCs have the skills, they can focus on other parts of the module, and let their Animal skills be a "win button" letting them bypass the "Baker Devon" content, if they so desire.

kyoryu

2019-10-11, 03:43 PM

So compare

"Officer, what's up?"
"There's been a murder."

with

"Officer, what's up?"
Roll +cool
On 10+, "There's been a murder." (And you can ask 2 questions about the murder)
On 7-9, "There's been a murder." (And the officer considers you a suspect)
On 6-, "like you need to ask" (and the office wants to bring you in for questioning)

I don't actually know if either of those would be valid in Fate, but both are conceptually valid ways to run a (non-fate) game.

In terms of Fate, the first one is what you'd do if the officer was free to give that information and had no reason not to.

The second one would only be a thing if the officer had reason to suspect you in the first place.

The general adjudication method for Fate is:

1) Player says what they do
2) GM considers if the result is obvious; if it is, that's what happens, stop.
3) GM considers how this could go well or poorly.
4) Consult the system to figure out which of those happens
5) That's what happens

IMO, there's a time and a place for a Face, but I think it's best for the health of most games if you don't make the stakes so high, or the roles so common, that no-one except the Face dares open their mouth around NPCs.

Again, the Fate-ish way to handle this is that the system only comes into play if the results are not obvious, and then chooses between GM-provided options of what could happen.

Player tells the guard: "How are you doing sir, I'm just going on my way." No roll required.
Player tells the guard: "If I give you $100, will you look the other way for a minute?" Depending on the guard, they may or may not. Roll.
Player tells the guard: "I'm walking in to rob the place, is that okay?" No roll required, that is not okay.

IOW, the system only comes into play when the outcome is uncertain. So "don't talk to people without skill" shouldn't happen. If it does happen, that's GM failure. What would happen is "if you're trying to convince someone of something, maybe the guy good at it should do it." The harder it is to convince someone, the more you should let the specialist handle it.

But wait, you say, doesn't that make PC ability meaningless? Not at all! If you want to use Baker Devon, you need to convince him (face, money, friendship), and you need to keep him alive. Whereas, if the PCs have the skills, they can focus on other parts of the module, and let their Animal skills be a "win button" letting them bypass the "Baker Devon" content, if they so desire.

In any system I've used and would run, just having the skill isn't a "button" you can "use". It starts with an action in the imaginary world, and you roll if the outcome is uncertain. In other words, you don't get to "I Rapoprt the baker!". You have to figure out what makes him tick, and what he wants, then make him an offer... and then, if it's still uncertain (maybe he wants what you're offering, but he also has a reason to not do what you're asking) you make a roll.

Quertus

2019-10-11, 07:26 PM

I didn't really feel I had all that much relevant to say WRT your last post to me, and it had been some time back, which is why I didn't respond. However, since you have asked, I will do so.

And I'm glad you did - your reply gives me a much better idea how much material there is for us to discuss.

I'm saying that, whether it is balance or imbalance, it is a game design choice on the creators' part. And we are embarked--we must choose SOMETHING on the spectrum between "zero balance whatsoever" and "perfect immutable symmetry"--it is not possible to simply choose not to make a choice. Since balance is (pretty much self-evidently) more difficult to create and maintain, a balanced system is better to start from, as balance is much more easily broken than forged.

If the players want to play Galactus and Ant Man, should the system force their characters to be balanced? If the players want to play Conan and… not Conan… a Thief, should the system force them to be balanced? If players want to play Bill Gates, Einstein, Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, and Neil Armstrong, should the system force them to be balanced?

If the system is built with "balance" as its prime directive, it unlikely to correctly capture the flavor of these matchups.

A game should choose what it is, and be that. And if that's something (roughly) balanced, great. And if it's Ars Magica, great!

As I keep saying, the good thing about 3e is, you can build characters to whatever balance or whatever imbalance you want.

And, as noted previously, no one forces you to use features you don't want to use, meaning simply by choosing not to act, literally anyone can create desired imbalance *from* balance.

If you want to play as yourself in a game, and I hand you Thor's character sheet, and I say, "just don't use the bits that don't fit" are you going to feel that the system has succeeded in modeling you? Is it going to feel like you?

Who is doing this? Who "forced" these people? Is someone really able to coerce them? That would be genuinely shocking.

If you don't get it, I probably can't explain it. For now, just take it on faith that it's a problem, and ask me about it again if we ever get on similar pages on the rest of this.

Okay. Doesn't that mean that there's literally no right answer?

Bingo!

It's why ice cream shops serve more than one flavor: because there's no right answer.

3e has amazing accidental success at serving many, many flavors. It provides the tools to create balanced parties, or unbalanced parties, at the group's whim.

If it's going to be a problem for some portion of the players *either way,* why not accept that some people will be unhappy no matter which you choose, and create the system that does satisfy the ones who do want balance, and can be broken (perhaps with advice on how to do so!) for those who don't want it?

3e did so much better: it made a system where either group could be happy.

So, to parrot your question back to you, if you could make a system where some group of people will be unhappy, or one that can serve them all, why not make the latter?

Some players care about the stories that they tell. And the story of a group of equals is a valid story… but it's only one of oh so many possible stories. The role of "an equal" is a valid role… but it's only one of many possible roles. Some players enjoy more variety to their stories / roles.

I think I said that already :smalltongue:

Alright, since it seems it may not be as self-evident as I said above:
Do you believe that it is easier to create balanced systems, or imbalanced systems?

Everyone plays as Quertus (my signature academia mage for whom this account is named). Perfect balance. Done. So, I guess I'd say that, technically, balance is easiest, because it requires producing the fewest options - 1 - while imbalance requires at least 2 options.

Still not what you're asking, but more Germaine to your point, I think that the system should focus on what it wants to do, and on making that fun. "Balance" (or lack thereof) should be a side effect of the decisions to make a fun game.

Once you have moved beyond rules-design and into play itself, which includes both the rules and player behaviors, yes. I'm not asking for us to balance player behaviors though, as I consider that impossible (or, if possible, so terrifyingly evil as to be worth literally fighting by armed uprising, but that's an entirely different topic). The rules themselves can be balanced, or not balanced, and the play that adopts and surrounds those rules can and will adjust them--especially if clear advice and effective tools are furnished to the DMs and players alike (often different kinds of tools/advice for each).

Player behaviors? Move into play itself? No, I'm talking about player perception and biases, not that stuff. As I had hoped would be evident from my example of a group that would consider an optimized Tainted Sorcerer BFC God Wizard to not be contributing, because their concept of "balance" amounted to "how much damage you dealt", and that (likely OP to our PoV) character has virtually no damage output capabilities.

I'm explaining why UBI is a pipe dream. And then saying, "but, pretending that it wasn't…”.

Your anecdote does not really apply to my concerns, because (as noted) they were about the play around the rules, and not really the rules themselves--or, they were *literally identical* to my concerns, because you were being denied contribution by the rules themselves, and could not address that meaningfully because the other players were unaware, and thereby trapped by imbalance that could not be addressed by rules-external adjustment.

The other players weren't unaware, they were incapable of comprehending measuring "balance" by the metric of "contribution". Imagine if I responded to your balance concerns by saying, "but you're the same level as everyone else, so you're balanced", and was unable to comprehend anything but "level" as an indicator of balance.

Your "UBI" analogy is, again, something I consider irrelevant. You are exclusively examining the actual-play aka "post-design" part. I am exclusively examining the in-design aka "pre-play" part. We can balance the system, and equip players and DMs alike to adjust from there.

If you hold my UBI to be irrelevant, then you hold your desire for balance as irrelevant. Because UBI is simply a metric for balance. That doesn't sound like a particularly coherent stance. (Probably because you're wrong about this whole "post" and "pre" stuff. (Yes, historically, I'm often discussing "post" stuff. But I'm not here.) So drop that, and try again.)

Quertus

2019-10-11, 07:34 PM

In any system I've used and would run, just having the skill isn't a "button" you can "use". It starts with an action in the imaginary world, and you roll if the outcome is uncertain. In other words, you don't get to "I Rapoprt the baker!". You have to figure out what makes him tick, and what he wants, then make him an offer... and then, if it's still uncertain (maybe he wants what you're offering, but he also has a reason to not do what you're asking) you make a roll.

Um… you seemed point on with the rest of the post, but this bit? We lost signal somewhere.

So, I certainly agree with what you're saying about how to befriend the Baker. Which is why I made "Face" (ie, "convince") and "friend" (ie, befriend) as two separate options for getting Baker Devin to use his skills on your behalf. Each with their own pros and cons.

However, the "win button" in this example / in this context was having "Animal" skills, such that you didn't need Baker Devin's help.

Morty

2019-10-11, 07:42 PM

Quertus

2019-10-11, 07:51 PM

This entire discussion seems to be predicated on the fact that 3E is easy to balance... a fact which is not in evidence in practical play, rather than forum theory-crafting. Not even in forum theory-crafting, really. Aside from the effort and system mastery required, books don't grow on trees. Quertus' line of argumentation seems to be trying to obfuscate this, as far as I can tell.

Ooh, "obfuscate" is one of my favorite words. But, no, I am not discussing how *easy* anything is, only that it is *possible*. And stating that I've seen it (balance in 3e) from many parties at many tables.

My line of argumentation? Eh, my series of explanations are intended to clarify what I mean by the things that I say, and… hmmm… I suppose both broaden and narrow the conceptual space under discussion.

Once all active participants get on the same page, then I can start in on my line of argumentation. :smallwink:

AdAstra

2019-10-11, 08:13 PM

Quertus I think a crucial thing to ask, since I'm not sure it's been said anywhere, what exactly does your party do to maintain balance in your eyes.

How much of it is how the players choose to see themselves and their party (aka do they actually care)?

How much is voluntary character decisions (aka does the cleric just choose not to buff themselves into a combat monster)?

How much is decided in the build stage (i.e. no Pun Pun)?

How much is created by the needs/events of the story (i.e. only the fighter can wield the legendary Sword of Ultra-Killy-Death)?

In addition, how much of this is action from the players and how much is on your part?

Specifics on how your party (including you) implements balance would be helpful, preferably in the form of real examples.

Cluedrew

2019-10-11, 08:30 PM

I have lost the thread of the conversation at this point. I'm going to try to reset some things:

Why does the party need to be balanced?

My answer is it doesn't have to but that is the design intent of most systems I have seen. So playing balanced PCs generally fits into that mold. Further more I believe that games thrive on meaningful choices (Choices that you understand that have impacts.) and imbalance can reduce the amount of meaningful choices.

Imbalance mostly takes away from the impacts of a choice, it can also reduce knowledge needed to make the meaningful choices in the first place but I will focus on the simpler impact section. I spoke of "meaningful contributions" before and that is the impact of the decision, here how it effects the campaign progress. There isn't a hard line about when an impact becomes meaningful - and we have things like occasional large impacts with larger impacts as a mix - but something that effects a scene is less impactful than something that effects future scenes which is less impactful than something that completely changes what scenes happen later.

A small different in power can lead to a small difference in impact. And a large difference in power can lead to the smaller impact getting completely lost. At that point there isn't a meaningful choice being made any more for the player of the weaker character, because no matter what they do the stronger characters actions will dictate the flow of the game. And that's not fun.

And I say that entirely aware that Quertus is in the thread. Every positive anecdote about character imbalance I have heard has boiled down to 2 options: A) the characters were actually balanced* or B) a player uses something non-mechanical to make a meaningful choice. The former doesn't count and the second is... fine but it is not something you can design for because you can do the same thing with a character more mechanical options.

As for what to do when imbalance is wanted, well by my broader definition I actually wonder if it is. But if it is you can simply not use the tools all your character provides you.

* Close enough to perfect balance that they all could still make meaningful choices.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-11, 09:28 PM

If the players want to play Galactus and Ant Man, should the system force their characters to be balanced?
The trouble with asking Socratic questions is when you get an answer you don't expect: Yes, I think they should be balanced! Of course, your example is rather flawed since the two don't play together. But to use a practical example of the same bent, systems that allow Superman-like and Batman-like characters to play together do, almost without exception, seek to balance those options somehow. In the rare cases they don't (such as certain editions of Exalted), they admit this and go out of their way to note that (frex) Dragon-Blooded probably will struggle to adventure alongside Solars due to the power differential and players should only engage in this if they're okay with that.

Literally zero versions of D&D have tried for this, and nearly all have spent both actual design effort and published-book/dev-advice text specifically in the opposite direction. I feel confident in saying that while this is an option, the developers are both aware of it and intentionally avoiding it, thus removing it as a consideration. D&D, and PF, want to be balanced, actively elicit feedback on how to become more balanced, and intentionally present their options as balanced...and yet they are not.

If the players want to play Conan and… not Conan… a Thief, should the system force them to be balanced?
Sure. Why not?

If players want to play Bill Gates, Einstein, Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, and Neil Armstrong, should the system force them to be balanced?
Sure. Why not?

If the system is built with "balance" as its prime directive, it unlikely to correctly capture the flavor of these matchups.
Why not? I don't accept that as a fiat declaration--again, see "our game permits both Batman and Superman, with reasonable efforts at balance."

As I keep saying, the good thing about 3e is, you can build characters to whatever balance or whatever imbalance you want.
Except literally everything I've ever seen about 3rd edition indicates this is categorically false.

If you want to play as yourself in a game, and I hand you Thor's character sheet, and I say, "just don't use the bits that don't fit" are you going to feel that the system has succeeded in modeling you? Is it going to feel like you?
What, exactly, is this supposed to demonstrate? There is no game (and I'd argue there would never be a game) where that is the actual effect of what I said. All you've done is show that, if a person's only choices are "premade character based on something entirely orthogonal to their interests" and "lump it," they may have real reasons to choose "lump it." It'd be nice if the hypotheticals weren't so ludicrously biased.

If you don't get it, I probably can't explain it. For now, just take it on faith that it's a problem, and ask me about it again if we ever get on similar pages on the rest of this.
Alright, if I'm not getting your explanation, maybe you'll get mine.

Unbalanced systems are difficult, sometimes extremely difficult, to make balanced. It can sometimes require constant, active re-design during use. By analogy, consider the F-117 Nighthawk: an inherently unstable plane that, technically speaking, should not be able to fly any meaningful distance. It can only do so because active, continuous computer adjustment of the aerofoil overcomes just enough of the inherent stability to keep it flying where the pilot wants, and it must be done by computer, a human isn't fast or observant enough. My experience of 3rd edition--3e, 3.5e, Pathfinder, etc.--has conformed without exception to this. A human DM can make dynamic adjustments to patch the ever-growing number of holes, but eventually they will just wear out.

By comparison, balanced systems are usually quite easy to make unbalanced. Analogically: How many ways are there to take a perfectly stable aircraft and make it crash? Since you don't seem to care much for the "you aren't forced to use it" argument, here's another: 4e, though (in)famous for its balance, has no less than four mechanics that can be trivially altered (in multiple ways each, some even actually done by real DMs!) to break the balance wide open (Daily powers, XP budget, healing surges, . Of course, if you're shooting for very specific kinds of imbalance, that's different--but you have thus far only argued imbalance in the generic, and have (to the best of my knowledge) explicitly either agreed with my opposition to, or have not agreed but argued your position meaningfully differs from, "I want *my* preferences to be Just Better than the alternatives."

Producing instability out of stability is quite easy; producing stability out of instability is fiendishly difficult. Producing imbalance out of balance is trivial; producing balance out of imbalance is incredibly hard. (See below for the one exception that I already called out and am mildly annoyed that you seem to have ignored me doing so.)

Bingo! It's why ice cream shops serve more than one flavor: because there's no right answer.
That's...not what I'm saying. I'm saying if my answer is wrong, so is yours, for identical reasons. You can't use that argument against my position, because it is just as deadly to your own. If "it's bad to make chocolate fans eat vanilla, and some fans MUST have real imported gelato" is the reason to not even serve vanilla, it can be just as easily turned around to "it's bad to make vanilla fans eat chocolate, and some fans MUST have real imported french vanilla" being a reason to not even serve chocolate. Except--and here's where the real point I was making lies--you can make chocolate ice cream by adding chocolate syrup and mixing (since that is in fact how most chocolate is made, adding cocoa and a little vanilla to sweetened cream and then chilling it). You cannot make vanilla ice cream by extracting chocolate flavor from pre-mixed ice cream...or at least not without incredibly difficult and wasteful filtration. Of course, this analogy is imperfect and all arguments by analogy are only as good as the fit of the analogy to the situation and I'm eight million percent certain you can come up with a counter-example of ice cream flavors but that's not the point. The point is that you can always add imbalance to literally any game, balanced or not. It is usually (in fact, very nearly always) VERY difficult to add real, durable balance to a game that starts imbalanced; see, for example, the issues with 3.5e's CR system, and how any effort to make it work as advertised essentially means either reviewing every single monster OR starting from scratch and building a new CR system that works.

3e has amazing accidental success at serving many, many flavors. It provides the tools to create balanced parties, or unbalanced parties, at the group's whim. <snip> 3e did so much better: it made a system where either group could be happy.
To reiterate: I completely, totally, thoroughly, and every other "all of it" adjective I can muster, disagree with this statement. And the literal years of interminable arguments, garbage house rules, entire editions, etc. all seem to back me up on this. 3e has serious, debilitating flaws that actively prevent playing balanced parties, confuse efforts to address them (allegedly by intent, see Cook's "Ivory Tower Game Design," but even by accident it's bad), and encourage dismissive and elitist opinions to linger within the community.

So, to parrot your question back to you, if you could make a system where some group of people will be unhappy, or one that can serve them all, why not make the latter?
Because it doesn't exist, never did, and never will.

Everyone plays as Quertus (my signature academia mage for whom this account is named). Perfect balance. Done. So, I guess I'd say that, technically, balance is easiest, because it requires producing the fewest options - 1 - while imbalance requires at least 2 options.
Okay, I have to assume this was just being playful, but seriously, I really did already address this. You're speaking of trivial balance, which I already explicitly called out as an exception. In all but trivial cases, balance is more difficult. Do you agree, yes/no?

Still not what you're asking, but more Germaine to your point, I think that the system should focus on what it wants to do, and on making that fun. "Balance" (or lack thereof) should be a side effect of the decisions to make a fun game.
Absolutely! Which is why your UBI stuff was irrelevant to me--but I'll get to that in a sec.

Player behaviors? Move into play itself? No, I'm talking about player perception and biases, not that stuff.
...how do you have player perceptions and biases before you have players? Game design happens before there are players. The players cannot have perceptions of rules that aren't available for play.

The other players weren't unaware, they were incapable of comprehending measuring "balance" by the metric of "contribution". Imagine if I responded to your balance concerns by saying, "but you're the same level as everyone else, so you're balanced", and was unable to comprehend anything but "level" as an indicator of balance.
I refuse to believe, unless you have evidence to the contrary, that there are human beings physically incapable of such comprehension, while still being physically capable of playing the game. Therefore, unless you are able and willing to provide such evidence, they are merely unaware that that is a metric, not incapable of using that metric. (I do, of course, allow for individuals with physical and mental disabilities that can present severe barriers to play...but I'd argue anyone genuinely incapable of understanding "contribution to the game" is incapable of playing the game, and thus the discussion would never happen in the first place.)

If you hold my UBI to be irrelevant, then you hold your desire for balance as irrelevant.
Not at all. Your UBI has abstracted itself into irrelevance. There is, in fact, a completely valid way to go about this: statistical testing of one's objectives. As you said above, a game needs to decide what it's about. If it uses a statistical model for generating outcomes (read: dice, cards, any other source of randomness to drive events), then one can define goals and then set mathematical targets for those goals. One can then run many, many trials of the system (playtesting), collect results as a data set, and check to see if, under both controlled and diverse circumstances, the spread of statistical results matches the desired spread of results. E.g. a null hypothesis of "the mean and SD are indistinguishable from the desired mean and SD" (probably GOF tests, though more advanced tools might be needed). If we reject the null, we must go back and revise the rules and test again; if we do not reject it, then while we don't know for certain it's balanced, we have done reasonable due diligence in that direction.

Your UBI is flawed not because it is a balance metric, but because it is merely a ranking, when it needs to be a statistical range. You wanted to disprove balance metrics in the abstract, but literally none of what you said applies to statistical modelling of a numerical-valued system.

Of course, you can rebut that some mechanics have no definable numeric impact whatsoever. That's going to be a hard sell, since even things like fly and clairvoyance admit at least SOME attachment of numeric values, such as "expected attacks avoided" and "expected auto-success knowledge checks" or what-have-you, just to give emphatically non-exhaustive examples. But let's say you do come up with actual, meaningful mechanics that really affect results, but in an entirely un-numeric way--you will have identified a part of the ruleset that needs special handling, and thus either (a) something that should be commonly accessible, so everyone benefits; or (b) something that should be used very sparingly and with clear warning to DMs and players that it can be game-altering.

Because UBI is simply a metric for balance. That doesn't sound like a particularly coherent stance. (Probably because you're wrong about this whole "post" and "pre" stuff. (Yes, historically, I'm often discussing "post" stuff. But I'm not here.) So drop that, and try again.)
See above--your uber-abstracted "ANY balance metric fits here!" doesn't actually cover the most useful and common metric of balance (statistics).

lperkins2

2019-10-11, 09:32 PM

This is the Dekker problem in Shadowrun. If 1/2 the party is good at A, and the other half is good at B, and this specialization is so extreme that the half that is not good at the task at hand may as well do nothing, then only half the group is playing at a time. This defeats the purpose of a social game.

kyoryu

2019-10-11, 10:17 PM

So is there a player, EVER, that has said "yes, I want to play a fighter in a game with wizards, and for me to have fun, I really want the wizard to outclass me in pretty much everything"?

Mechalich

2019-10-11, 10:40 PM

As for what to do when imbalance is wanted, well by my broader definition I actually wonder if it is. But if it is you can simply not use the tools all your character provides you.

I find that 'imbalance is wanted' is usually a reference to how different sorts of players want different amounts of spotlight. There are people who want to go through a game doing very little at the table, whether due to introversion, shyness, or just an intent to relax and put little energy into the overall activity, and they may speak rarely, offer plans never, and mostly contribute to the group by fulfilling some rote mechanical need while contributing little to the story. By contrast, there are also players who want to be involved in everything, feel a need to comment on all decisions, and genuinely feel underserved if they aren't doing something all the time due to some combination of extroversion, dominant personalities, and a general tendency to chatter.

However, the solution to this different types of players is very much not to give them characters of different power levels mechanically, whether to play for or against these types. Mechanical balance is, in fact, a critical tool in the TTRPG box of table management tools as a way to keep domineering players from running roughshod over everything and in giving more reserved players a chance to shine when they desire it.

Some groups don't need mechanics to have a great collaborative storytelling experience at the table. They can have a great time freeform roleplaying. That's fine for them, but many groups are not capable of this and it is the latter component that matters when considering design needs. What you and a group of really close friends can make work through informal rulings, ad hoc GM decisions, and unspoken agreements tells us almost nothing about the needs of a group of strangers joining up online or at a convention.

I agree that balance can be related to meaningful contributions and meaningful choices, and would extend that to the idea that balance is intended to provide a framework such that each player - in the core of ordinary gameplay for the system - ends of having the opportunity to make roughly the same amount of choices and contributions as everyone else. Balance is not intended to produce equal outcomes. A quiet player may habitually neglect the majority of opportunities and delegate the majority of their choices to other party members, and a highly invested player may make a point of seizing every possible choice with both hands and feet, but that should be the player's (and to some extent the GM's) choice, not something that is dictated by the system itself.

This, by the way, is one of the many areas in collaborative role-playing where the needs of the game must override the desire for both verisimilitude and good storytelling, similar to the 'don't split the party' principle. In an sort of real scenario of a group of people working together to solve a complex problem you would inevitably encounter components that only one person has the skills to do anything about and they would go off and work on it by themselves for a while, but if you let that happen in game everything comes to a screeching halt.

So is there a player, EVER, that has said "yes, I want to play a fighter in a game with wizards, and for me to have fun, I really want the wizard to outclass me in pretty much everything"?

There are players who have said 'I recognize that in this system wizards outclass fighters in just about everything, but I really, really don't want to play a wizard and would rather play a fighter and I'm okay with being super weak as a result.' People who play as Dragon-blooded in Solar Exalted parties (which is a thing that exists) represent an example of this phenomenon. Sometimes this sort of thing is okay, because the player really wants to make a character who is defined by their poor life choices - such as playing a melee specialist in Eclipse Phase - or their powerlessness - such as playing a ghoul in a vampire game - and if the rest of the group is okay with that it can be an interesting experience. However, more often it is a reflection that the concepts available at the game's primarily power level/scale are less interesting than concepts that are available in the game world at some other power level/scale and that a mismatch exists as a result.

In fairness, this can happen accidentally or simply reflect out-of-game preferences. For example, there are Werewolf players who would do almost anything to play as Bastet rather than Garou and never mind and mechanical imbalances simply because they like cats better than dogs. D&D 3.X includes elements of this. While wizards were always more powerful than fighters, the gulf widened massively due to a series of changes between 2e and 3e that happened to synergize in particular ways the authors clearly did not fully anticipate - the combination of HP inflation and changing the Saving Throw system is one piece of it - such that wizards became monumentally more powerful than fighters at a surprisingly early level point.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-11, 11:22 PM

So is there a player, EVER, that has said "yes, I want to play a fighter in a game with wizards, and for me to have fun, I really want the wizard to outclass me in pretty much everything"?

As noted by others above, no. Hence why I haven't really addressed that desire, and instead its reversed-perspective counterpart ("yes, I want to play a wizard in a game with fighters, and for me to have fun, I really want to outclass the fighter in pretty much everything") because that seems to be what people call on when they say that people are "used to" certain powerful abilities being available. That is, doing anything which might upset the "I [a wizard] really want to outclass the fighter in pretty much everything" status is often held to automatically make a game unpopular, and I disagree with that notion. Particularly since so many designers openly say that they want to avoid that sort of thing, and in so many games, the descriptive text implicitly denies that that is true.

However, also as noted by others above, there really are people who want to "play D&D" and yet ignore half or more of the actual process of playing D&D...and, if Quertus' arguments are to be taken seriously, some of them get actively upset when you simply furnish them with some ways to do that, even if they can totally choose not to use them. 5e did a Good Thing, IMO, by explicitly stating that D&D has at least three "pillars" in it: combat, socialization, and exploration. They stumbled, again IMO, by failing to follow through with what that means: if those three things are fundamental to the experience, every class should contribute to them. Having one class that contributes lots and lots to just one pillar and almost not at all to the others is maybe workable if players are properly warned about the extremely slanted focus of that class, but 5e doesn't do that. Worse, instead of actually making that class (Fighter, naturally) be genuinely stand-out in that field, it's merely fairly well-balanced in that field (certain exceptions aside) and thus is less "lots and lots to one pillar and almost not at all to the others" and more "normal in one pillar and almost not at all in the others."

kyoryu

2019-10-11, 11:22 PM

There are players who have said 'I recognize that in this system wizards outclass fighters in just about everything, but I really, really don't want to play a wizard and would rather play a fighter and I'm okay with being super weak as a result.' People who play as Dragon-blooded in Solar Exalted parties (which is a thing that exists) represent an example of this phenomenon. Sometimes this sort of thing is okay, because the player really wants to make a character who is defined by their poor life choices - such as playing a melee specialist in Eclipse Phase - or their powerlessness - such as playing a ghoul in a vampire game - and if the rest of the group is okay with that it can be an interesting experience. However, more often it is a reflection that the concepts available at the game's primarily power level/scale are less interesting than concepts that are available in the game world at some other power level/scale and that a mismatch exists as a result.

In fairness, this can happen accidentally or simply reflect out-of-game preferences. For example, there are Werewolf players who would do almost anything to play as Bastet rather than Garou and never mind and mechanical imbalances simply because they like cats better than dogs. D&D 3.X includes elements of this. While wizards were always more powerful than fighters, the gulf widened massively due to a series of changes between 2e and 3e that happened to synergize in particular ways the authors clearly did not fully anticipate - the combination of HP inflation and changing the Saving Throw system is one piece of it - such that wizards became monumentally more powerful than fighters at a surprisingly early level point.

"I want to play a fighter so much that I'll do so even though they're weak" is not the same thing as "I want to play a fighter, and for enjoyment, i want them to be weaker than wizards".

Actively seeking is what I'm asking about - not tolerating.

Quertus

2019-10-12, 12:14 AM

@ezekielraiden - the more we talk, the less we seem to understand each other. An alternate approach may be in order. Because I can't even figure out… hmmm… I guess not "where the disconnet is" but "where common ground to start on is".

Quertus I think a crucial thing to ask, since I'm not sure it's been said anywhere, what exactly does your party do to maintain balance in your eyes.

How much of it is how the players choose to see themselves and their party (aka do they actually care)?

How much is voluntary character decisions (aka does the cleric just choose not to buff themselves into a combat monster)?

How much is decided in the build stage (i.e. no Pun Pun)?

How much is created by the needs/events of the story (i.e. only the fighter can wield the legendary Sword of Ultra-Killy-Death)?

In addition, how much of this is action from the players and how much is on your part?

Specifics on how your party (including you) implements balance would be helpful, preferably in the form of real examples.

Hmmm… I'm probably not completely understanding your request, but let's start here: I've detailed a perfectly functional method in other threads. Well, except I left out step 0: the group shares a common definition of "balance". Without that, this fails.

So, the group establishes a balance range. The GM creates the module. The GM creates some sample characters who can go through the module at the "median" level. The group creates the party within the group's balance range. Done.

This does not involve "playing dumb" (that's something mostly seen in the party where Quertus (my signature academia mage, for whom this account is named) exhibits decidedly inferior performance to the party muggles - there is no balance there) - this is handled at the build stage, by players who care, about both the game and the group. If a player realizes that they have failed to build correctly, they (usually ask, and) rebuild their character to be balanced.

I struggle to see how this is hard enough that people have to ask questions.

You want to build a city with "balanced" buildings, which you define as "reasonably similar height". OK. You pick a height range, and people build buildings. If someone's building clearly isn't the right height, they fix it - tearing it down and starting over if they have to, with help from others as needed.

How is this a conversation?

So, what do you actually want to know?

A small different in power can lead to a small difference in impact. And a large difference in power can lead to the smaller impact getting completely lost. At that point there isn't a meaningful choice being made any more for the player of the weaker character, because no matter what they do the stronger characters actions will dictate the flow of the game. And that's not fun.

Some people play the harmony, others play the melody. Some people - who often think one is "no fun" or "pointless" - can only hear or appreciate one. But others can hear and appreciate the entire composition.

That's my best guess as to why I look at what you wrote, and say "no".

Yes, if you're playing Aunt May, and you're expecting to punch out violence alongside Superman, you're not going to have a good time. However, if you signed up for Aunt May because you liked the (small) role that she brings to the table, then you can have fun.

Not everyone signs up for the lead in a play. But a lesser impact shouldn't be equated with no impact. Do note that I've played the latter. And that few people *actually* have 0 impact.

And I say that entirely aware that Quertus is in the thread. Every positive anecdote about character imbalance I have heard has boiled down to 2 options: A) the characters were actually balanced* or B) a player uses something non-mechanical to make a meaningful choice. The former doesn't count and the second is... fine but it is not something you can design for because you can do the same thing with a character more mechanical options.

Playing the melody and playing the harmony is, I suppose, playing two different games, and I suppose you could call them balanced by being unbalanced, but I suspect we'd be talking in circles at that point.

And, while my Sentient Potted Plant by definition could only contribute through "something non-mechanical to make a meaningful choice", well, surely if one accepts "0" as a valid, fun mechanical contribution, one must also accept some number greater than zero yet still much, much less than the rest of the party for mechanical contribution as being valid and fun, no?

Also, we've got to be careful of word games here, since you're defining "balanced" in terms of contribution, whereas most (including myself in recent posts, iirc) are speaking of mechanical balance.

So is there a player, EVER, that has said "yes, I want to play a fighter in a game with wizards, and for me to have fun, I really want the wizard to outclass me in pretty much everything"?

Switch those two, ever asked to play a useless Wizards in a game of awesome Fighters, and I'll say, "yes, me!".

I don't much like playing Fighters.

But I have played a Sentient Potted Plant. That's (from y'all's PoV) worse than a Fighter, no?

Look, the point of the game is to get together with friends, have fun, maybe make a good story? You could play a Wizard, I can play a puppy dog, and we could have a good time. Or I could play the Wizard, you the puppy dog, if you prefer.

But start spending too much time caring about balance, and the odds of a good time steadily diminish.

Mind you, I consider "rules lawyering" a good time. But balance? It's toxic. It's bean counters constantly looking over their shoulders at other bean counters. Rules lawyering, by contrast, is a "one and done, made the game better" thing.

Sign me up for the puppy any day.

EDIT:
"I want to play a fighter so much that I'll do so even though they're weak" is not the same thing as "I want to play a fighter, and for enjoyment, i want them to be weaker than wizards".

Actively seeking is what I'm asking about - not tolerating.

Oh, then definitely me with wanting my Wizards to be weaker than Fighters.

Mechalich

2019-10-12, 12:19 AM

As noted by others above, no. Hence why I haven't really addressed that desire, and instead its reversed-perspective counterpart ("yes, I want to play a wizard in a game with fighters, and for me to have fun, I really want to outclass the fighter in pretty much everything") because that seems to be what people call on when they say that people are "used to" certain powerful abilities being available. That is, doing anything which might upset the "I [a wizard] really want to outclass the fighter in pretty much everything" status is often held to automatically make a game unpopular, and I disagree with that notion. Particularly since so many designers openly say that they want to avoid that sort of thing, and in so many games, the descriptive text implicitly denies that that is true.

With regard to people being 'used to' the availability of certain powers, there's multiple issues. First of all, there's the literal case - some gamers have played the same system (and occasionally the same characters) for decades of real time and they get used to certain character types having access to certain abilities as part of how that character type works and they view the loss of any such abilities as unfair nerfs. A druid's wild shape ability is a good example here: Wild Shape is a staggeringly powerful ability that is often severely unbalancing, but druid's have had it for so long that taking it away from the class would be met with protests. In the case of wizards this sort of conservation of in-game abilities mostly takes the form of a variety of overpowered spells that have existed since 1e that no one has the guts to remove or significantly change. Note that you can see evidence of this kind of pressure when you compare D&D to games that also use the D20 system and have a similar focus - the best most recent example being Starfinder. That game just outright eliminated spell above 6th level, a huge boost to upper level class balance, but something you could never get away with in D&D.

Secondly, there's the issue of powers that are naturally associated with various archetypes in the grounding fiction that players expect characters with a certain label to have. This is more nebulous, but in generic high fantasy there are certain that 'wizards' are presumed to be able to do, like fly, and taking those abilities away creates a dissonance between the players and the game. D&D, with it's kitchen sink design scheme, is particularly vulnerable to this since if a power exists in fantasy the feel obligated to provide it and clever players find ways to acquire any ability present in the game (even if it's supposed to belong only to rare antagonists) and turn it to their advantage.

However, also as noted by others above, there really are people who want to "play D&D" and yet ignore half or more of the actual process of playing D&D...and, if Quertus' arguments are to be taken seriously, some of them get actively upset when you simply furnish them with some ways to do that, even if they can totally choose not to use them. 5e did a Good Thing, IMO, by explicitly stating that D&D has at least three "pillars" in it: combat, socialization, and exploration. They stumbled, again IMO, by failing to follow through with what that means: if those three things are fundamental to the experience, every class should contribute to them. Having one class that contributes lots and lots to just one pillar and almost not at all to the others is maybe workable if players are properly warned about the extremely slanted focus of that class, but 5e doesn't do that. Worse, instead of actually making that class (Fighter, naturally) be genuinely stand-out in that field, it's merely fairly well-balanced in that field (certain exceptions aside) and thus is less "lots and lots to one pillar and almost not at all to the others" and more "normal in one pillar and almost not at all in the others."

D&D occupies a weird place between wholly generic systems designed to be used as toolkits to build your game and systems designed to model a specific setting produced by a team of writers, owing in large part to its genesis in the very early era of RPGs. In fact, D&D models a very specific form of high fantasy, one best conceptualized not in any version of the game but in the fiction attached to various D&D settings. In D&D fiction high-level wizards are indeed much stronger than warriors and there's really no way around it without ruthlessly railroading large numbers of encounters into place to bleed off spell slots from the wizards in a fashion that truly isn't practical at tabletop (somewhat paradoxically this actually works better in D&D video games, which can throw out large numbers of trash encounters to up the value of martial characters).

As it stands D&D has certain balance problems that are almost fundamentally baked in to the game. When WotC actually imposed changes extensive enough to solve them - through 4e - everyone claimed that it 'was not D&D' and they weren't wrong. The balance issues of D&D can be mitigated, particularly by certain worldbuilding choices (making high-level wizards really rare, removing certain monsters from the setting, etc.), but never eliminated.

"I want to play a fighter so much that I'll do so even though they're weak" is not the same thing as "I want to play a fighter, and for enjoyment, i want them to be weaker than wizards".

Actively seeking is what I'm asking about - not tolerating.

There are players who occasionally desire to play a character who is unreasonably weak. I mentioned above the idea of playing a Ghoul in a VtM game. Such character will inherently be weaker than a vampire character and that's the point, the setting wouldn't work otherwise. There are particular dramatic possibilities that is opens up that aren't available in a more balanced scenario. However, this sort of thing is very rare, and in the case of D&D almost unheard of. D&D is a game about gathering a group of adventurers together and going out to places full of hostile entities and slaughtering your way to fame and fortune (or possibly infamy). Deliberately self-imposing a weakness of that sort is antithetical to the game model.

Satinavian

2019-10-12, 12:32 AM

As I keep saying, the good thing about 3e is, you can build characters to whatever balance or whatever imbalance you want.
You can't have a balanced game without cutting most of the character variety concept in D&D 3E. This variety is the main draw of 3E, so if you were to do that, why play 3E in the first place ? It sucks for balanced gamed.
If you want balance, you are better off using a different system.

Everyone plays as Quertus (my signature academia mage for whom this account is named). Perfect balance. Done. So, I guess I'd say that, technically, balance is easiest, because it requires producing the fewest options - 1 - while imbalance requires at least 2 options.Or we could use a system that actually has balanced options. So that we don't have to restrict character choice ad absurdum just to get balance.

This is why a system that provides both balance and options is just better. Yes, it is also significantly harder to write. But that only means that it is also difficult to introduce balance by houserules so it t really important the system already has it by the book.

So is there a player, EVER, that has said "yes, I want to play a fighter in a game with wizards, and for me to have fun, I really want the wizard to outclass me in pretty much everything"?
I occassionally do enjoy playing sidekick or comic relief characters. I haven't done so in a D&D game of any kind and i don't need the strange fighter - wizard thing D&D has going on to do so, but i reasonable could imagine some D&D players having such a wish occasionally.
But it is generally easy to make intentionally a bad character or to play to the weaknesses instead of the strenghts of a character, so we really don't need the system to enforce such stuff.

AdAstra

2019-10-12, 01:16 AM

ezekielraiden

2019-10-12, 02:52 AM

With regard to people being 'used to' the availability of certain powers, there's multiple issues. First of all, there's the literal case <snip>. Secondly, there's the issue of powers that are naturally associated<snip>.
Agreed, but vital caveat: those things are not "naturally" associated, they are historically associated. Maybe semantics, but "naturally associated" implies inherentness, implicitly validating the never-take-my-toys-away position. I think you don't strictly mean that, just that it's an assumption people have picked up over time, which is fine. 13th Age AMAZINGLY fixed the Druid Problem: Druids pick from six different talent groups, at Initiate (1 point) or Adept (2 points). You have 3 talents to spend between Animal Companion, Elemental Caster, Shifter, Terrain Caster, Warrior Druid, and Wild Healer. (The two caster options do slightly different things.) It manages to recognize that Druid IS a grab-bag, without going all the way to "and therefore you should get 3 classes' worth of abilities."

D&D occupies a weird place between wholly generic systems designed to be used as toolkits to build your game and systems designed to model a specific setting produced by a team of writers, owing in large part to its genesis in the very early era of RPGs.
Also agreed. D&D labors under being the first, for good and for ill. (It also labors under Gary Gygax's poetic but unfortunately-obscurantist prose and organizational style.) It's sort of like, say, being a programmer in the modern day who needs to debug an ATM computer or detector hardware for extremely old detectors at universities (which retain equipment that can be older than the professors teaching the class!) Many ATMs and other business *and government* computers/devices still use COBOL, and physics departments everywhere must still wrangle with FORTRAN, despite these languages now being more than 60 years old with all the limitations that entails.

As it stands D&D has certain balance problems that are almost fundamentally baked in to the game. When WotC actually imposed changes extensive enough to solve them - through 4e - everyone claimed that it 'was not D&D' and they weren't wrong.
Can we not support literal edition-war rhetoric? I'd really appreciate that. 4e is just as much "D&D" as any other game published by whoever-currently-owns-it. It's different, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anything that's genuinely in common between all-but-4e. (That is, anything genuinely common between pre- and post-4e editions will also include it, and anything that carefully excludes 4e will invariably exclude something you want to keep.)

The balance issues of D&D can be mitigated, particularly by certain worldbuilding choices (making high-level wizards really rare, removing certain monsters from the setting, etc.), but never eliminated.
I disagree--I think we can eliminate them, or at least mitigate them to the point that they only become an issue in clearly off-label uses. To borrow from Quertus (quoted below), there's nothing morally or logically wrong with wanting to play Aunt May, but if the game is about playing a superhero, Aunt May isn't an intended option. Or to turn an earlier Quertus example against him, a player who desperately wants to play Aunt May but gets handed the character sheet for Thor is probably going to be frustrated and confused, and should probably look for a different game (or at least a different group).

Deliberately self-imposing a weakness of that sort is antithetical to the game model.
And, perhaps more importantly, is best addressed by targeted rules anyway. As in, with your own examples, the system was explicitly catering to a particular subgroup with an option that isn't meant for general consumption. D&D fails to perform even remotely similar segregation, blending every possible layer together immediately, with predictably mixed (hah) results.

@ezekielraiden - the more we talk, the less we seem to understand each other. An alternate approach may be in order. Because I can't even figure out… hmmm… I guess not "where the disconnet is" but "where common ground to start on is".
Okay, though I feel like I'm being yanked around here. I've done as asked, but the criteria keep changing (or so it seems).

So, the group establishes a balance range. The GM creates the module. The GM creates some sample characters who can go through the module at the "median" level. The group creates the party within the group's balance range. Done.
Hold your horses: there's a strong, and very arguable, assumption hidden in here. That is, the assumption that the system provides characters within that range that are compatible with the group's tastes. Which is one of the core assumptions I'm attacking. D&D does not do this. D&D does not provide Fighters that are in the same balance range as casters for most party-interest-sets.

If a player realizes that they have failed to build correctly, they (usually ask, and) rebuild their character to be balanced.
Another highly arguable assumption. I have known many DMs, even played in their games, who were extremely reluctant to let any character rebuild whatsoever, regardless of the reason for doing so. They have, in fact, been especially suspicious of "my character is too weak for this group" reasons!

How is this a conversation?
Because you've assumed that the game allows museums and skyscrapers to have similar heights, and that the person running the game allows demolish-and-replace if a building isn't going to reach the expected height range, and both of those assumptions are, at very least, not always right. Anecdotally--you're still accepting anecdotes, right?--they are both wrong frequently.

Not everyone signs up for the lead in a play. But a lesser impact shouldn't be equated with no impact. Do note that I've played the latter. And that few people *actually* have 0 impact.
So. With the noted exception of certain White Wolf games (e.g. Vampire and playing ghouls, Exalted and mixing Solars with Dragon-blooded), the significant majority of games--and definitely all modern editions of D&D, including PF--go out of their way to present the game as having no "lead" classes and no "bit-part" classes. The designers of these games explicitly call for player feedback on balance between these classes (among a variety of things, to be sure). Yet they repeatedly end up providing Aunt-May classes and Superman classes, and you are telling us this is not a problem. I'm asserting that the game should start from making every class in the same option-band (e.g. "from Spiderman to Superman" OR "from Aunt May to Jimmy Olsen"), and then provide tools, advice, and examples for how to break out of that band if that's your speed. All in the same book, mind--this isn't "no, you have to wait your turn while WE get our game."

Also, we've got to be careful of word games here, since you're defining "balanced" in terms of contribution, whereas most (including myself in recent posts, iirc) are speaking of mechanical balance.
Meaningful contribution has mechanical impact. If your contribution cannot even in principle touch the mechanics, I don't see how it is contributing anything. I would, however, be very interested to see any examples you have of a character doing something I'd call "meaningfully contributing" that does not, in fact, touch any mechanic. I understand that that's kind of a hard request, since I can't just beam into your head my definition of "meaningfully contributing," so it might end up feeling (or even just being) arbitrary and unfair, but...I don't know any other way to address it. I'm asserting meaningful contribution always has, somewhere along the line, mechanical impact (preventing/causing battles, avoiding/adding expenditures, consuming time when time is tracked, etc.) If you can demonstrate something that clearly matters for the party's goals, but cannot and will not ever affect the party's mechanical representation, then I will concede this point gladly.

Switch those two, ever asked to play a useless Wizards in a game of awesome Fighters, and I'll say, "yes, me!".

I don't much like playing Fighters.

But I have played a Sentient Potted Plant. That's (from y'all's PoV) worse than a Fighter, no?
I guess? The point isn't really that nobody can have fun in non-balanced situations. It's that non-balanced situations near-axiomatically exclude certain kinds of fun, while balanced situations can be made to include the kinds of fun found in non-balanced situations.

Mind you, I consider "rules lawyering" a good time. But balance? It's toxic. It's bean counters constantly looking over their shoulders at other bean counters. Rules lawyering, by contrast, is a "one and done, made the game better" thing.
Woah now, this is...what? I would never in a million years mean "bean-counter" behavior and the like. You characterize a desire for balance as though it can literally only be manifested in government bureaucrats aggressively pushing their agenda so they can keep up with their "sibling" departments. That's...never ever ever ever what I have been talking about, perhaps even the opposite of what I'm talking about.

That is, in an unbalanced game, I have to always be on the lookout for whether I'm being impeded by the system from doing what I want to do with the options I find cool, or worse, that I'm going to piss in my friends' cheerios by invalidating what they like to do. I am always afraid that I'll mess it up. If I'm a Fighter-type, I'm afraid I'll be dead weight, or worse, the very petulant ass-hats you speak of. If I'm a powerful uber-caster (and yes, I have played one as well, and enjoyed it!), I fear I'm going to crowd out my friends, make them feel like it's my game and they're just witnesses.

Oh, then definitely me with wanting my Wizards to be weaker than Fighters.
Alright. Can you name even one class like this, in all of 3e and PF? To be clear, I'm excluding Truenamer from the running simply because it doesn't work, and expecting an equal amount of charop behind the two (so no comparing a triple-cheese TO Fighter build with an actively un- or even anti-optimized caster-like character). I mentioned this before, though trying for broad terms. So I'll say it simply, even though that will leave it open for quibbling: People who like Wizard-ish characters can always choose to be more powerful than Fighter-ish characters, but never choose not to be more powerful (except by ignoring their options, which you've already said is Not Acceptable). People who like Fighter-ish characters can always choose to be less powerful than Wizard-ish characters, but can never choose to be more powerful (unless someone else intervenes, which for *me* is not acceptable). How come we only cater to people who want more-powerful Wizards and less-powerful Fighters, but never to the people who want less-powerful Wizards and more-powerful Fighters? Why does imbalance always favor a specific, repeated pattern that denigrates one set of preferences over another?

(Incidentally, I'm using "powerful" in the same way AdAstra is using "strong"--holistically, referring to a variety of different kinds of power, rather than strictly one singular axis or enumeration. Which, yes, means I'm counting "versatility" as a form of "power"...but if you've ever read any Wizard guides, as I'm sure you have, you know that that was already an accepted truism among Wizard players.)

Ignimortis

2019-10-12, 04:13 AM

Alright. Can you name even one class like this, in all of 3e and PF?

I'd say that Warmage or Healer compared to a martial adept, especially PoW ones, might seem underwhelming. And when I played as a Harbinger with a Magus, he said that he also felt somewhat overshadowed by my character.

NichG

2019-10-12, 05:05 AM

That is, in an unbalanced game, I have to always be on the lookout for whether I'm being impeded by the system from doing what I want to do with the options I find cool, or worse, that I'm going to piss in my friends' cheerios by invalidating what they like to do. I am always afraid that I'll mess it up. If I'm a Fighter-type, I'm afraid I'll be dead weight, or worse, the very petulant ass-hats you speak of. If I'm a powerful uber-caster (and yes, I have played one as well, and enjoyed it!), I fear I'm going to crowd out my friends, make them feel like it's my game and they're just witnesses.

I think those particular worries are in fact what Quertus is referring to as 'bean-counting'. The idea that, e.g., if someone else is able to do something that you think is cool, it would invalidate the meaningfulness of your ability to do it too, or that you need to be concerned at all about whether you're 'dead weight' are associated with a particular mindset that need not be universal.

Lets say, for example, I'm really interested in transhumanist ideas and want to explore that broad kind of thing in a game. I might hold, for example, that my goal is to transcend the limits of flesh and become immortal (for concreteness, lets say I want to beat old age). If someone else in the party starts the game already being immune to aging, I'm not going to say 'oh, you're already filling the party role of an immortal, I guess it doesn't matter if I become immortal too anymore'.

Lord Raziere

2019-10-12, 05:32 AM

Lets say, for example, I'm really interested in transhumanist ideas and want to explore that broad kind of thing in a game. I might hold, for example, that my goal is to transcend the limits of flesh and become immortal (for concreteness, lets say I want to beat old age). If someone else in the party starts the game already being immune to aging, I'm not going to say 'oh, you're already filling the party role of an immortal, I guess it doesn't matter if I become immortal too anymore'.

No it matters a lot.

because then its like "well you already achieved that, you made my goal irrelevant by starting out with it, how could you?" their goal becomes nothing but figuring out how replicate the other character rather than it being their own journey. it becomes easy because they can just ask this guy next to them how to do it or contribute this sample of them to study to replicate this and that, speeding up everything and boom you've done it quickly rather than it being an actual journey with an actual struggle. thus making the goal irrelevant by giving it too much easy access. easy goals are irrelevant goals. if a character has a goal, they should have to fight for it with all they got.

you'd have to give me a lot of reasons why this doesn't impact the length or hardness of the journey so that its too convenient.

NichG

2019-10-12, 05:43 AM

No it matters a lot.

because then its like "well you already achieved that, you made my goal irrelevant by starting out with it, how could you?" their goal becomes nothing but figuring out how replicate the other character rather than it being their own journey. it becomes easy because they can just ask this guy next to them how to do it or contribute this sample of them to study to replicate this and that, speeding up everything and boom you've done it quickly rather than it being an actual journey with an actual struggle. thus making the goal irrelevant by giving it too much easy access. easy goals are irrelevant goals. if a character has a goal, they should have to fight for it with all they got.

you'd have to give me a lot of reasons why this doesn't impact the length or hardness of the journey so that its too convenient.

From the character point of view: well, not to put too fine a point on it, but if they're immortal and I'm not, and 100 years pass, it's not me that's going to still be alive. Their immortality is, if anything, a major boon to me - because it means that I could actually use their success as a plot hook to start my own journey.

From my point of view: It's not the hardness or length of the journey that is compelling to me, it's the exploration of the idea of 'immortality being possible changes things and how characters would relate to the world and themselves - I want to immerse myself in that whole thing'. Having demonstrated successes sets the stage and creates immortality-themed elements for me to interact with before actually achieving it myself. The fun of it isn't 'I got there first' or 'I have it and you don't' or 'look, I'm being useful' - it's just a different thing.

Mechalich

2019-10-12, 05:55 AM

I think those particular worries are in fact what Quertus is referring to as 'bean-counting'. The idea that, e.g., if someone else is able to do something that you think is cool, it would invalidate the meaningfulness of your ability to do it too, or that you need to be concerned at all about whether you're 'dead weight' are associated with a particular mindset that need not be universal.

In cases of RPG balance 'dead weight' is usually something with a fairly literal interpretation. Specifically, a character who is sufficiently weak that other characters must actively protect them in order to prevent their death. People worry about this quite commonly, even in highly balanced games like MMOs, where players regularly fear having to be 'carried' through group content or complain about having to carry others. And, in MMOs and other video games this can even be mathematically modeled - such as characters not hitting necessary DPS benchmarks in order to successfully complete encounters. While tabletop scenarios are nowhere near as strict it remains a fairly obvious balance issue is one character is completely unable to force any sort of meaningful resource expenditure from an enemy, or conversely if another is able to easily solo a group encounter.

In tabletop the GM can, and should, adjust encounter difficulties to properly match the abilities of the party as a whole, but this only works if the party members have abilities that are within a certain level of variance. If an attack that will outright character A won't even muss the paint on the armor of character B, then you have a problem, and during chargen and XP distribution players will often be plagued by whether or not they are creating a situation that renders another member of the party irrelevant or whether or not their build makes them too weak. To use a personal example, in an early 3e D&D campaign I played a character obsessed with fighting the undead. I wanted to advance in the Hunter of the Dead PrC, because that seemed like an appropriately flavorful thing to do. However, it quickly became clear that simply advancing as a cleric was vastly more efficient in achieving that goal, and in fact the entire PrC is pretty much a trap option because advancing as a cleric will almost always be better at anti-undead functions. So the game's production of options that weren't balanced interfered with my chosen character concept even though it was one the game specifically claimed was supported.

Lets say, for example, I'm really interested in transhumanist ideas and want to explore that broad kind of thing in a game. I might hold, for example, that my goal is to transcend the limits of flesh and become immortal (for concreteness, lets say I want to beat old age). If someone else in the party starts the game already being immune to aging, I'm not going to say 'oh, you're already filling the party role of an immortal, I guess it doesn't matter if I become immortal too anymore'.

What someone else starts the game not simply immortal, but able to give you immortality right off the bat? This is quite possible in D&D if you start in the mid-levels, congrats you're now a necropolitan and is certainly the case in other games. For example, in the oWoD one of the possibly long term goals of a vampire could be to stop being a vampire and regain your humanity - well as it turns out, the only people who could do that in the oWoD were Mages, meaning that this titular goal of one splat was utterly dependent upon another, considerably more powerful, splat.

For a more banal example, it's a common fantasy trope to play a commoner who wishes to, through heroic deeds and the like, to attain noble rank. However, if another member of your party is the Prince, they can just declare you a noble and have done from the first session. A character who has the power to, through minimal effort, fulfill the goals of another character represents a major source of power imbalance.

This is one of the reasons why extreme wealth is so often a massive balance problem, because money, when leveraged properly, can solve almost any problem (for a master class in how this works, read The Count of Monte Cristo).

Cluedrew

2019-10-12, 08:43 AM

[QUOTE=Quertus;24198707Also, we've got to be careful of word games here, since you're defining "balanced" in terms of contribution, whereas most (including myself in recent posts, iirc) are speaking of mechanical balance.[/QUOTE]Yes but balance is still balance. That is to say when I say balance I am referring to mechanical balance - or the comparison of mechanical ability - just like everyone else (well probably some difference, but nothing major). Balanced is then just the difference in total mechanical ability that I think is acceptable, also how I think most people would describe it.

Where the meaningful contribution comes in is that is what sets the range on balanced. If a character is so weak mechanically they cannot make a meaningful contribution than they are underpowered. Because mechanical power (or your Universal Balance Index) has no meaning on its own, it has to be given a context and meaningful contribution is my way picking the most important part of that context out. Also overpowered would be so strong mechanically you prevent others from making a meaningful contribution. And with only two unbalanced characters there is no difference between one being overpowered or the other being underpowered, the distinction exists outliers in a larger group.

One final note, it is the ability to make a meaningful contribution, not the actual act of doing so. You could be sitting on the strongest character in the game and do nothing with it and it would still be strong. In fact this is a pretty simple strategy to widen the acceptable range of balance, a strong character an avoid overwhelming others contributions (and hence not be "overpowered") by being inactive or ineffective with their options most of the time. Still I think it only stretches so far and in my mind that is the players making up for the game designer's mistake.

NichG

2019-10-12, 09:05 AM

In cases of RPG balance 'dead weight' is usually something with a fairly literal interpretation. Specifically, a character who is sufficiently weak that other characters must actively protect them in order to prevent their death. People worry about this quite commonly, even in highly balanced games like MMOs, where players regularly fear having to be 'carried' through group content or complain about having to carry others. And, in MMOs and other video games this can even be mathematically modeled - such as characters not hitting necessary DPS benchmarks in order to successfully complete encounters. While tabletop scenarios are nowhere near as strict it remains a fairly obvious balance issue is one character is completely unable to force any sort of meaningful resource expenditure from an enemy, or conversely if another is able to easily solo a group encounter.

This is kind of my point - the more balance-focused the design is, the more you basically build that kind of blind spot of not being able to see how to not be impacted by other characters' balance points. An MMO is a type of game that is often quasi-competitive (in a sort of coop-competitive sense, you're trying to climb the stratification of the player base), so it focuses a lot on the fairness of that quasi-competition. As a result, having, say, 20% of a difference in achievable DPS might be make or break, because the game is trying to level the playing field so much while maintaining that kind of tension. That's one type of game, and abilities and challenges and so on in that sort of game work a certain way. The 'reward' is coming out on top somehow - your team winning, doing this bit of content very efficiently, climbing player rankings, etc.

Another type of game, or approach to a game, is that the experience of interacting with the game itself is the actual reward. In this kind of game, the idea is to make the main gameplay loop pleasurable or interesting in itself, rather than making it about a comparison between ones-self and the surrounding player base. In something like Minecraft for example, if one player had say ten times the mining speed as another player, it might have an impact on the game but it would have far less impact than someone having 10x the power of someone else would have on an MMO or competitive game. If you're playing for the feeling of mining, or for the creative experience of building things, or so on, then the fact that someone else is doing it more easily/more quickly/better just doesn't matter.

My argument, in the context of these examples at least, is that the mindset of worrying about balance first makes one approach the tabletop RPG as if it has to end up being the same kind of game as an MMO. But it doesn't - if anything, the open-endedness and flexibility of the tabletop setting makes it better suited for the other type of game.

What someone else starts the game not simply immortal, but able to give you immortality right off the bat? This is quite possible in D&D if you start in the mid-levels, congrats you're now a necropolitan and is certainly the case in other games. For example, in the oWoD one of the possibly long term goals of a vampire could be to stop being a vampire and regain your humanity - well as it turns out, the only people who could do that in the oWoD were Mages, meaning that this titular goal of one splat was utterly dependent upon another, considerably more powerful, splat.

Well, lets see. If this is a world where that's already commonplace, then I would choose for the character to have a certain angle on the transhumanist ideas to explore - for example, 'Why do people reject immortality?' What do you do when your loved ones refuse it, etc?' or even just something like crusading to make sure that everyone knows about this wonderful option that everyone should take. There's plenty of stuff to do in that direction, no problem. Since we've angled D&D, there's a whole interaction with the afterlife and 'what is death really?' to be explored.

If this is a world where its not common, then there's the whole thing about 'What if other people find out? what will happen? I want to spread the knowledge, but then it puts me in danger, maybe my patron doesn't want me letting this get back to them, etc'.

In a campaign with a longer timescale, either way I'd still get the core experience of watching the ages go by while others perish, etc.

If the idea itself is intrinsically interesting to me (that is to say, I choose well and play something that I care about for what it is and how it interacts with the setting), then whether or not I can find joy in it isn't a function of those around me, it's a function of me.

Quertus

2019-10-12, 12:17 PM

Quertus I’m asking for an actual example of what happens, not a generalized formula

Gimping an otherwise strong character class/race/build is easy, making a normally weak class/race/build stronger is usually not, especially without significant homebrew. Do your characters that have “strong” choices always need to reign themselves in, or do you have an actual way of making the characters with “weaker” choices stronger.

So part of the point I’m making (though not the whole of it), is that it’s easy to make a weak wizard, the problem is making a strong fighter.

I will point out that “strong” as used in this text is not only combat strength, but in terms of overall ability to contribute to the success of the party. Even a combat god would be a fairly weak character compared to someone who can be a combat god and also good at exploring and socializing.

1) in 3e, someone built a 1st level Commoner to solo the Tarrasque. How hard do you really think it is to boost a weak chassis?

2) what does "good at exploring" mean to you? What does it look like at your table? How much spotlight time does it get? Because, at my tables, in a dungeon crawl, it means player skills of drawing maps, using flour/marbles/chalk/string/etc (which is, granted, helped by having a high Strength, to carry everything, so Fighters are OP there, too). Outside a dungeon crawl, it means either the Wizard teleports us there (maybe 5 seconds spotlight time), or the Ranger gets the spotlight for several hours / sessions. Did I mention martials are OP? So, if we know "no teleporting Wizard" and "lots of overland travel", then a powerful, smart, charismatic Ranger would be OP. So, if someone builds that, they realize their mistake, and choose differently.

3) for making weak characters stronger… just look at all the build advice threads. It looks like that. "I've got a Rogue, they're great, except that they cannot hurt undead, constructs, etc" "well, there's an ACF…”

Okay, though I feel like I'm being yanked around here. I've done as asked, but the criteria keep changing (or so it seems).

Apologies if I am. I'm too senile to remember where we started. I'll need to reread the thread. I'm not quite at "ef, a tale of memories" yet, but I'm often guessing at context anymore.

Hold your horses: there's a strong, and very arguable, assumption hidden in here. That is, the assumption that the system provides characters within that range that are compatible with the group's tastes. Which is one of the core assumptions I'm attacking. D&D does not do this. D&D does not provide Fighters that are in the same balance range as casters for most party-interest-sets.

Another highly arguable assumption. I have known many DMs, even played in their games, who were extremely reluctant to let any character rebuild whatsoever, regardless of the reason for doing so. They have, in fact, been especially suspicious of "my character is too weak for this group" reasons!

Because you've assumed that the game allows museums and skyscrapers to have similar heights, and that the person running the game allows demolish-and-replace if a building isn't going to reach the expected height range, and both of those assumptions are, at very least, not always right. Anecdotally--you're still accepting anecdotes, right?--they are both wrong frequently.

I'm pretty sure, though, that, in this case, you've missed the context: namely, for an example of how it works at my tables.

The things other GMs do to make their games fail have no relevance in how my tables succeed.

Meaningful contribution has mechanical impact. If your contribution cannot even in principle touch the mechanics, I don't see how it is contributing anything. I would, however, be very interested to see any examples you have of a character doing something I'd call "meaningfully contributing" that does not, in fact, touch any mechanic. I understand that that's kind of a hard request, since I can't just beam into your head my definition of "meaningfully contributing," so it might end up feeling (or even just being) arbitrary and unfair, but...I don't know any other way to address it. I'm asserting meaningful contribution always has, somewhere along the line, mechanical impact (preventing/causing battles, avoiding/adding expenditures, consuming time when time is tracked, etc.) If you can demonstrate something that clearly matters for the party's goals, but cannot and will not ever affect the party's mechanical representation, then I will concede this point gladly.

My Sentient Potted Plant had no ability to interact with mechanics. But he could affect the party's mechanics - by your definitions - by suggesting ideas, or answering questions like, "dude, where'd we park?". So one need no be capable of making a mechanical contribution - by my definition - to make one by yours.

I guess? The point isn't really that nobody can have fun in non-balanced situations. It's that non-balanced situations near-axiomatically exclude certain kinds of fun, while balanced situations can be made to include the kinds of fun found in non-balanced situations.

Without first making them unbalanced?

Alright. Can you name even one class like this, in all of 3e and PF?

Others have already done so. I'll add that the low-op, low-level Fighter is so much better than their Wizard comrad.

Personally, I think focusing on "class" is less important than "build". Are there individual characters where the Muggle is stronger than the Wizard? Sure. Although that was more common in 2e (one of the reasons that I like 2e better).

and expecting an equal amount of charop behind the two (so no comparing a triple-cheese TO Fighter build with an actively un- or even anti-optimized caster-like character).

As I said, it still exists (low-op, low-level). But this is a… counterproductive requirement. If you care about Balance, why cripple your efforts by confining yourself to a single optimization strata? Which do you care about: balance, or optimization?

People who like Wizard-ish characters can always choose to be more powerful than Fighter-ish characters, but never choose not to be more powerful (except by ignoring their options,

Humans are always as influential as major political figures, unless they ignore their options? Humans are always billionaires, unless they ignore their options?

I think that we have to be a little careful, because extremes of only looking at omniscient high op will look nothing like (most) actual play.

which you've already said is Not Acceptable).

I did? I mean, it seems fair that when comparing the mechanical playing piece, that suboptimal choices in play would be irrelevant to that evaluation.

Quertus (my signature academia mage, for whom this account is named) is an extraordinarily powerful playing piece. But his personality and tactics make his contribution… suboptimal. To the point that, over ~10 levels, he could have been replaced with a bag of flour. OK, to be fair, it probably would have taken at least two bags of flour to match his contribution.

So, it depends on what we're measuring. Yes, measuring player choice is invalid in measuring pure mechanical balance.

People who like Fighter-ish characters can always choose to be less powerful than Wizard-ish characters, but can never choose to be more powerful (unless someone else intervenes, which for *me* is not acceptable).

Depends on a lot of factors. But, trivially, use Candle of Invocation chaining or "I was Pun-Pun in a past life" to be a "Fighter-ish character" balanced to the Wizard however you want to be.

Which begs the question, do you have any concept for a "Fighter-ish character" that is balanced with your concept of Wizard-ish characters? If not, then it's not a fixable problem, even with the above extreme methods.

How come we only cater to people who want more-powerful Wizards and less-powerful Fighters, but never to the people who want less-powerful Wizards and more-powerful Fighters?

That would be terrible. I'm glad 3e isn't that.

Why does imbalance always favor a specific, repeated pattern that denigrates one set of preferences over another?

(Incidentally, I'm using "powerful" in the same way AdAstra is using "strong"--holistically, referring to a variety of different kinds of power, rather than strictly one singular axis or enumeration. Which, yes, means I'm counting "versatility" as a form of "power"...but if you've ever read any Wizard guides, as I'm sure you have, you know that that was already an accepted truism among Wizard players.)

IMO - and correct me if I'm wrong - guides discuss optimization, making the optimal foo (for whatever "foo" the guide discusses). Making suboptimal build choices (to, for example, "balance to the table") is enabled (and, perhaps, even encouraged) by good guides, that include all relevant options, not just the most optimized ones.

Morty

2019-10-12, 12:49 PM

1) in 3e, someone built a 1st level Commoner to solo the Tarrasque. How hard do you really think it is to boost a weak chassis?

You keep using this as if it means something or proves a point. Three things: first, explain how it's actually done. Second, explain how it's not a massive system flaw that you can take an NPC with no combat ability and defeat a supposedly legendary monster capable of wrecking entire countries. Third, explain the leap of logic from "you can exploit your way into killing a Tarrasque as a commoner" to "it's easy to correct major imbalance on the spot".

AdAstra

2019-10-12, 02:33 PM

Quertus I’m not sure why you put “good at exploring” in quotes, since I literally never mentioned it. Regardless, I would point out that a druid’s animal companion (if it was big) could probably carry about as much stuff if not more. The fighter could reasonably be replaced by a couple of burly hirelings. The wizard almost certainly could not, unless your game world has mid-level wizards just hanging around waiting to teleport adventurers for a few bucks. For that matter, with teleport, the wizard could probably just port the party back to their base of operations, drop off the treasure, then port back, maybe after a rest.

I’m not asking you to make a cheese build designed for a specific challenge, That commoner might be able to kill a tarrasque, but can they kill other stuff as well? Tarrasques aren’t the only thing an adventurer will face, so any fighter build meant to equal a wizard would need to be able to take on similar foes to the wizard.

edit: all the builds I can find on google involve using Alips to drain its wisdom, which only works because the tarrasque has no way of hurting them, which tells me 3e just has holes in it like any other game. This is not brilliant game design. This isn’t an intentional balance range. People skewer other games for having far smaller problems than this. I will also point out doing this technique as a commoner involves abusing dark pacts, splat stuff, and flaws (including chicken infested), and torturing a guy until he commits suicide. Also, literally using the character's name to abuse some fluff text.

This is not a build you use to fulfill your character concept, it’s a build that defines your character concept for you (ie, a person who’s willing to torture a person to suicide and makes pacts with evil entities in order to kill a monster, that also must be named Madness), which is the exact opposite of Quertus’s supposed ideal of being able to do anything.

Cluedrew

2019-10-12, 03:33 PM

Which begs the question, do you have any concept for a "Fighter-ish character" that is balanced with your concept of Wizard-ish characters? If not, then it's not a fixable problem, even with the above extreme methods.Yes.

I will attack the ideal that wizards inherently stronger than fighters until the end of days. Strength/power-level is not inherent to either concept really. And for me pretty much every setting where one would have adventurers wandering around the best adventurer wizards are usually over shadowed by their fighter counter-parts. In one the strongest monk can beat up the strongest mage. In another hybrids win over both extremes but the pure wizards rarely can do as well on the field as a physical opposite. In my highest powered setting no one* beyond a certain power level uses magic in combat except to support weapons and fighter-ish combat techniques. In another heaven exists because a fighter-god punched it into existence. And in settings where you don't have adventurers, that wizard has no business on the battlefield except as some magic combat engineer.

And in most fiction (including a surprising proportion of D&D based literature) I've read the same ideas seem to hold. What I have read is not everything and I haven't done statistics on it. But still I think D&D is really the odd one out in this regard. Magic creating great world changing feats is not unusual, being able to do it so conveniently and regularly really is.

On The Topic: What is the topic at this point? I exaggerate slightly but I'm also wondering. Like the answer to "Why does the party need to be balanced?" was something like it doesn't have to be but that is usually a good idea because of [various reasons]. And for the all the arguments, analogies and anecdotes I'm not sure what conclusion anyone wants me to draw from any of them anymore.

NNescio

2019-10-12, 03:35 PM

You keep using this as if it means something or proves a point. Three things: first, explain how it's actually done. Second, explain how it's not a massive system flaw that you can take an NPC with no combat ability and defeat a supposedly legendary monster capable of wrecking entire countries. Third, explain the leap of logic from "you can exploit your way into killing a Tarrasque as a commoner" to "it's easy to correct major imbalance on the spot".

Easy.

You torture and injure someone to qualify for Pact Insidious. (max out Knowledge: Religion and Spellcraft, obviously) Next you sell your soul and grab Arcane Disciple: Luck (use Magical Training and flaws to qualify) and a 9th level spell slot. Torture the guy until he's crazy, then torture him even more until he suicides. Command the resulting allip. If that fails, just run towards the Tarrasque while tossing chickens along the way. Assume the allip will Wis drain Big T to unconsciousness. Find some way to deal nonlethal damage to Big T (bury it under chickens, for example), then Miracle it to death.

What, not willing to be evil? Not willing to torture someone? Not willing to sell your soul to achieve the power you need? FC II cosmology not on the table? DM not allowing you to (retroactively) add flaws and feats? DM not willing to make the NPC suicide? DM not willing to spawn the allip and try to pull "it's not guaranteed you get one"? Allip preferentially targets you instead? Big T targets you instead of the chicken? DM doesn't let you deal nonlethal damage quickly enough while the allip now has its attention shifted back to its erstwhile tormentor?

Clearly both you and your DM aren't working hard enough to achieve the "balance" you so desire. It's all on you. You should have tried harder. If little ol' Commoner 1 can do it, why can't you?

Seriously it's just a Chewbacca Defense style non-sequitur. Like sentient potted plants that most tables wouldn't even find fun to play or play with. But worse because while I can see a table potentially allowing the potted plant or a Psion sandwich, virtually no DM will allow the Pact-Allip-Miracle at Level 1 'exploit' except maybe for a one-off "go crazy and optimize as much as you want" session. And even that relies on a generous DM playing the NPCs and monsters exactly as the player has planned.

Morty

2019-10-12, 05:07 PM

Easy.

You torture and injure someone to qualify for Pact Insidious. (max out Knowledge: Religion and Spellcraft, obviously) Next you sell your soul and grab Arcane Disciple: Luck (use Magical Training and flaws to qualify) and a 9th level spell slot. Torture the guy until he's crazy, then torture him even more until he suicides. Command the resulting allip. If that fails, just run towards the Tarrasque while tossing chickens along the way. Assume the allip will Wis drain Big T to unconsciousness. Find some way to deal nonlethal damage to Big T (bury it under chickens, for example), then Miracle it to death.

What, not willing to be evil? Not willing to torture someone? Not willing to sell your soul to achieve the power you need? FC II cosmology not on the table? DM not allowing you to (retroactively) add flaws and feats? DM not willing to make the NPC suicide? DM not willing to spawn the allip and try to pull "it's not guaranteed you get one"? Allip preferentially targets you instead? Big T targets you instead of the chicken? DM doesn't let you deal nonlethal damage quickly enough while the allip now has its attention shifted back to its erstwhile tormentor?

Clearly both you and your DM aren't working hard enough to achieve the "balance" you so desire. It's all on you. You should have tried harder. If little ol' Commoner 1 can do it, why can't you?

Seriously it's just a Chewbacca Defense style non-sequitur. Like sentient potted plants that most tables wouldn't even find fun to play or play with. But worse because while I can see a table potentially allowing the potted plant or a Psion sandwich, virtually no DM will allow the Pact-Allip-Miracle at Level 1 'exploit' except maybe for a one-off "go crazy and optimize as much as you want" session. And even that relies on a generous DM playing the NPCs and monsters exactly as the player has planned.

That's... even more absurd than I expected. Yes, "Chewbacca Defense style non-sequitur" seems about right and I don't see what bearing it has on the imbalance that'll come up during actual play.

AdAstra

2019-10-12, 06:44 PM

That's... even more absurd than I expected. Yes, "Chewbacca Defense style non-sequitur" seems about right and I don't see what bearing it has on the imbalance that'll come up during actual play.

He brought it up as an example of a normally “weak” class able to do god-wizard-esque stuff. There’s a meaningful point there, but it also very much does not address the main issue that I and others talked about. It’s a cherry-picked example, but not an outright distraction argument.

Quertus

2019-10-12, 06:45 PM

Quertus I’m not sure why you put “good at exploring” in quotes, since I literally never mentioned it.

Um…

I will point out that “strong” as used in this text is not only combat strength, but in terms of overall ability to contribute to the success of the party. Even a combat god would be a fairly weak character compared to someone who can be a combat god and also good at exploring and socializing.

I'm pretty sure you did. :smallamused:

Regardless, I would point out that a druid’s animal companion (if it was big) could probably carry about as much stuff if not more. The fighter could reasonably be replaced by a couple of burly hirelings. The wizard almost certainly could not, unless your game world has mid-level wizards just hanging around waiting to teleport adventurers for a few bucks. For that matter, with teleport, the wizard could probably just port the party back to their base of operations, drop off the treasure, then port back, maybe after a rest.

So, is that your answer for what it looks like? So, the same as mine - either a few seconds of spotlight for the Wizard to teleport people, or hours to sessions of "watch the Ranger play the game" and/or player skills augmented by carrying capacity?

I’m not asking you to make a cheese build designed for a specific challenge, That commoner might be able to kill a tarrasque, but can they kill other stuff as well? Tarrasques aren’t the only thing an adventurer will face, so any fighter build meant to equal a wizard would need to be able to take on similar foes to the wizard.

edit: all the builds I can find on google involve using Alips to drain its wisdom, which only works because the tarrasque has no way of hurting them, which tells me 3e just has holes in it like any other game. This is not brilliant game design. This isn’t an intentional balance range. People skewer other games for having far smaller problems than this. I will also point out doing this technique as a commoner involves abusing dark pacts, splat stuff, and flaws (including chicken infested), and torturing a guy until he commits suicide. Also, literally using the character's name to abuse some fluff text.

This is not a build you use to fulfill your character concept, it’s a build that defines your character concept for you (ie, a person who’s willing to torture a person to suicide and makes pacts with evil entities in order to kill a monster, that also must be named Madness), which is the exact opposite of Quertus’s supposed ideal of being able to do anything.

Good. Now we can begin.

Yes, the Tarrasque-killing commoner was half snarky, but you have done an absolutely amazing job of hitting all the salient points. Kudos!

Let's see if I can list them: the Tarrasque killer is highly specialized, it's a joke that requires a tortured reading of RAW, the Tarrasque has several weaknesses, I believe that characters who can interact with the game are better than those that cannot. And a takeaway regarding the system.

I think we're on the same page on the first two.

The Tarrasque having a weakness, that you call a loophole, I view as a feature. I doubt we'll come to an agreement here, but afaict, that shouldn't matter for the topic at hand.

My ideal is for all players and/or PCs to be able to interact with all parts of the game. Which is not quite identical to "do everything" - that does not encapsulate my ideal. Maybe the Wizard has a spell to unlock doors… but it isn't silent, and doesn't prevent intelligent foes from closing and locking the doors behind us. Maybe my muscles Barbarian can sunder them to splinters, but that isn't stealthy, and we cannot shut (or loot) the doors. Maybe my Rogue can pick the lock, but it isn't fast. And all of these can fall (warded against magic, just stuck, materials too durable, lock too good). Oh, and the "guy who fights"? Maybe he can challenge the door to a fight (in case it's sentient / in case it's a mimic)? Not terribly useful, IMO.

Now, the problem is the takeaway from the Tarrasque. I've always seen that I can build any chassis to most any power level, so I just see this story as the (il)logical extension of that. This silly story is just memorable enough for me to use as an edge case example of just how far one can take a 3e character.

Now, sure, this character is specialized, and silly. But the first step is to clearly define your target. Then you can use the vast array of tools available in 3e to achieve that goal.

Quertus

2019-10-12, 07:04 PM

Yes.

I will attack the ideal that wizards inherently stronger than fighters until the end of days.

Oh, I'm sure you can. And I not only can, I prefer them that way. The question was, can @ezekielraiden?

IMO, having that firm conceptual target is (usually) the first step towards building that character.

AdAstra

2019-10-12, 07:21 PM

Quertus Oh, my bad, sorry about that. Probably should’ve avoided the topic of exploration entirely, since certain classes in DND can literally warp what exploration even means (ie class that always sees secret doors entirely removes “searching for secret doors” as a distinct activity)

On your point about selecting a balance target first: many people do not want to do that. A great many people, imo most players, think of a character concept first, THEN try to figure out how to build it using the rules of the game. Once they are done, then maybe they would start looking into how it meshes with the rest of the party in terms of power. Very few people start off saying “I want to build a tier 3 character”, most go “I want to play a knife-throwing daredevil” or “I want to play Draxton Vess, Chainbreaker of Ur”

In 3e, some entire character concepts are traps. The mechanics, on a basic level, do not allow a character who does x to be as effective as a character who does y, even if x and y accomplish the exact same goal. So if you want your character to do x, then you just have to accept that someone who does y will outclass you. Then there are the mistakes you can make during chargen that will mess you up if you don’t have access to the relevant knowledge. The opposite also applies. A person who wants to play a summoner shouldn’t have to worry about breaking the game by doing it.

There are certainly people who find a rules interaction or evocative subclass and build a character around that instead, I’m one of those people. But very few people do that for all of their characters, and those who don’t shouldn’t be ignored. Plus even the mechanics-first players can suffer a lot under unbalanced systems, since it restricts their options if they’re looking to be optimal.

There’s a lot to be said on why balance in a game system is good, and what that means. Probably something that can’t be discussed well over text though.

Morty

2019-10-12, 07:26 PM

He brought it up as an example of a normally “weak” class able to do god-wizard-esque stuff. There’s a meaningful point there, but it also very much does not address the main issue that I and others talked about. It’s a cherry-picked example, but not an outright distraction argument.

I mean... it's arguable if it works at all, and if it works, then it shouldn't work. If a CR 1/2 character (technically, but a level 1 commoner is such a non-threat that CR means little) can defeat a CR 20 monster, then the entire system loses meaning. And even if we swallow those two, then this absurd theoretical example has no bearing on the reality of, say, trying to play a swashbuckler. Or a dual-wielding ranger. Or an evoker wizard. Or a crossbow-user. And so on. It's a non-sequitur.

Of course, the Tarrasque is already more or less a joke against a moderately competent level 20 party, because it's a beefy melee monster in a level range where being beefy and fighting in melee are pretty much the least threatening things you can do. Thus this legendary, iconic monster is easily handled by a party with means of flying, ranged attacks and spells. Which brings us right back to the game not working the way it's advertised.

Mechalich

2019-10-12, 08:21 PM

In 3e, some entire character concepts are traps. The mechanics, on a basic level, do not allow a character who does x to be as effective as a character who does y, even if x and y accomplish the exact same goal. So if you want your character to do x, then you just have to accept that someone who does y will outclass you. Then there are the mistakes you can make during chargen that will mess you up if you don’t have access to the relevant knowledge. The opposite also applies. A person who wants to play a summoner shouldn’t have to worry about breaking the game by doing it.

This is hardly unique to 3e. It's an issue of a system permitting too many concepts without thinking about how power interactions work. The Allip vs. Tarrasque is actually a tolerable example here - because it illuminates how sometimes the numbers are irrelevant because one ability simply 'paper covers rock' another. This happens a lot of fights between single-power characters (ie. most superheroes and shounen anime characters) because it is extremely common for one power set to either autowin or autofail against another power set to the point that it becomes difficult to setup interactions where characters can plausibly role dice against each other - which is why video games that put superheroes up against each other Marvel vs Capcom style have to distort actual abilities in massive ways.

D&D's conceptual base is functionally 'everything in fantasy ever' which is madness. It'll never work out unless you artificially constrain the inputs and outputs to the point that you're running a fighting game (which isn't necessarily a bad idea if you're willing to just ad hoc everything else). To even begin to make game balance work you have to decide which concepts you'll support and then stick to them, and it helps if all PCs share a specific core concept that helps provide them with a viable 'floor' level for the principle sorts of challenges they're expected to face. For example, if your game is about a group of military personnel, everyone should start with a package that represents having been through basic training. D&D characters are assumed to be 'adventurers' and they should all probably start with some sort of shared set of adventurer skills, but they don't.

There’s a lot to be said on why balance in a game system is good, and what that means. Probably something that can’t be discussed well over text though.

TTRPGs are a cooperative game, and for the most part cooperative games flow the most smoothly when everyone is around the same level of capability. This minimizes inter-player fiction, reduces the number of stoppages in play, and provides everyone with the opportunity to have measure accomplishments in game. Now, capability includes both the variance between concepts supported by the rules and player skill, but at the design level you can only control for the former. Since there's going to be variance in the latter no matter what you do, it's best to try and minimize the variance in the former. It is, of course, expected that the game will be actively managed to mitigate player skill based imbalances. Large scale games like MMOs use leagues and other gatekeeping devices to try and segregate players according to skill level. That's not possible in tabletop, but it reveals how the GM needs to fill that role instead.

One important caveat here is that balance is far more important is you're playing the game straight. That is, if the players are actually invested in the story and the characters and trying to have an experience that makes at least some amount of narrative sense. A significant margin of tables aren't doing this. Instead they're a bunch of friends gathered together to mess around and have a good time and the game is just as interesting for the wacky hijinks and absurd situational comedy that ensues during play rather than any actual outcomes ('camp' roleplaying as it were). Balance is much less important in such a game because the gameplay has ceased to be about the game at all. A system or setting that is designed to embrace this style of play (like Planescape, which is intended to advance wacky philosophical brainstorming through a theater of the bizarre) or one that is clearly ridiculous no matter how serious the product design (like RIFTS) can laugh in the face of balance because the game has ceased to be about the game.

AdAstra

2019-10-12, 08:44 PM

Mechalich that’s not what I meant by x being better than y. I don’t mean x beats y or sometimes x is better than y, I mean x and y are meant for exactly the same task (and nothing else), and y performs way better at that task than x does. This would work fine if x was labelled as say, power level 3 and y was power level 7, but then there should ideally be a PL7 version of x and a PL3 version of y.

A simplified example would be if you could choose between using an axe or a sword, and the sword was just always way better. Maybe it has way better damage, or sword-specific feats where axes get none, or most classes get bonuses when using swords but not axes. But the sword and axe are presented as equal choices, or a set of tradeoffs, when they’re not. They’re both “means of dealing damage with a weapon”, and the axe is a less effective means to the same end. That’s what I mean.

KineticDiplomat

2019-10-12, 11:59 PM

So, D&D is pure and unforgiving power fantasy. In both nature and mechanics, it revolves around getting in a series of fights of “appropriate level.”

Yes, it’s a terrible Role-Playing Game, quite crap in that regard, but it’s obviously a giant in the world of Roll-Playing.

So we have a game that focuses on Rolls and expects your main and possibly sole “real” activity to be fighting your way through a plot line of dungeons. And in the world where only punching matters and the story is “get stronger by fighting through dungeons with drama around it”, then yeah, player balance matters.

Because who wants to be easily outclassed in a world where your role play is irrelevant and the nature of reality shifts to give you “only solvable by being more awesome” challenges? Sure, in another game, maybe being sneaky or a research wiz or a politico would all be viable...but d&d? Can’t max out the fight and do magic brah? Well, hope you liked levels 1-4, cause now you’re worthless.

Satinavian

2019-10-13, 01:07 AM

Yes, it’s a terrible Role-Playing Game, quite crap in that regard, but it’s obviously a giant in the world of Roll-Playing.
It is only big in markets where it had a headstart and could establish itself as common ground for gamers.

In countries where translation arrangements took a bit of time and local alternatives were earlier or roughly around at the same time, D&D is often pretty weak. Even with all that international presence which obviously does work as advertising.

So i don't think the "it is the biggest, ist must be good" argument has a lot of merit.

Also this thread was not meant to be about D&D.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-13, 05:39 AM

1) in 3e, someone built a 1st level Commoner to solo the Tarrasque. How hard do you really think it is to boost a weak chassis?
Okay, if we're going to bring in bovine-fecal theoretical-optimization stuff, then sure, you're right. You will always be able to achieve literally anything with 3e's rules, because 3e's rules are self-defeating; with enough twists, sufficiently tortured logic, and an infinitely permissive DM, you are correct that literally anything is possible in theory. In fact, I pretty much already said that (more than once, as I recall) and implicitly asked you not to go there. In the interests of being explicit, though...

I refuse to accept any examples that require literally any one of those things (infinitely-permissive DM, tortured logic, end-runs on probability, etc.), so I really doubt we're going to make any progress on that front. I am perfectly fine with surprising rules results. Frex, in 4e, a Barbarian with a certain Barbarian feat and a certain Monk multiclass feat can rocket punch, which is hilarious and funny and requires zero tortured-logic scenarios (it's literally just the main effect of the two feats--one enables throwing weapons with certain keywords, the other gives Monk unarmed strike which count as a weapon with those keywords). But "you have to have a DM not just catering to you, but planning a full three-day weekend with seven-course dinners"? No.

Think of it as resembling the "reasonable person" standard in tort law. A reasonable DM adapts and works positively with her players, but she's not infinitely permissive and actively catering to every need. She may even block an otherwise-reasonable request at times, if it conflicts with something of great importance to her or her campaign. A reasonable player can discover novel interactions, but won't force tortured logic to achieve a goal. Nor will a reasonable player expect that they are guaranteed a needed, but extremely rare, random result. (Of course, Dragon Magazine complicates this somewhat by being...ahem...mechanically unsound with alarming frequency, but that's an aside.)

I'm pretty sure, though, that, in this case, you've missed the context: namely, for an example of how it works at my tables. The things other GMs do to make their games fail have no relevance in how my tables succeed.
So...remind me exactly where we're at, here. Because up to this point, it had very much sounded like you were arguing that "balance" is wrong in the abstract (hence you equating to vindictive totalitarian bean-counters, and talking of extreme abstractions like your "UBI"). Now you turn it around and start arguing solely from your particulars--YOU don't need balance in YOUR game. But that's not kosher. Either we're arguing that NOBODY needs balance in ANY game, or we're arguing that YOU don't need it in YOURS, and the two run in very different directions and apply to very different things.

I have been, consistently, arguing that game design principles can and should be made to empower and enable DMs and players to achieve what they want. Hence why I keep stressing "pre-play" and "in-design" and setting statistically-testable goals etc. I have done literally everything possible to focus on that, because that's where all of my arguments lie. In other words, your repeated "let's try another tack" stuff keeps bouncing off of the specific context I'm operating in, and asserting your own context in its place. This situation frustrates me. Being completely forthright with you: I feel, at least in part, like you aren't arguing in good faith. That feeling could be entirely wrong, and it's not a certainty, just something that strikes me now and again. I engage, and am told to go elsewhere; I engage there, and am told to try a different tack; I try that tack, and am told I've missed context when I have been entirely consistent about my context.

My Sentient Potted Plant had no ability to interact with mechanics. But he could affect the party's mechanics - by your definitions - by suggesting ideas, or answering questions like, "dude, where'd we park?".
That's....that's not meaningfully contributing to the game. You are meaningfully contributing outside of the game, entirely external to it in fact, literally the meta-game. Giving reminders and offering strategies is something anyone can do, even people who aren't "participants" at all. Your analogy would be equivalent to saying that the person who writes the playbook for football games is, herself, an actual player in every game employing that book. Or that the authors of class guides or (for a non-TTRPG example) champion build guides for games like League of Legends, are personally participating in every game where someone listens to their advice. All of which (at least as far as I see it) is patently ridiculous and self-evidently false.

Without first making them unbalanced?
Nope! By making them imbalanced, with help. Because I'm perfectly okay with people electively creating imbalance where they want it. That's why I have repeatedly talked about how it's easier to build/create imbalance from balance than the other way around, and about the books including advice and suggestions on how to deviate from the listed rules. In the truly ideal case, they'll address how to deal with unwanted consequences that came up during testing, too. As an example of this, 13A's rules for Backgrounds. Firstly, they specifically go over how, during internal testing, they originally used varying numbers of background points (e.g. Bard got 10, Sorcerer got 6, etc.) but weren't sure--and their players vehemently decried it and requested everyone get equal resources for Backgrounds (8 points)--they then included optional buy-in for other classes that might warrant more points, and discussed the whole issue in the book itself. Second, after the books were published, the authors responded to user feedback, and discussed the "problem" of "good at everything" Backgrounds at +5, in other words, "overpowered" ones. And they straight-up said they're a problem, and also NOT a problem (https://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/is-good-at-everything-a-background-in-13th-age/), depending on what you're seeking and how you go about it. Again, literally providing the DM and players with tools and advice for tuning the rules to their interests, while still *starting* from a position of overall balance. And 13A, while heavily narrative, is still an extremely well-balanced game, enough that some call it 4e's successor (I don't hold that view, but it definitely looks like a game that 4e's lead designer took part in creating).

Others have already done so. I'll add that the low-op, low-level Fighter is so much better than their Wizard comrad.
Ah, and see, now you're throwing on restrictions I never mentioned--and don't accept. I don't accept that a game should have to be confined to low level. 13th Age, 4e D&D, and Dungeon World all manage to be pretty reasonably balanced (in very different ways) across their entire level range (heck, I literally have broken the level range wide open in the DW game I run, and it still manages to be incredibly resilient.)

So. I won't accept your move to just restrict it to low level. I'm saying it's not just possible, but beneficial to produce a system that starts off balanced at most levels/tiers/whatever of play. And then you provide advice on how to spindle, fold, and/or mutilate that situation to suit your tastes.

Personally, I think focusing on "class" is less important than "build". Are there individual characters where the Muggle is stronger than the Wizard? Sure. Although that was more common in 2e (one of the reasons that I like 2e better).
Why stop at just build? Why not talk about the distribution of builds, the prevalence and incidence of problematic elements, etc.? Because, y'know, that would ram things right back to what I'm talking about. A durable consensus says that the Fighter requires more optimization to play along with other classes, and that even with that, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up past level 13 or so without cheese/active DM catering/tortured logic.

As I said, it still exists (low-op, low-level). But this is a… counterproductive requirement. If you care about Balance, why cripple your efforts by confining yourself to a single optimization strata? Which do you care about: balance, or optimization?
Balance. I only mentioned optimization as a more general, less emphatic way of rejecting what I have now explicitly and emphatically rejected above. Comparing a blaster-wizard to the triple-cheese-deluxe commoner is obviously not a reasonable comparison, and using things like it as though it were *even when I requested that you not* is part of why I sometimes question if you're arguing in good faith.

Humans are always as influential as major political figures, unless they ignore their options? Humans are always billionaires, unless they ignore their options?

I think that we have to be a little careful, because extremes of only looking at omniscient high op will look nothing like (most) actual play.
I have no idea what you're trying to say with this. Like, I genuinely tried to respond twice already and still don't have a coherent understanding of what you're saying.

I did? I mean, it seems fair that when comparing the mechanical playing piece, that suboptimal choices in play would be irrelevant to that evaluation.
Isn't that what this whole paragraph is about?

If you want to play as yourself in a game, and I hand you Thor's character sheet, and I say, "just don't use the bits that don't fit" are you going to feel that the system has succeeded in modeling you? Is it going to feel like you?
This clearly comes across as a pair of Socratic questions designed to demonstrate that no, it is not acceptable to say, "just don't use the bits that don't fit." If that's not what you meant, well, I have no idea what you DID mean.

Quertus (my signature academia mage, for whom this account is named) is an extraordinarily powerful playing piece. But his personality and tactics make his contribution… suboptimal. To the point that, over ~10 levels, he could have been replaced with a bag of flour. OK, to be fair, it probably would have taken at least two bags of flour to match his contribution.
So....you literally chose not to use the features available to you. To the point that you chose...uh...not to use any features at all. My complaint is not systems that allow players to simply...choose not to contribute in the first place. My complaint is systems that capriciously de-power or empower specific archetypes, while constantly, consistently, and uniformly presenting all offered archetypes as the same, and portraying themselves as systems specifically for largely-equal cooperative play. Asymmetrical gameplay is a perfectly valid format; D&D does not, and the vast majority of tabletop games do not, present themselves as asymmetrical cooperative games. They present themselves as symmetrical games. I am standing up for the principle that maybe, just maybe, they should actually live up to that SOME of the time? Particularly in the game that sets the tone for the entire gorram industry?

So, it depends on what we're measuring. Yes, measuring player choice is invalid in measuring pure mechanical balance.
Invalid is a strong word! I don't think it's entirely invalid. But it's also not as simple as just instantly accounting for it either. That's why there's a major need for statistically-testable goals, and rigorous playtesting (ideally, as comprehensive as one can get--I recognize that there are market externalities that prevent perfectly comprehensive playtesting.)

Depends on a lot of factors. But, trivially, use Candle of Invocation chaining or "I was Pun-Pun in a past life" to be a "Fighter-ish character" balanced to the Wizard however you want to be.
See above: I find this sort of example extremely frustrating when I have explicitly asked that you not offer this sort of thing.

Which begs the question, do you have any concept for a "Fighter-ish character" that is balanced with your concept of Wizard-ish characters? If not, then it's not a fixable problem, even with the above extreme methods.
Sure! 4e. Or 13th Age. Or (well, more loosely but I'm more or less comfortable with it) Dungeon World. Or Fate. That's four different games, two in the D20 family, them plus a further one in the overall D&D milieu, and a fourth completely outside the D&D-like structure, that all contain or can produce a "Fighter" character and a "Wizard" character that start play reasonably balanced and can be modified from there to create any desired imbalance.

Beyond that? It's a matter of:
1. Set goals (concepts and targets).
2. Define testable measures of those goals.
3. Perform data collection (playtesting).
4. Evaluate how successfully you have met those goals.
5. Where those goals have not been met, revise the goals and go back to step 3.

It's

That would be terrible. I'm glad 3e isn't that.
Then why do people keep constantly having these debates? Why are there so many people so COMPLETELY frustrated with the limits of the 3rd edition system? Why did even Paizo, who literally built their corporation on "We've stayed true to 3e," finally OPENLY admit that there were severe, uncontestable balance problems that could ONLY be addressed by creating a new system?

You keep insisting that it's a walk in the gorram park to make a balanced system out of 3e. I point to literally this entire thread, and thousands of threads that have preceded it, as emphatic evidence to the contrary. I have personally witnessed three games (two of which I actually played in) fall apart specifically because of how EXHAUSTING it was to beat the 3rd edition rules into some vague semblance of balance, for players and DMs alike.

So maybe, instead of flippantly insisting that there's nothing wrong with 3e and that literally everyone should always be happy with it, you could recognize that LOTS of people have consistently had EXTREME difficulty producing the fun they want from it? Specifically BECAUSE of its extreme unbalance after only a few levels?

IMO - and correct me if I'm wrong - guides discuss optimization, making the optimal foo (for whatever "foo" the guide discusses). Making suboptimal build choices (to, for example, "balance to the table") is enabled (and, perhaps, even encouraged) by good guides, that include all relevant options, not just the most optimized ones.
Just for fun, I went looking for Fighter optimization guides previously. I heartily recommend that you do the same. Compare the results to the results for Wizards, Druids, Clerics, Bards, and damn near any other full-caster or two-thirds-caster class. You will, I hope, notice a rather significant...difference...between the breadth, power, and variety of options provided to any of the latter group compared to those available to the Fighter. You may also note a pronounced lack of enthusiasm for certain kinds of options, and rather more finality.

I wasn't talking "options" as in "how to make a foo that can socialize." I was talking "options" as in "Fighters constantly get marginalized and limited, casters constantly get empowered and diversified." The game actively limits Fighters to solely what everyday normal humans (not even Olympic humans, for God's sake!) can achieve, unless Fighter players cheese things out the wazoo. A literally bog-standard Wizard or Cleric has a guaranteed, inherent path to rewriting reality, on a gorram DAILY basis. Do you REALLY mean to argue--particularly if we do something like what an ENORMOUS number of DMs do in order to "keep the game balanced," and stick to core books only--that the Wizard and the Fighter were designed on a level playing field, each given the same opportunities to affect their world and influence their future success?

ezekielraiden

2019-10-13, 06:11 AM

I will attack the ideal that wizards inherently stronger than fighters until the end of days. Strength/power-level is not inherent to either concept really.
If you're saying that in concept "The Iconic Wizard" does not need to be more powerful or more versatile than "The Iconic Fighter," then you have my agreement, 110%. If you are saying that in practice, in 3.x D&D/PF, "the Wizard class in this game" is not inherently stronger than "the Fighter class in this game" (that is, saying the former DOES NOT have a higher power ceiling, wider range of effects, or a lower required effort to achieve similar results), then I absolutely have to disagree.

On The Topic: What is the topic at this point? I exaggerate slightly but I'm also wondering. Like the answer to "Why does the party need to be balanced?" was something like it doesn't have to be but that is usually a good idea because of [various reasons]. And for the all the arguments, analogies and anecdotes I'm not sure what conclusion anyone wants me to draw from any of them anymore.
In game design, nothing "has" to be anything, so the original question is (in effect) inherently malformed; it's asking for an answer that cannot even in principle exist.

However, if you're going to offer a game that is (a) explicitly cooperative, (b) explicitly designed and explicitly described as offering equal options, and (c) is meant for average Janes to get the intended experience without a lot of effort, then I argue that yes, the party needs to be balanced--because your priorities required that. But, VITALLY, it is also important that you teach gamers how to go their own way with your game as a starting point, and do your best to equip them with functional tools and advice to do exactly that thing, so that if they find themselves constrained, they are not only enabled, but empowered and educated on breaking those constraints AND what consequences may come from doing so.

TL;DR: You don't have to make a game that generates balanced parties. But if you tell people your game is balanced, it kinda should be balanced.

Cluedrew

2019-10-13, 08:38 AM

Oh, I'm sure you can.Well nice to see my work on the god-martial getting recognized.

Joking comments aside I work also like to hear your main point (again?). What is your main point? I don't think it is the optimization adjusting power level thing (which is certainly true but not as easy as you have portrayed it). It might be that some stories require unbalanced characters which is true, but many also require balanced characters. Is it one of those? Is it something else?

Also this thread was not meant to be about D&D.But it's such a great case study in bad game design! Well not everywhere, but definitely in this area. Its a system that thematically leans very heavily on a group of (approximate) equals going around and has some of the worst game balance I've seen. I've played systems with less expectations of balance that are much more balanced. For the rest, Playgrounder's Fallacy.

If you're saying that in concept "The Iconic Wizard" [...] If you are saying that in practice, in 3.x D&D/PF,Definitely the former the I don't care much for D&D beyond it being a useful common language for discussion. And see the case study comment. I bring that up because the second option is really "in practice, in 3.x D&D/PF", there are plenty of systems that do balance those options so in practice it can come out any direction. I mean you are also correct about D&D 3.0/5/P, this is just a general reminder that other systems exist and have done it better.

Also your second section is good and I have nothing I could add that I haven't already said.

KineticDiplomat

2019-10-13, 03:55 PM

I’m not saying D&D is good. I find it awful for human play, though not a bad video game.

Regardless of its merit, it is however, huge. And can’t be ignored. Particularly in a post about balance, given how many systems basically throw balance out the window...but also throw the biggest need for balance - mechanistic crunching of very specific capabilities with the assumption all problems must be solvable in an immediate combat mechanically viable way - it will come to the fore.

Mechalich

2019-10-13, 05:13 PM

Particularly in a post about balance, given how many systems basically throw balance out the window...but also throw the biggest need for balance - mechanistic crunching of very specific capabilities with the assumption all problems must be solvable in an immediate combat mechanically viable way - it will come to the fore.

I completely disagree with the thrust of this argument. Combat capabilities are often the easiest portion of a game to balance. Ultimately, combat boils down to a numeric simulation that can be rigorously adjudicated and forced into a rough equality. Many video games, where combat is often the only non-scripted condition, achieve quite effective balance across the range of permitted concepts (these tend to be much more tightly constrained than those available in any tabletop case of course, even in games directly based on tabletop rulesets). Even in 3.X D&D balancing combat is rarely insurmountable, builds exist to make martial classes perfectly viable alongside casters and simple encounter design decisions - such as forcing combat to take place within a literal box as video games do - can further mitigate the ability of casters to take advantage of their vast versatility.

The real problem comes with insuring characters can contribute beyond combat, in the far more free-form scenarios of social encounters, exploration, investigation, logistics, and more. Such scenarios permit a far greater range of inputs and outputs and therefore are far more difficult to balance in pretty much any system and it is in this region that many games that are not D&D reveal huge balance issues. In fact the difficulty of balancing such more freeform scenarios, and the seeming impossibility of building a good social interaction rule set in RPGs is part of what has led to the proliferation of rules-lite games that broadly disregard trying to balance such things and leave everything up to the individual table. In FATE, for example, non-combat balance is heavily dependent upon the GM insuring that characters can't take overpowered aspects (ex. 'Is Batman') or extras.

noob

2019-10-13, 05:32 PM

AdAstra

2019-10-13, 09:54 PM

A thing about party balance is that regardless of character balance there is a gap between the talents of the varied players which makes that if all actions are not equivalent then necessarily some players will more often participate efficiently to progressing the adventure (or disintegrate more efficiently the plot or derail the train harder up to the point it goes backwards and toward a star at near light speed)
which can trigger jealousy.
Furthermore due to the human element regardless of actual efficiency players can be jealous of the screen time another player gets or of the ability to fail dramatically of another player.

Player skill is certainly going to be a factor that can “unbalance” players even in a balanced game, but the idea is to give everyone as level a playing field as possible, not to make everyone’s outputs the same.

For most games, you want to make sure that anyone with a reasonable level of competency (what’s reasonable can vary from game to game) can achieve a reasonable degree of success, and do enough cool things that they don’t feel actively left out of the fun.

There’s also the element of perception, which as you said can make characters seem unbalanced even if they are in most respects. However, player perception as ABSOLUTELY something designers can influence. It’s arguably the most important part of balance! The key is to not just have the numbers match up, but to give every character interesting things to do. You need variety in theme and mechanics, you need “active” abilities that give rhythm and agency to the player’s choices, and those abilities need to be cool and powerful enough to actually be useful/entertaining. If designers can’t give players access to mechanics, abilities, items, etc. that feel good to have and use, then they are likely not going to make a very fun game.

Basically, a good way to make players less jealous is to give them toys of their own.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-13, 10:20 PM

I completely disagree with the thrust of this argument. Combat capabilities are often the easiest portion of a game to balance.
And yet so many tabletop games don't! It's super frustrating for me, as a gamer, because actual systematically-balanced TTRPGs are few and far between, and most D&D-alike game designers have literally zero mathematical training. Even Rob Heinsoo, who pushed so hard for 4e to offer a balanced baseline, is trained in theology rather than math or statistics. I once tried to track down what things people who worked on D&D had degrees in; I believe there were only two people on the entire staff of 3e, 4e, or 5e (whose degrees were publicly stated somewhere, anyway) that had anything even vaguely math- or science-related. The vast majority were humanities--art, communications, journalism, design. I believe one of the science-related ones was geology? Or something like that? It's been years. Regardless: there is an extremely frustrating deficit of knowledge among game designers regarding math, statistics, and (perhaps worst of all) psychology and survey construction.

Even in 3.X D&D balancing combat is rarely insurmountable
My experience significantly differs, on both sides of the screen.

The real problem comes with insuring characters can contribute beyond combat, in the far more free-form scenarios of social encounters, exploration, investigation, logistics, and more. Such scenarios permit a far greater range of inputs and outputs and therefore are far more difficult to balance in pretty much any system and it is in this region that many games that are not D&D reveal huge balance issues.
Well...other than 4e D&D, 13th Age, Dungeon World, and (as you mentioned) Fate...I also disagree with your interpretation of Fate. Fate is an example of an extensible framework. Sure, it requires that the DM actively participate in setting targets, and tweaking things if they fail to produce the desired range of outcomes. But the framework covers damn near anything you might want to do. Holding that sort of thing against Fate is like saying that you cannot possibly balance combat because people can use (consciously or unconsciously) terrible tactics. Likewise, 4e has Skill Challenges. They weren't always well-received, and being a novel approach to stuff that was previously very freeform, but I've seen them work wonders for giving enough structure to non-combat scenarios to permit balance, while not so much structure as to excessively constrain the kinds of situations they capture. (Of course, in at least two of those cases, the DMs in question looked beyond the strict letter of the rules to see further refinements that didn't contradict anything the SC rules said, but fleshed them out or made them more vibrant in play.)

Quertus

2019-10-14, 06:22 AM

Yesterday, I made a huge post, lots of replies, and, several hours in, I typed the fateful "I'll stop here so that I don't lose the post.". And that's when I lost the post. So, today, I'll make several posts.

What is your main point? I don't think it is the optimization adjusting power level thing (which is certainly true but not as easy as you have portrayed it). It might be that some stories require unbalanced characters which is true, but many also require balanced characters. Is it one of those? Is it something else?

I have lots of different points, as I'm trying to build a more holistic picture of a larger thing than just one point. But, if I had to pick one as my "main" point, it would probably be

TL;DR: You don't have to make a game that generates balanced parties. But if you tell people your game is balanced, it kinda should be balanced.

Quertus Oh, my bad, sorry about that. Probably should’ve avoided the topic of exploration entirely, since certain classes in DND can literally warp what exploration even means (ie class that always sees secret doors entirely removes “searching for secret doors” as a distinct activity)

Why are you sorry? I consider exploration a great backdrop for the discussion of balance.

On your point about selecting a balance target first: many people do not want to do that.

If people are going to do things wrong, and then complain that they messed up, but don't want to fix it, why should i care?

A great many people, imo most players, think of a character concept first, THEN try to figure out how to build it using the rules of the game. Once they are done, then maybe they would start looking into how it meshes with the rest of the party in terms of power. Very few people start off saying “I want to build a tier 3 character”, most go “I want to play a knife-throwing daredevil” or “I want to play Draxton Vess, Chainbreaker of Ur”

So, to do things my way, one could start with *both* the concept of DVCoU (about whom I, personally, know nothing, btw) *and* the sample characters. "OK, the closest sample character has an expected DPS of 17.2, and 3 relevant skills at 'Adept'. <Works on build> well, I've got 19.7 DPS, 'fleen nut gathering' at 'Master' level, and 4 other relevant skills at 'Studied'. That should fall within our group's balance range of the sample characters, and feels like DVCoU to me. Done."

Or one could create a character that feels appropriate, and then wait for a game where they will fit within the group's balance range.

In 3e, some entire character concepts are traps. The mechanics, on a basic level, do not allow a character who does x to be as effective as a character who does y, even if x and y accomplish the exact same goal. So if you want your character to do x, then you just have to accept that someone who does y will outclass you. Then there are the mistakes you can make during chargen that will mess you up if you don’t have access to the relevant knowledge. The opposite also applies. A person who wants to play a summoner shouldn’t have to worry about breaking the game by doing it.

Yeah, I've tried to face tank with a Wizard, but with their d4 HP and no armor, it's hard! Thanks to feats like Trollblooded and Roll With It, I was able to come close to achieving my vision - something I couldn't have done in a system with exclusively "balanced" components.

There are certainly people who find a rules interaction or evocative subclass and build a character around that instead, I’m one of those people. But very few people do that for all of their characters, and those who don’t shouldn’t be ignored. Plus even the mechanics-first players can suffer a lot under unbalanced systems, since it restricts their options if they’re looking to be optimal.

Are they looking to be optimal, or to be balanced? Because those are two opposed stances.

Satinavian

2019-10-14, 06:28 AM

But it's such a great case study in bad game design! Well not everywhere, but definitely in this area. Its a system that thematically leans very heavily on a group of (approximate) equals going around and has some of the worst game balance I've seen. I've played systems with less expectations of balance that are much more balanced. For the rest, Playgrounder's Fallacy.If it would be used that way, it would be fine.

Instead the talk about what is wrong in D&D nearly always moves on to how to tweak D&D while keeping it D&D. And then it is about D&D minutiae and sacred cows of D&D and people argueing against change because they don't want to give up specific things.

But we already have hundreds, if not thousands of D&D tweaks. A good portion trying to make it more balanced while keeping most of the rest. Most are not particular successful or popular, often because they either don't work or they do work but produce something that doesn't feel like D&D or something that works at acomplishing its goals but is inferior to other games that had the same design goals from the onset. There is really no need to produce more of the same or argue about how D&D 3.5 should be improved (but changed less than 4E or 5E).

Morty

2019-10-14, 06:32 AM

Yeah, I've tried to face tank with a Wizard, but with their d4 HP and no armor, it's hard! Thanks to feats like Trollblooded and Roll With It, I was able to come close to achieving my vision - something I couldn't have done in a system with exclusively "balanced" components.

This also doesn't follow. There's nothing about the notion of balance as people actually use it - distinct from the "balance means everything is dull and boring" strawman you're using - that prevents using resources to shore up your character's weaknesses. Indeed, part of D&D's balance problem is that it's easy for some classes to cover all their bases while others struggle with it.

Satinavian

2019-10-14, 07:37 AM

Yeah, I've tried to face tank with a Wizard, but with their d4 HP and no armor, it's hard! Thanks to feats like Trollblooded and Roll With It, I was able to come close to achieving my vision - something I couldn't have done in a system with exclusively "balanced" components.
In a proper point buy system it is likely trivial to just buy tanking/defensive abilities to go with your spellcasting abilities. That is only a problem because you want a D&D wizard

Even in D&D you could have just used full armor and shield, accepted the miscast and the armor penalties and called it a day without even building for it. (Not to mention that D&D already has dozens of things specifically intended to make armored or durable arcane casters)

noob

2019-10-14, 07:40 AM

In a proper point buy system it is likely trivial to just buy tanking/defensive abilities to go with your spellcasting abilities.

Even in D&D you could have just used full armor and shield, accepted the miscast and the armor penalties and called it a day without even building for it.

It is a misconception: armor does not makes someone tanky.
There is so many things that ignore armor from rays(only touch ac counts)(and many other magical things) to lava and fire and falling damage you will feel as frail with a full plate than without.

Satinavian

2019-10-14, 07:48 AM

It is a misconception: armor does not makes someone tanky.
There is so many things that ignore armor from rays (only touch ac counts)(and many other magical things) to lava and fire and falling damage you will feel as frail with a full plate than without.
Yes, D&D armor rules are incredibly bad. Not a discussion i wanted to start.

And of course there are other defenses and a good tank should not rely on only one. Which is also true in many other systems. But there are many concepts that don't cover all bases and don't try to tank every enemy and those are viable as well.

But my point was about how balanced systems are often even better at allowing tanky wizards than the unbalanced D&D class system with its rigid idea about what a wizard is suppossed to be. And how even in D&D that concept is not exactly hard to pull off even without deep diving into splats.

patchyman

2019-10-14, 08:06 AM

Lots of posts here cover interesting ground, so I will only bring up a point that I don’t think has been discussed.

DM decides to run a module for 4 to 6 characters. He has 4 players (common situation, happens every day). The players are all reasonably attached to their characters.

Example 1: two of the players pick “weak” classes, the other two pick “medium” classes. It seems to me that the party is going to have a tough time, and probably TPK, not because of the actions they took, but because they chose weaker characters (often unintentionally). This does not seem like fun or good design to me.

Example 2: two of the players pick “weak” classes, the other two pick “strong” classes. The players of the “strong” characters feel forced to overshadow the “weaker” characters, because no one wants a TPK. The players of the weaker characters are frustrated because their character feels weak, and also because they feel overshadowed. Once again, this does not seem like fun or good design to me.

Cluedrew

2019-10-14, 08:23 AM

If it would be used that way, it would be fine.

Instead the talk about what is wrong in D&D nearly always moves on to how to tweak D&D while keeping it D&D. And then it is about D&D minutiae and sacred cows of D&D and people argueing against change because they don't want to give up specific things.I'm not saying the Playgrounder's Fallacy is good but I've been seeing it happen for years.

But yeah I haven't even mentioned the Common Folk backgrounds because no one knows what that means and even if they did they are probably going to get swept under the rug by people just focusing on D&D. But I have a sudden urge to be proven wrong so let me give this a shot.

So this is from a homebrew system (I might never actually make) where backgrounds serve as classes, but they mostly go away after character creation. It is also a game about gifted individuals and highly trained professionals. The Common Folk backgrounds are neither of these things. They are normal people caught up in events. So they are much weaker than the other backgrounds, to use a simple combat example instead of being a commando with modern weaponry you might do martial arts as a health thing. The one interesting twist that they have that is that they have catch up mechanics. That is they can choose to undergo a period of rapid growth to catch up with the main classes. They are some cases where you could use different power levels to tell a story but at the same time I don't want to lock anyone into that or trick them into it. So the Common Folk backgrounds should all explain what they are and the catch up mechanic means that you can take the basic lessons the others took a long time ago and close the gap once the weak character story has been told.

Thoughts?

"balance means everything is dull and boring" strawmanIn a well balanced game (one with the maximum viable options) you can actually have more interesting options because unviable options are necessarily boring because they can't be used. Even within the balance to the table context there are likely many characters you can't play because they are too strong or too weaker for this group.

Morty

2019-10-14, 08:44 AM

In a well balanced game (one with the maximum viable options) you can actually have more interesting options because unviable options are necessarily boring because they can't be used. Even within the balance to the table context there are likely many characters you can't play because they are too strong or too weaker for this group.

Also very true; balance frequently increases options rather than takes them away. Core-only 3E D&D isn't varied at all because many options just aren't viable. It doesn't really matter that they're there if you'll be bad at your job if you try to pursue them. Pitting balance and variety against each other is a false dichotomy to start with.

Mechalich

2019-10-14, 09:37 AM

So this is from a homebrew system (I might never actually make) where backgrounds serve as classes, but they mostly go away after character creation. It is also a game about gifted individuals and highly trained professionals. The Common Folk backgrounds are neither of these things. They are normal people caught up in events. So they are much weaker than the other backgrounds, to use a simple combat example instead of being a commando with modern weaponry you might do martial arts as a health thing. The one interesting twist that they have that is that they have catch up mechanics. That is they can choose to undergo a period of rapid growth to catch up with the main classes. They are some cases where you could use different power levels to tell a story but at the same time I don't want to lock anyone into that or trick them into it. So the Common Folk backgrounds should all explain what they are and the catch up mechanic means that you can take the basic lessons the others took a long time ago and close the gap once the weak character story has been told.

This sounds like it's a sort of zombie apocalypse model. As in, all characters have a background for one sort of situation, but now they're all in a completely different situation. Unfortunately, a situation like this is one that's inherently unbalanced. There are always going to be people whose life skills for circumstance A map better than others towards circumstance B and pretending otherwise is going to break verisimilitude in half. In that scenario you pretty much have to just declare that 'PC backgrounds points must be spent on useful skills' and move on and that when the zombie apocalypse happened you somehow gathered together mechanics, nurses, and soldiers and not accountants, painters, and stock brokers (if the party was actively assembled by some third party there's a built in excuse for why this is the case). Now, you can have characters whose backgrounds unexpectedly translate into useful skills - there's a scene in the movie Defiance where they're interviewing new arrivals to the camp and one guy says he's a 'clockmaker' - something they don't need - but it turns out that this translates surprisingly well into 'gun mechanic' - which they totally do - and this broadens available concepts.

Cluedrew

2019-10-14, 10:13 AM

This sounds like it's a sort of zombie apocalypse model. As in, all characters have a background for one sort of situation, but now they're all in a completely different situation.All of the common folk backgrounds yes, but not all characters. There are also backgrounds you can choose to be the heavily armed commando, the spy, the inventor, the psychic (sort of) or the bullet dodging monk from the start. Those are the professionals I mentioned before.

On the other hand within these characters, yes definitely they are not really balanced and are supposed to be on the whole the low side. I hadn't thought to much about transferable skills but it would definitely serve at least as narrative justification for picking up new skills. Who knows maybe I will hard code the idea into some of the common folk backgrounds. If I make the system.

Really although feedback on this concept is useful for me, its value is for this thread it to talk about how a system could embrace unbalanced concepts in a meaningful (and not trap option) way. With sign posting to help you make sure you know what you are getting into and an escape hatch for when it starts wearing thin.

Satinavian

2019-10-14, 10:57 AM

Quertus

2019-10-14, 01:11 PM

This is hardly unique to 3e. It's an issue of a system permitting too many concepts without thinking about how power interactions work. The Allip vs. Tarrasque is actually a tolerable example here - because it illuminates how sometimes the numbers are irrelevant because one ability simply 'paper covers rock' another. This happens a lot of fights between single-power characters (ie. most superheroes and shounen anime characters) because it is extremely common for one power set to either autowin or autofail against another power set to the point that it becomes difficult to setup interactions where characters can plausibly role dice against each other - which is why video games that put superheroes up against each other Marvel vs Capcom style have to distort actual abilities in massive ways.

D&D's conceptual base is functionally 'everything in fantasy ever' which is madness. It'll never work out unless you artificially constrain the inputs and outputs to the point that you're running a fighting game (which isn't necessarily a bad idea if you're willing to just ad hoc everything else). To even begin to make game balance work you have to decide which concepts you'll support and then stick to them, and it helps if all PCs share a specific core concept that helps provide them with a viable 'floor' level for the principle sorts of challenges they're expected to face. For example, if your game is about a group of military personnel, everyone should start with a package that represents having been through basic training. D&D characters are assumed to be 'adventurers' and they should all probably start with some sort of shared set of adventurer skills, but they don't.

TTRPGs are a cooperative game, and for the most part cooperative games flow the most smoothly when everyone is around the same level of capability. This minimizes inter-player fiction, reduces the number of stoppages in play, and provides everyone with the opportunity to have measure accomplishments in game. Now, capability includes both the variance between concepts supported by the rules and player skill, but at the design level you can only control for the former. Since there's going to be variance in the latter no matter what you do, it's best to try and minimize the variance in the former. It is, of course, expected that the game will be actively managed to mitigate player skill based imbalances. Large scale games like MMOs use leagues and other gatekeeping devices to try and segregate players according to skill level. That's not possible in tabletop, but it reveals how the GM needs to fill that role instead.

One important caveat here is that balance is far more important is you're playing the game straight. That is, if the players are actually invested in the story and the characters and trying to have an experience that makes at least some amount of narrative sense. A significant margin of tables aren't doing this. Instead they're a bunch of friends gathered together to mess around and have a good time and the game is just as interesting for the wacky hijinks and absurd situational comedy that ensues during play rather than any actual outcomes ('camp' roleplaying as it were). Balance is much less important in such a game because the gameplay has ceased to be about the game at all. A system or setting that is designed to embrace this style of play (like Planescape, which is intended to advance wacky philosophical brainstorming through a theater of the bizarre) or one that is clearly ridiculous no matter how serious the product design (like RIFTS) can laugh in the face of balance because the game has ceased to be about the game.

Huh. That's kinda the opposite of my experience.

I find that if I'm invested in the game and the character, contrived balance is rather detrimental to my fun. I want my character to feel like my character, not like an assembly line playing piece.

I find that cooperative games are an ideal time for disparity. If I'm playing soccer with someone who's way better than me - or, heck, if I'm role-playing with a vastly superior roleplayer - I can learn from them. Whereas, if we're all equals, there's less opportunity for me to learn. If we're cooperating, I can play a Sentient Potted Plant. Do you think I'd want to do that if we were competing? Would you?

I think 3e is fairly unique in both supporting such a broad range of concepts, *and* providing so many unbalanced options that you can instantiate nearly any of these concepts at nearly any balance point, simply by mixing and matching appropriately.

Which is why, whenever anyone talks about "limiting" or "restricting" 3e, I feel that they've missed the beauty of the system.

3e supports almost everything, and does a brilliant job at it. How many other systems can one play a Pokemon Trainer next to a Physical Adept, a Dragon detective, a possessing spirit with an undead army, and an invisible faerie warrior, and have them be as balanced or as unbalanced as the players choose to build them?

You say that balance us easiest if everyone's skills are the same; cluedrew says it's easiest if they're incomparable. Me? I think both are good.

I think it's good to have plenty of toys that everyone can play with - trees that everyone can climb, questions that everyone can ask, etc - at the system / module level. I don't want the character sheet cluttered up with what makes me the same - I want that bandwidth reserved for what makes me different. So I don't want a bunch of samey buttons on all the character sheets - I want that solved at a different layer.

The other way I want to ensure that everyone has the chance for measurable accomplishments in game is to make the characters capable of distinctly different things, make them play different games, etc.

Lastly, I believe that a good design goal is to make the variance in potential characters greater than the variance in player skill. Otherwise, you guarantee that the less-skilled player cannot have "the opportunity to have measure accomplishments in game".

Quertus

2019-10-14, 01:36 PM

Okay, if we're going to bring in bovine-fecal theoretical-optimization stuff, then sure, you're right. You will always be able to achieve literally anything with 3e's rules,

Good. So, if you agree that one can achieve a balanced Fighter, then why don't you? And why is whatever answer you give not the problem?

if it conflicts with something of great importance to her or her campaign.

Sounds like you have multiple competing goals. Why are you not willing to sacrifice those other goals for the sake of balance?

So...remind me exactly where we're at, here.

I'm just guessing, but I think I was answering someone else's question of "how does it work at your tables?".

So I'll need to reread the thread carefully to see how much of your reply is actually Germain to our conversation, and how much is crosstalk with another conversation, and how much of that is actually interesting to discuss.

Because I'm not at "EF, a tale of memories" yet, but I'm pretty confused about where we are in our conversation, too. :smallredface:

Satinavian

2019-10-14, 01:37 PM

I think 3e is fairly unique in both supporting such a broad range of concepts, *and* providing so many unbalanced options that you can instantiate nearly any of these concepts at nearly any balance point, simply by mixing and matching appropriately.I think GURPS could match it. But that is even more commonly restricted than D&D because "everything goes" rends to not be what players of crunchy systems want.

3e supports almost everything, and does a brilliant job at it. How many other systems can one play a Pokemon Trainer next to a Physical Adept, a Dragon detective, a possessing spirit with an undead army, and an invisible faerie warrior, and have them be as balanced or as unbalanced as the players choose to build them?Out of my head :

- GURPS
- Shadowrun (But yes, that are not exactly common builds and you probably have to use a dragon shapeshifter in place of a full dragon)
- TDE 4 (Myranor rules supplements)

Not coincidently all of those are not class based systems. It is as if without classes it is easier to combine things and also to add new building blocks, who would have guessed.
Of course, you could also use the multitude of rules-light systems that don't bother to actually simulate those characters and just refluff stuff.

We really don't have to have D&D3.5s imbalances to get its options.

Morty

2019-10-14, 01:47 PM

If there is one thing that's unique about 3E, it's how it supports various weird gonzo concepts better than several basic fantasy/heroic character archetypes. I still don't know why it's good or desirable for dual-wielding to be terrible...

ezekielraiden

2019-10-14, 02:36 PM

Good. So, if you agree that one can achieve a balanced Fighter, then why don't you? And why is whatever answer you give not the problem?
That's not what I said. I said you can "achieve anything"--meaning that, because 3e's system is so utterly broken and unbalanced, there is no such thing as "a thing you cannot accomplish while, technically, obeying the rules." That's not saying that all state-able characters are something that exist within the ruleset. It is saying that, for any stated goal (like "kill the tarrasque," "steal from the literal god of watching and perception," or "erase the universe"), a character almost surely exists. You cannot assume, from that, that every describable combination of character traits is possible.

But that only happens BECAUSE 3e is so horrifically, mind-bogglingly unbalanced. Because you literally can take a class designed to be incapable of doing anything meaningful, and bovine-feces-tricksing your way through a thousand-year splat dance that lets you kill gods or upend creation. I know you have spoken positively of "rules lawyer" stuff previously, so the term doesn't have a negative meaning to you. But it does to me. 3rd edition D&D is by far the most painfully rules-lawyer-able system I have ever seen. It positively invites the (as I described in the "why do rules lawyers have a bad reputation" thread) officious, pretentious, unscrupulous, selfish, and grasping behavior that is so despised by those who use the term "rules lawyer" pejoratively. It's a morass of incredibly dense (in both senses of that term) rules, with literally n-th order exceptions and a penchant for producing transfinite arithmetic.

I would, in fact, argue that 3rd Edition D&D, particularly once you get into double-digit levels, is antithetical to the very concept of balance. It's so buggy, nonsensical, self-contradictory, and stuffed with insane troll logic, that nearly anything is possible, probably including actual logical paradoxes.

Again, just so we're absolutely clear here: I was saying that 3e is fundamentally, inherently unbalanced, and will actually prevent creating balanced characters. Balanced characters are nearly impossible to create in its system, for a host of reasons. (One of the biggest being that every metric of difficulty is completely useless, so there literally is no metric whatsoever to be meaningfully "balanced against." There is no "range of acceptable results." There is no "testable design goal" (past level 6 or so, aka the limit of what they playtested. Skill DCs are whack, and a regular Fighter typically cannot be "level-appropriate" good at all three of swimming, climbing, and jumping, let alone the host of other skill things. DCs are a gorram joke, regardless of origin, and saving throw bonuses are nearly as bad. The entire CR system has to be ripped out and replaced, because it just flat-out doesn't work. LA is very nearly arbitrary, as are several metrics for how classes and races should be made. And that's not even touching the enormous library of badly-designed spells!)

Sounds like you have multiple competing goals. Why are you not willing to sacrifice those other goals for the sake of balance?
I do not. The goal is to create an effective system for producing cooperative roleplaying game experiences where the players are equipped (a) with the tools to contribute meaningfully, within reasonable statistical boundaries, to every relevant axis of play, and (b) to learn from prior choices without suffering immediately game-ending consequences and thus enable an experience feedback loop (that is, you can identify both good choices and bad choices, and get the opportunity to understand both and correct the latter when possible). These two conditions apply just as much to the DM as to the players. Thus, since DM choices include things like "permitting certain behaviors," the rules not only can but should both enable (as much as possible) making the consequences of such DM choices clear and readily reasoned, and equip DMs to address adverse consequences before they become fatal errors. Hence, the DM not only can be but should be empowered by the rules to allow creative mixing and application of the listed rules, but should also be empowered to decline such things when the foreseeable consequences are not acceptable.

A game designed with balance makes such foresight a natural consequence of using the rules, within limits anyway. (No one has infinite processing power; even the impossible "perfectly balanced" game can only enable foresight to the limit of human capacity.)

I'm just guessing, but I think I was answering someone else's question of "how does it work at your tables?".
That would be something of a problem, then, since I was talking about how to make, aka design, effective cooperative roleplaying games that produce (with reasonable certainty) desired outcomes. I was not talking descriptively of any specific game or experience, except as illustrative examples of design in action. How you conduct play at your table is your business, and I have neither right nor interest to tell you whether that's right, wrong, or flarfignyuten.

Hence why I have (for example) repeatedly talked about the ways game designers talk, the ways they go about designing their games, and the ways they choose to present the options within the game. And why I keep talking about things like design, testability, etc. I'm not talking about "what I do at my table" and have little interest in such a discussion, because it can't go anywhere. It can't even rise to the level of sharing recipes, where you can at least swap ideas for substitute ingredients or alternate cooking times. "How I run my games" is as personal a thing as...well, any art. A discussion of "this is the way I do it" would be about as useful as two artists discussing their pen-holding techniques. You might, maybe possibly, pick up something...but odds are pretty good that you'll spend an awful lot of time not really grokking what is said and not really seeing any benefit to doing something you don't currently do (or stopping something you do do).

Cluedrew

2019-10-14, 03:41 PM

Sounds nice.Thank-you. This might be left behind already but thank-you, and to Mechalich, for reading and replying to it.

I find that if I'm invested in the game and the character, contrived balance is rather detrimental to my fun. I want my character to feel like my character, not like an assembly line playing piece.What makes balance "contrived"? A mercenary, a naïve mystic and a reality TV show host (with camera crew) walk into a bar. And they were balanced, as were the local hunter/guide and the wild life photographer and no one talked about their characters ahead of time.

The system was just well designed, every character felt alive and was able to contribute in big and small ways. Is that contrived? Or is contrived what you have when you try to force an unbalanced peg into a balanced hole? As the leading question may have suggested, I think it is more the latter.

Lastly, I believe that a good design goal is to make the variance in potential characters greater than the variance in player skill. Otherwise, you guarantee that the less-skilled player cannot have "the opportunity to have measure accomplishments in game".There are two arguments being made. First that balanced characters in the hands of unevenly skilled players we inevitably - as in without exception - lead to the stronger players negating or overshadowing the accomplishments of the weaker players. Second that unbalanced characters can prevent this from happening. Which when everyone ends up with a character that adjusts the player + character power to the same band and no one has a character they hate for other reason (which feels like it would require a lot of knowledge of the system, players and the events of the campaign before they have happened) than I suppose it could.

So about player skill. In my experience initiative more to do with contribution than player skill. The contributions come out the way you would expect more often with high skill, but they are contribution. Of course as I write this it occurs to me you are might be assuming some failure is nothing happens system, of course I was sort of assuming the opposite so that could be an important difference. Another important difference is the design of the system, so in a very highly player-skill focused system it might be more of an issue. Even then the only times I have seen it matter so much is with meta-game knowledge, knowing secret weaknesses of monster and that sort of thing. I don't think that is going for.

But OK this is not quite my area, I don't play fail-still or player-skill systems very much. So if you have a good argument as to why, some examples would be nice, I could believe that would happen in such a system. Even then though I don't think it expands beyond those systems very much. In my experience once someone knows the basic rules they are good to go for changing the rules, as long as their character provides the tools to do so.

(Oh right I was also discounting character creation skill because once the game starts that's just character ability.)

Good. So, if you agree that one can achieve a balanced Fighter, then why don't you? And why is whatever answer you give not the problem?Personally:
Mastery/Systems Knowledge: Its a great thing to have it but we should not assume a "Ph.D." level of mastery just to play the game properly. Being able to get more out of the game with mastery is to be expected. Requiring a high level of mastery - not just competence - to get what the game says on the tin is a failure of design.
Time: Most the time would be gaining the mastery above. But even with that constructing a character with elements scattered across a large system (most of the content of which you shouldn't use because it is unbalanced, at least compared to this came) does take more time and energy than having a nice list of options laid out in front of you, all of which could be chosen and all of which do what they say.
Cost: Literal dollars spent on source books. Not nessasarily a problem but with the way a lot of systems (especially the one I expect you are referring to)

In conclusion, I maintain that balance is the default, most systems should have most of their options balanced and any exceptions should be clearly labeled.

Cluedrew

2019-10-14, 04:52 PM

Sorry, something occurred to me after my last post which is I got an answer to a question I asked and forgot to respond to. Especially since it is an important question I figure I should come back to it.
I have lots of different points, as I'm trying to build a more holistic picture of a larger thing than just one point. But, if I had to pick one as my "main" point, it would probably be

TL;DR: You don't have to make a game that generates balanced parties. But if you tell people your game is balanced, it kinda should be balanced.OK first off I think this point is not the one we have been talking about the last few pages, in fact I think this one has been settled in it is agreed that systems don't have to be anything but should always communicate what they are.

So of your whole image of balance, describe the part that is revenant to this thread. If that is all of it, describe all of it. Or but if a different way I'm cool if your "main point" is a bit complicated, I think it is still important that it is said. Especially since I haven't yet figured out what it is yet and all these asides feel kind of pointless if I can't get the important part of it.

AdAstra

2019-10-14, 05:29 PM

Quertus The idea that game imbalance is in any way an ideal way to compensate for player skill is laughable. Powerful characters (especially DnD spellcasters) are often difficult to play effectively, and even building them requires a level of system mastery less competent players are unlikely to have. In many cases, 3e's easier classes are weaker, since "fewer buttons to push" is usually synonymous with "weaker" in that game.

How a "noob" class or build should operate:
-It should be fairly clear from the outset that it's a simple class with simple abilities. Explicit labeling as such can be good, but could also lead to negative perception of the class being, well, for noobs.
-"when in doubt, just x" In combat (or any well-fleshed-out conflict resolution mechanism), the class should have one or two primary abilities that are almost always useful and easy to use, and match up reasonably well even to more complex options from other classes. Other options should be available, and ideally should offer advantages of their own, but they should never be necessary in most situations. The obvious example is a Fighter's attacks.
-Ideally, it should be easy to build. While the ideal of every gaming group is to have those nice people that are willing to help you build your character step-by-step, those people will not always be available to help for whatever reason. The stats that will help the class/build the most should be delineated, the choices should be meaningful and obvious in what they do.
-The above two points amount to: The class must require a minimal amount of system mastery to get a lot out of it and otherwise be effective compared to other options.

Even regardless of that point, balance in a non-competitive game is often less about wanting numbers to match up, and more about making everyone feel interesting, feel active, and feel like they're contributing to the team's success, even with only basic skill. That's of course, assuming they want those things, but the ones that do will benefit greatly, and those that don't won't be hurt. You can never compensate for player agency though. The player who actively tries to do things will always accomplish more than the player who goes out of their way to be useless, no matter how many overpowered class features you stack on them. And that's fine. Using deliberate game imbalance as part of some fanciful plan to "balance" the players' interest in succeeding will only cause problems for everyone else. As callous as it sounds, designers should not care about the needs of someone who wants to play a potted plant, nor should they cater to someone who doesn't want to play. That person will have fun/be bored anyway, and it doesn't take much effort to homebrew a potted plant character.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-14, 09:59 PM

CharonsHelper

2019-10-14, 10:11 PM

ezekielraiden

2019-10-14, 11:11 PM

Which is also why many tables don't have the level of balance issues that theory-crafting would get you. The whole ceiling vs floor for each class. The ceiling of 3.5 wizards is crazy high relative to any martial character, but if you're closer to the wizard's floor (which is probably most tables), the difference isn't too bad.

Indeed--hence why people often explain many of 3rd edition's...eccentricities by saying that the designers presumed 100% of people would play the game in a pretty rigidly 2e-and-earlier way. Clerics would consistently sacrifice spell slots to heal allies--particularly in combat. Wizards would prepare lots of fireballs and chain lightnings, and would only prepare glitterdust if they really really knew it was going to be useful. That doesn't explain all the problems (e.g. how did they not realize they were making the Fighter suck at saves when it had been awesome at saves), but it covers a lot of them.

AdAstra

2019-10-15, 02:11 AM

Indeed--hence why people often explain many of 3rd edition's...eccentricities by saying that the designers presumed 100% of people would play the game in a pretty rigidly 2e-and-earlier way. Clerics would consistently sacrifice spell slots to heal allies--particularly in combat. Wizards would prepare lots of fireballs and chain lightnings, and would only prepare glitterdust if they really really knew it was going to be useful. That doesn't explain all the problems (e.g. how did they not realize they were making the Fighter suck at saves when it had been awesome at saves), but it covers a lot of them.
I mean that’s a huge problem in and of itself. If your balance is entirely predicated on players playing in a very specific way, that completely skewers the idea of choice. If the classes were reasonably balanced for a variety of playstyles, then a players are free to play their characters how they actually want without caring about interparty balance as much. In many ways, this is WORSE than having each class’s “expected” playstyle be the only optimal one, because it’s basically another, unintentional trap. Mechanics should enforce/encourage the theme, not actively drive players away from it. Emergent mechanical interactions are fun! But your base mechanics should still be sound.

While this is not inherently a bad thing, I would posit that if most players/tables are at the bottom end of system mastery for a given class/ group of classes, that does not speak highly to ability for the game to make its mechanics understood. And of course nothing stops even a low-skill player from looking up some bonkers combos/builds/strategies online. The nightstick-cleric exploit is pretty game changing with even a basic understanding of metamagic, which can also be acquired through guides.

Not to mention the fact that blast-focused wizards and especially healbot clerics sound like insufferably stifling archetypes. I’m sure a lot of people like them, but I shed no tears for those expectations being forgotten. As for the druid though, their most powerful playstyles in 3e and co. seem to pretty much match up well with what druids are “expected” to do: summoning, commanding/empowering an animal companion, wildshaping, etc. Not sure just how essential good feat selection is needed, but at the very least Natural Spell is cool enough that lots of players are gonna pick it just for that.

Cluedrew

2019-10-15, 07:52 AM

I did say this several times before...I guess I just had to be as blunt as possible about it. *shrug*I was talking to Quertus. (I not sure why he decided to reply to my question by quoting you, but he did.) I did read your entire post though. I think your definition is a bit broad in places but not so much I'm going to debate the point. Thank-you as well for the description of the escalation die, I never had heard of it before.

patchyman

2019-10-15, 11:55 AM

I think GURPS could match it. But that is even more commonly restricted than D&D because "everything goes" rends to not be what players of crunchy systems want.

I would add Savage Worlds to that list.

patchyman

2019-10-15, 12:13 PM

Personally:
Mastery/Systems Knowledge: Its a great thing to have it but we should not assume a "Ph.D." level of mastery just to play the game properly. Being able to get more out of the game with mastery is to be expected. Requiring a high level of mastery - not just competence - to get what the game says on the tin is a failure of design.
Time: Most the time would be gaining the mastery above. But even with that constructing a character with elements scattered across a large system (most of the content of which you shouldn't use because it is unbalanced, at least compared to this came) does take more time and energy than having a nice list of options laid out in front of you, all of which could be chosen and all of which do what they say.
Cost: Literal dollars spent on source books. Not nessasarily a problem but with the way a lot of systems (especially the one I expect you are referring to)

In conclusion, I maintain that balance is the default, most systems should have most of their options balanced and any exceptions should be clearly labeled.

4. Interest: if ubercharging or power attack spam is necessary to optimize, and I wanted to play a duellist, than even if the other conditions are met, the game is preventing me from playing a pretty big-standard fantasy archetype.

5. The DM: Lots of optimization cheese relies on a DM going along with pretty tortuous rules interpretations. If the DM simply says Nope! you’re pretty much out of luck. (See guy at the gym fallacy)

Lorsa

2019-10-15, 01:34 PM

No, I've had characters who thought that they were dead weight. And ones that I thought were dead weight. And had a blast with them. Because that's what they were supposed to be.

So, again, it's only a problem if you choose that it's a problem.

I know it's an old post but...

What if you have a character that is not supposed to be dead weight in any way but turns out to be such anyway.

And there is no way to fix it because you are not allowed to retrain feats, or switch class or the like?

You did not choose for it to be a problem, in fact you were aiming for the character not to be dead weight.

The reason it turned out to be such, was because the game system did not properly advertise that "this choice will lead to character becoming dead weight".

Basically, you aim to not be dead weight, you become dead weight anyway. This is a situation many people find unfun. For good reason.

Quertus

2019-10-15, 01:39 PM

Sorry, something occurred to me after my last post which is I got an answer to a question I asked and forgot to respond to. Especially since it is an important question I figure I should come back to it.OK first off I think this point is not the one we have been talking about the last few pages, in fact I think this one has been settled in it is agreed that systems don't have to be anything but should always communicate what they are.

So of your whole image of balance, describe the part that is revenant to this thread. If that is all of it, describe all of it. Or but if a different way I'm cool if your "main point" is a bit complicated, I think it is still important that it is said. Especially since I haven't yet figured out what it is yet and all these asides feel kind of pointless if I can't get the important part of it.

It makes sense that you can't see where I'm going these past few pages. Because I'm not supporting an argument, so much as digging around for differences in core assumptions.

So, the past few pages was me going back to basics, trying to state things like "plants are green", before trying to explain photosynthesis and economics, before making an argument like "eating salad is good". Because, somewhere, there's been disconnects on accepting things that I take for granted, and I'm not a sufficiently skilled communicator to tease them out more efficiently. So I'm poking around at more basic assumptions, because I'd like to know what assumptions I'm making that I'm not accounting for, what gaming styles in blind to. And that's been fruitful (apparently…), as I'll address below.

But, given my growing senility, it would likely be best for everyone (myself included) if I were to explicitly state some of my top-level ideas.

Huh. Looks like I lost the QUOTE. But, uh, mechanical balance isn't required. False advertising is bad. Players going in knowing what to expect (where "the unknown" is a valid expectation) is key to games being fun. There exist people who enjoy mechanically balanced parties, people who enjoy mechanically unbalanced parties, and people who enjoy both. I'm that last one. There are people who enjoy equal contribution, people who enjoy unequal contribution, and people who enjoy both. I'm that last one (but do note that I don't enjoy *no* contribution). Thus, systems would optimally support both balance and imbalance.

Then things get complicated.

There are many possible metrics one could use to measure mechanical balance. Although some may be useful subjectively (they produce "fun" at one specific table), most if not all would be "objectively wrong" (they would not produce fun at all tables). "UBI" is my shorthand for "for the sake of discussion, pretend this is not true, and that there actually can exist one Universal metric for mechanical balance".

Am/was I trying to say more? Probably. Darn senility.

Lastly, a… whatever you call these things… to explain my opinion of balance in 3e:

Balance in 3e is like the number system. You can make just about anything out of just about anything. Complaining that everything isn't balanced in 3e is like complaining that you cannot just skillessly add arbitrarily numbers and get the same sum. It misses the beauty of what you can do with numbers.

So about player skill. In my experience initiative more to do with contribution than player skill. The contributions come out the way you would expect more often with high skill, but they are contribution. Of course as I write this it occurs to me you are might be assuming some failure is nothing happens system, of course I was sort of assuming the opposite so that could be an important difference. Another important difference is the design of the system, so in a very highly player-skill focused system it might be more of an issue. Even then the only times I have seen it matter so much is with meta-game knowledge, knowing secret weaknesses of monster and that sort of thing. I don't think that is going for.

But OK this is not quite my area, I don't play fail-still or player-skill systems very much. So if you have a good argument as to why, some examples would be nice, I could believe that would happen in such a system. Even then though I don't think it expands beyond those systems very much. In my experience once someone knows the basic rules they are good to go for changing the rules, as long as their character provides the tools to do so.

(Oh right I was also discounting character creation skill because once the game starts that's just character ability.)

Oh, you gave me what I was looking for. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

However, I don't really know what you're saying here. I mean, yes, I, too, am completely "discounting character creation skill". But I don't much follow what types of different games will affect the reasonable expectations. So, uh, can you baby step me through that?

… as I read back over this, I see "very highly player-skill focused system". I think I touched on this briefly, talking about various tactical decisions from running away with the McGuffin to attacking ineffectually to just running away. I think that "player skill" can have a huge impact in almost any system, so, while I'm not completely lost here, I'm still curious what distinction(s) you are making.

Lots of posts here cover interesting ground, so I will only bring up a point that I don’t think has been discussed.

DM decides to run a module for 4 to 6 characters. He has 4 players (common situation, happens every day). The players are all reasonably attached to their characters.

Example 1: two of the players pick “weak” classes, the other two pick “medium” classes. It seems to me that the party is going to have a tough time, and probably TPK, not because of the actions they took, but because they chose weaker characters (often unintentionally). This does not seem like fun or good design to me.

Example 2: two of the players pick “weak” classes, the other two pick “strong” classes. The players of the “strong” characters feel forced to overshadow the “weaker” characters, because no one wants a TPK. The players of the weaker characters are frustrated because their character feels weak, and also because they feel overshadowed. Once again, this does not seem like fun or good design to me.

Example 1 - it's only a problem if they choose in ignorance. It's a recipe for a good time if they chose to intentionally make things challenging.

Example 2 - again, it's only a problem if they went in expecting balance. It sounds like a recipe for a good time *if that type of imbalance is what they wanted*.

In conclusion, I maintain that balance is the default, most systems should have most of their options balanced and any exceptions should be clearly labeled.

But (to continue kicking a popular system) the 3e developers thought that they *had* made a balanced system. Or claimed that they did, at any rate. We all have our blind spots, we all look at the world through the finite lenses of our own experiences & imagination. Or, in my shorthand, people are idiots. I don't trust the developers to have an even remotely reasonable concept of what "balance" looks like. I want them to give me the tools to *make* balance. And, case in point, the breadth of 3e's ludicrously, gloriously unbalanced options provides those tools.

So, "core only 3e" is a perfect example of what "balance is the default" looks like, in practice. Still your cup of tea?

Quertus The idea that game imbalance is in any way an ideal way to compensate for player skill is laughable. Powerful characters (especially DnD spellcasters) are often difficult to play effectively, and even building them requires a level of system mastery less competent players are unlikely to have. In many cases, 3e's easier classes are weaker, since "fewer buttons to push" is usually synonymous with "weaker" in that game.

So, either a) someone else builds the noob's character for them, and tweaks it based on the way that they play it, until they have equal contribution; or b) someone makes the noob an OP, easy-to-play muggle with minimal (but oft-used) buttons. I've seen both done at actual tables (with more or less contribution from said noobs).

Now, I'm not saying that it's *ideal* to have to compensate for player skill that way, only that it is possible (if imperfect, but we've all agreed that we're not after perfection, right?). So, if we remove that option, what's left? How would you compensate for significant difference in player skill? What do you consider to be the "ideal" solution?

it doesn't take much effort to homebrew a potted plant character.

Just a personal preference thing, but I'm usually not interested in homebrew - and certainly not for a story as awesome as "Thor and the Sentient Potted Plant".

Although… if homebrew is valid for imbalance, why isn't it valid for balance? Especially since any given table likely won't have the same concept of "balance" as the "idiots" who designed the system.

I was talking to Quertus. (I not sure why he decided to reply to my question by quoting you, but he did.).

Because it was a good statement of my most prominent belief on the topic.

Morty

2019-10-15, 02:15 PM

So, "core only 3e" is a perfect example of what "balance is the default" looks like, in practice. Still your cup of tea?

Considering that there are systems that offer more options in their core rules than 3E does in its own and are better balanced to boot... this example doesn't seem that perfect to me.

Quertus

2019-10-15, 03:44 PM

I know it's an old post but...

What if you have a character that is not supposed to be dead weight in any way but turns out to be such anyway.

And there is no way to fix it because you are not allowed to retrain feats, or switch class or the like?

You did not choose for it to be a problem, in fact you were aiming for the character not to be dead weight.

The reason it turned out to be such, was because the game system did not properly advertise that "this choice will lead to character becoming dead weight".

Basically, you aim to not be dead weight, you become dead weight anyway. This is a situation many people find unfun. For good reason.

Well, I think we have two possibilities here:

One. We can (insert word here that means "say is good" - "enshrine" is the best I've got) system mastery. Which 3e purports to do. In which case, we point and laugh at the player for choosing poorly.

Two. We can prioritize something (usually player agency to create balance and/or imbalance; ie, to successfully instantiate the character that they envision, be it balanced or unbalanced) above system mastery, and provide the player with needful tools: clear connections between character choices and their contribution to in-game agency, the ability to "retrain feats, or switch class or the like", more skilled players (or online resources like a certain Playground) who can help with build choices, etc.

EDIT:
Considering that there are systems that offer more options in their core rules than 3E does in its own and are better balanced to boot... this example doesn't seem that perfect to me.

I mean, you've just stated why it's a perfect example: because the designers failed, as all designers must. That they failed worse than some? That only increases its value as an example. That it provides in-game ability to go on rebuild quests to completely retool your character, in character (how many systems can say that?) only further increases its value as an example.

kyoryu

2019-10-15, 03:53 PM

In general, it is better to reward player skill and system mastery for choices that are on a fairly tight feedback loop.

Rewarding good positioning in combat is a good example, as the player (assuming the character survives) can improve their positioning next combat with no leftover effects.

Extreme levels of system mastery reward for character build choices are not this, as they are typically extremely slow to change and difficult if not impossible to revert.

Compare this with playing M:tG where a poorly built deck can be completely changed after every match, which is a reasonably tight loop.

And this also does not factor in the idea that "I want to play a warrior type, and still be effective" is a very common desire, and just saying "nope, can't do that" is not a very tenable position for a broadly-aimed system.

Note that some level of system mastery in building is generally liked by many people - but the question is really "how much". "I'm more effective at my job without invalidating the rest of the party" is a fuzzy, but useful gauge. Also consider the "optimization levels" I discussed earlier, and what percentage of baseline effectiveness you get at each level. I consider "I basically understand the system, and am incrementally making build decisions that make general sense based on a fair understanding of the system and mostly intuitive decisions" to be the baseline. IOW, we don't need to consider fighters that dump STR, CON, and DEX in our analysis.

AdAstra

2019-10-15, 05:07 PM

Quertus I’m sincerely confused as to how difficult you think homebrewing a potted plant is. You’re basically playing a game object or piece of the scenery. No movement, no attacks, no abilities or stats that would have any meaningful effect on anything. It’s almost not even homebrew! It’s like a rock or a chair, except easier to destroy and can make more of itself very slowly.

Reasons why homebrew is an ineffective means of balance:
1. The rest of the game is still there. Wizards clerics and druids remain tier 1. Monks will remain tier 5. If you want to say, have every player be around tiers 3-4, then you have to restrict options, not just homebrew new classes
2. Homebrewing a balanced interesting class is a lot of work. There’s a reason why people pay for games and splatbooks in the first place. You should be maximizing the amount of time people spend actually playing the game, and minimize the time outside the game they have to invest to enjoy it.
3. Critically, most people are bad at game design, not very good at math, and terrible at avoiding loopholes and exploits. If designing good tabletop rules was easy, it wouldn’t go so badly so often. If players are interested in their numbers matching up (to a reasonable degree) with other people’s numbers, homebrew will very rarely help them do that. Especially since you have to make it balanced AND interesting to play. Homebrewing balanced content is hard, homebrewing imbalanced content is easy. Most people, even players and some designers, don’t even have a decent understanding of how dice math works! But they can understand when someone else’s numbers are higher than theirs (not always correctly, which is why perception of balance is critical as well). Even if you have an entire party of people who don’t understand the mathematical difference between 2d6 and 1d12, those people deserve to be able to play with as few problems as feasible.

kyoryu

2019-10-15, 05:21 PM

Morty

2019-10-15, 05:56 PM

I mean, you've just stated why it's a perfect example: because the designers failed, as all designers must. That they failed worse than some? That only increases its value as an example. That it provides in-game ability to go on rebuild quests to completely retool your character, in character (how many systems can say that?) only further increases its value as an example.

But the other designers didn't fail. They created games that offered reasonable variety and balance within their stated goals, whatever they might have been. Your increasingly circular argument is leading you head-first into a form of Nirvana fallacy, where you argue that since perfect balance is impossible, they might as well not bother. And then veers off in a rather odd direction where a game that did worse than many is somehow better for it.

Mechalich

2019-10-15, 07:07 PM

Note that some level of system mastery in building is generally liked by many people - but the question is really "how much". "I'm more effective at my job without invalidating the rest of the party" is a fuzzy, but useful gauge. Also consider the "optimization levels" I discussed earlier, and what percentage of baseline effectiveness you get at each level. I consider "I basically understand the system, and am incrementally making build decisions that make general sense based on a fair understanding of the system and mostly intuitive decisions" to be the baseline. IOW, we don't need to consider fighters that dump STR, CON, and DEX in our analysis.

With regards to system mastery, I a key gauge point is how it impacts new players to the system and new players to TTRPGs in general. It should be possible to build a functional character who contributes to the game with no system mastery at all, and in fact based on just going through the 'how to build a character' section of the core book. Not a great character, of course, but one that broadly works.

I also think that insofar as a system rewards mastery, it should do so along consistent general principles, such as 'specialization is greater than generalization' or 'ranged weapons are superior to melee' (or vice versa) and the like. Ideally these principles should be inline with the in-game fiction too (ex. ranged superiority makes sense in a futuristic setting).The system should not reward dumpster diving through massive numbers of sourcebooks to produce absurd combo effects.

kyoryu

2019-10-15, 07:54 PM

Yeah, that was my point earlier. Like, "new player, who gets the system generally, and makes reasonable choices incrementally" is a baseline. Call that 100% effectiveness.

From there we get other points like "experienced player making choices incrementally, experienced player planning a build, high optimizer doing splat diving" etc., and what level those get you.

We can reasonably discount "person making nonsensical choices" as a datapoint.

But those other levels will generally produce higher levels of effectiveness - the real question is to what extent? If splat diving still only gets you an extra 50% effectiveness, that's a pretty good level of balance.

AdAstra

2019-10-15, 08:22 PM

Interestingly, 2d6 vs 1d12 is an example of "balance" to me, while not being "the same".

2d6 has a mean damage .5 higher.

2d6 has a bell curve, while 1d12 has a flat distribution.

As such, each have their benefits and drawbacks while remaining viable. 2d6 is better if you want a better chance of doing some minimum amount of damage, while 1d12 is better if you want a higher chance of high damage. In concrete terms, if you really really need to get more than 4 damage in a turn, 2d6 is better. But if you really really need to do 10 or more in a term, 1d12 is better.

And they are not "perfectly balanced" as the mean damage (arguably the most important stat long term) is .5 higher for 2d6.

I would argue that while lower variance is certainly not superior from a perspective of fun (it all depends on whether you're more excited by big numbers than you are disappointed by small numbers), from the perspective of optimization higher variance is almost always a disadvantage since it's harder to predict the effect of your actions. In most cases, in order for highly variable results to be "worthwhile", they should be on average superior to what you'd get by using a less variable method. An extreme example would be the Shield spell in 5e. If instead of +5, it gave you +1d10 to your armor class, most would probably consider that a substantial nerf, since it prevents you from knowing whether it will work ahead of time (unless you only need 1 more AC), even though on average 1d10 gives more than 5 AC. Not a perfect example for a number of reasons, but it illustrates the point. Having abilities with predictable results is a big part of optimization.

I would consider 3d6 vs 2d10 to be more "balanced" than 1d12 vs 2d6. 2d10 has a slightly higher average than 3d6 (11 vs 10.5) but more variance, thus making outcomes less predictable. But, I digress.

Yeah, that was my point earlier. Like, "new player, who gets the system generally, and makes reasonable choices incrementally" is a baseline. Call that 100% effectiveness.

From there we get other points like "experienced player making choices incrementally, experienced player planning a build, high optimizer doing splat diving" etc., and what level those get you.

We can reasonably discount "person making nonsensical choices" as a datapoint.

But those other levels will generally produce higher levels of effectiveness - the real question is to what extent? If splat diving still only gets you an extra 50% effectiveness, that's a pretty good level of balance.

For one, I feel that if it were possible to make a fun and varied game with 0% power variance, optimizers would still be able to have fun in many cases. System mastery is not always applied towards making a character more powerful, it can also be used to create new and interesting abilities, exploit rules in hilarious ways, or make the most of builds that should not be useful. I've done this myself, as I'm currently running a 5e sorcerer with -1 Charisma, who's been very effective and a blast to play.

I would say that the amount of numerical balance required is affected by how well the gameplay is presented to the player. A player who feels like they have a interesting and varied toolset is less likely to be paying attention to the exact numbers being spat out. The less your character feels like a collection of numbers, the less those numbers matter.

My preference is for most classes/builds to be at the top end of the balance curve. If you were to chart it, a "tier list" would look like a tornado rather than a pyramid. While far from ideal, I consider it superior to have a few trash options as opposed to a few godly ones. This maximizes the options for people who actively seek to be as powerful as possible, and minimizes the number of "trap" options. Unfortunately, even for people who don't actively care about their power, many will choose the boring but effective way over the fun but suboptimal way. So this minimizes the impact that has.

Cluedrew

2019-10-15, 08:46 PM

To Quertus: All of this is for you, I am going to reply to some broad topics but I am facing time constraints so I'm going to try to keep this short and to the point. At this point you probably already know better than I do if I have succeeded.

I have numerous assumptions of course. Some of them are pretty fundamental, some I feel are broad like I think the whole meaningful decision metaphor actually describes a lot of people's ideas of balance in a co-op game, just not in terms they would use. Others are kind of personal because I haven't mentioned how different classes balance against different player skills in any great detail because I am not interested in challenge because I'm not interested in player-skill based role-playing games. I consider it a design goal to allow the player to create the characters and situations they want with the least amount of effort (within the system's target area).

So when you say "There are people who enjoy equal contribution, people who enjoy unequal contribution, and people who enjoy both." I my first thought is that just have your character do less and then they contribute less. If you want to make a character who can't contribute less I wouldn't mind having a weaker option... but I could also spend less points in point-buy or play at a lower level, which is to say most systems have an explicate power-rating already and there is no reason to add extra options for adjusting power within those bands if the point is to move outside them. And even if they don't its pretty easy to weaken your character, just cross out a couple of their better abilities and you are done. I'm not even sure if one could count it as homebrew at that level.

While I am on that topic I think it is easiest to play at a given power level, then to adjust power in a general downwards direction, followed by same for up (or roughly same difficulty if you can just increase numbers but still harder if you have to create new abilities) with adjusting power to a particular point hardest of all. The last of course is the fundamental challenge of balancing.

Lastly I understand that bad game design happens. I will always continue to aim for good game design. For me good design is achieving your goals and is you didn't its bad design. Even if the game is fun anyways, which does happen. See most editions of D&D except 4th which more has the opposite problem.

I didn't go point by point but I think I did end up covering all the main ideas. I'm not sure if this is a success in terms of short and to the point.

patchyman

2019-10-15, 09:56 PM

Example 1 - it's only a problem if they choose in ignorance. It's a recipe for a good time if they chose to intentionally make things challenging.

Example 2 - again, it's only a problem if they went in expecting balance. It sounds like a recipe for a good time *if that type of imbalance is what they wanted*.

Note that I specifically made my example system-neutral. So, among people who chose in ignorance or were expecting balance, you agree that an unbalanced party is a problem. My experience, of new players, casuals, and even of experienced players is that most fall into one (or both) of those categories (unaware of power of respective options or expected balance).

While the occasional player may both (1) know the quirks of the game; and (2) didn't expect balance, my experience is that the vast majority of players is better in a balanced game.

NichG

2019-10-15, 11:03 PM

So when you say "There are people who enjoy equal contribution, people who enjoy unequal contribution, and people who enjoy both." I my first thought is that just have your character do less and then they contribute less. If you want to make a character who can't contribute less I wouldn't mind having a weaker option... but I could also spend less points in point-buy or play at a lower level, which is to say most systems have an explicate power-rating already and there is no reason to add extra options for adjusting power within those bands if the point is to move outside them. And even if they don't its pretty easy to weaken your character, just cross out a couple of their better abilities and you are done. I'm not even sure if one could count it as homebrew at that level.

Isn't this sort of like telling someone who wants to play an effective martial in D&D: 'just play a DMM-persist cleric and fluff it as being Chuck Norris'?

Satinavian

2019-10-16, 01:40 AM

Although… if homebrew is valid for imbalance, why isn't it valid for balance? Especially since any given table likely won't have the same concept of "balance" as the "idiots" who designed the system.Because it is a lot of work. And this work should probably involve playtesting, because balance is actually hard. And i would rather play the actual game than repeatedly redesign it and rebuild characters.

Balancing a game is work that publishers and should do. That is why i am paying them for.

Imbalance is easy. If i actually want to intruce stuff the system was never intended for and don't care for balance, it can most of the time be done in less than an hour and will work.

Practically though, i want most of my homebrew to be balanced, so i have to do a lot of additional work. Work i don't intend to do for the base system. That was different before i had a full time job.

But i see you still did not respond to all the other games that provide the diversity you know from D&D without having the same problems. Are you really that much attached to the way D&D does stuff ?

I would consider 3d6 vs 2d10 to be more "balanced" than 1d12 vs 2d6. 2d10 has a slightly higher average than 3d6 (11 vs 10.5) but more variance, thus making outcomes less predictable. But, I digress.

While i agree that randomness is a drawback in general, from pure ptimization standpoint i would consider not just the results of the dice, but what is done. What would be typical target numbers if it is some kind of skill. If it is damage, does the system have damage resistence and what are typical values, how likely are you below those and how does this change the distribution for the damage that actually counts.

As a shorthand, with DR you mostly want higher variance, the same if your result will on average be below DC. It gets more complicated if your system has degrees of success or failure but then it is too difficult for a shorthand because you have to weight the different results against each other.

Now there also are roll mechanisms with nonvanishing third central momentum and that changes things further but that gets too complicated soon and has to be considered case by case.

vasilidor

2019-10-16, 02:54 AM

I would say that balance is not necessary. What is necessary is that people know what they are getting into when they go to play [insert game here]. they need to know that they are able to contribute to whatever the game is supposed to be about without being a lodestone. if the game is just a silly bit where thor talks to a potted plant, then yes you absolutely can have fun doing that thing. if the game is a group of friends taking on an evil wizard in a castle in a high combat campaign, then they absolutely must be able to contribute in a meaningful way to getting victory if they don't want to feel superflouis.
dungeons and dragons (3e and 3e permutations at least) are horrible about having conan or robin hood types make meaningful contributions beyond a certain point (this is why most of the games I have played in ended in the 10 to 13 range). where in a game like shadowrun you really only need a few things to contribute to the success of a mission (got a good stealth skill, a good weapon and skill with said weapon? we can work it) but having a variety of different talents helps.
in earthdawn one of the worst classes you can play is the wizard (and its variables) because of how hard magic spells are to work. you are better off as a warrior or some such.
but as I said earlier what you need most is a good understanding of what you can expect from your character when you try to play it. I guy who expects his two scimitar expy to be awesome, who finds out its a flub, is not going to have a good time.

zinycor

2019-10-16, 04:53 AM

Well, I think we have two possibilities here:

One. We can (insert word here that means "say is good" - "enshrine" is the best I've got) system mastery. Which 3e purports to do. In which case, we point and laugh at the player for choosing poorly.

What? Are you saying that laughing at a player for making a suboptimal choice is valid? That's.... that is absolutely ridiculous and I can only hope that am misunderstanding you.

AdAstra

2019-10-16, 05:37 AM

What? Are you saying that laughing at a player for making a suboptimal choice is valid? That's.... that is absolutely ridiculous and I can only hope that am misunderstanding you.

I think he's just pointing out a purposefully stupid/malicious idea in order to make the next idea (the one he seems to believe in) sound more reasonable, as well as imposing an arbitrary binary choice.

Quertus

2019-10-16, 07:44 AM

@Cluedrew - I'm still trying to understand your posts. Maybe later today I'll have a response.

But the other designers didn't fail. They created games that offered reasonable variety and balance within their stated goals, whatever they might have been. Your increasingly circular argument is leading you head-first into a form of Nirvana fallacy, where you argue that since perfect balance is impossible, they might as well not bother. And then veers off in a rather odd direction where a game that did worse than many is somehow better for it.

Something that is useful as an example does not inherently mean that it useful at any (or every) thing else. 3e is a "good example"; ie, it is illustrative an example.

With regards to system mastery, I a key gauge point is how it impacts new players to the system and new players to TTRPGs in general. It should be possible to build a functional character who contributes to the game with no system mastery at all, and in fact based on just going through the 'how to build a character' section of the core book. Not a great character, of course, but one that broadly works.

Fully agree

I also think that insofar as a system rewards mastery, it should do so along consistent general principles, such as 'specialization is greater than generalization' or 'ranged weapons are superior to melee' (or vice versa) and the like. Ideally these principles should be inline with the in-game fiction too (ex. ranged superiority makes sense in a futuristic setting).

So, are you fine with "Wizard beats Warrior" as a general principle? Because, personally, I'm not a fan of your stated principles. You're telling me that if I want to build a useful melee combatant, I just can't - and you're fine with that? I'd much prefer the capacity for arbitrary, player-defined imbalance, thanks.

The system should not reward dumpster diving through massive numbers of sourcebooks to produce absurd combo effects.

As an MtG "Johnny combo player", I strongly disagree.

For one, I feel that if it were possible to make a fun and varied game with 0% power variance, optimizers would still be able to have fun in many cases. System mastery is not always applied towards making a character more powerful, it can also be used to create new and interesting abilities, exploit rules in hilarious ways, or make the most of builds that should not be useful.

… how do you have both "0% power variance" and "builds that should not be useful"?

Otherwise, sure, the "pure" joy of building can certainly be fed by instantiating cool things, rather than simply "moar power".

I would say that the amount of numerical balance required is affected by how well the gameplay is presented to the player. A player who feels like they have a interesting and varied toolset is less likely to be paying attention to the exact numbers being spat out. The less your character feels like a collection of numbers, the less those numbers matter.

Presentation is key.

However, how do you reconcile your stance of "varied toolset" with another's previous call for noobs to be given simple characters? Or do you consider them irreconcilable?

My preference is for most classes/builds to be at the top end of the balance curve. If you were to chart it, a "tier list" would look like a tornado rather than a pyramid. While far from ideal, I consider it superior to have a few trash options as opposed to a few godly ones. This maximizes the options for people who actively seek to be as powerful as possible, and minimizes the number of "trap" options. Unfortunately, even for people who don't actively care about their power, many will choose the boring but effective way over the fun but suboptimal way. So this minimizes the impact that has.

I'm liking the "power tornado".

Because it is a lot of work. And this work should probably involve playtesting, because balance is actually hard. And i would rather play the actual game than repeatedly redesign it and rebuild characters.

Balancing a game is work that publishers and should do. That is why i am paying them for.

Again, 3e is a great example of what "tested balance" looks like. Because their assumptions, and their notion of "balance", were not universal. Which, unless you accuse your players of BadWrongFun for playing your game the "wrong" way (alla White Wolf), Mindrape your player base, or your game only sees play at one like-minded table, is always going to be true.

I would rather have a game where I can build balanced or unbalanced characters under the rules, than one where some "idiots" made the game "balanced", and failed. (or succeeded at making things my definition of "balanced", because I also enjoy imbalanced parties)

Imbalance is easy. If i actually want to intruce stuff the system was never intended for and don't care for balance, it can most of the time be done in less than an hour and will work.

OK. But what if, much like going after a specific balance point, you are after a specific imbalance point? You want a Beholder to feel like a Beholder, or an Illithid Savant / Tainted Sorcerer BFC God Wizard to feel like an Illithid Savant / Tainted Sorcerer BFC God Wizard, but in ShadowRun? Is that less than an hour's work?

Practically though, i want most of my homebrew to be balanced, so i have to do a lot of additional work. Work i don't intend to do for the base system. That was different before i had a full time job.

And when the game designers listen to (or are) the table that nerfs the Monk, or listen to (or are) the Playgrounders that don't get how low the Wizard's ceiling is (especially at low level)? In other words, when the game designers don't share your playstyle and concept of balance, what then?

But i see you still did not respond to all the other games that provide the diversity you know from D&D without having the same problems. Are you really that much attached to the way D&D does stuff ?

I didn't respond because… you(?)… mentioned GURPS. See, while I play at hating 4e - which I do have some reasoned grudges against - I actually actively irrationally hate GURPS with a visceral irrational passion. So I haven't been able to form a coherent response (as much as any of my responses are coherent - so be afraid. Be very afraid) on that topic.

So, if senility servers, I was asking just how many systems allowed players to create both balanced parties, and parties of wild imbalance, the way 3e does? And it was only later that I also asked how many systems were as forgiving of mistakes, and included in-system, in character ways to rebuild the character?

And you are contending that, for any arbitrary idea that the system supports (so "invisible faerie warrior", if it has such things), there are numerous popular systems in which one can intentionally build that arbitrary idea as anything* from "OP MVP" to "loadstone" in an otherwise balanced party?

* Which, obviously, has to include "as a balanced member of the party"

I would say that balance is not necessary. What is necessary is that people know what they are getting into when they go to play [insert game here]. they need to know that they are able to contribute to whatever the game is supposed to be about without being a lodestone.

Great stuff. Fully agree, with the caveat of, "unless they want to be a loadstone".

if the game is just a silly bit where thor talks to a potted plant

Hey, now, mechanically speaking, that was one of the most serious games I've been in. Given the number of setbacks we had, the number of times we had to retreat, etc, it was probably much more serious than your average "group of friends taking on an evil wizard in a castle in a high combat campaign,". Do not confuse thematic frivolity for mission/crunch triviality.

(3e and 3e permutations at least) are horrible about having conan or robin hood types make meaningful contributions beyond a certain point (this is why most of the games I have played in ended in the 10 to 13 range).

Well into Epic, Quertus' (my signature academia mage for whom this account is named) party Monk was still MVP, and the Fighter wasn't far behind.

where in a game like shadowrun you really only need a few things to contribute to the success of a mission (got a good stealth skill, a good weapon and skill with said weapon? we can work it)

Really? You'd consider "good with a weapon", but not getting to go 3-4 times per turn, playable and contributing? That's not a very common opinion.

in earthdawn one of the worst classes you can play is the wizard

Dang. I really need to play Earthdawn.

What? Are you saying that laughing at a player for making a suboptimal choice is valid? That's.... that is absolutely ridiculous and I can only hope that am misunderstanding you.

I think he's just pointing out a purposefully stupid/malicious idea in order to make the next idea (the one he seems to believe in) sound more reasonable, as well as imposing an arbitrary binary choice.

Hmmm… nice guess, but no.

As I said, I was stating the options I could see. I'm not a visionary - they were the options I could see because they were there options I had seen. Do note that the person I was responding to described an instance of the first option (not being allowed to fix characters that aren't working).

I was trying to demonize those "stupid/malicious" GMs who will let players "fail at character creation".

And, for the record, I've not only seen, I've been that GM. Probably still am, in some ways too subtle for me to notice.

But, yeah, I do (generally? in principle?) believe in the second, in giving players the agency to build what they want.

Lorsa

2019-10-16, 08:06 AM

Well, I think we have two possibilities here:

One. We can (insert word here that means "say is good" - "enshrine" is the best I've got) system mastery. Which 3e purports to do. In which case, we point and laugh at the player for choosing poorly.

Two. We can prioritize something (usually player agency to create balance and/or imbalance; ie, to successfully instantiate the character that they envision, be it balanced or unbalanced) above system mastery, and provide the player with needful tools: clear connections between character choices and their contribution to in-game agency, the ability to "retrain feats, or switch class or the like", more skilled players (or online resources like a certain Playground) who can help with build choices, etc.

Where does 3e enshrine system mastery? Does the introductory text claim that this is requirement for fun? I certainly haven't seen it.

In any case, the premise of my group is that system mastery should not be a requirement to participate and have fun. And I don't consider it unreasonable to be of the opinion that having your character perform much worse than expected is detrimental to fun. Or rather, it's a valid emotion.

To give an example which actually involves only martial characters:

In D&D 3.5, a player envisions a cool bow-using character. A quite normal concept that you fully expect to work as a powerful character within a generic fantasy game.

So, player A specializes in archery, whereas player B specializes in melee.

After a while, player A finds that archery is actually a very crappy specialization, and that makes them less than useful most of the time. Hardly the cool character they envisioned.

The reason is quite simple. In a ranged combat, the difference in damage output between a ranged-specialized and a melee-specialized character (whom just happened to pick up a mighty longbow for the fight) is actually quite small. Player A might perform slightly better, but not by much. However, as soon as the fight switches to melee, player B will outperform player A by a large margin. In addition, player B finds that ranged combat is pretty boring, and will try to force all fights to become melee fights as soon as possible (thinking that in this way, Player A can still use his specialization (archery), and they themselves can use theirs (melee)). Many fights also start after some form of social interaction or another, or take place in close quarters or in other ways make times when Player A is slightly better far fewer than the times Player B is A LOT better.

So, what is the solution to this problem? Essentially, it becomes "don't play archery-focused characters", but that removes what should be a very valid option from the game. The other possibility would be to add a feat to the game which mimics power attack for ranged characters. But the DM might not want to make such changes to the game, and we shouldn't expect them to either.

In D&D 5e, the problem is interestingly enough almost the reverse. There is very little reason to play a melee character, as a ranged specialist can outperform them in both ranged AND melee combat. And this is by comparing only martial specializations.

Or, to give another example which I think that you, as a system master? could easily solve:

How would you make a 3.5e Swashbuckler (Dex-based) be as good as a highly-optimized Paladin (with awesome Str and Cha scores)?

Chauncymancer

2019-10-16, 08:24 AM

Where does 3e enshrine system mastery? Does the introductory text claim that this is requirement for fun? I certainly haven't seen it.
The Toughness feat. The 'enshrinement' of system mastery is taken from articles in Dragon, 3.0 promotional materials, and interviews with the primary authors in which they directly compared creating a D&D character to building a MTG deck because your skill in deciding which limited elements to include determined how much success and fun you would have actually playing the game. Basically, we know that the intent of the 3e team was to enshrine system mastery, and the only question is how effectively they do so.

After a while, player A finds that archery is actually a very crappy specialization, and that makes them less than useful most of the time. Hardly the cool character they envisioned.

In D&D 5e, the problem is interestingly enough almost the reverse. There is very little reason to play a melee character, as a ranged specialist can outperform them in both ranged AND melee combat. And this is by comparing only martial specializations.

Between 3 and 5, the benefit of most enemies not being able to hit back in ranged combat went from somewhat over estimated to somewhat under estimated.

Lorsa

2019-10-16, 08:37 AM

The Toughness feat. The 'enshrinement' of system mastery is taken from articles in Dragon, 3.0 promotional materials, and interviews with the primary authors in which they directly compared creating a D&D character to building a MTG deck because your skill in deciding which limited elements to include determined how much success and fun you would have actually playing the game. Basically, we know that the intent of the 3e team was to enshrine system mastery, and the only question is how effectively they do so.

It is not something they included in the Player's Handbook however. Which is something they should have done, if that was actually their intention.

Reading the book, you get the impression that the intention was to allow people to play heroic fantasy by choosing characters which fit common archetypes. You do understand that some options are more of a fit than others (like, a Half-Orc Barbarian will probably be better than a Half-Elf one), but it is less clear that specializing in ranged combat as a martial character is a complete trap option.

Koo Rehtorb

2019-10-16, 09:27 AM

Every time I read a thread like this I'm left with the feeling that some people have never played a well designed RPG in their life, to the point where the idea of a well designed RPG is literally inconceivable to them. It's kind of sobering.

darkrose50

2019-10-16, 10:28 AM

Party balance can impact the difficulty for the DM to prepare a game session.

I have a friend X who is quite scared that his character will get killed, and tends to play WAY over on the "we need to be cautious as DM is out to kill us" route. I tend to be much higher in risk-taking, and in general I tend to take more risks than most. I want to go as far as to make character choices that were sub-optimal, for fun, or to make a better story (I want the sub-optimal choice to be mine, and not a trap of poorly written rules). Designing an encounter for one overly cautious player (X) and one aggressive player can be a challenge.

I remember running a game where I designed an adventure around X's acrobatic thief. Lots of traps, mechanical bits, and acrobatics over lava stuff. He was like "nope" I do not want to interact with any of this thief acrobat stuff, because it is dangerous. It was frustrating.

X also tends to make sub-optimal builds. I tend to make optimal builds (not the most-optimal build, but I will not select a sub-optimal build). A threat to one of my characters might wreck one of his characters. My friend Y does not want to run a game with X and myself in it, because he would need to either select different monsters, or buff of de-buff the existing monsters in an adventure.

Likely X always created sub-optimal builds, and back in the day would play D&D with groups where death was common and expected.

He would make a fighter with: 13 STR, 08 DEX, 10 CON, 16 INT, 16 WIS, 18 CHA . . . she is a noble squire, smart as a whip, notices things, is well educated, and always seems to know the right things to say. I will be taking a fighter slot, and in this dungeon crawl you guys will need to make sure that she does not die. The rules somewhat do not expect this.

I would make a fighter with: 18 STR, 16 DEX, 16 CON, 13 INT, 10 WIS, 08 CHA . . . she is a fighter with a matching background. I got your back, I will be taking a fighter slot and make sure you guys don't die. The rules totally expect this.

If running, I could house-rule some character creation stuff to make this most possible. Something like if you are a fighter than your minimums are (a) 16 STR, or 16 DEX, and (b) 14 DEX, or 14 CON, and if you place a lower roll into that slots, then the roll is raised to the minimum.

Then his character could look something like this: 16 STR, 14 DEX, 13 CON, 16 INT, 16 WIS, 18 CHA . . . and would need less help surviving the dungeon crawl. A fighter with a high INT, WIS and CHA does not tend to throw a wrench in things as their abilities do not tend to interact with those scores. I would be willing to run a game with high scores like this.

Balance should be in the same ballpark. Writing rules where one option is soundly better than average, while another option is soundly worse then the rest can result in a game that is more difficult to run, and also results in a game that is less fun to play overall. One option taking all the glory where the other takes none is not good game design, unless in doing so the power difference is made implicit. A game where the doctor class is less effective in combat than the soldier class makes sense. A game where there are two soldier options where one is profoundly better than the other for no reason is just bad game design.

Satinavian

2019-10-16, 11:53 AM

OK. But what if, much like going after a specific balance point, you are after a specific imbalance point? You want a Beholder to feel like a Beholder, or an Illithid Savant / Tainted Sorcerer BFC God Wizard to feel like an Illithid Savant / Tainted Sorcerer BFC God Wizard, but in ShadowRun? Is that less than an hour's work?

And when the game designers listen to (or are) the table that nerfs the Monk, or listen to (or are) the Playgrounders that don't get how low the Wizard's ceiling is (especially at low level)? In other words, when the game designers don't share your playstyle and concept of balance, what then?

I didn't respond because… you(?)… mentioned GURPS. See, while I play at hating 4e - which I do have some reasoned grudges against - I actually actively irrationally hate GURPS with a visceral irrational passion. So I haven't been able to form a coherent response (as much as any of my responses are coherent - so be afraid. Be very afraid) on that topic.
I don't particularly like GURPS and haven't played it in a long time. But it is well known and the answer to "what other game beside game X can model Y as character" will usually have it as valid contender because of its ridiculous scope. But ok, let's forget GURPS for a moment.

As for the feel of Beholder/Illithid Savant tainted Sorcerer, it might be sligntly more work in SR considering how they totally don't fit the setting at all and one would have to agree about how those would feel like in relation to other elements of the Cyberpunk world. But once you what powers you actually want to have, yes, it is easy to make houserules for them. In TDE 4 (Myranor) you could build those even without actually using house rules. You would need way more build points than the recommondations for PCs suggest, but what would you expect for such overpowered concepts ?

And if game designers are not good at balancing and think that something like the core monk is weak, well, you either take enother game or you do have to do some houseruling if you want balance. So the worst that could happen if the developers are bad at their job is that you get something like 3.5 that is unbalanced. Hmmm... still worth a try for them to do a good job.

So, if senility servers, I was asking just how many systems allowed players to create both balanced parties, and parties of wild imbalance, the way 3e does? And it was only later that I also asked how many systems were as forgiving of mistakes, and included in-system, in character ways to rebuild the character?D&D 3.5 has no retraining in core. It was later added because it was obviously needed because so much people became unhappy with their characters and the rigid class system meant they were stuck with bad choices. Point buy systems tend to be more forgiving and there was far less necessity for such rules. If you lack an ability, you just buy it. But yes, retraining does exist beyond D&D and is wildly used.

Recreating the wild imbalances of D&D is not possible in most systems. But mostly because even other zero-to-hero-systems (which are not a majority) don't really offer the zero-to-godhood power scope that D&D pretends to have. Not that the actual divine rules or even only epic rules in D&D are particularly functional in the first place.

And you are contending that, for any arbitrary idea that the system supports (so "invisible faerie warrior", if it has such things), there are numerous popular systems in which one can intentionally build that arbitrary idea as anything* from "OP MVP" to "loadstone" in an otherwise balanced party?

* Which, obviously, has to include "as a balanced member of the party"
In Shadowrun 5 you pick Pixie as race (which already comes with some camouflage/stealth) and optionally pick an invisibility spell (or a focus item or a high-tech invisibility suit or a spirit companion etc.) and a weapon skill and a weapon and you are an invisible fairy warrior. And then you can adjust pretty much every power that character has in its power levels. Skills are skills with lower and higher rating, you could add any other magic you want or not, even the invisibility has possible different levels of power depending on the spell power or what kind of sensors it works against etc. You can also learn any other skills. No class barriers. An get any other equipment.
So yes, you can easily adjust the power level of your fairy warrior in a very wide range, including fitting the party. You don't even need much system mastery.

Same in the other systems. And your other examples. Sometimes you would need some system mastery to find the playable fairies, but attaching invisibility and warrior is usually straightforward.
Actually of your whole list, the ghost is the hardest because most systems with playable ghosts don't have the other living race options and vice versa.

AdAstra

2019-10-16, 02:36 PM

… how do you have both "0% power variance" and "builds that should not be useful"?

Otherwise, sure, the "pure" joy of building can certainly be fed by instantiating cool things, rather than simply "moar power".

Presentation is key.

However, how do you reconcile your stance of "varied toolset" with another's previous call for noobs to be given simple characters? Or do you consider them irreconcilable?

I'm liking the "power tornado".

-If the system doesn't normally support a concept at all, like say, a cowboy, or a caster that dumps their most important stat, or a robot stripper with an integrated light show and security system. it may still be possible to build that using the existing rules. I've played two of those characters in 5e and built the third. All of them were viable-to-strong in terms of power. Of course, 0% power variance is something I wouldn't want, and don't feel is achievable without ruining the game. It's just a hypothetical to illustrate the point that theorycrafting and powergaming are not the same thing.

-First off not all classes have to have the same degree of options. 5e illustrates this nicely, and while it's far from perfect, it does have that kind of variance. In addition to that, I'm not against giving new players a ton of tools, I'm just in favor of most classes having a Big Red Button they can press when the player can't make a decision, that allows them to still be, say 60-90% effective, depending on how complex the class is meant to be. There needs to be a bread-and-butter, an Ol' Reliable, something where you can rarely go wrong by at least trying it once. Then you add all the little switches and dials and doohickeys, preferably trickling in over the levels. But that Big Red Button? Always there in that player's back pocket. This doesn't work well for skills, but really for skills there aren't that many buttons anyway, and the buttons are themselves pretty generically useful. A great deal of characters have 4 skills, and you usually have to purposefully build to get more than 8.

Morty

2019-10-16, 03:05 PM

Something that is useful as an example does not inherently mean that it useful at any (or every) thing else. 3e is a "good example"; ie, it is illustrative an example.

And the only thing 3E D&D is an example of is a system that tried to do something and did a poor job of it. There's no other way to spin it, no matter how you might try.

noob

2019-10-16, 03:24 PM

And the only thing 3E D&D is an example of is a system that tried to do something and did a poor job of it. There's no other way to spin it, no matter how you might try.

Complexity and rebuking hippos(the class feature) are fundamental.
It is true that as a complicated rpg with rules allowing vastly random stuff it could have been done better (like making the varied classes cost more or less xp: you can not tell me a monk level is worth as much as a druid level).

kyoryu

2019-10-16, 03:53 PM

And the only thing 3E D&D is an example of is a system that tried to do something and did a poor job of it. There's no other way to spin it, no matter how you might try.

D&D 3.x is my anti-system, and I can't even get on board with this.

D&D 3 does a lot of good things. It's a great system for people that link tinkering with mechanical builds and pushing systems past their breaking point. It does a paradoxically good job of providing flexibility within a class-based system. It is very good for rewarding certain types of system mastery.

Now, I don't like it because I don't care about these things. But it's still very good at them, and many people do care about them, and I think it's worth recognizing that.

Chauncymancer

2019-10-16, 04:26 PM

It is not something they included in the Player's Handbook however. Which is something they should have done, if that was actually their intention.

Reading the book, you get the impression that the intention was to allow people to play heroic fantasy by choosing characters which fit common archetypes. You do understand that some options are more of a fit than others (like, a Half-Orc Barbarian will probably be better than a Half-Elf one), but it is less clear that specializing in ranged combat as a martial character is a complete trap option.
This was, i do not kid you, called "a reward for learning the system". If you knew there were trap options you see, you would not take them. And if nobody got punished with trap options, then it wouldn't be a reward when you picked the 'right' options.

Dragovon

2019-10-16, 05:32 PM

Party balance entirely depends on the group of players. In some groups, some people want to be left in the background, only coming out to swing a weapon at a monster. Other players may only care to be involved in conversations with NPCs and not even care about combat. Other players want to be involved in everything. It all depends. The only point at which balance matters is that you balance the fun of the players. As long as everyone has an opportunity to do the part of the game that they enjoy, then your balance is pretty good. That said, some players may not fit in a group with other players for the same reason. Can't count how many times in 40+ years of gaming that I've seen players bail on a group because their style didn't mesh. My advice would be find a group that plays the style of game you enjoy...and then the balance will manage itself. :)

Cluedrew

2019-10-16, 05:40 PM

Isn't this sort of like telling someone who wants to play an effective martial in D&D: 'just play a DMM-persist cleric and fluff it as being Chuck Norris'?In the last case where the system is too well balanced to create unbalanced characters and doesn't include any escape hatches to do so? Yeah probably by that point, and if Quertus was stuck playing that system I would feel as sorry for him as someone who wants to be strong fighter in D&D and doesn't have the Tomb of Battle (or its been banned from being too anime).

The ideal solution (assuming no other restrictions on the game) to have fully balanced options but include arbitrary levels of imbalance would be to have a balanced base and then some universal power adjustment option, such as adjusting points or XP.

Personally if I was going to re-flavour a spell caster, I might do a lot of self buffing abilities or just lean into the joke and punch so hard there is an explosion.

AdAstra

2019-10-16, 10:29 PM

An in-game tier list would probably do well to accomplish a variable balance range. You've got the grounded low fantasy classes/options, the high fantasy options, the superhero/mythic options, etc. Maybe you could do a sort of point-buy/leveling hybrid, where each "level up" gives you a set number of points which you can spend on class levels and feats. Gobs of customization with at least some ability to gauge power and control progression.

Quertus

2019-10-16, 10:52 PM

@Lorsa - suppose x is, by default, better than Y. If you want x to be better than Y, done. If you want them equal, you need to give y some advantage, optimize them more than x. If you want Y to be better than x, you have to optimize it even harder.

For the Archer, flight, Hank's Bow, crazy stealth + sneak attack, and better stats are all ways I've seen very successful archers built. For the swashbuckler, optimizing "x to Y" - especially crazy things like Iaijutsu Master - can help bring them up to par.

As for the feel of Beholder/Illithid Savant tainted Sorcerer, it might be sligntly more work in SR considering how they totally don't fit the setting at all and one would have to agree about how those would feel like in relation to other elements of the Cyberpunk world.

Among other things… Beholders are flying, action economy breaking, ranged magic slingers? The other is… able to learn and adapt instantly, in case their BFC and nigh unresistable spells are insufficient? Both look at lone, melee-only threats and chuckle how paper covers rock, no matter how skilled/powerful the rock. Which… in ShadowRun, rocks - and especially lone rocks - are rare.

But yes, retraining does exist beyond D&D and is wildly used.

Huh. Cool. I hadn't really heard of it outside of D&D.

Recreating the wild imbalances of D&D is not possible in most systems. But mostly because even other zero-to-hero-systems (which are not a majority) don't really offer the zero-to-godhood power scope that D&D pretends to have. Not that the actual divine rules or even only epic rules in D&D are particularly functional in the first place.

In Shadowrun 5 you pick Pixie as race (which already comes with some camouflage/stealth) and optionally pick an invisibility spell (or a focus item or a high-tech invisibility suit or a spirit companion etc.) and a weapon skill and a weapon and you are an invisible fairy warrior. And then you can adjust pretty much every power that character has in its power levels. Skills are skills with lower and higher rating, you could add any other magic you want or not, even the invisibility has possible different levels of power depending on the spell power or what kind of sensors it works against etc. You can also learn any other skills. No class barriers. An get any other equipment.
So yes, you can easily adjust the power level of your fairy warrior in a very wide range, including fitting the party. You don't even need much system mastery.

Same in the other systems. And your other examples. Sometimes you would need some system mastery to find the playable fairies, but attaching invisibility and warrior is usually straightforward.
Actually of your whole list, the ghost is the hardest because most systems with playable ghosts don't have the other living race options and vice versa.

Hmmm… less "zero to hero", and more "these concepts are highly disparate, no matter what point in advancement they share". But if you can look at (for example) a party of balanced starting characters, and can intentionally create a starting invisible fairy warrior that lives anywhere from "OP MVP" to "dead weight", then other systems have more variance than I have them credit for. And 3e isn't quite as impressive in comparison.

Mutazoia

2019-10-16, 11:01 PM

And the only thing 3E D&D is an example of is a system that tried to do something and did a poor job of it. There's no other way to spin it, no matter how you might try.

Eh. 3E is a good example of how not to try to merge do completely divergent game systems. When WOTC copy-pasta'd all the D&D stuff into their pre-existing D20 system, they didn't really spend a lot of time on Quality Control.

They had an RPG that wasn't doing to hot (it was a fantasy RPG that wasn't D&D) and tried to make it into D&D. If they had taken a bit more time, and carefully integrated the old info into the new system, there would have been a lot fewer mistakes/OP silliness.

Just because you can create a card game, does not mean that you can automatically create a much more rules intensive RPG.

(In WOTC's defence, their corporate Overlords, HASBRO, takes a lot of the blame for the rushed timelines ,poor QC, and the bazillion game unbalancing spats. They paid for TSR and wanted to cash in NOW, quality be dammed. Basically they followd the Microsoft model of new product development: Throw something together, release it quickly, and then patch it after the end users complain.)

Mechalich

2019-10-17, 01:13 AM

D&D 3.x is my anti-system, and I can't even get on board with this.

D&D 3 does a lot of good things. It's a great system for people that link tinkering with mechanical builds and pushing systems past their breaking point. It does a paradoxically good job of providing flexibility within a class-based system. It is very good for rewarding certain types of system mastery.

Now, I don't like it because I don't care about these things. But it's still very good at them, and many people do care about them, and I think it's worth recognizing that.

Balance is probably 3e's biggest problem it does a lot of other things well, certainly better than 2e AD&D, and even balance is only a relatively modest problem at levels 1-6 - which is where the bulk of the games are actually played. The core dungeon-crawler experience is well served by 3.X D&D and with some modest tweaks can avoid being completely broken through about level 12 (Pathfinder intends to get this far, even if it doesn't necessarily work out). The game pretty much collapses into a heaping pile somewhere around level 14 no matter what you do - but high-power balance is very hard and lots of games that try it are miserable failures on a level at least as bad as 3.X D&D.

(In WOTC's defence, their corporate Overlords, HASBRO, takes a lot of the blame for the rushed timelines ,poor QC, and the bazillion game unbalancing spats. They paid for TSR and wanted to cash in NOW, quality be dammed. Basically they followd the Microsoft model of new product development: Throw something together, release it quickly, and then patch it after the end users complain.)

Table-top RPGs are weird in that you can make money off material that isn't playable and isn't even intended to be played. There's a certain class of gamer who will just buy everything associated with a system or setting they love, whether or not it contains any useful mechanics at all, and many gaming books are padded with tens of thousands of words of bloat to be pumped up past the short article size that contains all the relevant information within. Pathfinder's later Bestiaries, for example, are full of massive page-filling stat blocks for extremely high-level enemies that will almost never see play (like all of the lords of the nine or the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who are all CR ~30).

For D&D 3.X the very existence of levels 15-20, nevermind epic levels, as a space in which you are actually intended to play is a giant illusion that WotC and Paizo both work to preserve because they can squeeze them for money. Meanwhile settings like Eberron and Golarion don't include NPCs at this level because it's known that the game can't accommodate that zone of play. But people buy books describing this stuff, in the same way that people bought the Exalted book that had stats for the Unconquered Sun.

Part of game publishing is selling a game, but part of it is selling IP nostalgia and the latter motive is generally opposed to making good games.

Lorsa

2019-10-17, 04:04 AM

@Lorsa - suppose x is, by default, better than Y. If you want x to be better than Y, done. If you want them equal, you need to give y some advantage, optimize them more than x. If you want Y to be better than x, you have to optimize it even harder.

For the Archer, flight, Hank's Bow, crazy stealth + sneak attack, and better stats are all ways I've seen very successful archers built. For the swashbuckler, optimizing "x to Y" - especially crazy things like Iaijutsu Master - can help bring them up to par.

Alright so, the inherent problem is that X is better than Y by default for no apparent reason. I mean why, in a fantasy game, would archery be vastly underpowered compared to melee? The way the game is presented raises an expectation which is not mot, as the designed had other goals (but failed to communicate them).

In general, the basic problem with D&D and balance is that some concepts which seem perfectly natural for many players are complete crap. I mean, your examples of how to make archery and a swashbuckler optimized or on par with other builds clearly involve concept-breaking choices.

Flight, for example, is only available for spellcasters, which means that it fails the "martial archer" concept. Hank's bow is a magical item so it's not even in the player's control. Crazy stealth + sneak attack are all rogue abilities, which are not options if your intent was to play a fighter or a ranger.

For the Iaijutsu Master, first off it's an oriental prestige class (which may not be included by the DM), it requires the use of a katana AND that your character is lawful. A typical swashbuckler concept would most likely involve a chaotic character, making this prestige class out of options. I mean, the Iaijutsu Master and the swashbuckler are clearly two different concepts, mixing them might be mechanically advantageous, but its not really feasible for most character concepts.

In essence, the biggest problem with D&D is that they are not always explicit with their design goals. If they'd written "if you don't master the system, you're gonna suck" and "we've prioritized making melee generally stronger than ranged (for reason X)" and "while the ranger class might fulfill some players desire to play an Aragon-type character, they're gonna be disappointed with the power level", it'd be much better. In fact, this is something that is missing from most RPG books, for a reason I can't quite understand. Why is it such a problem to write "this is how we intended the game to be played" and "this is what we aimed to do" in clear text?

Burning Wheel, for all its faults, does write that its life path character creation system is not meant to create characters which are in any way "balanced". The system is very clear on this. D&D, on the other hand, tries to sell itself as being one thing, while in fact being something completely different.

Lorsa

2019-10-17, 04:06 AM

This was, i do not kid you, called "a reward for learning the system". If you knew there were trap options you see, you would not take them. And if nobody got punished with trap options, then it wouldn't be a reward when you picked the 'right' options.

That's the most stupid design philosophy I've seen. I wish I'd known about it sooner.

Satinavian

2019-10-17, 05:09 AM

Among other things… Beholders are flying, action economy breaking, ranged magic slingers? The other is… able to learn and adapt instantly, in case their BFC and nigh unresistable spells are insufficient? Both look at lone, melee-only threats and chuckle how paper covers rock, no matter how skilled/powerful the rock. Which… in ShadowRun, rocks - and especially lone rocks - are rare.Flying, action economy breaking, ranged magic is trivial in Shadowrun, while adaptibillity powers exist, but are severely limited for balance reason. If you want those powers, take the breaks and limitations off and you can make your mindflayer, easily houseruled. In the other not-Gurps system i mentioned, Myranor-TDE, you won't get action economy breaking for PCs without pets, but it is a common monster ability and both flight and ranged magic are widespread. Actually you hardly have to do much more to get your beholder than refluffing some demon. The adaptibility of your mindflayer is easily reproducible. Actually too easy, we nerved those powers at our table to make regularly learned abilities more impressive.

Hmmm… less "zero to hero", and more "these concepts are highly disparate, no matter what point in advancement they share". But if you can look at (for example) a party of balanced starting characters, and can intentionally create a starting invisible fairy warrior that lives anywhere from "OP MVP" to "dead weight", then other systems have more variance than I have them credit for. And 3e isn't quite as impressive in comparison.
When 3.0 was fairly new, i too was impessed by the huge variety of possible characters. With classes feats, multiclassing, prestige classes and being able to play half the monster book with level adjustment, it was impressive compared to most other systems.

As time went on, however, i noticed that the restrictions coming from the rigid level system with many cool class features locking you into X levels of a class, the limited number of feats taken at precicely given time, the halfbaked skill system and so on meant you didn't actually get more variety in character concepts than quite a lot of other systems provided. Many of which expanded in scope during the time of 3.x anyway. The only thing in variety that 3.x has still going is your choice of playable races. And that is mostly because of D&D being a fantasy kitchen sink and many other systems simply don't have that many creatures. But even here D&D is not actually leader because some systems have "build-your-own-species" rules and let you play those.

So overall, while D&D is fairly complex and unwieldy, its variety in supported character concepts is not really that impressive today. It still beats most systems, but it is nothing special anymore.

In addition, classless system often make it easier to build the character you want and make it even more easier to adjust the balance of the result because having ability X,Y and Z that are central for your concept don't lock you into certain classes or feat chains or whatever and you can adjust everything that is not central to your comcept to fit the intended balance range or campaign.

What is something that most other games don't have, is D&Ds power spectrum. Often you won't find powers or monsters/threats beyond or below a certain power because that is considered too far outside the scope of the game.

Mechalich

2019-10-17, 05:10 AM

Why is it such a problem to write "this is how we intended the game to be played" and "this is what we aimed to do" in clear text?

Because if you do that, the players may actually hate you more.

White-Wolf, as a studio, was actually remarkably honest in writing about how they intended their various games to be played and what they intended to do. Unfortunately, players broadly rejected how the philosophy of how the game should be played and broadly thought what they had aimed to do was stupid and went off to play games that rejected roughly 90% of White-Wolf's design philosophy to play Underworld: the Vampions instead.

D&D, on the other hand, tries to sell itself as being one thing, while in fact being something completely different.

D&D tries to sell itself on being everything, or at least everything within pre-industrial fantasy. In actuality it's a dungeon-crawl (or wilderness-as-dungeon crawl) simulator for a fairly tightly wound set of concepts. When you reduce it down to that - as various isometric D&D video game RPGs have done - it can be great, Planescape: Torment is still one of the most acclaimed RPGs of all time. it's when you step out of the box that it get's bad. For various reasons though, it is extremely important to preserve the illusion that you can go outside the box.

Quertus

2019-10-17, 06:17 AM

is only available for spellcasters,

Or winged creates (fairies, half- things, or even creatures with the "winged" template), people with flying mounts, or even characters with a pet Wizard. Oh, and magical items can grant flight, too.

Hank's bow is a magical item so it's not even in the player's control.

I think I found your problem. If you don't give the players the agency to build their characters - like the system expects - then, yeah, they can fail.

Crazy stealth + sneak attack are all rogue abilities, which are not options if your intent was to play a fighter or a ranger.

No, you said you wanted to run a "swashbuckler", not that you wanted to "play a fighter or a ranger". A rogue makes an excellent (both useful and thematic) swashbuckler. If you choose to instantiate your concept poorly, that's on you.

Morty

2019-10-17, 06:28 AM

What is something that most other games don't have, is D&Ds power spectrum. Often you won't find powers or monsters/threats beyond or below a certain power because that is considered too far outside the scope of the game.

What D&D has, above all else, is volume. Or, well, 3E and 4E certainly did - 5E cut back on it a lot, which I think is to its credit. Most of 3E's extra material honestly wasn't good for much, but pile up enough of it and it manages to make up for the constraining nature of the class/level system and clunky design.

4E and 5E deserve credit for not trying to do something they could never do and trying to be respectively balanced and predictable, at the expense of claims of diversity. Though, again, 5E manages to offer more freedom than 3E did in its core rules, simply by not piling up quite as many obstacles in some concepts' paths.

No, you said you wanted to run a "swashbuckler", not that you wanted to "play a fighter or a ranger". A rogue makes an excellent (both useful and thematic) swashbuckler. If you choose to instantiate your concept poorly, that's on you.

A rogue isn't an "excellent" swashbuckler, because it relies on flanking to deal damage and is generally fragile, making it unsuited to duelling enemies like a swashbuckler ought to. The system gives options that purport to serve this purpose better - the Duelist PrC and the Swashbuckler class - but they're not worth the paper they're printed on.

And your continued argument is to blame the players for expecting the material they bought to do what it's advertised to do instead of twisting themselves into knots working with something else instead. Only for the end result not to be any more impressive than someone who grabbed Power Attack and a big axe. Of all the hills to die on, this is one of the weirder I've seen.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-17, 06:45 AM

Lorsa

2019-10-17, 09:11 AM

Or winged creates (fairies, half- things, or even creatures with the "winged" template), people with flying mounts, or even characters with a pet Wizard. Oh, and magical items can grant flight, too.

And if you are limited to core races, which isn't that uncommon, winged creatures are not an option to play. Flying mounts may be possible, but that will only come into effect at later levels. Yes, magical items can grant flight, but again, the presence of magical items lie outside of the p

I think I found your problem. If you don't give the players the agency to build their characters - like the system expects - then, yeah, they can fail.

I am really speaking generically. Not all DMs would include every single magic item. Magic-Mart is not a sure thing to exist in all D&D settings. In fact, just reading D&D, it seems as though the way the system expects magic items to occur is through loot. Which is either in the hands of randomness or DM fiat. Typically that is.

No, you said you wanted to run a "swashbuckler", not that you wanted to "play a fighter or a ranger". A rogue makes an excellent (both useful and thematic) swashbuckler. If you choose to instantiate your concept poorly, that's on you.

Actually, I had two examples. One being an "archery-focused martial class". This could indeed be a rogue, but the most natural choice would be to play a ranger, since that class was made to fit the common "bow-using forest-dwelling character" type of concept. But, to narrow it down, let's say you have two players. Both want to play fighters. One focuses on ranged, the other on melee. Seems like two choices that would both be fairly viable and have their respective uses. However, the ranged specialist will end up very unhappy with their choice. For no good reason.

The second example was to make a swashbuckler on par with a two-handed-weapon using paladin, where the paladin actually has slightly better ability scores (using dice to determine them).

Lorsa

2019-10-17, 09:17 AM

Because if you do that, the players may actually hate you more.

White-Wolf, as a studio, was actually remarkably honest in writing about how they intended their various games to be played and what they intended to do. Unfortunately, players broadly rejected how the philosophy of how the game should be played and broadly thought what they had aimed to do was stupid and went off to play games that rejected roughly 90% of White-Wolf's design philosophy to play Underworld: the Vampions instead.

I don't think players hated WW for being honest with how they intended their games to be played. They simply disagreed. The good thing with being upfront with your design philosophy is that you, as a player, can understand why the game might not run the way you want it to if you decide to go outside of the intended play.

D&D tries to sell itself on being everything, or at least everything within pre-industrial fantasy. In actuality it's a dungeon-crawl (or wilderness-as-dungeon crawl) simulator for a fairly tightly wound set of concepts. When you reduce it down to that - as various isometric D&D video game RPGs have done - it can be great, Planescape: Torment is still one of the most acclaimed RPGs of all time. it's when you step out of the box that it get's bad. For various reasons though, it is extremely important to preserve the illusion that you can go outside the box.

Yes, it does indeed try to sell itself on being everything. As you said, they should be honest that it's simply a dungeon-crawl simulator. Unfortunately, many people want the kind of game D&D advertises itself to be, so if they did they might loose customers. Better idea would simply be to make what it is advertised.

Chauncymancer

2019-10-17, 09:41 AM

Why is it such a problem to write "this is how we intended the game to be played" and "this is what we aimed to do" in clear text?

If I remember, as per Mechalich's note on WoD, WotC actually tried this: It was hashed out in Dungeon Magazine in the late nineties and early two-thousands that 3e was designed around a straight dungeon crawl in generic settings with an emphasis on resource management and rules tuned to battle game style pawn stance. This turned out to be super controversial and basically flame bait, so WotC backed way, way off from saying that 3e was designed with any specific play style in mind

D&D tries to sell itself on being everything, or at least everything within pre-industrial fantasy. For various reasons though, it is extremely important to preserve the illusion that you can go outside the box.
From a marketing perspective, the greatest strength of 3e is not that it was a good game, but that it was a game that would be great if you just added one more rule/class/race/subsystem/setting. So you kept DMs on the constant chase for one more spat book to make the game really come together and be great.

I am really speaking generically. Not all DMs would include every single magic item. Magic-Mart is not a sure thing to exist in all D&D settings. In fact, just reading D&D, it seems as though the way the system expects magic items to occur is through loot. Which is either in the hands of randomness or DM fiat. Typically that is.
Because of the necessity of specific magic items for certain builds, it is a popular house rule to the point where many people do not know it's a house rule, that players can cash in their WBL for magical items not through some in game mechanism, but simply as an alternative feat-xp equivalent system. Even if no wands of fireball or people with the magic initiate feat exist in the world, I can still take a wand of fireball or the magic initiate feat, because I am exchanging a game token for a power, not interacting with a game world element.

NichG

2019-10-17, 09:43 AM

D&D 3.5 isn't a very good dungeon crawl simulator though... For dungeon crawls to be meaningful there should be ways in which consequences of how one area is handled propagate to the next. But the arc of D&D from 1ed to 4ed at least has reduced persistent consequences and resource costs with each subsequent edition. On the subject of balance, making dungeon crawls meaningful is actually a design space in which I would agree it's important.

Where D&D 3.5 shines is gonzo anime escalation fests. Thus, if you e.g. want a ranged martial, Hulking Hurler or Palm Throw dancing shuriken machine gun with Cha to damage across a dozen attacks per round are very much the on-theme way at least going into higher level ranges...

patchyman

2019-10-17, 09:53 AM

I think I found your problem. If you don't give the players the agency to build their characters - like the system expects - then, yeah, they can fail.

Most modules do not have a “Magic Mart” where players can purchase magical weapons and items. Many DMs believe that “Magic Marts” are unrealistic and break verisimilitude. Some DMs strongly believe that loot should be rolled for randomly, and the system encourages that play style by including extensive loot tables.

Lorsa’s expectation isn’t wrong. On the contrary, it seems to me that the characters being able to generally choose their magical gear is the exception rather than the rule.

Gallowglass

2019-10-17, 10:34 AM

kyoryu

2019-10-17, 10:37 AM

Yes, it does indeed try to sell itself on being everything. As you said, they should be honest that it's simply a dungeon-crawl simulator. Unfortunately, many people want the kind of game D&D advertises itself to be, so if they did they might loose customers. Better idea would simply be to make what it is advertised.

Historically it was a dungeon crawl simulator.

Over time it's become less so - a lot of the "dungeon crawl" aspects have been removed from the game. Nowadays it seems more aimed as an "adventure path engine", to create an interesting series of combats with random plot stuff between them.

Mechanically, of course. What a group does with the game is up to them.

JNAProductions

2019-10-17, 10:37 AM

Patchyman, you have no idea how much I agree with you.

However, you are going to find next to no support on this board for that point of view.

On this board, for the vast bulk of the people who post here, who, I suspect spent 95% of their "role playing" related time making 20th level characters that will never actually see play, being able to hand pick/buy equipment is "the norm"

It's hard to roleplay a character that doesn't see play, you know.

But I suspect your suspicions are wholly inaccurate once they hit the table. Plenty of people here spend lots of time optimizing, tweaking builds, finding new and fun loopholes in the rules, seeing how good they can make a Monk in 3.5, etc. etc.

However, when they're ACTUALLY PLAYING, while they certainly want a powerful character, they'll also be roleplaying better than your average Joe at a gaming store.

Xervous

2019-10-17, 11:54 AM

seeing how good they can make a Monk in 3.5, etc. etc.

However, when they're ACTUALLY PLAYING, while they certainly want a powerful character, they'll also be roleplaying better than your average Joe at a gaming store.

The first bit brings a tear to my eye as I recall the trials of the elder evils. Monk(ish) 20 saves the world.

When it comes to a narrative system that is governed by whimsy I’ll just say what I damn well know my character is doing within the realm of reasonable actions. Arrive at a system governed by probability and numbers? I still want the opportunity to eloquently describe the attempted actions and knowing the language of the numbers lets me map character concept to a functional implementation.

Quertus

2019-10-17, 03:50 PM

Any thoughts on my last post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=24202618&postcount=372), @Quertus? I had hoped, at least, for an "alright, we're talking about different things" or the like.

I'm still waiting on sufficient, uh "anti-senility" to be able to read through our conversation. Because that sentence I just typed? That's the only thing I remember about our conversation. My memory's not what it used to be.

(Just like I remember I was talking with cluedrew about something… and I'll need to read back through to see what it was. But, today, I've forgotten I was writing this twice already, so… probably not today)

And if you are limited to core races, which isn't that uncommon, winged creatures are not an option to play.

Please, it's not like I need any more ammo for "core only is bad for balance". Although this is a bit of a play on words, as there are plenty of races with wings in core, just not the "Winged" template.

Flying mounts may be possible, but that will only come into effect at later levels.

And, until then, they'll just have their "twice as many attacks" to comfort them as they cry themselves to sleep at night? I've never had an archer complain (about how much they needed to optimize) before flying mounts came online.

Yes, magical items can grant flight, but again, the presence of magical items lie outside of the p

Item creation feats are a thing. So not really.

I am really speaking generically. Not all DMs would include every single magic item. Magic-Mart is not a sure thing to exist in all D&D settings.

And not every GM allows the "Fighter" or "Ranger" classes. I kid you not. So that's a pretty useless metric for having a conversation, if you ask me.

Actually, I had two examples. One being an "archery-focused martial class". This could indeed be a rogue, but the most natural choice would be to play a ranger, since that class was made to fit the common "bow-using forest-dwelling character" type of concept. But, to narrow it down, let's say you have two players. Both want to play fighters. One focuses on ranged, the other on melee. Seems like two choices that would both be fairly viable and have their respective uses. However, the ranged specialist will end up very unhappy with their choice. For no good reason.

The second example was to make a swashbuckler on par with a two-handed-weapon using paladin, where the paladin actually has slightly better ability scores (using dice to determine them).

Well, I always knew you had 2 examples. Reading back through, it looks like I got confused as to which I was responding to at that point. My bad. So, it would have to be, "you said 'archer', not 'Fighter'", which I'll admit isn't as strong a claim. But I have seen more awesome rogue archers than I have rogue swashbucklers.

The only thing I have to add is, you don't use dice and random stats if you care about strict balance IME, so that's a rather odd conjunction of events. But my original statements still stand - more optimization of "add x to Y", and especially Iaijutsu Master (who surprisingly well fits your concept of "duelist") can narrow or even jump the gap.

Mechalich

2019-10-17, 07:34 PM

Most modules do not have a “Magic Mart” where players can purchase magical weapons and items. Many DMs believe that “Magic Marts” are unrealistic and break verisimilitude. Some DMs strongly believe that loot should be rolled for randomly, and the system encourages that play style by including extensive loot tables.

Lorsa’s expectation isn’t wrong. On the contrary, it seems to me that the characters being able to generally choose their magical gear is the exception rather than the rule.

D&D 3.5 has built in equipment based benchmarks that characters are expected to hit in order to match the power curve of standard monsters (this is, as usual, much more important for martials than casters, but it matters for everyone), however, it is actually quite unlikely that randomly rolled loot will hit these benchmarks, particularly with regard to the main ability score boosting items all classes are assumed to acquire and periodically upgrade (belt of giant's strength, headband of intellect, etc.). As a result, you either play with some form of 'magic mart' in existence or you accept that characters will be underpowered.

Of course, the existence of magic marts has other impacts that drastically shift the game. For example, the ready availability of wands of any spell you desire has a massive impact on gameplay in 3.X, as it not only drastically changes the availability of utility spells but fundamentally offers how HP - which is one of the game's central resource metrics - is handled. The original design assumption of clerics healing with their spells was totally overridden by the continual use of healing wands, but no DM is required to make healing wands available at all.

D&D is a game where equipment is of vast importance (it's not unique in this), and as such the mechanics of how equipment is to be handled have a huge influence on gameplay, but this sort of thing is extremely difficult to codify in design form.

But I suspect your suspicions are wholly inaccurate once they hit the table. Plenty of people here spend lots of time optimizing, tweaking builds, finding new and fun loopholes in the rules, seeing how good they can make a Monk in 3.5, etc. etc.

However, when they're ACTUALLY PLAYING, while they certainly want a powerful character, they'll also be roleplaying better than your average Joe at a gaming store.

While character optimization, build manipulation, and system mastery are not in any way oppositional to good roleplaying, people on RPG forums are unrepresentative. Specifically they spend far more time thinking about gaming than the average player. For the average player there's a limited amount of total time available to be invested in the gaming hobby and time spent mechanically optimizing competes directly against time spent detailing an interesting character in this case as a result of this zero sum scenario.

This is actually the nature of high system mastery games, and there's a significant trade-off involved. D&D 3.X is much more interesting from a theorycrafting, experimentation, and even homebrew standpoint than even other editions of D&D, never mind far more simplistic games. The OGL launched basically an entire industry of third-party homebrew that simply wouldn't have happened in most other systems. In fact, it's arguable that some of 3e's runaway success had to do with it being a game that was extremely interesting to talk about on the internet that was launched at the very moment talking about games on the internet became a thing.

This actually matters in a marketability sense. In tabletop gaming a small fraction of the overall playerbase, mostly dedicated GMs, buys a huge portion of the books/subscriptions/figures/etc. So you have to maximize the size of this group in order to increase profits, a huge hoard of players who never buy anything but the core book is far less useful than a handful of dedicated fanboys who buy literally everything. Onyx Path more or less proved this principle publicly through its kickstarter funded nostalgia printings, in which a few hundred backers who spent hundreds of dollars per product are enough to keep production going.

So 3.X D&D has features that actually make it worse as a game - because it has incentives to include endless options that contribute to paths that break the game and impose a huge system mastery tax on prospective DMs - but better as an overall product by enhancing the not-actually-playing portion of the fandom.

Quizatzhaderac

2019-10-18, 02:08 PM

So I just read this whole thread, and I think I have a handle on where the disconnects are.

An extensive game can be thought of a consisting of several sub-games. For D&D they are combat, exploration, socialization, and character creation.

Quertus' play style (I'm guessing)is heavy on the character creation section. They play it as as a sandbox where they're not trying for a specific goal, but an arbitrarily chosen goal. For that game to work, there must be rules and consequences. Homebrew removes the rules, so it's no longer even a game at all. Being unable to chose badly removes the consequences. Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon are both games that are centered on this (or rather, deck building and party creation), however they are games where one is only stuck with the decision for a short time.

Many video game RPGs also fit this pattern, but notably one typically can go away, level up, and face the content they failed at before.

The pro-balance camp isn't strictly opposed to this sub-game but thinks 1) it should have minimal impact in terms of general power 2) basic competency should be easy 3) Choice of class should be a lateral move (unless noted, like the NPC classes) 4) A typical 3e.x player can't expect to rebuild discard their mistakes (an possibly that including that is just a patch no a broken system) 5) A player should be able to try to build the most powerful character they can and not worry about trivializing content or other players.

Everyone plays as Quertus (my signature academia mage for whom this account is named). Perfect balance. Done. So, I guess I'd say that, technically, balance is easiest, because it requires producing the fewest options - 1 - while imbalance requires at least 2 options.
Balance: A situation in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions.That situation isn't balanced. Both balance and imbalance require two options. Balance requires options and some proportionate relationship between them. That's what the artist earlier in the thread was trying to explain, that the concept of balance/imbalance doesn't even apply unless we assume differences.

OK. But what if, much like going after a specific balance point, you are after a specific imbalance point? ..... Is that less than an hour's work?Imagining a new balanced system: It will be a lot of work to home-brew to the specific imbalance point.

Imagining a new imbalanced, baroque, system with 50 splat books: It will be a lot of work. One would need to read the many splat books and consider them in context of each other and play experience with the system. For 3.x you've already done most of that work and you enjoy the work, so it doesn't seem like more work than homebrew, but it really is.

I don't begrudge you your enjoyment, but you seem to be playing in a super system-mastery centered way. For me, what your doing would feel like "homebrew, but while technically avoiding creating my own content".

I was trying to demonize those "stupid/malicious" GMs who will let players "fail at character creation".

And, for the record, I've not only seen, I've been that GM. Probably still am, in some ways too subtle for me to notice.So you would agree that the payers should have limited (but maybe non-zero) consequences to building the character badly?

D&D is a game where equipment is of vast importance (it's not unique in this), and as such the mechanics of how equipment is to be handled have a huge influence on gameplay, but this sort of thing is extremely difficult to codify in design form. So two options stick out, that seem obvious to me.
1) Make the "expected" equipment common (at that encounter level), or (as GM) just periodically throw the players a piece while pretending to be random.

2) Magic marts exist. They contain the "expected" equipment, a few randomly rolled items, and some situational items that are (or will be) important for the module /setting.

So I feel like I'm missing something because something "seems obvious" but isn't being done.

Morty

2019-10-18, 03:36 PM

If a build requires a very specific magic item, it should mean that it's a specialized, uncommon build. If something as banal as an archer requires a specific magic item and, apparently, a way to gain flight, it means that the concept of the archer is crippled on the outset for no good reason. It doesn't matter what a particular GM's approach to magic items happens to be. Trying to shift the discussion to the topic of acquiring magic item is yet another attempt at distraction.

vasilidor

2019-10-18, 06:26 PM

on the examples of shadowrun, a combat blasty mage (who has fireball and lightning bolt as spells) is generally going to be out performed by a guy with a grenade launcher and a decent submachine gun (all this is available at character creation). now if the mage has invisibility, a good stealth skill, and a decent gun, that mage will be scarier than mr. fireball. A street samurai (it is the most common combat focused character type) will likely outperform both in terms of raw damage output if he has a decent weapon group (combat ax, smg, grenades). now if the mage who does blasty combat has instead manabolt and manaball, that is an altogether different monster than the fireball and lightning bolt mage, because he is targeting different defenses and the street samurai is going to be sol if the mage is also invisible (most likely). but that same mage is then screwed if he does not have some sort of defense or weapon against sonar equipped drones (at character creation you can get them equipped with rocket launcher), that the street sam is able to take out in his sleep. every strategy has an effective counter strategy in the game, which is why shadowrun is best as a group activity with different characters taking different roles.

big eyes small mouth is bonkers. fun, but bonkers.

Quertus

2019-10-18, 09:09 PM

So I just read this whole thread, and I think I have a handle on where the disconnects are.

An extensive game can be thought of a consisting of several sub-games. For D&D they are combat, exploration, socialization, and character creation.

Quertus' play style (I'm guessing)is heavy on the character creation section. They play it as as a sandbox where they're not trying for a specific goal, but an arbitrarily chosen goal. For that game to work, there must be rules and consequences. Homebrew removes the rules, so it's no longer even a game at all. Being unable to chose badly removes the consequences. Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon are both games that are centered on this (or rather, deck building and party creation), however they are games where one is only stuck with the decision for a short time.

Many video game RPGs also fit this pattern, but notably one typically can go away, level up, and face the content they failed at before.

The pro-balance camp isn't strictly opposed to this sub-game but thinks 1) it should have minimal impact in terms of general power 2) basic competency should be easy 3) Choice of class should be a lateral move (unless noted, like the NPC classes) 4) A typical 3e.x player can't expect to rebuild discard their mistakes (an possibly that including that is just a patch no a broken system) 5) A player should be able to try to build the most powerful character they can and not worry about trivializing content or other players.

That situation isn't balanced. Both balance and imbalance require two options. Balance requires options and some proportionate relationship between them. That's what the artist earlier in the thread was trying to explain, that the concept of balance/imbalance doesn't even apply unless we assume differences.

Imagining a new balanced system: It will be a lot of work to home-brew to the specific imbalance point.

Imagining a new imbalanced, baroque, system with 50 splat books: It will be a lot of work. One would need to read the many splat books and consider them in context of each other and play experience with the system. For 3.x you've already done most of that work and you enjoy the work, so it doesn't seem like more work than homebrew, but it really is.

I don't begrudge you your enjoyment, but you seem to be playing in a super system-mastery centered way. For me, what your doing would feel like "homebrew, but while technically avoiding creating my own content".
So you would agree that the payers should have limited (but maybe non-zero) consequences to building the character badly?

I don't recognize your name - have we talked before? Because you're a bloody genius!

Now, I'm still going to disagree on a few points, because that's just the way that I am, but, overall, that's an excellent post. But, first, to answer your question… with a story.

"long ago", there was a thread that asked the question about just how much better/stronger/more performance/whatever system mastery should allow you to make a character. I was alone (as far as I remember) in stating that my/the answer was a negative number. I believe that characters should work just fine out of the box, and that advanced system mastery should allow you lateral or detrimental changes.

Not a popular opinion, I know.

Now, I'm fine with default options being unbalanced - so long as they're clearly labeled as such.

In short, I believe that you should be capable of building unbalanced parties, but that doing so should be an intentional act.

-----

For character creation… I have several modes / "moods". I would say that you very accurately described my primary mood, yes. Although "heavy on character creation"… is true in the "personality" sense more than the "mechanical" sense (reading time-consuming rule books is a sunk cost; the time spent explicitly on this character's mechanics is comparatively small. So it depends on your PoV).

Occasionally, I'm just in the mood to brew. But, yeah, for my most common mood, homebrew is very much equivalent to writing my own MtG cards.

Do note that I advocate the use of brew (and rebuilding, and any other tool in the group's toolkit) for those who care about balance.

-----

For how your description of the pro-balance camp compares to my "balance or imbalance" stance, I say 1) no 2) yes 3) close enough 4) huh? (or, maybe, if I read it right, "that sounds like a bad GM - why not?") 5) interesting.

So, 1&5 seem worth discussing.

For 1, if it had minimal impact, you cannot create sufficiently unbalanced parties for some forms of fun. I see no reason for it to be so limited, so long as traps are well labeled and/or hidden away in dumpster diving spats.

For 5… it's complicated. But, at the risk of oversimplify, to me that sounds like the optimization counterpart to "my guy". I want to be able to roleplay my character and say "that's what my character would do", without worrying that it'll mess up the game. And that's… complicated. A worthy goal, but… complicated.

-----

For the "everyone is Quertus"… eh, whatever. Hardly seems worth more words to discuss, especially after your post covered most everything.

Satinavian

2019-10-19, 01:07 AM

For 1, if it had minimal impact, you cannot create sufficiently unbalanced parties for some forms of fun. I see no reason for it to be so limited, so long as traps are well labeled and/or hidden away in dumpster diving spats.I don't see how just using different build point totals or whatever equivalent can't give you the imbalance you specifically seek whenever you play with balanced options.

Mechalich

2019-10-19, 01:57 AM

Quertus

2019-10-19, 12:48 PM

I don't see how just using different build point totals or whatever equivalent can't give you the imbalance you specifically seek whenever you play with balanced options.

Of course it can. Obviously a game is going to have power variance. The point of balance is to make it possible to measure that variance along a single axis. In most games this gets called Experience Points, Character Points, or something similar. It might or might not be codified into steps as 'levels' or it might be fluid, but that doesn't really matter. The game might also enforce some sort of 'point distribution' method in order to minimize variance as total points rise. The FATE pyramid for skill advancement for instance.

Now, in most cases the game will be complex enough that the XP/CP measure is going to be some sort of approximation or conglomeration of other measures, which is fine, as long as it retains accuracy. Accuracy in this sense is highly valuable beyond reasons of balance - because the ability to effectively approximate power levels between PCs/NPCs/Monsters off a single statistical point is incredibly useful in order to streamline play. If your game is insufficiently balanced to provide such information, that's more work it imposes on everyone.

So every first level town guard should be Conan, every Drow soldier should be Drizzt? It's an esthetic thing, just like "low magic" or "is Thor" or "isn't a caster", that cannot be solved with just a single axis. Some people are just better than others, even when they're "the same level". Some artists naturally blend form and color; some cooks naturally balance flavor, texture, and nutrition; some GMs naturally blend rules, agency, and storytelling. Some can vary what they produce to match their intended audience; others, not so much. These aren't accurately represented by a linear "XP/level" metric.

Talakeal

2019-10-19, 01:16 PM

MrSandman

2019-10-19, 02:29 PM

Cluedrew

2019-10-19, 03:01 PM

To Quertus: You are veering off into "some animals are more equal than others" territory. If two characters are the same level (or point-total) than that is what they should be. Sure optimization will make some difference, but hopefully they give pay out. For instance there is the one town guard who is really good at fighting, best in town except when adventurers come through town, but the old head has years of experience and can better lead other guards (there could be actual mechanics for this), another is a hunter and is good with a bow and can sneak and navigate better than those. So one might be just better than the others at some basic guarding skills, but that doesn't mean they aren't balanced. So I guess there are two points, don't make all characters the same level and don't expect all characters of the same level to be the same.

So really I think you can get all the imbalance you want out of a system like this. It might not be in the same way as before, but there will be some good with that as well.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-20, 01:14 AM

"long ago", there was a thread that asked the question about just how much better/stronger/more performance/whatever system mastery should allow you to make a character. I was alone (as far as I remember) in stating that my/the answer was a negative number. I believe that characters should work just fine out of the box, and that advanced system mastery should allow you lateral or detrimental changes.
Given that this is quite literally how I have defined balance before, I am concerned you and I have been engaging in two completely unrelated conversations that happened to be at the same time and directed toward one another. That is, I would 100% assert that:
1. in a balanced game, almost all characters should just work out of the box,
2. system mastery should both not be allowed to make dramatic changes in effectiveness
3. hyper-optimization should come with legit actual costs so that the maximin (maximizing the minimum return) strategy is competitive with the minmax strategy (usually taken to mean "hyperfocus your core, 'waste' no resources elsewhere")

Now, I'm fine with default options being unbalanced - so long as they're clearly labeled as such. In short, I believe that you should be capable of building unbalanced parties, but that doing so should be an intentional act.
Literally 100% of all published systems, this is the case, both because of homebrew and because of DM adjudication. You will always have this, in every possible state of affairs. Balance, on the other hand, is extremely difficult to achieve, but even moreso at the actual table where you are saddled with the characteristics of the system you have.

Do note that I advocate the use of brew (and rebuilding, and any other tool in the group's toolkit) for those who care about balance.
Something to think about, then: Why is it your preference is the one that should be enshrined in rules, while others must rewrite to achieve it? That seems more than a little self-serving. Particularly given, as I have said, the difficulty of creating balance post-facto.

For 1, if it had minimal impact, you cannot create sufficiently unbalanced parties for some forms of fun. I see no reason for it to be so limited, so long as traps are well labeled and/or hidden away in dumpster diving spats.
Ah, and here we get into some interesting but fraught waters. What's "unbalanced enough"? Since you've been so keen on asking for examples, do you have any examples of games that, in the actual texts themselves, go to the efforts of labelling and/or sidelining these trap options? Also, why is it only trap options, but not overpowered options, need to be hidden away/labelled? It would seem like deviation in either direction should be treated equally as A Problem To Be Addressed.

Perhaps you should not be so blithe about ignoring #4. Game design isn't just theory, it requires practical decisions too. A lot of DMs are simply not experienced, not comfortable, or not aware enough to embrace that much in the way of homebrew. It's a difficult job and, somewhat like politics, it requires a certain amount of ambition and self-assurance for someone to willingly go into it, and we've had people talking about the flaws of that sort of thing for literally 2500 years. (I can't recommend the work overall, but Plato's The Republic really does have some good things to say on this specific subject.) Given that I think we are agreed that meaningful balance--where there are a variety of options, and those options are kept within a reasonable power band--is difficult to achieve, it would seem you are expecting a much greater and harder request of DMs than even the base game requires, and that baseline already results in a severe shortage of DMs compared to players. Given that it requires a very good--not merely adequate--DM to produce balanced homebrew and judge player-offered content, this seems to be another point in favor of "balance is hard, imbalance is easy."

For 5… it's complicated. But, at the risk of oversimplify, to me that sounds like the optimization counterpart to "my guy". I want to be able to roleplay my character and say "that's what my character would do", without worrying that it'll mess up the game. And that's… complicated. A worthy goal, but… complicated.
Any game I would call a balanced game--and I have in fact straight-up called 4e this--would 100% enable you to do this, as long as the thing you want to roleplay isn't "I'm just better than the people I choose to keep in my presence while I adventure." I have quite literally said, to multiple people, that the absolute best thing about 4e's balanced design is that I don't have to worry about being suboptimal by making the choices I like. For the majority of those choices, it won't hold back the group. And for the ones that would...I'll usually know in advance, or pick up on it very quickly, and the official retraining rules let you address that no later than your next level (and possibly sooner, with a friendly DM).

Satinavian

2019-10-20, 02:00 AM

So every first level town guard should be Conan, every Drow soldier should be Drizzt? It's an esthetic thing, just like "low magic" or "is Thor" or "isn't a caster", that cannot be solved with just a single axis. Some people are just better than others, even when they're "the same level". Some artists naturally blend form and color; some cooks naturally balance flavor, texture, and nutrition; some GMs naturally blend rules, agency, and storytelling. Some can vary what they produce to match their intended audience; others, not so much. These aren't accurately represented by a linear "XP/level" metric.
"More build ressources" does not translate always and directly to "higher level". Because level carries way too much other baggage and way too much restrictions on what you can do with it.

But even D&D 3.5 provides other things for that. "More build ressources" could also mean "higher stats". And it does as both Drizz't and Conan likely didn't start with the standard array. Actually modifying ability score generation methods is even meant to adjust the power level of character. And if you want them to have a wide array of still level appropriate abilities you can give them Gestalt rules. Or you could just give out extra feats which would also be "more build ressources".

But in a pointbuy system you don't have to such roundabout things and just hand out more points if you want stronger characters. Or less, if you want weaker than standard characters. It is only because D&D is not really that versatile that you can't get your preferred power by just adjusting one axis.

Quertus

2019-10-20, 06:32 PM

I already lost a larger post when my phone locked up. So this is just what I could salvage, plus a few things I feel go together.

Cluedrew & ezekielraiden: is this the thread that I need to reread in order to respond to both of you?

Given that this is quite literally how I have defined balance before, I am concerned you and I have been engaging in two completely unrelated conversations that happened to be at the same time and directed toward one another.

That is always a risk.

That is, I would 100% assert that:
1. in a balanced game, almost all characters should just work out of the box,
2. system mastery should both not be allowed to make dramatic changes in effectiveness
3. hyper-optimization should come with legit actual costs so that the maximin (maximizing the minimum return) strategy is competitive with the minmax strategy (usually taken to mean "hyperfocus your core, 'waste' no resources elsewhere")

I disagree on #2 - I believe that system mastery should enable you to create charters that are dramatically worse than what you get "out of the box". Otherwise, sounds reasonable (but see below).

Something to think about, then: Why is it your preference is the one that should be enshrined in rules, while others must rewrite to achieve it? That seems more than a little self-serving. Particularly given, as I have said, the difficulty of creating balance post-facto.

Because people are idiots. I've covered this.

You cannot make a system that is balanced at my tables. I cannot make a system that is balanced at your tables. The way that an individual table will play the game, what they will measure when they talk about "balance" - these are all black boxes, into which the developer has only the keyhole of their own table.

3e D&D is such a great example, because the developers actually had access to some of the best data imaginable: decades of experience with the previous edition(s) of the game. And when, filled with all that arcane knowledge, they play tested the game, they found it well balanced*.

I'm not saying that developers should not make a balanced game - I am saying that they cannot. Because the myth of a "balanced" game requires that my UBI be a reality. Or do you think that you can develop a replacement for the 3e Monk that satisfies all of a) tables that nerf Monk; b) Playgrounders who think that Monk is trash; c) the Playgrounder who, in a recent thread, claimed that Monk is the strongest muggle class; d) the 3e developers, who thought that Monk was just right? While keeping all the coolness and unique flavor of the Monk, of course.

* for their standards of "people with system mastery"

-----

But, since you asked,

Why are my preferences better?
(or why 3e is perfect)

So, first, let me explain why 3e hits all the check boxes for a perfectly balanced system.

Are characters balanced straight out of the box? Check.

The 3e developers carefully designed and tested the 3e characters in accordance with "the way D&D was played". Under that most reasonable of paradigms, the characters are balanced, straight out of the box.

Did the developers provide templates / sample characters, in case the players lack the system mastery necessary to create balanced characters? Check.

Each class comes with a sample character. For the core classes, at least, those were tested to be balanced. (I'm guessing that the rest probably were, too, but I've never heard that explicitly stated)

If someone has a different concept of balance, can they produce characters that meet their criterion for balance? Check.

There are a sufficient number of sufficiently unbalanced components for players to mix and match to produce characters with most any concept / chassis that hit most any balance point in most any paradigm of balance I've heard of.

If the players want to create unbalanced parties, can they do that? Check.

As above, there are a sufficient number of sufficiently unbalanced components for players to mix and match to produce characters for most any concept / chassis that hit most any imbalance point in most any paradigm of balance I've heard.

Could 3e have been better? Maybe. With sufficient prescience, they could have chosen something that would become a more popular balance paradigm than "the way D&D is played" (ie, the way 2e is played). If books auto-updated, they could try to hit a moving target, like MMORPGs do.

But ignoring such concepts, and recognizing that UBI is a pipe dream, 3e is a perfect example of what a balanced system looks like, in practice. Because, with enough system mastery, one can make it as balanced (or as unbalanced) as they want, for whatever concept of "balance" flies at their table. Or play it straight out of the box as balanced, if they play it the "right" way.

Cluedrew

2019-10-20, 07:13 PM

Because people are idiots. I've covered this.If you accept the premise that everyone in this thread is a person and know a thing about formal logic you can see where this is going. Also I'm glad we didn't chase you off.

For re-reading the thread, that depends on what you want to reply to. If you want to reply to my last thread that amounts to "in a well balanced game the only thing you need to change a character's power-level is power-level" that is a pretty self contained argument. If you are replying to my larger argument I have restated it several times so you can just reread that and start asking questions.

By the way the high level few is (imperfect) balance is making sure everyone at the table is capable of making a meaningful contribution.

But now I would like to ask you several questions about your four measures (signs?) of balance:
Are characters balanced straight out of the box?
Actually the question is about the part where you say "the way D&D was played" what time are you referring to? 3e's time or 2e's time?
Did the developers provide templates / sample characters, in case the players lack the system mastery necessary to create balanced characters?
Doesn't this contradict the previous point? Or rather the fact that players lack system master implies' that system mastery beyond what could be expected for your first game is required? Which is to say things don't work out of the box? If not what is the distinction?
If someone has a different concept of balance, can they produce characters that meet their criterion for balance?
How can the concept of balance change? People formalize it differently and different people allow bigger or smaller variations, but I have never heard of the concept of balance changing. What does that mean?
If the players want to create unbalanced parties, can they do that?
I'm not saying this isn't a good feature, but I am saying you are going to have to explain to me how it contributes to a system's balance.

Quertus

2019-10-21, 12:22 AM

If you accept the premise that everyone in this thread is a person and know a thing about formal logic you can see where this is going. Also I'm glad we didn't chase you off.

I covered what I mean by that phrase earlier in this thread, too. :smalltongue:

Humanity is full of divergent perspectives, preventing the acceptance of a UBI.

By the way the high level few is (imperfect) balance is making sure everyone at the table is capable of making a meaningful contribution.

… heck, I can scarcely feel like I'm having productive conversations about how mechanical balance can be unimportant. Can we even talk about how meaningful contributions do or don't need to be balanced, for different groups to have fun? How some people (me) can be happy putting 2 pieces of a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle together, because, hey, I contributed, whereas others need to have each of the 4 players put together between 248-252 pieces, else they scream about contribution imbalance? Or how some people can play the long game, and happily contribute nothing until the final session of a 6-month to 3-year campaign, whereas others need that constant hit of contribution every session, or multiple times per session?

But now I would like to ask you several questions about your four measures (signs?) of balance:
Are characters balanced straight out of the box?
Actually the question is about the part where you say "the way D&D was played" what time are you referring to? 3e's time or 2e's time?
Did the developers provide templates / sample characters, in case the players lack the system mastery necessary to create balanced characters?
Doesn't this contradict the previous point? Or rather the fact that players lack system master implies' that system mastery beyond what could be expected for your first game is required? Which is to say things don't work out of the box? If not what is the distinction?
If someone has a different concept of balance, can they produce characters that meet their criterion for balance?
How can the concept of balance change? People formalize it differently and different people allow bigger or smaller variations, but I have never heard of the concept of balance changing. What does that mean?
If the players want to create unbalanced parties, can they do that?
I'm not saying this isn't a good feature, but I am saying you are going to have to explain to me how it contributes to a system's balance.

0) Perhaps "4 necessary and sufficient signs of the capacity for mechanical balance despite diverse balance criteria in a sufficiently complex system"? No, that's not right. Hmmm… "3 necessary and sufficient signs of the capacity for mechanical balance instantiatable at all levels of player skill despite diverse balance criteria in a sufficiently complex system, plus a CRC check for illustrative purposes"? Wow. It's really hard to nail down a good title for that list, beyond the "my PoV" style of title it originally was given.

1) When 3e was being created, there was no "the way 3e is played". This should be true of any RPG… or any anything. So this references "the way D&D is played", which, at the time, would be "the way 2e is played".

2) Good catch. So, that one's tricky. But it's easiest to explain by looking at how the 3e developers enshrine system mastery. I mean, after all, someone who just didn't get 3e could try to make a Fighter specialized in their fists, instead of making a Monk. So the characters are balanced, straight out of the box… if you're trying to build and play them as intended, and not trying to specialize in fists as a Fighter, not trying to get whirlwind attack as a Wizard, etc. So, in case you don't realize that not all toppings go with all foods, they've got pre-built yummies for you to eat, like hot fudge sundaes, pepperoni pizzas, and tacos with lettuce tomatoes and sour cream.

3) my favorite example of how people can measure balance differently is the table(s) that only measure raw damage output. For them, a Tainted Sorcerer BFC God Wizard would be not just UP, but not even contributing. My least favorite example is the table that could not conceptualize my issue with not contributing (although that may get into the weeds, as we've left the concept of "mechanical balance" behind at that point).

4) to use numbers, 4 follows from 3. That is, if 3 is true, and the system allows mechanical balance for arbitrary definitions of balance, it should, by definition, allow mechanical imbalance for arbitrary definitions of balance. To put it simply, if one table thinks monks are OP, and a second thinks that monks are UP, then they need tools with which to create a wide power range of Monks. If they have those tools, then creating a party - even a party of all Monks - that are gloriously imbalanced should be possible with those tools.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-21, 09:18 AM

I disagree on #2 - I believe that system mastery should enable you to create charters that are dramatically worse than what you get "out of the box". Otherwise, sounds reasonable (but see below).
I don't even think this is logically possible. "System mastery" means knowing what parts of the system work best. Applying system mastery means avoiding bad options and picking good ones. In what way does "knowing the function of the system" produce worse outcomes? I'm baffled.

Because people are idiots. I've covered this.
Your pessimism is unwarranted, and I frankly don't recall seeing this.

You cannot make a system that is balanced at my tables. I cannot make a system that is balanced at your tables. The way that an individual table will play the game, what they will measure when they talk about "balance" - these are all black boxes, into which the developer has only the keyhole of their own table.
I reject both of these assertions--and, again, I have cited real games that have achieved something in keeping with the definition of balance I have provided. You keep repeating these statements, and I keep responding the same way, and it's...getting more than a little frustrating. If this is a consequence of your issues with memory, perhaps we should just stop? I am rather concerned that this conversation may just....not be compatible with your mental health situation at present.

3e D&D is such a great example, because the developers actually had access to some of the best data imaginable: decades of experience with the previous edition(s) of the game. And when, filled with all that arcane knowledge, they play tested the game, they found it well balanced*.
Except that...as noted...that's been literally nothing like the definitions of "balance" I keep providing. That, in fact, their "balance" was so thoroughly out of keeping with any meaning of the term that we literally had their successor designers--Paizo--openly admit that it was necessary to ditch the system in order to even ATTEMPT addressing the mismatch between expectations and results.

I'm not saying that developers should not make a balanced game - I am saying that they cannot.

And I'm saying THEY HAVE. Multiple times. Dungeon World offers a loosey-goosey, build-it-yourself balance, the balance of "use these tools, follow the patterns, and it should reasonably work." 4e offers super rigorous, transparent balance, the balance of "we set our goals and have met them, here's the tested result." 13th Age offers a reasonable balance between them. And then, separately from the D&D-alike milieu, Fate is a quite well-balanced game under entirely different parameters.

Maybe, instead of telling me that a thing is impossible when I've repeatedly offered counter-examples, you could address those counter-examples?

Because the myth of a "balanced" game requires that my UBI be a reality.
False. It requires goals that produce testable objectives; your UBI breaks the connection between testable objectives and in-play experience, and I might even argue that it's key to why you think balance is impossible. A game can absolutely be balanced, but it needs to set goals, and from those goals objectives that can be statistically tested. You mentioned that the 3e designers had the most expansive data set--to which I say, "WHAT data?" They did very, very little ACTUAL number crunching! And what number crunching they did had NOTHING to do with the many years of play-experience, because that's not data, it's anecdotes. You can balance what you can quantify, and quite clearly TTRPGs believe they can be quantified, because we have the books before us, full of numbers.

Your UBI argument is an impediment to thinking about balance, not a useful analogy. It treats balance as an abstract universal value, when balance is a statistical measure of results toward identified objectives derived from goals. Of course an abstract universal value of balance is a pipe dream. But statistically-tested balance is entirely doable. It helps designers doubly: better focus for the devs means the writers get more resources, and better dev focus means they can start better-prepared and focus new efforts on the parts not working as intended. It helps players doubly: identified goals can be communicated much more effectively and thus enable better and more-informed decisions about what to play in the first place, and identified goals (with or without transparent objectives) mean effective "how to" advice is easier to produce. (It's much easier to tell someone how to use a thing if you know how it works!)

Or do you think that you can develop a replacement for the 3e Monk that satisfies all of a) tables that nerf Monk; b) Playgrounders who think that Monk is trash; c) the Playgrounder who, in a recent thread, claimed that Monk is the strongest muggle class; d) the 3e developers, who thought that Monk was just right? While keeping all the coolness and unique flavor of the Monk, of course.
You know, originally I was going to say no--but, on reflection, I actually don't know. Thing is? The tables that nerf Monk would not necessarily do so with a new game and a new Monk. They'd ALL have to reevaluate, wouldn't they? Their beliefs don't exist in a vacuum, they're a reaction to something. I cannot say for sure that that reaction would not change, perhaps in unpredictable ways, with a new environment.

Part of why I say this? The 13th Age Druid. It actually solves the "Druid Problem," aka the problem of "how do you respect the history of the class and its incredibly powerful, diverse array of abilities, and also keep the class consistent with the power level of other classes?" And they did it! They made it so people must choose what part of Druidry they value, and that's their Druid. But another person might choose differently...and still be playing a perfectly valid Druid. Will it anger some fans who demand everything the old 3e Druid was? Certainly--there will always be "they changed it, now it sucks" people, that's why TVTropes has a trope for it. But with actual creative work put toward thinking about "balance," they resolved a seemingly insoluble problem! It's honestly a crying shame more people don't know about 13A, it's a really, really good, well-designed game.

* for their standards of "people with system mastery"
Except that, as with the previous paragraph: "system mastery" is system-dependent, as the name would imply. Mastering system X and mastering system Y are two different processes. There might be overlap, but unless the systems are literally identical, mastery of them will have to mean two different bodies of knowledge. System mastery of 2e is not strictly related to system mastery of 3e, and both are not strictly related to system mastery of 5e, and all three are not strictly related to system mastery of Dungeon World, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Analogically? They were programmers familiar with B and FORTRAN, and assumed that that equipped them to use C. Yes, the designers of C were influenced by B and FORTRAN (among other things, like ALGOL 68), but knowing how to program in FORTRAN does not teach you how to program in C. Or, if you prefer a more loosey-goosey organic comparison: They were fully literate in Anglo-Saxon (aka Old English), and assumed that meant they could write poetry in Middle English (aka Shakespearean English). Did Anglo-Saxon influence Middle English? Hell yes, it's in the bloody name ("Anglish" -> English). Does that mean fluency in one is equivalent to fluency in the other? Hell no, particularly for something as complex and context-specific as poetry. (Go try reading an untranslated copy of Beowulf sometime!)

3e critically failed to see that system mastery is system-dependent, and it shows in nearly every design choice they made--they invalidated many of their own assumptions, and never bothered to test it because they held onto those assumptions.

Why are my preferences better?
(or why 3e is perfect)

So, first, let me explain why 3e hits all the check boxes for a perfectly balanced system.

Are characters balanced straight out of the box? Check.

The 3e developers carefully designed and tested the 3e characters in accordance with "the way D&D was played". Under that most reasonable of paradigms, the characters are balanced, straight out of the box.
Which was a bad move on their part, and the beginning of creating an unbalanced game: they made wrong assumptions, among them that system mastery is not system-dependent (which is...silly at best.)

Did the developers provide templates / sample characters, in case the players lack the system mastery necessary to create balanced characters? Check.
Each class comes with a sample character. For the core classes, at least, those were tested to be balanced. (I'm guessing that the rest probably were, too, but I've never heard that explicitly stated)
A chronic problem with 3rd edition design was the poor building choices of the example characters, and the lack of playtesting beyond the mid single-digit levels...which is the only region where they collected data and did any sort of statistics. Exactly what I have been, consistently, calling for to create balanced games. So, no, I reject that these were "tested and balanced." In fact, we have multiple examples of characters that were built simply wrong--it's not even that they weren't effective or tested, but that they were actually in violation of the rules themselves. (See, for instance, the jokes about the Cleric of Pelor casting symbol of pain and thus asserting Pelor is ACTUALLY evil, or the chronic problems with the Abjurant Champion that is explicitly said to specialize in spells....that its mechanics have no effect on.)

So yeah. At least on this point, it's not even a matter of disagreement between us; there are objectively example characters that either break the rules, or have rules that explicitly do not do what the designers claim they do.

If someone has a different concept of balance, can they produce characters that meet their criterion for balance? Check.

There are a sufficient number of sufficiently unbalanced components for players to mix and match to produce characters with most any concept / chassis that hit most any balance point in most any paradigm of balance I've heard of.
How on earth is this a factor in "balance"? Balance is in the context of objectives. If people have different objectives, they should be playing games that seek those objectives. Or at least recognizing that they're playing a game that doesn't totally suit them, and accept that there will be areas where their preferences and the game's goals diverge--with all the attendant consternation that can produce.

If the players want to create unbalanced parties, can they do that? Check.

As above, there are a sufficient number of sufficiently unbalanced components for players to mix and match to produce characters for most any concept / chassis that hit most any imbalance point in most any paradigm of balance I've heard.
Okay, I'm genuinely wondering if you're trolling me now. Is this for real? In order to be balanced, you have to--solely with in-game rules--be able to create genuinely unbalanced results? That is literally the definition of IMBALANCE. You can't define a term meaning "thing has property X" by "thing can both have, and not have, property X."

Like, this isn't even a matter of discussing game design theory. This is literally logic. If the term meaning "possesses property X" also requires "NOT possessing property X," then the term is either meaningless, or corrosive to reasoning (by the principle of explosion--any contradiction allows you to prove any arbitrary statement you like.)

Could 3e have been better? Maybe. With sufficient prescience, they could have chosen something that would become a more popular balance paradigm than "the way D&D is played" (ie, the way 2e is played). If books auto-updated, they could try to hit a moving target, like MMORPGs do.
Ooooooor they could have set testable targets, and actually tested if they were consistently across more than "the first ~25% of character growth." I assume you are aware, by the way, that they never really bothered testing much beyond about 5th or 6th level, because they just assumed things would scale as expected?

But ignoring such concepts, and recognizing that UBI is a pipe dream, 3e is a perfect example of what a balanced system looks like, in practice. Because, with enough system mastery, one can make it as balanced (or as unbalanced) as they want, for whatever concept of "balance" flies at their table. Or play it straight out of the box as balanced, if they play it the "right" way.
A balanced system tells you what it's intended for, and makes playing that way the natural result of applying intelligent choices to its rules. (This is an entirely "player-end" perspective, but it is the result of a reasonable-length process of rigorous, iterative, statistical testing of objectives.)

3rd edition is vague at best about what it's intended for, and its designers failed to test whether its objectives held at any but a small set of possible levels. (This, incidentally, is part of why E6 works so well--and why it's so popular, too.) The natural application of intelligent choices to its rules results in clearly perverse-incentive behavior (such as the five-minute-workday, or the inordinate prevalence of alpha-strike tactics such as "scry & fry," among other problems).

For all my issues with their specific choices? 5e is leaps and bounds better than 3e on all of these things. They've set their goals...I just don't agree with some of those goals. And that's fine!

Willie the Duck

2019-10-21, 09:49 AM

I don't even think this is logically possible. "System mastery" means knowing what parts of the system work best. Applying system mastery means avoiding bad options and picking good ones. In what way does "knowing the function of the system" produce worse outcomes? I'm baffled.

I think this is actually one of the few reasonable points -- if you have system mastery, you can use your knowledge of the function of the system to produce a worse outcome if you are trying to do so. This apparently is a case of trying to deliberately make a low-powered character, so on some level we're running into a 'how do you define "worse" (lowest power or closest to your goal)?' situation, but overall, yes this is doable with system mastery.

JNAProductions

2019-10-21, 09:57 AM

I think this is actually one of the few reasonable points -- if you have system mastery, you can use your knowledge of the function of the system to produce a worse outcome if you are trying to do so. This apparently is a case of trying to deliberately make a low-powered character, so on some level we're running into a 'how do you define "worse" (lowest power or closest to your goal)?' situation, but overall, yes this is doable with system mastery.

Agreed with this post.

Imagine, if you will, a test with 100 Questions, all True/False. How do you get a 0% on the test? The same way you get 100%-know all the answers. (You just pick the WRONG answers instead of the right ones.)

Ezekielraiden, the rest of your post is good, though.

patchyman

2019-10-21, 01:04 PM

I think this is actually one of the few reasonable points -- if you have system mastery, you can use your knowledge of the function of the system to produce a worse outcome if you are trying to do so. This apparently is a case of trying to deliberately make a low-powered character, so on some level we're running into a 'how do you define "worse" (lowest power or closest to your goal)?' situation, but overall, yes this is doable with system mastery.

I agree, but I would also add that it is a trivial challenge in pretty much any TTRPG. You could easily create a purposely underpowered character in 4e, for instance.

NichG

2019-10-21, 01:35 PM

I haven't said much on this thread recently since I think what Quertus is arguing for and what I'm arguing for are pretty different actually, and I wouldn't necessarily want to commit to defending those particular points (or defending them in that way). But I guess it might be worth picking at the differences, since I think we've both argued in some sense 'for imbalance', but coming from very different directions.

For example, in terms of creating an intentionally weak character, the thing I'd be looking for is not 'can this system let me create an underpowered character?' or 'am I skilled enough with the system to intentionally make a character underpowered?' because it's not the power level itself which is interesting to me (either in the positive sense or in the negative sense). Rather, when talking about intentionally underpowering one's character, I'd ask 'does this system present me with the potential for adopting optional flaws and challenges which modify the experience in an interesting and novel way?'. The character being in some sense harder to play isn't the end in of itself that I'd be seeking, but it would be a naturally co-occurring condition.

That is to say, in the Thor & Houseplant example, if I wanted to play a houseplant it wouldn't be 'I want to play something that is 100 times weaker than what the rest of the party is playing', it would be e.g. 'I want to see if there's something interesting about participating in a way that forces me to eschew the usual ways that characters interact with the world - if I cannot move, speak, or act, barring the intervention of another character to interpret for me, can I still manage to find a purpose in that?'. Probably this is too far for me to enjoy, but that at least would be the form that any enjoyment I managed to derive would take.

So at least for me, doing something like changing the number of build points or changing the level kind of misses the point of intentionally unbalanced design. Placing everything on one numerical and statistically testable axis is a thing that one can do, but since I'm looking for novel experiences, that very act of compressing things down to a single number makes it harder to see where they actually are.

The comments earlier in the thread about utilizing things which can't be numerically compared to each-other is more the direction I'd aim at. A character who literally cannot be dishonest (either through lying or omission) is underpowered in a game of politics and social backstabbing, but it's underpowered in a way which is interesting. A bard who is 10 levels behind everyone else in that same situation is also underpowered from (most) balance perspectives, but not in any kind of interesting or transformative way.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-21, 01:54 PM

I agree, but I would also add that it is a trivial challenge in pretty much any TTRPG. You could easily create a purposely underpowered character in 4e, for instance.

If this is in fact the intended meaning, then yes, it's quite easy in 4e (and fairly easy in 13A and DW--Fate makes this...complicated to analyse due to its super heavy narrative nature, but "system mastery" means something rather different in it anyway.)

That is: in 4e, dump your primary stat(s), never wear any magic equipment, use a weapon and armor you aren't proficient with, and never take any feats that give bonuses to hit or defenses. By even early Paragon, you'll be failing on nearly all attacks and horribly penalized on all your actions; in a game where PCs are targeted at having ~65% success rates on "normal challenge" actions, that means you've fallen behind about 10 points (-1 mod instead of +6 or +7 from ability scores, no prof bonus so +0 instead of +2 or +3, no powers/feats that help, no other misc features: that list is already hitting 9-11 points below par, putting "success on typical challenges" near only-on-a-crit territory).

I guess I just don't consider this a meaningful form of "system mastery" even if, as stated above in not so many words, it technically qualifies by "knowing the right answers is the best way to be wrong, as you can avoid them, where the ignorant might accidentally choose right sometimes." Perhaps my big stumbling block is that I expect system mastery to mean knowing and using advice from the books when it is correct or meaningful, and 4e expressly includes advice that is correct like what stats you should have as your highest two or even highest three.

Maybe a better way of saying this: it sounds like saying that being a master artist makes you better at entirely non-artistic random scribbling. I would argue it's not possible to get "better" at that, because the ignorant artist (or player) always has a trivial trump card: refusal to participate. In a meaningful sense, a player who doesn't even make a character at all has a worse character than even the "actively playing badly, but still playing" player. Because the refusing-to-play player is guaranteed to succeed on exactly zero challenges; they cannot even attempt any and cannot, even in principle, have their success rate increased by any means whatsoever. Yet refusal to play requires no knowledge whatsoever of the system, up to and including even its existence.

Ignoring a question may not be a "wrong answer" per se, but unless incorrect attempts are penalized, ignoring a question by definition cannot have a higher chance of success than trying to answer (even if the correct answer IS a failure to answer).

Quizatzhaderac

2019-10-21, 03:12 PM

I don't recognize your name - have we talked before? Because you're a bloody genius!No, I'm new. And thank you very much.

4) huh? (or, maybe, if I read it right, "that sounds like a bad GM - why not?") I may be mistaken, but as I believe 3.5 core doesn't include any rules for rebuilding your character. Earlier in the discussion when we we're talking about how you run your table, someone else mentioned that your practices were unusual.

As for the parenthetical: Say the swashbuckler completely fails at it's concept, and a character rebuild fixes the problem. That's a point in favor of rebuild options, and that's also a point in favor of the swashbuckler not being designed so stupidly.

For 1, if it had minimal impact, you cannot create sufficiently unbalanced parties for some forms of fun. I see no reason for it to be so limited, so long as traps are well labeled and/or hidden away in dumpster diving spats.So let's go back to imagining the two new systems: the imbalanced one with 50 splats and the balanced one.

The balanced one is obviously only going to be balanced around it's target play style. When you say you want to be imbalanced (or a specific imbalance point) I'm interpreting that you actually do want some kind of balance, but just around and an unorthodox concept or style. Like how Dr. Who and companion are balanced for the show's concept, but not for a traditional D&D campaign. Or how Jackson Pollock's paintings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Pollock#/media/File:No._5,_1948.jpghttp://) are good at whatever-they're-trying-to-be, but fail under most artistic criteria.

But the balanced system, shouldn't that get splats to? Let's say it only gets 20, because we're demanding the authors do more work. The point of the additional books is to be something different. I suppose they could all support the same play style with a different aesthetic, but there are more interesting options. The new book could introduce a new asymmetry, and add/remove things to balance around that. Or it could be based on a different cadence of play. Some of the new books would be balanced with regard to the original play-style. Some wouldn't and would spell out what they're balanced around.

The core and all 20 supplements at once wouldn't be balanced around anything, which is fine because they're explicitly different things. The core and the supplements that are supposed to be co-balanced with core, would be less well balanced (because there is now too much to cross balance well) but still kinda of balanced because there's a coherent, common reference.

3e D&D is such a great example, because the developers actually had access to some of the best data imaginable: decades of experience with the previous edition(s) of the game. Experience is no substitute for data, and data is no substitute for experience.

What makes data data (and not just bunch of anecdotes) is collecting it in a system and purposeful way. One point of doing a statistical analysis is to limit the effect your preconception have. WotC had play-test data on the lower levels, but not the mid/high/epic ones. The nice thing about the test data is that it's actually on the 3e system. More though testing maybe couldn't have predicted 19 years of playstyle drift, but it could have lasted alot longer before the seems became visible.

Or do you think that you can develop a replacement for the 3e Monk that satisfies all of a) tables that nerf Monk; b) Playgrounders who think that Monk is trash; c) the Playgrounder who, in a recent thread, claimed that Monk is the strongest muggle class; d) the 3e developers, who thought that Monk was just right? While keeping all the coolness and unique flavor of the Monk, of course.IMHO here's is what a designer should do in this type of situation.

1) Determine the scope of play from the complainers and compare with the intended scope of play
1.1) If different, should I be supporting that scope of play? (the answer will usually be no, but one should still ask it often).
1.2) If different, how can I manage expectations?
2) Check if the monk actually works as I intended, within the context the the scope of lay my system is intended to support.
2.1) For the OP clams, see if it's possible to play the monk more powerfully than I actually considered. Re-balance with my new understanding of how the class actually works.
2.2) For the UP claims, look for situations in the scope of my system where the monk doesn't perform as I intended. Re-balance with my new understanding of how the class actually works. Note that 2.1 and 2.2 need not be exclusive.
3) Consider how the monk is being played
3.1) For the UP claims, is the monk often played less skillfully than I expected?
3.1.1) If so, re-evaluate it's complexity.
3.1.2) If not too complex try to better describe how it's effectively used.
3.2) For the OP claims, is the DM presenting obstacles less skillfully than I expected?
3.2.1) If so, re-evaluate the complexity of the monk's weaknesses.
3.2.2) If that's not an issue try to better describe to DMs how to challenge monks
4) Are players expecting the "wrong thing"
4.1) Determine if the expected scope of play matches the player's actual scope of play. If not, go back to one and try to change scope or manage expectations.
4.2) Are the players measuring "wrong" (i.e. only counting damage for a character that ran crowd control or healing)? Try to educate players and manage expectations.

I don't even think this is logically possible. "System mastery" means knowing what parts of the system work best. Applying system mastery means avoiding bad options and picking good ones. In what way does "knowing the function of the system" produce worse outcomes? I'm baffled.Since Quertus called me a genius, I'll continue to presume to speak for them.

1) Quertus assumes a roleplaying/ powergaming trade off. As one builds a more involved character concept and pursues more robust characterization goals one makes more decisions with potential power-gaming costs. These characters are making a nominal effort to bat being strong (spending all the points, taking all available levels), but the player has just decided that is either not very good or very focused at seeking conventional power.

2) If the game comes with pre-gen sample characters, those should be optimal (or close to). The reason for that being: the point of the character generation game is to build an interesting or on-concept character. If a perfectly lateral shift is impossible, it's better for the advanced options to be lesser than greater.

3) If a character chooses to be useless it's fine that they be useless. If they choose to be useful, but screw it up, that's not fine. Therefore it should be (to the extent that it's possible) hard to build a useless character out of pieces that are all in the "useful box". Weak characters (or characters with an unorthodox type of strength) should be the domain of skilled players.

Cluedrew

2019-10-21, 06:15 PM

… heck, I can scarcely feel like I'm having productive conversations about how mechanical balance can be unimportant. Can we even talk about how meaningful contributions do or don't need to be balanced, for different groups to have fun?Unpacking that entirely is probably impossible. But most of it gets crammed into the definition of meaningful and the fact it is the ability to contribute is important, not the act of doing so (doing so is important but not for balance). Once everyone has the ability to contribute, the actual contributions can be adjusted pretty much for free.

1) When 3e was being created, there was no "the way 3e is played". This should be true of any RPG… or any anything. So this references "the way D&D is played", which, at the time, would be "the way 2e is played".Its called play-testing and is an essential part of game design. Its meaningless if 3e is balanced if it's 2e because its not 2e it is 3e.

2) Good catch. So, that one's tricky. But it's easiest to explain by looking at how the 3e developers enshrine system mastery. I mean, after all, someone who just didn't get 3e could try to make a Fighter specialized in their fists, instead of making a Monk. So the characters are balanced, straight out of the box… if you're trying to build and play them as intended, and not trying to specialize in fists as a Fighter, not trying to get whirlwind attack as a Wizard, etc. So, in case you don't realize that not all toppings go with all foods, they've got pre-built yummies for you to eat, like hot fudge sundaes, pepperoni pizzas, and tacos with lettuce tomatoes and sour cream.But if you don't realize that then you don't understand the system which is to say you don't have the system mastery required. For the designers to put those in the game as a reference they must of expected that outcome often enough to give it space in the book. ... ... I would describe some generic systems that have sample characters as working from the start so I will agree that it is not a contradiction. OK, main point again, how is it a sign or condition for the games being balanced?

3) my favorite example of how people can measure balance differently is the table(s) that only measure raw damage output. For them, a Tainted Sorcerer BFC God Wizard would be not just UP, but not even contributing. My least favorite example is the table that could not conceptualize my issue with not contributing (although that may get into the weeds, as we've left the concept of "mechanical balance" behind at that point).On a theoretical level I believe this is not a problem because the ability to contribute is unchanged. On a practical level - if we assume the system is well designed and communicates clearly - than it is a self correcting issue because people will gravitate towards the options that allow them to contribute. So you loose variety but a balanced system should actually remain balanced with the only additional consideration being clarity. In other words I don't think we have to consider this separately.

And for 4, sounds like a nice thing to be able to do (if you try) but I still wouldn't call that balance.

Quertus

2019-10-21, 06:55 PM

As usual, I agree more with what NichG is saying than with what I've said.

And I'm glad that at least one piece of what I've said actually has some people saying that I'm making sense. So, thanks, guys (in the gender-neutral sense - is there a better word? "Thanks, y'all"?)

Now, of what doesn't make sense, is any of that indicative of a communication disconnect? … yes, in several places. So I guess I'll look primarily at those (and hope that my phone doesn't lock up again).

I don't even think this is logically possible. "System mastery" means knowing what parts of the system work best. Applying system mastery means avoiding bad options and picking good ones. In what way does "knowing the function of the system" produce worse outcomes? I'm baffled.

Others have covered this - knowledge gives you ability to intentionally choose the "wrong" answers.

Your pessimism is unwarranted, and I frankly don't recall seeing this.

Maybe I'll remember to quote myself, but I tried to explain the Quertusism of "people are idiots" as shorthand for… hmmm…

1) not everyone plays games the same way; not everyone evaluates or measures "balance" to the same metrics

2) not everyone would agree on what "balance" means, or whether things were balanced (or, even, in which direction they are unbalanced)

Or, if you prefer,

3) "balance" is subjective.

And, from reading and replying to the rest of your post, I believe that this is actually the primary source of legitimate disagreement between our positions. You believe that there is a "right" way to play a game to its intended objectives, and balance is therefore objective; I do not, and therefore conclude that balance is subjective.

Agreed?

If this is a consequence of your issues with memory, perhaps we should just stop? I am rather concerned that this conversation may just....not be compatible with your mental health situation at present.

That is a possibility. Thank you for being understanding (I love the Playground!).

Except that...as noted...that's been literally nothing like the definitions of "balance" I keep providing.

Definition? Yeah, sounds like I need to reread the thread.

That, in fact, their "balance" was so thoroughly out of keeping with any meaning of the term that we literally had their successor designers--Paizo--openly admit that it was necessary to ditch the system in order to even ATTEMPT addressing the mismatch between expectations and results.

My friends who played Pathfinder reported the same conclusion as the most recent Playground consensus I've read: that Pathfinder isn't really any better balanced than 3e - it's just differently imbalanced.

And I'm saying THEY HAVE. Multiple times. Dungeon World offers a loosey-goosey, build-it-yourself balance, the balance of "use these tools, follow the patterns, and it should reasonably work." 4e offers super rigorous, transparent balance, the balance of "we set our goals and have met them, here's the tested result." 13th Age offers a reasonable balance between them. And then, separately from the D&D-alike milieu, Fate is a quite well-balanced game under entirely different parameters.

Maybe, instead of telling me that a thing is impossible when I've repeatedly offered counter-examples, you could address those counter-examples?

You know, that's why I name my characters, so people don't tell me that things I've done are impossible.

The issue here is twofold. One, I have virtually no experience with the systems you listed (and thus cannot tell you from experience the directions from which they are unbalanced). However, suppose you play a game entirely about wilderness survival, or a game entirely about intrigue and diplomacy - do you suspect that arbitrary characters in these systems will still feel as balanced then? Or - and I think that this applies to at least 4e - what if the GM grossly deviates from the expected rhythm (5e's version is their "6 encounters per long rest" mantra) - would this not upset the perceived balance in some of these systems?

Then, how is "but that's playing those games wrong" any more valid than 3e only being balanced under the expectation that it be played like 2e?

And Two, our disagreement regarding the subjective vs objective nature of measurements of balance.

False. It requires goals that produce testable objectives; your UBI breaks the connection between testable objectives and in-play experience, and I might even argue that it's key to why you think balance is impossible.

I have so not communicated UBI well, it seems.

If you have testable objectives that everyone agrees on, you have UBI. UBI is required for… hmmm… for inplay experience to match testable objectives.

A game can absolutely be balanced, but it needs to set goals, and from those goals objectives that can be statistically tested. You mentioned that the 3e designers had the most expansive data set--to which I say, "WHAT data?" They did very, very little ACTUAL number crunching! And what number crunching they did had NOTHING to do with the many years of play-experience, because that's not data, it's anecdotes. You can balance what you can quantify, and quite clearly TTRPGs believe they can be quantified, because we have the books before us, full of numbers.

I like numbers. I really do. But I must admit, I struggle to see what numbers would be useful here.

If the campaign has 3 consecutive sessions of nothing but wilderness travel, that's 3 days where the Ranger shines while the rest of the players sit there and twiddle their thumbs.

That's a number I find meaningful. That's a number I can wrap my head around. And, sadly, that's a number I have experienced.

So, if we wanted to turn this into more general numbers, what? We'd… divide the game into the three pillars (combat, exploration, social), map out the expected rhythm of play, create a "same game test" for each pillar, and measure the probabilistic expected maximum amount of time one character can be utterly useless?

(Oh, and, for the record, the "data" I was referring to was their *input*, not their *output*)

Your UBI argument is an impediment to thinking about balance, not a useful analogy. It treats balance as an abstract universal value

Oh. That's what you think I'm saying. No, I'm treating the way we measure balance in the abstract. UBI actually presumes the rest of your paragraph.

You know, originally I was going to say no--but, on reflection, I actually don't know. Thing is? The tables that nerf Monk would not necessarily do so with a new game and a new Monk. They'd ALL have to reevaluate, wouldn't they? Their beliefs don't exist in a vacuum, they're a reaction to something. I cannot say for sure that that reaction would not change, perhaps in unpredictable ways, with a new environment.

I wasn't talking about a new game, only a new Monk. My point was, if all these people are looking at the same thing, and some are saying, "too tall", others are saying, "too short", and a third group is saying "just right", it seems that they aren't all measuring against the same standard.

Which, again, ties into my belief that balance is subjective.

Part of why I say this? The 13th Age Druid. It actually solves the "Druid Problem," aka the problem of "how do you respect the history of the class and its incredibly powerful, diverse array of abilities, and also keep the class consistent with the power level of other classes?" And they did it! They made it so people must choose what part of Druidry they value, and that's their Druid. But another person might choose differently...and still be playing a perfectly valid Druid. Will it anger some fans who demand everything the old 3e Druid was? Certainly--there will always be "they changed it, now it sucks" people, that's why TVTropes has a trope for it. But with actual creative work put toward thinking about "balance," they resolved a seemingly insoluble problem! It's honestly a crying shame more people don't know about 13A, it's a really, really good, well-designed game.

Here, the consensus is that you are correct regarding Druids. I wouldn't know - as far as I can remember, I've never had a Druid at my tables before.

I have, however, made a few as sample characters to test my content (adventures / "modules") before letting players play them. And the Druids usually died. So… maybe, not having seen them in play, I'm just not playing them right, but, so far, I've been underwhelmed by the 3e Druid.

Except that, as with the previous paragraph: "system mastery" is system-dependent, as the name would imply. Mastering system X and mastering system Y are two different processes. There might be overlap, but unless the systems are literally identical, mastery of them will have to mean two different bodies of knowledge. System mastery of 2e is not strictly related to system mastery of 3e, and both are not strictly related to system mastery of 5e, and all three are not strictly related to system mastery of Dungeon World, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Analogically? They were programmers familiar with B and FORTRAN, and assumed that that equipped them to use C. Yes, the designers of C were influenced by B and FORTRAN (among other things, like ALGOL 68), but knowing how to program in FORTRAN does not teach you how to program in C. Or, if you prefer a more loosey-goosey organic comparison: They were fully literate in Anglo-Saxon (aka Old English), and assumed that meant they could write poetry in Middle English (aka Shakespearean English). Did Anglo-Saxon influence Middle English? Hell yes, it's in the bloody name ("Anglish" -> English). Does that mean fluency in one is equivalent to fluency in the other? Hell no, particularly for something as complex and context-specific as poetry. (Go try reading an untranslated copy of Beowulf sometime!)

Great choice of examples (as I'm a programmer who has tried (and failed) to understand Beowulf). Mostly agree with you, not sure why you think I don't.

A chronic problem with 3rd edition design was the poor building choices of the example characters, and the lack of playtesting beyond the mid single-digit levels...which is the only region where they collected data and did any sort of statistics. Exactly what I have been, consistently, calling for to create balanced games. So, no, I reject that these were "tested and balanced." In fact, we have multiple examples of characters that were built simply wrong--it's not even that they weren't effective or tested, but that they were actually in violation of the rules themselves. (See, for instance, the jokes about the Cleric of Pelor casting symbol of pain and thus asserting Pelor is ACTUALLY evil, or the chronic problems with the Abjurant Champion that is explicitly said to specialize in spells....that its mechanics have no effect on.)

OK, fair. Calling 3e "tested" is… better as a jab at the developers' incompetence for believing that they had tested the game than as a statement of fact… but that's not entirely unlike my point. Just like with them invalidating their assumptions. Everyone has blinds spots, everyone is limited by their own PoV - or, as I occasionally like to say, "people are idiots".

How on earth is this a factor in "balance"? Balance is in the context of objectives. If people have different objectives, they should be playing games that seek those objectives. Or at least recognizing that they're playing a game that doesn't totally suit them, and accept that there will be areas where their preferences and the game's goals diverge--with all the attendant consternation that can produce.

I think the many horror stories caused by GMs trying to run "low wealth", "low magic", or "no shops" versions of 3e is a strong indicator that the state of the practice is that people do not necessarily develop the system mastery to even properly evaluate a game's objectives before playing it.

Okay, I'm genuinely wondering if you're trolling me now. Is this for real? In order to be balanced, you have to--solely with in-game rules--be able to create genuinely unbalanced results? That is literally the definition of IMBALANCE. You can't define a term meaning "thing has property X" by "thing can both have, and not have, property X."

Like, this isn't even a matter of discussing game design theory. This is literally logic. If the term meaning "possesses property X" also requires "NOT possessing property X," then the term is either meaningless, or corrosive to reasoning (by the principle of explosion--any contradiction allows you to prove any arbitrary statement you like.)

Look at it from the PoV that the measurement of balance is subjective, and see if it doesn't make sense then.

Yeah, from your PoV, I can see how that would be so much nonsense. :smalltongue: Which makes me feel more confident that I have finally identified our fundamental disconnect.

Ooooooor they could have set testable targets, and actually tested if they were consistently across more than "the first ~25% of character growth." I assume you are aware, by the way, that they never really bothered testing much beyond about 5th or 6th level, because they just assumed things would scale as expected?

Yeah, I knew. (Although I thought the reasoning was more 2e-centric "they'll never make it above this level anyway in 90+% of games".)

AdAstra

2019-10-21, 08:25 PM

Quertus I would like to try and address two of your points as I understand them.

1. Balance is subjective

This is true, but I disagree with you on how balance is subjective. In my mind, balance is subjective in two major ways.
-One is that people have different standards for what power imbalance they care about. Some people really want everyone's numbers (in this case being the totality of things the character can do, and how effective they are) to match up, some people want their numbers to surpass other people's numbers, some people only care when their numbers are lesser, and some either don't care or actively want to be weaker. And of course, those people will vary in how much that affects their fun. Mechanical balance seeks to address this issue.
-The other is narrative balance. Some people care about how much impact they or others can have on the story itself. Spotlight hogs, people who hate spotlight hogs, people who actively seek to elevate or reduce other people's participation to make sure everyone is involved. Others really don't care, or don't actively go out of their way to rectify even when they do. Now you might think that mechanical balance wouldn't help with this, but it absolutely can. In addition to PCs being the primary means by which a player interacts with the world, they are the physical manifestation of that player's contribution to the in-game story (note: this is NOT the story of the game as the players see it, a player could be your archetypical potted plant and still participate on a metagame level). Tools and abilities, even ones as simple as choosing where to move, and being able to grab and carry things, are the primary way that a player exhibits agency in the world (unless the player has metagame tools as well, but those too are mechanics and abilities, just on the player level rather than the character one). If you had one character with the tools to solve all the problems by themselves, a lot of players are going to think "why are the other characters even here". And if there's a character who has no tools of value, the opposite will happen, though this is far more rare. Mechanical balance helps to ensure that this happens as little as possible, ensuring that characters still need each other to succeed.

2. 3e is balanced when you play by the designer's assumptions.

The problem is that 3e's "balanced playstyles" aren't actually explained anywhere, and were so specific as to be nearly useless. They were extremely narrow unwritten assumptions by the designers. Yeah, if your cleric plays like a pack of band-aids and your wizard plays like fleshy artillery piece, you might be balanced, for a little while anyway. The limited level range that was actually playtested didn't actually tell the designers much about what happened after that point. Plus the Druid was pretty broken even if you played it like a stereotypical druid, so long as you put some degree of effort in.
And of course, as soon as people started getting good at the game, that tenuous balance fell to pieces. You could have some kind of argument (not a great one, but you would have an actual point) that a DM is playing the game "wrong" by not enforcing the 6-8 encounter rule, because the DMG tells you that this is how the game is meant to be balanced. As far as I'm aware, there is nothing that would suggest the same for 3e's balance assumptions. Why would a cleric of a war god focus exclusively on healing? Why would a conjurer not conjure anything? The occasional overpowered spell is an acceptable oversight, but when entire sections of the spell list weren't even taken into account, that's a huge problem. Plus 5e's adventuring day doesn't make casters OP and fighters garbage, it makes fighters strong and casters even stronger. The game becomes really easy (or absurdly deadly) for everyone, especially long-rest classes, so the relative power matters a lot less.

Lorsa

2019-10-22, 03:41 AM

Please, it's not like I need any more ammo for "core only is bad for balance". Although this is a bit of a play on words, as there are plenty of races with wings in core, just not the "Winged" template.

And, until then, they'll just have their "twice as many attacks" to comfort them as they cry themselves to sleep at night? I've never had an archer complain (about how much they needed to optimize) before flying mounts came online.

Item creation feats are a thing. So not really.

And not every GM allows the "Fighter" or "Ranger" classes. I kid you not. So that's a pretty useless metric for having a conversation, if you ask me.

Well, I always knew you had 2 examples. Reading back through, it looks like I got confused as to which I was responding to at that point. My bad. So, it would have to be, "you said 'archer', not 'Fighter'", which I'll admit isn't as strong a claim. But I have seen more awesome rogue archers than I have rogue swashbucklers.

The only thing I have to add is, you don't use dice and random stats if you care about strict balance IME, so that's a rather odd conjunction of events. But my original statements still stand - more optimization of "add x to Y", and especially Iaijutsu Master (who surprisingly well fits your concept of "duelist") can narrow or even jump the gap.

I'm trying to figure out what was the original point with my comments and I think I did.

You claimed that it is always possible to achieve balance at the table for all types of concepts, and if you don't have balance it's the fault of the people at the table (or even the specific player having the complaint).

My objection was that no, it's not always possible to achieve balance at the table, and you definitely can't blame the player for it.

That, I think, is our basic disagreement.

I then offered two examples of concepts that players at my table have found to be mechanically weaker.

In my view, you offered solutions to these problems using options and combinations that were, in my opinion, both arcane and odd. Not sure if you agree that they are either arcane or odd, so I'll try to explain why I think so.

They are arcane because they are not found in the two most basic sources of options for players, the PhB and the DMG. This falls under the "with sufficient system mastery anything is possible" part. To which I would say that balance shouldn't require such extreme levels of system mastery as you seem to imply. Unless it's explicit in the basic rules themselves (which it is not). But can we at least agree that the options are a bit arcane?

Then they are odd, because they try to merge concepts which do not fit together, thematically. For example, any typical swashbuckler will have a chaotic alignment, whereas the iajutstu (or whatever it was called) master requires a lawful alignment. Secondly, the master also requires the use of a katana, which may not even be included in a campaign as it might not fit thematically. The same for an archer, where the concept might be "strong ranged warrior type" but requires you to play a rogue (not the thematically appropriate class) or a race with wings (not thematically appropriate either (and also arcane)).

My objection is not "all systems should be balanced" or "balance is always desired" or any such thing. My objection is that you try to place all blame for imbalances in the hands of the player(s). That I don't agree with.

A game that D&D claims itself to be should allow for all the standard fantasy concepts to be roughly balanced, using only options in the basic rules (PHB + DMG). If it does not, it it is the fault of the game, not the players. That's what I am arguing for.

And yes, this could be solved by D&D changing its presentation and the expectations players have on it.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-22, 07:56 AM

AdAstra already covered a lot of really good points, so I'll try not to just say what they said a second time.

And I'm glad that at least one piece of what I've said actually has some people saying that I'm making sense. So, thanks, guys (in the gender-neutral sense - is there a better word? "Thanks, y'all"?)
"Y'all" or "everyone" are both valid terms.

Others have covered this - knowledge gives you ability to intentionally choose the "wrong" answers.
Well then, I repeat my previous critique: system mastery has no effect on the ultimate strategy for guaranteeing non-success, "don't participate in the first place." Just 'cause non-participation is a degenerate strategy doesn't mean it's not a valid one.

1) not everyone plays games the same way; not everyone evaluates or measures "balance" to the same metrics
2) not everyone would agree on what "balance" means, or whether things were balanced (or, even, in which direction they are unbalanced)
Or, if you prefer, 3) "balance" is subjective.
I would argue they do use the same metric--"does it accomplish the goals I want"--it's just that that metric is, by definition, about one's goals. Hence why I say a well-balanced game is, in part, one that clearly and correctly articulates its goals to the players, ideally before they even start playing. That way, they can either (a) make an informed decision to choose not to play if there's excessive game-goal/user-goal mismatch, or (b) evaluate after play whether the stated game-goals (and their execution) are in fact compatible with their user-goals.

I'll grant goal-choosing is subjective. As it should be. But whether you MEET those goals surely admits some level of testing. There is no formula for good writing, but editing and revising is super important for making good work. An objective "best" program is impossible, even with a defined purpose already given, but surely we can speak objectively (to at least some degree) about whether a program meets its purpose or not. If I write a program intending to sieve prime numbers, and it either ignores any primes or fails to exclude any composites, surely we can objectively say that that program isn't meeting its goals? Game design hinges on statistics rather than deduction, of course, so our goals are distributions (e.g. mean results and standard deviations), but we have objective tests for such things as well (with a given acceptable degree of error).

And, from reading and replying to the rest of your post, I believe that this is actually the primary source of legitimate disagreement between our positions. You believe that there is a "right" way to play a game to its intended objectives, and balance is therefore objective; I do not, and therefore conclude that balance is subjective.

Agreed?
No, not really, because there's a key difference here. You're talking about "how it is to be played," and I'm talking "how it is to be designed," and the two are different things. We cannot control how people choose to play something. We can, however, contro what we put into the game, and the distributions produced by those things. We can also control how well-informed the player is about these distributions, and likely results for altering them. If people choose to change the system such that that distribution no longer applies, that's on them, but again, they're homebrewing/houseruling rather than "playing the game I/we made" and there can never even in principle be anything done about that (well, barring mind control, but I'm assuming that's impossible).

My friends who played Pathfinder reported the same conclusion as the most recent Playground consensus I've read: that Pathfinder isn't really any better balanced than 3e - it's just differently imbalanced.
Overall? Absolutely yes--hence why I say that they admitted they had to abandon it in order to have any hope of balancing it. (Note, for example, that Starfinder got rid of many powerful things in 3e's rules...and is much better-balanced as a result.) However, they did get the hang (as 3.5e's designers did) of producing more tier-3/tier-4 classes...though they also still tended to produce archetypes that...weren't so great.

The issue here is twofold. One, I have virtually no experience with the systems you listed (and thus cannot tell you from experience the directions from which they are unbalanced). However, suppose you play a game entirely about wilderness survival, or a game entirely about intrigue and diplomacy - do you suspect that arbitrary characters in these systems will still feel as balanced then? Or - and I think that this applies to at least 4e - what if the GM grossly deviates from the expected rhythm (5e's version is their "6 encounters per long rest" mantra) - would this not upset the perceived balance in some of these systems?
You can play 4e heavily concerned with wilderness survival. 4e Dark Sun gave major rules for it, which could be adapted for other settings easily. You can also run an intrigue-heavy game, I've played in one. If you're legitimately trying to play a game that exclusively focuses on those...well, you can. Technically, 4e provides limited rather than non-existent support for it, as utility powers and Skill Challenges can cover that sort of thing. But do you really mean to say that any constructed tool (be it an abstract tool like a ruleset, or a physical one like a knife) must be designed to handle literally all uses in order to be well-designed? Surely you would agree that some tools can be designed for different purposes, and telling someone to use a tool appropriate to their purposes is not senseless, but wise?

Then, how is "but that's playing those games wrong" any more valid than 3e only being balanced under the expectation that it be played like 2e?
Because the two are different things? The former is using a tool outside its intended uses; the latter is pretending that one tool is identical to another tool, and then getting angry when they aren't. 3e is not 2e. The designers erred in making 3e as though the smart way to play it would be identical to the smart way to play 2e. It is this error that is the problem. To use another programming analogy: Let's say we're designing a new programming language, from top to bottom (including compilers etc.), but we really like a lot of the features of Perl and Ruby, so we decide to call it Safire and borrow major components of those two languages, while "fixing" the areas we disagreed with either.

I have so not communicated UBI well, it seems. If you have testable objectives that everyone agrees on, you have UBI. UBI is required for… hmmm… for inplay experience to match testable objectives.
But there are no goals that everyone agrees on. There are only goals that game designers (perhaps you!) have chosen to implement in your game (design-goals), and goals that game players (again, perhaps you--counting DMs as "players") prefer to pursue (player-goals). Meeting all goals is impossible, if only because some conflict, and no goals are universal, so we must settle for (seeking) quality execution of selected goals.

I like numbers. I really do. But I must admit, I struggle to see what numbers would be useful here. If the campaign has 3 consecutive sessions of nothing but wilderness travel, that's 3 days where the Ranger shines while the rest of the players sit there and twiddle their thumbs. That's a number I find meaningful. That's a number I can wrap my head around. And, sadly, that's a number I have experienced.

So, if we wanted to turn this into more general numbers, what? We'd… divide the game into the three pillars (combat, exploration, social), map out the expected rhythm of play, create a "same game test" for each pillar, and measure the probabilistic expected maximum amount of time one character can be utterly useless?
That's one direction! You're talking about maximin (maximizing the minimum contribution, thereby avoiding as much as possible non-contribution). There is another direction, though, part of what you first talked about--"map out the expected rhythm of play." We can also set defined mechanical objectives to meet on the path. 4e provides excellent examples of this specifically in combat balance (they mostly left non-combat only loosely sketched). "Defenders" (often called "front-line" classes in 3e discussions, e.g. Paladin and Fighter) could Mark enemies, making it harder to hit the Defender's allies and punishing any enemy who attacked allies without also attacking the Defender; Leaders would always have a twice-a-fight healing power (often called "X Word" as most were something like "Healing Word" or "Inspiring Word")

(Oh, and, for the record, the "data" I was referring to was their *input*, not their *output*)
As was I. Their "data" was anecdotes. You can't perform statistical analysis on that--and humans' ability to reason effectively and accurately about past experiences is, shall we say, not well-evidenced.

Oh. That's what you think I'm saying. No, I'm treating the way we measure balance in the abstract. UBI actually presumes the rest of your paragraph.
But there is no such measure, and I have no interest in speculating about one. There is no "this mechanic is 34% balanced, and we need to hit 77% balanced." There is no "this ranks a 48 on the Balanceometer, but we really only need a 26." There are only statistical questions: do the mean(/standard deviation/median/expectation value/etc.) match the desired result, or not? We set a reasonable threshold of doubt (e.g. p=0.05), and we perform the analysis to test the hypothesis. Handwaving this statistical hypothesis testing into an abstract score obscures the iterative design process. (It's also worth noting, this is exactly how you test things like "do people like these mechanics?" You have people playtest them, and then you design robust surveys to look at the distribution of survey results. It's not perfect, but it's one of the only tools we have.)

I wasn't talking about a new game, only a new Monk.
I don't think it's possible to fix 3rd edition, neither in whole nor in part. I genuinely believe it's that broken. Hence why Pathfinder tried PF: Unchained, and then tried Starfinder. The former did "make a new Monk"...and it didn't resolve enough of the problems. Starfinder gave them the opportunity to write entirely new mechanics, without needing to preserve any specific part of the old system...and they saw they could fix things more broadly. And then we had PF2e announced, and (for the first time) admissions from actual Paizo staff that there are serious design flaws with the system that were holding them back and that needed to be discarded.

So: I totally grant that you can't solve that problem, because the system is so broken you're prevented from doing so.

So… maybe, not having seen them in play, I'm just not playing them right, but, so far, I've been underwhelmed by the 3e Druid.
They require some finesse, and don't necessarily hit their stride until they can get Natural Spell. They aren't trivial to play well. But they are extremely powerful. As the OotS comic put it: "Foolish girl, I have special abilities more powerful than your entire class! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0346.html)"

Great choice of examples (as I'm a programmer who has tried (and failed) to understand Beowulf). Mostly agree with you, not sure why you think I don't.
Because of your emphasis on the "they balanced it with 2e system mastery." "2e system mastery" is analogous to knowing how to program in ALGOL 68, and then cracking open C# and expecting that every program you ever wrote in the former will work identically if you just translate the commands literally from one language to the other. You can't balance a brand-new system, even one expressly intending to imitate a previous system, by assuming it works exactly the same way as the old one; every new rule you make may not work the way you expect. You have to rigorously test, and you have to bust assumptions and ask your players to use the rules as intelligently as they can.

Just like with them invalidating their assumptions. Everyone has blinds spots, everyone is limited by their own PoV - or, as I occasionally like to say, "people are idiots".
Right. But balanced design means recognizing these limits, and taking measures to address them, rather than pretending they don't exist. That's why statistical testing is so important. Statistical tests don't care how you feel about the data; either they reject the null, or they do not reject the null, given the input data and their error tolerance. Yes, it is still possible to end up blinded anyway, to simply always ask the wrong questions, but the fact you might miss something shouldn't be a reason to not even bother looking.

I think the many horror stories caused by GMs trying to run "low wealth", "low magic", or "no shops" versions of 3e is a strong indicator that the state of the practice is that people do not necessarily develop the system mastery to even properly evaluate a game's objectives before playing it.
I argue this is much more caused by the system being extremely obtuse about how it works and what its goals are, than it is about people being incapable of learning such things. If we as designers equip all players with as much clear advice as possible, we help them answer these questions for themselves.

Look at it from the PoV that the measurement of balance is subjective, and see if it doesn't make sense then.
I'm afraid that...doesn't help, because the way I'm defining balance (expected center and spread of results statistically matches the ones chosen by the designers) genuinely isn't compatible with that. Balance is subjective because what goals you seek depend on personal choice, but once those subjective choices are made...well, see above.

AntiAuthority

2019-10-22, 08:39 AM

Quite a lot to read through, so I'm typing this blind of what anyone else has typed here yet. Probably going to go back and read through it though.

But as to why the party needs to be balanced, I'd say because I personally wouldn't enjoy a character that feels like dead weight. I wouldn't enjoy playing someone who is vastly less useful to the party, as I tend to play RPGs as a power fantasy.

I'd also be wondering, "Why does this much superior party/character even need my character around in-universe? I mean, out of universe, it's because I'm a player, but even then, I get the feeling someone could fill my role... Why am I even playing this character?"

Followed by, "Does my level even matter? Wait, am I the sidekick?!"

Then me just sitting around as my character isn't really able to contribute except for very specific circumstances that I would be wondering if the GM threw in so I'd have something to do.

Then me wondering if I built my character wrong because of how weak they seem.

On the other side, while I enjoy playing a power fantasy... I'd also feel bad if I were invalidating another character's existence/role in the party. Killing powerful enemies would be fun, but not if I'm the only one doing anything. I feel bad when I'm making someone else at the table miserable and have them realize we could go through the encounter/dungeon with or without them.

It also leads me to wonder, "Why is my character bringing this dead weight along?"

To me, RPGs are a power fantasy, but I also enjoy power fantasies where everyone gets to feel like their characters and builds matter.

Quertus

2019-10-22, 10:03 AM

Unpacking that entirely is probably impossible. But most of it gets crammed into the definition of meaningful and the fact it is the ability to contribute is important, not the act of doing so (doing so is important but not for balance). Once everyone has the ability to contribute, the actual contributions can be adjusted pretty much for free.

Capable of contribution. Huh. I like it.

It really explains why I want to move so much of that capacity, so much of the toolkit, off the character sheet, and into the system, module, etc.

So, a new statement of my preference formerly described as "I prefer gaming with groups with large balance ranges" would be…

Mechanical balance only matters to the extent which it prevents contribution.

I prefer groups wherein the capacity to contribute is enshrined within things external to the character - the system, the adventure, player skill, etc.

Thus, I prefer when mechanical balance is irrelevant.

OK, main point again, how is it a sign or condition for the games being balanced?

"Hot fudge sundae" and "pepperoni pizza" being on the menu is a sign of / a condition for food to be yummy even when players lack the system mastery / genre savvy / whatever to not realize that not all toppings were intended for all food items, and that "hot fudge taco" might not be yummy. It's part of a broad view of balance: "balance, it's not just for genre savvy system masters any more".

On a theoretical level I believe this is not a problem because the ability to contribute is unchanged. On a practical level - if we assume the system is well designed and communicates clearly - than it is a self correcting issue because people will gravitate towards the options that allow them to contribute. So you loose variety but a balanced system should actually remain balanced with the only additional consideration being clarity. In other words I don't think we have to consider this separately.

I'm not sure the context, so this might be a non-sequitur, but imagine what you would consider to be a balanced group of D&D murderhobos being placed into an all political campaign, or (as happened to me recently), the players deciding to treat the game as Pokemon. Can you see how this changes the nature of what (mechanical, and maybe even "passes the bar for contribution") "balance" means in context?

And for 4, sounds like a nice thing to be able to do (if you try) but I still wouldn't call that balance.

4 is not "balance", it is a) a necessary condition for balance to be viable given subjective definition of mechanical balance; b) why my PoV is "right", why it should be enshrined the rules (which is the specific point to which I was replying).

Quertus I would like to try and address two of your points as I understand them.

1. Balance is subjective

This is true, but I disagree with you on how balance is subjective. In my mind, balance is subjective in two major ways.
-One is that people have different standards for what power imbalance they care about. Some people really want everyone's numbers (in this case being the totality of things the character can do, and how effective they are) to match up, some people want their numbers to surpass other people's numbers, some people only care when their numbers are lesser, and some either don't care or actively want to be weaker. And of course, those people will vary in how much that affects their fun. Mechanical balance seeks to address this issue.
-The other is narrative balance. Some people care about how much impact they or others can have on the story itself. Spotlight hogs, people who hate spotlight hogs, people who actively seek to elevate or reduce other people's participation to make sure everyone is involved. Others really don't care, or don't actively go out of their way to rectify even when they do. Now you might think that mechanical balance wouldn't help with this, but it absolutely can. In addition to PCs being the primary means by which a player interacts with the world, they are the physical manifestation of that player's contribution to the in-game story (note: this is NOT the story of the game as the players see it, a player could be your archetypical potted plant and still participate on a metagame level). Tools and abilities, even ones as simple as choosing where to move, and being able to grab and carry things, are the primary way that a player exhibits agency in the world (unless the player has metagame tools as well, but those too are mechanics and abilities, just on the player level rather than the character one). If you had one character with the tools to solve all the problems by themselves, a lot of players are going to think "why are the other characters even here". And if there's a character who has no tools of value, the opposite will happen, though this is far more rare. Mechanical balance helps to ensure that this happens as little as possible, ensuring that characters still need each other to succeed.

2. 3e is balanced when you play by the designer's assumptions.

The problem is that 3e's "balanced playstyles" aren't actually explained anywhere, and were so specific as to be nearly useless. They were extremely narrow unwritten assumptions by the designers. Yeah, if your cleric plays like a pack of band-aids and your wizard plays like fleshy artillery piece, you might be balanced, for a little while anyway. The limited level range that was actually playtested didn't actually tell the designers much about what happened after that point. Plus the Druid was pretty broken even if you played it like a stereotypical druid, so long as you put some degree of effort in.
And of course, as soon as people started getting good at the game, that tenuous balance fell to pieces. You could have some kind of argument (not a great one, but you would have an actual point) that a DM is playing the game "wrong" by not enforcing the 6-8 encounter rule, because the DMG tells you that this is how the game is meant to be balanced. As far as I'm aware, there is nothing that would suggest the same for 3e's balance assumptions. Why would a cleric of a war god focus exclusively on healing? Why would a conjurer not conjure anything? The occasional overpowered spell is an acceptable oversight, but when entire sections of the spell list weren't even taken into account, that's a huge problem. Plus 5e's adventuring day doesn't make casters OP and fighters garbage, it makes fighters strong and casters even stronger. The game becomes really easy (or absurdly deadly) for everyone, especially long-rest classes, so the relative power matters a lot less.

I think that most of what I would say to you is covered by my response to cluedrew.

I will add that, in 2e, I played a Cleric of a war god, Cendur (pronounced like "sender" or "cinder"), and everyone at multiple tables was baffled that I didn't play him as a box of bandaids. In other words, the 3e developers didn't *have* to tell people to play Clerics as walking boxes of bandaids, because that was already the established culture.

3e's problem was that it was played by a bunch of uncultured savages, who broke the system, complained about it, and wouldn't accept "stop chewing on the power cords, and reading the answer in Clue is cheating" as an answer. I say as someone who has been chewing on the power chords since 2e ;)

2e didn't explicitly state it's assumptions, either. It didn't have to. That's just the way people played the game. There wasn't a "complete book of Conjurers", there were just a bunch of content aimed at Evokers, and the complete book of Necromancers. So what you call "a very narrow range" is just "the way the game was always played".

And level 6? I mean, Fighter is getting 2 attacks (archers 3), Wizards can cast 2 fireballs per day, even Sorcerers can cast fireball now. The game is already incredibly high power. Anyone wanting to play beyond that obviously wants something pretty gonzo nuts, so who cares about balance at that point? Well just throw some totally OP content at them, like Meteor Swarm and Whirlwind Attack, and let them have crazy fun. … Makes more sense from their PoV, IMO. Also explains why "totally OP" archers didn't get as much love as your average Playgrounder believes that they deserve.

Also, I'm really not sure how mechanical balance (as described by some) helps people make imbalanced characters. But I would say that moving the potential for contribution out from exclusively being printed on the character sheet, and into the system / module / etc can help allow mechanically unbalanced characters to contribute.

NichG

2019-10-22, 10:08 AM

I would argue they do use the same metric--"does it accomplish the goals I want"--it's just that that metric is, by definition, about one's goals. Hence why I say a well-balanced game is, in part, one that clearly and correctly articulates its goals to the players, ideally before they even start playing. That way, they can either (a) make an informed decision to choose not to play if there's excessive game-goal/user-goal mismatch, or (b) evaluate after play whether the stated game-goals (and their execution) are in fact compatible with their user-goals.

...

I'm afraid that...doesn't help, because the way I'm defining balance (expected center and spread of results statistically matches the ones chosen by the designers) genuinely isn't compatible with that. Balance is subjective because what goals you seek depend on personal choice, but once those subjective choices are made...well, see above.

I think there's been some definition creep here. The term 'balance' as used for example in the OP generally refers to something more specific than 'stating a design target and then successfully designing towards it' - it's associated with particular subset of design targets, specifically associated with the comparison of relative effect of different sub-parts of the system as a whole.

In the context of the way this language is normally used, it would be pretty strange for me to talk about, for example, designing the artwork for a collectible card game to be appealing to a target demographic as a matter of game balance. But that sort of thing would be considered a matter of balance in terms of the definition you've stated.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-22, 10:28 AM

I think there's been some definition creep here. The term 'balance' as used for example in the OP generally refers to something more specific than 'stating a design target and then successfully designing towards it' - it's associated with particular subset of design targets, specifically associated with the comparison of relative effect of different sub-parts of the system as a whole.

In the context of the way this language is normally used, it would be pretty strange for me to talk about, for example, designing the artwork for a collectible card game to be appealing to a target demographic as a matter of game balance. But that sort of thing would be considered a matter of balance in terms of the definition you've stated.

Then...just only apply it to questions of actual game design? I mean, yes, the precise word-for-word thing I said did not explicitly say it was only in the context of designing the rules of a cooperative tabletop roleplaying game. I didn't think I needed to say that "balance" is only applicable when you're talking about the rules design, and not for things that are...not actually the game's mechanics.

NichG

2019-10-22, 01:06 PM

Then...just only apply it to questions of actual game design? I mean, yes, the precise word-for-word thing I said did not explicitly say it was only in the context of designing the rules of a cooperative tabletop roleplaying game. I didn't think I needed to say that "balance" is only applicable when you're talking about the rules design, and not for things that are...not actually the game's mechanics.

It's probably part of the reason why your back and forth with Quertus is going in circles. You e.g. pointed out that some of his statements were logically self contradictory in the context of your definition of balance, but if there are a set of bounds on that definition which are supposed to be assumed, and you're both placing those bounds differently, then something which from one definition seems contradictory can be consistent from another definition.

E.g. if I talk about what I assume should bound the meaning of 'balance', I would say that it strictly has to do with the relative impact of components and not the gestalt as a whole. E.g. 'character A is balanced with respect to character B'. In that restricted space, I could make the claim 'a focus on balance may lead to sacrificing other elements of game design'. For example, needing to balance individual options against eachother in an additive
way in a point buy system means limiting the existence of multiplicative combos.

Within your definition, because it's not clear exactly where the boundaries are, this could either be inherently nonsensical at the level of definition ('because you can choose any target to achieve with game design - including having lots of variance due to multiplicative combos - and balance just means hitting the target') or it could be a potentially coherent position, in which case you might disagree, but not on the basis of it being a logical impossibility.

Quertus

2019-10-22, 06:58 PM

I'm trying to figure out what was the original point with my comments and I think I did.

You claimed that it is always possible to achieve balance at the table for all types of concepts, and if you don't have balance it's the fault of the people at the table (or even the specific player having the complaint).

My objection was that no, it's not always possible to achieve balance at the table, and you definitely can't blame the player for it.

That, I think, is our basic disagreement.

I then offered two examples of concepts that players at my table have found to be mechanically weaker.

In my view, you offered solutions to these problems using options and combinations that were, in my opinion, both arcane and odd. Not sure if you agree that they are either arcane or odd, so I'll try to explain why I think so.

They are arcane because they are not found in the two most basic sources of options for players, the PhB and the DMG. This falls under the "with sufficient system mastery anything is possible" part. To which I would say that balance shouldn't require such extreme levels of system mastery as you seem to imply. Unless it's explicit in the basic rules themselves (which it is not). But can we at least agree that the options are a bit arcane?

Then they are odd, because they try to merge concepts which do not fit together, thematically. For example, any typical swashbuckler will have a chaotic alignment, whereas the iajutstu (or whatever it was called) master requires a lawful alignment. Secondly, the master also requires the use of a katana, which may not even be included in a campaign as it might not fit thematically. The same for an archer, where the concept might be "strong ranged warrior type" but requires you to play a rogue (not the thematically appropriate class) or a race with wings (not thematically appropriate either (and also arcane)).

My objection is not "all systems should be balanced" or "balance is always desired" or any such thing. My objection is that you try to place all blame for imbalances in the hands of the player(s). That I don't agree with.

A game that D&D claims itself to be should allow for all the standard fantasy concepts to be roughly balanced, using only options in the basic rules (PHB + DMG). If it does not, it it is the fault of the game, not the players. That's what I am arguing for.

And yes, this could be solved by D&D changing its presentation and the expectations players have on it.

So, caring about how "core" something is is antithetical to the "enshrining system mastery" mentality of the 3e devs - unless you consider "is more arcane" to be "better".

Second, "Core only, for balance" is a known oxymoron. So calls for "wanting balance" and caring about the non-core-ness of options… is not something I'll do.

That said, flying mounts, items to grant flight, and pet Wizards *are* all core options.

-----

As for "odd"… I don't play/build muggles. So I'm pulling from the (very successful) muggle builds I've played beside / seen at my tables. Rogues make excellent archers. I've seen quite a few. Every other successful archery build - and, in fact, every other successful character period - has required more system mastery than "race and class (and basic archery feats & gear)", done. Muggles are fairly balanced (or maybe even slightly OP) in core under the playstyle & expectations that the devs used. You have to go outside core before "muggles get nice things" becomes a reality from a more Playground oriented PoV.

3e could have done a better job explaining its expectations, sure. I think that the biggest thing that 3e needs to have made clearer, the biggest thing that needs to change, is this expectation that GMs limiting access to sources and especially to gear is an expected, intended, or indeed balanced playstyle. But, as others have pointed out, that fact is pointed out. In core.

Hence why I say a well-balanced game is, in part, one that clearly and correctly articulates its goals to the players, ideally before they even start playing.

3e did so, by labeling itself "D&D". Why do you think so many people complain that 4e isn't D&D? It's because that means something.

I'll grant goal-choosing is subjective. As it should be. But whether you MEET those goals surely admits some level of testing.

So 3e chose a goal: D&D. And they met that goal. You may not like that goal, you may not understand that goal, but "bandaids Cleric, artillery Wizard, balanced through level 6" that people talk about, and the devs tested for? That's D&D. The results of using 3e for any purpose other than "D&D" are undefined.

No, not really, because there's a key difference here. You're talking about "how it is to be played," and I'm talking "how it is to be designed," and the two are different things. We cannot control how people choose to play something. We can, however, contro what we put into the game, and the distributions produced by those things. We can also control how well-informed the player is about these distributions, and likely results for altering them. If people choose to change the system such that that distribution no longer applies, that's on them, but again, they're homebrewing/houseruling rather than "playing the game I/we made" and there can never even in principle be anything done about that (well, barring mind control, but I'm assuming that's impossible).

So… my stance is that 3e is balanced, because characters can be built to be balanced in any play style, and your stance is that 3e is balanced, because if you play the way the developers intended and designed the game to be played, it's balanced?

You can play 4e heavily concerned with wilderness survival. 4e Dark Sun gave major rules for it, which could be adapted for other settings easily. You can also run an intrigue-heavy game, I've played in one. If you're legitimately trying to play a game that exclusively focuses on those...well, you can. Technically,

OK. But is the game "balanced" at that point, or does the Ranger play the game while the rest of the party cannot (or, in the case of 4e skill challenges, should not) participate?

But do you really mean to say that any constructed tool (be it an abstract tool like a ruleset, or a physical one like a knife) must be designed to handle literally all uses in order to be well-designed? Surely you would agree that some tools can be designed for different purposes, and telling someone to use a tool appropriate to their purposes is not senseless, but wise?

Tough call.

When it comes to tools having "intended uses", I'm generally on the side of innovation and creativity. I once fixed my rearview mirror - which came loose while I was driving on the interstate - with chewing gum. I play Clerics of war gods as not just walking boxes of bandaids. I don't accuse people playing 3e for what it is rather than just what it was designed to be of having BadWrongFun.

So, I guess I have to go with, "if it works…” and "you do you", rather than strict casting of purpose.

Because the two are different things? The former is using a tool outside its intended uses; the latter is pretending that one tool is identical to another tool, and then getting angry when they aren't. 3e is not 2e. The designers erred in making 3e as though the smart way to play it would be identical to the smart way to play 2e. It is this error that is the problem.

So, you are selectively for and against designing to goals, selectively for and against just using tools their intended way for their intended purpose?

3e was designed to be D&D, was designed to play like 2e, and, if you play it like 2e, it works great.

So, which side are you on?

Because, me? I love that you can make 3e work even when you don't play it as the designers intended.

But there are no goals that everyone agrees on. There are only goals that game designers (perhaps you!) have chosen to implement in your game (design-goals), and goals that game players (again, perhaps you--counting DMs as "players") prefer to pursue (player-goals). Meeting all goals is impossible, if only because some conflict, and no goals are universal, so we must settle for (seeking) quality execution of selected goals.

My goal was to make something to make a nice hot cup of tea.

If I made a tea kettle, or a coffee pot, or a Keurig thingy, they could all brew a cup of (sometimes very) hot tea. Or make coffee. And most could make hot chocolate or hot water.

But if I made a matter replicator, I could not just ask for "Earl grey, hot", but any other food (or any other anything) it's been programmed with.

Maybe people really will remember the matter replicator for hot tea. But me? I actively appreciate and admire the variety.

As was I. Their "data" was anecdotes. You can't perform statistical analysis on that--and humans' ability to reason effectively and accurately about past experiences is, shall we say, not well-evidenced.

I've switched to talking about this as "culture" and "D&D"; you now seem to be focusing on this as "intended purpose" or "goal-choosing".

Now do you know what I meant here?

But there is no such measure, and I have no interest in speculating about one. There is no "this mechanic is 34% balanced, and we need to hit 77% balanced."

Replace "UBI" with "goal". See if it makes sense to you now.

If we have a goal, we can measure characters in accordance with that goal.

I'm saying there is little point to measuring against that goal, because players won't follow it. Case in point: 3e.

Because of your emphasis on the "they balanced it with 2e system mastery."

Ah. No. Um… "they balanced it under 2e playstyle" and "they assumed sufficient genre savvy / sufficient system mastery that people would take Monk rather than Fighter specialized in fists, not give Wizards whirlwind attack, etc". (And "provided sample characters for use by those without that level of genre savvy / system mastery").

Quite a lot to read through, so I'm typing this blind of what anyone else has typed here yet.

To me, RPGs are a power fantasy, but I also enjoy power fantasies where everyone gets to feel like their characters and builds matter.

I great sentiment / mindset. Gotta say, for not having read the thread, you certainly hit a lot of the key concepts / buzzwords.

Cluedrew

2019-10-22, 09:26 PM

OK I don't have time to say anything insightful, so I'm here for a joke.
3e's problem was that it was played by a bunch of uncultured savages, who broke the system, complained about it, and wouldn't accept "stop chewing on the power cords, and reading the answer in Clue is cheating" as an answer. I say as someone who has been chewing on the power chords since 2e ;)I spent seconds trying to figure out what answer of mine was cheating and if it was in a good way or bad way.

Satinavian

2019-10-23, 01:29 AM

Mechanical balance only matters to the extent which it prevents contribution.

I prefer groups wherein the capacity to contribute is enshrined within things external to the character - the system, the adventure, player skill, etc.

Thus, I prefer when mechanical balance is irrelevant.
So you basically prefer games where the characters the players have and their abilities don't matter much. Because the adventure and the system present character agnostic buttons to press and it runs down to player ingenuitity to decide which ones and in what order do solve the problems.

And at the same time that is part of your core assumption about how the game is run and fuels your argument about why balance between characters is not an issue.

Of course we have problems coming kind of understanding. My games don't work this way and i also would not really want to be part of a game that does.

3e could have done a better job explaining its expectations, sure. I think that the biggest thing that 3e needs to have made clearer, the biggest thing that needs to change, is this expectation that GMs limiting access to sources and especially to gear is an expected, intended, or indeed balanced playstyle. But, as others have pointed out, that fact is pointed out. In core.
Allowing all sources in 3.x gives you a gonzo game, that is also unbalanced. That is not hat many people want.

Carefully selecting available sources to allow the kind of characters you want is something that requires system mastery. More system mastery than any DM i have ever met, actually has. Most that do restrict, only consider the sourcebook they themself possess and are selective between those. There is also the thing that most sourcebooks only ever got an English release in the first place and depending on the language, you don't have that much beyond Core to choose from in the first place. And beside understanding problems, mixing rulebooks of different languages is a real headache because you never know which rules-legal terms correspond to each other.

So when "all is allowed" and "carefully selected sources" don't work, people go back to "Core only". If 3.x was actually a good system that would be a fine option. The idea of core rules is that they provide a full, working system and that the rest is only optional expansions - something that most other systems manage to do better than D&D 3.x.

Of course the more savvy DMs just look at the internet to find a set of rules that promises to be what they want and run "sphere magic only" or "E6" or "Tier 3 characters only" to try and get a balanced system without having to really understand how or why. But somehow that is not really to your taste either.

So… my stance is that 3e is balanced, because characters can be built to be balanced in any play style, and your stance is that 3e is balanced, because if you play the way the developers intended and designed the game to be played, it's balanced?And many others find 3.x not to be particularly balanced and it annoys them enough to give the system a pass. And that feeling is usually informed by actual play of 3.x and finding the imbalance profoundly unfun.

Because, me? I love that you can make 3e work even when you don't play it as the designers intended.Yes, you love D&D 3.x, others don't. Balance is one of the main concern for those others. (There are many other problems with 3.x and possible reasons to not like it, but this thread is about balance)

Insisting that it doesn't matter is not convincing because it does matter to them.

Insisting that it is easily solvable is not convincing because they probably tried and did not manage to, at least not easily and without argueing.

Insisting that just need more system mastery is not convincing because they think it is way to much work for way to little benefit considering the multitude of other systems that actually try to be balanced.

Insisting that 3.x has diversity of concepts as an advantage over other systems it not convincing to those having played other system with way more diverse parties than they ever had in D&D.

Mechalich

2019-10-23, 02:15 AM

So you basically prefer games where the characters the players have and their abilities don't matter much. Because the adventure and the system present character agnostic buttons to press and it runs down to player ingenuitity to decide which ones and in what order do solve the problems.

And at the same time that is part of your core assumption about how the game is run and fuels your argument about why balance between characters is not an issue.

Of course we have problems coming kind of understanding. My games don't work this way and i also would not really want to be part of a game that does.

There's nothing wrong, in principle with games in which character abilities are loosely interpreted or even the rules themselves are loosely interpreted, and indeed freeform gaming is a thing. The great risk with such games, however, is favoritism. The less strict the rules framework happens to be (which does not, by the way, imply the rules have to be particularly complex) and the more nebulous the resolution mechanisms, the more the game becomes 'Mother May I' between the players and the GM. And that's a very unstable way to run a game because it is very easy in such scenarios for talkative players to dominate the table and for shy players to never achieve anything because they simply don't put themselves forward to snag the GM's attention. It also tends to be easy for players with a large amount of 'player skill' to manipulate such rules as do exist in exploitative ways without ever technically violating them.

A good example of a game with this problem is Mage: the Ascension. MtA is built on WW's storyteller system, but it has a magic system that is - by design - almost totally free of constraint. Within some fairly loose boundaries your character can do pretty much whatever you can convince the GM your character is able to do. I've GM'd numerous MtG games. It can be great fun, but pretty much the entire burden of balance is on the GM, you have to juggle personalities at the table well and if the players are not both already friends and tolerant about it there will be problems. As a GM you also have to be extremely cognizant of all rulings because the game provides an in-game mechanism - Paradox - that allows you to totally thrash any character at essentially any time.

And there's certain kinds of stories that don't really work within such a system. For one, you really can't go dark and gritty (this is somewhat ironic given White-Wolf's design goals) because there's no way to actually do it at the table without coming off like a jerk to the players. Likewise you can't go serious and highly immersive because character's powers are so open ended that they break out of any sort of story box extremely easily by coming up with bizarre and impossible solutions that you also come across like a jerk if you constantly shoot them down. Like in actual mother may I, the 'mother,' in this case the GM basically has to constantly yield to the gradual advances of the characters and can only throw major setbacks at them if they screw up in some way that is obvious to everyone. Some GMs are not down with this.

For a game like D&D - which is supposed to have intense, high-stakes, tactically complex combat at the core - this approach really isn't suitable. You can do it, of course, but you're essentially wasting a huge amount of the resources put together in the course of building the game. The rules for FATE are a lot shorter than the rules for D&D for a reason, and if you're not going to make use of all that depth, then you should play a simpler game.

Lorsa

2019-10-23, 06:52 AM

So, caring about how "core" something is is antithetical to the "enshrining system mastery" mentality of the 3e devs - unless you consider "is more arcane" to be "better".

Second, "Core only, for balance" is a known oxymoron. So calls for "wanting balance" and caring about the non-core-ness of options… is not something I'll do.

That said, flying mounts, items to grant flight, and pet Wizards *are* all core options.

-----

As for "odd"… I don't play/build muggles. So I'm pulling from the (very successful) muggle builds I've played beside / seen at my tables. Rogues make excellent archers. I've seen quite a few. Every other successful archery build - and, in fact, every other successful character period - has required more system mastery than "race and class (and basic archery feats & gear)", done. Muggles are fairly balanced (or maybe even slightly OP) in core under the playstyle & expectations that the devs used. You have to go outside core before "muggles get nice things" becomes a reality from a more Playground oriented PoV.

3e could have done a better job explaining its expectations, sure. I think that the biggest thing that 3e needs to have made clearer, the biggest thing that needs to change, is this expectation that GMs limiting access to sources and especially to gear is an expected, intended, or indeed balanced playstyle. But, as others have pointed out, that fact is pointed out. In core.

So basically you are saying "if your table does not enshrine system mastery, D&D is not a game for you". I could agree with that statement, however, that conclusion is only reached through experience with the system. It's not obvious from the get-go. If all you have are the 3 basic books, there's nothing there that gives you an indication that the game is essentially unplayable without system mastery.

That caring about balance and using core only is a known oxymoron is also not true. That it, the part that it is known. Again, if you are a new player that just gets introduced to the basics of the system, you wouldn't know this. The only way to know it is either by spending countless of hours playing the game OR by spending maybe 1/10th of those countless hours on the internet. It might be known to you, but you can't claim that it is common knowledge.

Basically, we circle back to D&D 3e having a hidden design goal. One that turns out to be extremely important as it essentially means A LOT of people that think D&D 3e is a game for them are wrong. But, they won't find that out until much much later. It's inherently deceptive.

I mean, there are tons of people out there who don't care squat about system mastery, but still care a lot about balance (as in, being able to play a character who is not dead weight).

(As a sidenote, I have never seen a "Pet Wizard" feat... how would a player get access to such?)

Essentially, what I am saying is that D&D presents itself as a game where simply choosing race/class and basic archery feat & gear will provide a useful character focused at ranged combat. However, as this is not the outcome, people are rightly upset about balance issues.

And yes, D&D really should have made it clearer what its expectations were. However, it seems to me that developers didn't clearly know either. Both 4e and 5e are much more rigorously designed in that sense. You can see that the developers knew their visions, and then you can agree or disagree with it.

Satinavian

2019-10-23, 07:01 AM

(As a sidenote, I have never seen a "Pet Wizard" feat... how would a player get access to such?)
Leadership cheese would be the most obvious, but there are many ways charaters can have pets and/or pets being able to have caster levels.

Quertus

2019-10-23, 07:21 AM

OK I don't have time to say anything insightful, so I'm here for a joke.I spent seconds trying to figure out what answer of mine was cheating and if it was in a good way or bad way.

And I spent seconds coming up with three serious reply vectors before I got the joke, and burst out laughing. :smallbiggrin:

So you basically prefer games where the characters the players have and their abilities don't matter much

No. Where they don't matter exclusively. Subtle difference.

. Because the adventure and the system present character agnostic buttons to press and it runs down to player ingenuitity to decide which ones and in what order do solve the problems.

There's a running firefight in a building. The team makes it outside to the huge parking deck. The GM has not drawn their vehicle on the map. "Dude, where'd we park?".

This problem could be solved many ways, from player skill to remember the GM saying that we parked in B-7 (and/or descriptions from the "painting the scene" of transitioning that scene), to character sheet buttons of "perfect memory" or "hotwire car", to leveraging aspects of the parking garage to discourage pursuit while we searched for our car.

And at the same time that is part of your core assumption about how the game is run and fuels your argument about why balance between characters is not an issue.

No. It's just my preference. I recognize that not all games are played my preferred way. Heck, most games I play aren't played my preferred way.

Of course we have problems coming kind of understanding. My games don't work this way and i also would not really want to be part of a game that does.

You really not only prefer "if you do not have a 'console small child' win button on your character sheet, you cannot attempt the action", but would hate to play a game where you could attempt such an action?

Allowing all sources in 3.x gives you a gonzo game, that is also unbalanced. That is not hat many people want.

Wrong. Balance to the table. Do that, and allowing all sources produces a balanced game. That the people you play with lack the interest or capacity to produce balanced characters does not invalidate my experiences.

Carefully selecting available sources to allow the kind of characters you want is something that requires system mastery. More system mastery than any DM i have ever met, actually has.

Yup. Which is why you let the players pick and choose their components from all possible sources, and just evaluate the final product.

Most that do restrict, only consider the sourcebook they themself possess and are selective between those.

Yet another problem with that mindset.

There is also the thing that most sourcebooks only ever got an English release in the first place and depending on the language, you don't have that much beyond Core to choose from in the first place. And beside understanding problems, mixing rulebooks of different languages is a real headache because you never know which rules-legal terms correspond to each other.

That is a problem. I've never had to deal with that.

So when "all is allowed" and "carefully selected sources" don't work,

Besides the language issue, the only reason "all is allowed" wouldn't work is user error.

people go back to "Core only". If 3.x was actually a good system that would be a fine option. The idea of core rules is that they provide a full, working system and that the rest is only optional expansions - something that most other systems manage to do better than D&D 3.x.

Of course the more savvy DMs just look at the internet to find a set of rules that promises to be what they want and run "sphere magic only" or "E6" or "Tier 3 characters only" to try and get a balanced system without having to really understand how or why. But somehow that is not really to your taste either.

It sure isn't. I don't enjoy E6, and retiring characters before their story is told, like the developers intended.

Yes, you love D&D 3.x

If I had to choose one emotion, I would say that I hate 3e. But one thing I love about it is that it's one the few balanced systems I've played.

Insisting that it doesn't matter is not convincing because it does matter to them.

Those who care sufficiently about balance can make 3e balanced. I've detailed numerous ways just in this thread (I think. Darn senility): preconstructed characters, playing the game as intended (which includes e6), balance to the table, homebrew, etc.

Insisting that it is easily solvable is not convincing because they probably tried and did not manage to, at least not easily and without argueing.

I'll grant that "ease" is variable based on the natural talents and inclinations of the user, and "easily" is subjective.

Insisting that just need more system mastery is not convincing because they think it is way to much work for way to little benefit considering the multitude of other systems that actually try to be balanced.

3e doesn't just try to be balanced, it succeeded. That people (including me) "play the game wrong" does not change that fact.

Insisting that 3.x has diversity of concepts as an advantage over other systems it not convincing to those having played other system with way more diverse parties than they ever had in D&D.

Again, close, but subtly different from my actual stance. Try, "has the capacity to instantiate a huge diversity of concepts with as much or little balance as the players desire”.

Say you've got a foo (level 10, 50 point, whatever), perfectly balanced party. You want to add two more foo; this time, an invisible faerie warrior and a… I forget what I said last time; let's go with "spell casting dragon" for now.

In 3e, I have the tools to make them balanced, totally OP, totally UP, or anywhere in-between, as desired, for whatever arbitrary definition/concept of "balance" that table is using (raw damage output, spotlight time, narrative impact, capacity for contribution, whatever).

My contention (really, my experience turned into a potentially untrue generalization) was that 3e was fairly unique in the extent to which one could both make those characters, and allow them to exist at most any power level relative to the party.

So, do you and your experiences disagree with my actual assertion?

There's nothing wrong, in principle with games in which character abilities are loosely interpreted or even the rules themselves are loosely interpreted,

I mean, I would utterly hate such systems, but I suppose I won't call BadWrongFun if you enjoy them…

and indeed freeform gaming is a thing. The great risk with such games, however, is favoritism.

And that's another reason for me to hate them.

The less strict the rules framework happens to be (which does not, by the way, imply the rules have to be particularly complex) and the more nebulous the resolution mechanisms, the more the game becomes 'Mother May I' between the players and the GM. And that's a very unstable way to run a game because it is very easy in such scenarios for talkative players to dominate the table and for shy players to never achieve anything because they simply don't put themselves forward to snag the GM's attention.

More fuel for me to hate both those systems, and GMs who don't ask, "and while he's doing that, what are you doing?".

It also tends to be easy for players with a large amount of 'player skill' to manipulate such rules as do exist in exploitative ways without ever technically violating them.

This could go either way. I've seen both good and bad things that someone could describe to me using words similar to what you've used.

A good example of a game with this problem is Mage: the Ascension.

Love the concept, hate the games I've played.

MtA is built on WW's storyteller system, but it has a magic system that is - by design - almost totally free of constraint. Within some fairly loose boundaries your character can do pretty much whatever you can convince the GM your character is able to do. I've GM'd numerous MtG games. It can be great fun, but pretty much the entire burden of balance is on the GM, you have to juggle personalities at the table well and if the players are not both already friends and tolerant about it there will be problems.

Sounds like you get some big reasons why I hate it in practice.

"Can I do x?" - not, "no, that doesn't make sense for your character / the rules / reality", but "no, that isn't balanced with your contribution so far this session"; "no, that doesn't fit the story I designed"; or "no, I don't see <magic> working that way (said to me attempting a rote straight out of the book)".

I hated the social aspect of fighting the storyteller to make things work. Give me "Rules as Trump" any day.

Quertus

2019-10-23, 07:38 AM

D&D presents itself as a game where simply choosing race/class and basic archery feat & gear will provide a useful character focused at ranged combat. However, as this is not the outcome, people are rightly upset about balance issues.

As well they should be. If you play the game as intended, Fighters in general, and archers in particular are rather OP.

The problem is, nobody plays the game as intended.

So basically you are saying "if your table does not enshrine system mastery, D&D is not a game for you".

Close.

D&D is like a restaurant that serves pepperoni pizza, hot fudge sundaes… and [tacos, pizzas, ice cream] with toppings [hot fudge, pepperoni, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, nuts]. If you will not eat what is offered pre-built, and lack the food mastery to choose your own toppings wisely, then I agree that it is probably not for you.

Morty

2019-10-23, 07:49 AM

D&D is like a restaurant that serves pepperoni pizza, hot fudge sundaes… and [tacos, pizzas, ice cream] with toppings [hot fudge, pepperoni, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, nuts]. If you will not eat what is offered pre-built, and lack the food mastery to choose your own toppings wisely, then I agree that it is probably not for you.

Or you can go to a restaurant that has both a variety of food types and a safe way to combine them. You just generally refuse to acknowledge existence of any such places.

Lorsa

2019-10-23, 08:00 AM

As well they should be. If you play the game as intended, Fighters in general, and archers in particular are rather OP.

The problem is, nobody plays the game as intended.

How, actually, IS the game intended to be played? And also, how steep is the slope on either side of intended play? That is, how quickly, or how badly, does the game break down if you move away from intended play?

While it is a rather different discussion, I would argue that a good system has a rather broad scope of intended play. D&D tries to sell itself as being the "broadest and most general game of fantasy RPG there is", but is it really? Or is it only truly functional within a small scope of play?

ezekielraiden

2019-10-23, 08:03 AM

3e did so, by labeling itself "D&D". Why do you think so many people complain that 4e isn't D&D? It's because that means something.
Why do you think so many people (myself included) loved D&D and get really angry when people tell us "get the f**k off our lawn!!"? Because "labelling itself D&D" is not a clearly articulated goal. It just flat isn't. It's squishy, nebulous, and has meant radically different things in different places at the same time (e.g. as soon as "OD&D" got played by people without any direct connection to the Geneva groups educationally descended from Gygax's or Arneson's groups) as well as in the same place at different times (e.g. the different WotC editions).

"D&D" is, always has been, and always will be far too nebulous and undefined to be a goal. It's a brand, a name, a label. You've put the cart before the horse: slapping the D&D label on something doesn't mean it suddenly is a thing, any more than calling a bird a "bluejay" makes it belong to a certain taxonomic lineage. It is, in fact, the other way around; anything the owners of the rights to D&D label "D&D" is D&D. You can certainly say it doesn't match your expectations of D&D; you can say that it's too different from what you have previously known D&D to be; but you can't say it's "not D&D" because the people who have the legal right to call things "D&D" have done so.

(Note that "label" here is used in the naming sense, not any other sense. "D&D" is a name. "Game" is not, nor is "puzzle" and a few other terms. Likewise, "bluejay" or "laurel tree" is a name, applicable whether or not a given entity has any relation to other things called "jays" or "laurels," whereas "tree" alone is not a name, it really is defined in terms of the presence of specific features. "D&D" is not defined in terms of specific features; it is defined by what things the label has been applied to, hence, a name no different from "Alice" or "Nwabudike." See also the following distinctions: type/token, map/territory, sense/reference, and use/mention.)

So 3e chose a goal: D&D. And they met that goal. You may not like that goal, you may not understand that goal, but "bandaids Cleric, artillery Wizard, balanced through level 6" that people talk about, and the devs tested for? That's D&D. The results of using 3e for any purpose other than "D&D" are undefined.
Again, those aren't goals, but I fear going any further will be a waste of time.

So… my stance is that 3e is balanced, because characters can be built to be balanced in any play style, and your stance is that 3e is balanced, because if you play the way the developers intended and designed the game to be played, it's balanced?
Nope! I'm saying it's not balanced, because a balanced game has harmony between playing it intelligently and playing it as intended. In the ideal (and, again, impossible but still worthy of seeking) balanced game, there would be zero difference between the intended play-experience and the most intelligently-used play experience. Anyone seeking an advantaged position would naturally choose to behave in keeping with the designers' intent. Another way of saying this is that a "perfectly balanced, perfectly well-designed" game cannot even in principle produce perverse incentives, because (again because of the perfection) every single incentive would without fail fall in line with the goals of play.

To doubly reiterate: Truly perfect design is impossible, like how finding "the set of all prime numbers" is impossible, but neither impossibility prevents us from seeking after them in some fashion despite knowing we will fall short. So, in an imperfectly designed game, there may still be perverse incentives, there may still be areas where intelligently leveraging your resources diverges from the designers' intended play experience, but one pursues the best design one can in order to minimize these problems.

3rd edition D&D does not do that. Playing it intelligently is, in fact, almost completely orthogonal to its intended play experience. And that is (one reason) why it is a badly designed game. There is enormous divergence between playing "smart" and playing "correctly," and the problems are sufficiently egregious that it is fair to fault the designers for not anticipating them to any meaningful degree.

OK. But is the game "balanced" at that point, or does the Ranger play the game while the rest of the party cannot (or, in the case of 4e skill challenges, should not) participate?
The game remains balanced (again, accepting that balance is a reasonable range, rather than a single nailed-down point). Skill challenges cannot be completed by a single person, by definition, and are best handled by allowing cooperation and collaborative thinking between the members of the party. A Skill Challenge is 4e's imperfect, but workable, attempt to formalize group-participation events based on skill rolls. 4e characters always have at least 3, and usually more, trained skills, so it's usually possible to make at least one round of a Skill Challenge workable for nearly all characters to have SOME way to contribute. One example given in the books for 4e's Skill Challenges is a chase scene through crowded streets. Obviously, Athletics and Acrobatics are good skills to have for a chase...but there are entirely valid interpretations for several others. Diplomacy could persuade the police to block off an exit down the road, denying the enemy an escape route. Streetwise (the skill for learning the lay of the land socially and navigating social dangers, more or less, as opposed to getting people to agree with you) could be used to direct the group toward a shortcut. Endurance could let you run at maximum speed longer than is reasonable to try to tire your opponent out. Etc. Utility powers can also apply here: for example, I got LOTS of good use out of the Paladin Utility power One Heart, One Mind--it gives the group telepathic contact within 100 feet, and makes Aid Another rolls give a bigger bonus when they succeed. (I also got a lot of use out of another Paladin utility: Astral Speech. Major bonus to Diplo rolls for an encounter. Won over a lot of potential/actual allies with that one.)

So....yeah. The Skill Challenge framework can be applied to essentially any task that is more than a couple of skill rolls, that it would be reasonable for the party to collectively contribute to: negotiations, disrupting an evil ritual, rebuilding a damaged structure, disarming an abandoned temple boobytrap. For some (AWESOME) examples of games I've been in: saving an ancient weapons-testing facility from aquatic kaiju attack, and stealing mind-crystals from a giant psi-wasp world-hive (and getting out with our skins intact). Any task that would fall to just a single member is supposed to be resolved with no more than two or three skill rolls. The books are very clear that making people roll over and over again to cement success is bad, bad, bad, and that while spotlight time is good, it's not good to let (nor force) one person to do all the work for sustained periods.

When it comes to tools having "intended uses", I'm generally on the side of innovation and creativity. I once fixed my rearview mirror - which came loose while I was driving on the interstate - with chewing gum.
So am I. This is why I have mentioned previously (though you may have forgotten) "extensible framework rules." Skill Challenges are an example of an extensible framework rule: they establish a flexible structure, which can be adapted to an enormous variety of situations in a consistent way, enabling creative applications of one's resources. As another example, while trying to track down a mysterious signal, our group found a hidden fleet of ships (it was a sci-fantasy game), and I wanted to apply my character's (well-documented) knowledge of both land and space warfare/tactics to examine the fleet and how it was comported. The DM had me roll a History roll--both because battle-tactics is very much concerned with the study of historical battles, and because my character's experience is literally from thousands of years in the past (so what he personally lived through is epic myth history for people in the present day). And, because I got a good result, I learned something that radically changed our perspective on a problem--and revealed that we had been duped into helping the wrong people. It was an epic moment that felt good, purely because both the DM and I were willing to think creatively about both the Skill Challenge framework, and the individual skills and powers applied to it.

I play Clerics of war gods as not just walking boxes of bandaids. I don't accuse people playing 3e for what it is rather than just what it was designed to be of having BadWrongFun.
It's not BadWrongFun, not strictly anyway. The three problems are what I've already said: First, that the game specifically and repeatedly sells itself as doing one thing (offering balanced options, for example) while abjectly failing to do so. Second, that attempting to make it into a game that delivers on the described experience is extremely difficult, partially because almost all of its internal tools (like CR and LA) don't work. Third, the game unfairly penalizes anyone who doesn't want to be a spellcaster, making it far, far more difficult (not impossible, just difficult) to achieve what you want, while spellcasters are lavished with enormous and often fundamentally broken rewards up to and including spells like wish.

So, I guess I have to go with, "if it works…” and "you do you", rather than strict casting of purpose.
So there is never, even in principle, any room for argument whatsoever that eating soup with a swiss army knife is unwise? Even though the people eating it complain about how poorly the knife holds the soup, how hard it is to pull vegetables out, how it takes so long to eat that the soup gets cold, and how they literally cannot even get the noodles at all, etc. As long as they believe their overall experience is positive, it's completely inappropriate and even logically invalid for us to say, "Hey, maybe instead of eating soup with a swiss army knife, you could try eating it with a spoon"?

So, you are selectively for and against designing to goals, selectively for and against just using tools their intended way for their intended purpose?
No. I'm for things that are actually goals, as in ones that can have identifiable design objectives, rather than these "goals" that are little more than label-having (as easy as...applying the label) or presentation-having (which has nothing to do with the mechanics themselves, strictly speaking, and everything to do with writing and art--neither of which lies within the spectrum of "balance" in any meaningful sense.)

Like, a goal is (for example) "make support-focused play entertaining." That's a real goal. "Have wizards" is not a real goal, because...just call things "wizards" and you have wizards. No one can say you don't have wizards if you call literally any component "wizard." People can say that you poorly implemented wizards, or that your method is excessively different from prior games' methods, but it would be completely and utterly false to say that there aren't wizards at all. Badly made wizards are not, and cannot be, not wizards, because "wizard" is an abstract label.

I'm also more than a little annoyed at your characterization here, since I've been so clear about statistical things, mathematically-testable, etc. "D&D" isn't and cannot be mathematically testable, any more than (say) "drama" is mathematically testable.

So, y'know what? Fine. I'll concede--that I was not specific enough about "goals." Literally every place I have said "goals," I specifically mean game design goals. I had thought that was understood, since we're talking about balance (something that is only meaningful in the context of design), I have repeatedly and specifically spoken about the mathematical nature of these things, and you yourself have even engaged with me about it (such as the Skill Challenge discussion above). So, fine, you win that. I'm talking pure design. Not aesthetics. Not writing. Not art. Not labelling. Not anything outside of the design of the game, the stuff that admits, to any meaningful degree, mathematical testing.

3e was designed to be D&D, was designed to play like 2e, and, if you play it like 2e, it works great.

So, which side are you on?
It was not designed to play like 2e. It was designed assuming that the only way anyone would ever choose to play is "like 2e." Those two are worlds apart.

The first means intelligent play naturally produces the play-experience commonly found in 2e, even if the mechanics wildly differ. Dungeon World (an excellent game that you can read the rules for online!) was specifically designed, using the Powered by the Apocalypse engine, to replicate as much of the designers' fond memories of how they played early D&D (I believe 1st edition but I could be mistaken). Literally none of the actual rules correspond identically to any edition of D&D. At very very high abstraction--aka at the level of labels, as discussed above--it has all the trappings: Wizards and Fighters and Clerics-in-armor, HP, stats that range from 3 to 18, stat "modifiers," the works. Except that spells are nothing like Vancian casting (there are only cantrips--"rotes"--and odd-level spells, and casting a spell doesn't have to make you forget it), healing is nothing like it, armor is a positive value (and acts as damage reduction, not attack-avoidance), Fighters get a built-in magic weapon, it has a unified mechanic that isn't d20 (2d6, plus relevant mods)...literally nothing about the mechanics, anything that could be a design goal, etc.

Because, me? I love that you can make 3e work even when you don't play it as the designers intended.
A claim I completely disagree with. You cannot make 3e work. Period. See: CR, LA, hell even WBL and the like. The game's tools simply fail to do what they claim to do. You can, however, enjoy how badly it doesn't work. Because sometimes, broken things are fun. Sometimes they hurt. Sorta depends on what you're looking for. Because "functional" and "playable" are two completely different qualifications--literally anything even vaguely meriting the status of "a game" is playable. (I will admit, however, that you can cut things off--aka E6 etc.--at a point where the explosion has only just started. That helps to some extent, but it still doesn't fix flaws like the uselessness of CR or LA.)

My goal was to make something to make a nice hot cup of tea.
Which gives us objectives: water needs to reach some temperature range (the ideal depends on different people, but usually "boiling" is a good target, since water at a given pressure always boils at the same temperature), there needs to be tea present at least when you're using it, and the tea needs to remain in the hot water long enough to release its flavor. Probably, though this is technically me making assumptions, you also prefer not having leaves at the bottom of the cup after steeping, so some mechanism to retain the leaves or prevent them from passing into the cup is necessary. Also, I'd assume you want more than 1 mL of tea, so a certain volume is necessary, and a cup that reasonably resists the temperature loss of the tea once poured is probably also a good idea.

This is what I mean when I say goals produce objectives: they give us things we can measure, and thus things we can guess at and then, after testing, make informed changes to. I, personally? Am not much of a tea fan. I've liked some red tea, but most tea I've drunk is too astringent for my taste. (Sweetened with perhaps excessive honey and with a bit of cream, it can be okay, but that seems extravagant to me--but, to be fair, I don't much like coffee either.)

If I made a tea kettle, or a coffee pot, or a Keurig thingy, they could all brew a cup of (sometimes very) hot tea. Or make coffee. And most could make hot chocolate or hot water.
Sure. Engineering is focused on at least one goal, but sometimes it can be focused on more than one.

But if I made a matter replicator, I could not just ask for "Earl grey, hot", but any other food (or any other anything) it's been programmed with.

Maybe people really will remember the matter replicator for hot tea. But me? I actively appreciate and admire the variety.
You may also have noted the fact that replicators don't really exist--and, more importantly, that they can only create what they have been programmed to create. Meaning, someone had to go to the painstaking effort of programming in the "plan" of an object, and then testing to make sure that the programmed plan actually produced the right object. In other words, they had to set goals (for things like eater response), and then test them, and if necessary make modifications to get the right result. The replicator doesn't just invent dishes out of thin air; it's pre-programmed with an enormous set of different selectable rules that all had to be--get this--BALANCED for some set of diner or imbiber preferences.

I've switched to talking about this as "culture" and "D&D"; you now seem to be focusing on this as "intended purpose" or "goal-choosing".

Now do you know what I meant here?
"Culture" and "D&D" cannot be designed. They contain design, but they are over, above, and beyond it. And, as I said? "D&D" is anything the people who own D&D says it is. OD&D is D&D. 1e D&D is D&D. 2e, 3e, 3.5e, 4e, and 5e are all D&D. Because the people who owned D&D at the time of the creation of those things? They said it was D&D. So it is.

JK Rowling makes almost drive-by addenda to her Harry Potter universe, sometimes seemingly on a whim. It's happened enough to become a joke meme (one of my favorites, which I sadly cannot find now, boiled down to a faked JKR tweet saying something like, "Finally, I can tell my parents they're gay.") Thing is...that's her right. She owns "Harry Potter," the media sensation. She has every right to add, subtract, or modify anything she wants, and that's what the franchise becomes. People can dislike it all they want, they can protest, they can doggedly stick to a fanon that rejects any or even all of her stuff. Doesn't matter. "Harry Potter" remains her creation.

Stuff in the public domain? It remains what the original creator made; you're free to make your own spin, and I think it's extremely good for our culture that the public domain exists, but you cannot add a story where Sherlock Holmes has a sister and say that he definitely always has a sister. You can just say that in your interpretation of Holmes, he has a sister. And maybe that spawns its own media subset--that would be great! The Rapunzel film--Tangled--demonstrates a good example. Flynn Rider is their unique creation, part of their derivative but fully owned work based on a public domain story; likewise for any other unique elements (such as giving a real plot to the witch, rather than a pure fairytale handwavium explanation).

Replace "UBI" with "goal". See if it makes sense to you now.

If we have a goal, we can measure characters in accordance with that goal.

I'm saying there is little point to measuring against that goal, because players won't follow it. Case in point: 3e.
And if you make it so that intelligent play does follow it? So that applying real cunning and careful resource management naturally produces that? What then?

Ah. No. Um… "they balanced it under 2e playstyle" and "they assumed sufficient genre savvy / sufficient system mastery that people would take Monk rather than Fighter specialized in fists, not give Wizards whirlwind attack, etc". (And "provided sample characters for use by those without that level of genre savvy / system mastery").
See above for my response to the first bit. The second is, simply, a straight-up error. They were wrong. They did not actually examine what a really ruthless optimizer would do with their system. It turns out that ruthless optimization (which you should always assume; if there's a degenerate strategy, it is ALWAYS true that at least some players will use it, even if just to see if it works) produces not only wildly unbalanced play, but actively punishes specific archetype choices in favor of boosting others. I know we already discussed, and I conceded, that it's pretty much impossible to prevent an infinitely savvy player, with an infinitely permissive DM and zero respect for consistency or logic, from achieving literally any goal whatsoever, consequences be damned. But outside of that, and with an eye to how it's actually played? Your exact statements about what you play reflect the problem. You don't play "mundanes." Why? Why would you not want to? Is it only and exclusively because you like the fantasy of using magic so much that, no matter how effective or ineffective it was, you would never consider using anything else? Or is it, perhaps, because you recognize that while no goal is impossible in the abstract, in practice, that statement is mostly/I] only true about spellcasting-focused classes?

For valuing games where it's the system that matters, your own positions stated are pretty strange too. As in, stuff where your build matters little, and the system is where it's at? Still admits balance questions. Because the system design can still admit stupid exploits like infinite gold generation, which I strongly suspect is not a player behavior you'd want to encourage. See, frex, 10 ft ladders cost 5 cp, two 10 ft poles cost 4 sp; buy and strip ladders for a net profit of (4-.5) = 3.5, getting 7 times your input purely by [I]removing unnecessary rungs. Even if you always sell goods at a 50% markdown, that's still multiplying your input currency by 3.5 every cycle, an insanely good exponential growth. A clear example of purely character-independent bad, unbalanced design; this causes all monetary problems to be completely defeatable as challenges, if you have a sufficiently permissive DM. That is, if ladders are always available for sale at a fixed price, and there are always people ready and willing to buy poles at a fixed price, then it is always possible to generate any desired quantity of currency one desires (up to a multiple of 35 cp, anyway).

Starting with a mere 10 gold, aka 200 ladders, you produce 400 10 ft poles, which are worth 400*2/2 = 400 sp, which is 40 gp. Your money has been multiplied by 4, and you can repeat this process indefinitely, so you have a total-money function (input and output in gp) of y = 10*4^x, meaning after a mere 14 repeats, you have over 2 billion gp and can purchase effectively every item available for purchase anywhere in existence. And totally independent of what character you choose to play! You can trivialize any encounter you like with a mere 10 gold, an infinitely permissive DM, and no qualms about the completely ludicrous task of buying almost 358 million ladders and selling twice as many poles.

Koo Rehtorb

2019-10-23, 08:43 AM

3e doesn't just try to be balanced, it succeeded. That people (including me) "play the game wrong" does not change that fact.

If you radically redefine the commonly used term "balance" then yes, 3e is "balanced". If I had to give a shot at defining how balance is defined in common gaming parlance I'd say something along the lines of "Every major choice in the game is roughly mechanically equal to every other major choice and it is hard/impossible for someone making a major choice to select something significantly more or less powerful than someone else making a major choice." You can quibble over what exactly constitutes a major choice, in the context of D&D I'd say it's picking a class, in the context of Starcraft I'd say it's picking a race.

You can take it further down too and say that the game becomes even more balanced if every, shall we call them minor choices, are also balanced against each other. In D&D 3e let's call them picking builds, I suppose (In Starcraft you'd also call them builds). I'd say that it isn't strictly necessary to also balance these to call the game itself balanced, this can get into a realm of player skill. How much player skill should matter is a matter of taste, and I think is a lot murkier of a question.

I don't think balance is inherently important in the context of an RPG either. But it becomes more important in the context of a game that's mostly about killing things and characters are measured in their ability to kill things. Burning Wheel (the best RPG ever made) doesn't particularly care about balance. Elves and dwarves are significantly more powerful than humans, a noble is significantly more powerful than a peasant, and so on. But balance doesn't matter as much because the game isn't about a group of people all contributing to kill things together.

kyoryu

2019-10-23, 09:12 AM

If you wanted to go all game-theory on it, you could say that "there are no dominated choices in the main choices available".

ezekielraiden

2019-10-23, 09:53 AM

I mean to more fully respond to your whole post here, but these two needed special, immediate attention because....yeah.

My contention (really, my experience turned into a potentially untrue generalization) was that 3e was fairly unique in the extent to which one could both make those characters, and allow them to exist at most any power level relative to the party.
No offense intended, though I would understand if you found this offensive: You have very limited experience with any system other than 3e D&D, yet you are arguing that 3e D&D is uniquely good at things. That's...kind of a ballsy claim, don't you think? That is, you're arguing that the only game for which you have comprehensive experience is uniquely good at something. Even if numerous people weren't telling you that in their experience it is uniquely bad at that thing, and that numerous other systems do that specific thing better, arguing "the one thing I know is uniquely amazing!" is a pretty suspicious claim. How can you know it's unique, if you have no experience with the alternatives?

Sounds like you get some big reasons why I hate it in practice.

"Can I do x?" <snip> "no, that isn't balanced with your contribution so far this session"
I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that this is what people who care about balance typically (or even ever...?) say. But I can say without equivocation that, over a gaming career spanning at least 20 years, I have never heard even a single person say that reply, whether they cared about balance or not. Because that's not how "balance" is done in...any meaningful sense, in any forum, campaign, or system I've ever participated.

Given how many people are either very confused or strongly in disagreement with you, perhaps your use of the word "balance" is rather different from...basically everyone else's? You keep referring to the "balance" of things like aesthetics and labels that...can't be balanced in any sense of the term I've ever heard. You refer to "balance" requiring "imbalance," balance being enforced as a "nope you had your turn with the gavel, you HAVE to give it up now" etc., none of which match up with what anyone else is talking about as far as I can tell.

If you wanted to go all game-theory on it, you could say that "there are no dominated choices in the main choices available".
Which, uh, I kind of did by saying that degenerate strategies are avoided, and that intelligent play causes the play-experience intended.

Morty

2019-10-23, 10:04 AM

If you radically redefine the commonly used term "balance" then yes, 3e is "balanced". If I had to give a shot at defining how balance is defined in common gaming parlance I'd say something along the lines of "Every major choice in the game is roughly mechanically equal to every other major choice and it is hard/impossible for someone making a major choice to select something significantly more or less powerful than someone else making a major choice." You can quibble over what exactly constitutes a major choice, in the context of D&D I'd say it's picking a class, in the context of Starcraft I'd say it's picking a race.

You can take it further down too and say that the game becomes even more balanced if every, shall we call them minor choices, are also balanced against each other. In D&D 3e let's call them picking builds, I suppose (In Starcraft you'd also call them builds). I'd say that it isn't strictly necessary to also balance these to call the game itself balanced, this can get into a realm of player skill. How much player skill should matter is a matter of taste, and I think is a lot murkier of a question.

I don't think balance is inherently important in the context of an RPG either. But it becomes more important in the context of a game that's mostly about killing things and characters are measured in their ability to kill things. Burning Wheel (the best RPG ever made) doesn't particularly care about balance. Elves and dwarves are significantly more powerful than humans, a noble is significantly more powerful than a peasant, and so on. But balance doesn't matter as much because the game isn't about a group of people all contributing to kill things together.

This is why I prefer to go with the "does what it says on the tin" definition, which I've brought up many times. It's similar, but more difficult for people to argue about in bad faith. D&D claims that if you're a fighter or ranger and specialize in archery, you'll be able to properly contribute this way. This isn't the case. And so on.

NichG

2019-10-23, 10:11 AM

So, y'know what? Fine. I'll concede--that I was not specific enough about "goals." Literally every place I have said "goals," I specifically mean game design goals. I had thought that was understood, since we're talking about balance (something that is only meaningful in the context of design), I have repeatedly and specifically spoken about the mathematical nature of these things, and you yourself have even engaged with me about it (such as the Skill Challenge discussion above). So, fine, you win that. I'm talking pure design. Not aesthetics. Not writing. Not art. Not labelling. Not anything outside of the design of the game, the stuff that admits, to any meaningful degree, mathematical testing.

Would you consider it to be incoherent to set as a game design goal the creation of a game which is intentionally and actively resistant to mathematical testing? A game designed, for example, to make any sort of zoomed out analysis or theory-crafting as hard as possible (or to disadvantage it as much as possible) compared to behaviors determined organically during play?

ezekielraiden

2019-10-23, 10:27 AM

Would you consider it to be incoherent to set as a game design goal the creation of a game which is intentionally and actively resistant to mathematical testing? A game designed, for example, to make any sort of zoomed out analysis or theory-crafting as hard as possible (or to disadvantage it as much as possible) compared to behaviors determined organically during play?

It...yes, but only because "not testable" is, technically, the end result of a (theoretically infinite) set of tests? That is, "non-non-testability" is testable; if you can produce any test, any metric whatsoever, you've proven it's non-non-testable. Essentially, because of the unique nature of "non-testability," it is the exact inverse of an actually (indeed, trivially) testable goal, "is this game testable in any way?" and therefore...I guess you could call it "shadow-testable."

This is identical to the difficulty of proving a universal negative (e.g. "for all things x, no x is a black swan" aka "there is no x that is a black swan"), because in some sense it is a universal negative, identical to the claim, "No tests exist that could apply to this object." That's a super strong claim, easily defeated by even a minor counter-example. In a sense, you're sort of looking for the game-design equivalent of a Weierstrass function (a function that is continuous on all open or closed intervals of the real line, but which is differentiable over exactly zero of those intervals)--something that has rules of some kind, but where the rules cannot even in principle be subject to any form of mathematical optimization or game-theoretic choice analysis. That's a very tall order, assuming you consider degenerate solutions unacceptable (e.g. the null game has no choices and therefore trivially no analysis can be done).

I would be very surprised if such a thing really did exist, a nontrivial completely non-testable game, that was still meaningfully "a game." It somewhat implies an aggressive randomness, like a lottery where none of your behaviors matter to the outcome, or an arbitrary and capricious game where running literally identical inputs in all ways can produce inconsistent outputs. That is, so-called "games" where changing strategy either has no effect, or has inconsistent effect, so there's no way to learn to "play better"--you just get whatever result you get, totally independent (or only capriciously dependent) on your choices/strategy.

Edit:
I just realized, you've made a distinction I reject. In the stuff I'm talking about, "behaviors determined organically through play" are not distinct from "theory-crafting." Both are valid inputs for studying a game--that's why playtesting is so incredibly vital, because it DOES give you "behaviors determined organically through play." I'm not sure if it's possible to make a game that's guaranteed impossible to analyze theoretically, but given the difficulty of analyzing things like Go, it's certainly possible to make games where pure analytic solutions (in the technical sense: "exact solutions" is how this is usually phrased in physics) are entirely unfeasable in the generic, and experience is required to really "understand" the game. (Hence why AlphaGo and the like can beat humans: a computer can, in effect, reference "all games humans have ever played" as its experience pool, and encode the data from that experience-set as a large cluster of neural network nodes, to produce with high probability the likely best move for a given input.)

But real game design incorporates those practical elements as well as theoretical ones. Playtesting and actually good survey design are so vital for exactly that reason. Badly-designed surveys tell you only what you want to hear, or don't tell you anything at all; bad playtesting does the same, concealing flaws rather than revealing them.

NichG

2019-10-23, 10:46 AM

It...yes, but only because "not testable" is, technically, the end result of a (theoretically infinite) set of tests? That is, "non-non-testability" is testable; if you can produce any test, any metric whatsoever, you've proven it's non-non-testable. Essentially, because of the unique nature of "non-testability," it is the exact inverse of an actually (indeed, trivially) testable goal, "is this game testable in any way?" and therefore...I guess you could call it "shadow-testable."

This is identical to the difficulty of proving a universal negative (e.g. "black swans do not exist"), because in some sense it is a universal negative, identical to the claim, "No tests exist that could apply to this object." That's a super strong claim, easily defeated by even a minor counter-example. In a sense, you're sort of looking for the game-design equivalent of a Weierstrass function (a function that is continuous on all open or closed intervals of the real line, but which is differentiable over exactly zero of those intervals)--something that has rules of some kind, but where the rules cannot even in principle be subject to any form of mathematical optimization or game-theoretic choice analysis. That's a very tall order, assuming you consider degenerate solutions unacceptable (e.g. the null game has no choices and therefore trivially no analysis can be done).

Well I did say 'resistant to testing' rather than impossible... But anyhow, I don't think you need to get nearly that exotic. It's already been mentioned in this thread (by Cluedrew I think?) that one big principle of designing balanced sets of abilities is that you try to make the abilities work in such a way that they're not comparable to each-other in a vacuum. Is it better to gain the ability to jump in a knight's move, or to be able to read the childhood memories of anyone you defeat in any sort of contest? The answer is context dependent, playstyle dependent, etc. Since the playout - in practice - will depend on random variables associated with individual players, scenarios, etc, then any attempt to do a mathematical analysis in a vacuum will have to assume distributions for those things at best, while any given situation, player, or table will have a specific value for those variables.

Edit: Noticed that you expanded the post while I was replying, so this response may be a bit stale. I'll wait for a response before extending so we don't just go back and forth with edits.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-23, 12:06 PM

Well I did say 'resistant to testing' rather than impossible... But anyhow, I don't think you need to get nearly that exotic. It's already been mentioned in this thread (by Cluedrew I think?) that one big principle of designing balanced sets of abilities is that you try to make the abilities work in such a way that they're not comparable to each-other in a vacuum. Is it better to gain the ability to jump in a knight's move, or to be able to read the childhood memories of anyone you defeat in any sort of contest? The answer is context dependent, playstyle dependent, etc. Since the playout - in practice - will depend on random variables associated with individual players, scenarios, etc, then any attempt to do a mathematical analysis in a vacuum will have to assume distributions for those things at best, while any given situation, player, or table will have a specific value for those variables.

Edit: Noticed that you expanded the post while I was replying, so this response may be a bit stale. I'll wait for a response before extending so we don't just go back and forth with edits.
There is a lot of value in making things that are...hm. How to phrase it? Something like "incommensurable but of equal import," I guess? They are "of equal value" in a certain sense, in that you expend the same amount of resources on either. But they are "not of equal value" in that that abstract cost doesn't strictly define their relevance in every application. As an example, and not using 4e since I think I may have overused that thus far, consider the Dungeon World Paladin vs. Fighter. The Fighter gets Bend Bars, Lift Gates and Signature Weapon as its primary Starting Moves. Bend Bars, Lift Gates is for non-combat things, reflecting the Fighter's mighty thews and ability to break through barriers, prisons, and obstacles; Signature Weapon is, as I think the name implies, is primarily for combat stuff, giving you a fancy weapon with extra features. By comparison, the Paladin gets Quest, Lay on Hands, and I Am the Law. Quest lets the paladin set a quest for themselves (like "free X from the iniquities that beset them" or "slay X, a great blight on the land), picking two personal boons from a list (like "invulnerability to edged weapons" or "senses that pierce lies") and then receive from the DM one or more Vows (like "you can't lie" or "comfort those in need, no matter who they are"). Lay on Hands is a potentially self-sacrificial heal. I Am the Law lets you influence others, either obeying you, fleeing, or attacking you (but if you mess up, you're at a disadvantage against them).

These things cannot be strictly compared, because they don't all interface with the same stuff. However, one can see fairly well how they do fit into a sort of higher-order categorization: IAtL is for preventing combat or influencing others, Quest has a few defined uses, both combat- and non-combat-related, BBLG is primarily for exploration-related things, etc. IATL is more narrow in scope than BBLG, while Quest is broader, etc. We can see how there's some reasonable balance between these options, particularly since Signature Weapon is a very meaty feature, and combat is a common (and pretty dangerous) occurrence in Dungeon World. Are they balanced in every possible sense, all the time, always? No. Dungeon World isn't about that kind of balance. Instead, it's about balancing contribution to the advancing story. And all of these moves do that, to an extent that it fits a reasonable pattern. Paladins have moves that may be more powerful or versatile, but are likely to come with greater costs or commitments. Likewise, Fighters are more straightforward, but also freer. (This also doesn't take into account several Fighter moves that add versatility--such as tapping into the spirits tied to your Signature Weapon or literally being able to predict who/what WILL live and WILL die in any given scenario. Fighter has some very cool moves in DW.)

So...I guess what I'd say is, a good game is one where totally abstract reasoning about it doesn't necessarily tell you much. That is, it can do things like telling you that a certain feature or option is niche vs. common, it can tell you which things are risky vs. safe, it can reveal combinations that one wouldn't necessarily have considered (like the 4e barbarian/monk I mentioned before that can rocket-punch). But none of those statements cashes out to an absolute, unyielding, universal value. And that's what good optimization guides recognize, that context really does matter. Neither context nor abstraction matter unequivocally. A balanced game is one where there are multiple choices, and all of those choices both (a) have meaningful, non-obscure contexts in which they're relevant, and (b) good abstracted benefits that make them applicable even if you cannot know the context they'll be used in.

To use a radically different example, Fate is a game where context is always part of the design, and thus abstraction takes on a rather...different form. Because Aspects get created through DM/player interaction, the abstract analysis of Fate focuses on the characteristics a "good" Aspect has, and on teaching both players and DMs how to quickly and dynamically create/modify the available Aspects (both personal ones and environmental/situational ones) so that they aren't universal "I win" buttons, nor crazy-restrictive "I can compel this aspect on prime-numbered days if the moon is full and at least one player has a birthday this month" type stuff. Which is why I said Fate is so different from the other games I've mentioned, by balancing things to a radically different metric.

Good design balances these competing demands, between abstract universals (which is, technically, what the rules themselves are; all game rules are abstractions until someone chooses to play them) and practical effect (player experience). Good design doesn't get solved like an equation, but rather in an iterative, genetic-algorithm kind of way. Equally importantly, though, by having this iterative design process, you can communicate to your players, "This is what we think is important, and this is what we have provided to you to address those things." If the players wish to go beyond those rules, awesome, no problem. But the designer's job is to get the, well, design done. Stuff going above and beyond design is not the designer's concern, and often shouldn't be.

NichG

2019-10-23, 12:41 PM

There is a lot of value in making things that are...hm. How to phrase it? Something like "incommensurable but of equal import," I guess? They are "of equal value" in a certain sense, in that you expend the same amount of resources on either. But they are "not of equal value" in that that abstract cost doesn't strictly define their relevance in every application. As an example, and not using 4e since I think I may have overused that thus far, consider the Dungeon World Paladin vs. Fighter. The Fighter gets Bend Bars, Lift Gates and Signature Weapon as its primary Starting Moves. Bend Bars, Lift Gates is for non-combat things, reflecting the Fighter's mighty thews and ability to break through barriers, prisons, and obstacles; Signature Weapon is, as I think the name implies, is primarily for combat stuff, giving you a fancy weapon with extra features. By comparison, the Paladin gets Quest, Lay on Hands, and I Am the Law. Quest lets the paladin set a quest for themselves (like "free X from the iniquities that beset them" or "slay X, a great blight on the land), picking two personal boons from a list (like "invulnerability to edged weapons" or "senses that pierce lies") and then receive from the DM one or more Vows (like "you can't lie" or "comfort those in need, no matter who they are"). Lay on Hands is a potentially self-sacrificial heal. I Am the Law lets you influence others, either obeying you, fleeing, or attacking you (but if you mess up, you're at a disadvantage against them).

These things cannot be strictly compared, because they don't all interface with the same stuff. However, one can see fairly well how they do fit into a sort of higher-order categorization: IAtL is for preventing combat or influencing others, Quest has a few defined uses, both combat- and non-combat-related, BBLG is primarily for exploration-related things, etc. IATL is more narrow in scope than BBLG, while Quest is broader, etc. We can see how there's some reasonable balance between these options, particularly since Signature Weapon is a very meaty feature, and combat is a common (and pretty dangerous) occurrence in Dungeon World. Are they balanced in every possible sense, all the time, always? No. Dungeon World isn't about that kind of balance. Instead, it's about balancing contribution to the advancing story. And all of these moves do that, to an extent that it fits a reasonable pattern. Paladins have moves that may be more powerful or versatile, but are likely to come with greater costs or commitments. Likewise, Fighters are more straightforward, but also freer. (This also doesn't take into account several Fighter moves that add versatility--such as tapping into the spirits tied to your Signature Weapon or literally being able to predict who/what WILL live and WILL die in any given scenario. Fighter has some very cool moves in DW.)

These are good examples.

Since you brought up AlphaGo in the previous post, I think it gives a concrete example of one kind of context appropriateness that's hard to model in advance, even in a very mechanical game.

AlphaGo uses early 3-3 invasions compared to what was considered best practice for professional play, and can quantify the expected advantage. So, players started to try it. For pros, some found ways to work it into their style successfully. For amateurs, playing the theoretically more optimal move discovered by AlphaGo generally made their play worse. So since this is Go, it led to a proverb - AlphaGo's moves are only good if you are as good a player as AlphaGo.

A more prosaic example is that starting an early fight is a stronger strategy if your personal reading skills are good enough, but building solid shape and making territorial exchanges for points is better than starting a fight you can't win if you can't read as well as your opponent (of course you need good positional judgement).

So even though Go is of a family of game that has a specific 'perfect play', Go strategies as implemented by humans or even AIs don't have a strict ranking, and can even have RPS like cycles of A beats B beats C beats A.

Quizatzhaderac

2019-10-23, 04:40 PM

Because, me? I love that you can make 3e work even when you don't play it as the designers intended.To me, that seems like saying that all Turing complete languages can complete the same tasks. Yes, but the obvious question is how difficult it is. If you like programming challenges creating a spreadsheet with OpenGL or creating a ASCII graphics engine with excel can be fun, but you should expect a few people to look at you like your crazy.

I would claim that it's possible to achieve a game to you and your friend's preferences much better than D&D 3.x (after controlling for your sunk time learning the system) by following Ezekielraiden's design methodology. One would picks different aesthetics , set tangible goals that exemplify those aesthetics, learn from past mistakes, and systemically test.

My goal was to make something to make a nice hot cup of tea.

If I made a tea kettle, or a coffee pot, or a Keurig thingy, they could all brew a cup of (sometimes very) hot tea. Or make coffee. And most could make hot chocolate or hot water.

But if I made a matter replicator, I could not just ask for "Earl grey, hot", but any other food (or any other anything) it's been programmed with.

Maybe people really will remember the matter replicator for hot tea. But me? I actively appreciate and admire the variety.Actually, that metaphor can do a lot more work.
He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. The way it functioned was very interesting. When the Drink button was pressed it made an instant but highly detailed examination of the subject’s taste buds, a spectroscopic analysis of the subject’s metabolism and then sent tiny experimental signals down the neural pathways to the taste centers of the subject’s brain to see what was likely to go down well. However, no one knew quite why it did this because it invariable delivered a cupful of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. The Nutri-Matic was designed and manufactured by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation whose complaint department now covers all the major landmasses of the first three planets in the Sirius Tau Star system.
Would you consider it to be incoherent to set as a game design goal the creation of a game which is intentionally and actively resistant to mathematical testing? A game designed, for example, to make any sort of zoomed out analysis or theory-crafting as hard as possible (or to disadvantage it as much as possible) compared to behaviors determined organically during play?I think that's somewhat confusing what "testing" means.

For examples, let's look at two simple games: tic-tack-toe and rock-paper-scissors.

tic-tack-toe is solved, which is to say that I can literally never be beaten or surprised when playing it.

rock-paper-scissors is proven unsolvable, which is to say that any strategy is always inferior to another strategy. But if we are developing a rock-paper-scissors like game we can still test that it meets certain goals. If we saw that rock always wins, we'd know we failed to reach one of our goals. We could also give a skilled minmaxer our ruleset, some time to analyze the game with spreadsheets, and test how strong that person's advantage is.

NichG

2019-10-23, 07:52 PM

To me, that seems like saying that all Turing complete languages can complete the same tasks. Yes, but the obvious question is how difficult it is. If you like programming challenges creating a spreadsheet with OpenGL or creating a ASCII graphics engine with excel can be fun, but you should expect a few people to look at you like your crazy.

I would claim that it's possible to achieve a game to you and your friend's preferences much better than D&D 3.x (after controlling for your sunk time learning the system) by following Ezekielraiden's design methodology. One would picks different aesthetics , set tangible goals that exemplify those aesthetics, learn from past mistakes, and systemically test.

Actually, that metaphor can do a lot more work. I think that's somewhat confusing what "testing" means.

For examples, let's look at two simple games: tic-tack-toe and rock-paper-scissors.

tic-tack-toe is solved, which is to say that I can literally never be beaten or surprised when playing it.

rock-paper-scissors is proven unsolvable, which is to say that any strategy is always inferior to another strategy. But if we are developing a rock-paper-scissors like game we can still test that it meets certain goals. If we saw that rock always wins, we'd know we failed to reach one of our goals. We could also give a skilled minmaxer our ruleset, some time to analyze the game with spreadsheets, and test how strong that person's advantage is.

I'm trying to point out how framing design a certain way can create blind spots or things which, while they can be important to the experience of play, become harder to express in that paradigm.

If we take RPS for example, specifying that the intended win rate of rock, paper, and scissors should each be 1/3 and targeting that doesn't quite capture what makes RPS have the properties it does. A version of RPS where you achieve that through the statistics of dice rolls for example would just force all play to be equivalent to the random play fixed point. But RPS dynamics in, say, an evolutionary system can give rise to things like oscillations, spatial waves, etc which not all games with options with equal win rates will produce. In fact, the actual win rates of R,P,S will depend not only on the rules, but on the learning algorithm used by the players. It may be that, between two particular players, for some extended period of time, rock wins 70% of the time.

By specifying that the game should have no evolutionarily stable strategy or Nash equilibrium, we can get closer to it. But notice that has the format of the sort of adversarially designed approach I asked about: given that we can understand how games will be played by computing their Nash equilibria, let's intentionally find a game for which that method fails (in order to see the limits of an approach built on targeting Nash equilibria). You can often find the blind spots of a method by searching for something where the method fails but the thing can still be understood as nontrivial and nondegenerate.

There's analogies to this in computer vision and AI. One thing people might want is to produce realistic images. So the first thing people tried was to specify mathematical functions to capture what makes an image realistic and then optimize. But it turns out that it's pretty hard to specify that by hand. So then came along the idea of specifying it by asking the image to fool the best discriminator of real vs fake images you can discover, and making that discriminator based on your current best generator. Which can work, or can fail in all sorts of ways.

Interestingly to the subject of blind spots, a large portion of the field objected to the method on the basis that the dynamics don't do what the mathematical theory underpinning the method claimed. It designed the approach on the basis that the Nash equilibrium between the generator and discriminator is uniquely when the distribution of generated images is identical to the distribution of natural images. But that doesn't actually happen because there's no guarantee that the dynamics go to equilibrium. So is the method bad because it fails the quantifiable part of its design? Well, despite that it can still generate photorealistic images. Which suggests that the explicitly quantified part of the method isn't actually capturing the essential things about generating realistic images. But because a portion of the field wants to discuss things in a certain mathematical framework, there's tension over the validity of the technique.

To bring this back to point, there's been a lot of circularity in the discussion. I think this is at least in part caused by the mathematical testing and targeting framework being ill suited to capture some of the things that e.g. Quertus or I might want to design a game for. I'm pushing back against the idea that the difficulty of capturing these things mathematically makes them not be valid game design goals.

For example 'I want it to be difficult to predict what playing the game will be like until you actually sit down and play'

ezekielraiden

2019-10-23, 10:01 PM

For example 'I want it to be difficult to predict what playing the game will be like until you actually sit down and play'
How do you check to see if you've accomplished that?

Perhaps a better question: Does D&D have something actually equivalent to "only do X if you're a really good player; do Y because you'll win more if you aren't as good of a player yet"? Because...that's got some big holes I could shoot at for the analogy. Like how it's competitive and D&D isn't, in fact D&D is cooperative, or how D&D is open-ended and non-zero-sum whereas Go is zero-sum.

I certainly grant that some players will struggle with some options. Conjurer Wizards in 3.5e are crazy powerful...and extremely slow except in well-prepared hands. That doesn't require in-play experience to see, since running a summoned creature *and* your character should, rationally, take more time than just running your character. Similarly, spells like illusions and suggestion depend on how receptive the DM is to creative uses. Again, this requires no direct experience to understand. I've never cast an illusion or suggestion spell myself, ever, in any 3rd edition (or spinoff) game, yet I can see at a glance how illusions will depend on the DM "playing along," like how some strategy game AI is designed to experience (or fail to experience) limited knowledge about player choices.

Edit: When I talk about things like statistical measures (center, spread, skew, etc.), I'm usually referring to things like "does the rate/distribution of successfully-landed attacks match what we want for a fun but not trivial experience?" (4e goes for a ~65%-70% success rate on "normal" challenges: more than slighly lower and it starts to feel like you fail too often at what you're "good at," much higher and you make failure too rare and squeeze out the space for truly puissant characters.) High-level or more abstract strategy may require more creative testing. For example, I can say with certainty that 4e successfully delivers on "you are a TEAM, you HAVE to fight as a TEAM or you will LOSE." By comparison, 3e feels like a game where four or five people just coincidentally *happen* to adventure in identical places at the same time, and the best way to be a "team player" is always to be maximally selfish and maximally self-optimized even if it means being less supportive to your allies.

As an entirely non-TTRPG example: Final Fantasy XIV introduced the Dancer class with the newest expansion, a class that intentionally gas very low personal DPS but really really good buffs for allies, and this has altered how the community evaluates data. Now, instead of just examining raw DPS, the fan-made tracker program (which is pretty sophisticated!) tracks "rDPS" (how much damage was dealt "because of you"--so YOU get the credit for any group/ally buffs you hand out) and "aDPS" (which is similar to raw values, but factors out certain single-target buffs). Under this new metric, while Samurai, Monk, and Black Mage continue to be the top 3 classes for aDPS, the more support-leaning Dragoon shoots up to 3rd place in rDPS for some fights, and even takes 1st in one, because it has really valuable team support on top of its solid base damage. Meaning, even though the old metrics had to be changed to account for a shift, the new metrics now capture factors that were either only inferred, or ignored, before. Seeing Dragoon shoot up 2-4 ranks because of its good utility is proof positive that Dragoon has solid design. (It also does things like pushing Ninja up significantly, since it *also* has really strong utility, and shows that the utility Bard *lost* this expac was probably excessive.)

IOW/TL;DR: Picking the right method of data-gathering is vital. You need to ask good questions to get good answers. That's part of why it's such a shame so few game designers have statistics or mathematics backgrounds. They are poorly equipped to think about how to change the questions they ask effectively.

NichG

2019-10-24, 03:35 AM

How do you check to see if you've accomplished that?

High rate of change of player playstyle and rapid increase in player confidence during the period of introduction to play. Reported dissatisfaction or lack of interest in second hand play information or 'build guides'. Strong sense of alienation when a player transfers from one table running the game to another. Inability for players to accurately describe their experiences with the game, or to agree with eachother about the nature of their experiences.

Perhaps a better question: Does D&D have something actually equivalent to "only do X if you're a really good player; do Y because you'll win more if you aren't as good of a player yet"? Because...that's got some big holes I could shoot at for the analogy. Like how it's competitive and D&D isn't, in fact D&D is cooperative, or how D&D is open-ended and non-zero-sum whereas Go is zero-sum.

I don't think bringing D&D into it is a better question, because of strong preexisting feelings about D&D on all sides. If opinions aren't stable when transferring to more neutral games, that's evidence that they have more to do with prior bias than the argument at hand.

I'm asking, in the abstract, if you could consider this to be a coherent design goal. I'm not claiming D&D satisfies that design goal or was designed with it in mind. I'd say in fact that a big defining characteristic of the feel of 3ed compared to earlier editions is that theory crafting became significantly more viable and effective in 3ed. So if anything, it moved away from this particular target.

Mechalich

2019-10-24, 05:55 AM

I'm asking, in the abstract, if you could consider this to be a coherent design goal. I'm not claiming D&D satisfies that design goal or was designed with it in mind. I'd say in fact that a big defining characteristic of the feel of 3ed compared to earlier editions is that theory crafting became significantly more viable and effective in 3ed. So if anything, it moved away from this particular target.

It's a coherent goal, however I don't think it's a desirable goal. In fact I very much think the opposite is true, that you want it to be easy to predict what the game will be like before sitting down because that way you'll be far more likely to join or purchase a game that you actually enjoy. Now, obviously this won't work for generic or toolkit systems like GURPS or FATE which aren't actually complete games so much as they are shared methodologies by which a GM assembles a game, but for games that make a claim - often through fluff material - about what their game is, it's important that they deliver. Historically games that don't provide the gameplay experience they claim to deliver have problems with angry fans. Now, creative tables often get around those problems through copious house-ruling and subconsciously ignoring, disregarding, or otherwise pretending portions of the rules don't actually exist (to reiterate an example I've mentioned before, in many 3e experiences grapples just never occur), but if tables are doing this that's evidence that parts of your design are actively detrimental to the gameplay experience you intended to create.

As far as balance goes, the extension of this is that if a system is not intended to be balanced mechanically and pushes all duties to manage contributions onto the GM then it needs to be upfront about this. Additionally, the game should make it clear what sort of mechanical balance methods it's using. Some games have very strong niche protection (this approach is better suited to futuristic games where character skills are presumed to be very specialized, such as Eclipse Phase), while others stressed a generalized ability to contribute to everything. The game should also very clearly outline what the core experience is expected to be so that every character is able to participate meaningfully in that experience. For example, L5R characters are extremely oriented towards a particular playstyle, and a new GM needs to understand that only certain character types are of any use in certain campaigns. More broadly, if a game is going to involve combat at all, every character needs to be able to contribute in combat in some way (they don't need to be good at it, but they need to have character options beyond 'run and hide' even if that would be a realistic response).

ezekielraiden

2019-10-24, 06:10 AM

High rate of change of player playstyle and rapid increase in player confidence during the period of introduction to play. Reported dissatisfaction or lack of interest in second hand play information or 'build guides'. Strong sense of alienation when a player transfers from one table running the game to another. Inability for players to accurately describe their experiences with the game, or to agree with eachother about the nature of their experiences.
That...sounds like an extremely tall order, and probably not a healthy thing for any real game. That is, if you can't describe your experience or even agree with other people who also played it, how can you communicate to someone else that you enjoyed it? You seem to be describing something that is so radically personal, it defies any description at all, which would seem to make playing it pretty difficult too? I mean, if you can't describe your experience, how do you describe how to play it?

I don't think bringing D&D into it is a better question, because of strong preexisting feelings about D&D on all sides. If opinions aren't stable when transferring to more neutral games, that's evidence that they have more to do with prior bias than the argument at hand.

I'm asking, in the abstract, if you could consider this to be a coherent design goal. I'm not claiming D&D satisfies that design goal or was designed with it in mind. I'd say in fact that a big defining characteristic of the feel of 3ed compared to earlier editions is that theory crafting became significantly more viable and effective in 3ed. So if anything, it moved away from this particular target.
I'm genuinely hesitant to say that it's totally impossible but...particularly with the above clarification, the more I read, the more I think "no, it's not possible." What you describe sounds not only impossible to reflect upon, but impossible to describe beyond "it cannot be described." It's...sort of like asking if it's possible to make a language where it's impossible to define any word in terms of any other combination of words. How would you teach someone that language? How would you check that someone else knew what it meant? It seems incoherent, not strictly for the non-testability per se, but because you're talking about a game that cannot be discussed at all, which seems to preclude discussing it to show someone else how to play it.

It's like Calvinball, but worse. With Calvinball, the idea is that each player actively participates in creating the game each time. Though no two games will end up the same, it's still possible to discuss the process of play, the experience of crafting the rules, and strategies for creating win-promoting rules (even if that's a very difficult task). Your "totally un-analyzable game" (call it TUG) lacks that. It has no (after-action) describable process of play. It has no strategies (because if a strategy exists, it can be articulated--a strategy is a procedure, after all). There can be no meaningful sense of getting "better" at the game, either, because doing so requires that you can articulate whether your experience was successful or not.

So...yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think this "goal" is genuinely incoherent--and may even be a logically impossible thing. A game has rules, and multiple possible outcomes. Things that have no rules (which does not include games like Nomic or Mao--that is, games where the point is to make up new rules) aren't games in the first place. Things that have rules, but only one valid solution-path to a fixed objective, are puzzles rather than games. (This does admit a grey area for "solved" games like tic-tac-toe/noughts-and-crosses, but either it's a puzzle or it's a game, that much remains true.) I'm not sure how it's possible to have (a) real, defined rules; (b) multiple real/valid solutions; and (c) complete inability to discuss the procedure or experience of play. It seems as though the first two guarantee, to at least some minimal degree, that the third is false--that there is some amount of strategy that can be applied, no matter how small, no matter how narrow in impact.

The closest I could come to something even like this (which, I admit, risks a lack-of-imagination fallacy) is a game where the rules have to be communicated in a specific sensory way (such as sight, or sound, or telepathy), which can then be lost by the player after they play. But even that seems to fail to meet your very strict requirements, since the game can be communicated, it just requires a sense that the player can gain and then subsequently lose, and thus is only "impossible to communicate" only to those who lack the qualia for that sense. I'm really struggling to see how it is possible to teach/show someone how to play the game, while also being unable to tell people what it was like to actually play. And that's not even considering complications like "how do people know they're playing by the rules, since they cannot communicate any of their prior experience of the game to anyone else?"

NichG

2019-10-24, 06:46 AM

That...sounds like an extremely tall order, and probably not a healthy thing for any real game. That is, if you can't describe your experience or even agree with other people who also played it, how can you communicate to someone else that you enjoyed it? You seem to be describing something that is so radically personal, it defies any description at all, which would seem to make playing it pretty difficult too? I mean, if you can't describe your experience, how do you describe how to play it?

I'm genuinely hesitant to say that it's totally impossible but...particularly with the above clarification, the more I read, the more I think "no, it's not possible." What you describe sounds not only impossible to reflect upon, but impossible to describe beyond "it cannot be described." It's...sort of like asking if it's possible to make a language where it's impossible to define any word in terms of any other combination of words. How would you teach someone that language? How would you check that someone else knew what it meant? It seems incoherent, not strictly for the non-testability per se, but because you're talking about a game that cannot be discussed at all, which seems to preclude discussing it to show someone else how to play it.

It's like Calvinball, but worse. With Calvinball, the idea is that each player actively participates in creating the game each time. Though no two games will end up the same, it's still possible to discuss the process of play, the experience of crafting the rules, and strategies for creating win-promoting rules (even if that's a very difficult task). Your "totally un-analyzable game" (call it TUG) lacks that. It has no (after-action) describable process of play. It has no strategies (because if a strategy exists, it can be articulated--a strategy is a procedure, after all). There can be no meaningful sense of getting "better" at the game, either, because doing so requires that you can articulate whether your experience was successful or not.

So...yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think this "goal" is genuinely incoherent--and may even be a logically impossible thing. A game has rules, and multiple possible outcomes. Things that have no rules (which does not include games like Nomic or Mao--that is, games where the point is to make up new rules) aren't games in the first place. Things that have rules, but only one valid solution-path to a fixed objective, are puzzles rather than games. (This does admit a grey area for "solved" games like tic-tac-toe/noughts-and-crosses, but either it's a puzzle or it's a game, that much remains true.) I'm not sure how it's possible to have (a) real, defined rules; (b) multiple real/valid solutions; and (c) complete inability to discuss the procedure or experience of play. It seems as though the first two guarantee, to at least some minimal degree, that the third is false--that there is some amount of strategy that can be applied, no matter how small, no matter how narrow in impact.

The closest I could come to something even like this (which, I admit, risks a lack-of-imagination fallacy) is a game where the rules have to be communicated in a specific sensory way (such as sight, or sound, or telepathy), which can then be lost by the player after they play. But even that seems to fail to meet your very strict requirements, since the game can be communicated, it just requires a sense that the player can gain and then subsequently lose, and thus is only "impossible to communicate" only to those who lack the qualia for that sense. I'm really struggling to see how it is possible to teach/show someone how to play the game, while also being unable to tell people what it was like to actually play. And that's not even considering complications like "how do people know they're playing by the rules, since they cannot communicate any of their prior experience of the game to anyone else?"

Actually, you've given several examples here that do move in the direction of this design goal. Something like Nomic lies much closer to the extreme point than most tabletop games, and tabletop RPGs lie closer to the extreme point than, say, perfect information deterministic zero sum games that admit provable perfect play.

A practical example of this kind of goal would be in the design of the parts of IQ tests to measure learning capabilities - I want a metric that is static per individual, cannot be improved by study, and measures how well they adapt new skills. So I need to make a test that has a high probability of hitting some combination of skills that a test-taker doesn't yet have but could have. Plus it should be robust against them talking with people who have taken the test in the past. So, among other things, I will likely design the test to change over time.

Interview questions for programming positions are also somewhat subject to this dynamic - how to make it test the applicant's skills rather than the applicant's ability to study up on interview questions?

I also kind of find it funny that many of those criteria could apply to the experience of human life. Switch me into someone else's body and I'll likely feel pretty alienated. There are life experiences where hearing others describe them is no substitute for living it yourself. Life planning advice ('build guides') is often incompatible with variations from person to person, and blindly imitating someone else's career path or lifestyle can be problematic. It's not at the theoretical extreme point of 'describing your experiences is impossible' but philosophers and artists study for years to be able to do it effectively. If we take this as an axis rather than a single destination, I'd say life is further along that axis than most games we make.

Cluedrew

2019-10-24, 07:58 AM

It's already been mentioned in this thread (by Cluedrew I think?) that one big principle of designing balanced sets of abilities is that you try to make the abilities work in such a way that they're not comparable to each-other in a vacuum.Yeah I talk about that. The more variation between abilities you have the harder it is to draw comparisons between them. You have to know more and more about the situation to say which one is better. Plus it becomes more a matter of taste at a certain point. There are certain archetypes (of characters, builds, decks, armies) that I am just not as interested in and might not use even if they are "better". Which is where balanced as being a larger window comes in.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-24, 03:37 PM

A practical example of this kind of goal would be in the design of the parts of IQ tests to measure learning capabilities - I want a metric that is static per individual, cannot be improved by study, and measures how well they adapt new skills. So I need to make a test that has a high probability of hitting some combination of skills that a test-taker doesn't yet have but could have. Plus it should be robust against them talking with people who have taken the test in the past. So, among other things, I will likely design the test to change over time.
But is an IQ test a game? I would argue it's not. As you yourself noted, once you know the answer to a question, it ceases to be useful as a test--because it's a puzzle, that's what gives it value as a metric of intelligence. You create a large set of puzzles, of varying difficulty, in order to see how many a typical test-taker can answer, perhaps factoring in timing as well. So--can you make a game, something with a large number of end-states, that fits this? I'm inclined to say "no"--things we recognize as robust against being "solved," like chess, go, poker, etc., don't have that "if you already did it once, you know it and it loses its utility" nature, key to both puzzles and tests (and riddles).

Interview questions for programming positions are also somewhat subject to this dynamic - how to make it test the applicant's skills rather than the applicant's ability to study up on interview questions?
Seems to suffer the same problem: you're trying to make a test, so it's an arms race between question-design to keep interviewees on their toes, and answer-tailoring to guarantee interviewer satisfaction without necessarily having the sought qualities. Such arms-race design is, again, typical of tests and pretty much unheard-of in anything people would call "games." The closest I can think of is how people can, and will, seek out exploits (particularly in video games, where they're harder to patch up), but even there you don't have that "if you played it once, you already know exactly what will happen" nature that affects puzzles and tests.

I also kind of find it funny that many of those criteria could apply to the experience of human life. Switch me into someone else's body and I'll likely feel pretty alienated. There are life experiences where hearing others describe them is no substitute for living it yourself. Life planning advice ('build guides') is often incompatible with variations from person to person, and blindly imitating someone else's career path or lifestyle can be problematic. It's not at the theoretical extreme point of 'describing your experiences is impossible' but philosophers and artists study for years to be able to do it effectively. If we take this as an axis rather than a single destination, I'd say life is further along that axis than most games we make.
Life also isn't a designed game? It certainly doesn't have a readily-to-hand set of rules before you get started (well, I believe it does have such rules, but they aren't ready-to-hand or we wouldn't have been debating moral philosophy for 2500+ years). And, more to the point, we absolutely can discuss, analyze, and strategize. That's why there are things like psychiatry, self-help books, schools, (auto)biographies, etc. Can we articulate the complete experience in absolutely all detail, just as if we all lived it ourselves? No. But the criterion wasn't that we can only incompletely discuss, only limitedly strategize. It was that we cannot strategize, cannot discuss, even in principle. Hence why I referred to things like sensory-based stuff. I'm not sure a blind person, for example, would ever really get the concept of something like Simon, the four-color thing, because it so thoroughly depends on color. Or, for perhaps a more direct example, I strongly suspect a blind person would be very, very confused by how it could possibly be hard to identify the color a word is written with, when that color isn't the same as the word you're reading. (https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.html)

I hear your point that you mean it more as a spectrum, but it seems to me that even getting a lot in that direction rapidly reduces the game-ness of a thing. Tests and life are, I agree, closer to that extreme anti-strategic, anti-discussion end. But I would challenge you to give any examples of something that's actually a game and yet is even as "strategy-resistant" as a test. Hence why I am slowly overcoming my reluctance to making strong negative claims. If it is possible to create such a game, I would be pretty surprised at this point. It seems to be a genuinely incoherent goal--though, and this is the very interesting part, it doesn't seem to be obviously one. It doesn't seem like "triangle with two sides," and yet it does seem like a logical contradiction...which means it should seem like "triangle with two sides." And that's fascinating!

Yeah I talk about that. The more variation between abilities you have the harder it is to draw comparisons between them. You have to know more and more about the situation to say which one is better. Plus it becomes more a matter of taste at a certain point. There are certain archetypes (of characters, builds, decks, armies) that I am just not as interested in and might not use even if they are "better". Which is where balanced as being a larger window comes in.
It's worth noting, this is why I have been careful to say that there will always be people who make use of dominant/degenerate strategies, rather than that absolutely everyone will use them. Taste does matter, and people really do choose to avoid or not avail themselves of advantages for a variety of reasons. I mean, I already pointed out how infinite money (or at least being able to squeeze out a pretty significant profit, even if not infinitely) is present in 3.5e's rules, and yet most people who play it have never made use of this exploit. Whether it's taste, propriety, desiring a challenge, personal characteristics (e.g. someone with poor multi-tasking skills would probably not play a Conjurer in 3.5e, despite it being possibly the strongest choice), or a million other things, dominant/degenerate strategies are not guaranteed to be used by absolutely everyone. They are, however, extremely likely to be used by a significant number of people.

NichG

2019-10-24, 06:38 PM

But is an IQ test a game? I would argue it's not. As you yourself noted, once you know the answer to a question, it ceases to be useful as a test--because it's a puzzle, that's what gives it value as a metric of intelligence. You create a large set of puzzles, of varying difficulty, in order to see how many a typical test-taker can answer, perhaps factoring in timing as well. So--can you make a game, something with a large number of end-states, that fits this? I'm inclined to say "no"--things we recognize as robust against being "solved," like chess, go, poker, etc., don't have that "if you already did it once, you know it and it loses its utility" nature, key to both puzzles and tests (and riddles).

Seems to suffer the same problem: you're trying to make a test, so it's an arms race between question-design to keep interviewees on their toes, and answer-tailoring to guarantee interviewer satisfaction without necessarily having the sought qualities. Such arms-race design is, again, typical of tests and pretty much unheard-of in anything people would call "games." The closest I can think of is how people can, and will, seek out exploits (particularly in video games, where they're harder to patch up), but even there you don't have that "if you played it once, you already know exactly what will happen" nature that affects puzzles and tests.

Life also isn't a designed game? It certainly doesn't have a readily-to-hand set of rules before you get started (well, I believe it does have such rules, but they aren't ready-to-hand or we wouldn't have been debating moral philosophy for 2500+ years). And, more to the point, we absolutely can discuss, analyze, and strategize. That's why there are things like psychiatry, self-help books, schools, (auto)biographies, etc. Can we articulate the complete experience in absolutely all detail, just as if we all lived it ourselves? No. But the criterion wasn't that we can only incompletely discuss, only limitedly strategize. It was that we cannot strategize, cannot discuss, even in principle. Hence why I referred to things like sensory-based stuff. I'm not sure a blind person, for example, would ever really get the concept of something like Simon, the four-color thing, because it so thoroughly depends on color. Or, for perhaps a more direct example, I strongly suspect a blind person would be very, very confused by how it could possibly be hard to identify the color a word is written with, when that color isn't the same as the word you're reading. (https://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/words.html)

I hear your point that you mean it more as a spectrum, but it seems to me that even getting a lot in that direction rapidly reduces the game-ness of a thing. Tests and life are, I agree, closer to that extreme anti-strategic, anti-discussion end. But I would challenge you to give any examples of something that's actually a game and yet is even as "strategy-resistant" as a test. Hence why I am slowly overcoming my reluctance to making strong negative claims. If it is possible to create such a game, I would be pretty surprised at this point. It seems to be a genuinely incoherent goal--though, and this is the very interesting part, it doesn't seem to be obviously one. It doesn't seem like "triangle with two sides," and yet it does seem like a logical contradiction...which means it should seem like "triangle with two sides." And that's fascinating!

It's kind of the point of the exercise. Game-like or not, if there are things which people do design towards (tests) or might want to design towards (making the experience of a game like the experience of life) which can't be discussed coherently within a particular design framework, then that helps identify the limitations of that framework (and hopefully helps explain why one might choose to reject it).

I'd say you've already identified several design strategies for landing in this space - precisely some of the things you list that makes things feel un-gamelike to you. I'll focus on one briefly - rules uncertainty.

For my tabletop campaigns over the last 10 years or so, both in games I've played in and games I've run, a common thread is that there have been unstated rules which must be either uncovered or created during play. The primary examples in ones I've played: combinatoric powers alchemy where the new power you get by fusing others results from a kind of portmanteau word game; a lair with unlockable 'buildings' which each introduced new game mechanics or forms of advancement that the players didn't get to know in advance; a system where all elements of the natural world had unlockable magical potential that had to be discovered by experimentation in character; a mechanic that let players alter the cosmology of the setting and could result in the wholesale creation of new kinds of supernatural creatures with their own mechanics. In my own games: a civilization-building campaign where the players choose what technologies to invent (and which aren't in the rules ahead of time), a game about the afterlife where characters can install arbitrary significant memories or themes into a set of slots in their soul and gain unique abilities as they invest in the memories; a game about superheroes where characters start with almost literally infinite power and the primary form of advancement is the fact that most players will not immediately feel comfortable acting at that scale; currently in design, a game about invention and discovery, where the main mechanic is that each player gets an income of points that can be spent to lock adhoc rulings into the rules.

So, since everything I play is basically some form of nomic, design frameworks that conclude that e.g. these are not games or that they're not coherently designable are of limited utility to me, because it's hard to even discuss my goals in those frameworks without creating the equivalent of imaginary numbers or Lovecraftian geometry.

ezekielraiden

2019-10-25, 06:08 AM

It's kind of the point of the exercise. Game-like or not, if there are things which people do design towards (tests) or might want to design towards (making the experience of a game like the experience of life) which can't be discussed coherently within a particular design framework, then that helps identify the limitations of that framework (and hopefully helps explain why one might choose to reject it).

I'd say you've already identified several design strategies for landing in this space - precisely some of the things you list that makes things feel un-gamelike to you. I'll focus on one briefly - rules uncertainty.
I don't see rules uncertainty as un-game-like, per se. Uncovering the rules is a gameable experience, one I have personally enjoyed as well. (The flash "God Game Thing is? It's also an experience that admits description and strategy. Because the rules either already exist to be discovered (and thus admit strategies to find them), or they are determined by some consistent formula, such that the same combinations will consistently produce the same outcomes (and thus admit strategies that apply to any combinatoric exercise).

What I see as un-game-like is there not being any rules at all, unless arbitrarily projected there, hence why I mentioned life doesn't have a rulebook you receive at birth. It's not that rules cannot be projected onto it, they absolutely can. It's that those rules are purely elective and projective in nature: the physical world itself contains no justice, no mercy, not one atom of kindness. Life just is not a game--you can't "win" it or even "play" it except by meeting conditions you arbitrarily applied, and why anyone should value one condition over another is, as you said, a complex subject about which there is dramatic disagreement. You can certainly make games intending to capture certain aspects of that, but that gets us into the map/territory distinction: a game like life is not life, it's just an intended approximation.

As a clarification: a game with rules for changing its rules (including changing how the rules are changed) is not "arbitrarily projected." They were chosen and/or agreed upon at the outset, and then play itself changed them after. With life, there is no "chosen/agreed upon at the outset." We are thrust into life without our permission and removed from it without our consent.

For my tabletop campaigns over the last 10 years or so, both in games I've played in and games I've run, a common thread is that there have been unstated rules which must be either uncovered or created during play. The primary examples in ones I've played: combinatoric powers alchemy where the new power you get by fusing others results from a kind of portmanteau word game; a lair with unlockable 'buildings' which each introduced new game mechanics or forms of advancement that the players didn't get to know in advance; a system where all elements of the natural world had unlockable magical potential that had to be discovered by experimentation in character; a mechanic that let players alter the cosmology of the setting and could result in the wholesale creation of new kinds of supernatural creatures with their own mechanics. In my own games: a civilization-building campaign where the players choose what technologies to invent (and which aren't in the rules ahead of time), a game about the afterlife where characters can install arbitrary significant memories or themes into a set of slots in their soul and gain unique abilities as they invest in the memories; a game about superheroes where characters start with almost literally infinite power and the primary form of advancement is the fact that most players will not immediately feel comfortable acting at that scale; currently in design, a game about invention and discovery, where the main mechanic is that each player gets an income of points that can be spent to lock adhoc rulings into the rules.

So, since everything I play is basically some form of nomic, design frameworks that conclude that e.g. these are not games or that they're not coherently designable are of limited utility to me, because it's hard to even discuss my goals in those frameworks without creating the equivalent of imaginary numbers or Lovecraftian geometry.
Again, I'm not saying that a nomic isn't a game. I'm saying that the part of them that captures what you spoke of--being actively inimical to strategy--is the part of them that becomes non-game-like. It's sort of like how the Prisoner's Dilemma isn't a game, but the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma IS a game that can be subject to strategy and can be analyzed such. A game where rules are unknown but concrete, or not-currently-existent but following a concrete predefined procedure to become existent, is still a game, and still admits testing (albeit in ways radically different from D&D, since there are very few grounding assumptions).

Nomic, for example, could have been a really fun game that just happened to have rules for modifying its own rules. But the designer had a concrete goal: make the act of rule-making the primary focus of play. That's a testable goal, as you can look at the behaviors players choose to engage in and modify the rules to increase (or decrease) the rate of engaging in one or more behaviors. In this case, they very intentionally made the "default" rules of Nomic simplistic and boring, so that players would be tempted to alter the rules to make something more entertaining. That's a testable objective derived from a concrete goal, about the game I allegedly cannot analyze under this model. Of course I cannot analyze all possible games of Nomic, since "all possible games of Nomic" is at least no smaller than the set of all possible games period, and that's way beyond "too big to analyze." But that doesn't mean one cannot be "good at Nomic," that there can't be strategies for Nomic (even if they are highly unlike most game strategy), and above all else, it doesn't mean you cannot communicate to me the experience of playing the game.

I mean...with every single example you've given, I have gotten what I consider a very concise, yet also highly informative, description of several gaming environments where strategic thinking primarily takes the form of creativity and analysis is primarily open-mindedness. You have meaningfully communicated to me, rather than how one plays, at least starting insights into how one might play effectively or well, despite having specifically stated zero rules. Does that not mean we are discussing the game abstractly? Are we not discussing your experiences in a way that is meaningful to both you and me?

These games don't just sound like they fall short of "completely impossible to discuss the experience of play," they sound rather easy to discuss so, given the facility with which you have done so. Unless you mean to say that everything in your examples is really bad at actually telling me anything about the games in question?

NichG

2019-10-25, 08:03 AM

I don't see rules uncertainty as un-game-like, per se. Uncovering the rules is a gameable experience, one I have personally enjoyed as well. (The flash "God Game Thing is? It's also an experience that admits description and strategy. Because the rules either already exist to be discovered (and thus admit strategies to find them), or they are determined by some consistent formula, such that the same combinations will consistently produce the same outcomes (and thus admit strategies that apply to any combinatoric exercise).

What I see as un-game-like is there not being any rules at all, unless arbitrarily projected there, hence why I mentioned life doesn't have a rulebook you receive at birth. It's not that rules cannot be projected onto it, they absolutely can. It's that those rules are purely elective and projective in nature: the physical world itself contains no justice, no mercy, not one atom of kindness. Life just is not a game--you can't "win" it or even "play" it except by meeting conditions you arbitrarily applied, and why anyone should value one condition over another is, as you said, a complex subject about which there is dramatic disagreement. You can certainly make games intending to capture certain aspects of that, but that gets us into the map/territory distinction: a game like life is not life, it's just an intended approximation.

As a clarification: a game with rules for changing its rules (including changing how the rules are changed) is not "arbitrarily projected." They were chosen and/or agreed upon at the outset, and then play itself changed them after. With life, there is no "chosen/agreed upon at the outset." We are thrust into life without our permission and removed from it without our consent.

I'm not sure whether something is a game under a particular formal sense is all that relevant, at least to my goals. If my design goal is better satisfied by a non-game, that's not actually a reason to abandon either that direction of design, or the goal.

Puzzle games may not be game theoretic games, but that doesn't prevent people from playing them...

I can definitely see 'I want to design a group activity, the experience of which tries to be as rich and varied as real life while yet being distinct from it' as an interesting and worthy goal for a tabletop RPG. Even if the result ends up not technically being a game.

Again, I'm not saying that a nomic isn't a game. I'm saying that the part of them that captures what you spoke of--being actively inimical to strategy--is the part of them that becomes non-game-like. It's sort of like how the Prisoner's Dilemma isn't a game, but the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma IS a game that can be subject to strategy and can be analyzed such. A game where rules are unknown but concrete, or not-currently-existent but following a concrete predefined procedure to become existent, is still a game, and still admits testing (albeit in ways radically different from D&D, since there are very few grounding assumptions).

Nomic, for example, could have been a really fun game that just happened to have rules for modifying its own rules. But the designer had a concrete goal: make the act of rule-making the primary focus of play. That's a testable goal, as you can look at the behaviors players choose to engage in and modify the rules to increase (or decrease) the rate of engaging in one or more behaviors. In this case, they very intentionally made the "default" rules of Nomic simplistic and boring, so that players would be tempted to alter the rules to make something more entertaining. That's a testable objective derived from a concrete goal, about the game I allegedly cannot analyze under this model. Of course I cannot analyze all possible games of Nomic, since "all possible games of Nomic" is at least no smaller than the set of all possible games period, and that's way beyond "too big to analyze." But that doesn't mean one cannot be "good at Nomic," that there can't be strategies for Nomic (even if they are highly unlike most game strategy), and above all else, it doesn't mean you cannot communicate to me the experience of playing the game.

I mean...with every single example you've given, I have gotten what I consider a very concise, yet also highly informative, description of several gaming environments where strategic thinking primarily takes the form of creativity and analysis is primarily open-mindedness. You have meaningfully communicated to me, rather than how one plays, at least starting insights into how one might play effectively or well, despite having specifically stated zero rules. Does that not mean we are discussing the game abstractly? Are we not discussing your experiences in a way that is meaningful to both you and me?

These games don't just sound like they fall short of "completely impossible to discuss the experience of play," they sound rather easy to discuss so, given the facility with which you have done so. Unless you mean to say that everything in your examples is really bad at actually telling me anything about the games in question?

In the context of your Prisoner's Dilemma vs IPD example, I would say that my description of Limit Break for example (the overpowered superhero game) is like me describing a single round of PD. We can agree on the events that happened and maybe even what it was like, but the next round - another campaign in that system with different players - is highly likely to be extremely different. That's because the system is intentionally incomplete in a way that completes itself using the psychology and interests of the players. One could strategize in the abstract, but without knowing how the other players are going to play those strategies would have a very short half life.

In the game I ran, every player chose highly abstract power themes with (conflicting) cosmological implications. Gameplay often revolved around literally editing the meanings of concepts in order to undermine crowd behaviors that had gained sentience.

Next game, someone could decide they want time travel powers, and whatever conclusions we drew might go up in flames.

The concept of the system itself doesn't even really work if the same player plays twice, because advancement is at least in large part player-side. It's like taking the same IQ test twice.