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Drache64
2019-09-13, 01:19 PM
One player, or a few players are vastly stronger than the others, but each player has a lane to stay in and something that the other players can't do.

IE: the wizard can stop time and incinerate a squad of dudes. The theif can back stab to assassinate 1 Target, but it's probably better for him to slip away during combat and use it as a distraction to steal the documents.

The barbarian can slaughter a dragon, but the general can issue strategic orders that buff the party and lead everyone to victory.

We see this dynamic in all our favorite stories: Eragon, Lord of the Rings, Star wars etc.

galan
2019-09-13, 01:29 PM
You assume that everyone has a lane, and there is no single party member capable of doing another's job better than him while still being good at his own.

In d&d, a lot of the time the spellcaster are *also* better theives and fighters. They are not just good at their own thing, they are amazing at everything. Every challange that can actually challange them is nigh unsolveable to everyone else. Small balance discrepancies are fine. At some point, it gets pretty silly

Willie the Duck
2019-09-13, 01:49 PM
At a theoretical level, if everyone has a lane, and they all stay in theirs, and all the lanes end up having the same amount of impact in relatively representative examples of gameplay, it is fine. However, in roleplaying games, this historically hasn't been handled well. D&D has multiple examples-- from the 3e druids and clerics being able to step over into the fighter's lane to do the fighter's job about as well as they can, along with also being able to drive their own lanes --to the TSR era thief who only had a few unique abilities... that they weren't all that good at (often had very low %s), could be replicated by others, and they didn't have much else going for them mechanically. Other systems like Shadowrun and Cyberpunk have had issues with 'balance' where one character type (the hacker) is relatively useless outside their specific role and has to sit on their hands until the GM gets to the part of the game where they shine... whereupon the rest of the PCs sit on their hands.

Also note that comparisons to fiction (like Eragon, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc.) are inherently problematic because those narratives are not being played by players in a game. If Chewbacca doesn't play quite as much of a role in the overall story success as Han and Luke, there's no player behind it feeling short changed. And if entire chapters of LotR happen with only Sam, Frodo, and the NPC Gollum getting to do anything, Aragorn and Legollas' players are stuck playing with their dice and waiting to get to do anything again.

Drache64
2019-09-13, 01:59 PM
Good points from you guys, the "why" here was sincere.

What I like to do to solve the problem is have all my players submit their characters before we start a campaign I'm writing. Then I make sure I give each character a lane and a purpose.

I remember the first campaign I ran I had a player who wanted to be a rogue specialized in thievery. I didn't write anything for him and he felt short changed. I grew from that and now I try to have something for each player.

denthor
2019-09-13, 02:29 PM
It speeds up game play. Try having 7 players no cleric.

There is no balance at that point it survive wait days then move forward.

False God
2019-09-13, 03:28 PM
As has been mentioned, the problem is that certain classes (typically magicals) explicitly do not stay in their lane, and the other classes (mundanes) can't leave their lane.

MonstarDM
2019-09-13, 05:02 PM
A party does not need to be balanced. This is a common RPG myth.

The biggest problem with the balance idea is that it assumes that there is ONLY one type of player: The Hyper Active Selfish Demanding Dominating Competing Action type. And, of course, not all players are like that.

The second biggest problem with the balance idea is that it assumes that there is ONLY one way to play the game: The Use the Mechanical Rules to Show, Display, and Prove your Personal System Mastery of the Mechanical Rules.

The third biggest problem with the balance idea is that it assumes that there is ONLY one way to have fun: Being the above type of player playing the game only the above type way.

Now, there is NOTHING wrong with anything above: if that is the way you like to play a RPG, that is fine. There is no right way or wrong way to play an RPG.

Though the problem comes in when you play the game only the above way....and then complain about balance.

Dienekes
2019-09-13, 06:26 PM
I would say, perfect balance is not only unnecessary, it is impossible. What is far more important is that all the players are enjoying the game and aren’t feeling envious at the other players.

It is entirely possible to have a great deal of fun playing a character 10 levels lower than everyone else. I’ve done it. Because it made sense for the character I was playing, and I had him work extra hard to effect the course of the battle in significant and fun ways. But I knew what I was getting into when I decided to play as a previously stated low level NPC in a mid level game.

I’ve had players who were completely fine being a “Chewbacca” where they mostly just watched the other players do the whole roleplaying and story business. But when it became time for her to do her thing she did it. Smiled contently and went back to passively watching.

Imbalance really only becomes a problem when the player actually starts questioning why they’re even there. This I’ve also seen happen. To use an example I’ve previously used before. In my first even D&D game, I was a DM playing 3rd edition. I had one player as a fighter and another as a Druid (and three more who are not important to the story). Now all of us were new to the system and I can now tell you all the ways this guy’s fighter was built completely sub-optimally. But at the time we didn’t really know. Anyway after a few sessions, it became a joke that the druid’s animal companion was a better fighter than the fighter. After a bit the fighter and the Druid decided to hash it out and had a duel. And the fighter lost.

The next session he declared that his fighter had choked to death in his sleep and came with a sorcerer.

This is where balance comes into things. When the other player’s characters make the player feel insignificant by comparison in a way that they did not sign on for. If the game sells you on playing Druss, and you follow all the rules of the game. It better let you play Druss, not some chump that gets beat by a class feature.

But if a player stats up a fighter fully understanding that by mid-level he’ll basically just become a luggage carrier for the mages. Well, that’s fine. So long as they’re happy carrying that luggage.

The other solution is simple gentleman’s agreements. Sure the fighter knows the cleric can do his job better than him, and the cleric knows he can do the fighter’s job better than the fighter. But the cleric has decided not to. And that can work just as well, too.

Really the key is just knowing what everyone wants to do, and as a GM help all your players get to do what they want to do, so long as it isn’t ruining other players fun. Communication, respecting each other, a sense of fair play. This is all way more important than balance.

Though all that said. Do wish games were a bit better balanced. I wanna play a mundane guy that wrecks mages faces, dammit.

False God
2019-09-13, 06:28 PM
To expand, I have typically found there are two types of "balanced" parties:

The all-magical party.
-This party is typically high level, assuming they played it careful and survived the lower levels. They synergize well, with all members being able to bring similar forces to bear. They all have personal buffs that make them awesome in their own right, they all have group buffs, they all have meat-shield and beat-stick capabilities in the form of some of those self buffs and in the form of summons. They all have "get out of jail free" cards and "oh phooey!" buttons. They all have crowd-control, debuffing and blasting abilities.

-They are all capable of specializing into highly focused roles where they are almost unstoppable at what they do. They are also capable of being competent generalists. With both functions being amplified when the rest of the party follows suit. If everyone in the party can cover some of the bases, if everyone in the party covers one base like it's the only base in the world. They can be rogues, they can be fighters, they can be barbarians, they can be six incredible things before breakfast, and often they can be six incredible things all day.

The all-mundane party.
-This party is typically low level, before magic really kicks in to being the only way to solve problems. They are typically specialists by function, not my choice, their class features having decided for them that the rogue is going to be the rogue. That the fighter is going to be the beat stick or the meat-shield. That the barbarian is going to be the...beat stick or the meat shield. That the monk is going to be the...pokey rogue.

-They do what they're programmed to do. The rogue sneaks. The fighter hits stuff. The other classes...hit stuff. Sometimes someone else sneaks. They don't spread out and cover each other's bases. Because their bases are little islands in an endless sea of traps, false choices, and lost levels. They do not have the ability to revamp their setup without DM approval. They cannot adjust from one fight to next what they need to solve a problem. It either gets solved with hitting things or it...doesn't get solved. If the rogue can't pick the lock, if the barbarian can't smash the door, then the obstacle is impassable.

--
And for as much difficulty as the second group may seem to have with, well...everything they balance well together. An all-magic party is like playing a supers game. Yes, the Justice League is all supers, but they have their specific strengths and specific weaknesses(until you actually see Supes or WW let loose, then...yeah... and those are very real builds within D&D). The all-mundane party is like playing NICS. Still awesome, and they might be able to stop the Goa'uld with a little cleverness, but they're not even the guys you call to stop Voldemort (who quite honestly, probably wouldn't pose much of a challenge to the all-magical party).

You don't need to have a balanced party. But almost all of the roles of the mundane party can be duplicated by the magical party. Often without trying. And almost all the functions of the mundane party can be negated (see the numerous threads on how to make wizards who stop fights before they start) by the magical party. You can hyper-specialize your magic-user to avoid this to some degree, but if the game goes high-level, you'll probably outshine the mundanes on accident, or if you're the mundane in the party, you'll very rapidly fall behind without substantial magical loot.

You do need to determine where the game is going to be balanced. If the DM understands which balance point they're working with, then things can be great. If the DM doesn't, then you're bound for problems.

Quertus
2019-09-13, 06:54 PM
Balance is not a synonym for fun. Balance is not even a prerequisite for fun.

Not every actor in Romeo and Juliet has the same size role. And that's not only fine, that's actually optimal! When I played a Sentient Potted Plant, I certainly did not have a big role. I mean, sure, I was still me, so I could participate in things like planning or memory (ah, the good old pre-senility days), but I had 0 mechanical contribution.

IMO, most games are much more believable when the PCs aren't terribly balanced.

As for staying in your lane… battery on my phone is low, I'll come back for that later. But, short answer? There are no rights - be worthy of your lane, or get a gentleman's agreement (such as "the role of inept Wizard will be played by Quertus") in place.

MonstarDM
2019-09-13, 06:59 PM
Imbalance really only becomes a problem when the player actually starts questioning why they’re even there....... Anyway after a few sessions, it became a joke that the druid’s animal companion was a better fighter than the fighter.


As I said above: note the single play stlye here. The above is only talking about the pure numbers and mechanics of the rules of the game and nothing else. So, sure, if you will say ''unless everyone has +5 to damage all the time the game is unbalanced", then amazingly your game will be unbalanced. The above player also only came to the game to endlessly mechanincal fight and compare themselves to the other players in a ego concest too.

Again, there is nothing wrong with the above stlye of play. But you can't play the above way and then complain about blance. If you jump in a lake, you can't complain you got wet: YOU jumpped in a lake!

Take the above example, with the fighter player who has diffrent values:

The player with the druid has thier animal dominate the rule mecanics of the game and ''fights good". Lets even go one step further: the druid player gets right in the fighter's players face to say "nan nan my pet is better then your character!"

Now...watch: The player of the fighter character says-"Eh, dude, I don't care!" The druid player...heck..all the players..can constantily verbaly attack the player with the fighter character and say, again, that thier character ''sucks". But again, the player of the fighter character does not care.

Jerk player of Druid: "My animal did X damage and is so awesome! Your fighter only did X damage so my animal is better!"

Cool fighter player: "Dude, chill. My character fought and I'm having fun."

Now ok, sure, a LOT of the time the ''other" character wants to play the same game as the jerk druid guy and count the numbers, be hostile and competive and try to prove they are ''better" at the game then the other players.

And really, that is just FINE. But if you want to play that stlye of game, you do have to dive into it fully.




You do need to determine where the game is going to be balanced. If the DM understands which balance point they're working with, then things can be great. If the DM doesn't, then you're bound for problems.

THIS is another good point. Too many GMs automatiaclly agree with the Unbalanced Way is the Only Stlye Way to Play the Game. And worse, most GMs MAKE the game that way as they like and agree with the stlye.

Composer99
2019-09-13, 07:54 PM
I would say that a desirable goal for any given game is that each of the major archetypes or character builds that the game supports or encourages mechanically each contributes roughly equally to solving the problems that the game's design supports being posed to the player characters.

That does not mean that each such archetype or build needs to contribute equally all the time in all situations; only that, over the course of a typical campaign, the sum total contribution from any given archetype or build is about the same as any other, while avoiding, say, the Shadowrun decker problem.

It also doesn't mean that every single ability player characters can wield needs to be balanced against all the others (your once-per-day super attack is allowed to be way better than a commonplace swing of a weapon, for instance), just as long as they all mostly even out over the long run.

Now, archetypes or builds that the game doesn't encourage don't need to meet that standard. D&D games, for instance, heavily support combat in their mechanics and don't support other activities to the same extent mechanically. So a character archetype or build that was poor at combat in those games isn't going to contribute as effectively to a D&D game played to design expectations - and that's fine.

Likewise, if a player isn't interested in contributing to the same extent as others, that's fine, too.


A party does not need to be balanced. This is a common RPG myth.

The biggest problem with the balance idea is that it assumes that there is ONLY one type of player: The Hyper Active Selfish Demanding Dominating Competing Action type. And, of course, not all players are like that.

The second biggest problem with the balance idea is that it assumes that there is ONLY one way to play the game: The Use the Mechanical Rules to Show, Display, and Prove your Personal System Mastery of the Mechanical Rules.

The third biggest problem with the balance idea is that it assumes that there is ONLY one way to have fun: Being the above type of player playing the game only the above type way.

Now, there is NOTHING wrong with anything above: if that is the way you like to play a RPG, that is fine. There is no right way or wrong way to play an RPG.

Though the problem comes in when you play the game only the above way....and then complain about balance.

Do you... you know, actually read what other people write on the topic of character balance in RPGs? Because I can't think of a single argument made by anyone supporting better-balanced games, including in this very thread, that comes even close to matching your assumptions.


I would say, perfect balance is not only unnecessary, it is impossible. What is far more important is that all the players are enjoying the game and aren’t feeling envious at the other players.

It is entirely possible to have a great deal of fun playing a character 10 levels lower than everyone else. I’ve done it. Because it made sense for the character I was playing, and I had him work extra hard to effect the course of the battle in significant and fun ways. But I knew what I was getting into when I decided to play as a previously stated low level NPC in a mid level game.

I’ve had players who were completely fine being a “Chewbacca” where they mostly just watched the other players do the whole roleplaying and story business. But when it became time for her to do her thing she did it. Smiled contently and went back to passively watching.

Imbalance really only becomes a problem when the player actually starts questioning why they’re even there. This I’ve also seen happen. To use an example I’ve previously used before. In my first even D&D game, I was a DM playing 3rd edition. I had one player as a fighter and another as a Druid (and three more who are not important to the story). Now all of us were new to the system and I can now tell you all the ways this guy’s fighter was built completely sub-optimally. But at the time we didn’t really know. Anyway after a few sessions, it became a joke that the druid’s animal companion was a better fighter than the fighter. After a bit the fighter and the Druid decided to hash it out and had a duel. And the fighter lost.

The next session he declared that his fighter had choked to death in his sleep and came with a sorcerer.

This is where balance comes into things. When the other player’s characters make the player feel insignificant by comparison in a way that they did not sign on for. If the game sells you on playing Druss, and you follow all the rules of the game. It better let you play Druss, not some chump that gets beat by a class feature.

But if a player stats up a fighter fully understanding that by mid-level he’ll basically just become a luggage carrier for the mages. Well, that’s fine. So long as they’re happy carrying that luggage.

The other solution is simple gentleman’s agreements. Sure the fighter knows the cleric can do his job better than him, and the cleric knows he can do the fighter’s job better than the fighter. But the cleric has decided not to. And that can work just as well, too.

Really the key is just knowing what everyone wants to do, and as a GM help all your players get to do what they want to do, so long as it isn’t ruining other players fun. Communication, respecting each other, a sense of fair play. This is all way more important than balance.

Though all that said. Do wish games were a bit better balanced. I wanna play a mundane guy that wrecks mages faces, dammit.

Erm, slight problem: your two examples of imbalances that were okay are examples of gameplay choices, not examples of mechanical imbalances built into the game design. At least, that's how they came across based on the level of detail you've provided.

Your example of a mechanical imbalance, of the party fighter being invalidated by the druid’s class feature, is the kind of problem that people arguing for better-balanced games want games to avoid: when, no matter how players play their game or build their characters, some more or less standard (not necessarily optimised) character builds just invalidate others.

If a player wants to play meatshield or pack mule for the party wizards, fine, let them. When it's a problem is when the game's mechanics are designed such that that is their only option unless they pore through piles of sourcebooks and online guides. That's my takeaway of most arguments in favour of better balance in game design.

False God
2019-09-13, 07:59 PM
THIS is another good point. Too many GMs automatiaclly agree with the Unbalanced Way is the Only Stlye Way to Play the Game. And worse, most GMs MAKE the game that way as they like and agree with the stlye.

IME, more DMs are guilty of "that's what the dice say" and "this is what the book says", as excuses for not bothering to account for inter-character imbalance or that the whole party is way off(above or below) the expected power curve. It really isn't terribly hard to set up a couple fights and get an idea for how powerful your party is and what they can and cannot handle.

It's easy to kill your party. It's rather boring though.

Quertus
2019-09-14, 06:51 AM
As I said above: note the single play stlye here. The above is only talking about the pure numbers and mechanics of the rules of the game and nothing else. So, sure, if you will say ''unless everyone has +5 to damage all the time the game is unbalanced", then amazingly your game will be unbalanced. The above player also only came to the game to endlessly mechanincal fight and compare themselves to the other players in a ego concest too.

Again, there is nothing wrong with the above stlye of play. But you can't play the above way and then complain about blance. If you jump in a lake, you can't complain you got wet: YOU jumpped in a lake!

Take the above example, with the fighter player who has diffrent values:

The player with the druid has thier animal dominate the rule mecanics of the game and ''fights good". Lets even go one step further: the druid player gets right in the fighter's players face to say "nan nan my pet is better then your character!"

Now...watch: The player of the fighter character says-"Eh, dude, I don't care!" The druid player...heck..all the players..can constantily verbaly attack the player with the fighter character and say, again, that thier character ''sucks". But again, the player of the fighter character does not care.

Jerk player of Druid: "My animal did X damage and is so awesome! Your fighter only did X damage so my animal is better!"

Cool fighter player: "Dude, chill. My character fought and I'm having fun."

Now ok, sure, a LOT of the time the ''other" character wants to play the same game as the jerk druid guy and count the numbers, be hostile and competive and try to prove they are ''better" at the game then the other players.

And really, that is just FINE. But if you want to play that stlye of game, you do have to dive into it fully.



THIS is another good point. Too many GMs automatiaclly agree with the Unbalanced Way is the Only Stlye Way to Play the Game. And worse, most GMs MAKE the game that way as they like and agree with the stlye.

I'm confused. How could a GM ruin the game for the (player of the) Fighter in your example?


IME, more DMs are guilty of "that's what the dice say" and "this is what the book says", as excuses for not bothering to account for inter-character imbalance or that the whole party is way off(above or below) the expected power curve. It really isn't terribly hard to set up a couple fights and get an idea for how powerful your party is and what they can and cannot handle.

It's easy to kill your party. It's rather boring though.

OTOH, it's quite exciting to take a party that's below the adventure's balance point, and struggle to succeed anyway.

False God
2019-09-14, 07:43 AM
OTOH, it's quite exciting to take a party that's below the adventure's balance point, and struggle to succeed anyway.

I think there's a "reasonable level of struggle" that makes games fun and challenging. Too little struggle and the game is boring, too much struggle and the game becomes stressful instead of fun. Just like how video games have "Easy" and "Hard" and "Nightmare" settings. Playing on "Hard" is fine, but playing on "Nightmare" tends to require buy-in.

IMO: I want my players to win. I want them to move on to the next leg of the adventure. I want them to get the awesome rewards I've hidden. I want them to invest in their characters, and I want their characters to invest in the world. I'm not going to hand it to them. But ultimately I've adjusted and adapted my game to ensure they have a reasonable chance of success most of the time.

Quertus
2019-09-14, 07:54 AM
I think there's a "reasonable level of struggle" that makes games fun and challenging. Too little struggle and the game is boring, too much struggle and the game becomes stressful instead of fun. Just like how video games have "Easy" and "Hard" and "Nightmare" settings. Playing on "Hard" is fine, but playing on "Nightmare" tends to require buy-in.

IMO: I want my players to win. I want them to move on to the next leg of the adventure. I want them to get the awesome rewards I've hidden. I want them to invest in their characters, and I want their characters to invest in the world. I'm not going to hand it to them. But ultimately I've adjusted and adapted my game to ensure they have a reasonable chance of success most of the time.

Although I don't disagree with any of that, what I'm saying is, it can be fun when the characters have *no* chance of success (as measured from a CaS PoV), and the game is about them struggling to get every advantage to (maybe) pull off a win.

Imagine playing in an e6 sandbox, against a level 20 Playgrounder Wizard BBEG. Or a group of 3rd level characters on a 10th level Tomb of Horrors. It's that Cthulhu-style in over your head, be smart or you're dead style of gameplay that stands on the opposite side of the spectrum from kick in the door CaS.

King of Nowhere
2019-09-14, 08:09 AM
one way to work around this is the gentlemen agreement, where everyone agrees to stay in their lane. casters could probably fight better than fighters with the right buffs, but they choose not to, and to do their thing instead.

and really, it's not easy to "accidentally" outperform a reasonably optimized fighter with a decent equipment. barring some of the crazier combos, you're not invading their lane much.

Ignimortis
2019-09-14, 08:19 AM
One player, or a few players are vastly stronger than the others, but each player has a lane to stay in and something that the other players can't do.

IE: the wizard can stop time and incinerate a squad of dudes. The theif can back stab to assassinate 1 Target, but it's probably better for him to slip away during combat and use it as a distraction to steal the documents.

The barbarian can slaughter a dragon, but the general can issue strategic orders that buff the party and lead everyone to victory.

We see this dynamic in all our favorite stories: Eragon, Lord of the Rings, Star wars etc.

Because if you have two people who want to do the same thing in one party, they need to be balanced. If your Wizard can outdamage and outtank the Fighter, but can also fly and summon demons, then the Fighter's player is probably dismayed, because he's irrelevant. Being second-best, if even that, usually isn't fun.

Stories aren't about enjoying the game, but games should be enjoyable. Nobody cares if Luke Skywalker is more powerful than Han Solo (even though he is). But the d20 Star Wars games tried that approach, and many people didn't like that Jedi were just superior to non-Jedi in basically everything.

Also, many games don't actually have "lanes" per se, or some characters (typically mages) tend to get out of their lanes too easily. Take D&D, for instance. There's no combat "lane", despite the creators thinking there is. Since 3e at the very least, everyone is expected to contribute to combat almost equally. So characters who are supposed to be "combat characters" are actually just doing the thing everyone does, maybe 10-20% better, but that's usually not enough to make a solid difference.

Quertus
2019-09-14, 01:13 PM
So, I think the problem with "lane"-based thinking is that it is complicated by two opposed schools of thought: rules-first and character-first.

Suppose I want to make a Hermione espy (sp?) in 3e D&D. Well, clearly, she's a Wizard (Harry). Or witch, but 3e doesn't really have a witch class. Without brewing new spells, about the most iconic spell she can replicate at low levels is Aloha Mora. So, clearly, opening locked doors is her big thing. Then some Rogue player is a jerk, and goes and puts ranks in Open Lock, becoming the party goto lock opener, with the party only falling back to the Hermione espy rare occasion. His flimsy defense for his **** move? It's not because his character actually cares about it. No, it's just because "that's what Rogues do".

Here, the Wizard's player was thinking in terms of their character; the Rogue's player was thinking in terms of the rules.

IMO, neither are "right". IMO, noone has any "right" to a lane. If your fun necessitates your character fulfilling a particular role (that's your problem, and) you either a) need to optimize sufficiently that you defacto fill that role, or b) get "character X fills role Y" added to the gentleman's agreement.

Jay R
2019-09-14, 02:27 PM
It depends so much on the DM/GM, the players, and the game system, that there is no way we can all come to agreement, simply because we have had different experiences.

Back when I was playing original D&D, I didn't care about character balance, because the cleverest and most original player would have the most effect, regardless of the character sheet. It was a point of pride sometimes to play a "weak" character and make him effective. I once played a very successful nine-year-old kid.

In a more developed game like D&D 3.5, when most options are already worked out and written down in the rules, I don't need to play the most powerful character, but I do want to play a character with useful and effective options to play with.

And it still has more to do with the player's ability to play the character well. In our current game, at 8th level, we have one player who is running a wizard. That wizard is far less effective than most other players, in large part because the player isn't doing what it takes to be effective. My character has spent most of his money on useful items and spells, and that wizard hasn't spent anything (despite my suggestions). In our last game, that player kept the wizard in the tavern when mine was at the docks, when we expected an attack on our ship. The wizard arrived late, and had little left to do. The player's choices are still the most important aspect of optimization.

Obviously, that player and I disagree about the need for enforced balance.

I repeat: It depends so much on the DM/GM, the players, and the game system, that there is no way we can all come to agreement, simply because we have had different experiences.

MonstarDM
2019-09-14, 04:31 PM
I'm confused. How could a GM ruin the game for the (player of the) Fighter in your example?


Basicaly show favortism to ay player of a magic using class while being hostile to the player of the fighter character.


So, I think the problem with "lane"-based thinking is that it is complicated by two opposed schools of thought: rules-first and character-first.

I think Rules vs Role Play fits better here.

Lane thinking is ONLY for The Hyper Active Selfish Demanding Dominating Competing Action type. All the other types of players don't care about ''lanes".





IMO, neither are "right". IMO, noone has any "right" to a lane. If your fun necessitates your character fulfilling a particular role (that's your problem, and) you either a) need to optimize sufficiently that you defacto fill that role, or b) get "character X fills role Y" added to the gentleman's agreement.

To the above A and B, I'll also add C) Pick (or make) a unique lane that others can not easily duplicate.


I think a lot of people see ''Balance" in a game like this:

1.The game must only have four character types(1 to 4) and each has a Lane (A,B,C and D) that is unique and something the other three characters can't do at all.

2.Then, each hour of the game is broken into 15 minute segments of encounters that feature a single lane problem challenge. So for the first 15 minutes character 1 with lane power A will over come the challenge of Lane problem A. Then character 2 will do the same for the lane problem B, and so on.

3.So at the end of each hour, each player with thier lane character has gotten to dominate the game play for a full fifteen minutes.

Cluedrew
2019-09-14, 05:00 PM
I think the important thing is for everyone to be able to make a meaningful contribution.

Having a balanced (or roughly balanced) characters makes this easier. As does specialization where everyone has their own area. But there are other ways to do it. I have played campaigns driven by the weakest member of the party, who was also effectively our quest giver.

MoiMagnus
2019-09-14, 05:30 PM
First, let's make it clear: balance and symmetry are two vastly different things. If I look at all the strategy games I've played, some of the most well balanced ones where fully asymmetric.

What are the good of symmetry? Well, the most important one is probably time efficiency. D&D is a complex game, where a simple things like a fight. If a player is very bad at fighting, and run away from fight to let the good fighter fight, but 3/4 of each of your sessions are fight, then the sessions light feel a little boring to him/her.

Hence the conclusion: if there is a part of the game that will be major in your campaign, you want all the characters to be somewhat useful to this part. A solution is having the rules of the game (and the DM) actually forcing every character created to be actually proficient with what is considered by the designer (and your group) as the main part of the game (if any)

Then, the counter-cost of symmetry is that it kind of reduces the variety of characters, and the will to find unorthodox solutions to problems (since your character will almost always be adapted to the situation).

Now, about balance. Balance is not required, bit strongly advised if you do not know well your players. I've met a significant portion of players that don't live well the fact of being overshadowed, but are not "good" at finding their own line to have fun. It can be players that are bad at optimizing, but don't like feeling useless in fighting, players that are bad at talking but don't like when another player essentially makes all the social interactions. Balance try to ensure that everyone has a room to grow without having to fight for his/her spot.

But once you know more your players, you will find that some players do not abuse of whatever overpowered things they have, that some players always find interesting gameplay out of what would be considered as a bad character by any optimiser, and that some players are just happy with being part of the "secondary cast". In fact with the good group, you can even have a very fun campaign with a true "main character" quite obviously more powerful than the others ones.

JNAProductions
2019-09-14, 07:00 PM
It doesn't NEED to be.

But usually, a balanced party results in everyone having a good time, assuming the players and GM are good folk. Whereas imbalance can frequently, without any malice, result in at least one person having a bad time, due to someone being rendered obsolete due to mechanical differences.

MonstarDM
2019-09-14, 07:39 PM
I think the important thing is for everyone to be able to make a meaningful contribution.


I agree. And most others might say this too....except when people talk about balance they are only talking about combat. And worse as they are only talking about the mechanincal rules and numbers.

A meaningful contribution does not have to be ''Only Combat".

False God
2019-09-14, 08:06 PM
I agree. And most others might say this too....except when people talk about balance they are only talking about combat. And worse as they are only talking about the mechanincal rules and numbers.

A meaningful contribution does not have to be ''Only Combat".

Sure, no argument, but again magicals can contribute to non-combat just as well as mundanes. Plus while mundanes must interact with the world via skill checks, magicals can do that and interact with it in ways skill checks can't even comprehend. Charm. Divination. Find the Path.

They can do travel better, in the form of summoning mounts which don't need food and never tire. Or creating portals to skip travel entirely.
-The Fighter still has to feed his horse and he has to let it rest and make Handle Animal checks just like everyone else and the horse may make his travel faster, but it will never be "instant".

They can do camp better, in the form of nigh-impenetrable extra-dimensional huts.
-Even the Ranger still needs to set up tents, find a safe location and take watches. Short of a wizard attack or magic shenanigans, nothing breaches the wizard's hut.

They can do survival better, summoning food and water from thin air.
-The Barbarian still has to hunt for his supper and if he gets nothing, he goes hungry. Heck, "create water" is a cantrip!

And lets not forget that magicals favor mental stats. And our poor little fighter getting only 2+int skill points. Only our dear rogue really cares about int at all and that's only because of his massive skill point pool and equally massive spread of skills. Any mundane who is investing into their mental stats is putting their other roles at a disadvantage, while any magical who favors their mental stats is...likely just boosting scores they already care about.

Again, maybe not right away. Which again was my point with high/low level balance points. Mundanes are likely to perform longer and better at lower levels, while magicals will take the lead at higher ones (basically, level 10 and the game splits). Which was also my point with the "dual balance points".

Quertus
2019-09-15, 01:27 PM
I think the important thing is for everyone to be able to make a meaningful contribution.

Having a balanced (or roughly balanced) characters makes this easier. As does specialization where everyone has their own area. But there are other ways to do it. I have played campaigns driven by the weakest member of the party, who was also effectively our quest giver.


and that some players are just happy with being part of the "secondary cast". In fact with the good group, you can even have a very fun campaign with a true "main character" quite obviously more powerful than the others ones.

I like to liken an RPG to putting on a play. Not all roles are equal. Good players, like good actors, understand this and act accordingly.

Every character in a play has a meaningful contribution - otherwise, they would be written out of the play. You'll hear me speak happily of my time playing a sentient potted plant, which was certainly one of the most minor roles I've played. Whereas you'll hear me complain about the character I played who contributed *exactly nothing* to the game (well, and about the players who, despite that fact, incorrectly complained that my *exactly useless* character was OP).

Put another way, IMO, happiness is in having a role, and accepting that role. "Equality" is just a Power Rangers way to try to force that to be true. And, IMO, it makes the game worse in its misunderstanding by taking the focus away from what is actually important. I've talked to too many players and GMs who could only comprehend mechanical balance, and could not conceptualize ideas like "narrative balance" or "having a role to play".

Mutazoia
2019-09-15, 02:07 PM
Not every actor in Romeo and Juliet has the same size role. And that's not only fine, that's actually optimal!

Romeo and Juliet is a play, not an RPG. It's generally assumed, that if you get a bunch of people together to play a game, everyone is going to get to play as much as everyone else. Nobody wants to be the bench-warmer while the rest of the group is having fun, and THIS is the reason for party balance. Everyone get's their time to shine.

If, out of a group of 5 players, one or two get 90% of the spot light, the rest of the players will get bored and find something else to do.

IMHO, people who don't believe in party balance, or say that it's not necessary, tend to be the people that create the characters that hog 90% of the spot light (I'm looking at YOU, Batman Wizards). Of course the are not going to give a rats arse about party balance when they are what's throwing it out of balance in the first place.

Now, party balance doesn't mean you have to have a set roster of characters, but it does mean that you try not to make characters that excel at everything (Unless the entire party is built along those lines). So , if Bob makes a fighter, you don't go and make a war domain cleric and muscle him out of his job. There are plenty of options in the game, that you shouldn't have this problem.

A good "session zero" will help to alleviate these problems before they start.


I like to liken an RPG to putting on a play. Not all roles are equal. Good players, like good actors, understand this and act accordingly.

Every character in a play has a meaningful contribution - otherwise, they would be written out of the play. You'll hear me speak happily of my time playing a sentient potted plant, which was certainly one of the most minor roles I've played. Whereas you'll hear me complain about the character I played who contributed *exactly nothing* to the game (well, and about the players who, despite that fact, incorrectly complained that my *exactly useless* character was OP).

Put another way, IMO, happiness is in having a role, and accepting that role. "Equality" is just a Power Rangers way to try to force that to be true. And, IMO, it makes the game worse in its misunderstanding by taking the focus away from what is actually important. I've talked to too many players and GMs who could only comprehend mechanical balance, and could not conceptualize ideas like "narrative balance" or "having a role to play".

Again, and RPG is NOT a play. A play is something you sit and watch. A book is something you sit and read.

A game is something you actively participate in. Would you sit and play Monopoly if you only got to take 1 turn for everybody else's 4? No. You wouldn't. That would be boring.

If you join 4 or 5 other people to play a game, you expect to play just as much as the rest of the players. You don't expect to let one or two people do most of the playing, while you're just there to roll dice in combat. You expect equal play time, not to be marginally more important than an NPC.

Pleh
2019-09-15, 02:28 PM
My mind goes back to soccer.

Each player has a role and a region of the field to cover, but these roles and regions are fluid. You cover your teammate's role when necessary.

RPGs (especially like D&D) require your table to cover certain roles. Multiple players can cover each other's roles, but it's usually a waste of resources to actively double up when it isn't necessary. It can leave you vulnerable in other areas on the field and it suggests your teammate can't be trusted to do their job.

MonstarDM
2019-09-15, 02:57 PM
Sure, no argument, but again magicals can contribute to non-combat just as well as mundanes. Plus while mundanes must interact with the world via skill checks, magicals can do that and interact with it in ways skill checks can't even comprehend. Charm. Divination. Find the Path.


Note that mundanes have more then just skills, they have abilities too.



They can do travel better, in the form of summoning mounts which don't need food and never tire. Or creating portals to skip travel entirely.
-The Fighter still has to feed his horse and he has to let it rest and make Handle Animal checks just like everyone else and the horse may make his travel faster, but it will never be "instant".

The flaw here is that your saying Better=Instant. And if you want to go with that single idea, that is fine. BUT remember that is NOT the only idea in the whole world.

Character Z just snaps there fingers and zips around the world.

Character A travels for six weeks and has several adventures, gains fame and fortune, and goes up two levels.

Humm...wonder what one ''sounds better"?



They can do camp better, in the form of nigh-impenetrable extra-dimensional huts.
-Even the Ranger still needs to set up tents, find a safe location and take watches. Short of a wizard attack or magic shenanigans, nothing breaches the wizard's hut.

Well, guess this is mechanincal rules specific. THIS is also the huge problem of game Stlye: of Awesome Magic. If the GM and players are going to say Magic is All Awesome, well then your type of game example happens. Almost nothing can effect and extra deminsinal space, in your stlye....AND you'd abslutely insist that anything that ''could" effect MUST be so super rare as to just about never be used.

Do you see the HUGE bias in the Awesome Magic stlye?




They can do survival better, summoning food and water from thin air.
-The Barbarian still has to hunt for his supper and if he gets nothing, he goes hungry. Heck, "create water" is a cantrip!


Well, guess this is mechanincal rules specific. THIS is also the huge problem of game Stlye: of Awesome Magic.




And lets not forget that magicals favor mental stats. And our poor little fighter getting only 2+int skill points. Only our dear rogue really cares about int at all and that's only because of his massive skill point pool and equally massive spread of skills. Any mundane who is investing into their mental stats is putting their other roles at a disadvantage, while any magical who favors their mental stats is...likely just boosting scores they already care about.

Well, guess this is mechanincal rules specific. And it's only for the Style of: The Numbers Game.




Again, maybe not right away. Which again was my point with high/low level balance points. Mundanes are likely to perform longer and better at lower levels, while magicals will take the lead at higher ones (basically, level 10 and the game splits). Which was also my point with the "dual balance points".

Really, this is all about game Style. You are talking about a game Style where everyone just says Magic is Awesome, and then just hangs thier head down.

And, ok, fine, that is ONE Stlye and ONE way to play the game.

Lets try a good example of another Stlye: Lets call it the Magic Breaking Style.

1.Magic is NOT special in any way.

2.ANYTHING you think is ''Rare" for the expresse reason as you don't want it used againts your magic using character, is in fact, COMMON.

Wow, just think what this game would be like.....

Corneel
2019-09-15, 03:11 PM
Sure, no argument, but again magicals can contribute to non-combat just as well as mundanes. Plus while mundanes must interact with the world via skill checks, magicals can do that and interact with it in ways skill checks can't even comprehend. Charm. Divination. Find the Path.

They can do travel better, in the form of summoning mounts which don't need food and never tire. Or creating portals to skip travel entirely.
-The Fighter still has to feed his horse and he has to let it rest and make Handle Animal checks just like everyone else and the horse may make his travel faster, but it will never be "instant".

They can do camp better, in the form of nigh-impenetrable extra-dimensional huts.
-Even the Ranger still needs to set up tents, find a safe location and take watches. Short of a wizard attack or magic shenanigans, nothing breaches the wizard's hut.

They can do survival better, summoning food and water from thin air.
-The Barbarian still has to hunt for his supper and if he gets nothing, he goes hungry. Heck, "create water" is a cantrip!

And lets not forget that magicals favor mental stats. And our poor little fighter getting only 2+int skill points. Only our dear rogue really cares about int at all and that's only because of his massive skill point pool and equally massive spread of skills. Any mundane who is investing into their mental stats is putting their other roles at a disadvantage, while any magical who favors their mental stats is...likely just boosting scores they already care about.

Again, maybe not right away. Which again was my point with high/low level balance points. Mundanes are likely to perform longer and better at lower levels, while magicals will take the lead at higher ones (basically, level 10 and the game splits). Which was also my point with the "dual balance points".
I think that is a wrong way to look at it. Sure you might be better at something than the other guy, but by doing something that someone else can do, even if not as good, you forego an opportunity to allocate resources to things that no one can do in your party.
It is better to see it in terms of comparative advantage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage). Sure the wizard can open locks with magic, but if they have a rogue around, they can use those spell slots for something different. Your party mates don't need to be necessarily better at something, just good enough so frees up resources (spell slots) to more and different things raising overall party efficiency.

moonfly7
2019-09-15, 03:39 PM
One player, or a few players are vastly stronger than the others, but each player has a lane to stay in and something that the other players can't do.

IE: the wizard can stop time and incinerate a squad of dudes. The theif can back stab to assassinate 1 Target, but it's probably better for him to slip away during combat and use it as a distraction to steal the documents.

The barbarian can slaughter a dragon, but the general can issue strategic orders that buff the party and lead everyone to victory.

We see this dynamic in all our favorite stories: Eragon, Lord of the Rings, Star wars etc.

I feel you, it really bugs me when I get criticized about "party balance"
in the game I currently run for my players, they have:
a life cleric
a sorcerer
a wizard
a monk
and another cleric joining soon
not a "balanced" party all.
the cleric uses almost exclusively spells, and so will the new cleric. a party of full-casters, and a monk. I've been told time and again that I'm a bad DM for letting it get this far gone.

But I don't get what's so bad about it. My Players are happy, these are there characters. Who cares if its my game, its there story, I want them to actually like the characters they play instead of worrying about "Party Balance".
I don't pull punches as a DM. their last fight was against 50 bandit captains, 50 level 8 wizards, and 100 bandits. They won. Not a single permanent casualty.

Forget party balance. Its a stupid figment that the DnD community came up with for reasons no one could fathom. "party balance" is a way to make us scramble to fit in and be what others want in an frigging RPG. That isn't right.

as for feeling different, every fighter I've played feels unique, different than my last, or than my buddies. every wizard has different spells, different flavor, and different way of operating. If a party is actually playing the game right, no ones toes are stepped on, because you work as a team. The best games I've played in revolve around party identity. It's like each of you are part of one big character. who cares if you and three other guys all use broadswords? they have your back against orcs, and you all have fun.

MonstarDM
2019-09-15, 04:55 PM
Forget party balance. Its a stupid figment that the DnD community came up with for reasons no one could fathom. "party balance" is a way to make us scramble to fit in and be what others want in an frigging RPG. That isn't right.


It's the same old story:

Lots and lots of people have bad gaming stories: game where they just had no fun. But one guy out there had a good game where everyone had fun. So when asked ''why is your game good?" , Bob tried to give an answer, but it's not like he was an expert or anything. And his answer had the word ''balance" in it, likely taken out of context. But it did not matter ''They" had their answer: "A good game is one with a balanced party".

They have spoken, so let it be so....and so now nearly everyone follows the 'party balance' idea and game stlye.

Eldan
2019-09-16, 03:10 AM
So, I think the problem with "lane"-based thinking is that it is complicated by two opposed schools of thought: rules-first and character-first.

Suppose I want to make a Hermione espy (sp?) in 3e D&D. Well, clearly, she's a Wizard (Harry). Or witch, but 3e doesn't really have a witch class. Without brewing new spells, about the most iconic spell she can replicate at low levels is Aloha Mora. So, clearly, opening locked doors is her big thing. Then some Rogue player is a jerk, and goes and puts ranks in Open Lock, becoming the party goto lock opener, with the party only falling back to the Hermione espy rare occasion. His flimsy defense for his **** move? It's not because his character actually cares about it. No, it's just because "that's what Rogues do".

Here, the Wizard's player was thinking in terms of their character; the Rogue's player was thinking in terms of the rules.

IMO, neither are "right". IMO, noone has any "right" to a lane. If your fun necessitates your character fulfilling a particular role (that's your problem, and) you either a) need to optimize sufficiently that you defacto fill that role, or b) get "character X fills role Y" added to the gentleman's agreement.

That's not even really the problem, though. The big problem is that, say, you have two people thinking in character types. One player wants to be a gruff mercenary with a big sword. So he plays a fighter. The other player wants to be protector of the wilderness who draws magical power from the land. So he plays a druid. Entirely character-based.
Neither optimizes much, so the fighter gets a sword and board, and the druid gets a wolf animal companion, because wolves are cool.

And here the problem starts. Because that wolf, that the druid just selected from the random list and puts no resources into? It's almost as good as fighting as the fighter. Slightly lower armor, about the same offence, and also higher speed, scent and free trip.

The druid, without wanting to, and without putting resources or thought into it, has invalidated the fighter.

But it goes further. The druid looks at their list and thinks "If I cast these three spells, I can fight better than the fighter". That just always hangs over the group. The druid can be nice and not invalidate the fighter, but everyone at the table knows they could, casually, while also doing 20 other things. The fighter is only relevant at the druid's behest.

Drascin
2019-09-16, 04:03 AM
one way to work around this is the gentlemen agreement, where everyone agrees to stay in their lane. casters could probably fight better than fighters with the right buffs, but they choose not to, and to do their thing instead.

and really, it's not easy to "accidentally" outperform a reasonably optimized fighter with a decent equipment. barring some of the crazier combos, you're not invading their lane much.

It still feels pretty bad when you realize your party members could obviate you entirely with a lot less investment than it's taking you to be helpful to the party though, even if they make a point of avoiding all the choices that would obviate you.

Like, for example, I remember I was playing Exalted. I was playing a Lunar sage and crafter. I had spent pretty much the entirety of my character on those angles, to the level that her contribution to combat was to literally hide in a barrel while combat was going on. And yet, the knowledge that any of the Solars in the party could be geometrically better at crafting than my character could ever reach simply by spending 24 XP (which in terms of investment, for the D&D-only crowd, is a bit like taking a small one or two level dip) was annoying.

Glorthindel
2019-09-16, 05:30 AM
That's not even really the problem, though. The big problem is that, say, you have two people thinking in character types. One player wants to be a gruff mercenary with a big sword. So he plays a fighter. The other player wants to be protector of the wilderness who draws magical power from the land. So he plays a druid. Entirely character-based.
Neither optimizes much, so the fighter gets a sword and board, and the druid gets a wolf animal companion, because wolves are cool.

And here the problem starts. Because that wolf, that the druid just selected from the random list and puts no resources into? It's almost as good as fighting as the fighter. Slightly lower armor, about the same offence, and also higher speed, scent and free trip.

The druid, without wanting to, and without putting resources or thought into it, has invalidated the fighter.

But it goes further. The druid looks at their list and thinks "If I cast these three spells, I can fight better than the fighter". That just always hangs over the group. The druid can be nice and not invalidate the fighter, but everyone at the table knows they could, casually, while also doing 20 other things. The fighter is only relevant at the druid's behest.

Are you only engaging the party with single monsters? I ask, because having more people able to go toe-to-toe with enemies has honestly never been a problem in a game I've run ever.

The more front-line combatants the party has, the more foes you can throw at them, and allow the differences between those combatants to come to the fore. Sure, if the party is facing one ogre/troll/other iconic hard-hitting big-guy, of course there is going to be some jostling for the position of face-tanker, but throw in a couple of light-armoured skirmishers that need to be held up from getting to the parties casters, and a tough low-damage reliable-hitter, and suddenly your Fighter, animal companion, and any other melee combatants are spread out handling the fires they are better suited to (that Fighter has a higher AC, have him hold up the big guy while the wolf is judiciously tripping the skirmishers for the heavy damage dealer to finish off).

Asmotherion
2019-09-16, 05:42 AM
it's mostly a matter of CR. if one player optimises and the rest of the players don't the DM will either have to account for the player and throwing monsters that only he can manage (leaving the rest of the party useless and at higher danger) or NOT account for the 1 player and have the party fight lower power monsters and the player that optimised the most won't feel challenged and get bored of the game fast.

Quertus
2019-09-16, 06:28 AM
That's not even really the problem, though. The big problem is that, say, you have two people thinking in character types. One player wants to be a gruff mercenary with a big sword. So he plays a fighter. The other player wants to be protector of the wilderness who draws magical power from the land. So he plays a druid. Entirely character-based.
Neither optimizes much, so the fighter gets a sword and board, and the druid gets a wolf animal companion, because wolves are cool.

And here the problem starts. Because that wolf, that the druid just selected from the random list and puts no resources into? It's almost as good as fighting as the fighter. Slightly lower armor, about the same offence, and also higher speed, scent and free trip.

The druid, without wanting to, and without putting resources or thought into it, has invalidated the fighter.

But it goes further. The druid looks at their list and thinks "If I cast these three spells, I can fight better than the fighter". That just always hangs over the group. The druid can be nice and not invalidate the fighter, but everyone at the table knows they could, casually, while also doing 20 other things. The fighter is only relevant at the druid's behest.

That… really misses the mark.

My point was, the Generic Rogue and Hermione Espy Wizard disagree on whose role opening locked doors is.

In your example, both players agree that the Fighter's role is to deal damage. Thus, they can either a) retool their characters until the Fighter plays that role, or b) realize that the Fighter *is* playing that role - even if the wolf is *also* playing that role - because that role isn't an exclusive role.

Now, where you get into trouble is when that 1st level Fighter Druid party also has a Wizard, who, because Wizards have finite resources, is agreed to have the role of "burst damage specialist", who can deliver the big hits a few times per day. The game just doesn't allow the 1st level Evoker to optimize sufficiently to fulfill that role.

Drache64
2019-09-16, 07:01 AM
The druid can be nice and not invalidate the fighter, but everyone at the table knows they could, casually, while also doing 20 other things. The fighter is only relevant at the druid's behest.

I disagree. The fighter still fights. Having a turn adds to the action economy, his higher AC and HP can make him a valuable damage soak, mixed with his class abilities and weapon choice giving him better damage output.

Even if someone is better at fighting, it doesn't mean the fighter is useless. The best soccer player on the team still needs the team. If one forward is better than the other, it doesn't mean the other forward is a waste of space.

In short, there is no I in team.

Pleh
2019-09-16, 07:06 AM
I disagree. The fighter still fights. Having a turn adds to the action economy, his higher AC and HP can make him a valuable damage soak, mixed with his class abilities and weapon choice giving him better damage output.

Even if someone is better at fighting, it doesn't mean the fighter is useless. The best soccer player on the team still needs the team. If one forward is better than the other, it doesn't mean the other forward is a waste of space.

In short, there is no I in team.

The Fighter might feel a bit left out if both the druid and the druid's animal companion each contribute more to the Fight than the Fighter does. To be fair, this is a reason to be upset with the rules, not the fellow player (unless they are actively trying to cut out the significance of their playmates).

Asmotherion
2019-09-16, 07:29 AM
I disagree. The fighter still fights. Having a turn adds to the action economy, his higher AC and HP can make him a valuable damage soak, mixed with his class abilities and weapon choice giving him better damage output.

Even if someone is better at fighting, it doesn't mean the fighter is useless. The best soccer player on the team still needs the team. If one forward is better than the other, it doesn't mean the other forward is a waste of space.

In short, there is no I in team.

A full caster can summon a bunch of better fighters than the fighter as a full round action. Or Planar Bind a few as bodyguards. Just to state 2 simple examples.

Unless you min/max a fighter to do 900+ damage a turn he's going to contribute minimally past level 6 and it's only going downhill from there.

Willie the Duck
2019-09-16, 11:48 AM
Okay, a bit more time than my last response. A lot of good discussion overall, amidst a little straw.

As others have mentioned, individual instances of people playing characters with different levels of... overall mechanical capability to effect the outcome of in-game situations (let's shorthand that to 'agency') does not inherently make the game unplayable or universally unfun. This is especially true if:
The game as being played is not relying overly on mechanical solutions (examples include social or problem solving scenarios where dice aren't being picked up at all)
There is a reward other than feeling like you contributed as much as others (your character got to be the roleplaying spotlight while others got to 'do' more stuff, although this edges in on the 'non-mechanical contributions' bullet point)
There is a promise of future agency (you're starting over at 1st level, so you aren't contributing as much, but you're levelling faster, and thus catching up. And that is an alternative good feeling).
That said, in general, people want to be able to contribute vaguely as much as the person sitting next to them. More specifically, if they open a gaming book, and they have a choice between picking A, B, or C types of character, it's rather nice if those overall options are relatively balanced (and if you end up in an unbalanced situation after that, perhaps for in-game or in-group reasons, then that's fine). Particularly if they are coded as the same in some way -- cost the same number of points in a point-buy game, have the same XP cost to level up in a levelled game, or even moreso, be able to either level up in an additional level of X, or take a level of Y instead. And that's really where I think people mostly look for balance-- at the raw initial choice phase.

At the very least, people want to be told that something being weaker than another is in some way by design. If you're picking to play as a weaker choice, you are doing so because that's what you are specifically looking for (the "it's quite exciting to take a party that's below the adventure's balance point, and struggle to succeed anyway" model Quertus posited). Certain games have that -- the 90s White Wolf World of Darkness games had sub-games where you played as the vampire characters' enthralled humans, or the werewolves' family members, or a Whoopi Goldberg to the Wraith's Patrick Swayze, and I'd make a fair guess that no one picked up those splatbooks and tried playing one of those without knowing that their mechanical agency would be less than other options.

patchyman
2019-09-16, 12:07 PM
I like to liken an RPG to putting on a play.

...except in all the meaningful ways that it isn’t. If I sign up to play “Macbeth” and I am cast as Murderer no. 3, I really have no cause to complain that Macbeth is a more interesting role and gets more lines.

But RPGs aren’t nearly so clear about who is Macbeth and who is Murderer no. 3. Maybe I’m a new player who doesn’t know about the tiers. Maybe I know about the tiers, but don’t have the time or inclination to optimize. Or maybe I just think it is BS that there are a handful of martial builds (who may or may not be fun to play) that can compete with the baseline power level of casters.

Perfect balance doesn’t exist. Reasonable balance is far from a niche concern.

Psyren
2019-09-16, 12:24 PM
My general rule of thumb goes something like this: "spells have the potential to do anything, but they shouldn't be capable of doing everything."

A wizard/druid/etc. who can do the fighter's job or their own job isn't the problem in my eyes - the problem is when they can do both, especially with no (or very few) tradeoffs or consequences.

I'll illustrate with this earlier example:



Suppose I want to make a Hermione espy (sp?) in 3e D&D. Well, clearly, she's a Wizard (Harry). Or witch, but 3e doesn't really have a witch class. Without brewing new spells, about the most iconic spell she can replicate at low levels is Aloha Mora. So, clearly, opening locked doors is her big thing. Then some Rogue player is a jerk, and goes and puts ranks in Open Lock, becoming the party goto lock opener, with the party only falling back to the Hermione espy rare occasion. His flimsy defense for his **** move? It's not because his character actually cares about it. No, it's just because "that's what Rogues do".


Putting aside the confrontational way in which the players went about this (which is a separate problem) - had the players talked it out with one another and agreed that picking locks should be primarily the rogue's chance to shine, I wouldn't have minded that at all. In fact, in D&D, Alohomora would have several drawbacks:

- You have to say it out loud (most of the time, picking a lock is/should be a stealthy activity).
- You need a wand and a flourishing motion, which isn't much help if it's confiscated and/or you're tied up.
- In D&D, spells are a limited resource, so while the rogue can theoretically pick infinite locks, Hermione would be more limited. Spells are also prepared/selected in advance, so she runs the risk of either not having enough uses, or of overprioritizing it and ending up with not enough of something she actually needs.

These and other factors mean that, even though the wizard can do both jobs, they're better off in most cases just letting the rogue do that one and using their slots for something else. BUT, if for some reason the rogue can't solve the problem (e.g. they got captured or knocked unconscious), the party isn't stuck either.

Faily
2019-09-16, 12:35 PM
Forget party balance. Its a stupid figment that the DnD community came up with for reasons no one could fathom. "party balance" is a way to make us scramble to fit in and be what others want in an frigging RPG. That isn't right.

as for feeling different, every fighter I've played feels unique, different than my last, or than my buddies. every wizard has different spells, different flavor, and different way of operating. If a party is actually playing the game right, no ones toes are stepped on, because you work as a team. The best games I've played in revolve around party identity. It's like each of you are part of one big character. who cares if you and three other guys all use broadswords? they have your back against orcs, and you all have fun.

Agreed! +1 to this so much.

A group is a team, and if you focus on working together as a team, there will be a lot less stepping on other people's toes.

Quertus
2019-09-16, 01:24 PM
...except in all the meaningful ways that it isn’t. If I sign up to play “Macbeth” and I am cast as Murderer no. 3, I really have no cause to complain that Macbeth is a more interesting role and gets more lines.

But RPGs aren’t nearly so clear about who is Macbeth and who is Murderer no. 3. Maybe I’m a new player who doesn’t know about the tiers. Maybe I know about the tiers, but don’t have the time or inclination to optimize. Or maybe I just think it is BS that there are a handful of martial builds (who may or may not be fun to play) that can compete with the baseline power level of casters.

Perfect balance doesn’t exist. Reasonable balance is far from a niche concern.

"Balance" is only a concern if you make it so. Parties do not need to be balanced to have fun, unless you make balance a requirement for your fun. You can absolutely play murderhobo #3 and have a blast! You just have to walk into the RPG with the right expectations.

Yes, when you're clueless as to your role, your ignorance can lead you to false expectations, and to not enjoy the game. That's… true of just about everything, really, and not unique to RPGs.


I'll illustrate with this earlier example:



Putting aside the confrontational way in which the players went about this (which is a separate problem) - had the players talked it out with one another and agreed that picking locks should be primarily the rogue's chance to shine, I wouldn't have minded that at all. In fact, in D&D, Alohomora would have several drawbacks:

- You have to say it out loud (most of the time, picking a lock is/should be a stealthy activity).
- You need a wand and a flourishing motion, which isn't much help if it's confiscated and/or you're tied up.
- In D&D, spells are a limited resource, so while the rogue can theoretically pick infinite locks, Hermione would be more limited. Spells are also prepared/selected in advance, so she runs the risk of either not having enough uses, or of overprioritizing it and ending up with not enough of something she actually needs.

These and other factors mean that, even though the wizard can do both jobs, they're better off in most cases just letting the rogue do that one and using their slots for something else. BUT, if for some reason the rogue can't solve the problem (e.g. they got captured or knocked unconscious), the party isn't stuck either.

Confrontational? I'm really not sure where you're getting that. No, they both *thought* that they had explained themselves in session 0 ("I'm playing Hermione", "I'm playing a Rogue"), but their myopic role-based thinking prevented them from hearing the other person, or from communicating more clearly.

Now, agreeing that opening doors is the "Rogue's thing" is mechanically optimal, for all the reasons you listed. However, it leaves the Hermione espy with no role to play. She could cast, what, light? Levitation? HP Wizards don't really have many good spells that translate well to D&D, especially at low level (although an argument could be made for Charm Person, but that's not really a Hermione spell, IMO).

Whereas the Rogue could easily be retooled for DPS, stealth, DPS, traps, DPS, Sleight of Hand, DPS, scouting, DPS, UMD, DPS, or any number of other things and still conceptually be a Rogue. In fact, if they're not already most of those things, they're probably failing at being a conceptual Rogue in the first place.

Again, I think that the Rogue opening doors is the *right* answer, from an optimization / efficiency POV. But it's highly unfair to a Hermione espy, who really doesn't have any other way to contribute (magically, that is - she probably should have some Knowledge skills).

So, if you walk in with a Hermione espy, expecting to contribute to the party with magic, you will be sorely disappointed, and probably not have fun. If, OTOH, you don't view Hermione as having a right to a particular role, you should be much more able to adapt to the reality of the situation, and enjoy what she actually contributes. Which isn't much - and, if the Rogue is either an entitled jerk, or both an efficient optimizer and a regular jerk, then that probably won't include any significant magical contribution.

(For the record, I don't really play espy (sp?) characters, so I reserve the right to be wrong about such players' motivations, enjoyment, Etc)

Willie the Duck
2019-09-16, 01:32 PM
(For the record, I don't really play espy (sp?) characters, so I reserve the right to be wrong about such players' motivations, enjoyment, Etc)

The term is Expy (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Expy)

Lord Raziere
2019-09-16, 01:34 PM
Well lets look at it from the most universal view one can:
not even from the viewpoint of all rpgs, but the viewpoint of all possible power sets, character concepts and skills.

character concepts, even discarding systems, are not equal.

say someone wants a character does things on their own. now compare that to any character concept with the ability to call up a servant or friend to help you. that introduces imbalance simply because its possible for one character to do two things at the same time. and to an even greater degree, this produces a certain imbalance between say, a leader character and a non-leader character:
"oh you can do X? thats cute, I have a bunch of followers to do X for me on my payroll." and basically solve their problems by throwing enough people at it.

next let us consider the warrior and the healer. seems balanced right? one fights, one heals. except, logically, most healer concepts can also fight to some degree, just as not as well as the warrior. they will take longer to win, but they will still win a fight. this is also an imbalance, since that implies the only thing that a healer needs to do is get better at fighting to supplement healing they already do, while we see little of the reverse holding true.

next we see the case of speedsters versus non-speedsters. often speedsters have to be written to be stupid, or otherwise hold back their powers, because in practice a speedster would just speed blitz everyone to death and defeat everything before any other hero has time to act. thus superspeed is actually very imbalanced, as is any time-stopping ability since there is little actual difference between the two in practice.

next, say consider one person wanting to play a science fiction concept vs. one who wants to play a fantasy one. the science fiction one is inherently more limited as it offers more opportunity for people to shoot possibilities down and provide reasons why this or that would not work. both have to be equally fantastic to be balanced.

next imbalance can be circumstantial. a social character will be useless in the wilderness, a warrior useless in social situations, a supernatural being against any of their kryptonite, a mermaid on land, a robot against EMP, vampires in daylight, human in vacuum of space, any unobservant character against traps, and any giant character will useless against any small enough space (I'm not going into mage weaknesses because I'm going to be talked at by every 3.5 wizard fan assuming I'm talking about their magic specifically and how they've totally prepared for their toothbrush suddenly becoming an evil all killing abomination trying to end reality through magical popcorn bubblegum.)

next we have the idea of a jack of all trades vs. a specialist vs. a role-shifter. here is the thing: the only difference between a jack of all trades and a role-shifter is competence. normally a specialist beats the jack in their specialty, and normally the jack beats the specialist at everything outside of it. but a jack vs. role-shifter loses just as much as a specialist does to all-prep. this means any character no matter what system or whatever, a role-shifter is better than both these concepts because it can switch what its specialized in and thus do both specialization and jack of trades better and a very big imbalance. such as a jack of all trades Solar Exalted...being in the same circle as a Socialize Supernal Eclipse or Night and watching them have a persona for every situation. and really a summoner or leader character with followers is just another kind of role-shifter as they can just call up people to be that specialized role for them.

next source of imbalance can be mental. a smarter character is always more powerful than a dumber one, as they can adapt to more circumstances someone can throw at them while still doing simpler actions a dumb character can. a dumb character therefore always needs some kind of big advantage in their favor to balance themselves out so they can apply their hammer to more nails.

next any option that has a cost is less desirable than an option that doesn't. thus people tend to go for options that avoid paying a cost. therefore any option with no cost is imbalanced against one that does. this applies even to opportunity costs: if one sees an option as doing All The Things and another option doing One Thing, that One Thing has the cost of only doing that thing and not all the things, while All The Things Option has no cost.

and of course, there is the classic problem with elemental systems: rock paper scissors, only one element, that whole thing.

and of course any superhero setting has to deal with the classic "Batman and superman" problem where you have to figure out how superman doesn't just solve everything. or why robots aren't just better in every way over humans in any sci-fi setting. or well, a lot of other examples.

from this perspective, it seems as if balance is impossible. seems to be.

but it is needed, nonetheless. balance is being aware of these problems and taking steps to balance oneself. to figure out ways of limiting these powers and such to make sure doesn't work too well, it requires self-awareness and self-restraint. to know when NOT to win instantly. to make sure your abilities make sense for the world rather than breaking the world. for mechanics, its recognizing that the mechanical representations don't reflect literal reality of the world and that there are things outside the system you have to assume to make the concept work as a balanced character that makes sense within it the worlds confines. and of course communication. people, awareness and thinking things through and communicating are the best defenses against a broken character.

Kaptin Keen
2019-09-16, 03:50 PM
Why? Because no one wants to play the sidekick.

patchyman
2019-09-16, 04:51 PM
"Balance" is only a concern if you make it so. Parties do not need to be balanced to have fun, unless you make balance a requirement for your fun. You can absolutely play murderhobo #3 and have a blast! You just have to walk into the RPG with the right expectations.

This sounds an awful lot like “if you choose a class that is weak compared to that of the other players, and that bothers you, it’s your fault for caring about balance.”

Gallowglass
2019-09-16, 05:15 PM
"Balance" is only a concern if you make it so. Parties do not need to be balanced to have fun, unless you make balance a requirement for your fun. You can absolutely play murderhobo #3 and have a blast! You just have to walk into the RPG with the right expectations.



This sounds an awful lot like “if you choose a class that is weak compared to that of the other players, and that bothers you, it’s your fault for caring about balance.”

I don't really see how what Quertus said could possibly sound like that. I think perhaps you need some hearing aids?

To me, I heard "Its perfectly fine to be a Fighter 20 or Monk 20 in a party of Wizard 20s as long as you are having fun."

Which, as "having fun" is the entire point to me, I agree with?

moonfly7
2019-09-16, 05:53 PM
I know we're talking about rpgs in general, but I play 5E mostly. And here's what I have to say for dnd, which is where I see the party balance thing a lot:
Just because another dude killed 50 guys with fireball, does not make your sword and shield obsolete.
I've seen this mentality so much, and I've even seen people who main casters getting pissed because they think it's stupid to play a non magic class.
"Party balance" (ugh just saying it hurts me) if it's even a thing, only exists in our minds. Really and truly.
That wizards fireball? It was his whole turn. He's done now. And you better believe he's bored and wishing he hadn't eaten all the Cheetos two hours ago. Your swordy boi though? On his turn he's got everything to do, no wasted action options, depending on how he's built, he can do crazy stuff with actions, bonus actions, and more actions. Even going so far as too get an extra reaction on everyone else's turn.
But both the wizard and the fighter are "balanced" both can contribute. And it goes for every class in every system. Every subclass too (yes, even 4 elements monk)
Bottom line, if your not having fun because of "balance issues" ots probably not the parties class choices that are an issue, it's your attitude.
Rpgs are people games, and 99% of the time people are the real issue in them.
The other 1 percent is bad homebrew and game design.

MoiMagnus
2019-09-16, 05:54 PM
I don't really see how what Quertus said could possibly sound like that. I think perhaps you need some hearing aids?

To me, I heard "Its perfectly fine to be a Fighter 20 or Monk 20 in a party of Wizard 20s as long as you are having fun."

Which, as "having fun" is the entire point to me, I agree with?

Though I don't think that's what Quertus intended to say, it is not that hard to read what he understood in the text:

"'Balance' is only a concern if you make it so. [...] You just have to walk into the RPG with the right expectations."
=> If you don't have fun because of unbalance in the game, that's your fault for not having the good expectations for the game, not the game designer's (or DM) fault for making a broken system.
=> “if you choose a class that is weak compared to that of the other players, and that bothers you, it’s your fault for caring about balance.”

Gallowglass
2019-09-16, 06:17 PM
Though I don't think that's what Quertus intended to say, it is not that hard to read what he understood in the text:

"'Balance' is only a concern if you make it so. [...] You just have to walk into the RPG with the right expectations."
=> If you don't have fun because of unbalance in the game, that's your fault for not having the good expectations for the game, not the game designer's (or DM) fault for making a broken system.
=> “if you choose a class that is weak compared to that of the other players, and that bothers you, it’s your fault for caring about balance.”


Let me edit that so it makes sense to me.

"'Balance' is only a concern if you make it so. [...] You just have to walk into the RPG with the right expectations."
=> If you don't have fun because of unbalance in the game, that's your fault for not having the good expectations for the game, not the game designer's (or DM) fault for making a broken system.

=> “if you choose a class that is weak compared to that of the other players, and that bothers you, it’s your fault for caring about balance.”[/QUOTE]

frankly, you are conflating "balance issues" with "having fun" here. If you are playing the game and not having fun.... yeah... that is your fault.... either change your expectations to start having fun, or find a different game with different players.

If you make a monk when everyone else made wizards, then why are you whining about "how unfair and unfun it is"?

Here's what I don't get. And I realize my experiences have been lucky compared to some. If I play a monk, its because I have a concept for a character that is a monk. And I get to play that character. And I get to have fun. If the rest of the party is made out of wizards.... so what? I still get to find my place in the "story" and play it out. I guess i'm lucky in having DMs and players that don't act like the mythical T1 super characters portrayed as existing on this forum, but that I have never found in real life. And I'm also lucky in that I have a strong enough force of personality when playing to make my impact on the game regardless.

Now, I -personally- have no problem with you redesigning the game or trying to improve balance. I think the game would benefit from it. But the game isn't BROKEN without those improvements. I've been in many high level games where t4 characters are on the same team with t1 characters and everybody has fun, everybody contributes, everyone is part of the victory, everyone is party of the story.

ChamHasNoRoom
2019-09-16, 06:30 PM
EDIT: I have been notified that the person I was responding to was banned. I stand by my criticism, but since they can't respond, it seems unfair to leave a direct attack on their argument standing where they can't reply.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-16, 06:37 PM
If you make a monk when everyone else made wizards, then why are you whining about "how unfair and unfun it is"?


Let me rephrase this question, because its asked by optimizers a lot:

"If you make a (CLASS PRESENTED AS EQUALLY VIABLE OPTION TO OTHER CLASSES) when everyone else made (CLASS THAT ONLY EXPERIENCED EXPERIENCED PEOPLE KNOW IS BETTER THAN OTHER CLASSES), then why are you whining about "how unfair and unfun it is"?"

the thing you presuming is obvious is not obvious. please stop assuming its obvious. It is not obvious. this thing is not obvious and some would prefer this difference you think is obvious to actually BE obvious instead of assumed to be not be obvious when its not obvious. did I mention it that its not obvious yet? because its not obvious and also not obvious. its not self-evident.

because, I cannot emphasize this enough, some people do not auto-see classes as difficulty settings. I do not do not this, and don't care or want to. what I want. is for them to be styles of play that don't impact difficulty. I'd much rather have a class be a flavor of ice cream or pizza. you have your flavor, I have mine, no ones flavor is better, but we can all enjoy the pizza. and just because you want anchovies shouldn't impact my plain cheese slice.

Talakeal
2019-09-16, 07:19 PM
Agreed! +1 to this so much.

A group is a team, and if you focus on working together as a team, there will be a lot less stepping on other people's toes.

What does "working as a team" really mean though?

Because past low levels, the pressence of a fighter in 3.X is actively detrimental to their teammates, and the best thing he can do for his team is stay home.

zinycor
2019-09-16, 08:21 PM
What does "working as a team" really mean though?

Because past low levels, the pressence of a fighter in 3.X is actively detrimental to their teammates, and the best thing he can do for his team is stay home.

I believe the definition for temakwork might be relevant:


The process of working collaboratively with a group of people in order to achieve a goal.
Teamwork is often a crucial part of a business, as it is often necessary for colleagues to work well together, trying their best in any circumstance. Teamwork means that people will try to cooperate, using their individual skills and providing constructive feedback, despite any personal conflict between individuals.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/teamwork.html

Willie the Duck
2019-09-16, 09:31 PM
Are you serious right now? "If you care about balance, you are selfish monster, but, y'know, that's fine, you do you, you horrible abomination of a human being." This isn't just passive aggressive. This is like a parody of passive-aggressiveness you would use to communicate the idea in a YouTube skit.

That poster has been banned, they cannot respond.

Talakeal
2019-09-16, 10:01 PM
I believe the definition for temakwork might be relevant:

Definitions don't really help when we are talking about subtlety, nuance, or intention.

In this case is "working towards a goal" an in or out of character thing? There is a dissonance as the characters will likely have to sabotage their in character goals in order to make everyone feel better at the table.

Zuras
2019-09-16, 10:16 PM
Now, party balance doesn't mean you have to have a set roster of characters, but it does mean that you try not to make characters that excel at everything (Unless the entire party is built along those lines). So , if Bob makes a fighter, you don't go and make a war domain cleric and muscle him out of his job. There are plenty of options in the game, that you shouldn't have this problem.


For 5e, isn’t that particular scenario almost the opposite of muscling them out of a job, though? If Bob makes a Fighter, and Joe makes a War Cleric so Bob can use his Protection fighting style when they charge the enemy together surrounded by Spirit Guardians or warded by Bless, Bob is usually having a good time.

If Bob builds an archer but doesn’t take the archery fighting style or Sharpshooter, and Joe builds an optimized Elven Samurai archer with Sharpshooter and elven accuracy and doubles Bobs damage while using the same schtick, then you have a problem.

zinycor
2019-09-16, 10:16 PM
Definitions don't really help when we are talking about subtlety, nuance, or intention.

In this case is "working towards a goal" an in or out of character thing? There is a dissonance as the characters will likely have to sabotage their in character goals in order to make everyone feel better at the table.

Is that a problem?, Characters are just imaginary constructs, I don't believe that sabotaging character goals matters in the least, specially when compared to making everyone feel better at the table.

Talakeal
2019-09-16, 10:42 PM
Is that a problem?, Characters are just imaginary constructs, I don't believe that sabotaging character goals matters in the least, specially whn compared to making everyone feel better at the table.

Some people enjoy RPing and getting into their character's head, and constantly coming up with excuses to sabotage their character's goals can really interfere with that.

On the same token, some people play to win, or at the very least enjoy the tactical elements of the game, and constantly having to hold back is frustrating for them.

zinycor
2019-09-16, 10:45 PM
Some people enjoy RPing and getting into their character's head, and constantly coming up with excuses to sabotage their character's goals can really interfere with that.

On the same token, some people play to win, or at the very least enjoy the tactical elements of the game, and constantly having to hold back is frustrating for them.

Weird. Hopefully I never have to play with such people

Lord Raziere
2019-09-16, 10:49 PM
Some people enjoy RPing and getting into their character's head, and constantly coming up with excuses to sabotage their character's goals can really interfere with that.

On the same token, some people play to win, or at the very least enjoy the tactical elements of the game, and constantly having to hold back is frustrating for them.

Pretty much. these people are part of the group as well. its disingenuous to assume that the goals of the "group" are always beer and pretzels stuff. if these people are social enough to work with you, should you not be social enough to work with them? otherwise its just a tyranny of the majority.

Quertus
2019-09-16, 11:05 PM
The term is Expy (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Expy)

Ah, thanks. It's not really part of my vocabulary yet.


Why? Because no one wants to play the sidekick.

Incorrect. Some people do enjoy playing the sidekick.


Let me edit that so it makes sense to me.

"'Balance' is only a concern if you make it so. [...] You just have to walk into the RPG with the right expectations."
=> If you don't have fun because of unbalance in the game, that's your fault for not having the good expectations for the game, not the game designer's (or DM) fault for making a broken system.

=> “if you choose a class that is weak compared to that of the other players, and that bothers you, it’s your fault for caring about balance.”

frankly, you are conflating "balance issues" with "having fun" here. If you are playing the game and not having fun.... yeah... that is your fault.... either change your expectations to start having fun, or find a different game with different players.

If you make a monk when everyone else made wizards, then why are you whining about "how unfair and unfun it is"?

Here's what I don't get. And I realize my experiences have been lucky compared to some. If I play a monk, its because I have a concept for a character that is a monk. And I get to play that character. And I get to have fun. If the rest of the party is made out of wizards.... so what? I still get to find my place in the "story" and play it out. I guess i'm lucky in having DMs and players that don't act like the mythical T1 super characters portrayed as existing on this forum, but that I have never found in real life. And I'm also lucky in that I have a strong enough force of personality when playing to make my impact on the game regardless.

Now, I -personally- have no problem with you redesigning the game or trying to improve balance. I think the game would benefit from it. But the game isn't BROKEN without those improvements. I've been in many high level games where t4 characters are on the same team with t1 characters and everybody has fun, everybody contributes, everyone is part of the victory, everyone is party of the story.

Thank you. You clearly get where I'm coming from, and can express it far more clearly than I am able.

I don't bother playing a character that isn't fun for me to play, but "fun to play" is not limited to the set "mechanics", let alone "mechanical contribution".


For 5e, isn’t that particular scenario almost the opposite of muscling them out of a job, though? If Bob makes a Fighter, and Joe makes a War Cleric so Bob can use his Protection fighting style when they charge the enemy together surrounded by Spirit Guardians or warded by Bless, Bob is usually having a good time.

If Bob builds an archer but doesn’t take the archery fighting style or Sharpshooter, and Joe builds an optimized Elven Samurai archer with Sharpshooter and elven accuracy and doubles Bobs damage while using the same schtick, then you have a problem.

Only if you make it a problem. Alternately, you can enjoy the disparity in mechanical contribution. Just look at Gimli.


Some people enjoy RPing and getting into their character's head, and constantly coming up with excuses to sabotage their character's goals can really interfere with that.

On the same token, some people play to win, or at the very least enjoy the tactical elements of the game, and constantly having to hold back is frustrating for them.

Hmmm… I'm not a fan of contrivance, or of poor role-playing. I'd need to head this one off in session 0, planning characters that I can roleplay properly, and still work towards the group's goals. Tell me the target, and I'll choose a character accordingly. Happily, my tactically inept signature academia Wizard is generally great for this.

Talakeal
2019-09-16, 11:39 PM
I cannot emphasize this enough, some people do not auto-see classes as difficulty settings. I do not do not this, and don't care or want to. what I want. is for them to be styles of play that don't impact difficulty. I'd much rather have a class be a flavor of ice cream or pizza. you have your flavor, I have mine, no ones flavor is better, but we can all enjoy the pizza. and just because you want anchovies shouldn't impact my plain cheese slice.

Agreed 100%.


I know we're talking about rpgs in general, but I play 5E mostly. And here's what I have to say for dnd, which is where I see the party balance thing a lot:
Just because another dude killed 50 guys with fireball, does not make your sword and shield obsolete.
I've seen this mentality so much, and I've even seen people who main casters getting pissed because they think it's stupid to play a non magic class.
"Party balance" (ugh just saying it hurts me) if it's even a thing, only exists in our minds. Really and truly.
That wizards fireball? It was his whole turn. He's done now. And you better believe he's bored and wishing he hadn't eaten all the Cheetos two hours ago. Your swordy boi though? On his turn he's got everything to do, no wasted action options, depending on how he's built, he can do crazy stuff with actions, bonus actions, and more actions. Even going so far as too get an extra reaction on everyone else's turn.
But both the wizard and the fighter are "balanced" both can contribute. And it goes for every class in every system. Every subclass too (yes, even 4 elements monk)
Bottom line, if your not having fun because of "balance issues" ots probably not the parties class choices that are an issue, it's your attitude.
Rpgs are people games, and 99% of the time people are the real issue in them.
The other 1 percent is bad homebrew and game design.

Could you clarify what you mean here?

Are you saying that fighters are better because they roll more dice than the wizard even if they accomplish less?

And are you actually saying that 99% (or is that 100%) of professionally published games do not have any serious balance issues? If so, what systems are so egregious that they actually make that 1%?


Hmmm… I'm not a fan of contrivance, or of poor role-playing. I'd need to head this one off in session 0, planning characters that I can roleplay properly, and still work towards the group's goals. Tell me the target, and I'll choose a character accordingly. Happily, my tactically inept signature academia Wizard is generally great for this.

Again, it depends on what the groups goals are, and if you are talking about OOC goals or IC goals.


Weird. Hopefully I never have to play with such people

So what do the people you play with find fun about that game?

Isn't the idea of everyone deriving fun from making sure everyone else has fun ultimately circular and meaningless?

zinycor
2019-09-16, 11:46 PM
So what do the people you play with find fun about that game?

Isn't the idea of everyone deriving fun from making sure everyone else has fun ultimately circular and meaningless?

And since I don't play games in order to find a meaning or improve at life.... Am totally fine with it being meaningless.

Talakeal
2019-09-17, 12:23 AM
And since I don't play games in order to find a meaning or improve at life.... Am totally fine with it being meaningless.

I am saying that the statement "its fun because its fun" is logically meaningless, not the activity it is describing.

Kaptin Keen
2019-09-17, 12:50 AM
Incorrect. Some people do enjoy playing the sidekick.

Yes, that is occasionally true. Not most people, and even for those that do, propably not all the time. I've yet to stumble on a game that supports the idea. All the games I've seen - by no means every game in existance, but quite a few - are based on the assumption of balance, despite the often obvious lack thereof.


I'm sorry, but despite your correct nitpick, I feel my point stands: No one wants to play the sidekick (generally speaking - exceptions do exist).

Drascin
2019-09-17, 02:14 AM
Yes, that is occasionally true. Not most people, and even for those that do, propably not all the time. I've yet to stumble on a game that supports the idea. All the games I've seen - by no means every game in existance, but quite a few - are based on the assumption of balance, despite the often obvious lack thereof.


I'm sorry, but despite your correct nitpick, I feel my point stands: No one wants to play the sidekick (generally speaking - exceptions do exist).

There's an important puntualization to be made here, I feel. I don't mind playing the sidekick if me being the sidekick was an explicit part of designing the character.

If the game presents two options as roughly equal, these options shuld actually be roughly equal, because "Well, you intended to make a cool warrior that defends his friends, but you ended up as Inspector Zenigata" has a very different feel for a player than "you chose the bumbling sidekick options and are having a blast being silly". There is little that makes a player bristle more than not being able to play the character they wanted to play.

Eldan
2019-09-17, 02:18 AM
Yeah, that. The baseassumption when playing D&D especially is that we're playing heroic fantasy. I've played bumbling sidekicks too, and court intrigue, and grim and gritty, and pulp action, and I've done all of those both in D&D and in other more specialized systems. But if someone tells me "D&D" and nothing else, I'm going to assume it will be a game of heroic fantasy. If someone invites me to join a D&D group and gives me no further details, I'm going to build a heroic fantasy character, which comes with some assumptions.

MeimuHakurei
2019-09-17, 02:24 AM
Incorrect. Some people do enjoy playing the sidekick.

__________________________________________________ _______________________________

Thank you. You clearly get where I'm coming from, and can express it far more clearly than I am able.

I don't bother playing a character that isn't fun for me to play, but "fun to play" is not limited to the set "mechanics", let alone "mechanical contribution".

__________________________________________________ _______________________________


Only if you make it a problem. Alternately, you can enjoy the disparity in mechanical contribution. Just look at Gimli.

__________________________________________________ _______________________________


Hmmm… I'm not a fan of contrivance, or of poor role-playing. I'd need to head this one off in session 0, planning characters that I can roleplay properly, and still work towards the group's goals. Tell me the target, and I'll choose a character accordingly. Happily, my tactically inept signature academia Wizard is generally great for this.

I think the balance issue isn't the fact that you can end up with a much weaker/stronger character than others, I think the real problem is that the game sets the expectation that a Monk is on equal footing with a Wizard if both of them are straight from the book, when generally they are not.

Kaptin Keen
2019-09-17, 03:47 AM
There's an important puntualization to be made here, I feel. I don't mind playing the sidekick if me being the sidekick was an explicit part of designing the character.

If the game presents two options as roughly equal, these options shuld actually be roughly equal, because "Well, you intended to make a cool warrior that defends his friends, but you ended up as Inspector Zenigata" has a very different feel for a player than "you chose the bumbling sidekick options and are having a blast being silly". There is little that makes a player bristle more than not being able to play the character they wanted to play.

Agreed. Although .. I'm talking more from the perspective of class design than character design. As in, why would I chose to play a specialist, if the generalist can do my job (and every other job) too .. only better. And that's the D&D problem, right? The mage can fight better than the fighter, and rogue better than the rogue. That is problematic, independently of whether you have fun playing a sidekick by choice - the fact that honestly, you will be a sidekick no matter what, because you chose to play the class you did.

Obviously, that's not universally the case. Even in D&D, the mage needs levels before he can outperform various classes at their specialty, and it also depends on levels of optimization. But .. sometimes, if you chose not to play the mage .. well then you also chose to be the sidekick.

NNescio
2019-09-17, 03:59 AM
For 5e, isn’t that particular scenario almost the opposite of muscling them out of a job, though? If Bob makes a Fighter, and Joe makes a War Cleric so Bob can use his Protection fighting style when they charge the enemy together surrounded by Spirit Guardians or warded by Bless, Bob is usually having a good time.

If Bob builds an archer but doesn’t take the archery fighting style or Sharpshooter, and Joe builds an optimized Elven Samurai archer with Sharpshooter and elven accuracy and doubles Bobs damage while using the same schtick, then you have a problem.

Mutazoia is talking about 3.X, where War Cleric was basically "Fighter, but Better", even without too much optimization (provided, of course, that the Cleric takes the obvious buff spells.). One who also happens to be a full caster.

(That's why the word Clericzilla got thrown around a lot.)

Of course the 3.X Cleric can also choose to play a more supporting role, but anyone who choose War (+ some other domain) Cleric will likely wade into melee (or sometimes shoot as an archer, but there are better domains for that) because that's what the domain is built for.

Balance is far tighter in 5e. Clerics in particular got nerfed a lot, with most buff spells requiring concentration. The number of spell slots has also been sharply curtailed, while the number of expected encounters (per day) has gone up.

(And personally IMHO they went a bit overboard, with frontline Cleric archetypes having really anemic melee options despite being, well, frontline archetypes. Only way to 'fix' it is to take SCAGtrips.)

Pelle
2019-09-17, 04:17 AM
Here's what I don't get. And I realize my experiences have been lucky compared to some. If I play a monk, its because I have a concept for a character that is a monk. And I get to play that character. And I get to have fun. If the rest of the party is made out of wizards.... so what? I still get to find my place in the "story" and play it out.


I think it's more that Quertus seems to imply that someone (else) has to play a wallflower for the game to be fun. Assigning that role to someone that don't want it, and then just telling them to change their expectation to not make it a problem, is not cool.

Wanting to play a wallflower is no problem. If you say that someone should play a wallflower in this game, guess what, that someone is yourself. Liking unbalanced parties is fine. Expecting someone else to only play murderhobo #3 to indulge your preference for unbalanced groups is not. But if you want that role yourself, by any means help yourself.

NNescio
2019-09-17, 04:51 AM
Could you clarify what you mean here?

Are you saying that fighters are better because they roll more dice than the wizard even if they accomplish less?

And are you actually saying that 99% (or is that 100%) of professionally published games do not have any serious balance issues? If so, what systems are so egregious that they actually make that 1%?

What I speculate?

It's the usual "Fighters are balanced relative to casters because they get to do their shtick all day as opposed to casters who get limited spell slots" argument.

Which in 3.X is patently false because of how powerful and flexible spells are, the number of spell slots (more than enough to cover 1.5x the expected number of encounters), and the fact that HP itself is a limited resource.

But things changed in 5e; casters are far more limited especially in early-mid levels. A lot of spells are nerfed, spells no longer auto-scale (you need to spend higher level spell slots to "upcast", a spell like a manifester pouring more power points into a power), and most stronger spells like BFCs and buffs and some DoT effects are keyed to "concentration" (basically meaning you can only have one "concentration" spell active). On the other hand Fighters get to full-attack every time with full movement (so do others, but Fighters get far more attacks), get per encounter resources (well, per 1 hour "short rest", but that's how they settled for implementing "per 2 encounters" diegetically) that let them break the action economy (Factotum-style) and pull off ToB inspired maneuvers, and can heal themselves to keep on fighting. (Everyone can also heal themselves out of combat when taking a short rest, by using a 4E Healing Surge-esque mechanic). All of which make the "Fighter can do its shtick" more often a far more cogent argument.

(Of course, high-level Wizards are still an issue, as they can summon and create minions and have a lot of long-duration spells that they can precast and 'carry around' with them. They also get some no-save-you-just-suck options. Other 'arcane' casters can also join in the fun. 'Divine' casters, not so much, but Druid also kinda get some of the 'arcane' options, plus they also make for better minionmancers.)

But fundamentally to me, this just reinforces the importance of balance; 5E is better balanced* than 3.X, making it harder for classes to inadvertently outshine another one. (Or "deliberately", at least not without a higher degree of "systems mastery". )

(*This isn't necessarily without 'tradeoffs' though. To me, 5E achieves this by limiting options [sometimes with arbitrary-seeming limitations] and with a more 'vague' ruleset that necessitate players asking for DM permission to do something that is either not present or not clarified clearly in the rules. Which, well, isn't necessarily bad [it's kinda like older editions, in a way], but a tradeoff.)

Ignimortis
2019-09-17, 05:11 AM
But fundamentally to me, this just reinforces the importance of balance; 5E is better balanced* than 3.X, making it harder for classes to inadvertently outshine another one. (Or "deliberately", at least not without a higher degree of "systems mastery". )

(*This isn't necessarily without 'tradeoffs' though. To me, 5E achieves this by limiting options [sometimes with arbitrary-seeming limitations] and with a more 'vague' ruleset that necessitate players asking for DM permission to do something that is either not present or not clarified clearly in the rules. Which, well, isn't necessarily bad [it's kinda like older editions, in a way], but a tradeoff.)

Take note that 5e is also balanced around Fighters. In 5e, a reasonably-built and played fighter with a +1 sword and no other magic items can still contribute a lot against 99% of the monsters in the game, unlike 3.X, where high-level monsters were usually far more fantastical than the default Fighter. Some people like it, the others point out that this design decision turned most enemies into sacks of HP and damage with little individuality ability-wise.

Quertus
2019-09-17, 06:35 AM
Obviously, that's not universally the case. Even in D&D, the mage needs levels before he can outperform various classes at their specialty, and it also depends on levels of optimization. But .. sometimes, if you chose not to play the mage .. well then you also chose to be the sidekick.

OK, I want to hit this first:

Balance to the table.

That's probably my primary Playground meme.

If you choose to play X, and sometime choose to play Y, and your characters aren't balanced? That's on you. You have failed to balance to the table. For clarity, that's on y'all, y'all have failed.

If someone doesn't want to play a "sidekick" ATM, but they end up that way, then someone had failed to create a properly balanced character.

"The fault is in our selves, not in our Stars, that we are to be Caesar's underlings." Or in Caesar, if he's the one outside the group's balance range.


There's an important puntualization to be made here, I feel. I don't mind playing the sidekick if me being the sidekick was an explicit part of designing the character.

If the game presents two options as roughly equal, these options shuld actually be roughly equal, because "Well, you intended to make a cool warrior that defends his friends, but you ended up as Inspector Zenigata" has a very different feel for a player than "you chose the bumbling sidekick options and are having a blast being silly". There is little that makes a player bristle more than not being able to play the character they wanted to play.

Agree with the 1st paragraph.

The second - specific to a particular system - is a presentation issue. It would be nice if 3e explicitly stated how weak the Wizard was (at its floor), to warn new players to take stronger classes.


I think the balance issue isn't the fact that you can end up with a much weaker/stronger character than others, I think the real problem is that the game sets the expectation that a Monk is on equal footing with a Wizard if both of them are straight from the book, when generally they are not.

My poor academia mage could have been replaced with a bag of flour for all he's brought to the table in the last 10ish levels with the party with the Monk MVP.

But, yeah, I agree that it's a presentation issue, which leads to an issue of setting false expectations.


Agreed. Although .. I'm talking more from the perspective of class design than character design. As in, why would I chose to play a specialist, if the generalist can do my job (and every other job) too .. only better. And that's the D&D problem, right? The mage can fight better than the fighter, and rogue better than the rogue. That is problematic, independently of whether you have fun playing a sidekick by choice - the fact that honestly, you will be a sidekick no matter what, because you chose to play the class you did.

Talking of class design (etc) seems out of place for the question of why does the *party* need to be balanced.

We're not disagreeing that false expectations are bad. Or that hidden imbalance can lead to those false expectations.


Obviously, that's not universally the case. Even in D&D, the mage needs levels before he can outperform various classes at their specialty, and it also depends on levels of optimization. But .. sometimes, if you chose not to play the mage .. well then you also chose to be the sidekick.

And you should be able to make that choice. Agency - it starts before the dice are rolled.


I think it's more that Quertus seems to imply that someone (else) has to play a wallflower for the game to be fun. Assigning that role to someone that don't want it, and then just telling them to change their expectation to not make it a problem, is not cool.

Wanting to play a wallflower is no problem. If you say that someone should play a wallflower in this game, guess what, that someone is yourself. Liking unbalanced parties is fine. Expecting someone else to only play murderhobo #3 to indulge your preference for unbalanced groups is not. But if you want that role yourself, by any means help yourself.

Wow. Um, no, that's not what I'm saying at all. Let's try again.

I am saying that balance is not a synonym for fun. I am saying that balance is *not* required for fun.

That doesn't mean that imbalance is required for fun.

I am not taking about forcing a role on people; I'm taking about people not trying to force a role on themselves.

And, if you haven't caught on, I've played my signature academia mage whose contribution for 10 levels could have been replaced by a bag of flour. I've played a Sentient Potted Plant for Pete moss' sake. How in the world did you ever get the idea that "someone else" should play the sidekick? :smallconfused:

Kaptin Keen
2019-09-17, 06:47 AM
OK, I want to hit this first:

Balance to the table.

That's probably my primary Playground meme.

If you choose to play X, and sometime choose to play Y, and your characters aren't balanced? That's on you. You have failed to balance to the table. For clarity, that's on y'all, y'all have failed.

If someone doesn't want to play a "sidekick" ATM, but they end up that way, then someone had failed to create a properly balanced character.

Well - I don't disagree. But it's easier to create a balanced character if the system isn't inherently unbalanced. Again, by a simple choice of spells (and some levels), the mage can be a better rogue than the rogue, and a better fighther than the fighter. And that's not on anyone at the table, that's on WoTC.


Talking of class design (etc) seems out of place for the question of why does the *party* need to be balanced.

We're not disagreeing that false expectations are bad. Or that hidden imbalance can lead to those false expectations.

And you should be able to make that choice. Agency - it starts before the dice are rolled.

The party is, after all, based on classes that are defined by the game, not the players.

And it's not really a choice. It is, if anything, a false choice. You're not chosing to be a sidekick, you're chosing to play the fighter - and by default that makes you the sidekick.

moonfly7
2019-09-17, 06:55 AM
Let me rephrase this question, because its asked by optimizers a lot:

"If you make a (CLASS PRESENTED AS EQUALLY VIABLE OPTION TO OTHER CLASSES) when everyone else made (CLASS THAT ONLY EXPERIENCED EXPERIENCED PEOPLE KNOW IS BETTER THAN OTHER CLASSES), then why are you whining about "how unfair and unfun it is"?"

the thing you presuming is obvious is not obvious. please stop assuming its obvious. It is not obvious. this thing is not obvious and some would prefer this difference you think is obvious to actually BE obvious instead of assumed to be not be obvious when its not obvious. did I mention it that its not obvious yet? because its not obvious and also not obvious. its not self-evident.

because, I cannot emphasize this enough, some people do not auto-see classes as difficulty settings. I do not do not this, and don't care or want to. what I want. is for them to be styles of play that don't impact difficulty. I'd much rather have a class be a flavor of ice cream or pizza. you have your flavor, I have mine, no ones flavor is better, but we can all enjoy the pizza. and just because you want anchovies shouldn't impact my plain cheese slice.
This. Just this.
People, I know I'm going to get flamed for this one, but I'm about to lay down the hard truth:
A lot of people, some of which seem to congregate on these forums, have every bit of DND mapped out like a video game. Like:
Foreclosed is better than mushroom, it does the same thing but adds more.
But they do that with classes.
I don't think anyone will care, but this is what I personally think. Ignore me if you don't like it:
No class is really better than the other. Not really. It's all about your play style and opinions. Me, I would love to rant about martial all day, my opinion is they're better. But when I'm being honest, I can easily see that that's not true. Every class is good, and if your clever, they can fit in anywhere.

For 5e, isn’t that particular scenario almost the opposite of muscling them out of a job, though? If Bob makes a Fighter, and Joe makes a War Cleric so Bob can use his Protection fighting style when they charge the enemy together surrounded by Spirit Guardians or warded by Bless, Bob is usually having a good time.

If Bob builds an archer but doesn’t take the archery fighting style or Sharpshooter, and Joe builds an optimized Elven Samurai archer with Sharpshooter and elven accuracy and doubles Bobs damage while using the same schtick, then you have a problem.
So, this the other misconception at work: if to dudes do the same thing, they step on the other dudes toes. And one guy has to bequeath to the one who "did it first".
That is not true. Morally or balance wise.
Everyone vpuld be exactly the same class, or very similare classes, and still play in the party together effectively, and happily, while filling the same roles.
I once played in an all bard party. We called it the bardy, and we ended up killing an adult black dragon at level 7 in 2 rounds. We used teamwork. And we never had a session zero to make sure we all made different bards. S lot of us maxed out persuasion. A few of use made performance our shtick. Some of us lied REALLY well. And none of us had a skill we wanted to be the best at that another guy didn't already do, too. But you know what? It's still one of my favourite games of all time. I have never in my life, before or since, played a game with such teamwork and persision. We all worked together without thinking, all inspiring the others(figuratively and actually) and we all for the most part played instruments and did magic. We even has two melee bards, same subclass. They did great work together.
So what's all this I here about that dude needing to not pick locks? Or that wizard trading because I was a wizard first. If you have a party balance problem, it's not the class choices, it's the people playing. And you just need to talk it out.

Some people enjoy RPing and getting into their character's head, and constantly coming up with excuses to sabotage their character's goals can really interfere with that.

On the same token, some people play to win, or at the very least enjoy the tactical elements of the game, and constantly having to hold back is frustrating for them.
I dont know why theres a difference here, in my experience, the mad, craxy tactical min msxers role play the hardest. And are so logic fueled you can just talk to them.
All DND problems can be solved by talking. ALL of them. Every one. Whether it's to the DM or another player. Just be polite, and talk it out

Agreed 100%.



Could you clarify what you mean here?

Are you saying that fighters are better because they roll more dice than the wizard even if they accomplish less?

And are you actually saying that 99% (or is that 100%) of professionally published games do not have any serious balance issues? If so, what systems are so egregious that they actually make that 1%?



Again, it depends on what the groups goals are, and if you are talking about OOC goals or IC goals.



So what do the people you play with find fun about that game?

Isn't the idea of everyone deriving fun from making sure everyone else has fun ultimately circular and meaningless?
No, that's no what I'm saying at all about the fighter and wizard. I dimply used them as an example. I'm saying no class really has a leg up, and, that mechanically, everyone is really mostly ok, and opinions cause the divide. As for the percentage thing, I'm saying almost every time I see or here about a RPG problem, it can be routed back to communication between people. Often times we forget that the system isn't sentient, and we blame it, when it's others choices or views that made us upset. DND is a social game, and 99% of all problems are social in it.

Pelle
2019-09-17, 07:37 AM
Wow. Um, no, that's not what I'm saying at all. Let's try again.

I am saying that balance is not a synonym for fun. I am saying that balance is *not* required for fun.

That doesn't mean that imbalance is required for fun.

I am not taking about forcing a role on people; I'm taking about people not trying to force a role on themselves.

And, if you haven't caught on, I've played my signature academia mage whose contribution for 10 levels could have been replaced by a bag of flour. I've played a Sentient Potted Plant for Pete moss' sake. How in the world did you ever get the idea that "someone else" should play the sidekick? :smallconfused:

Yeah, I know, that's why I said it seems like you imply that. But I do think you come off as thinking that imposing imbalance will lead to more fun, though. And I think that was pointed out to you in another thread; that's only due to correlation, not causality. If people don't mind playing an negatively unbalanced character, they can have fun playing an unbalanced character. Sure, that's fine and self-evident, but lots of people do mind that. The only sane default when starting a game is to expect everyone to want to be balanced, but let people gimp themselves if they so want.

That character is also why I called it wallflower instead of sidekick, it is a literal wallflower :)

Eldan
2019-09-17, 07:49 AM
Balance is not required for fun. But what I think is required is information. YOu can play an unbalanced game and have fun with it. But everyone should have a general idea of what's going to happen going into it. That's my entire point.

zinycor
2019-09-17, 08:20 AM
I am saying that the statement "its fun because its fun" is logically meaningless, not the activity it is describing.

Did I do such statement?

Talakeal
2019-09-17, 01:39 PM
Did I do such statement?

No, you didn't. But you are implying that your groups goal is to have fun, and have not stated what it is in the game that provides fun for your group, merely that it is not RPing a character or overcoming tactical challenges.


I'm saying no class really has a leg up, and, that mechanically, everyone is really mostly ok, and opinions cause the divide. As for the percentage thing, I'm saying almost every time I see or here about a RPG problem, it can be routed back to communication between people. Often times we forget that the system isn't sentient, and we blame it, when it's others choices or views that made us upset. DND is a social game, and 99% of all problems are social in it.

Depends on the game. For most games I would say balance is "close enough" if nobody intentionally tries to break the game, other systems, like D&D 3.5 of Rifts, not so much

Also, sometimes people fundamentally want different things out of the game, and no amount of talking will solve the problem. I am slowly learning this the hard way.


I dont know why theres a difference here, in my experience, the mad, craxy tactical min msxers role play the hardest. And are so logic fueled you can just talk to them.
All DND problems can be solved by talking.

Depends.

For example, say the evil wizard has hired the same band of orcish mercenaries who slaughtered my family to be his bodyguards. If we are battling them, and our mission is to kill the evil wizard to disrupt his ritual of doom, me choosing to chase down and kill the fleeing orcs to avenge my family before dealing with the wizard is a situation where playing to win and playing to RP are directly at odds.

Likewise, a mid-level 3.5 wizard would be more likely to "win" if he simply cut the fighter loose and kept the fighter's share of the treasure for himself. This is true both in and out of character, but is a terrible idea for the fighter player's fun; in this case the winning move for the rest of the group is for the fighter not to play.


Everyone could be exactly the same class, or very similare classes, and still play in the party together effectively, and happily, while filling the same roles.
I once played in an all bard party. We called it the bardy, and we ended up killing an adult black dragon at level 7 in 2 rounds. We used teamwork. And we never had a session zero to make sure we all made different bards. S lot of us maxed out persuasion. A few of use made performance our shtick. Some of us lied REALLY well. And none of us had a skill we wanted to be the best at that another guy didn't already do, too. But you know what? It's still one of my favourite games of all time. I have never in my life, before or since, played a game with such teamwork and persision. We all worked together without thinking, all inspiring the others(figuratively and actually) and we all for the most part played instruments and did magic. We even has two melee bards, same subclass. They did great work together.

A party where everyone plays the same class is by definition balanced, against each other if not the world.

Bards are generally considered the best balanced class in D&D, very close to the power level expected by the CR system, and a very versatile jack of all trades to boot. So I am not surprised that you had good results with an all bard party, but that is a point in favor of balanced games, not against.


The second - specific to a particular system - is a presentation issue. It would be nice if 3e explicitly stated how weak the Wizard was (at its floor), to warn new players to take stronger classes.

I don't know if you meant this as a joke, but choosing what is general considered the strongest class in the game and then claiming it needs a warning for being to weak comes off as a bit cheeky. I don't even know if a mage has a lower floor than other classes when played badly, unless you are talking about some hyperbolic situation where they are intentionally screwing themselves over and have a greater ability to do so because they are so powerful.

Willie the Duck
2019-09-17, 02:30 PM
I don't know if you meant this as a joke, but choosing what is general considered the strongest class in the game and then claiming it needs a warning for being to weak comes off as a bit cheeky. I don't even know if a mage has a lower floor than other classes when played badly, unless you are talking about some hyperbolic situation where they are intentionally screwing themselves over and have a greater ability to do so because they are so powerful.

Quertus has communication issues, but seems to do everything in good faith. I think the point is that 3e wizards, to a new-to-gaming player and at first level, are the same 'hyper-fragile, has 1-2 spells for the whole dungeon, Magic Missile sounds better than Sleep, even though it is weak at 1st level' character that they were in AD&D. That a wizard becomes near limitless to an experienced player and at levels ~7+ not being relevant if you die to an orc at level 1.

patchyman
2019-09-17, 02:42 PM
Though I don't think that's what Quertus intended to say, it is not that hard to read what he understood in the text:

"'Balance' is only a concern if you make it so. [...] You just have to walk into the RPG with the right expectations."
=> If you don't have fun because of unbalance in the game, that's your fault for not having the good expectations for the game, not the game designer's (or DM) fault for making a broken system.
=> “if you choose a class that is weak compared to that of the other players, and that bothers you, it’s your fault for caring about balance.”

You have expressed my point more eloquently than I could. Thank you.

patchyman
2019-09-17, 02:53 PM
Let me edit that so it makes sense to me.

"'Balance' is only a concern if you make it so. [...] You just have to walk into the RPG with the right expectations."
=> If you don't have fun because of unbalance in the game, that's your fault for not having the good expectations for the game, not the game designer's (or DM) fault for making a broken system.

=> “if you choose a class that is weak compared to that of the other players, and that bothers you, it’s your fault for caring about balance.”

frankly, you are conflating "balance issues" with "having fun" here. If you are playing the game and not having fun.... yeah... that is your fault.... either change your expectations to start having fun, or find a different game with different players.

If you make a monk when everyone else made wizards, then why are you whining about "how unfair and unfun it is"?


That only follows if you assume that the player who made the monk knew his character would be weaker than the characters who made wizards. This is not universally the case.

In addition, there is nothing wrong with wanting the basic archetypes the game proposes to be balanced among each other, and it is normal to expect that they are reasonably balanced.

zinycor
2019-09-17, 02:57 PM
I just realized that I didn't actually answer the OP.

In my opinion, balance is sort of an illusion and achieving matters as much as the group decides it matters.

Also the way the game is run might result on certain combinations seeming more powerful than others.

The first thing to have in mind regarding balance among the classes, is that you only need to balance your table, not the whole game. No need to worry about broken combos if they aren't present at your table, don't worry about a PC stepping on the role of a class that isn't present at your game.

Second; take your time to rebalance things, if a certain feature seems too powerful or weak, face the party with different sorts of challenges before applying your own changes. Maybe the imbalance isn't as big as you think

Third; Take into account your players input in detecting imbalances and problems related to balance.

Fourth; imbalance is good, having a group that lacks magic, healing, or tanks, etc... is always entertaining, since players need to come up with inventive solutions. On the other hand, having a character the rest of the party can trust on one aspect, while being a drag at other times is always a great character.

Fifth: Be respectful towards your players, if you are going to nerf them, be gentle and explain your reasoning.

Nightcanon
2019-09-17, 04:38 PM
So, I think the problem with "lane"-based thinking is that it is complicated by two opposed schools of thought: rules-first and character-first.

Suppose I want to make a Hermione espy (sp?) in 3e D&D. Well, clearly, she's a Wizard (Harry). Or witch, but 3e doesn't really have a witch class. Without brewing new spells, about the most iconic spell she can replicate at low levels is Aloha Mora. So, clearly, opening locked doors is her big thing. Then some Rogue player is a jerk, and goes and puts ranks in Open Lock, becoming the party goto lock opener, with the party only falling back to the Hermione espy rare occasion. His flimsy defense for his **** move? It's not because his character actually cares about it. No, it's just because "that's what Rogues do".

Here, the Wizard's player was thinking in terms of their character; the Rogue's player was thinking in terms of the rules.

IMO, neither are "right". IMO, noone has any "right" to a lane. If your fun necessitates your character fulfilling a particular role (that's your problem, and) you either a) need to optimize sufficiently that you defacto fill that role, or b) get "character X fills role Y" added to the gentleman's agreement.

The problems with this analogy are that all the significant characters in the Harry Potter books are wizards; they are stories not games; and while Hermione is the best in her year, the other main characters have things that they are good (and better than Hermione) at. Hermione doesn't have access to every spell written via the Magic Mart (or the Forbidden Section of the library), and she isn't better at flying or Quiddich than Harry by dint of being a better Witch. Also, Harry is the hero by virtue of Author Fiat. Hermione's role is as much researcher, friend and planner as it is lock picker. If Rowling had introduced a muggle character who could pick locks then it would hardly impact on Hermione at all (but see how hurt Ron got when he thought Harry was moving in on his role as Hermione's love interest). As you say, you can create a bunch of wizard PCs who have different characters and interests, but a system like D&D is poor for that. I always take Knock, divination spells, and brew potions; you fly around on a broomstick, blasting, casting specialised abjurations and having high will saves. That's fine, but we are effectively keeping to our lanes. Unless we use some sort of specialist wizard subtypes who are limited to those roles, it becomes trivially easy for my Hermione character to load up on Overland Flight as well as Teleport, and start spamming evocations as much as you do, just by selecting a different payload on spell. It's far easier for a wizard to steal a rogue's lane than for a rogue to turn up and steal a wizard's.

Quertus
2019-09-17, 07:13 PM
by a simple choice of spells (and some levels), the mage can be a better rogue than the rogue, and a better fighther than the fighter.

So don't do that.

Sure, accidents happen. And then you fix them.

(If, you know, you care about that kind of thing)


Everyone vpuld be exactly the same class, or very similare classes, and still play in the party together effectively, and happily, while filling the same roles.

Agreed. Although… my personality tends to prefer to use that samey character to play "highschool romance drama" while everyone else is playing "tactical basketball simulator", because I… don't like crowds, so to speak.



So what's all this I here about that dude needing to not pick locks? Or that wizard trading because I was a wizard first. If you have a party balance problem, it's not the class choices, it's the people playing. And you just need to talk it out.

Two people both come to the game with the expectation of fulfilling the same role. The problem is both that expectation, and the belief in the righteousness of their claim to that role.


All DND problems can be solved by talking. ALL of them. Every one. Whether it's to the DM or another player. Just be polite, and talk it out

That's a great attitude to approach the game with. Kudos!


Yeah, I know, that's why I said it seems like you imply that. But I do think you come off as thinking that imposing imbalance will lead to more fun, though. And I think that was pointed out to you in another thread; that's only due to correlation, not causality. If people don't mind playing an negatively unbalanced character, they can have fun playing an unbalanced character. Sure, that's fine and self-evident, but lots of people do mind that. The only sane default when starting a game is to expect everyone to want to be balanced, but let people gimp themselves if they so want.

That character is also why I called it wallflower instead of sidekick, it is a literal wallflower :)

Lol. Literal wallflower? True that. ;)

Another thread? Dang. I'm getting too senile for that - I'm lucky if I remember what's going on in *this" thread.

But… I think I remember this. Because I learned something - that what I enjoy may be the maturity required for imbalance to work, rather than the imbalance itself. Does that sound right? I don't remember the exact initial revelation, because senility, and also because I've been playing with permutations ever since.

Anyway, while i may value the things that make enjoying imbalance a possibility, and they may also be good ingredients for healthy groups, I think it's fair to say that, as a matter of personal preference, I do enjoy imbalanced parties as their own merit. That said, the BDH party was a *balanced* party, and I enjoyed that, too. So it isn't an exclusive thing; ie, I don't exclusively enjoy unbalanced parties.


Balance is not required for fun. But what I think is required is information. YOu can play an unbalanced game and have fun with it. But everyone should have a general idea of what's going to happen going into it. That's my entire point.

Agreed. Or, well, actually, "no one should go in with false expectations", which isn't quite the same thing. That is, it's fine going in with no idea how things will turn out, *if that's what you signed up for*.

Duff
2019-09-17, 09:30 PM
One of the key concepts in a lot of RPGs is decision making. This applies most in the tactical and problem solving parts and less to the characterisation element.
If one player's decisions are more important to the result, that's an imbalance which matters in that scene.
As long as everyone's decisions in the scene matter, everyone gets to participate. For most groups, it's fine for some players to sit out some scenes and for the "lead" to be shared around.
But the less meaningful choices a player gets to make, they less they will enjoy the tactical and problem solving elements.

I notice the "Balance doesn't matter" responses tend to be from people who are getting most fun from the characterisation side of roleplaying. That's also the least system dependent side, so of course it's not an issue to them

Quertus
2019-09-17, 11:01 PM
I notice the "Balance doesn't matter" responses tend to be from people who are getting most fun from the characterisation side of roleplaying. That's also the least system dependent side, so of course it's not an issue to them

That one is a bit tricky.

If you can only have fun having a mechanical contribution, then had you best have a big mechanical contribution? If you can only have fun from the characterization side of roleplay, then had you best have a big characterization role to play?

Honestly, my experience says "no".

In any activity - not just RPGs - so long as my contribution isn't 0, the possibility of my being happy exists. I'm not saying that I will be happy, just that I could be. I got a very small role in a play, I hit the volley ball once, I put a single jigsaw piece together? These are all victories, who cares if others did more?

Fun and balance are not synonyms, even in real life.

Heck, one of my fondest tactical memories was finding a way to fail more slowly than my allies won. So it needn't even require *any* success to be fun.

(EDIT: so, for the record, I'm saying that no balance of any kind, not just mechanical balance, is strictly required for fun. And that no balance of any kind, especially not mechanical balance, is required for fun.)

NichG
2019-09-17, 11:39 PM
For me, I'd like there not to be an issue of imbalance, but that's not the same as wanting things to be balanced or wanting imbalance not to exist.

You can be arbitrarily imbalanced without problems if, for example: the game is cooperative and not antagonistic AND the main difficulties presented by the game are matters of personal choice and direction rather than overcoming barriers.

If one player is playing a god and another a starved beggar who can barely stand, it's an issue if the game is about 'you need to get to the other side of town' or 'only one may win, fight!'. But (and now this has become a Worm reference) that god character might be jaded and depressed and disconnected from the world and could end up getting direction from discussions with the beggar that end up helping both (until, following Worm, it snaps, the game becomes adversarial, and the god character destroys the multiverse out of pique).

If the challenge of the game is deciding what you want, both excessively high and low degrees of agency will be more difficult to play than a sweet spot. That sweet spot is individual to each player. So then imbalance can be a virtue rather than an issue.

Even if the game is about punching kaiju, not all imbalances need be problematic. There are competency bounds (you need to not die too easily from the assumed level of violence, you need to not have a way to trivialize 'kaiju' as a whole, etc). But within those bounds, balance will be an issue primarily from the psychology of the players and what they're seeking out of gaming. Someone who wants a power fantasy or a challenge or to feel useful or just likes their concept all will have different responses to variations in ability. In some cases, even an objectively balanced set of options (mechanically identical) could feel unbalanced due to e.g. variations in player skill, fluff, etc.

Duff
2019-09-18, 12:00 AM
(EDIT: so, for the record, I'm saying that no balance of any kind, not just mechanical balance, is strictly required for fun. And that no balance of any kind, especially not mechanical balance, is required for fun.)

True enough. But my observation is, the more imbalance there is between characters in meaningful interactions, the more likely those low on meaningful interactions are to disengage and leave the game.

And different players in different games have different ideas about what a meaningful interaction is - In a game of D&D 4e where each battle takes most of a session and it runs like a tactical board game, and using pre-prepared modules, the game I was in was very weighted toward character's effectiveness. A character who was poorly optimised meant a player who's decisions weren't important and he didn't enjoy the fights. In a previous campaign, same player had (more by accident than design I suspect) hit on an effective character and had more fun.

So it's not that balance is important to everyone, but I'd say its important to most people in some games at some tables

Kaptin Keen
2019-09-18, 01:27 AM
So don't do that.

Sure, accidents happen. And then you fix them.

(If, you know, you care about that kind of thing)

So your suggested solution is: Don't play the fighter.

Yes, that would work, but it begs the question of why is the fighter in the book at all? Or the better question of why wasn't the fighter designed to be on an even footing with the mage. You could create a balanced party by everyone playing the same class - heck, the same character even - but it hardly seems ideal. And .. ignoring the exceptions, no one wants to play the sidekick.

patchyman
2019-09-18, 06:56 AM
In the “game of heroic fantasy”, many (if not most) players want to play a hero. If you don’t, that’s fine, and pretty much every single RPG I’ve ever played allows you to play a wide variety of characters.

I have had players who have absolutely been frustrated that their character felt incompetent, and while this can have many causes (bad rolls, low level characters, etc.), at minimum, the fact you chose one base class over another shouldn’t be a handicap.

Theoboldi
2019-09-18, 07:55 AM
Speaking of playing the sidekick, I want to give an example of my own experiences with party imbalance. Much of the conversation so far has focused on more general term and the fighter/wizard asymmetry in particular, and I figure adding a more concrete could help explain the position of those people who think balance is important better.

Back when I was just startding out roleplaying, I joined a pretty low-level D&D 3.5 game. Our party as I recall was mostly composed of mundane characters, pretty small, and the overall optimization level was pretty low. We used books other than core, but none of us really made any sort of build. We mostly just picked whatever feats sounded good for the kind of character we were playing, without going out of our ways to chose more unusual feats like Skill Focus.

Now, the character I was playing at the time was of the Swashbuckler class. I had chosen that sort of character because the archetype of a quick, nimble and skillful warrior appealed to me. While I expected to not be able to deal as much damage as the party's barbarian due to the smaller weapon dice that I would have to use and the lack of damage bonus from a good strength score, I still figured that in combat they'd contribute overall equally, since my class did not gain any particular bonuses that would make them more impressive out of combat.

That was not my experience in play. I soon discovered that despite dealing less damage, I had no better accuracy, no better defenses, nor any particular mobility options to make up for it. In fact, the abilities my class gave me to increase my damage made me split my stats between Dexterity for accuracy and armor, Intelligence for damage, and Constitution for HP, while the Barbarian was able to focus almost entirely on Strength and Constitution. So overall, he ended up being more accurate and just as well defended as I was, with better HP to boot.

Even worse, my class abilities did not work on enemies who were immune to critical hits. Whenever my party was facing undead, or slimes, or elementals, or golems, or any of the other dozens of common monsters that a D&D party faces, all I had was a d6 worth of damage. Of course, since this was 3.5, I wasn't able to fall back on combat maneuvers like tripping people or disarming them either, as that would have showered me with attacks of opportunity from them.

Simply put, these two classes were unbalanced in the one niche that they shared. I had gone in expecting that they'd be equals, able to contribute about as much as each other, since nothing about how the classes were presented made it look as though such a disparity was intended. Overall I still had fun with the game, mind, since the GM did his best to tune combats to our abilities and he allowed me to get away with some schemes that were pretty shaky on a rules level. However, my character's unexpected weakness when I had hoped for playing a capable swashbuckler was a constant annoyance for me. It probably was a good thing that the game ended before we got to higher levels, since the impact of my character's dependency on multiple ability scores would have only grown stronger with each Ability Score increase that I would have to split. If things had gotten to the point where my character would have struggled to hit level-appropriate Armor Classes, combat would have completely ceased to be any fun at all.

On a combat-focused class, mind.

So yeah, that's my experience with party imbalance. It's really lame to want to play a specific archetype that is offered to you by the game, only to then have to learn the hard way that your character is pretty much worthless at their chosen expertise.

Morty
2019-09-18, 08:06 AM
Speaking of playing the sidekick, I want to give an example of my own experiences with party imbalance. Much of the conversation so far has focused on more general term and the fighter/wizard asymmetry in particular, and I figure adding a more concrete could help explain the position of those people who think balance is important better.

Back when I was just startding out roleplaying, I joined a pretty low-level D&D 3.5 game. Our party as I recall was mostly composed of mundane characters, pretty small, and the overall optimization level was pretty low. We used books other than core, but none of us really made any sort of build. We mostly just picked whatever feats sounded good for the kind of character we were playing, without going out of our ways to chose more unusual feats like Skill Focus.

Now, the character I was playing at the time was of the Swashbuckler class. I had chosen that sort of character because the archetype of a quick, nimble and skillful warrior appealed to me. While I expected to not be able to deal as much damage as the party's barbarian due to the smaller weapon dice that I would have to use and the lack of damage bonus from a good strength score, I still figured that in combat they'd contribute overall equally, since my class did not gain any particular bonuses that would make them more impressive out of combat.

That was not my experience in play. I soon discovered that despite dealing less damage, I had no better accuracy, no better defenses, nor any particular mobility options to make up for it. In fact, the abilities my class gave me to increase my damage made me split my stats between Dexterity for accuracy and armor, Intelligence for damage, and Constitution for HP, while the Barbarian was able to focus almost entirely on Strength and Constitution. So overall, he ended up being more accurate and just as well defended as I was, with better HP to boot.

Even worse, my class abilities did not work on enemies who were immune to critical hits. Whenever my party was facing undead, or slimes, or elementals, or golems, or any of the other dozens of common monsters that a D&D party faces, all I had was a d6 worth of damage. Of course, since this was 3.5, I wasn't able to fall back on combat maneuvers like tripping people or disarming them either, as that would have showered me with attacks of opportunity from them.

Simply put, these two classes were unbalanced in the one niche that they shared. I had gone in expecting that they'd be equals, able to contribute about as much as each other, since nothing about how the classes were presented made it look as though such a disparity was intended. Overall I still had fun with the game, mind, since the GM did his best to tune combats to our abilities and he allowed me to get away with some schemes that were pretty shaky on a rules level. However, my character's unexpected weakness when I had hoped for playing a capable swashbuckler was a constant annoyance for me. It probably was a good thing that the game ended before we got to higher levels, since the impact of my character's dependency on multiple ability scores would have only grown stronger with each Ability Score increase that I would have to split. If things had gotten to the point where my character would have struggled to hit level-appropriate Armor Classes, combat would have completely ceased to be any fun at all.

On a combat-focused class, mind.

So yeah, that's my experience with party imbalance. It's really lame to want to play a specific archetype that is offered to you by the game, only to then have to learn the hard way that your character is pretty much worthless at their chosen expertise.

This needs to be emphasized, because people focus so much on the caster/non-caster division that they forget all the other forms of imbalance.

Back when I started out, our party ranger quickly realized that he'd do more damage if he just swung one of his swords with both hands, rather than try to dual-wield. And it wasn't even as bad as it could get, because we didn't have a fighter or barbarian who could outdamage him just by using a greatsword with Power Attack. We can contort logic to explain how it's the player's fault for not somehow fixing it... or admit the rules have a major flaw to them.

Quertus
2019-09-18, 09:22 AM
So your suggested solution is: Don't play the fighter.

Yes, that would work, but it begs the question of why is the fighter in the book at all? Or the better question of why wasn't the fighter designed to be on an even footing with the mage. You could create a balanced party by everyone playing the same class - heck, the same character even - but it hardly seems ideal. And .. ignoring the exceptions, no one wants to play the sidekick.

No, that's not what I'm saying.

If the party Fighter is one-action killing an entire room, whereas the party Wizard could have been replaced with a bag of flour, then the party isn't balanced. If that matters to you, *fix it*.

If you care about X, don't build "not X". If you build "not X" by accident, fix it.

If you care about Balance, and you build a weak Fighter and a strong Wizard - or a weak Wizard and a strong Fighter - then fix it.

In 3e, a level 1 Commoner can solo the Tarrasque, while a very epic Wizard can be replaced with a bag of flour. In 3e, you can balance most any chassis to most any balance point. So do that.

I'm saying that, if you walk into a game with an expectation, then voice that expectation. And, if the group agrees that that expectation is reasonable, a good group will work to make that expectation a reality.


This needs to be emphasized, because people focus so much on the caster/non-caster division that they forget all the other forms of imbalance.

Back when I started out, our party ranger quickly realized that he'd do more damage if he just swung one of his swords with both hands, rather than try to dual-wield. And it wasn't even as bad as it could get, because we didn't have a fighter or barbarian who could outdamage him just by using a greatsword with Power Attack. We can contort logic to explain how it's the player's fault for not somehow fixing it... or admit the rules have a major flaw to them.

It's the players' fault if they see the problem… and don't fix it.

Understand, I'm perfectly willing to assign fault at every level, but "the player" is the only one most of us have access to in a given game. So their faults are what we can fix.

But, yeah, the focus on "caster/non-caster" is a huge impediment to having an actually productive discussion.

Theoboldi
2019-09-18, 09:43 AM
It's the players' fault if they see the problem… and don't fix it.

Understand, I'm perfectly willing to assign fault at every level, but "the player" is the only one most of us have access to in a given game. So their faults are what we can fix.

But, yeah, the focus on "caster/non-caster" is a huge impediment to having an actually productive discussion.

Quertus, I could not have fixed the problem. The imbalance between dex-focused warriors and strength-focused warriors is baked into the system. At most, all I could have done was abandon the character that I wanted to play, the character that I had played for several sessions at that point, and play a rogue or strength-focused fighter instead.

Besides, it is not a fault that I wanted to play a concept that the game presented to me as viable. To say that this is somehow my fault when it was one of the first D&D games I ever played and had no clue of the game's internal balance is insane. That's like if you suddenly punched me, and then declared that I was at fault for my resulting pain because I was too slow to defend myself.

Morty
2019-09-18, 09:44 AM
It's the players' fault if they see the problem… and don't fix it.

Understand, I'm perfectly willing to assign fault at every level, but "the player" is the only one most of us have access to in a given game. So their faults are what we can fix.

But, yeah, the focus on "caster/non-caster" is a huge impediment to having an actually productive discussion.

The player's "fault", in this context, is not predicting that the game he was playing for the first time in his life was going to shaft his entire class and the combat style it was foisting on it (it's not like it was his choice to dual wield, he just preferred it to archery). I'm going to go ahead and insist that there's no actual fault on his part at all.

And your proposed solution is... actually, I'm drawing a blank on how we were supposed to fix it without houserules - as we eventually did, to make it so he could attack with both his weapons using a standard action. I think the campaign ended before we could see how much it helped. But the system gave us no tools whatsoever to address this problem. And doing it ourselves increases effort and reduces enjoyment.

MoiMagnus
2019-09-18, 09:48 AM
I'm saying that, if you walk into a game with an expectation, then voice that expectation. And, if the group agrees that that expectation is reasonable, a good group will work to make that expectation a reality.



It's the players' fault if they see the problem… and don't fix it.

Understand, I'm perfectly willing to assign fault at every level, but "the player" is the only one most of us have access to in a given game. So their faults are what we can fix.


Just to make sure I understand what you're saying, you're not saying that "the player should fix the problem" as "the player should change what he appreciate in RPG, because we're not gonna home-rule the game under the pretext that it is unbalanced, as unbalance is not a problem", but what you mean is more "the player should fix the problem" as "if the player cares about this unbalance, he should find a reasonable solution to the unbalance, possibly by finding an home-rule or an home-brew version of his class that actually allows him to fully enjoy the archetype he aim to play".

Willie the Duck
2019-09-18, 10:09 AM
And your proposed solution is... actually, I'm drawing a blank on how we were supposed to fix it without houserules - as we eventually did, to make it so he could attack with both his weapons using a standard action. I think the campaign ended before we could see how much it helped. But the system gave us no tools whatsoever to address this problem. And doing it ourselves increases effort and reduces enjoyment.

I'm guessing house rules, changing priorities, changing playstyles -- all legitimate ways to go about if you find yourself in the situation of discovering that the system you are running and choices you made don't support a your character actually being impactful, but in the end you having to change your actions to accommodate (unadvertised) quirks within the game.

Which really just highlights that we're having (at least) two discussions -- should parties be balanced, and should game systems be balanced (or at least not being balanced be a legitimate critique thereof). Of this, I am of two minds -- one, the games that are fun are the ones that are fun, not ones that match up to peoples' theoretical rules about what makes a great game. The troll up above suggested that caring about balance was something only 'Hyper Active Selfish Demanding Dominating Competing Action type[s]' cared about, and that's easy to laugh at, but it's definitely the case that lots of people played those editions of D&D noted for being unbalanced (3e of course, but also most all of the TSR-era has gotten legitimate gripes over it) and had absolutely balls with them. On the other hand, to play a straight fighter or monk (or from the above example, Swashbuckler) in 3rd edition, certainly past a certain point, and you really have to have an accommodating group (willing to make house rules, and/or find ways that characters contribute regardless of their mechanics) to feel like a contributing part of the group. Which is galling particularly since, new to that edition, all things were advertised as semi-interchangeable and worth the same (since you can MC between classes, and all require the same XP to level).

Which really brings my main point -- a system doesn't have to be balanced in all ways and under all circumstances, but if so it should make that somewhat obvious. 5th edition is not balanced, particularly if you do not get the expected number of encounters per rest cycle (and lots of people have been complaining about the expected encounter rate per rest being well outside their normal experiences). However, it pretty well states what its' expectations are, as well as giving sample methods for addressing the situation if your gamestyle does not match them (the gritty rest alternative also doesn't match a lot of peoples' gameplay style, but at least it is an acknowledgment of the issue and a template for how one might make one's own fixes).

Quertus
2019-09-18, 10:11 AM
The player's "fault", in this context, is not predicting that the game he was playing for the first time in his life was going to shaft his entire class and the combat style it was foisting on it

Well, I'm actually assigning the player(s) several faults:
1) assuming balance, and predicating their fun on it.
2) realizing that there wasn't balance, and
2a) not voicing their concerns
2b) not fixing the balance

It is only 2b that I was calling out when I said, "if you don't fix it, it's your fault".


Quertus, I could not have fixed the problem. The imbalance between dex-focused warriors and strength-focused warriors is baked into the system. At most, all I could have done was abandon the character that I wanted to play, the character that I had played for several sessions at that point, and play a rogue or strength-focused fighter instead.

Besides, it is not a fault that I wanted to play a concept that the game presented to me as viable. To say that this is somehow my fault when it was one of the first D&D games I ever played and had no clue of the game's internal balance is insane. That's like if you suddenly punched me, and then declared that I was at fault for my resulting pain because I was too slow to defend myself.

I am (presumably) not able to speak to the you of then; I am speaking to the you of now(ish).

Anyone reading my posts should know of the existence of resources - such as the Playground - that can help optimize (or deoptimize) a build. So, for anyone reading my post, they could fix it, so, if they do not, that's their fault.

If the entire group is a bunch of noobs, building in ignorance, with no possibility of external resources to draw upon to help fix problems once they are identified? That's still their fault for not fixing it. They could build the skills, or, failing that, the GM could houserule, homebrew, cater, or McGuffin their way past this problem.

This is such a trivial problem to solve, with so many possible solutions, that I cannot help but assign fault to groups that care about Balance, but don't fix it.


And your proposed solution is... actually, I'm drawing a blank on how we were supposed to fix it without houserules - as we eventually did, to make it so he could attack with both his weapons using a standard action. I think the campaign ended before we could see how much it helped. But the system gave us no tools whatsoever to address this problem. And doing it ourselves increases effort and reduces enjoyment.

Um, optimize harder? I mean, if a 1st level Commoner can solo the Tarrasque, what excuse does your… Swashbuckler(?)… have?

Keep the personality, rebuild the chassis as a Rogue? All the answers I listed above (optimize, houserule, homebrew, cater, McGuffin, etc)? Ask the Playground for help (not that I'd be much help, personally, as I don't really build muggles)? Or even nerfing the other party member(s) would have created balance.

-----

EDIT

Just to make sure I understand what you're saying, you're not saying that "the player should fix the problem" as "the player should change what he appreciate in RPG, because we're not gonna home-rule the game under the pretext that it is unbalanced, as unbalance is not a problem", but what you mean is more "the player should fix the problem" as "if the player cares about this unbalance, he should find a reasonable solution to the unbalance, possibly by finding an home-rule or an home-brew version of his class that actually allows him to fully enjoy the archetype he aim to play".

Correct?

I mean, I personally aim for "optimize RAW materials" over "homebrew" to solve balance problems when possible, but that's a personal preference thing.

Also, I am also saying that "you" will be happier if you "love the one you're with". That is, the first part of your question - broadening your own personal list of acceptable game types - does increase happiness, too, but that's not what I was discussing at that moment, when I said that "the player should fix the problem". The problem was the imbalance, and it was an imminently fixable problem.

That imbalance shouldn't (or, at least, needn't) be a problem is, however, integral to this particular thread, even if not to that particular statement.

Kaptin Keen
2019-09-18, 10:12 AM
In 3e, a level 1 Commoner can solo the Tarrasque, while a very epic Wizard can be replaced with a bag of flour. In 3e, you can balance most any chassis to most any balance point. So do that.

What you're trying to say is that a strong fighter build can be as strong a wizard. That's ... true within an incredibly narrow framework. A fighter can easily do more damage than a wizard - but no fighter build can ever be as versatile as a wizard can. The wizard doesn't even need to be trying.

Anyways you're dead set on this line of reasoning - so I'll agree to disagree, and leave it at that.

Quertus
2019-09-18, 10:29 AM
What you're trying to say is that a strong fighter build can be as strong a wizard. That's ... true within an incredibly narrow framework. A fighter can easily do more damage than a wizard - but no fighter build can ever be as versatile as a wizard can. The wizard doesn't even need to be trying.

Anyways you're dead set on this line of reasoning - so I'll agree to disagree, and leave it at that.

If the Fighter and the Wizard are not balanced, and the group cares about balance, then one or both players messed up. It's on them to fix their characters to match the group's balance range. And if that requires (the GM stepping in, and) giving the Fighter 1,000,000 gp in custom items, or forces the Wizard to only cast spells from a single school, then do that. If it requires homebrewing a Fighter with d4 HP, and letting the Wizard cast their spells at will, then do that.

Find a solution that lets everyone play the character that they want within the group's balance range.

I'm saying I don't care about Balance, but, if you do, there are oh so many ways to accomplish that. I'm not seeing how you can agree to disagree by saying that you care about Balance, but don't care.:smallconfused:

Gallowglass
2019-09-18, 10:34 AM
What you're trying to say is that a strong fighter build can be as strong a wizard. That's ... true within an incredibly narrow framework. A fighter can easily do more damage than a wizard - but no fighter build can ever be as versatile as a wizard can. The wizard doesn't even need to be trying.

Anyways you're dead set on this line of reasoning - so I'll agree to disagree, and leave it at that.

Its not "a strong fighter can be as strong as a wizard" Its, when playing the fighter, I DON'T CARE if I'm as strong as the wizard. I don't need his versatility. We are a team. he can teleport us around and charm the king and throw fireballs at the crowds of mooks. I still find MY fun by beating down the big bad for 200 hp a round while laughing maniacally.

I'm having fun. he's have fun. We're having fun. I don't care if I don't have his power level.

And if you want to play a fighter and you DO CARE that you don't have the power of the wizard, well... that's on you for making a competitive game out of a cooperative game.

Ignimortis
2019-09-18, 10:42 AM
Its not "a strong fighter can be as strong as a wizard" Its, when playing the fighter, I DON'T CARE if I'm as strong as the wizard. I don't need his versatility. We are a team. he can teleport us around and charm the king and throw fireballs at the crowds of mooks. I still find MY fun by beating down the big bad for 200 hp a round while laughing maniacally.

I'm having fun. he's have fun. We're having fun. I don't care if I don't have his power level.

And if you want to play a fighter and you DO CARE that you don't have the power of the wizard, well... that's on you for making a competitive game out of a cooperative game.

What do you do when the wizard also beats down the big bad 150, 200 or even 250 hp per round? Or oneshots them with a single spell?

Gallowglass
2019-09-18, 11:02 AM
What do you do when the wizard also beats down the big bad 150, 200 or even 250 hp per round? Or oneshots them with a single spell?

I don't CARE. Why? Because its cooperative, not competitive. I shift my focus to whatever enemies are left.

Why is that so hard?

Perhaps, I'm just lucky to have players that don't suck and a DM that runs a game that everyone gets to shine in. But, honestly, I think its just a matter of I have a different perspective than you do.

I guess, the point I'm trying to make clear is this. The problem isn't balance. The problem is -you are not having fun- And you are putting the blame for that on "because the game isn't balanced" but its possible that that isn't the thing that is at fault here. That its provably possible to have fun despite any balance issues.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-18, 01:17 PM
I don't CARE. Why? Because its cooperative, not competitive. I shift my focus to whatever enemies are left.


There are no enemies left. you have done nothing the entire encounter. the wizard then one shots the next encounter, then the encounter after that, then the encounter after that, then does it four times again in a different way, then still solves a problem you can't even big to help with, then still has spells left over to set up camp, an alarm spell to protect that camp and uses prestidigitation on his robe get a minor bloodstain off, then turns to you and goes "wow, you didn't contribute at all, your own fault for not being me." then strolls off to fall asleep as if this is a luxury cruise.

what then? at what point do you stop accepting Toxic Lion Share Wizard in the name of "cooperation"?

Theoboldi
2019-09-18, 01:33 PM
I am (presumably) not able to speak to the you of then; I am speaking to the you of now(ish).

Anyone reading my posts should know of the existence of resources - such as the Playground - that can help optimize (or deoptimize) a build. So, for anyone reading my post, they could fix it, so, if they do not, that's their fault.

If the entire group is a bunch of noobs, building in ignorance, with no possibility of external resources to draw upon to help fix problems once they are identified? That's still their fault for not fixing it. They could build the skills, or, failing that, the GM could houserule, homebrew, cater, or McGuffin their way past this problem.

This is such a trivial problem to solve, with so many possible solutions, that I cannot help but assign fault to groups that care about Balance, but don't fix it.
So people who are not as wise as we great enlightened masters of D&D deserve to have their time wasted with characters they could not know in advance are not what they are promised to be? They have to waste their time coming up with balance solutions, homebrews, and other things so they can fix a game that was supposed to be fun as written?

What's with all these assumptions, anyways? Do you think we would have known how to homebrew a satisfying solution back then? Do you know that I would have been happy relying on a McGuffin to contribute, when I wanted to play a fighter that was skillful and capable in his own right? Why do you declare that we did not try to fix it when you were not there?

I don't understand why you try so hard to discredit me. Why can we not expect better from products that we paid money for just because you didn't have a problem with it yourself? I mean, sure, 3.5 is over and done with by now. But in the future I want to play games where I don't accidentally stumble into such painful imbalances, and then have to carefully figure out a solution with the group, especially since my free time these days is far rarer than back when I was a kid who could play D&D all day long.

Gallowglass
2019-09-18, 01:51 PM
There are no enemies left. you have done nothing the entire encounter. the wizard then one shots the next encounter, then the encounter after that, then the encounter after that, then does it four times again in a different way, then still solves a problem you can't even big to help with, then still has spells left over to set up camp, an alarm spell to protect that camp and uses prestidigitation on his robe get a minor bloodstain off, then turns to you and goes "wow, you didn't contribute at all, your own fault for not being me." then strolls off to fall asleep as if this is a luxury cruise.

what then? at what point do you stop accepting Toxic Lion Share Wizard in the name of "cooperation"?

To be blunt, that's a problem that I've never seen actually existing in real life, only in the fevered imaginations of people on this forum seeking to find fault with the game. I'm sure you, and others, will now insist "that exact thing happened to me!" Great. sucks for you. But that's not a balance issue.

But if that exact scenario actually happened, you aren't "not having fun" because of balance issues inherent in the game. You are "not having fun" because the other player is an ***hole. If both of you were playing fighters, or both of you were playing wizards, you would have the same general problem, slightly different. Because he'd still be an ***hole. If you played D&D 5e or some other non d&d system that you view as being balanced, you'd still have the problem. Because he'd still be an ***hole.

If you want to make a viable argument, then you can say "D&D 3.e helps to enable ***holes to be bigger ***holes." Sure. I can agree with that. That's as far as I can bend. I guess I can also accept "D&D 3.e, because of its density, can lead to people with system mastery overwhelming people with a more casual interest in the game." I'd say that was true too.

Neither of those mean the game is broken. But certainly could be improved.

stop blaming the game just because you play with ***holes.

Morty
2019-09-18, 01:56 PM
I'm guessing house rules, changing priorities, changing playstyles -- all legitimate ways to go about if you find yourself in the situation of discovering that the system you are running and choices you made don't support a your character actually being impactful, but in the end you having to change your actions to accommodate (unadvertised) quirks within the game.

Which really just highlights that we're having (at least) two discussions -- should parties be balanced, and should game systems be balanced (or at least not being balanced be a legitimate critique thereof). Of this, I am of two minds -- one, the games that are fun are the ones that are fun, not ones that match up to peoples' theoretical rules about what makes a great game. The troll up above suggested that caring about balance was something only 'Hyper Active Selfish Demanding Dominating Competing Action type[s]' cared about, and that's easy to laugh at, but it's definitely the case that lots of people played those editions of D&D noted for being unbalanced (3e of course, but also most all of the TSR-era has gotten legitimate gripes over it) and had absolutely balls with them. On the other hand, to play a straight fighter or monk (or from the above example, Swashbuckler) in 3rd edition, certainly past a certain point, and you really have to have an accommodating group (willing to make house rules, and/or find ways that characters contribute regardless of their mechanics) to feel like a contributing part of the group. Which is galling particularly since, new to that edition, all things were advertised as semi-interchangeable and worth the same (since you can MC between classes, and all require the same XP to level).

This is why I dislike the term "balance" nowadays. It's loaded and leads to unproductive discussions like this one. Instead, I prefer to talk about working as advertised or respecting the players' time, effort and choices. The 3.5 swashbuckler does none of the above - it doesn't let you play a dashing acrobatic fencer, it wastes your time and effort trying to get it to work properly and punishes you for choosing it. Likewise for a dual-wielding ranger.

To step outside of D&D for a while: in Vampire: the Requiem, it's not an issue that vampires are more powerful than mortals but less powerful than mages. Those options are not presented equally at any point. What is an issue is that in 1st edition of Requiem, physical Disciplines were weak. Vigor worked more or less okay, if not impressively so. Resilience and Celerity were just plain weak. This a problem of not working as advertised, because they advertised being a horrifically durable and horrifically quick undead predator, respectively. Which is why the second edition of Requiem fixed them. Because when the player spends starting dots of XP on those Disciplines, they deserve to get what the book tells them they will.


Which really brings my main point -- a system doesn't have to be balanced in all ways and under all circumstances, but if so it should make that somewhat obvious. 5th edition is not balanced, particularly if you do not get the expected number of encounters per rest cycle (and lots of people have been complaining about the expected encounter rate per rest being well outside their normal experiences). However, it pretty well states what its' expectations are, as well as giving sample methods for addressing the situation if your gamestyle does not match them (the gritty rest alternative also doesn't match a lot of peoples' gameplay style, but at least it is an acknowledgment of the issue and a template for how one might make one's own fixes).

The most important difference is that 5E makes the barrier of effectiveness much lower. To keep the swashbuckler example, in 5E you can just pick the rogue subclass by the same name, or a battlemaster fighter perhaps, take a rapier and go to town. It'll work. A dual-wielding ranger... well, still has problems, but won't be the kind of sad show it is in 3.5. The hoops that people are condemned for not jumping through efficiently enough in this thread don't exist. Or at least aren't as numerous.

Talakeal
2019-09-18, 02:01 PM
I don't CARE. Why? Because its cooperative, not competitive. I shift my focus to whatever enemies are left.

Why is that so hard?

Perhaps, I'm just lucky to have players that don't suck and a DM that runs a game that everyone gets to shine in. But, honestly, I think its just a matter of I have a different perspective than you do.

I guess, the point I'm trying to make clear is this. The problem isn't balance. The problem is -you are not having fun- And you are putting the blame for that on "because the game isn't balanced" but its possible that that isn't the thing that is at fault here. That its provably possible to have fun despite any balance issues.

Try looking at is another way:

There is a large subset of people for whom bakance is directly proportional to fun, and they are not having fun because they are playing an imbalanced game.

I have played multiple editions of D&D with the same group, and I can attest that imbalance does create drama, high level 3.5 has glaring balance issues that repeatedly cripple people's enjoyment of the game that just dont come up elsewhere.

Gallowglass
2019-09-18, 02:06 PM
Try looking at is another way:

There is a large subset of people for whom bakance is directly proportional to fun, and they are not having fun because they are playing an imbalanced game.

I have played multiple editions of D&D with the same group, and I can attest that imbalance does create drama, high level 3.5 has glaring balance issues that repeatedly cripple people's enjoyment of the game that just dont come up elsewhere.

There's just no way for me to respond to this other than pasting in my post that you quoted.

I guess, the point I'm trying to make clear is this. The problem isn't balance. The problem is -you are not having fun- And you are putting the blame for that on "because the game isn't balanced" but its possible that that isn't the thing that is at fault here. That its provably possible to have fun despite any balance issues.


At this point, its chicken and egg. You think balance causes the not having fun. I say that you are not having fun and blaming it on balance. I... just don't know how to reconcile this any further. *shrug* I guess agree to disagree?

Lord Raziere
2019-09-18, 02:11 PM
To be blunt, that's a problem that I've never seen actually existing in real life, only in the fevered imaginations of people on this forum seeking to find fault with the game. I'm sure you, and others, will now insist "that exact thing happened to me!" Great. sucks for you. But that's not a balance issue.

But if that exact scenario actually happened, you aren't "not having fun" because of balance issues inherent in the game. You are "not having fun" because the other player is an ***hole. If both of you were playing fighters, or both of you were playing wizards, you would have the same general problem, slightly different. Because he'd still be an ***hole. If you played D&D 5e or some other non d&d system that you view as being balanced, you'd still have the problem. Because he'd still be an ***hole.



stop blaming the game just because you play with ***holes.

Making a lot of assumptions there. I don't play with them nor do I play 3.5. there are more balanced systems out there and what a coincidence, jerks flock to imbalanced systems where their excuses are more accepted and fly longer because the rules aren't clear enough to not allow for powers and shenanigans that are simply common sense to balance.

I have to yet to see a player who hasn't become a jerk when given godlike power. they always become entitled and talking about special treatment just because their character is so powerful, more than any other character, nor I have yet to see a roleplaying game where godlike power out of proportion to the setting has not caused logical problems or not kill the tension. which is a problem regardless of whether the person is being a jerk. it doesn't matter if the person acts in a way that doesn't the solve the problem immediately, there is the knowledge in the back of my mind that the only reason this godlike being isn't instantly solving the problem is because they are being played as an idiot, and nor do I want them played smart because I'm not interested overjacking the setting to suit their unique high-maintenance needs. tension and uncertainty needs to be kept, there is no point to playing other wise.

Talakeal
2019-09-18, 02:22 PM
There's just no way for me to respond to this other than pasting in my post that you quoted.

I guess, the point I'm trying to make clear is this. The problem isn't balance. The problem is -you are not having fun- And you are putting the blame for that on "because the game isn't balanced" but its possible that that isn't the thing that is at fault here. That its provably possible to have fun despite any balance issues.


At this point, its chicken and egg. You think balance causes the not having fun. I say that you are not having fun and blaming it on balance. I... just don't know how to reconcile this any further. *shrug* I guess agree to disagree?

Do you apply this logic to other facets of life?

Like, if someone watches horror movies and hates them all, and watches lots of comedies and likes them all, maybe that person doesn't like horror movies?

Why is it so hard for you to accept that there are certain people who fundamentally do not enjoy games because of the imbalances contained within?

Gallowglass
2019-09-18, 02:33 PM
Making a lot of assumptions there. I don't play with them nor do I play 3.5. ...

I have to yet to see a player who hasn't become a jerk when given godlike power. they always become entitled and talking about special treatment just because their character is so powerful, more than any other character, nor I have yet to see a roleplaying game where godlike power out of proportion to the setting has not caused logical problems or not kill the tension. which is a problem regardless of whether the person is being a jerk. it doesn't matter if the person acts in a way that doesn't the solve the problem immediately, there is the knowledge in the back of my mind that the only reason this godlike being isn't instantly solving the problem is because they are being played as an idiot, and nor do I want them played smart because I'm not interested overjacking the setting to suit their unique high-maintenance needs. tension and uncertainty needs to be kept, there is no point to playing other wise.

Okay, you don't like me making "assumptions" (for the record, I wasn't) so....


I mean, which is it. Do you NOT play D&D 3.5 and *******s or do you have a vast breadth of experience with your "players who become jerks when given godlike powers" that you believe are ubiquitous and plentiful?

How do you NOT play 3.5, but only play more balanced systems, but still have multiple experiences of these god like ***holes that you claim flock to a system you don't play in?

"I don't play this game or with these people. But I have seen multiple people act this way (in a game I don't play)"

You start talking about how you don't play with these people, then talk about how you have multiple personal experiences with it. So which is it?

Because, i -do- play the game. I have played the game for many many years. with many many groups. And these "god-drunk" ***holes only seem to exist on this forum in theoretical discussions about problems with the game by people like you who claim you don't play the game, don't like the game, but somehow also claim to have these anachronistic deep and plentiful experiences with its functional flaws.

The TO "god powered" wizard that gets flouted on this forum over and over again... you know what... it seems to exist only on this forum as a TO exercise. I haven't seen someone playing a 20 Wizard anything like this god wizard is supposed to be played.

Gosh, I sure am lucky! Unlike you, I actually play this version of the game, and haven't had the experience you have while not playing the version of the game, but still finding so many flaws!

Tajerio
2019-09-18, 02:41 PM
This is why I dislike the term "balance" nowadays. It's loaded and leads to unproductive discussions like this one. Instead, I prefer to talk about working as advertised or respecting the players' time, effort and choices. The 3.5 swashbuckler does none of the above - it doesn't let you play a dashing acrobatic fencer, it wastes your time and effort trying to get it to work properly and punishes you for choosing it. Likewise for a dual-wielding ranger.

To step outside of D&D for a while: in Vampire: the Requiem, it's not an issue that vampires are more powerful than mortals but less powerful than mages. Those options are not presented equally at any point. What is an issue is that in 1st edition of Requiem, physical Disciplines were weak. Vigor worked more or less okay, if not impressively so. Resilience and Celerity were just plain weak. This a problem of not working as advertised, because they advertised being a horrifically durable and horrifically quick undead predator, respectively. Which is why the second edition of Requiem fixed them. Because when the player spends starting dots of XP on those Disciplines, they deserve to get what the book tells them they will.

This here is the key. If somebody's picking up a game for the first time, it's entirely reasonable for that person to expect that the game will give an honest account of itself. I mean, the 3.5 PHB describes the monk as "A martial artist whose unarmed strikes hit fast and hard--a master of exotic powers," but we had to wait for ToB and the swordsage before "a master of exotic powers" could actually be realized. So that's a natural and entirely understandable frustration.

I'd also like to point out that in my experience, the "balance" issue has been more about players not having interesting options than not contributing mechanically. My wife really likes archers, and she rolled one up (I forget if she went ranger or rogue) the first time we played. But she discovered that in 3.5, what she liked most of all outside of the game was pretty boring in the game. Her friend who's a huge nature nut, on the other hand, played what she liked most--a druid--and had a blast, because there was always a range of things she could choose to do. It just so happens that because of the way the game was designed, the classes that have a lot of options in D&D also tend to be the most powerful ones--but there's no indication of that in the actual documentation for the game itself.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-18, 02:45 PM
Its the principle of how players are what is given to them, in general. 3.5 is just the most stand out system to demonstrate the problem of imbalance honestly.

and of course you don't hear these stories anymore, 3.5 is dead and for good reason. it was replaced 4e then 5e, and guess what they both do balance better and are more enjoyable.

I have experience, because anything that gives more people more power than usual is corrupting, its a classic problem of humanity, regardless of jerks. and again, you did not address the fact that such overpowered character kills the tension! and tension matters to some people, and that why balance is there: to keep the tension as well as my suspension of disbelief intact so I don't start looking at adventures as essentially meaningless luxury trips for the characters where they don't experience any pain or suffering.

such imbalance is like writing a mary sue character in a story, because all the challenges are easily solved, nothing interesting happens, so....its tepid, why is anything happening at all if none of it has a bite?

Gallowglass
2019-09-18, 02:46 PM
Do you apply this logic to other facets of life?

Like, if someone watches horror movies and hates them all, and watches lots of comedies and likes them all, maybe that person doesn't like horror movies?

Why is it so hard for you to accept that there are certain people who fundamentally do not enjoy games because of the imbalances contained within?

That's not at all what we are discussing here, is it. If I inject what we are discussing about into your statement we get:

"If someone playes 3.5 and hates it, and plays 5e and likes it, maybe that person doesn't like 3.5"

Great. I have no problem with that statement.

But that's not this discussion. To try and cram this discussion into your analogy it would be something like:

"if someone watches horror movies and hates it, and watches comedies and likes it, then horror movies must be bad movies."

Do you see how that's taking opinion and turning it into "truth"

Also it discounts an important part of this discussion which is "3.5 is Bad because of Balance issues" Saying there is a specific cause for its "badness"

To which my reply is "i have personal experience of enjoying the game despite the balance issues". That its perfectly possible to stop worrying and love the bomb. And that, its possible, just theoretically possible, that the reason someone ISN'T enjoying the game may have other reasons than the balance issues. The most likely one being the other players.

to, again, try to fit your analogy:

"I watched horror movies and comedies. I don't like the horror movies because the plots are trite and predictable."

"Are you sure that's why you don't like them?"

"Yes."

"Okay but, here's example of how comedies also have trite and predictable plots. Are you sure that THAT'S the reason you don't like horror movies or could it be something else."

"No! its because the plots are trite and predicatble! They are bad movies!"

"Okay. There are lots of people who still enjoy horror movies despite the trite and predictable plots."

"Those people are wrong!"


***

Trite and predictable plots are probably a bad replacement for "balance issues" but its the best I could come up with. Feel free to paste in another reason.

Talakeal
2019-09-18, 03:08 PM
That's not at all what we are discussing here, is it. If I inject what we are discussing about into your statement we get:

"If someone playes 3.5 and hates it, and plays 5e and likes it, maybe that person doesn't like 3.5"

Great. I have no problem with that statement.

But that's not this discussion. To try and cram this discussion into your analogy it would be something like:

"if someone watches horror movies and hates it, and watches comedies and likes it, then horror movies must be bad movies."

Do you see how that's taking opinion and turning it into "truth"

Also it discounts an important part of this discussion which is "3.5 is Bad because of Balance issues" Saying there is a specific cause for its "badness"

To which my reply is "i have personal experience of enjoying the game despite the balance issues". That its perfectly possible to stop worrying and love the bomb. And that, its possible, just theoretically possible, that the reason someone ISN'T enjoying the game may have other reasons than the balance issues. The most likely one being the other players.

to, again, try to fit your analogy:

"I watched horror movies and comedies. I don't like the horror movies because the plots are trite and predictable."

"Are you sure that's why you don't like them?"

"Yes."

"Okay but, here's example of how comedies also have trite and predictable plots. Are you sure that THAT'S the reason you don't like horror movies or could it be something else."

The analogy I was going for is that there are people who don't like horror movies because they are scary, just like there are gamers who don't like 3.5 because it is imbalanced.

I was not trying to say that there aren't people who like it despite it being imbalanced, or that the game is bad against some objective standard.

Hell, while I would argue that in general balance is a good design principle and most people prefer balanced games, there are certainly people who enjoy game because they are imbalanced, typically people who enjoy the power fantasy aspect or the accomplishment aspects of the game.

ChamHasNoRoom
2019-09-18, 03:50 PM
Showing up to a discussion on what makes a game good or bad with a philosophy that it is literally impossible for any game to be bad, and if you didn't enjoy a game then that's your fault for playing it wrong or for playing it at all, is not helpful.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-18, 04:09 PM
Showing up to a discussion on what makes a game good or bad with a philosophy that it is literally impossible for any game to be bad, and if you didn't enjoy a game then that's your fault for playing it wrong or for playing it at all, is not helpful.

Yeah, agree with that pretty much. one just has to look at FATAL to see that a roleplaying game can be really bad and that no amount of "playing it right" will fix it. indeed, the concept of "playing a game right" is kind of a warning sign by itself.

and no matter the experiences, the problem with the system remains no matter how much you scaffold it. just because someone has built the scaffolding so well, so much that it becomes indistinguishable from the system in their eyes, does not mean the system is fixed, it just means they are mistaking all this surrounding lore and guides and optimization advice for the actual game when the base assumption is not "rpg game + years of forum optimization and table experience" but "the rpg game by itself". the wizard optimization guide is not a splatbook and has nothing to do with the problems of the system, because its all about avoiding them.

NichG
2019-09-18, 08:08 PM
Imbalance is only a problem with a system if you assume that the system is or should be trying to be balanced. That assumption is what's under debate here. I think it's a valid point to raise that the counter-argument for 'balance is something all systems should strive for' is 'there are applications in which you would want to strive for controlled imbalance instead' and not 'imbalance is something all systems should strive for'.

In a lot of these problematic cases, the problem is caused by other underlying issues interacting with system imbalances. Rather than say 'it's the player's fault' as the current line of conversation seems to be getting stuck on, I'd say 'you can easily construct a system or situation which is just as imbalanced, but in which the given problem ceases to be problematic'.

For the Swashbuckler story, imagine that the D&D books were exactly the same except included class power ratings and example capability analysis of builds (e.g. imagine forum tiers, or if you don't like those ratings, imagine something else more true to your play experiences). In that case, a new player wouldn't be told 'these are all equal options', they'd be told 'these are unequal options - contributing as a Barbarian is a 3 star difficulty, whereas contributing as a Fighter is a 4 star difficulty'. You might then say 'it's a problem that I want to play a swashbucklery archetype, but they're all 4 and 5 star difficulties' - but the issue there is not 'just' imbalance, it's that the system isn't providing a means to have the experience you want, any more than it wouldn't really support playing a detective or head of a merchant empire. So again, this feels like a matter of mis-communicated or mismatched expectations. A game isn't bad for not enabling every conceivable experience, but it can certainly be bad for people who are going to it to have those specific experiences.

For the toxic wizard story, take the exact same situation and mechanics, but swap the players. Either the victim of the story would be just as toxic in that situation when playing as the wizard (in which case, I guess I'd have to say that those players deserve each-other), or otherwise perhaps the issue is more that playing anything with toxic people sucks.

If we're talking about strategic depth, there are ways to intentionally unbalance a game to create more interesting strategic considerations. Chess has deep strategies even though its units are wildly different in utility. Go has deep strategies even though its units are identical. So, a game could be badly designed to use its imbalance (e.g. being unbalanced by accident rather than intention), but that doesn't imply that balance is necessary or sufficient for strategic depth.

The cases which can't be resolved by modifying the context to one that doesn't assume already failed elements are specifically the cases where a player proactively desires balance for its own sake. But I'd disagree that all systems should cater to that player type - certainly some should, but its not a universal thing. Certainly, such games in both cases should clearly communicate their design intent to prospective players to avoid a mismatch of expectations.

ChamHasNoRoom
2019-09-18, 08:52 PM
I agree that there are valid reasons to have an imbalanced game.

That said, a game can still be judged by how well it is what it presents itself as. 3.X's class balance problems are an issue because every class is presented as equal. Even if some people in the group are totally happy to play the sidekick role, they need extensive experience with the system in order to know which classes are the sidekicks and which aren't. Even classes which are hideously overpowered can have very weak specific builds.

3.X is no longer officially supported, and the number of new players coming into it each year is very small, but it's still not to the edition's credit that its classes are so wildly imbalanced as to only be playable with sufficient expertise to navigate the minefield of not only cripplingly bad options, but also game-breakingly good ones. Playing on godmode can be fun as a break from normal gameplay, but there's a reason why it's basically never offered as an official difficulty setting.

You could solve 3.X's problem by changing its presentation instead of its actual mechanics, building things like tier lists directly into the text of the rules (so long as the tier list is accurate - whether or not any specific tier list works doesn't matter to the abstract point), but people don't usually like that solution because the people who show up to a game of D&D are the people who liked what D&D presented itself as and want to play that game, the one they were promised.

Ignimortis
2019-09-18, 08:53 PM
I don't CARE. Why? Because its cooperative, not competitive. I shift my focus to whatever enemies are left.

Why is that so hard?

Perhaps, I'm just lucky to have players that don't suck and a DM that runs a game that everyone gets to shine in. But, honestly, I think its just a matter of I have a different perspective than you do.

I guess, the point I'm trying to make clear is this. The problem isn't balance. The problem is -you are not having fun- And you are putting the blame for that on "because the game isn't balanced" but its possible that that isn't the thing that is at fault here. That its provably possible to have fun despite any balance issues.

But what is the point in playing a Fighter, then? If you say "imagery", then wouldn't it be better to have a sword-wizard who wears armor and swings a sword to do the things? It can even be called "Fighter". The imagery is there, but you can actually contribute a lot more.

Sure, you can have fun through roleplaying and just doing your part, as it becomes increasingly smaller due to certain 3.5 design aspects. But, as Kaptin Keen has aptly described it, at this point you're basically playing a sidekick, and most people don't like that (and I'll add that most people like to feel like they're pulling their own weight and doing a respectable percentage of work). Especially if "Fighter" and "Wizard" are presented as equally powerful, instead of Wizards doing everything better.

Hell, I'll even tell a small story. I had a character (in 5e, actually, so it's not a 3.5 endemic thing) who was a melee warlock with some Fighter splashed in. I did ok-ish damage (2d10+2d6+10 per turn should be fine at level 7, I think), and could pull out a trick out of my sleeve once or twice per day. However, the same party had a Bear Totem Great Weapon Master Barbarian. Just straight Barb, max strength. He did double my damage each turn and took much less damage because of his AC coupled with resistance to everything, on top of having a d12 hitdie and +3 CON.

So when the DM felt like he needed to challenge the barbarian, enemies also doubled in HP and damage, and basically walked over me if I didn't stay back throwing Eldritch Blasts instead of meleeing like I wanted to, and if I tried to melee, I would've died before defeating even a single enemy like that. How is that fun?

False God
2019-09-18, 09:44 PM
...

So when the DM felt like he needed to challenge the barbarian, enemies also doubled in HP and damage, and basically walked over me if I didn't stay back throwing Eldritch Blasts instead of meleeing like I wanted to, and if I tried to melee, I would've died before defeating even a single enemy like that. How is that fun?

I have had much the same experience in unbalanced parties. The DM attempts to challenge a player who has specifically designed to character to be un-challengable. But then...the rest of the party gets murdered horribly.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-18, 10:03 PM
I have had much the same experience in unbalanced parties. The DM attempts to challenge a player who has specifically designed to character to be un-challengable. But then...the rest of the party gets murdered horribly.

In before they say that its the GM's fault for scaling up the enemies.

Which is the exactly the attitude that gets parties murdered. your forcing all the work of balancing and moderation on the GM when its every players job to moderate and balance themselves so that the GM doesn't feel like they have to figure out some way of killing that one invincible guy, because if they don't, then they might as well as stop GMing because if the encounters can't provide tension and such, what are they even doing here? there is no reason to humor a player like that, thats not fun for the GM.

Lemmy
2019-09-18, 10:43 PM
Party balance isn't necessary for fun in the same way that an oven isn't necessary for cooking...

It's not strictly necessary, but it sure makes things easier and allows for more options.

Satinavian
2019-09-19, 01:20 AM
You can have a lot of fun with an unbalanced party. Some concepts even rely on that.

Even more so, you can have a lot of fun with unbalanced rule systems. That is true because most systems don't enforce balance that well and we had fun with those for decades.


But every single time we had to adress balance at a table because it had stopped being fun, it was either making the strong character weaker or the weak character stronger. So balance is a really good thing that can avoid/solve problems.

And one really should strive for balance before those problems arise. That makes more balanced systems just better. Sure, sometrimes it is a tradeoff and you don't want to enforce balance at all costs. Usually that could happen by restricting options so much that the system becomes boring and limited or by enforcing results that strain suspension of disbelief too much.

Balance is a good quality of a game. But not the only good quality.

Kaptin Keen
2019-09-19, 09:57 AM
If the Fighter and the Wizard are not balanced, and the group cares about balance, then one or both players messed up.

Or maybe the designers messed up.

How about we agree to disagree? I vote yes.

zinycor
2019-09-19, 10:14 AM
Or maybe the designers messed up.


That does seem more likely

Kaptin Keen
2019-09-19, 10:16 AM
That does seem more likely

Thank you =)

I'm not even claiming that's conclusively and definitively the case. I'm just saying that if the hinge creaks, there's a certain limit to how much grease you need to apply before you start considering that maybe it was designed poorly to begin with.

Netbrian
2019-09-19, 10:40 AM
You can certainly have fun with an unbalanced party, but the whole point of RPG systems is to provide a structure to aid running and playing these games. The expectation is that the classes be very roughly balanced overall, and if that's not true, it should say so upfront. My experience is that "The wizard can always sandbag to allow the fighter to contribute" isn't consistent with most players' expectations of how D&D at least is played.

Gallowglass
2019-09-19, 10:59 AM
You can have a lot of fun with an unbalanced party. Some concepts even rely on that.

Even more so, you can have a lot of fun with unbalanced rule systems. That is true because most systems don't enforce balance that well and we had fun with those for decades.


But every single time we had to adress balance at a table because it had stopped being fun, it was either making the strong character weaker or the weak character stronger. So balance is a really good thing that can avoid/solve problems.

And one really should strive for balance before those problems arise. That makes more balanced systems just better. Sure, sometrimes it is a tradeoff and you don't want to enforce balance at all costs. Usually that could happen by restricting options so much that the system becomes boring and limited or by enforcing results that strain suspension of disbelief too much.

Balance is a good quality of a game. But not the only good quality.

Exactly.

let's leave D&D (all iterations) for a moment and talk about Star Wars. Every single version of Star Wars I have played (all three of them) has two strata of characters. The Jedi with force powers and everybody else. The Jedi force powers are invariably game changing, allowing the jedi to do everything anyone else can do while flipping around and blindfolded. That's a core imbalance in the game. Yet somehow people still play star wars and enjoy it.

Anyway, there's obviously a core disagreement about how important balance is to fun. I don't think we are going to resolve it here. To the OP's original question "Why does the party need to be balanced" I guess the best answer you can churn out of this discussion is "it depends on the players and their expectations. For some players, the party needs to be balanced innately, for others they are okay with the imbalance as long as the DM manages things to keep everyone involved."

Quertus
2019-09-19, 12:10 PM
So people who are not as wise as we great enlightened masters of D&D deserve to have their time wasted with characters they could not know in advance are not what they are promised to be? They have to waste their time coming up with balance solutions, homebrews, and other things so they can fix a game that was supposed to be fun as written?

What's with all these assumptions, anyways? Do you think we would have known how to homebrew a satisfying solution back then? Do you know that I would have been happy relying on a McGuffin to contribute, when I wanted to play a fighter that was skillful and capable in his own right? Why do you declare that we did not try to fix it when you were not there?

I don't understand why you try so hard to discredit me. Why can we not expect better from products that we paid money for just because you didn't have a problem with it yourself? I mean, sure, 3.5 is over and done with by now. But in the future I want to play games where I don't accidentally stumble into such painful imbalances, and then have to carefully figure out a solution with the group, especially since my free time these days is far rarer than back when I was a kid who could play D&D all day long.

Clearly, what we have here is a failure of communication. As none of these issues seem on topic - at least, not directly - and I've lost this post once already - in interests clear and civil communication, I'll spoil a more detailed response later, for any who care to try to understand my PoV.


Try looking at is another way:

There is a large subset of people for whom bakance is directly proportional to fun, and they are not having fun because they are playing an imbalanced game.

I have played multiple editions of D&D with the same group, and I can attest that imbalance does create drama, high level 3.5 has glaring balance issues that repeatedly cripple people's enjoyment of the game that just dont come up elsewhere.

You did not have fun when the party was imbalanced. Did you air your concern? Was it addressed?


Why is it so hard for you to accept that there are certain people who fundamentally do not enjoy games because of the imbalances contained within?

Because that may not be the core problem. See, in 3e, most any concept can be made to be balanced to the table. So, if you have a problem with balance in 3e, you almost by definition have other problems.

Admittedly, some of those problems are from poor expectations because of bad presentation.


I have to yet to see a player who hasn't become a jerk when given godlike power. they always become entitled and talking about special treatment just because their character is so powerful, more than any other character,

I must admit, the one time I was handed totally OP power, I handled it poorly. For one session. Until l realized that the powers that the rest of the party had been handed at the same time were nowhere near balanced with mine.


To which my reply is "i have personal experience of enjoying the game despite the balance issues".

I'll do you one better (why is Gamora): I have enjoyed games because of the imbalance.


But every single time we had to adress balance at a table because it had stopped being fun, it was either making the strong character weaker or the weak character stronger. So balance is a really good thing that can avoid/solve problems.

I have had groups that, to fix fun, made the strong character stronger, or the weak character weaker. They just didn't call it "addressing balance".

So, following your logic, imbalance is a good thing. How about we try my logic: adjustable balance is a good thing. That works for both of our stories.

Quertus
2019-09-19, 12:37 PM
Party balance isn't necessary for fun in the same way that an oven isn't necessary for cooking...

It's not strictly necessary, but it sure makes things easier and allows for more options.

You've got that backwards: party imbalance allows for more options.

If I pick 100 random characters, like Superman, Dr. Strange, Quertus, Conan, Chewbacca, Picard, Neo, Rand, Sherlock Holmes, E.T., Johnny 5, etc etc, you'll have a lot more options for possible team ups if you allow imbalance than if you don't.


Or maybe the designers messed up.

How about we agree to disagree? I vote yes.

Can't. Because we don't disagree.

If the designers didn't give you the ability to create balanced characters, then they *probably* messed up. Ars Magica notwithstanding.

If the designers hinted, implied, etc, that the characters were balanced, then they probably messed up.

If they *flat out told you* that the characters were balanced, then they bloody well messed up. Which the 3e developers did.

However, just because the 3e developers messed up, doesn't mean that players can't mess up, too. Afaict, that's the part we may disagree on.

Satinavian
2019-09-19, 12:44 PM
I have had groups that, to fix fun, made the strong character stronger, or the weak character weaker. They just didn't call it "addressing balance".

So, following your logic, imbalance is a good thing. How about we try my logic: adjustable balance is a good thing. That works for both of our stories.If i ever see that even once (a group that has lost fun and adjusts the power of the characters (not other things about the characters) to intentionally create bigger imbalance and regains the fun this way), i'll agree. But i am not convinced that does actually happen.

Netbrian
2019-09-19, 01:32 PM
How about we try my logic: adjustable balance is a good thing. That works for both of our stories.

Doesn't literally every game have adjustable balance? If someone is a better chess player than me, then you could adjust the balance by removing their pieces until we match.

Lemmy
2019-09-19, 01:49 PM
You've got that backwards: party imbalance allows for more options.

If I pick 100 random characters, like Superman, Dr. Strange, Quertus, Conan, Chewbacca, Picard, Neo, Rand, Sherlock Holmes, E.T., Johnny 5, etc etc, you'll have a lot more options for possible team ups if you allow imbalance than if you don't.
Not really, because...

A- What makes for a good book/film/whatever doesn't necessarily make for a good game.

Having Green Arrow next to Superman in a comic book where the reader follows every character and the writer has no real rules and can create contrived situations to make Green Arrow relevant (including Superman "forgeting" to use his powers) is OK. Playing GA next to Superman in a game where freedom of choice is important and the GM isn't playing favorites would be frustrating more often than not.

B- It's much easier to adapt your game to be unbalanced than to try and fix fix to be balanced (just give one character more xp, more loot, more allies, etc).

i.e.: You can always choose to not use the oven. But that doesn't change the fact that having it there and not using it is much better than not having it at all just because your favorite food is sushi.

Talakeal
2019-09-19, 02:06 PM
Because that may not be the core problem. See, in 3e, most any concept can be made to be balanced to the table. So, if you have a problem with balance in 3e, you almost by definition have other problems.

Let me try an analogy:

Do you think sports would be improved if they didn't have levels? Like if they let NBA players play in middle school youth league tournaments and vice versa?

IMO enjoying being on a team with people who are at a similar level to yourself does not indicate any sort of problem.

zinycor
2019-09-19, 02:59 PM
Let me try an analogy:

Do you think sports would be improved if they didn't have levels? Like if they let NBA players play in middle school youth league tournaments and vice versa?

IMO enjoying being on a team with people who are at a similar level to yourself does not indicate any sort of problem.

So you think that new players should play with new players, and veterans with veterans? That would make sense on a table at a store, where there could be enough people of different levels of expertise. Very unlikely for that to happen at a home game.

Theoboldi
2019-09-19, 03:05 PM
Clearly, what we have here is a failure of communication. As none of these issues seem on topic - at least, not directly - and I've lost this post once already - in interests clear and civil communication, I'll spoil a more detailed response later, for any who care to try to understand my PoV.


All of these issues are entirely on-topic. Each of them directly relates to my reasons why I consider it important that a game be either balanced or clearly communicate its imbalances. I'll wait for your detailed response, but be aware that my complaints of wasted time and effort stem entirely from the imbalance in a game that presented its classes as equally powerful.



let's leave D&D (all iterations) for a moment and talk about Star Wars. Every single version of Star Wars I have played (all three of them) has two strata of characters. The Jedi with force powers and everybody else. The Jedi force powers are invariably game changing, allowing the jedi to do everything anyone else can do while flipping around and blindfolded. That's a core imbalance in the game. Yet somehow people still play star wars and enjoy it.

Anyway, there's obviously a core disagreement about how important balance is to fun. I don't think we are going to resolve it here. To the OP's original question "Why does the party need to be balanced" I guess the best answer you can churn out of this discussion is "it depends on the players and their expectations. For some players, the party needs to be balanced innately, for others they are okay with the imbalance as long as the DM manages things to keep everyone involved."

The issue with your example of Star Wars is that people who wish to play that source material are already aware going in that of course a jedi is a more powerful character than a non-jedi. And that's really the crux of it. Imbalances need to be either obvious (like when you are working with a pre-existing source material) or explicitly addressed so that players can make informed decisions about what they'll play going in. Yes, you can always fix arising problems later, but at that point they have already enacted a cost in time, effort, and possibly nerves and drama. And while it's true that you can have fun with a non-balanced game, that same game can also ruin the fun of uninformed players when they try it out.

Thinker
2019-09-19, 03:23 PM
Imbalance is only a problem with a system if you assume that the system is or should be trying to be balanced. That assumption is what's under debate here. I think it's a valid point to raise that the counter-argument for 'balance is something all systems should strive for' is 'there are applications in which you would want to strive for controlled imbalance instead' and not 'imbalance is something all systems should strive for'.

In a lot of these problematic cases, the problem is caused by other underlying issues interacting with system imbalances. Rather than say 'it's the player's fault' as the current line of conversation seems to be getting stuck on, I'd say 'you can easily construct a system or situation which is just as imbalanced, but in which the given problem ceases to be problematic'.

For the Swashbuckler story, imagine that the D&D books were exactly the same except included class power ratings and example capability analysis of builds (e.g. imagine forum tiers, or if you don't like those ratings, imagine something else more true to your play experiences). In that case, a new player wouldn't be told 'these are all equal options', they'd be told 'these are unequal options - contributing as a Barbarian is a 3 star difficulty, whereas contributing as a Fighter is a 4 star difficulty'. You might then say 'it's a problem that I want to play a swashbucklery archetype, but they're all 4 and 5 star difficulties' - but the issue there is not 'just' imbalance, it's that the system isn't providing a means to have the experience you want, any more than it wouldn't really support playing a detective or head of a merchant empire. So again, this feels like a matter of mis-communicated or mismatched expectations. A game isn't bad for not enabling every conceivable experience, but it can certainly be bad for people who are going to it to have those specific experiences.

For the toxic wizard story, take the exact same situation and mechanics, but swap the players. Either the victim of the story would be just as toxic in that situation when playing as the wizard (in which case, I guess I'd have to say that those players deserve each-other), or otherwise perhaps the issue is more that playing anything with toxic people sucks.

If we're talking about strategic depth, there are ways to intentionally unbalance a game to create more interesting strategic considerations. Chess has deep strategies even though its units are wildly different in utility. Go has deep strategies even though its units are identical. So, a game could be badly designed to use its imbalance (e.g. being unbalanced by accident rather than intention), but that doesn't imply that balance is necessary or sufficient for strategic depth.

The cases which can't be resolved by modifying the context to one that doesn't assume already failed elements are specifically the cases where a player proactively desires balance for its own sake. But I'd disagree that all systems should cater to that player type - certainly some should, but its not a universal thing. Certainly, such games in both cases should clearly communicate their design intent to prospective players to avoid a mismatch of expectations.

I think this post speaks the greatest truth of any in this thread and I think it has been hinted at quite a bit without being stated directly. Balance in itself isn't so much a problem. All kinds of games have imbalanced rules, roles, and/or mechanics. Even popular ones. The problem is the expectation of the players. There must be a feeling of agency or buy-in for the power level. Playing a weak character doesn't feel bad if I know it is weak. Having limitations that others won't have isn't bad if I know those limitations from the outset.

kyoryu
2019-09-19, 04:37 PM
Part of the problem is that people have different tolerances for imbalance, so their opinions will never align.

I hate mustard. While I can tolerate small amounts in something, if I can taste "mustard taste", I hate it. The answer isn't for me to learn to like mustard (I mean, I've tried). It's to not eat things that taste like mustard.

Same with balance. Some people don't care. Some do. Most people care about some level of imbalance. Some people want a certain level of imbalance, as that leads to interesting challenges in the character build space (see: Complaints about 4e being "too balanced").

Lots of people here are saying "balance doesn't matter" or "balance does matter." If they'd just add "to me", they'd all be right.

Themrys
2019-09-19, 04:52 PM
Also note that comparisons to fiction (like Eragon, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, etc.) are inherently problematic because those narratives are not being played by players in a game. If Chewbacca doesn't play quite as much of a role in the overall story success as Han and Luke, there's no player behind it feeling short changed. And if entire chapters of LotR happen with only Sam, Frodo, and the NPC Gollum getting to do anything, Aragorn and Legollas' players are stuck playing with their dice and waiting to get to do anything again.

You are aware that Sam and Frodo are the weakest members of the party, along with Merry and Pippin ... are you?

This sort of thing could easily happen in a well-balanced party, or in one where Aragorn and Legolas are exactly as much more powerful than Frodo and Sam, if the DM likes the plot arch Sam and Frodo are in, and enjoys playing Gollum. It has nothing to do with balance.



Whether a party needs to be balanced depends on the DM and the players. If you have players who choose to let others shine, and who don't care that much about winning fights and being great at things, but are more interested in their characters' tragic backstory and exploring that, it can work.


Of course, if you assume that players all want to be great and awesome heroes, and the DM won't be able to let the weaker characters shine, too, then it is wiser to design the system in a way where a party would either consist of Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir and Gimli, or of Sam, Frodo, Merry and Pippin, but never both.

Willie the Duck
2019-09-19, 05:46 PM
You are aware that Sam and Frodo are the weakest members of the party, along with Merry and Pippin ... are you?

Honestly speaking, that really depends on the metric one uses/the system they are using (to convert it to game terms). Sam and Frodo are the two characters with the most direct ability to effect the actual outcome of the scenario. It's only really touched on in the movies with Gandalf and Galadriel, but it's made more clear in the books that really none of the fellowship other than Sam and Frodo can attempt the main function of quest at all. Everyone else literally can only play a support role.


This sort of thing could easily happen in a well-balanced party, or in one where Aragorn and Legolas are exactly as much more powerful than Frodo and Sam, if the DM likes the plot arch Sam and Frodo are in, and enjoys playing Gollum. It has nothing to do with balance.

You're right, it doesn't, nor was it intended to be. The topic of that comparison was whether anyone cared if all characters in a fictional narrative got the same amount of attention or had the same amount of agency. People (obviously not everyone, as this thread evidences) do care about the same in TTRPGs, and that agency is what balance is related to.


Whether a party needs to be balanced depends on the DM and the players. If you have players who choose to let others shine, and who don't care that much about winning fights and being great at things, but are more interested in their characters' tragic backstory and exploring that, it can work.

Of course, if you assume that players all want to be great and awesome heroes, and the DM won't be able to let the weaker characters shine, too, then it is wiser to design the system in a way where a party would either consist of Legolas, Aragorn, Boromir and Gimli, or of Sam, Frodo, Merry and Pippin, but never both.

That's not a bad way of framing what it. It's better/wiser for a game to match people up on relative 'awesome heroes'-ness, in case that is important to them.

Kaptin Keen
2019-09-20, 12:16 AM
However, just because the 3e developers messed up, doesn't mean that players can't mess up, too. Afaict, that's the part we may disagree on.

Well - I know my players, and you don't.

But speaking in more general terms, I agree with you: Sometimes lack of balance is a result of bad player choices.

Eldan
2019-09-20, 01:31 AM
You are aware that Sam and Frodo are the weakest members of the party, along with Merry and Pippin ... are you? .

They just put their aspects into stealth, humility and corruption resistance instead of combat. That makes them smart players, not weak characters :smalltongue:

NNescio
2019-09-20, 01:47 AM
They just put their aspects into stealth, humility and corruption resistance instead of combat. That makes them smart players, not weak characters :smalltongue:

Sam and Frodo, yes; Merry, maybe (granted, book Merry was far better)... but that fool of a Took is the ur-example of the YOLO kender stereotype.

NichG
2019-09-20, 02:09 AM
If i ever see that even once (a group that has lost fun and adjusts the power of the characters (not other things about the characters) to intentionally create bigger imbalance and regains the fun this way), i'll agree. But i am not convinced that does actually happen.

Anecdotal, but I was in a game based on Slayers d20 - a system where people said 'D&D 3.5 casting is too restricted, lets make it even more powerful'. The result was so fun that we adopted a variant of it in campaigns run by the other players. Including the guy who played a fighter (who arguably ran the most extreme variant in the end).

To give an example of what I mean, in Slayers d20 and the associated system Advanced d20 Magic, it's not that hard to make most spells effectively at-will without material component costs. Wish is an outlier (still possible but the HP costs are inconvenient), but I was running a character whose gimmick was using Polymorph Any Object to do freeform Harry Potter style transfiguration.

We made the options even more imbalanced, but adopted methods to allow more flexibility in builds (easier retraining, point buy elements, etc), and the result was more fun than baseline D&D. Removing the property that you're stuck with your mistakes resolved a lot of the problems.

Pelle
2019-09-20, 04:14 AM
If i ever see that even once (a group that has lost fun and adjusts the power of the characters (not other things about the characters) to intentionally create bigger imbalance and regains the fun this way), i'll agree. But i am not convinced that does actually happen.

Well, that situation is quite easy to imagine, no? As I assume Quertus would say, player skill > character build.

So you may have a group with a veteran player who knows the game inside and out, and a new player with little tactical and rules aptitude. Say the new player wants to play a wizard, and the veteran player then makes a fighter who is theoretically a little worse not to overshadow the new player. However, turns out that the new player has trouble choosing the "correct" spells and so on, and fails to contribute as much as the other players and has less fun because of that. An easy way of improving the situation is for example to let the new player get all the magic items with big effects, making it easier for that player to contribute. That evens the playing field for the players, but is actually making the character imbalance bigger.

If every character option is balanced, then if there's a difference in player skill, the player/character contribution to the game is bound to be imbalanced instead. If the balance of the character options is flexible however, the players have the power to make the player/character contribution to the game as balanced or imbalanced as they find fun. (The problem with 3e is that this flexibility is very unintuitive, and that the game gives the wrong expectations.)

Edit:
Just to emphasize; flexible character power is good, because then the players can decide the degree of imbalance they like (including zero). However, a level-based system like 3e already come with a baked in default way of differentiating character power: levels. So having a caster/martial gap or similar there is redundant. Level-by-level, the default should be balance between the different options for such a system.

Calthropstu
2019-09-20, 11:40 AM
Because if the party isn't balanced they won't be able to walk across thin ledges.
Hope this helps!

Kraynic
2019-09-20, 11:46 AM
Because if the party isn't balanced they won't be able to walk across thin ledges.
Hope this helps!

Tightrope walking for everyone!? What about my acrobat's niche protection?

Really, this is just another one of those subjects that can be endlessly debated and not have an answer beyond what a certain group enjoys.

Quertus
2019-09-20, 08:48 PM
All of these issues are entirely on-topic. Each of them directly relates to my reasons why I consider it important that a game be either balanced or clearly communicate its imbalances. I'll wait for your detailed response, but be aware that my complaints of wasted time and effort stem entirely from the imbalance in a game that presented its classes as equally powerful.

Well, I spent all day writing a reply (in my spare moments), and then my phone locked up and ate it. :smallfrown:

Short answer is, I cannot give you a short answer. That's the problem. I need to write lots of supporting text to explain where I'm coming from for you to understand my statements.

Partial answer: I fully agree on the part I bolded above.

Partial answer 2: I love your story. I think it may be the most instructive story told in this thread - not because of how it answers the question, but because of how many questions it raises. And I love that it does so without the overdone caster/muggle divide.

Senility willing, I may circle back tomorrow, and explain what I mean about how many questions your story raises.

Satinavian
2019-09-21, 05:56 AM
So you may have a group with a veteran player who knows the game inside and out, and a new player with little tactical and rules aptitude. Say the new player wants to play a wizard, and the veteran player then makes a fighter who is theoretically a little worse not to overshadow the new player. However, turns out that the new player has trouble choosing the "correct" spells and so on, and fails to contribute as much as the other players and has less fun because of that. An easy way of improving the situation is for example to let the new player get all the magic items with big effects, making it easier for that player to contribute. That evens the playing field for the players, but is actually making the character imbalance bigger.
I have seen problems based on differing player abilities. But i have never seen them solved this way.

If a veteran player proves way more effecive then the rest, he is usually able to either adjust his tactics to the rest of the group or become some kind of group strategist. He might play a weak character in the next campaign, but nerfing this one ? Can't remember that ever being asked for or done.

And if a player is particularly bad at using his character abilities, the obvious solution is not to make the character stronger. It is to make the character easier to use, which i have seen many times.

Themrys
2019-09-21, 05:56 AM
They just put their aspects into stealth, humility and corruption resistance instead of combat. That makes them smart players, not weak characters :smalltongue:

I didn't mean they were weak as characters, just that they were physically the weakest and often needed the help of others.

Frodo and Sam clearly weren't favoured in terms of screentime because the character classes of "rich heir" and "gardener" were so overpowered.

Sam was obviously the most important person for the success of the quest. The others would have starved to death without his cooking skills. :smalltongue: But he wasn't overpowered.



Of course it depends on the system you play. Most people here seem to play DnD, and that's a rather combat oriented game. You probably can have fun with other skills if the DM is onboard with it, but it tends towards rewarding fighting.

To play something like LotR and be (more or less) guaranteed to have fun, you would have to have a system where "Frodo resists the ring" and "Boromir doesn't resist the ring" is somehow in the game mechanics. Because if it isn't, you run the risk of the DM deciding that since Boromir is such a great warrior and Frodo only has levels in the NPC class of gentlehobbit, Boromir is able to resist the ring but Frodo isn't. The player of Boromir could save things by trying to save Frodo from the ring's corruption and providing some great roleplaying moments, but if he is the kind of person who likes to solve problems by killing people, then ...

A group of friends who wants everyone to have fun is probably going to have fun no matter how unbalanced the system is, but if you meet up with strangers to play a specific game, there's enough potential for conflict without handing people the opportunity to be unfair on a silver platter.

And of course, no system can prevent horrible GMs from taking away a character's magic skill and forcing the player to play a very boring character who isn't good at anything. Or deciding that the extremely strong barbarian fighter who can't form coherent sentences suddenly lost a leg and an arm and can't fight anymore.


One could say that balanced systems are only needed by (or provide a true advantage to) the average group, who is neither very great nor particularly horrible. Still, that kind of group probably is the one you will find most often.

ezekielraiden
2019-09-21, 07:05 AM
One player, or a few players are vastly stronger than the others, but each player has a lane to stay in and something that the other players can't do.
Theory vs. Practice. In D&D, spellcasting(/psionics) is the only real magic, and magic can do anything. If your "lane" is spellcasting, your lane is "be amazing at things on demand, up to a point." But...that's not a "lane." With D&D's disproportionate influence on nearly all class-based RPGs (and most that aren't!), unquestioned game design received wisdom preserves it. This can create lots of problems, particularly with things like "up to a point" being trivial or not actually happening in practice (so the spellcasting lane becomes "be amazing at things on demand whenever it matters," and thus lanes that aren't spellcasting are always less effective when it matters), or with magic having entirely toothless so-called downsides. (And then when you introduce actually toothy downsides, it almost always ends up being "punish anyone who wants to do magic!" It's a serious design problem and many D&D players really really don't like admitting that it is.)


We see this dynamic in all our favorite stories: Eragon, Lord of the Rings, Star wars etc.
Key problems:
1. Those are characters in books, not people at a table, which means you don't have to worry about individual agency or hurt feelings.
2. Your examples are a little flawed in that, well, it may be the group effort, but there are clearly people who are just better or just more important, and usually they're the main character too.*

Though I do think the second point is still relevant, the first is where the real problem lies. Written characters can't feel anything, so they can't feel like dead weight, or overshadowed, or unable to contribute, or too niche. Have you seen Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit? It's a comedy routine, but it really nicely encapsulates the way that spellcasting in RPGs has a tendency to leave non-spellcasters feeling resentful, frustrated, or irrelevant.

*LotR is an oft-neglected subversion of the "special people always get the spotlight"; too many put on airs about it being about landed gentry, when it's actually, in part, a criticism of the hyperfocus on "destined" or noble-/royal-bloodline heroes. Tolkien's whole point was that there are just as important--and sometimes much more important--stories that hinge on gardeners and other people much closer to us regular folks.


I disagree. The fighter still fights. Having a turn adds to the action economy, his higher AC and HP can make him a valuable damage soak, mixed with his class abilities and weapon choice giving him better damage output.

As long as those skills are actually relevant, sure. The problem with many class-based RPGs is...you're just wrong. A 3.5e Druid actually can have meaningfully more HP and AC than even a well-kitted Fighter. (I would know, I've played such a Druid.) And because of the versatility of wild shape, you have a great many more abilities and damage-output options than a typical Fighter will have. While also having lots of spells, that can make fights irrelevant on their own. And also having a bear friend, who is half or more of what a Fighter is to begin with.

And that's the real problem. Any one of the Druid's specialties could be its own class (and they have been, in both D&D and other games!) Powerful spellcasting produces Angel Summoner type characters, who can achieve almost anything. That's a serious problem, and it continues into the present. Why do you think Roy had to pick up a special weapon and a bunch of other stuff? Just because he's having fun? It's so he can stay reasonably relevant in a party with two relatively optimized full casters (V and Durkon).


Even if someone is better at fighting, it doesn't mean the fighter is useless. The best soccer player on the team still needs the team. If one forward is better than the other, it doesn't mean the other forward is a waste of space.
Yet the better players are paid more, aren't they? And they're much more famous. They get better stuff, more attention, more rewards. Sure, without the team, the star player can't play. But that doesn't mean it's all happy fun times and everyone feeling completely content with their situation. You can bet your bottom dollar there are frustrations experienced by perennially outclassed team members--and when it comes time to recruit new blood, who's at greatest risk of not getting a contract?

Of course, there's (at least) one key problem with a sports-team analogy. Every player contributes from the same basic set of skills and attributes (athletics). Sure, goalies protect goals and strikers are specialized in pursuing goals, but everyone contributes by physical muscle and coordination. You don't have soccer teams made up of an accountant, a professional welder, a star soccer player, and a professional wrestler, where different people contribute on completely unrelated axes--nor where one member's contributions can be so much more important than anyone else's. Sure, the accountant cannot play soccer to save his life, but he's the one securing venues, buying equipment, paying coaches. Without him, it doesn't matter whether the soccer player is amazing or just so-so, there might not be any games to begin with. Even though the soccer-player's skills may be genuinely invaluable, he may feel frustrated and slighted when the accountant has cancelled the upcoming match against a hated rival team because the rivalry could be resolved with a mutually-beneficial contract, and now the team can instead take on the district champions, which will net a TON more money and enable so many future games after. PLUS, members from the rival team will be willing to sub in, increasing their team's overall success chances! What's not to love, Mr. Star-Soccer-Player???

Now imagine if there were, say, a samurai class, that gets a fairly strong subset of accounting skills, but is also a strong athlete, and who gets a loyal retainer that is herself a pretty good athlete. How would the poor soccer-player feel at that point? Now even in the one thing where he's actually important, he can be outshone. Maybe it doesn't happen all the time. Maybe it never happens at all. But you, I hope, can see how Star-Soccer-Player could, even if only from principle, feel like he's gotten the short end of the stick, when the Accountant can obviate entire soccer games with a single accounting action, and the Samurai can also do some of that while simultaneously being a good-and-potentially-amazing soccer player on top. Makes the ability to play as good as any human can play feel...a little trivial, doubly so when even that ability is easily matched by the helper of someone who only dabbled in sports stuff.


In short, there is no I in team.
Pithy phrases do not an argument make. Just because there's no I in team, doesn't mean teammates cannot feel resentful that one player gets all the glory, or frustrated that the thing they want to be and that they thought was awesome ends up being permanent second fiddle.

Actually, there's a good alternate concept for you: Background Vocals singers. (https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the-tough-unanswered-questions-about-backup-singers/278819/) Background vocalists often go completely unremembered, getting tossed aside whenever it's inconvenient to keep them. They're usually chronically underpaid, and may even get only limited credit for their work. Despite the fact that they're indispensable for modern popular music, they're permanent second fiddles most of the time. Do you think they're perfectly happy with that status? Do you think this is fair, reasonable, and appropriate?

Quertus
2019-09-21, 10:30 AM
So, Theoboldi, on to the questions I think your story raises.


Speaking of playing the sidekick, I want to give an example of my own experiences with party imbalance. Much of the conversation so far has focused on more general term and the fighter/wizard asymmetry in particular, and I figure adding a more concrete could help explain the position of those people who think balance is important better.

Back when I was just startding out roleplaying, I joined a pretty low-level D&D 3.5 game. Our party as I recall was mostly composed of mundane characters, pretty small, and the overall optimization level was pretty low. We used books other than core, but none of us really made any sort of build. We mostly just picked whatever feats sounded good for the kind of character we were playing, without going out of our ways to chose more unusual feats like Skill Focus.

Now, the character I was playing at the time was of the Swashbuckler class. I had chosen that sort of character because the archetype of a quick, nimble and skillful warrior appealed to me. While I expected to not be able to deal as much damage as the party's barbarian due to the smaller weapon dice that I would have to use and the lack of damage bonus from a good strength score, I still figured that in combat they'd contribute overall equally, since my class did not gain any particular bonuses that would make them more impressive out of combat.

That was not my experience in play. I soon discovered that despite dealing less damage, I had no better accuracy, no better defenses, nor any particular mobility options to make up for it. In fact, the abilities my class gave me to increase my damage made me split my stats between Dexterity for accuracy and armor, Intelligence for damage, and Constitution for HP, while the Barbarian was able to focus almost entirely on Strength and Constitution. So overall, he ended up being more accurate and just as well defended as I was, with better HP to boot.

Even worse, my class abilities did not work on enemies who were immune to critical hits. Whenever my party was facing undead, or slimes, or elementals, or golems, or any of the other dozens of common monsters that a D&D party faces, all I had was a d6 worth of damage. Of course, since this was 3.5, I wasn't able to fall back on combat maneuvers like tripping people or disarming them either, as that would have showered me with attacks of opportunity from them.

Simply put, these two classes were unbalanced in the one niche that they shared. I had gone in expecting that they'd be equals, able to contribute about as much as each other, since nothing about how the classes were presented made it look as though such a disparity was intended. Overall I still had fun with the game, mind, since the GM did his best to tune combats to our abilities and he allowed me to get away with some schemes that were pretty shaky on a rules level. However, my character's unexpected weakness when I had hoped for playing a capable swashbuckler was a constant annoyance for me. It probably was a good thing that the game ended before we got to higher levels, since the impact of my character's dependency on multiple ability scores would have only grown stronger with each Ability Score increase that I would have to split. If things had gotten to the point where my character would have struggled to hit level-appropriate Armor Classes, combat would have completely ceased to be any fun at all.

On a combat-focused class, mind.

So yeah, that's my experience with party imbalance. It's really lame to want to play a specific archetype that is offered to you by the game, only to then have to learn the hard way that your character is pretty much worthless at their chosen expertise.

You went in expecting balance. So, as you yourself point out, this could be a problem with the imbalance, or with the expectation.

We also have this strange dissonance between "the GM fixed it" and "the character was a constant annoyance".

On the one hand, it doesn't sound like the GM made the character balanced - he just made it closer to balanced. Which, while it ties well into my concept that balance is a range, not a point, your story makes it feel like maybe your character was in a grey area of "maybe not really in the balance range".

On the other hand, it doesn't sound like the GM made the character balanced - he just made it balanced right now. There was no guarantee you'd be balanced tomorrow - in fact, you generally figured that you wouldn't be.

Combine those two, and you constantly had to ask for handouts to be less effective than the Barbarian who was just born with greatness.

And that's just (what I consider) the most relevant bits. Your story is just chocked full of questions about what is actually important.

-----

The next bit of understanding my PoV is that people are idiots. You've got a whole range from tables that nerf Monks because they're too OP, to conventional Playground wisdom that Monks are utter garbage.

I don't want some idiot chosen at random to dictate what they think is "balanced" into a game :smallyuk:. Because, even if they're right, most everyone will think that they're wrong.

Further, continuing with 3e, different classes have different floors and ceilings. Their power isn't a point, it's a range.

And systems styles of play will affect what is important, and how powerful a character is in practice. Just look at the "number of encounters per long rest" conversations, for starters.

3e, in particular, gives you plenty of tools to make the worst class (Commoner) totally OP (solo a Tarrasque at level 1), or the strongest(ish) class (Wizard) nearly useless (his contribution over ~10 levels could have been replaced with a bag of flour).

No one is going to make a game as cool and diverse as 3e that people will agree is balanced. But at least 3e gives you the tools to create balance for yourself (even before accounting for house rules, homebrew, etc). So, while I agree that 3e should have been more honest about its imbalances, and could have made summer better balance choices without sacrificing gameplay, I feel that its ability to empower the players to create balance is better than any alternative I've heard.


Written characters can't feel anything, so they can't feel like dead weight, or overshadowed, or unable to contribute, or too niche.

Quibble, but they certainly can.

It just isn't (inherently) a problem when the character feels like dead weight - it's only a problem when the player has a problem with it.


As long as those skills are actually relevant, sure. The problem with many class-based RPGs is...you're just wrong. A 3.5e Druid actually can have meaningfully more HP and AC than even a well-kitted Fighter. (I would know, I've played such a Druid.) And because of the versatility of wild shape, you have a great many more abilities and damage-output options than a typical Fighter will have. While also having lots of spells, that can make fights irrelevant on their own. And also having a bear friend, who is half or more of what a Fighter is to begin with.

So long as "dealing damage", "having HP", "taking actions", and the like matter, them that's not a problem.

What you don't seem to grasp is that "your character is better at the only thing I do" is not an inherently unfun state so long as the one thing I do is not itself completely irrelevant. Yes, even if the other charter can do other things, too.


Of course, there's (at least) one key problem with a sports-team analogy. Every player contributes from the same basic set of skills and attributes (athletics). Sure, goalies protect goals and strikers are specialized in pursuing goals, but everyone contributes by physical muscle and coordination. You don't have soccer teams made up of an accountant, a professional welder, a star soccer player, and a professional wrestler, where different people contribute on completely unrelated axes--nor where one member's contributions can be so much more important than anyone else's. Sure, the accountant cannot play soccer to save his life, but he's the one securing venues, buying equipment, paying coaches. Without him, it doesn't matter whether the soccer player is amazing or just so-so, there might not be any games to begin with. Even though the soccer-player's skills may be genuinely invaluable, he may feel frustrated and slighted when the accountant has cancelled the upcoming match against a hated rival team because the rivalry could be resolved with a mutually-beneficial contract, and now the team can instead take on the district champions, which will net a TON more money and enable so many future games after. PLUS, members from the rival team will be willing to sub in, increasing their team's overall success chances! What's not to love, Mr. Star-Soccer-Player???

Now imagine if there were, say, a samurai class, that gets a fairly strong subset of accounting skills, but is also a strong athlete, and who gets a loyal retainer that is herself a pretty good athlete. How would the poor soccer-player feel at that point? Now even in the one thing where he's actually important, he can be outshone. Maybe it doesn't happen all the time. Maybe it never happens at all. But you, I hope, can see how Star-Soccer-Player could, even if only from principle, feel like he's gotten the short end of the stick, when the Accountant can obviate entire soccer games with a single accounting action, and the Samurai can also do some of that while simultaneously being a good-and-potentially-amazing soccer player on top. Makes the ability to play as good as any human can play feel...a little trivial, doubly so when even that ability is easily matched by the helper of someone who only dabbled in sports stuff.

It's still a team game. I'd still (be able to) enjoy it as an RPG, or IRL.


Actually, there's a good alternate concept for you: Background Vocals singers. (https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/08/the-tough-unanswered-questions-about-backup-singers/278819/) Background vocalists often go completely unremembered, getting tossed aside whenever it's inconvenient to keep them. They're usually chronically underpaid, and may even get only limited credit for their work. Despite the fact that they're indispensable for modern popular music, they're permanent second fiddles most of the time. Do you think they're perfectly happy with that status? Do you think this is fair, reasonable, and appropriate?

If that's what I signed up for, why would I complain?

The problem is in people thinking that they signed up one thing, getting something else, and being disappointed with their lot in life.

Morty
2019-09-21, 10:58 AM
This here is the key. If somebody's picking up a game for the first time, it's entirely reasonable for that person to expect that the game will give an honest account of itself. I mean, the 3.5 PHB describes the monk as "A martial artist whose unarmed strikes hit fast and hard--a master of exotic powers," but we had to wait for ToB and the swordsage before "a master of exotic powers" could actually be realized. So that's a natural and entirely understandable frustration.

I'd also like to point out that in my experience, the "balance" issue has been more about players not having interesting options than not contributing mechanically. My wife really likes archers, and she rolled one up (I forget if she went ranger or rogue) the first time we played. But she discovered that in 3.5, what she liked most of all outside of the game was pretty boring in the game. Her friend who's a huge nature nut, on the other hand, played what she liked most--a druid--and had a blast, because there was always a range of things she could choose to do. It just so happens that because of the way the game was designed, the classes that have a lot of options in D&D also tend to be the most powerful ones--but there's no indication of that in the actual documentation for the game itself.

That about sums it up, yes. I don't think there are all that many systems that are unbalanced on purpose, because there's always a balancing point somewhere. Like in the Requiem example above, mortals being weaker than vampires isn't an imbalance, but Resilience not actually letting you resist that much damage is. Or the state of Werewolf: the Forsaken in 1st edition. It might not seem like a problem how weak they were, because they're not meant to be balanced against other splats. But when people buy a game about playing half-spirit shape-shifters policing the border of flesh and spirit, they want to kick some butt.

Even when against the backdrop of their own games, 1E nWoD vampires and werewolves weren't up to snuff... just like Theoboldi's swashbuckler and my former friend's ranger weren't what they should be even without comparing them to actually overpowered characters. I mean, the other two party members in our game were a low-level wizard who had banned Conjuration and Illusion and a bog-standard rogue who wanted to become an Assassin of all things. Hardly a high-op game, and yet the utter hopelessness of dual-wielding was still readily apparent. And ToB didn't actually exist back then, so not even that was a solution. My wizard was obviously very weak... but still had a lot of options, just like you said.

There are many systems with variable and customizable power and balance. It continues to amuse me that 3E D&D basically blundered into it on accident and its players took it and ran with it.

False God
2019-09-21, 11:21 AM
Quibble, but they certainly can.

It just isn't (inherently) a problem when the character feels like dead weight - it's only a problem when the player has a problem with it.
Quibble quibble: only if the author says they do. In the same way that the "childlike innocence" of Hobbits is more powerful than the strongest wills of Men and Elves.

Doubleplustechnical quibble: characters don't feel anything the author/player doesn't feel for them. And to get super technical about it "feeling like dead weight" is only a player problem.


So long as "dealing damage", "having HP", "taking actions", and the like matter, them that's not a problem.
Er...but that's exactly the point being demonstrated. The "damage dealt", the "HP had" and the "actions taken" by mundanes don't matter when placed beside the same done by magicals.


What you don't seem to grasp is that "your character is better at the only thing I do" is not an inherently unfun state so long as the one thing I do is not itself completely irrelevant. Yes, even if the other charter can do other things, too.
Again the point is that after a certain level number (10-ish) it is irrelevant.


It's still a team game. I'd still (be able to) enjoy it as an RPG, or IRL.
People enjoy all sorts of imbalanced things. Enjoyment is a poor measure of quality and its not a measure of balance at all. Further, the point of a team is that each member contributes a specific skill (Quarterback, Runningback, Goalie, etc...) that other members of the team cannot do OR each member brings a roughly equal set of skills (though possibly higher or lower level). A Quarterback cannot be a defensive lineman (at least not well), a runningback isn't a kicker.

If the Quarterback could take hits like the Defensive Lineman(Wild Shape), summon an entire team to defend him(Summon Nature's Ally), has his own personal Runningback(Animal Companion), and still pitch the ball down the field(spellcasting)...he'd be a Druid, not a Quarterback, and he wouldn't be very-team friendly (by design) unless he purposefully ignored 3/4ths of his class. And even then, the one thing he chooses to focus on may still be vastly superior.

You, and others, keep bringing up this "It's a team game." but sorta keep missing that by design, many of the Magical classes don't need a team, or are the whole team. The point of "team sports" is to bring either a bunch of people together with roughly equal skillsets (like Soccer) or a bunch of people with niche skillsets (American Football).

If you're using it in the sense of "It's a team sport, everyone should play fairly." then you're either asking for a "gentlemans agreement" where everyone picks a niche and doesn't step out of it, or you're asking for mechanical balance and niche protection. IME, the "honor system" does not hold up well.


If that's what I signed up for, why would I complain?

The problem is in people thinking that they signed up one thing, getting something else, and being disappointed with their lot in life.
Yes of course, but the game (3.5 in this context obviously) presents these things are equal options. There's no indication that Mundanes sort of peter out after level 10, or that Magicals really ramp up. You'd need at least the system mastery of understanding how spells work to start seeing that, and you'd need the system mastery of how many trap feats there are for Mundanes (and how few for Magicals) to start seeing that by design the stuff Mundanes have access to is kinda lame and narrowly focused, and the stuff Magicals have access to is pretty awesome and widely spread.

Further, decisions made at level 1 do not lock in feelings at level 10. At level 1 you could be perfectly happy to be a fighter, and in fact you and your cleric buddy would probably look fairly equal (assuming neither of you power-built) through the lower levels. But that doesn't mean your feeling can't change, that you can't go from being happy to being unhappy when you realize that while yes, you had fun, you now aren't because your contributions have lost value.

This is amplified by the fact that the Cleric, who may be unsatisfied with their level 1 spell choices...can just change them! Every day in fact! For every situation. They can be a focused healer this morning, a battlefield controller tomorrow and a ranged blaster the next day. The Fighter well can't. "(Re)Training" rules are all optional material and may not be available. They may cost time and money the Fighter doesn't have, they may require great travel away from the quest just so that the Fighter can learn to hit things with a big stick instead of protect his friends with a flat, round stick.

A player may be able to be rational about that and express themselves as such "I was having fun playing this mundane guy, but now I'm not." But lets not kid ourselves that many TTRPG players are....not the best...at expressing their feelings. When you are or are not having fun can really be something difficult to learn especially if you do not have ready options to move to another game/group. Many players may be inclined to just keep quiet instead of expressing their displeasure. And lets not even talk about how many gamers behave when other, more inexperienced players challenge "the old ways". Worse, tables that don't allow trading out characters when a player is no longer having fun, or ones that apply steep penalties (everyone starts at 1).

Quertus
2019-09-21, 03:37 PM
Quibble quibble: only if the author says they do. In the same way that the "childlike innocence" of Hobbits is more powerful than the strongest wills of Men and Elves.

Doubleplustechnical quibble: characters don't feel anything the author/player doesn't feel for them. And to get super technical about it "feeling like dead weight" is only a player problem.

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.


Er...but that's exactly the point being demonstrated. The "damage dealt", the "HP had" and the "actions taken" by mundanes don't matter when placed beside the same done by magicals.

Now, slow down a minute. I played a character who hit a foe for minimal damage, then my ally one-shot AoE killed *all* the foes. If I hadn't done my damage, the battle would have turned out exactly the same. My damage literally contributed nothing to the battle.

But dealing 20 next to someone else's 30 isn't "didn't matter". And having fewer HP doesn't mean that the enemies don't have to spend attacks taking you down.

The character only doesn't matter if the battle / adventure would go exactly the same if they weren't there. Like it would have for my Wizard in the example above.


Again the point is that after a certain level number (10-ish) it is irrelevant.

Yeah, in some 3e parties, that is true.


People enjoy all sorts of imbalanced things. Enjoyment is a poor measure of quality and its not a measure of balance at all. Further, the point of a team is that each member contributes a specific skill (Quarterback, Runningback, Goalie, etc...) that other members of the team cannot do OR each member brings a roughly equal set of skills (though possibly higher or lower level). A Quarterback cannot be a defensive lineman (at least not well), a runningback isn't a kicker.

If the Quarterback could take hits like the Defensive Lineman(Wild Shape), summon an entire team to defend him(Summon Nature's Ally), has his own personal Runningback(Animal Companion), and still pitch the ball down the field(spellcasting)...he'd be a Druid, not a Quarterback, and he wouldn't be very-team friendly (by design) unless he purposefully ignored 3/4ths of his class. And even then, the one thing he chooses to focus on may still be vastly superior.

You, and others, keep bringing up this "It's a team game." but sorta keep missing that by design, many of the Magical classes don't need a team, or are the whole team. The point of "team sports" is to bring either a bunch of people together with roughly equal skillsets (like Soccer) or a bunch of people with niche skillsets (American Football).

If you're using it in the sense of "It's a team sport, everyone should play fairly." then you're either asking for a "gentlemans agreement" where everyone picks a niche and doesn't step out of it, or you're asking for mechanical balance and niche protection. IME, the "honor system" does not hold up well.

Let's try this: I've been on teams where i could have done anyone's job better than they could. But I couldn't do *every* job. The team was better off with everyone contributing, than with me working by myself.

That notion of "even if one person is OP, other people contribute something to the team" is, I believe, what people try to express when they talk about it being a team game.


many TTRPG players are....not the best...at expressing their feelings.

I totally relate.


Worse, tables that don't allow trading out characters when a player is no longer having fun, or ones that apply steep penalties (everyone starts at 1).

That's their bad. Don't do that.

Talakeal
2019-09-21, 03:52 PM
Let's try this: I've been on teams where i could have done anyone's job better than they could. But I couldn't do *every* job. The team was better off with everyone contributing, than with me working by myself.

That notion of "even if one person is OP, other people contribute something to the team" is, I believe, what people try to express when they talk about it being a team game.

The thing is, martial characters are actively hindering a full caster past low levels, as they take a share of XP and treasure, and a high level character is very capable of summoning minions to do their jobs better than they can for free.

Quertus
2019-09-21, 06:03 PM
The thing is, martial characters are actively hindering a full caster past low levels, as they take a share of XP and treasure, and a high level character is very capable of summoning minions to do their jobs better than they can for free.

Mostly irrelevant.

The Wizard would level faster if he didn't bring the Fighter? Well, the Fighter would also level faster if he didn't bring the Wizard. And neither is as likely to survive alone as they are if they work together.

The Wizard could use spells to do the Fighter's job better? … maybe? For a poorly optimized Fighter? But, even if that's true, the party will be stronger with the Fighter and the summons than with just the summons.

The Fighter takes a share of the XP and treasure? OK, which do you think is stronger: a level 20 Wizard, or a party of 30 level 20 characters who have seen 30x more action than that Wizard? I'm going with the party, personally - probably their Wizard alone is better, but together they definitely are.

RedWarlock
2019-09-21, 06:04 PM
Quertus, I feel like I'm harping on similar notes every time I address anything in your direction, but have you ever considered that, perhaps, with DOZENS of us all saying that we, and others we've played with, do not enjoy that minor role, that despite the fact that YOU and a few others do, your play-style and how you enjoy play is not an absolute that we have simply not yet come to understand, but rather a more common experience, and that YOU are in fact the minority for feeling otherwise? IT's great that you can have an enjoyable time basically sitting in the corner of the room (as your oft-cited potted plant) while the rest of the players actually ENGAGE the content, but perhaps it's an exceptional quality on your part, and not a deficiency of the rest of ours?

This feels like that meme, a Simpsons excerpt:

Skinner: "Am I out of touch?"

Skinner: "No, it's the children who are wrong."

https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/645713-am-i-out-of-touch

Talakeal
2019-09-21, 06:46 PM
Mostly irrelevant.

The Wizard would level faster if he didn't bring the Fighter? Well, the Fighter would also level faster if he didn't bring the Wizard. And neither is as likely to survive alone as they are if they work together.

The Wizard could use spells to do the Fighter's job better? … maybe? For a poorly optimized Fighter? But, even if that's true, the party will be stronger with the Fighter and the summons than with just the summons,

No, the fighter would die if he didn't bring the wizard.

And no, the party is significantly stronger without the fighter as they would all have an extra share of XP and treasure.


The Fighter takes a share of the XP and treasure? OK, which do you think is stronger: a level 20 Wizard, or a party of 30 level 20 characters who have seen 30x more action than that Wizard? I'm going with the party, personally - probably their Wizard alone is better, but together they definitely are.

I don't get the connection here. Why is it a level 20 wizard vs 30 level 20 characters? What does that have to do with a fighters making the party weaker?

CharonsHelper
2019-09-21, 07:06 PM
Why does the game need to be balanced? Because more players will have fun.

Does EVERY sort of player get increased enjoyment out of a balanced game? No. Quertus is an extreme example of someone who proudly proclaims that he doesn't care, and that others are having badwrongfun BY caring. There are plenty of other players who only care minimally.

HOWEVER, the bigger question is this:

Will anyone enjoy a game LESS if it IS balanced? I think that the answer is definitely no.

Now - don't get me wrong here. There are the easy/boring ways to balance - which is much of why I disliked 4e D&D - it balanced through symmetry. (Not perfect symmetry - but it attempted to balance each step instead of entire characters.) But that isn't disliking balance - it's disliking how they achieved it. Balance is never an inherently bad thing - just don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

As an extreme metaphor: it's always a good thing for cars to be safer. But that doesn't mean that their max speeds should be dropped to 5mph, despite that being a super easy fix to virtually eliminate all traffic fatalities. Quertus is busy calling everyone wimps for wanting car manufacturers to include seat-belts and windshields.

Quertus
2019-09-21, 07:52 PM
Quertus, I feel like I'm harping on similar notes every time I address anything in your direction, but have you ever considered that, perhaps, with DOZENS of us all saying that we, and others we've played with, do not enjoy that minor role, that despite the fact that YOU and a few others do, your play-style and how you enjoy play is not an absolute that we have simply not yet come to understand, but rather a more common experience, and that YOU are in fact the minority for feeling otherwise? IT's great that you can have an enjoyable time basically sitting in the corner of the room (as your oft-cited potted plant) while the rest of the players actually ENGAGE the content, but perhaps it's an exceptional quality on your part, and not a deficiency of the rest of ours?

This feels like that meme, a Simpsons excerpt:

Skinner: "Am I out of touch?"

Skinner: "No, it's the children who are wrong."

https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/645713-am-i-out-of-touch

… which is more prevalent is irrelevant to my position.

I am only explaining the extent to which balance is not required for fun. If the question were, "do we need tap shoes to dance", I would be pointing out styles of dance that do not require dance shoes. I don't care how many people can only dance in tap shoes. I really don't.

Now, if people insist that, because the only people to dance on the moon danced in tap shoes, therefore one can only dance on the moon if one is wearing tap shoes, I'll question the logic that led to that conclusion. Which, note, is not the same as declaring the conclusion false.

EDIT:
Quertus is an extreme example of someone who proudly proclaims that he doesn't care, and that others are having badwrongfun BY caring.

Quertus is busy calling everyone wimps for wanting car manufacturers to include seat-belts and windshields.

Wow. Is that how I come off?


Will anyone enjoy a game LESS if it IS balanced? I think that the answer is definitely no.

Demonstrably wrong. As I said, I've played in games where people made the characters less balanced in order to increase the fun. That, by itself, is sufficient to invalidate your conclusion.

But, just counting those who explicitly want balance… would most people who care about Balance have more fun with a more balanced game? Depends. Do you think that people who would complain that the Monk just got made even more OP are more or less common than those who would complain that Wizards have Knock? I suspect that far too many people wouldn't recognize balance, and would still complain, and try to "fix" it.

CharonsHelper
2019-09-21, 08:09 PM
Demonstrably wrong. As I said, I've played in games where people made the characters less balanced in order to increase the fun. That, by itself, is sufficient to invalidate your conclusion.

That doesn't contradict my point at all. Even if a system is very well balanced, it still generally isn't very difficult to intentionally gimp your own character. And the fact that it was a deliberately done makes it a statement, as opposed to just playing a Fighter in a high level D&D 3.5 game. To go back to my car metaphor - just because the car has seat-belts installed doesn't force you to wear them.

JNAProductions
2019-09-21, 08:18 PM
It's much, MUCH easier to unbalance an already balances game than to balance an unbalanced one.

False God
2019-09-21, 08:34 PM
Wow. Is that how I come off?

In short, yes.

You've basically spent this entire thread arguing that "That one time I enjoyed playing an unbalanced game and it was totes fun!"

And noone has denied that if you enjoy imbalance, or set out to enjoy imbalance that you can indeed enjoy imbalance.

But you're using your experience to deny everyone else.

I mean you've said as much that people only find it problematic because they're choosing to make a problem out of it.

So, again, it's only a problem if you choose that it's a problem.

Lord Raziere
2019-09-21, 08:37 PM
Why does the game need to be balanced? Because more players will have fun.

Does EVERY sort of player get increased enjoyment out of a balanced game? No. Quertus is an extreme example of someone who proudly proclaims that he doesn't care, and that others are having badwrongfun BY caring. There are plenty of other players who only care minimally.

HOWEVER, the bigger question is this:

Will anyone enjoy a game LESS if it IS balanced? I think that the answer is definitely no.

Now - don't get me wrong here. There are the easy/boring ways to balance - which is much of why I disliked 4e D&D - it balanced through symmetry. (Not perfect symmetry - but it attempted to balance each step instead of entire characters.) But that isn't disliking balance - it's disliking how they achieved it. Balance is never an inherently bad thing - just don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

As an extreme metaphor: it's always a good thing for cars to be safer. But that doesn't mean that their max speeds should be dropped to 5mph, despite that being a super easy fix to virtually eliminate all traffic fatalities. Quertus is busy calling everyone wimps for wanting car manufacturers to include seat-belts and windshields.

Well articulated I think. Balance is always good, the ways achieved it aren't, and imbalance while if used right can enhance the experience, must be used with careful moderation so that you end up with the intended experience that doesn't screw over everyone.

To use an example from a completely different RPG: Exalted has a built in imbalance, but its intended, stated outright to everyone, and your expected to make up the difference by leveraging the unique advantages an Exalt gets relative to another Exalt. They each have their methods for doing so, for example while Solar Exalted are the most powerful, in Exalted 3e some backers of the yet unreleased Lunar book have stated they like the 3e Lunar charms better because they are more flexible and thus more widely applicable when they use them. While much of a Dragon-Bloodeds power comes from their merits and thus their background and connections, and thus you how you leverage being apart of a wider political/economic system and thus apart of a wider world.
Mortal characters have it rough though, the best way for them to be powerful is basically "Be Guild Factor with Resources 5+Backing 5+other backgrounds or GTFO". though I once heard a claim that a mortal can be viable in the Exalted 3e combat system, not sure how true that is.
but its a good example of how one can do imbalance better than just allowing one thing to be godlike and another not and how a less powerful character can have things even themselves out in a way.

NichG
2019-09-21, 08:58 PM
That doesn't contradict my point at all. Even if a system is very well balanced, it still generally isn't very difficult to intentionally gimp your own character. And the fact that it was a deliberately done makes it a statement, as opposed to just playing a Fighter in a high level D&D 3.5 game. To go back to my car metaphor - just because the car has seat-belts installed doesn't force you to wear them.

Balance requires that some elements be absent from a game, so it's not like an oven or seatbelts where you can use it when you want - it means that entire areas of the design and narrative space have to be excluded from the underlying premise. While it's easy to add an unbalanced thing to a balanced game, it's hard to take a game designed around the premise of balance and modify it to capture one of those other premises. While you introduced a seatbelt analogy, I'd say it's more like an artist who has to make a picture using no variations in luminance - just hue and saturation. Of course its easy for someone to just add a glob of color with different luminance to the picture after the fact, that's not the same as what you'd get by having the artist make expert use of luminance in the composition of the image. When the OP stuff in a game has some sort of coherent pattern or theme to it, that creates a strong impression in terms of the game's personality and flavor. Old school D&D is remembered for its weird and broken things. A lot of things which are designed around 'balance first' end up feeling very samey because the designers are losing access to the dynamic range and contrasts that would otherwise be available.

Take for example something like Disgaea, where the actual feel of the game is built around things being 'gonzo' - combos leading to x10 or x100 multipliers in damage or survivability, ridiculously scaling content where you might push into that content as a glass cannon and need to literally kill everything on the level before they get a chance to move or you die, etc. It's not a well-balanced game - it's not trying to be, and it wouldn't have the feel that it does if there weren't totally OP options and combos to discover that made lots of other build choices irrelevant. Is it appropriate for a tabletop game? Perhaps not for most groups, but there are certainly groups for which something along those lines would be a unique and fun experience.

Another mode - one that is used more in tabletop games - is to have a veneer of appearing balanced, but then rather than relying on groups to add the unbalancing elements to taste, they design things that are intended to be broken as a reward for growing expertise in the underlying system. That is, the baseline game of all newbies plays at one level, but the veteran game plays at a totally different level and looks almost nothing alike. 3.5ed D&D has this feeling to it, and mirrors computer games like Path of Exile where there's a wide range of viable and un-viable builds, and part of the game is finding builds that are both viable and fit your aesthetic as a player. It also gives the option for higher skill players to try to make weird stuff that shouldn't be viable work.

In the tabletop sphere, from what I've heard (no firsthand experience, just forum discussions) Ars Magica is a kind of game that could not have been envisioned if you put balance as the greatest good. It is inherently asymmetric - players can sometimes play a wizard who can reshape the world to their will, and sometimes plays questing knights who are essentially mundane. The tension is resolved by having different timescales and players having multiple characters rather than just a single character who will be their entire experience of the game - so everyone has a chance to be a wizard, and everyone has a chance to be a knight, but there's no conceit that the wizard and knight are equal in any way. There might be some sense of meta-balance there between players (in the sense that they have the same opportunities), but it's obtained through discarding any idea that there should be character-level balance.

CharonsHelper
2019-09-21, 09:12 PM
Balance requires that some elements be absent from a game, so it's not like an oven or seatbelts where you can use it when you want - it means that entire areas of the design and narrative space have to be excluded from the underlying premise. While it's easy to add an unbalanced thing to a balanced game, it's hard to take a game designed around the premise of balance and modify it to capture one of those other premises. While you introduced a seatbelt analogy, I'd say it's more like an artist who has to make a picture using no variations in luminance - just hue and saturation. Of course its easy for someone to just add a glob of color with different luminance to the picture after the fact, that's not the same as what you'd get by having the artist make expert use of luminance in the composition of the image. When the OP stuff in a game has some sort of coherent pattern or theme to it, that creates a strong impression in terms of the game's personality and flavor. Old school D&D is remembered for its weird and broken things. A lot of things which are designed around 'balance first' end up feeling very samey because the designers are losing access to the dynamic range and contrasts that would otherwise be available.


I'm going to guess that you missed my slightly earlier post which Quertus was responding to. I specifically talked about how some ways to balance WERE bad, but that doesn't mean that the goal of balance itself is.

So - you're just reiterating a variation of what I ALREADY WROTE in an attempt to contradict me.


Now - don't get me wrong here. There are the easy/boring ways to balance - which is much of why I disliked 4e D&D - it balanced through symmetry. (Not perfect symmetry - but it attempted to balance each step instead of entire characters.) But that isn't disliking balance - it's disliking how they achieved it. Balance is never an inherently bad thing - just don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Balance can be achieved without samey-ness. Maybe not perfect balance, but pretty solid. I'm a fan of having layers of soft & hard RPS elements mixed into the system myself, though it's hardly the only method.


To use an example from a completely different RPG: Exalted has a built in imbalance, but its intended, stated outright to everyone, and your expected to make up the difference by leveraging the unique advantages an Exalt gets relative to another Exalt. They each have their methods for doing so, for example while Solar Exalted are the most powerful, in Exalted 3e some backers of the yet unreleased Lunar book have stated they like the 3e Lunar charms better because they are more flexible and thus more widely applicable when they use them. While much of a Dragon-Bloodeds power comes from their merits and thus their background and connections, and thus you how you leverage being apart of a wider political/economic system and thus apart of a wider world.
Mortal characters have it rough though, the best way for them to be powerful is basically "Be Guild Factor with Resources 5+Backing 5+other backgrounds or GTFO". though I once heard a claim that a mortal can be viable in the Exalted 3e combat system, not sure how true that is.
but its a good example of how one can do imbalance better than just allowing one thing to be godlike and another not and how a less powerful character can have things even themselves out in a way.

Oh yeah - if it is totally explicit enough a game can certainly be built with imbalance in mind. But while I've never played the system, I've heard that MOST games of Exalted (at least earlier editions) had tables entirely/primarily of one exalted type. Commonly Solar. (pure hearsay - so if I could well be wrong) And if someone was playing someone weaker, it was a deliberate choice.

I actually do something in the ballpark in the game I'm working on. There are exo-suits & mecha (2.5-3 meters, so relatively small) which play on the battlefield as infantry. I'm very happy with how they flow, but they're definitely more powerful than infantry, and the balance of the game blatantly states so. PC infantry & mecha could be working together, and the mecha would be doing more, and that's how the game's designed. However, in part because it's equipment, I've found in playtests that the players in combined groups didn't mind.

NichG
2019-09-21, 09:52 PM
I'm going to guess that you missed my slightly earlier post which Quertus was responding to. I specifically talked about how some ways to balance WERE bad, but that doesn't mean that the goal of balance itself is.

So - you're just reiterating a variation of what I ALREADY WROTE in an attempt to contradict me.

Balance can be achieved without samey-ness. Maybe not perfect balance, but pretty solid. I'm a fan of having layers of soft & hard RPS elements mixed into the system myself, though it's hardly the only method.


I'm making a stronger claim, that there are some game elements which are fun, but which are fundamentally incompatible with balance.

Quertus
2019-09-21, 10:56 PM
In short, yes.

You've basically spent this entire thread arguing that "That one time I enjoyed playing an unbalanced game and it was totes fun!"

And noone has denied that if you enjoy imbalance, or set out to enjoy imbalance that you can indeed enjoy imbalance.

But you're using your experience to deny everyone else.

I mean you've said as much that people only find it problematic because they're choosing to make a problem out of it.

Ah. That's what people are reading when I say that. That's not what I meant.

What I'm saying is, not getting hot fudge on your ice cream is only a problem if you decide that it is.

Did you want just plain vanilla ice cream? Then it's not a problem.

Did you want a hot fudge Sunday? Then it's a problem.

So many people are writing comments that I read (correctly or not) as saying that people can only enjoy hot fudge Sundays, or that not getting hot fudge is the end of the world.

I'm just saying, no, the ice cream can be perfectly delicious without hot fudge. It's only a problem if you decide that it is.

I hope this clarifies the confusion.

RedWarlock
2019-09-22, 01:40 AM
Ah. That's what people are reading when I say that. That's not what I meant.

What I'm saying is, not getting hot fudge on your ice cream is only a problem if you decide that it is.

Did you want just plain vanilla ice cream? Then it's not a problem.

Did you want a hot fudge Sunday? Then it's a problem.

So many people are writing comments that I read (correctly or not) as saying that people can only enjoy hot fudge Sundays, or that not getting hot fudge is the end of the world.

I'm just saying, no, the ice cream can be perfectly delicious without hot fudge. It's only a problem if you decide that it is.

I hope this clarifies the confusion.
Except I think your ratio of useability is off, from our perspective. For us, to extend the dessert metaphor, it's like saying "You don't need a sugar-based item to have dessert. You could have fruit, or cheese." For us, balanced mechanics making it enjoyable is like sugar being in our dessert. Sure, I could have that cheese, but for us, the commonly-defined form really works best with some sweet, sugary, balanced mechanics.

Kaptin Keen
2019-09-22, 02:46 AM
It seems to me like there are some basic ideas for balance. Or .. what balance is.

For instance, 4e tried to actually balance the classes. Everyone could do approximately the same in slightly different ways. I'm sure it worked for some, but it certainly didn't for me.

Other games try to let each class shine in each their area, and this too can be nicely balanced. A game like Dark Heresy might be an example, it feels well balanced to me - although if you include enough stuff, that goes right out the window.

Then there are games that gleefully ignore balance, on a philosophy that .. all the good builds are available to everyone, so if you build something bad, that's not on us. Gurps feels like that to me, but it's a token of all the classless games I know of.

All of the above are fine - or fine-ish - to me. The only thing I have a real problem with are games like 3e, where the game outwardly offers specialized classes - bards, fighters, rogues, barbarians, paladins - but really, absolutely anything they can do, the generalist classes can do better. If you're not playing a full caster, you're essentially doing it wrong. Because anything you'd like to do, a full caster does best.

Lemmy
2019-09-22, 05:40 AM
Take for example something like Disgaea, where the actual feel of the game is built around things being 'gonzo' - combos leading to x10 or x100 multipliers in damage or survivability, ridiculously scaling content where you might push into that content as a glass cannon and need to literally kill everything on the level before they get a chance to move or you die, etc. It's not a well-balanced game - it's not trying to be, and it wouldn't have the feel that it does if there weren't totally OP options and combos to discover that made lots of other build choices irrelevant. Is it appropriate for a tabletop game? Perhaps not for most groups, but there are certainly groups for which something along those lines would be a unique and fun experience.
Disgaea is also a single player game. By definition, it has PERFECT balance, because all players have exactly the same options and capabilities... It just so happens that in this case "all players" means "the one player ".

Balance is important between players. Not between classes/races/civilizations/whatever is used as the player's avatar... But since players are usually limited to have the same number of avatars as each other, making the avatars balanced is how the designers create "player balance".

Ars Magicka has widely different leves of power between mages ans knights, but again, what matters is the "player balance", which is achieved by giving players an equal (but not simultaneous) amount of time in the "power seat". It's like playing a D&D game where you and your friend alternate who plays the Batman Wizard and who plays the Fighter. It's a different approach to balance, but it's still balance.

There will always be a skill gap, of course, but there's nothing designers can do about that. Besides, imbalances generated by different levels of skills are usually considered fair.

Not to mention that even well balanced games more often than not offer options to make the game as imbalanced as you want. If D&D classes were perfectly balanced but the group wants a game of "The Adventures of Superman and Jimmy Olsen", that gap in power and agency could still be easily achieved by giving each character unequal class levels, loot and/or templates.

NichG
2019-09-22, 08:04 AM
Disgaea is also a single player game. By definition, it has PERFECT balance, because all players have exactly the same options and capabilities... It just so happens that in this case "all players" means "the one player ".

Balance is important between players. Not between classes/races/civilizations/whatever is used as the player's avatar... But since players are usually limited to have the same number of avatars as each other, making the avatars balanced is how the designers create "player balance".

Ars Magicka has widely different leves of power between mages ans knights, but again, what matters is the "player balance", which is achieved by giving players an equal (but not simultaneous) amount of time in the "power seat". It's like playing a D&D game where you and your friend alternate who plays the Batman Wizard and who plays the Fighter. It's a different approach to balance, but it's still balance.

There will always be a skill gap, of course, but there's nothing designers can do about that. Besides, imbalances generated by different levels of skills are usually considered fair.

Not to mention that even well balanced games more often than not offer options to make the game as imbalanced as you want. If D&D classes were perfectly balanced but the group wants a game of "The Adventures of Superman and Jimmy Olsen", that gap in power and agency could still be easily achieved by giving each character unequal class levels, loot and/or templates.

We can take Path of Exile as an example of something that isn't quite single player, isn't quite multiplayer, and so imbalance between builds can in fact become a practical imbalance between players (and their ability to participate in the game's economy, which is a major part of play). In essence, most builds can get through the campaign with some degree of player skill and perseverence. However, in the epilogue, there's a quickly ramping up filter that basically means a certain level of system mastery is necessary for a character to participate at that level at all. All builds can clear the campaign, many builds can clear white maps, less can handle red maps (but there's at least one build for each class and Ascendancy that is going to be somewhat viable in reds, it just may involve up to two orders of magnitude difference in how hard it is to get the needed gear), and for the really endgame content, different segments call for specialized builds to that particular part of the content (a deep Delve build is different than something that can handle Guardians and Uber-Elder, for example).

The meta-game that is created by this is that, even though you can't expect your choices to lead to equal results even if there's nothing outright indicated that they're not equal options, players become more skilled at the metagame, building, etc, and see returns on that in being able to approach content that was over the power ceiling of their previous character attempts. Those power ceilings vary by about 2 orders of magnitude in the ranges that matter (arguably that stretches to 3 orders of magnitude variation in DPS for some special cases and very expensive setups, but at that point you wouldn't notice the difference in play since you're killing things in less than a frame).

And, since being able to handle that content controls things like access to drops (which get traded to other players for gear, crafting materials, etc), there's a direct imbalance between players of the game. But at the same time, it creates a distinct feeling (which you either like, or you don't) that you don't get in other games that have more strict balancing.

Cluedrew
2019-09-22, 08:30 AM
It just isn't (inherently) a problem when the character feels like dead weight - it's only a problem when the player has a problem with it.On the other hand, there is no inherent problem about being locked in a vacuum - its only a problem when you need to breath. By the way that is most creatures on earth.

In my view balance is only useful in that it helps ensure that every player makes a meaningful contribution on the game. Even in the potted plant example I do recall that you/Quertus mentioned the plant helped out with the group's planning. There, that is a meaningful contribution. It was not made with the on-sheet abilities of the character but it is still there.

How balance is important is that the closer to "perfect balance" the characters are (and the closer the difficulty is to matching that) the easier it is for everyone to make a contribution. Forget wizard or druid, consider two fighters from an even more bare-bones version of D&D. These characters are identical in every way except one deals 1d12 damage while the other deals 2d6. By my math one is putting out 0.5 more damage an attack than the other (averaged over time) and therefore one is strictly superior to the other. Yet it is not hard to imagine situations where they must work together to succeed.

Now instead of 1d12 the weaker fighter deals 1 damage. Damage output drops from almost half to 1/8 of the pair's total damage output. Their health pools are still equal. I could change that but considering neither has any ability to keep enemies from rushing by and attacking the other I think this is enough it becomes extremely hard to arrange situations where the 1/8 damage actually matters.

You can do it, but as balance shifts it becomes harder and hander. And even if you are in a role-play heavy group and just being a character with the party matters: That can be a narrow role sometimes and it is definitely one you want to know you are getting yourself into first. Which is the real problem with D&D, its not the lack of balance but the lack of communication by the system itself about it. Some other people have mentioned that before.

My single favourite scene in any campaign I have played was in a campaign with very unbalanced characters. But in that one scene everyone did something that was needed to get us out a live. The mercenary fought, the survivalist did improvised first-aid, the local guide used local knowledge, the guy whose only ability was a phone made a very important call with that phone and the mystic had a moment of enlightenment and got us out of that mess. To me, that's better than perfect balance because of the diversity of it all. And it wasn't balanced but it wasn't so unbalanced that anyone had lost the ability to contribute.

So really "can make a meaningful contribution" is the window of balance I think is required. How big that is can vary, so it is kind of an abstract measure but an important one despite that.

Lucas Yew
2019-09-22, 08:41 AM
It's much, MUCH easier to unbalance an already balances game than to balance an unbalanced one.

It seems like somebody was inside my brain...! :smalleek:

Lemmy
2019-09-22, 03:46 PM
We can take Path of Exile as an example of something that isn't quite single player, isn't quite multiplayer, and so imbalance between builds can in fact become a practical imbalance between players (and their ability to participate in the game's economy, which is a major part of play). In essence, most builds can get through the campaign with some degree of player skill and perseverence. However, in the epilogue, there's a quickly ramping up filter that basically means a certain level of system mastery is necessary for a character to participate at that level at all. All builds can clear the campaign, many builds can clear white maps, less can handle red maps (but there's at least one build for each class and Ascendancy that is going to be somewhat viable in reds, it just may involve up to two orders of magnitude difference in how hard it is to get the needed gear), and for the really endgame content, different segments call for specialized builds to that particular part of the content (a deep Delve build is different than something that can handle Guardians and Uber-Elder, for example).

The meta-game that is created by this is that, even though you can't expect your choices to lead to equal results even if there's nothing outright indicated that they're not equal options, players become more skilled at the metagame, building, etc, and see returns on that in being able to approach content that was over the power ceiling of their previous character attempts. Those power ceilings vary by about 2 orders of magnitude in the ranges that matter (arguably that stretches to 3 orders of magnitude variation in DPS for some special cases and very expensive setups, but at that point you wouldn't notice the difference in play since you're killing things in less than a frame).

And, since being able to handle that content controls things like access to drops (which get traded to other players for gear, crafting materials, etc), there's a direct imbalance between players of the game. But at the same time, it creates a distinct feeling (which you either like, or you don't) that you don't get in other games that have more strict balancing.
Never having played PoE, but having played other similar games, I can only comment on general aspects, rather than on its specific case.

I'm completely OK with different builds/options being unbalanced... A fighter who optimizes should be more effective than one that grabs random feats*...

What has game developers have to make balanced is the "avatar" (class/race in RPGs, race/civilizations in RTS games, etc). Avatars can also have different focuses between them, which is also a good thing, but that means the devs should make the different focuses similarly effective, at least in the assumed base gameplay experience (e.g.: D&D balance is generally based on "combat-heavy open-ended adventure and exploration"... So having a "Farmer" class that is focused on staying home and working all day long, with no competence on combat, adventure or exploration would be bad design, even if it'd be super powerful on a completely unorthodox campaign focused on producing and selling wheat).

- - -

*Certain sub-divisions of player avatar should be balanced to an extent, however... These sub-divisions are those that reflect certain expected character archetypes (e.g.: in a game such as D&D, general, a basic mounted combat build should be about as effective as an basic archer build and a basic sword & shield build, even if all three options come from the same class. But options within each build could vary with effectiveness... i.e.: a player should be able to create and implement better sword & board builds as he grows in skill, knowledge and experience.

Lemmy
2019-09-22, 03:50 PM
On the other hand, there is no inherent problem about being locked in a vacuum - its only a problem when you need to breath. By the way that is most creatures on earth.Well... Also a problem when your internal body pressure is anything other than zero and parts of your body aren't resilient enough to resist the resulting expansion force... :smallbiggrin:

Cluedrew
2019-09-22, 04:19 PM
But that is not inherent to the vacuum, that is still a matter of how your body reacts to it.

I realize I didn't spend as much time on what that metaphor was about. It is true that it is the combination of situation (or the balance of the system) and the people in it (the players of the system) that create a problem. It is as you might say, a matter of taste. There is no fault on either side here. Well, the presentation as balanced is a problem, but that is not the unbalanced nature of the game itself. And then the rest it an attempt to get at the underlying issue, which is my theory of meaningful contribution and how people expect to make it.

Mutazoia
2019-09-22, 06:48 PM
Well... Also a problem when your internal body pressure is anything other than zero and parts of your body aren't resilient enough to resist the resulting expansion force... :smallbiggrin:

That would depend on how the vacuum was achieved. A sudden onset of a vacuum, would indeed, result in literal explosive decompression, but if the vacuum were achieved over the course of several hours, allowing your body to adjust, then breathing would be the only real problem.

Lemmy
2019-09-22, 10:24 PM
But that is not inherent to the vacuum, that is still a matter of how your body reacts to it.
Well... The same thing goes for breathing. :smallbiggrin:


That would depend on how the vacuum was achieved. A sudden onset of a vacuum, would indeed, result in literal explosive decompression, but if the vacuum were achieved over the course of several hours, allowing your body to adjust, then breathing would be the only real problem.
Are you sure? I'm not a doctor, but doesn't the human body have a limit to how much it can lower its internal pressure without its veins bursting or something? And isn't that limit higher than zero?

NichG
2019-09-22, 10:43 PM
Never having played PoE, but having played other similar games, I can only comment on general aspects, rather than on its specific case.

I'm completely OK with different builds/options being unbalanced... A fighter who optimizes should be more effective than one that grabs random feats*...

What has game developers have to make balanced is the "avatar" (class/race in RPGs, race/civilizations in RTS games, etc). Avatars can also have different focuses between them, which is also a good thing, but that means the devs should make the different focuses similarly effective, at least in the assumed base gameplay experience (e.g.: D&D balance is generally based on "combat-heavy open-ended adventure and exploration"... So having a "Farmer" class that is focused on staying home and working all day long, with no competence on combat, adventure or exploration would be bad design, even if it'd be super powerful on a completely unorthodox campaign focused on producing and selling wheat).

- - -

*Certain sub-divisions of player avatar should be balanced to an extent, however... These sub-divisions are those that reflect certain expected character archetypes (e.g.: in a game such as D&D, general, a basic mounted combat build should be about as effective as an basic archer build and a basic sword & shield build, even if all three options come from the same class. But options within each build could vary with effectiveness... i.e.: a player should be able to create and implement better sword & board builds as he grows in skill, knowledge and experience.

The point I'm trying to make is about identifying games with a strong feel or personality, where that could not have been achieved by a version of that game which was designed to be balanced. It might be that you wouldn't personally like any of those games, but that wouldn't change the broader point of whether or not there are regions of the design space that some people enjoy, but which are actively harmed by placing balance first and foremost. So I'm not looking for your personal approval of whether you're okay with the game - it's okay for things to exist and be published which we wouldn't personally enjoy. I'm not personally a fan of games like DOTA, League of Legends, etc, for instance, but it's still useful to take a step back and try to understand that yes, there are people who do enjoy those games and it's worthwhile to understand that. Especially when it points out exceptions to some absolute statements like 'balance is always good'.

In Path of Exile for example, there's a kind of loose archetype-level balance, but it doesn't hold up if you look at it closely. The game has 7 classes, six of which can specialize in 3 ways and the 7th which has a sort of multiclassing gimmick. So that's effectively 19 archetypes. They are definitely not all equally valid choices in the long run. One could look at that and say 'well, that's wasted design effort - why make a class no one should use?'.

The trick is twofold. One is that there are gimmick builds which are enabled by something which would normally be a generally bad choice, but within the context of that gimmick, it can be transformed into a good choice (but only if you do it a very specific way). The second trick, which I'm personally not a huge fan of, but I can see that it is effective: every league (3 month interval), the developers buff and nerf things not in a way which is designed to make them balanced, but in a way which is designed to suppress the current meta and promote something that was historically unpopular into the meta.

So rather than balancing the options of the game at a given instance, they intentionally create unbalanced options in order to get the player base to try aspects of the game they've been ignoring, and then sweep that around to cover the design space that they built out as a framework. Even though as I said, I'm not a huge fan of this (mostly because it invalidates previously viable characters whose gameplay I enjoyed), it seems to be an extremely effective method of giving each league of the game a very distinct feel to the player base, and it drums up and sustains excitement from veteran players. There's also the counter-push where the very experienced players can feel challenged to come up with something off-meta that's better than whatever the developers are currently pushing.

So as a case study, whether we personally approve of it, it's an example of how designing intentionally for imbalance can actually make a game more appealing.

Lemmy
2019-09-23, 12:18 AM
I never said an unbalanced game can't be enjoyable, or that balance should be the main goal.

The main goal of a game should be being a fun and enjoyable experience... It's just that far more often than not, being balanced makes it much more to achieve that goal.

There are quite a few seriously unbalanced games that I thoroughly enjoy, including D&D... But the vast majority of them would be even more fun if they were at least reasonably balanced.

NichG
2019-09-23, 12:54 AM
I never said an unbalanced game can't be enjoyable, or that balance should be the main goal.

The main goal of a game should be being a fun and enjoyable experience... It's just that far more often than not, being balanced makes it much more to achieve that goal.

There are quite a few seriously unbalanced games that I thoroughly enjoy, including D&D... But the vast majority of them would be even more fun if they were at least reasonably balanced.

There are other posts in the thread which make claims like 'balance is always good' or 'make a balanced game, then you can unbalance it to taste', which is the main reason I'm giving these examples. The point from my perspective is more:

We spend a lot of time talking about balance when considering the design of games, but perhaps that's not actually a productive way to approach the design problem. Instead, we should consider what kinds of experiences we want people to have in playing the game. Certain games which are 'bad' games from a balance perspective (the measure by which games are being asked to be judged in this thread) are extremely memorable and stick in people's heads long after more balanced games have kind of blended together. I'm looking at that and noticing that, in fact, a lot of the really fun or inspiring moments that are memorable about those games come from points at which the balance of the game has broken down in some particular way. That is to say, it's the very act of breaching balance, coupled with the fact that it's the player's own agency which is responsible for the breach, that created that strong impression.

To put it simpler - it's fun to get away with crazy OP stuff, and those are the moments that get people telling stories about their gaming experiences 10 years later.

I think that's an important lesson and tool in the design toolkit, which if one took a balance-focused design perspective would be very counter-intuitive. So it seems worth calling attention to as a counter-point to the general mantra of 'more balance is better'. This would rather be saying (if you wanted to design towards the goal of memorable experiences): risk as much imbalance as you can get away with, so long as it doesn't cross the threshold where it takes over the entire game experience. You'd be looking for burst-like moments of extreme imbalance, whose consequences on the overall gameplay and meta are relatively compartmentalized.

D&D 3.5 has the imbalance part, and even the burst-like aspects (when people discover new exploits or gimmicks), but it commits two errors with respect to it that cause that imbalance to be a frequent problem. One error is that it doesn't really communicate expectations, so many players may never get to feel that burst of 'I got away with something' if they're misled by the system. The other error is that some of those imbalances don't have the burst-like profile, but pretty much spread and takeover the game as the only viable options. D&D 3.5 casters feel special and distinct among tabletop RPG archetypes, but choosing to play a caster doesn't feel like you're being particularly clever (though there is definitely a positive reinforcement in the feeling of learning just how to really take advantage of a caster's brokenness, e.g. in the transition from seeing wizards as blasters to seeing wizards as battlefield control).

However, the end result is just that some people encounter it and have fun, others encounter it and have bad experiences, and we're left to explain that after the fact. Imbalance is involved with why the ones who had bad experiences didn't have fun, but the tricky thing is (at least within the lens of this design tool) - the problem isn't necessarily involved by holding all else constant and just removing the imbalance. Instead, this suggests that what you need to do is to try to preserve the imbalance, communicate it more clearly, and make its consequences more local or individual rather than letting it be too much of an obvious meta.

Cluedrew
2019-09-23, 07:36 AM
Well... The same thing goes for breathing. :smallbiggrin:That was actually the point, maybe I should of used the word "still", the problem caused by a creature in a vacuum is still dependent on both the creature and the vacuum.

I think more generally with many RPG's balance or lack there of is they are structured like a balanced game. There is no shifting meta, just one stale world where I can't play a wizard-slaying monk because the strong archetypes are also grouped thematically. Everyone is given equal footing, the results of these choices play out over months of you investing in a character's character. Plus the whole presentation thing which might still be the main issue.

patchyman
2019-09-23, 11:36 AM
We also have this strange dissonance between "the GM fixed it" and "the character was a constant annoyance".

On the one hand, it doesn't sound like the GM made the character balanced - he just made it closer to balanced. Which, while it ties well into my concept that balance is a range, not a point, your story makes it feel like maybe your character was in a grey area of "maybe not really in the balance range".

On the other hand, it doesn't sound like the GM made the character balanced - he just made it balanced right now. There was no guarantee you'd be balanced tomorrow - in fact, you generally figured that you wouldn't be.

-----


The next bit of understanding my PoV is that people are idiots. You've got a whole range from tables that nerf Monks because they're too OP, to conventional Playground wisdom that Monks are utter garbage.

I don't want some idiot chosen at random to dictate what they think is "balanced" into a game :smallyuk:. Because, even if they're right, most everyone will think that they're wrong.

I’m not sure I understand how these two points work together.

Many DMs are bad at balancing classes, on that we agree. From that, my conclusion is that game designers should aim for balance, subject to tweaking by individual DMs, instead on dumping responsibility for balancing classes on the DM, many of which are new to the hobby.

patchyman
2019-09-23, 12:29 PM
However, the end result is just that some people encounter it and have fun, others encounter it and have bad experiences, and we're left to explain that after the fact. Imbalance is involved with why the ones who had bad experiences didn't have fun, but the tricky thing is (at least within the lens of this design tool) - the problem isn't necessarily involved by holding all else constant and just removing the imbalance. Instead, this suggests that what you need to do is to try to preserve the imbalance, communicate it more clearly, and make its consequences more local or individual rather than letting it be too much of an obvious meta.

Sure, but, using 3e as an example, even if the imbalance were disclosed and spellcasters couldn’t act in most lanes, there are some players who want to play non-spellcasters with heroic-level powers. If there is *ONE* such player in my group, I won’t choose that system, because I know that player won’t have fun.

So unless you have a decent range of powerful archetypes, you end up with a pretty niche system. Or, to put it another way, there is an audience for almost any product, if you are willing to narrow the niche sufficiently.

NichG
2019-09-23, 12:57 PM
Sure, but, using 3e as an example, even if the imbalance were disclosed and spellcasters couldn’t act in most lanes, there are some players who want to play non-spellcasters with heroic-level powers. If there is *ONE* such player in my group, I won’t choose that system, because I know that player won’t have fun.

So unless you have a decent range of powerful archetypes, you end up with a pretty niche system. Or, to put it another way, there is an audience for almost any product, if you are willing to narrow the niche sufficiently.

I think its fine for things to be niche, and I'd certainly rather have my choice of a wide array of niche systems, some of which I won't like, than have every system be mainstream. But that said, D&D (3ed included) turned out to pretty much be the opposite of 'niche' when it comes to the hobby, at least in terms of player count. It's in part that gap between 'huh, this is imbalanced, only a few people should like it' and 'this is one of the most popular table top RPGs' that makes me question whether this talk of balance actually captures the real factors that matter underlying people's gameplay experiences with the system.

I'd take the argument that people were tricked into it by the system miscommunicating what it is in the first years of its release, but 3ed has been out for almost two decades, and retained a pretty significant portion of its market even when subsequent editions came out. So I don't think people are just being fooled, forced, or deluded - there's actually something there that people respond positively to, which more balanced systems weren't able to lure them away from.

Quertus
2019-09-23, 07:03 PM
-----


I’m not sure I understand how these two points work together.

Many DMs are bad at balancing classes, on that we agree. From that, my conclusion is that game designers should aim for balance, subject to tweaking by individual DMs, instead on dumping responsibility for balancing classes on the DM, many of which are new to the hobby.

Good question. Let me try to explain.

When the game designers design a game as cool and diverse as 3e for one specific balance point, most people are going to say that they failed. And they'll probably be right. And, if they design for a specific campaign style (like an encounter day of exactly 6 encounters with exactly 2 short rests), and some portion of the player base wants to play something else, that can further throw balance off. So, the game designer cannot create acceptable balance. So they should just accept that is going to be imbalanced, and provide the players resources to understand this.

So, what can succeed is for each table to create their own balance, tailored to what they believe is balanced. Not as a "one and done" thing, but as an ongoing conversation. So, one table nerfs the Monk, another bans Knock, and everyone's happy.

Personally, if we're going to care about Balance, I prefer the 3e style, where the game is chocked full of unbalanced components, and the players can mix and match as desired to create something balanced to their table.

Now, if books were like video games, and updated themselves to the latest version automatically, then maybe game designers could create balanced games, filled with patches as they carefully evaluate feedback from the community. If "online content" were done right, and every piece of 3e were carefully and continuously rebalanced, and you could look up each version of the rulings online? Then, yeah, the designers could aim for balance. And, if the designers believed that the Playground was right, then the tables that are nerfing Monk would think that the 3e designers were crazy.

patchyman
2019-09-23, 07:33 PM
I think its fine for things to be niche, and I'd certainly rather have my choice of a wide array of niche systems, some of which I won't like, than have every system be mainstream. But that said, D&D (3ed included) turned out to pretty much be the opposite of 'niche' when it comes to the hobby, at least in terms of player count. It's in part that gap between 'huh, this is imbalanced, only a few people should like it' and 'this is one of the most popular table top RPGs' that makes me question whether this talk of balance actually captures the real factors that matter underlying people's gameplay experiences with the system.

I'd take the argument that people were tricked into it by the system miscommunicating what it is in the first years of its release, but 3ed has been out for almost two decades, and retained a pretty significant portion of its market even when subsequent editions came out. So I don't think people are just being fooled, forced, or deluded - there's actually something there that people respond positively to, which more balanced systems weren't able to lure them away from.

Well, I don't know what portion of the total market share 3, 3.5 and its clones represent in 2019. Personally, I believe that a good portion of that is inertia/nostalgia, but I think it is unlikely that I will convince you or that you will convince me, and this isn't really something that is verifiable one way or another.

patchyman
2019-09-23, 07:34 PM
Good question. Let me try to explain.

When the game designers design a game as cool and diverse as 3e for one specific balance point, most people are going to say that they failed. And they'll probably be right. And, if they design for a specific campaign style (like an encounter day of exactly 6 encounters with exactly 2 short rests), and some portion of the player base wants to play something else, that can further throw balance off. So, the game designer cannot create acceptable balance. So they should just accept that is going to be imbalanced, and provide the players resources to understand this.

So, what can succeed is for each table to create their own balance, tailored to what they believe is balanced. Not as a "one and done" thing, but as an ongoing conversation. So, one table nerfs the Monk, another bans Knock, and everyone's happy.

Personally, if we're going to care about Balance, I prefer the 3e style, where the game is chocked full of unbalanced components, and the players can mix and match as desired to create something balanced to their table.

I disagree with this, but I can at least understand your point.

DragonclawExia
2019-09-23, 10:10 PM
It actually is kind of a problem for me, especially as a DM if I try to organize a session.


Once the power scaling gets out of hand, especially bad in 3.5 Level 10+ for any spellcasting classes. Even at their best, the Martial Classes weren't noticeably able to perform feats better than someone like say Movie Aragorn while the Casters were already able to One-Shot Infinity Thanos at the same level.



It's very hard to create a balanced fight with noncasters in a party. If I don't specifically tune the fight to be against the Casters, the Martials basically get trashed like all hell. And most of the work is done by the Casters anyway.

The Martial players might as well not show up. Especially since if I play "random" and let the Monsters pick randomly, they'll liable to One-Hit Ko the non enchanted martials with One Hit. So I usually purposefully have to attack the only ones that can actually tank the hit.

It also doesn't help the casters feel resentment when they have to a waste a spell to purposefully protect the less useful Martial Classes.


Lot of my players actually seem to be split, as some prefer Low Fantasy GoT and others wanna Shoot Supernovas at each from DBZ.


I can't exactly find a suitable compromise, even when I stay at level 5-10 because these Wizards are...pretty Munchkinly and hate having to reset levels.



D&D just has alot of difficulties with compromise, as I think it's designed to play in a fairly specific way, with a fairly specific kind of player. Noticeably, all the martial players stopped joining and I honestly didn't find Number Crunching every week for Wizard Munchkins much fun.

So I stopped DMing and interacting with that group eventually.


Well, that was my experience anyway.

Satinavian
2019-09-24, 01:01 AM
Well, I don't know what portion of the total market share 3, 3.5 and its clones represent in 2019. Personally, I believe that a good portion of that is inertia/nostalgia, but I think it is unlikely that I will convince you or that you will convince me, and this isn't really something that is verifiable one way or another.
It is because balance is good and important but it is not the only thing players might want out of the game. And when the main alternatives are D&D4 and D&D5, 3.5 does a lot of things better than its successors that might appeal to certain players. The main thing would be options and making characters out of the ordinary.

When people complain about 3.x, that is mostly about balance (between casters and non-casters), about how complex the game is and about how the absurdity of high level options does not fit any of the setting descriptions.

All of those are valid. All of those are things later editions do adress.

But the complexity is not too much for every player, for many it is not a problem at all. And the other two can be tolerated/mitigated, when the system does something you want and alternatives do not.

This is why people still play 3.5, Pathfinder and mixes/derivatives. You don't only have to ask what 3.5 lacks that 5 or 4 do better, you also have to ask what 3.5 does better than those, if you want to understand people who do not switch.




I think, there would be far less people stickong to D&D 3.5, if other crunchy non-D&D systems would be better known.

Morty
2019-09-24, 05:18 AM
It actually is kind of a problem for me, especially as a DM if I try to organize a session.


Once the power scaling gets out of hand, especially bad in 3.5 Level 10+ for any spellcasting classes. Even at their best, the Martial Classes weren't noticeably able to perform feats better than someone like say Movie Aragorn while the Casters were already able to One-Shot Infinity Thanos at the same level.



It's very hard to create a balanced fight with noncasters in a party. If I don't specifically tune the fight to be against the Casters, the Martials basically get trashed like all hell. And most of the work is done by the Casters anyway.

The Martial players might as well not show up. Especially since if I play "random" and let the Monsters pick randomly, they'll liable to One-Hit Ko the non enchanted martials with One Hit. So I usually purposefully have to attack the only ones that can actually tank the hit.

It also doesn't help the casters feel resentment when they have to a waste a spell to purposefully protect the less useful Martial Classes.


Lot of my players actually seem to be split, as some prefer Low Fantasy GoT and others wanna Shoot Supernovas at each from DBZ.


I can't exactly find a suitable compromise, even when I stay at level 5-10 because these Wizards are...pretty Munchkinly and hate having to reset levels.



D&D just has alot of difficulties with compromise, as I think it's designed to play in a fairly specific way, with a fairly specific kind of player. Noticeably, all the martial players stopped joining and I honestly didn't find Number Crunching every week for Wizard Munchkins much fun.

So I stopped DMing and interacting with that group eventually.


Well, that was my experience anyway.

That would be why I generally tend to dismiss the "GM will fix it!" arguments. GMing is a hard enough job at the best of times; having to make sure the party isn't woefully out of balance just makes it harder.

As far as the "but people still play D&D argument goes"... D&D has a market presence and power beyond anything any other game can match. It's the first game people are likely to hear about, the most commonplace one in stores and by far the easiest to find games for. It doesn't need to be the best, it just has to be good enough. Using "but people play it" as an argument is frankly almost dishonest and it irritates me that it always gets rolled out eventually.

It's similar with the "diversity" argument. D&D has never, in any of its incarnations, been diverse. It's always been highly restrictive, simply due to using classes and levels - but not just that, because 3E in particular absolutely delights in telling players "no" at every turn. What it does have is, again, a mountain of material that few other systems can match. So it achieves diversity by volume, because you're likely to find something that works. If you can afford all of those books and the time to pore over them, that is. And if you wanted to play a martial character at high levels before ToB came out (I think in 2007)... tough luck.

Lemmy
2019-09-24, 02:12 PM
To expand a bit on Morty's points...


That would be why I generally tend to dismiss the "GM will fix it!" arguments. GMing is a hard enough job at the best of times; having to make sure the party isn't woefully out of balance just makes it harder.] that works. If you can afford all of those books and the time to pore over them, that is. And if you wanted to play a martial character at high levels before ToB came out (I think in 2007)... tough luck.
And even if GMing were really easy, each minute spent trying to fix a broken system is a minute not spent creating a cool campaign or, you know... actually GMing.


As far as the "but people still play D&D argument goes"... D&D has a market presence and power beyond anything any other game can match. It's the first game people are likely to hear about, the most commonplace one in stores and by far the easiest to find games for. It doesn't need to be the best, it just has to be good enough. Using "but people play it" as an argument is frankly almost dishonest and it irritates me that it always gets rolled out eventually.Not to mention that people playing a game doesn't mean that game isn't poorly designed, or that it wouldn't have more players and/or be more enjoyable to the ones it has if were better designed.


It's similar with the "diversity" argument. D&D has never, in any of its incarnations, been diverse. It's always been highly restrictive, simply due to using classes and levels - but not just that, because 3E in particular absolutely delights in telling players "no" at every turn. What it does have is, again, a mountain of material that few other systems can match. So it achieves diversity by volume, because you're likely to find something that works. If you can afford all of those books and the time to pore over them, that is. And if you wanted to play a martial character at high levels before ToB came out (I think in 2007)... tough luck.Not only that, is extremely easy to add unbalanced options to a balanced game. I mentioned this quite often already, but even if every class in 3.5 were perfectly balanced, it'd still be possible (and really easy) to have Thor and Hawkeye in the same team. Just make the two character at different levels, with different loot and different templates. The only difference is that it'd actually be honest to the players.

Quertus
2019-09-24, 05:34 PM
That would be why I generally tend to dismiss the "GM will fix it!" arguments. GMing is a hard enough job at the best of times; having to make sure the party isn't woefully out of balance just makes it harder.

As far as the "but people still play D&D argument goes"... D&D has a market presence and power beyond anything any other game can match. It's the first game people are likely to hear about, the most commonplace one in stores and by far the easiest to find games for. It doesn't need to be the best, it just has to be good enough. Using "but people play it" as an argument is frankly almost dishonest and it irritates me that it always gets rolled out eventually.

It's similar with the "diversity" argument. D&D has never, in any of its incarnations, been diverse. It's always been highly restrictive, simply due to using classes and levels - but not just that, because 3E in particular absolutely delights in telling players "no" at every turn. What it does have is, again, a mountain of material that few other systems can match. So it achieves diversity by volume, because you're likely to find something that works. If you can afford all of those books and the time to pore over them, that is. And if you wanted to play a martial character at high levels before ToB came out (I think in 2007)... tough luck.


To expand a bit on Morty's points...


And even if GMing were really easy, each minute spent trying to fix a broken system is a minute not spent creating a cool campaign or, you know... actually GMing.

Not to mention that people playing a game doesn't mean that game isn't poorly designed, or that it wouldn't have more players and/or be more enjoyable to the ones it has if were better designed.

Not only that, is extremely easy to add unbalanced options to a balanced game. I mentioned this quite often already, but even if every class in 3.5 were perfectly balanced, it'd still be possible (and really easy) to have Thor and Hawkeye in the same team. Just make the two character at different levels, with different loot and different templates. The only difference is that it'd actually be honest to the players.

For point #1, "GM will fix it" - forget that! In 3e, with its breadth of content, the players will fix it. The group sets a balance range, the group balances to that range. The GM should rarely if ever get involved.

For point #2, "people still play it" - … well, I agree that one cannot necessarily draw universal conclusions from such data. I can only anecdotally say that I still play it, and give my reasons why. Is 3e poorly designed? At times, sure (Truenamer). But it is (accidentally) brilliantly designed to give the players maximum agency to create characters at whatever balance point they desire. That, and the (often less fixable) failings of many other systems, are among the reasons I continue to play 3e.

For point #3, "diversity" - well, I don't actually get your drift. I can say that my group was playing rocking martials through epic level as of, well, whenever the Epic Level Handbook came out.

For point #3b, "Thor and Hawkeye through divergent loot/level" - IME, that is a bandaid, and a poor one. Gold is a river, XP is a river. Hawkeye will catch up, to the point where he doesn't feel like Hawkeye, and/or Thor doesn't feel like Thor anymore. IME, the players need the full build control offered by 3e to make characters who remain Thor and Hawkeye. When I tried this technique, I actually had to have my "Hawkeye" a) leave the party for a few levels, and b) give away much of his loot before he returned. It would have been a lot of work for the GM to get them to fix it for me, so I found excuses to handle it in character.

One thing I haven't tried is giving everyone infinite free (no LA) templates. Then "Hawkeye" takes no templates, while "Thor" takes lots. Perhaps in this scenario, "Hawkeye" never catches up?

DragonclawExia
2019-09-24, 06:24 PM
You seriously think getting 4+ people with different self-interests, desires, and personalities to balance things on their own, without help from the DM?


....I think you don't understand why most Democracies settle for a Representative Style of Government over direct Democracy. You seriously don't think everyone has time to debate over every little balance detail every session.


I don't think most people come to a D&D session to roleplay a Lawyer at Court.

Lemmy
2019-09-24, 06:48 PM
For point #1, "GM will fix it" - forget that! In 3e, with its breadth of content, the players will fix it. The group sets a balance range, the group balances to that range. The GM should rarely if ever get involved.I doubt it goes well without the GM at least helping them communicate with each other. Besides, not every players knows about, has access to or wants to use those options. On a grander scale... Not every game has the same breadth of content as 3e.

Besides, the very fact that you suggest the players balance it out means you know most players prefer a balanced game.


For point #3, "diversity" - well, I don't actually get your drift. I can say that my group was playing rocking martials through epic level as of, well, whenever the Epic Level Handbook came out.Sure... I still have players that play Rogues right next to Wizards... All that means is that they can have fun despite the game being balanced. IME, nearly every time a serious balance issue shows its ugly head in a multiplayer game, coop or competitive, every player dislikes it.

I'll say it again: balance isn't required to have fun... But it sure makes it far easier to achieve. The overwhelming majority of players of every game I ever played don't expect perfect balance, but also don't want their avatars to be grossly underpowered (or overpowered) compared to their fellow players.


For point #3b, "Thor and Hawkeye through divergent loot/level" - IME, that is a bandaid, and a poor one. Gold is a river, XP is a river. Hawkeye will catch up, to the point where he doesn't feel like Hawkeye, and/or Thor doesn't feel like Thor anymore. IME, the players need the full build control offered by 3e to make characters who remain Thor and Hawkeye. When I tried this technique, I actually had to have my "Hawkeye" a) leave the party for a few levels, and b) give away much of his loot before he returned. It would have been a lot of work for the GM to get them to fix it for me, so I found excuses to handle it in character.Not really... Lock Hawkeye at 6th level and give him extra feats and cooler bows/arrows whenever he's supposed to "level up". Then make Thor a 12th level character instead and give him a template that grants massive bonuses to physical attributes and access to weather-based spells, then give him a few feats and new spells with each "level up".

That's just me thinking of a quick solution as I write this post, of course. I'm sure I could think of even better ways to add Thor and Hawkeye in the same group when balance is not a concern. And so could you... Unbalancing games is super easy. Balancing them... Not so much.

I doubt many people would accept to play Hawkeye for long... But, hey... If your group really is composed of this super-rare breed of players who don't care whether or not their friends are vastly more powerful and effective than their own, it shouldn't be a problem.

NichG
2019-09-24, 08:41 PM
Not only that, is extremely easy to add unbalanced options to a balanced game. I mentioned this quite often already, but even if every class in 3.5 were perfectly balanced, it'd still be possible (and really easy) to have Thor and Hawkeye in the same team. Just make the two character at different levels, with different loot and different templates. The only difference is that it'd actually be honest to the players.

There's a difference between adding a random blob of imbalancing effect to a game by fiat and having a game which is designed in such a way as to make use of things which don't get along with balance. Analogies aren't really a precise way to make points, but I'm going to go back to the difference between a painter who makes a picture with no variations in luminosity and then someone comes along and adds a dab of bright paint to it, versus a painter who uses their expertise to make intentional use out of variations in luminosity in the composition of the work from the ground up.

If we're playing 4ed D&D and we just have one player have a character 10 levels above the rest of the group, we're not going to get anything similar to the feeling of playing, say, 2ed D&D in Darksun and getting deep into all the zany, broken OP stuff that edition and setting has. Having a basic class feature kill all vegetation within hundreds of feet as a side-effect of spellcasting is flavorful, helps establish the premise of the setting as serious, and definitely steals the spotlight from characters who aren't engaging in the whole preserver/defiler/psionicist side of things (though, you can be a giant insect with paralytic venom and a bunch of other racial perks, so there's that...).

Lemmy
2019-09-24, 09:42 PM
There's a difference between adding a random blob of imbalancing effect to a game by fiat and having a game which is designed in such a way as to make use of things which don't get along with balance. This argument is valid, although the analogy that follows it is pretty terrible, IMHO.

The thing is... Most players of most games prefer balance (specially in competitive games, but also in coop, since most people don't want to play sidekicks for their friends, at least not for prolonged periods of time). And it's much, much easier to unbalance a good game than balance an unbalanced one. Therefore, it's usually far more productive to make these games balanced let the rare exception (players who are okay overshadowing or being overshadowed by their friends) try to adjust it.

No one expects perfect balance. Every game I know of is at least slightly unbalanced, even those where players are given exact the same options and abilities. That's ok.

However, severe unbalance actually harms variety, because it effectively removes options from the game. The RPGs I played the most in my life are 3.5 and Pathfinder, but I can still name literally hundreds of feats, spells and archetypes that, despite being allowed in most games I played, I have literally never seen anyone use because they are either too weak or too powerful. All they do is increase page count, making the game more expensive and less welcoming to new players.

More than once I have seen people actually give up on games (including RPGs) after realizing how limited their avatars are, compared to their friends'. Most players don't care about being the strongest possible character, but they do care about being more or less on par with their peers.

False God
2019-09-24, 09:57 PM
There's a difference between adding a random blob of imbalancing effect to a game by fiat and having a game which is designed in such a way as to make use of things which don't get along with balance. Analogies aren't really a precise way to make points, but I'm going to go back to the difference between a painter who makes a picture with no variations in luminosity and then someone comes along and adds a dab of bright paint to it, versus a painter who uses their expertise to make intentional use out of variations in luminosity in the composition of the work from the ground up.

As an artist, that's not how art works, like, at all. Variations in a composition create balance, they don't remove it.

Changes in color, intensity and volume (how much area a color takes up) are all intentional decisions designed to draw the viewers attention to to certain points in an image. Even the untrained eye can notice when an image is unbalanced. Lines will draw your attention away from the image, colors will draw your eye away from the focal point.

The fact that there are brighter or dimmer points to an image is because it is one image. A painting is more akin to a single class, with it's notable features, it's dead levels, and it's nifty powers; rather than a game as a whole.

Balance isn't about some communistic-parody of everything being a dull gray. It's about clearly unequal options being presented as equal. Not same but equal. Things can be different and equal, a pound of feathers and a pound of steel is equal, but different.

Game balance is about equilibrium. A stable point where one side is not insane and another is ineffective.

Side-note: monochromatic paintings and monoluministic paintings can be AMAZING, and they are arguably harder than regular painting.

Quertus
2019-09-24, 09:59 PM
You seriously think getting 4+ people with different self-interests, desires, and personalities to balance things on their own, without help from the DM?


....I think you don't understand why most Democracies settle for a Representative Style of Government over direct Democracy. You seriously don't think everyone has time to debate over every little balance detail every session.


I don't think most people come to a D&D session to roleplay a Lawyer at Court.

Shrug. It's really not that hard. When there's 4 PC golf carts / power wheels sitting next to the group balance sample riding lawnmower, and the 5th and 6th players bring a snail and a Porsche, you whip out the illustrative diagram (or the clue-by-four), no GM intervention required.


I doubt it goes well without the GM at least helping them communicate with each other. Besides, not every players knows about, has access to or wants to use those options. On a grander scale... Not every game has the same breadth of content as 3e.

Oh, agreed. "Balance to the table" is much easier in systems like 3e that give the players adequate tools to succeed.

And, IME, it goes best if the GM stays out of it.


Besides, the very fact that you suggest the players balance it out means you know most players prefer a balanced game.

Not really my experience, actually. IME, most players prefer an imbalanced game.

That said, nearly every group has a finite balance range - few could handle "Thor and the Sentient Potted Plant", for example.

When I say "balance to the table", I'm talking about the table's balance range. Just like when I say, "don't be a ****", I'm including each table's individual social contract. I happen to prefer tables with big ranges.


Not really... Lock Hawkeye at 6th level and give him extra feats and cooler bows/arrows whenever he's supposed to "level up". Then make Thor a 12th level character instead and give him a template that grants massive bonuses to physical attributes and access to weather-based spells, then give him a few feats and new spells with each "level up".

That's just me thinking of a quick solution as I write this post, of course. I'm sure I could think of even better ways to add Thor and Hawkeye in the same group when balance is not a concern. And so could you... Unbalancing games is super easy. Balancing them... Not so much.

I doubt many people would accept to play Hawkeye for long... But, hey... If your group really is composed of this super-rare breed of players who don't care whether or not their friends are vastly more powerful and effective than their own, it shouldn't be a problem.

That is… inventive. Remove the sacred cow of "advancement" from the equation. And, while it technically would work, most people I've gamed with would balk at that. In fact, that would be a bigger and more common no-sell than the Thor and Hawkeye disparity (which many groups actively seek).


There's a difference between adding a random blob of imbalancing effect to a game by fiat and having a game which is designed in such a way as to make use of things which don't get along with balance. Analogies aren't really a precise way to make points, but I'm going to go back to the difference between a painter who makes a picture with no variations in luminosity and then someone comes along and adds a dab of bright paint to it, versus a painter who uses their expertise to make intentional use out of variations in luminosity in the composition of the work from the ground up.

If we're playing 4ed D&D and we just have one player have a character 10 levels above the rest of the group, we're not going to get anything similar to the feeling of playing, say, 2ed D&D in Darksun and getting deep into all the zany, broken OP stuff that edition and setting has. Having a basic class feature kill all vegetation within hundreds of feet as a side-effect of spellcasting is flavorful, helps establish the premise of the setting as serious, and definitely steals the spotlight from characters who aren't engaging in the whole preserver/defiler/psionicist side of things (though, you can be a giant insect with paralytic venom and a bunch of other racial perks, so there's that...).

You've said this before. It's really evocative imagery, and I want to agree with you, but… I'm drawing a blank as to a good argument for why adding a vegetation-killing, psionic-powered, turbo-leveling Wizard-transforms-into-OP-action-economy-Dragon to a "normal-but-boringly-balanced" kitchen sink campaign is somehow a "lesser" experience than having the imbalance baked right in.

That is, if the GM literally says, "I've perfectly fixed 3e balance" - and they're right - but also says "homebrew and bring whatever unbalanced thing you want" (so long as the final product is within the group's balance range?), how to argue that that's worse than a GM who says, "follow RAW" (so long as the final product is within the group's balance range?).

NichG
2019-09-25, 12:06 AM
You've said this before. It's really evocative imagery, and I want to agree with you, but… I'm drawing a blank as to a good argument for why adding a vegetation-killing, psionic-powered, turbo-leveling Wizard-transforms-into-OP-action-economy-Dragon to a "normal-but-boringly-balanced" kitchen sink campaign is somehow a "lesser" experience than having the imbalance baked right in.

That is, if the GM literally says, "I've perfectly fixed 3e balance" - and they're right - but also says "homebrew and bring whatever unbalanced thing you want" (so long as the final product is within the group's balance range?), how to argue that that's worse than a GM who says, "follow RAW" (so long as the final product is within the group's balance range?).

Lets say rather than 'worse' or 'better', its about what sorts of gaming experiences can be expressed. If you have some setting and then just drop in an out of place element, you have a story about an out of place element in that setting's context. That's a fine story, its fun, worth telling, etc, but it's that particular story.

If you start from the idea of what was previously the out of place element and then build the setting around it, you get an entire world that is consistent with and shaped around those things. The unbalanced element isn't just something sitting there, it has consequences and effects and shows up from multiple vantage points as one experiences the game world. An Athasian sorceror-king is a monster-of-the-week if you drop them into Faerun or Eberron - maybe a really hard monster of the week, but just that. But Athas is shaped around them, even if you never meet or play a sorceror-king.

This is one of the criticisms people have of 3.5ed settings (which I do actually agree with) - there's all sorts of extreme stuff in the rules, but it tends not to be reflected very well in the fiction underlying the settings.


As an artist, that's not how art works, like, at all. Variations in a composition create balance, they don't remove it.

Changes in color, intensity and volume (how much area a color takes up) are all intentional decisions designed to draw the viewers attention to to certain points in an image. Even the untrained eye can notice when an image is unbalanced. Lines will draw your attention away from the image, colors will draw your eye away from the focal point.

The fact that there are brighter or dimmer points to an image is because it is one image. A painting is more akin to a single class, with it's notable features, it's dead levels, and it's nifty powers; rather than a game as a whole.

Balance isn't about some communistic-parody of everything being a dull gray. It's about clearly unequal options being presented as equal. Not same but equal. Things can be different and equal, a pound of feathers and a pound of steel is equal, but different.

Game balance is about equilibrium. A stable point where one side is not insane and another is ineffective.

Side-note: monochromatic paintings and monoluministic paintings can be AMAZING, and they are arguably harder than regular painting.

I don't think you're actually disagreeing with me here... I'm taking the entire game experience as the painting, not just a class or gameplay element. The entirety of a campaign is the composition, the rules and setting are the ways in which that composition is expressed. And the difficulty of a monoluministic painting is the counterpoint to the claim 'unbalancing a balanced game intentionally is easier than balancing an unbalanced one' - in terms of game systems it's actually much, much harder to make something that is both evocative and balanced than to make something evocative when you can sacrifice balance. So when people who are not going to be genius masters of the craft approach the creation of a game system, if they're prioritizing balance then it often results in game systems that feel bland and generic.

Rather than telling those designers to strive harder for balance, I'd say 'make it fun and evocative first, and only worry about imbalance where it creates real problems - embrace it and actually make something with soul, and that will be better than a perfectly balanced thing which has forced you to abandon or temper your most exciting ideas to make it work'. I think designers should be drawing from the extremes of their imagination and creating things that feel vibrant and new, even if the result is rough, rather than very precisely tuning something that doesn't really give any reason other than better balance to play it over dozens of other systems.

Lemmy
2019-09-25, 02:21 AM
IMO, at this point, the conversation is going in circles... I'm bowing out. You guys have fun!

Theoboldi
2019-09-25, 04:22 AM
IMO, at this point, the conversation is going in circles... I'm bowing out. You guys have fun!

Honestly, yeah. I wanted to take some time today to finally respond to someone's earlier response, but the conversation at this point seems to entirely consist of people telling each other that they need to change their viewpoint, without really accepting the reasoning behind those viewpoints. I'm out too.

Pelle
2019-09-25, 05:04 AM
For point #3b, "Thor and Hawkeye through divergent loot/level" - IME, that is a bandaid, and a poor one. Gold is a river, XP is a river. Hawkeye will catch up, to the point where he doesn't feel like Hawkeye, and/or Thor doesn't feel like Thor anymore. IME, the players need the full build control offered by 3e to make characters who remain Thor and Hawkeye. When I tried this technique, I actually had to have my "Hawkeye" a) leave the party for a few levels, and b) give away much of his loot before he returned. It would have been a lot of work for the GM to get them to fix it for me, so I found excuses to handle it in character.

One thing I haven't tried is giving everyone infinite free (no LA) templates. Then "Hawkeye" takes no templates, while "Thor" takes lots. Perhaps in this scenario, "Hawkeye" never catches up?

What I don't understand is, what do you need the 3e system for in this case? It seems what you want is a free form pick what abilities and stats that you want system. Let players decide freely what they want to play, let them balance it how little or much they want. When advancing, decide yourself if you change or not and how much if so.

It seems like you are using the 3e character building/advancement system as an extremely convoluted way of having a free form chargen system... Just ditch it completely if that is what you want.

If you like the resolution mechanics, the type of stats, abilities and skill lists etc, fair enough, keep using those. But you don't need to feel beholden to using the chargen rules.

Quertus
2019-09-25, 06:44 AM
What I don't understand is, what do you need the 3e system for in this case? It seems what you want is a free form pick what abilities and stats that you want system. Let players decide freely what they want to play, let them balance it how little or much they want. When advancing, decide yourself if you change or not and how much if so.

It seems like you are using the 3e character building/advancement system as an extremely convoluted way of having a free form chargen system... Just ditch it completely if that is what you want.

If you like the resolution mechanics, the type of stats, abilities and skill lists etc, fair enough, keep using those. But you don't need to feel beholden to using the chargen rules.

Interesting question.

On the one hand, I agree - and I have actually encouraged people to homebrew whatever they want / whatever it takes to produce the balance that they want.

On the other hand, I encourage people to play modules as written, to have that shared experience. If I say, "I played an 8th level Ranger in RotRL", that means something, I've communicated something meaningful. If, OTOH, I say that I played an Arbitrarium in something that had the same name as that module, but you cannot recognize the encounters I describe, then we lose that common framework.

Also, I, personally, view character creation as a puzzle, and homebrew as a game editor. Both have their place, but that place is different - they aren't necessarily interchangeable, for me.

That's… the best answer I can come up with off the top of my head.

Pelle
2019-09-25, 07:10 AM
Interesting question.


Thanks.



On the other hand, I encourage people to play modules as written, to have that shared experience. If I say, "I played an 8th level Ranger in RotRL", that means something, I've communicated something meaningful. If, OTOH, I say that I played an Arbitrarium in something that had the same name as that module, but you cannot recognize the encounters I describe, then we lose that common framework.


But if the system is as flexible as you say it is, the distinction of characters of certain levels is meaningless, it can be of any power level. "I played an 8th level Ranger in RotRL" doesn't mean anything in the context of 3e. Of course, you can detail the whole build, but still.



Also, I, personally, view character creation as a puzzle, and homebrew as a game editor. Both have their place, but that place is different - they aren't necessarily interchangeable, for me.


I guess this what it comes down to for all the people who enjoy 3e and still plays it. They want a free-form chargen system, but also enjoy to solve the puzzle of building the character they want according to the rules. That's just an unnecessary step for some of us. If I know which abilities and stats I want my Thor character to have, there's no need of jumping through the hoops to make the levels etc work out if we are foregoing balance anyways.

IMO, the main purpose of a class/level based system, or at least what it is strongly suited for, is to make it easy for players to just pick something they think is cool, and then be able to trust that the game is more or less balanced for them as they progress. Going away from that is abandoning the reasons for using a class/level based system in the first place.

Cluedrew
2019-09-25, 07:17 AM
IMO, at this point, the conversation is going in circles... I'm bowing out. You guys have fun!
Honestly, yeah. I wanted to take some time today to finally respond to someone's earlier response, but the conversation at this point seems to entirely consist of people telling each other that they need to change their viewpoint, without really accepting the reasoning behind those viewpoints. I'm out too.Yeah it seems to have stalled out.

I've already said my opinion on balance (I could add more, like how balance helps with replayablity). Mostly comes down to design, communication and intent and most of the balance problems I have seen when in systems presented as balanced, but they were not.

Morty
2019-09-25, 07:25 AM
IMO, the main purpose of a class/level based system, or at least what it is strongly suited for, is to make it easy for players to just pick something they think is cool, and then be able to trust that the game is more or less balanced for them as they progress. Going away from that is abandoning the reasons for using a class/level based system in the first place.

This is why I hold 5E in higher regard than 3E, despite not actually liking it very much. It plays to its strengths, rather than trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. And, which is not a coincidence, it's noticeably better balanced. You can easily plug and play quite a few concepts that 3E forces to jump through hoops and while some classes are regarded as weak, they don't reach the murky depths of core-only 3E fighters and monks.

Quertus
2019-09-25, 07:46 AM
That's just an unnecessary step for some of us. If I know which abilities and stats I want my Thor character to have, there's no need of jumping through the hoops to make the levels etc work out if we are foregoing balance anyways.

So you shouldn't jump through those hoops. You should just design and play whatever homebrew you want.


trust that the game is more or less balanced for them

yeah, WotC really needed to nerf the Monk more.

Pelle
2019-09-25, 08:23 AM
So you shouldn't jump through those hoops. You should just design and play whatever homebrew you want.


Exactly. Which is why I don't get why you think the system should be so flexible. If I want more or less balance I want to use the system. And when I don't require balance, I don't care about the system, I have no need for it. What's the purpose of following it in that case? I get that you enjoy following the rules for following the rules sake.

I guess the 3e designers just succeeded with their design intent. The people still playing it are the people who like the ivory tower / system mastery aspect, just like it was designed.



yeah, WotC really needed to nerf the Monk more.

Not sure what you're implying. Perfect balance is impossible to obtain anyways. Personally, as long as the designers at least try, I don't hold a grudge for that. The game may still fail, but that's at least what I want the designers to spend their time on, shrug...

Luckmann
2019-09-25, 09:45 AM
Why does the party need to be balanced?It does not.

Quertus
2019-09-25, 12:07 PM
Exactly. Which is why I don't get why you think the system should be so flexible. If I want more or less balance I want to use the system. And when I don't require balance, I don't care about the system, I have no need for it. What's the purpose of following it in that case? I get that you enjoy following the rules for following the rules sake.

I guess the 3e designers just succeeded with their design intent. The people still playing it are the people who like the ivory tower / system mastery aspect, just like it was designed.

Yes and no.

Balance is a range. Whether a group has a very tight balance range, or a very broad range, it's still there. "Thor and the Sentient Potted Plant" happens to represent the largest range I've managed in an actual game.

"Using the system"… how much people want to use the system / are dependent on using the system vs how much they like / are capable of homebrew is a separate and afaict independent axis from the size of their balance range.

So, to cover the broadest range of players, you'd want a system that can support both narrow and broad balance ranges, and can do so both within the system, and through homebrew. 3e succeeds on all counts. I can play 3e when I'm feeling in the mood for a RAW character. I can play 3e when I'm feeling in the mood to brew my own. I can play 3e when I want tight balance. I can play 3e when I want strong imbalance. I don't have to ask to play something else, just because I'm in a mood. :smallwink:

Sure, it would be nice if there were characters who were perfectly valid to play, straight out of the box. The 2e Fighter, or the 3e Cleric, Druid, and Warlock - those probably qualify. And it would be nice if classes like Monk or Wizard came with warning labels that you may need to know what you're doing to make the class balanced. It would be nice if the *game* didn't require system mastery to have fun.

Does that make my stance make more sense?

patchyman
2019-09-25, 12:12 PM
For point #1, "GM will fix it" - forget that! In 3e, with its breadth of content, the players will fix it. The group sets a balance range, the group balances to that range. The GM should rarely if ever get involved.

Slightly off-topic, but this is one of the reasons communicating with you can be somewhat frustrating. It often seems that you take for granted that everyone is like you: I.e.

(I) they have played 3e sufficiently to know where the imbalances lie;

(II) they have sufficient game mastery that they can craft decent workarounds;

(III) they have sufficient time and inclination that this is a realistic solution;

(IV) they have access to a ton of splat books;

None of this is the case in any of my (3) games. From statements PhoenixPhyre and other DMs who run gaming clubs have made, this isn’t their experience either.

Pelle
2019-09-25, 02:36 PM
So, to cover the broadest range of players, you'd want a system that can support both narrow and broad balance ranges, and can do so both within the system, and through homebrew. 3e succeeds on all counts. I can play 3e when I'm feeling in the mood for a RAW character. I can play 3e when I'm feeling in the mood to brew my own. I can play 3e when I want tight balance. I can play 3e when I want strong imbalance. I don't have to ask to play something else, just because I'm in a mood. :smallwink:
[...]
Does that make my stance make more sense?

Yeah, the system clearly works for you, and lots of people love it still. I just think designing the game for that broad range has a serious cost, which is detracting from making it easy for new players and people who don't want to spend the time to get that system mastery. And I don't think D&D wants to or benefits from choosing your demographic as the target audience (no offense meant). But yes, the system do have value for people who want to learn a complicated and exhaustive system inside and out, and use it for everything...

Quertus
2019-09-25, 07:37 PM
Slightly off-topic, but this is one of the reasons communicating with you can be somewhat frustrating. It often seems that you take for granted that everyone is like you: I.e.

(I) they have played 3e sufficiently to know where the imbalances lie;

(II) they have sufficient game mastery that they can craft decent workarounds;

(III) they have sufficient time and inclination that this is a realistic solution;

(IV) they have access to a ton of splat books;

None of this is the case in any of my (3) games. From statements PhoenixPhyre and other DMs who run gaming clubs have made, this isn’t their experience either.


Yeah, the system clearly works for you, and lots of people love it still. I just think designing the game for that broad range has a serious cost, which is detracting from making it easy for new players and people who don't want to spend the time to get that system mastery. And I don't think D&D wants to or benefits from choosing your demographic as the target audience (no offense meant). But yes, the system do have value for people who want to learn a complicated and exhaustive system inside and out, and use it for everything...

It doesn't take much system mastery, training, intellect, source access, or anything else to look at an unbalanced table, and decide to change it. Oh, my Wizard is OP when he casts Fireball? Maybe he shouldn't have Fireball. My Rogue sneak attack damage is too weak? Can we homebrew something better?

I mean, yes, I prefer to have the option to fix it by tinkering within the rules, *if I'm in that mood*, but I'm just as happy with homebrew *if I'm in a different mood*. As for everyone else at the table? I don't care how they come by their character, so long as they're within the table's balance range.

If they want the fun game of puzzling over a dozen books to piece a build together? Let them have their fun. If they want the fun of something functional straight out of the box, divine casters (and Playground Wizard) have them covered. If they enjoy a good brew, let them be brewmeisters. Or let someone else in the group who enjoys such things make the build or the brew.

Yes, the lack of clear warning labels makes it hard for noobs, and is a problem. I'm senile, but I'll claim I've never said otherwise. So, my question is this: other than stronger emphasis on house rules and homebrew, and warning labels, and arguably more archetypes that work well straight out of the box, what else do you believe 3e would need in order to be more approachable by "people who aren't me"?

Because with system mastery, or even just a desire to create balance (through brew, self-nerfs, or asking for GM intervention of various sorts), the group can (with trial and error) simply choose to create characters to nearly any balance range. What would be required to make a game with such strengths more accessable to Joe public?

Cluedrew
2019-09-26, 07:28 AM
(So we immediately drifted to a new point so I will try again.)


It doesn't take much system mastery, training, intellect, source access, or anything else to look at an unbalanced table, and decide to change it. Oh, my Wizard is OP when he casts Fireball? Maybe he shouldn't have Fireball. My Rogue sneak attack damage is too weak? Can we homebrew something better?Why do you even use a system? Why not just homebrew the entire thing into existence?

Its a rhetorical question, unless answer is that would take a lot of effort. Because I played at a table where they were happy to slap homebrew fixes on and adjustments were they were needed/we felt they were needed. The game felt like it had patches hastily applied on top. They sort of got the job done, except not very well and one of two people ended up swapping characters. Because that was easier than making the fix work elegantly.

So to decide to change the game doesn't take much of anything. To make a good change does take system mastery, those other thing and probably play-testing because you probably not get it on the first try.

kyoryu
2019-09-26, 12:05 PM
It's always true that you can homebrew a system to your preference. That's not an argument in favor of imbalance.

If a system is unbalanced, you can always give people more unbalanced options to choose from as well.

And the option isn't really "balanced" or "unbalanced", that's a red herring. No system is "balanced". The question is really the amount of imbalance in play. And 3.x is on the high side of that.

It's really easy to make a game less balanced or let people play at different power points in a reasonably balanced system - just give them different point totals or let them start at different levels.

At any rate, when talking about balance, I like to think of a couple of different points:

1) A person who basically knows the system, and makes choices in line with a reasonable understanding of the system. What is their power level?
2) A person who knows the system SUPER WELL, and makes a character using that knowledge. What is their power level?
3) A person who knows the system well enough to abbuse it, and makes a character using that knowledge, using non-intuitive or seemingly illogical choices.

I also suspect that people who like imbalanced systems won't really enjoy systems that are deliberately unbalanced - their joy comes from finding the weird combos that are unbalanced, not having them just handed out.

Sometimes peoples' fun is just incompatible.

Quertus
2019-09-26, 03:07 PM
(So we immediately drifted to a new point so I will try again.)

Why do you even use a system? Why not just homebrew the entire thing into existence?

Its a rhetorical question, unless answer is that would take a lot of effort. Because I played at a table where they were happy to slap homebrew fixes on and adjustments were they were needed/we felt they were needed. The game felt like it had patches hastily applied on top. They sort of got the job done, except not very well and one of two people ended up swapping characters. Because that was easier than making the fix work elegantly.

So to decide to change the game doesn't take much of anything. To make a good change does take system mastery, those other thing and probably play-testing because you probably not get it on the first try.

I know you said it was rhetorical, but…

They say that you can know the caliber of a man by the number of lies he needs in order to live his life. It's a similar thing here. As you gain greater system mastery in 3e, you require fewer and fewer homebrewed bits in order to implement your concept such that you make your character fall within the party's balance range.

Not that this *prevents* you from making brew, of course, if you're into that kind of thing.

(EDIT: so, yes, if brew leaves a bandaid / cludge / hack feel, for you, then aim to not do that. It's an additional incentive to build system mastery.)


It's always true that you can homebrew a system to your preference. That's not an argument in favor of imbalance.

Agreed. However, "people are idiots, and will argue that Monks are OP/UP" is. Each table can make their own ideal of balance, because no-one can satisfy all the diverse opinions out there.

And, by giving the players *clearly unbalanced* components to mix and match, the GM/group doesn't need to change/add anything - the players can simply select the components *for a given character* that produce a balanced end result according to the arcane definition of "balance" in play at their table.


And the option isn't really "balanced" or "unbalanced", that's a red herring. No system is "balanced". The question is really the amount of imbalance in play. And 3.x is on the high side of that.

Yes. Glorious, isn't it?


It's really easy to make a game less balanced or let people play at different power points in a reasonably balanced system - just give them different point totals or let them start at different levels.

XP is a river. That style of solution generally requires constant maintenance. I prefer to be able to select "Scout" or "Ninja", and lose at character creation.


At any rate, when talking about balance, I like to think of a couple of different points:

1) A person who basically knows the system, and makes choices in line with a reasonable understanding of the system. What is their power level?
2) A person who knows the system SUPER WELL, and makes a character using that knowledge. What is their power level?
3) A person who knows the system well enough to abbuse it, and makes a character using that knowledge, using non-intuitive or seemingly illogical choices.

I haven't thought about it. Those might be good data points. So, a floor-ceiling range, with a "sweet spot" in-between? I could see adding such a graphic to every class being an improvement.


I also suspect that people who like imbalanced systems won't really enjoy systems that are deliberately unbalanced - their joy comes from finding the weird combos that are unbalanced, not having them just handed out.

Both are true. I should know, as I enjoy both.

I enjoy being able to easily make the Sentient Potted Plant, a character obviously drastically inferior to the party.

And I enjoy finding strange combos - I am a MtG "Johnny combo player", after all.

So it's not "one is right, therefore the other is wrong". Both are true - often in different people, granted.


Sometimes peoples' fun is just incompatible.

Agreed in general; not sure the context / if I agree in this particular case.

kyoryu
2019-09-26, 05:53 PM
Agreed in general; not sure the context / if I agree in this particular case.

Cool. You don't have to.

I find more balanced games generally better. There is literally nothing you can do to tell me that D&D 3.x is a good game for me because of its imbalance. The only positives it has, to me, are things that I find other games do better anyway. Could I "fix" it by houseruling or restricting options? Sure. But I don't care to because there are other games that do what I want anyway.

I also fully accept that it is a good game for you, at least partially because of the imbalance. That is totally cool.

Mechalich
2019-09-26, 06:45 PM
I find more balanced games generally better. There is literally nothing you can do to tell me that D&D 3.x is a good game for me because of its imbalance. The only positives it has, to me, are things that I find other games do better anyway. Could I "fix" it by houseruling or restricting options? Sure. But I don't care to because there are other games that do what I want anyway.


Ultimately the game system is an aide to the overall experience. It is intended to improve the experience over the freeform gaming baseline. This is important because the utility of a given system varies from group to group and a group that is fully capable of having a great time playing freeform games is the one that derives the least utility from a system.

'Balance' is ultimately a method to manage player expectations, participations, and contributions at the table, and in order for a system to provide added value in this regard its default mode needs to be better at this than the GM simply handling everything on their own. In this regard 3.X D&D (and other editions to a lesser degree) fails. The GM is liable to end up doing more work to manage player contributions using the system than they would in a freeform or rules-lite game. In particular, 3.X D&D is like to have balance-related issues arise completely by accident - as an emergent property of build choices, spell selection, or item acquisition - rather than through deliberate action by players to 'min-max' or 'power game.' This makes management harder because a player may end up overpowering the party without having wanted to and the only viable solution requires abandonment of their character concept. This is not unique to D&D - most superhero games have this problem, Exalted has it alongside a number of other WW games, and there are other examples - but it is particularly acute in D&D due to the zero-to-hero nature of the system's power scaling.

Properly instituted, system balance helps to streamline game play and keep all players engaged throughout the session. When balance is absent this greatly increases the risk of a breakdown of group cohesion. It does not necessitate that such failure states occur, but it does make them more likely and tends to generate more OOC management. And the less OOC management, houseruling, and gentleman's agreements a GM has to manage the more time they have for actually running the game.

Talakeal
2019-09-26, 08:24 PM
They say that you can know the caliber of a man by the number of lies he needs in order to live his life. It's a similar thing here. As you gain greater system mastery in 3e, you require fewer and fewer homebrewed bits in order to implement your concept such that you make your character fall within the party's balance range.

Do you think that's actually possible?

For example, my ideal character has the aesthetic of a warblade, the skills of a bard, the defenses of a monk, and the playstyle of a warlock.

In a point buy game I can generally make that no problem. I don't believe there is any amount of system mastery that would let me play such a character in a game, and if it is out there it would be a convoluted mess or require an abusive reading of open ended rules (like pun-pun or genesis shenanigans) that are so out there they might as well just be homebrew, not that any actual DM I have ever met would even allow this anyway.

NNescio
2019-09-27, 12:31 AM
Do you think that's actually possible?

For example, my ideal character has the aesthetic of a warblade, the skills of a bard, the defenses of a monk, and the playstyle of a warlock.

Arcane Swordsage? :smalltongue:

Satinavian
2019-09-27, 02:02 AM
I also think point buy is pretty much ideal.

You can have an absurd number of options. You can balance the options themselves without considering other class abilities and stuff. The number of ways tp build a character grows exponentially (ok, not literally, but faster than polynomial ) so you can provide variety with reasonable balance.

Sure, point-buy never really is balanced. Because powers will always have synergies and redundancies which make them a bit better/worse than their cost. But it does not need a lot of system mastery to recognize that and build characters of the same power level.

Quertus
2019-09-28, 05:50 PM
Cool. You don't have to.

I find more balanced games generally better. There is literally nothing you can do to tell me that D&D 3.x is a good game for me because of its imbalance. The only positives it has, to me, are things that I find other games do better anyway. Could I "fix" it by houseruling or restricting options? Sure. But I don't care to because there are other games that do what I want anyway.

I also fully accept that it is a good game for you, at least partially because of the imbalance. That is totally cool.

Well, I mean, I kinda do, to not be a ****. Thank you for helping me see one of my unspoken assumptions. Now, let's see if I can explain it.

So, first off, the optimal (IMO) solution I'm talking about doesn't involve house ruling (outside temporary bandaids), or restricting options (at the GM level; individual players self-edit). (EDIT: note that numerous other solutions exist; I just consider them suboptimal (at least for my tables))

But why do I care?

Well, I care because some people think Monks are OP, while others think that they're UP.

So, suppose that every single feat, spell, and prestige class in 3e was already perfectly balanced, and everyone agreed on that. Suppose that we only needed to fix 10 core base classes, and that every table out there actually agreed on one of two specific fixes for each. Even if that was all we had to do, we would still need to create over 1,000 different games for everyone to have a game that they believed was balanced. And that number is clearly low, compared hope many things get houseruled, and how many different versions of house rules exist.

At that point, nobody would be playing the same game.

I'm saying that catering to individual ideas of "balance" at the "different system" level removes the "common tongue" advantage of D&D.

And that's my unspoken assumption: that there is value in common experiences. There is value in so many people having played D&D. If I've only played Marvel facerip, WoD Mage, and <insert D&D variant here>, and you've only played GURPS, Fate, and Traveler, we lack that common ground. Similar thing if they try to cater to everyone's diverse concept of balance - we'd turn D&D from one system (where many of us are baffled how many of us can have fun with the "unbalanced" parties we make) into countless different games, to cater to everyone's sense of "balance"

I find value in 3e's (accidental) success, creating plentiful unbalanced building blocks, from which anyone with *any* arbitrary concept of balance could create their idea of a balanced game.

3e isn't a particularly *good* game for me. It's… acceptable. But what I don't understand is why you find "choosing the good parts" unacceptable. I'm not saying that you have to enjoy creating balanced characters in 3e, just that, well, your reasons for finding that unacceptable probably matter, at least from a game design perspective.

kyoryu
2019-09-28, 08:08 PM
But what I don't understand is why you find "choosing the good parts" unacceptable. I'm not saying that you have to enjoy creating balanced characters in 3e, just that, well, your reasons for finding that unacceptable probably matter, at least from a game design perspective.

Because I don't. You don't have to understand it.

But practically? Of course you find that solution good. It's basically "do what I would like, at least as close as you can get in a D&D chassis, and let everyone else modify to their taste". Of course you think that solution is optimal.

I don't find it optimal because I don't want to do that work. I have no desire to do it. Especially given the baroque nature of D&D 3.x optimization, I don't want to go through the learning to stay in front of my players. I don't want to get in arguments about what I do and don't allow. I don't want to have the arguments when something slips through and I have to tell the player it needs adjustment to not throw things out of whack.

I don't want to do those things. I could do them, but I don't want to. Frankly, I'd rather just play a system where I don't have to do those things. And I'd probably not run a game rather than run it in D&D 3.x.

And that's why your "optimal" solution is very, very suboptimal for me.

I think D&D5 is closer to "optimal". It looks and feels like D&D (unlike 4e), it's reasonably balanced, people can make characters without having to study, but there is still a level of optimization available for people that want to go down that rabbit hole. The designers said that their goal was that 5e be everyone's second favorite edition, and I think that philosophy shows a high level of wisdom.

Cluedrew
2019-09-28, 08:26 PM
I know you said it was rhetorical, but…

They say that you can know the caliber of a man by the number of lies he needs in order to live his life. It's a similar thing here. As you gain greater system mastery in 3e, you require fewer and fewer homebrewed bits in order to implement your concept such that you make your character fall within the party's balance range.

Not that this *prevents* you from making brew, of course, if you're into that kind of thing.

(EDIT: so, yes, if brew leaves a bandaid / cludge / hack feel, for you, then aim to not do that. It's an additional incentive to build system mastery.)I had a reply for this and I completely forgot to come back and say it. OK I am writing a fantasy story (very slowly, I might not finish before the end of the world) and it exists in a very D&D feeling world. Adventures (or independent mercenaries) handle a lot of problems people have and there strength varies from risk taker of average skill to the gods watch themselves around these people. And of these (potential) god-slayers are a diverse lot. And I could translate most of them over, sure I might need to homebrew caster armour and a few details like that, but most of it is just details.

Except for the monk. One of them is a wandering martial artist. She has no magic gear, no weapons or armour, doesn't use magic at all in a meaningful way, her special abilities do include manipulating the wind, but more often they are things like punch really well or throw a rock at someone's head. Simple, effective and I have no idea how to emulate it in D&D. The monk class is limp, I think there is an unarmed Tome of Battle class but they tend to rely on special abilities too much.

So can you do it? Can you find a way to make an unarmed warrior who can take on any non-cheesed character of say level 15 without issue?

I'd actually like to see it either way, but generally this is the problem. Its not that characters are unbalanced no. The fact that classes are unbalanced can be a problem but that is still workable. No the problem with D&D's balance is that it is on the archetype level. Entire families of concepts just don't work because the only way to be strong in D&D is to be magic. And the only way to beat magic is to be more magic.

NichG
2019-09-28, 11:39 PM
I had a reply for this and I completely forgot to come back and say it. OK I am writing a fantasy story (very slowly, I might not finish before the end of the world) and it exists in a very D&D feeling world. Adventures (or independent mercenaries) handle a lot of problems people have and there strength varies from risk taker of average skill to the gods watch themselves around these people. And of these (potential) god-slayers are a diverse lot. And I could translate most of them over, sure I might need to homebrew caster armour and a few details like that, but most of it is just details.

Except for the monk. One of them is a wandering martial artist. She has no magic gear, no weapons or armour, doesn't use magic at all in a meaningful way, her special abilities do include manipulating the wind, but more often they are things like punch really well or throw a rock at someone's head. Simple, effective and I have no idea how to emulate it in D&D. The monk class is limp, I think there is an unarmed Tome of Battle class but they tend to rely on special abilities too much.

So can you do it? Can you find a way to make an unarmed warrior who can take on any non-cheesed character of say level 15 without issue?

Well...


I'd go unarmed Swordsage, focused on the Diamond Mind things which aren't flashy special abilities and can modify other attacks rather than being their own signature moves (Ruby Nightmare Blade and the like). Also Mountain Hammer for punching through stone or metal. Could multiclass Monk for 1 level for double Wis to AC (I think they're both untyped? If they're both Insight, this doesn't work) and better Unarmed Strike. You also end up with Wis to damage when using Diamond Mind maneuvers. If you want to be really resilient, you could try to justify a two Paladin levels and Serenity to get Wis to saves as well. So basically focus on Wis boosting for power scaling. At higher levels, a +20 (or higher) item of Concentration would be a good investment.

Things the character can do:

- Punch through adamantine, stone, and metal

- Dodge really well with almost no visible effort (since your AC is more Wis than Dex)

- Attack once with large effect even with little visible strength or physical effort, in various ways (Concentration to damage maneuver; Concentration check to double damage maneuver; Concentration check to quadruple damage maneuver)

- At high levels, attack extremely quickly (9th level maneuver Time Stands Still, which is basically just 'make two full attacks').

I think you can spend two feats to get access to Iron Heart Surge, which adds general 'I can do what high level characters need to be able to do' durability. Some of the Shadow Hand maneuvers give you short-ranged teleportation, which isn't quite flight but definitely gives you the mobility that a high level character might need and with a small amount of DM buy-in can be used for e.g. teleporting onto a dragon's back in flight, etc.

If I were going for high levels of cheese, it becomes a usual pattern of getting access to low level spells on items that have big effects due to this build scaling with skill checks. Improvisation, Guidance of the Avatar, Surge of Fortune, Moment of Prescience, Owl's Insight, can all pump this character's damage. There's also a gimmick where Swordsage behaves very nicely with multiclassing if you can afford to enter it late and are at high levels - half of your non-Swordsage classes contribute to Swordsage maneuver progression. That would make me eye whether it's possible to fit in the 8 levels of Factotum for action economy shenanigans - you'd lose 8th and 9th level maneuvers, which hurts a bit, but there are items to overcome that issue (martial crowns, I think?) . Probably not worth it (though definitely pick up Heroic Surge and a Belt of Battle).

Another option if you want 'I'm an untouchable combat monster but I don't particularly manifest visible magical powers' is to use the Saint template which, at LA +2, gives you - yet another Wis to AC, improves your unarmed attack, improves the save DCs of your abilities (where relevant), gives you DR, gives you Fast Healing, gives you a bunch of immunities, improves both Con and Wis (and Cha which you don't use). You have to bend the fluff a lot to fit it with this character, but it gets you more into the realm of 'protagonist in a martial arts anime' where you shrug off all sorts of stuff that should kill a normal human and jump right back into the fight. Just don't use the Protective Aura if you don't want that level of obvious supernatural manifestation.


Anyhow, this can probably be pushed (much) further, but that will already be more than enough for most campaigns.

Cluedrew
2019-09-29, 07:30 AM
To NichG: I'll admit I was sort of expecting this (although I was not expecting the phrase "unarmed Swordsage" that seems like a contradiction)... good job and let's pray that the counter weight that makes D&D whole is one day folded into core. Maybe I should head over to the 6th wish list thread.

Well this one I'll have to come back to. I seem to have over reacted but I think I could make an argument for accessibility. I'll think on it first.

Quertus
2019-09-29, 07:08 PM
Because I don't. You don't have to understand it.

But practically? Of course you find that solution good. It's basically "do what I would like, at least as close as you can get in a D&D chassis, and let everyone else modify to their taste". Of course you think that solution is optimal.

I don't find it optimal because I don't want to do that work. I have no desire to do it. Especially given the baroque nature of D&D 3.x optimization, I don't want to go through the learning to stay in front of my players. I don't want to get in arguments about what I do and don't allow. I don't want to have the arguments when something slips through and I have to tell the player it needs adjustment to not throw things out of whack.

I don't want to do those things. I could do them, but I don't want to. Frankly, I'd rather just play a system where I don't have to do those things. And I'd probably not run a game rather than run it in D&D 3.x.

And that's why your "optimal" solution is very, very suboptimal for me.

I think D&D5 is closer to "optimal". It looks and feels like D&D (unlike 4e), it's reasonably balanced, people can make characters without having to study, but there is still a level of optimization available for people that want to go down that rabbit hole. The designers said that their goal was that 5e be everyone's second favorite edition, and I think that philosophy shows a high level of wisdom.

Well, if you think that you (as the GM) would be doing a lot of work, then you have almost certainly misunderstood the solution I consider optimal (for my tables).

Nonetheless, I think I've heard you. If "you want the work to have already been done for you" is a valid statement of your position, that is.


I had a reply for this and I completely forgot to come back and say it. OK I am writing a fantasy story (very slowly, I might not finish before the end of the world) and it exists in a very D&D feeling world. Adventures (or independent mercenaries) handle a lot of problems people have and there strength varies from risk taker of average skill to the gods watch themselves around these people. And of these (potential) god-slayers are a diverse lot. And I could translate most of them over, sure I might need to homebrew caster armour and a few details like that, but most of it is just details.

Except for the monk. One of them is a wandering martial artist. She has no magic gear, no weapons or armour, doesn't use magic at all in a meaningful way, her special abilities do include manipulating the wind, but more often they are things like punch really well or throw a rock at someone's head. Simple, effective and I have no idea how to emulate it in D&D. The monk class is limp, I think there is an unarmed Tome of Battle class but they tend to rely on special abilities too much.

So can you do it? Can you find a way to make an unarmed warrior who can take on any non-cheesed character of say level 15 without issue?

I'd actually like to see it either way, but generally this is the problem. Its not that characters are unbalanced no. The fact that classes are unbalanced can be a problem but that is still workable. No the problem with D&D's balance is that it is on the archetype level. Entire families of concepts just don't work because the only way to be strong in D&D is to be magic. And the only way to beat magic is to be more magic.


Well...


I'd go unarmed Swordsage, focused on the Diamond Mind things which aren't flashy special abilities and can modify other attacks rather than being their own signature moves (Ruby Nightmare Blade and the like). Also Mountain Hammer for punching through stone or metal. Could multiclass Monk for 1 level for double Wis to AC (I think they're both untyped? If they're both Insight, this doesn't work) and better Unarmed Strike. You also end up with Wis to damage when using Diamond Mind maneuvers. If you want to be really resilient, you could try to justify a two Paladin levels and Serenity to get Wis to saves as well. So basically focus on Wis boosting for power scaling. At higher levels, a +20 (or higher) item of Concentration would be a good investment.

Things the character can do:

- Punch through adamantine, stone, and metal

- Dodge really well with almost no visible effort (since your AC is more Wis than Dex)

- Attack once with large effect even with little visible strength or physical effort, in various ways (Concentration to damage maneuver; Concentration check to double damage maneuver; Concentration check to quadruple damage maneuver)

- At high levels, attack extremely quickly (9th level maneuver Time Stands Still, which is basically just 'make two full attacks').

I think you can spend two feats to get access to Iron Heart Surge, which adds general 'I can do what high level characters need to be able to do' durability. Some of the Shadow Hand maneuvers give you short-ranged teleportation, which isn't quite flight but definitely gives you the mobility that a high level character might need and with a small amount of DM buy-in can be used for e.g. teleporting onto a dragon's back in flight, etc.

If I were going for high levels of cheese, it becomes a usual pattern of getting access to low level spells on items that have big effects due to this build scaling with skill checks. Improvisation, Guidance of the Avatar, Surge of Fortune, Moment of Prescience, Owl's Insight, can all pump this character's damage. There's also a gimmick where Swordsage behaves very nicely with multiclassing if you can afford to enter it late and are at high levels - half of your non-Swordsage classes contribute to Swordsage maneuver progression. That would make me eye whether it's possible to fit in the 8 levels of Factotum for action economy shenanigans - you'd lose 8th and 9th level maneuvers, which hurts a bit, but there are items to overcome that issue (martial crowns, I think?) . Probably not worth it (though definitely pick up Heroic Surge and a Belt of Battle).

Another option if you want 'I'm an untouchable combat monster but I don't particularly manifest visible magical powers' is to use the Saint template which, at LA +2, gives you - yet another Wis to AC, improves your unarmed attack, improves the save DCs of your abilities (where relevant), gives you DR, gives you Fast Healing, gives you a bunch of immunities, improves both Con and Wis (and Cha which you don't use). You have to bend the fluff a lot to fit it with this character, but it gets you more into the realm of 'protagonist in a martial arts anime' where you shrug off all sorts of stuff that should kill a normal human and jump right back into the fight. Just don't use the Protective Aura if you don't want that level of obvious supernatural manifestation.


Anyhow, this can probably be pushed (much) further, but that will already be more than enough for most campaigns.


To NichG: I'll admit I was sort of expecting this (although I was not expecting the phrase "unarmed Swordsage" that seems like a contradiction)... good job and let's pray that the counter weight that makes D&D whole is one day folded into core. Maybe I should head over to the 6th wish list thread.

Well this one I'll have to come back to. I seem to have over reacted but I think I could make an argument for accessibility. I'll think on it first.

So, D&D has very limited ways to translate "skill" into "damage". The easiest, IMO - which I haven't seen, but have built - is something like Monk 2 / Rogue 40, gaining maneuvers as feats to taste. And maybe even some very liberal Sculpt Self (Monk) to taste. And, if your into the "wuxia" muggle power, those epic ranks in "balance on clouds" and "escape through Walls of Force"

I'm not usually terribly interested in such a mundane aesthetic, though. I prefer my Fighters oldschool, with golf carts of magical weapons.

NNescio
2019-09-30, 02:10 AM
So, D&D has very limited ways to translate "skill" into "damage". The easiest, IMO - which I haven't seen, but have built - is something like Monk 2 / Rogue 40, gaining maneuvers as feats to taste. And maybe even some very liberal Sculpt Self (Monk) to taste. And, if your into the "wuxia" muggle power, those epic ranks in "balance on clouds" and "escape through Walls of Force"

IMHO, easiest is Factotum using iaijutsu focus (yes, it's 3.0, but 3.5e is supposed to be backwards compatible with unupdated 3.0 content unless there's a rules conflict). Though that one is more jidaigeki instead of wuxia.

NichG
2019-09-30, 03:43 AM
The Oriental Adventures version of Iaijutsu Master is the real cheese here, with the rules text 'you add your Cha mod to each damage die in an Iaijutsu Focus strike'. Which caps out at what, something like 12 times Cha mod to damage? But I think that has been reprinted, so probably not usable in practice at most tables.

I'd guess that some other OA stuff is pretty good for monkish things that don't suck. Freezing the Lifeblood makes Stunning Fist into a serious save-or-lose consideration since its 1d4+1 rounds of paralysis rather than a half-round hiccup, for example.

Shiba Protector isn't explicitly for unarmed combatants, but it synergizes really well with Monk or unarmed Swordsage, granting Wisdom modifier to both attack and damage rolls early on, gets SR and some improvements to saves as you go, and as the capstone basically lets you use Wisdom for all rolls in place of other attributes (there's some weird interaction with mages thing due to the fluff though, which may be a wash). From an optimization standpoint, I think I'd keep it to a 1 level dip.

Tattooed Monk looks like it has a lot of optimization potential to me (Bellflower tattoo letting you effectively add half your Cha mod to anything involving a stat, some diversity in the multiple tattoos including some absolute abilities like 'cannot be moved', immunities to fear, poison, etc, and something that actually gives you temporary skill 'ranks' rather than a bonus to skill and lets you break the normal skill rank level caps) but I don't have a ready build for it in my head.

ezekielraiden
2019-09-30, 05:48 AM
So, it's been a while, and I don't really think it's fitting to the conversation for me to reply to stuff people said to me quite some time ago. Suffice it to say that I do not agree that I have "missed" things, and that the characterization of what I was talking about as mandatory requirements for fun (in the way that dancing shoes or climbing equipment are mandatory requirements for dancing) is severely missing my point.

And since analogies, as always, have failed us, I figure it's fair to ask a couple questions.

1. When you play a cooperative game and intend to have fun doing so, do you expect to have fun by participating meaningfully less than other players, e.g. even if you factor in both quantity and quality of contribution, the game's rules force you to contribute less?

2. When you play a cooperative game where the different options are billed as reasonably equivalent, does it concern you if that billing proves false?

3. When you play a cooperative game where your personal tastes and interests are a major factor in the play experience for everyone, would it concern you that your tastes and interests were being specifically reduced in impact, while others' tastes and interests were specifically increased, without you being informed about this in advance? (Note that this difference in treatment is not applied to your tastes because you have them; rather, it is a specific set of tastes, which you coincidentally hold, and others don't.)

4. When you play a cooperative game, do you have fun when other players can regularly invalidate the specific thing you wanted to bring to the group, while you have effectively zero ability to invalidate what others might choose to bring?

And then one final question:
Don't all of these apply to D&D?

We get told we're a party of adventurers, not characters-in-a-novel*, who are on a quest together, teammates, perhaps even friends. From that Watsonian standpoint, it is reasonable that the party should expect every member to contribute up to a similar level of impact. Not identical, since perfection and identicalness are probably impossible to define under these conditions, but at least similar--a teammate merely coasting on "aren't we friends" and shared sentiment is an undesirable situation, particularly when we as non-Watsonian players can choose to not have it be that way. And then from the Doylist perspective, the rules-text of the D&D books not only actively avoids mentioning anything about power imbalances (I have not read a single WotC D&D book that ever says anything remotely like "Wizards will grow to become the most powerful characters" or "Fighters will tend to be more limited in their contributions as they gain levels, due to lacking the versatility of spellcasting.") Indeed, both the books themselves and WotC-provided advice explicitly pushes at least one or two players toward these limited classes, while explicitly telling them that that is a vital part of any competent adventuring team.

The books, if not outright lying, certainly provide deceptive information and actively avoid indicating that certain preferences carry meaningfully more power, versatility, and impact and others just carry less, perhaps even none at all on a regular basis for the kinds of threats one may face. (See: non-spellcasting melee classes vs. flying enemies.)

I am not, and never have been, saying that balance is absolutely mandatory for 100% of people to have fun. That would be a pointlessly foolish thing to argue. What I am instead saying is that game designers designing a specifically cooperative game have certain concepts and commitments implied by that goal. "Balance" does not guarantee fun. But when you cannot solidly predict all the details of how a group of people will play your game, efforts in that direction have a demonstrable tendency to ensure that, while the details will differ, the overall picture will be similarly enjoyable for the majority of players, and that's the best you can do with game design (well, and still allow for player choice that actually matters).

*Because I have to actually specify characters written by an author, I guess, even though that was extremely clear from context earlier. Characters-in-a-novel have no feelings, they aren't people with physical hearts and brains and life. Characters-in-a-novel experience feelings-in-a-novel, but literally only those written by the author. The author may be bad at writing, and write those feelings badly, or a good one and write them well, but either way the characters-in-a-novel are not alive, don't feel, don't think, don't act, don't do anything. We can project humanity and sapience and moral weight onto them, and we can care about those fictional projections quite a lot, but in the end they are infinitely less than the smallest ant in terms of the capacity to feel. A character cannot feel slighted by her author for giving her a bit part. A character can be written to react to a written author avatar with such responses, but in the end they are still just words on a page. Your fellow players are not just words on a page. They are real people. Even if you don't believe they deserve respect (though I am sure you believe they do), they are clearly not the same as characters-in-a-novel, and their living-person-at-a-table feelings and agency matter, a lot, for game design. We cannot look to the "feelings" of Frodo and Samwise and Gandalf--purely fictional beings, whose every thought and deed were meticulously placed into them--to justify how our actions, including "designing a game" actions, affect the feelings of living-persons-at-tables.

NichG
2019-09-30, 07:55 AM
So, it's been a while, and I don't really think it's fitting to the conversation for me to reply to stuff people said to me quite some time ago. Suffice it to say that I do not agree that I have "missed" things, and that the characterization of what I was talking about as mandatory requirements for fun (in the way that dancing shoes or climbing equipment are mandatory requirements for dancing) is severely missing my point.

And since analogies, as always, have failed us, I figure it's fair to ask a couple questions.

1. When you play a cooperative game and intend to have fun doing so, do you expect to have fun by participating meaningfully less than other players, e.g. even if you factor in both quantity and quality of contribution, the game's rules force you to contribute less?

2. When you play a cooperative game where the different options are billed as reasonably equivalent, does it concern you if that billing proves false?

3. When you play a cooperative game where your personal tastes and interests are a major factor in the play experience for everyone, would it concern you that your tastes and interests were being specifically reduced in impact, while others' tastes and interests were specifically increased, without you being informed about this in advance? (Note that this difference in treatment is not applied to your tastes because you have them; rather, it is a specific set of tastes, which you coincidentally hold, and others don't.)

4. When you play a cooperative game, do you have fun when other players can regularly invalidate the specific thing you wanted to bring to the group, while you have effectively zero ability to invalidate what others might choose to bring?

And then one final question:
Don't all of these apply to D&D?


For me: 1 is a non-sequiteur, 2 is 'yes', 3 is 'partial yes', 4 is not applicable, 5 is 'no, 2 and 3 apply, 1 and 4 do not apply'

The 'yes' of 2 and 3 has to do with the system being misleading. Things such as 'billing it as X, but it's Y' do concern me and are the primary discontent. The reason 2 is a full yes whereas 3 is a partial is that 2 specifies that the game bills things as equivalent, whereas 3 only specifies that the game does not inform me in advance, and in many cases I can reasonably intuit whether or not a game is going to be relevant to my interests without having to be explicitly told. 3 applies for D&D because determining that from the rules is non-trivial enough that I would accept that it is misleading to a problematic level.

Now, 1: I expect when playing a game to have choices as to the degree of my participation, and that the system gives me tools to make those choices. One choice might be that I want to keep things low key for that campaign, or that I want to challenge myself, or that I want to try to take a leadership role, or that I want the ability to know what's going on. I also recognize not all systems will give me all of these choices, nor will they necessarily give me those choices in the same way or in any kind of directly marked fashion. So 'do I expect to participate equally?' - no. But 'do I expect that I could choose to participate equally?' - yes. But 'do I expect that I will participate equally regardless of what choices I make?' - no. The real non-sequiteur here is 'when the game's rules force you to contribute less' - if I take that literally, it can only do that if it explicitly names me or if there's some kind of 'contribution lottery' where I have no choice as to what I play. There's also so much metagame social dynamics surrounding this that I cannot see myself being forced to be ineffective if I want to be and I'm gaming with anybody that I know. It's an extreme example, but I've been in an epic campaign where someone refused to level past Lv1 and the GM worked with them to find a way to still make it work. I can accept that people may not know how to negotiate such variances, but for me that level of thing fits more into points 2 and 3 which have to do with what is fundamentally a failure of communication - which I do think is a serious problem - rather than a failure of balance.

And 4: Not applicable because the thing I ultimately want from gaming is not to make other people respect how useful I am, but to have experiences and explore ideas or ways of thinking and reacting to the world. Other players can interfere with that, but they would have to be actively antagonistic to do so, and I won't play with a group that is actively antagonistic to me regardless of the choice of game or rules. I similarly have no desire to invalidate what other players are bringing to the table. Now, the DM can certainly interfere with my ability to get what I want out of gaming, but IME that is much more a function of the DM than the system, to the extent that I don't think there is a system that would let me get what I want out of the game if the DM were bad or even average.

Cluedrew
2019-09-30, 09:15 PM
So I think I may have gone a little bit astray. I was thinking about what I had meant to say and I realized I had already said most of it.

The first bit is quite simple but only applies to systems that are supposed to balanced. Systems should not have false advertising, they should do what they say on the tin, how ever you want to put it. I think that is just bad design.

The second part is that balance isn't actually the point, the ability to make a meaningful contribution. To have a noticeable impact on the course of the game/campaign. "Balance" provides that and for me it is the measure of balance and power. I have seen campaigns were the "on paper" weakest person in the party had some of the largest impacts on events and therefore came across as one of the strongest. And there were "weaker" characters who did less, but the best campaigns I have played, there has never been a character you could erase and things would remain the same. And even if there was, I don't think playing that character would be very fun.

Mechalich
2019-09-30, 09:45 PM
The 'yes' of 2 and 3 has to do with the system being misleading. Things such as 'billing it as X, but it's Y' do concern me and are the primary discontent. The reason 2 is a full yes whereas 3 is a partial is that 2 specifies that the game bills things as equivalent, whereas 3 only specifies that the game does not inform me in advance, and in many cases I can reasonably intuit whether or not a game is going to be relevant to my interests without having to be explicitly told. 3 applies for D&D because determining that from the rules is non-trivial enough that I would accept that it is misleading to a problematic level.



The first bit is quite simple but only applies to systems that are supposed to balanced. Systems should not have false advertising, they should do what they say on the tin, how ever you want to put it. I think that is just bad design.

There is, in overall design a certain tension between offering as many options as possible, and offering balanced options. This is particularly noteworthy in the case of D&D due to its commitment to being the most massive kitchen sink possible.

For example, D&D's kitchen-sink nature leads it to try and promise a way to build a 3' tall halfling who fights with twin daggers wearing leather who is an equal combatant to a 6' 8" human in full plate wielding a halberd. Pretending this sort of mismatch can come out even leads to weirdness and you start twisting around balance against the fiction from the very beginning.

The less options you're dealing with the more it's possible to keep those options balanced, while the more options you permit the more impossible it becomes to manage balance. That's why video games like MMOs tend to heavily restrict options and render things as similar as possible even when this means blatant denial of verisimilitude (in FFXIV the Lalafels, the resident halfling race, run just as fast as the characters who are twice their height in order to sustain game balance). As a result a game that permits all possible concepts will never manage balance because the various concepts are themselves not equal and no amount of mechanical chicanery is going to twist them back into a semblance of balance.

The easiest path towards game balance is having all characters being some variation on the same overall theme, so that everyone gets some identical base package and then you only have to balance the add-ons. A game where everyone plays Navy SEALs is a nice example, where you have the sniper, the medic, and the engineer, but everyone already knows how to fire a rifle, take cover, and move with stealth. This is also while many D&D balance issues are mitigated so long as you play 'in a box' (both metaphorically and literally), as D&D video game history shows.

Options vs. balance represents a very real economic tension in game design. More options, after all, means you can pump out more sourcebooks and make more money. There are, after all, people who want to play swashbucklers, knife fighters, and the like, and so there's an incentive to offer those as options even when the system mechanics means they'll never be viable. Likewise there are certain abilities and powers that spellcasters have gotten used to having over time and if you nerf them away people get annoyed. This goes well beyond D&D, superhero games regularly include powers that sound cool but that only a deranged GM would actually allow a character to have (time manipulation, I'm looking at you).

Personally I've come to develop the opinion that if you want universality you're going to have to sacrifice balance and accept that your game is enjoying the gonzo - something that both Planescape in D&D and whole games like Rifts do just fine. Otherwise the system (or the permutations of the system if using a toolkit system like FATE) needs to be tied to a setting and tightly constrained.

Quertus
2019-10-01, 09:47 AM
So, it's been a while, and I don't really think it's fitting to the conversation for me to reply to stuff people said to me quite some time ago. Suffice it to say that I do not agree that I have "missed" things, and that the characterization of what I was talking about as mandatory requirements for fun (in the way that dancing shoes or climbing equipment are mandatory requirements for dancing) is severely missing my point.

And since analogies, as always, have failed us, I figure it's fair to ask a couple questions.

1. When you play a cooperative game and intend to have fun doing so, do you expect to have fun by participating meaningfully less than other players, e.g. even if you factor in both quantity and quality of contribution, the game's rules force you to contribute less?

2. When you play a cooperative game where the different options are billed as reasonably equivalent, does it concern you if that billing proves false?

3. When you play a cooperative game where your personal tastes and interests are a major factor in the play experience for everyone, would it concern you that your tastes and interests were being specifically reduced in impact, while others' tastes and interests were specifically increased, without you being informed about this in advance? (Note that this difference in treatment is not applied to your tastes because you have them; rather, it is a specific set of tastes, which you coincidentally hold, and others don't.)

4. When you play a cooperative game, do you have fun when other players can regularly invalidate the specific thing you wanted to bring to the group, while you have effectively zero ability to invalidate what others might choose to bring?

And then one final question:
Don't all of these apply to D&D?

We get told we're a party of adventurers, not characters-in-a-novel*, who are on a quest together, teammates, perhaps even friends. From that Watsonian standpoint, it is reasonable that the party should expect every member to contribute up to a similar level of impact. Not identical, since perfection and identicalness are probably impossible to define under these conditions, but at least similar--a teammate merely coasting on "aren't we friends" and shared sentiment is an undesirable situation, particularly when we as non-Watsonian players can choose to not have it be that way. And then from the Doylist perspective, the rules-text of the D&D books not only actively avoids mentioning anything about power imbalances (I have not read a single WotC D&D book that ever says anything remotely like "Wizards will grow to become the most powerful characters" or "Fighters will tend to be more limited in their contributions as they gain levels, due to lacking the versatility of spellcasting.") Indeed, both the books themselves and WotC-provided advice explicitly pushes at least one or two players toward these limited classes, while explicitly telling them that that is a vital part of any competent adventuring team.

The books, if not outright lying, certainly provide deceptive information and actively avoid indicating that certain preferences carry meaningfully more power, versatility, and impact and others just carry less, perhaps even none at all on a regular basis for the kinds of threats one may face. (See: non-spellcasting melee classes vs. flying enemies.)

I am not, and never have been, saying that balance is absolutely mandatory for 100% of people to have fun. That would be a pointlessly foolish thing to argue. What I am instead saying is that game designers designing a specifically cooperative game have certain concepts and commitments implied by that goal. "Balance" does not guarantee fun. But when you cannot solidly predict all the details of how a group of people will play your game, efforts in that direction have a demonstrable tendency to ensure that, while the details will differ, the overall picture will be similarly enjoyable for the majority of players, and that's the best you can do with game design (well, and still allow for player choice that actually matters).

*Because I have to actually specify characters written by an author, I guess, even though that was extremely clear from context earlier. Characters-in-a-novel have no feelings, they aren't people with physical hearts and brains and life. Characters-in-a-novel experience feelings-in-a-novel, but literally only those written by the author. The author may be bad at writing, and write those feelings badly, or a good one and write them well, but either way the characters-in-a-novel are not alive, don't feel, don't think, don't act, don't do anything. We can project humanity and sapience and moral weight onto them, and we can care about those fictional projections quite a lot, but in the end they are infinitely less than the smallest ant in terms of the capacity to feel. A character cannot feel slighted by her author for giving her a bit part. A character can be written to react to a written author avatar with such responses, but in the end they are still just words on a page. Your fellow players are not just words on a page. They are real people. Even if you don't believe they deserve respect (though I am sure you believe they do), they are clearly not the same as characters-in-a-novel, and their living-person-at-a-table feelings and agency matter, a lot, for game design. We cannot look to the "feelings" of Frodo and Samwise and Gandalf--purely fictional beings, whose every thought and deed were meticulously placed into them--to justify how our actions, including "designing a game" actions, affect the feelings of living-persons-at-tables.


For me: 1 is a non-sequiteur, 2 is 'yes', 3 is 'partial yes', 4 is not applicable, 5 is 'no, 2 and 3 apply, 1 and 4 do not apply'

The 'yes' of 2 and 3 has to do with the system being misleading. Things such as 'billing it as X, but it's Y' do concern me and are the primary discontent. The reason 2 is a full yes whereas 3 is a partial is that 2 specifies that the game bills things as equivalent, whereas 3 only specifies that the game does not inform me in advance, and in many cases I can reasonably intuit whether or not a game is going to be relevant to my interests without having to be explicitly told. 3 applies for D&D because determining that from the rules is non-trivial enough that I would accept that it is misleading to a problematic level.

Now, 1: I expect when playing a game to have choices as to the degree of my participation, and that the system gives me tools to make those choices. One choice might be that I want to keep things low key for that campaign, or that I want to challenge myself, or that I want to try to take a leadership role, or that I want the ability to know what's going on. I also recognize not all systems will give me all of these choices, nor will they necessarily give me those choices in the same way or in any kind of directly marked fashion. So 'do I expect to participate equally?' - no. But 'do I expect that I could choose to participate equally?' - yes. But 'do I expect that I will participate equally regardless of what choices I make?' - no. The real non-sequiteur here is 'when the game's rules force you to contribute less' - if I take that literally, it can only do that if it explicitly names me or if there's some kind of 'contribution lottery' where I have no choice as to what I play. There's also so much metagame social dynamics surrounding this that I cannot see myself being forced to be ineffective if I want to be and I'm gaming with anybody that I know. It's an extreme example, but I've been in an epic campaign where someone refused to level past Lv1 and the GM worked with them to find a way to still make it work. I can accept that people may not know how to negotiate such variances, but for me that level of thing fits more into points 2 and 3 which have to do with what is fundamentally a failure of communication - which I do think is a serious problem - rather than a failure of balance.

And 4: Not applicable because the thing I ultimately want from gaming is not to make other people respect how useful I am, but to have experiences and explore ideas or ways of thinking and reacting to the world. Other players can interfere with that, but they would have to be actively antagonistic to do so, and I won't play with a group that is actively antagonistic to me regardless of the choice of game or rules. I similarly have no desire to invalidate what other players are bringing to the table. Now, the DM can certainly interfere with my ability to get what I want out of gaming, but IME that is much more a function of the DM than the system, to the extent that I don't think there is a system that would let me get what I want out of the game if the DM were bad or even average.


So I think I may have gone a little bit astray. I was thinking about what I had meant to say and I realized I had already said most of it.

The first bit is quite simple but only applies to systems that are supposed to balanced. Systems should not have false advertising, they should do what they say on the tin, how ever you want to put it. I think that is just bad design.

The second part is that balance isn't actually the point, the ability to make a meaningful contribution. To have a noticeable impact on the course of the game/campaign. "Balance" provides that and for me it is the measure of balance and power. I have seen campaigns were the "on paper" weakest person in the party had some of the largest impacts on events and therefore came across as one of the strongest. And there were "weaker" characters who did less, but the best campaigns I have played, there has never been a character you could erase and things would remain the same. And even if there was, I don't think playing that character would be very fun.

I think NichG has given what will likely be the best answer to this series of questions. But I'll give my less good answer, and my own unique take anyway.

Before reading that response, my answers were:

1) yes. 2) yes. 3) huh? 4) yes. 5) mu.

Best bit: you had me at "zero ability to invalidate what others might choose to bring".

Really, I think replying to Cluedrew will be most productive in explaining my stance. I agree on the issue of false advertising. I think 3e's biggest problem is one of PR, of delivery - the fact that it doesn't advertise its imbalance.

As to "balance" and "impact on events"… you're right, but it's complicated.

What matters is that the players are having fun.

What matters is what matters to a player's fun.

Each person is different; what matters to each person's fun is different. In fact, what matters to my fun will vary by system, character, group, and game.

You can generally count on me to care about role-playing, exploration, forming connections, and contribution. And… whatever hates Captain Hobo, and railroading. But I care about role-playing over forming connections - if the character isn't interested, I won't pursue it. And, although it is my greatest source of fun, exploration is completely optional.

Also, I'm perfectly happy with contributing in different vectors. While the other 4 party members are balanced for "tactical basketball simulator", I'm playing "highschool romance drama".

While those with the right skills can contribute to the party (heh) by baking great food, or setting up beautiful decorations, I lean on my strengths, and ask everyone what they'd like to drink.

But, yes, at its simplest, what most people IME care about is "contribution", even though most people IME cannot actually conceptualize their complaints when things fail beyond "balance".

-----

So, what else do I have to add to this round of this conversation?

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

What else? Ah, yes, "imbalance is mandatory for certain types of fun". Thus, *enforced balance* / systems without unbalanced elements, are less fun overall. But even they require informed consent - the players should know what they are getting into (even if that is "the unknown").

-----

Oh! As long as we're asking questions, I've got one! What if an RPG came with chess clocks, and what was balanced wasn't "how much you contribute", but "how much you cost the group by contributing"? So, in combat, the longer you take to take your turn, the fewer turns you get, such that everyone gets approximately equal time in combat. Same with other scenes, too. That would be 100% fair - everyone gets an equal share of the spotlight. Would you implement this revolutionary new RPG mechanic in your games? Why / why not?

(To clarify, combat (and other scenes) are designed to require many moves to resolve. Everyone gets one move, then the person with the least spotlight time gets to take another move, repeat. So, if one player were extremely efficient, while the others were spotlight hogs, the turn order (excluding opposition, if applicable) could be ABCDAAAABDAACABAAAA, for example.)

Mutazoia
2019-10-05, 09:39 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.

Calthropstu
2019-10-05, 11:06 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.

Funny. We have a sorc in my game. Who feels our paladin outshines him completely. Everything the sorc tries ends in dismal failure. Failed sr rolls, missed disintigrates, underwhelming disintigrate damage when it does hit, everything has resistance to all elements...

Meanwhile the paladin steamrolls through the daemons. I had to throw a cr 5 hivher than their level, surround him with minions, and modify his resources before i even stood a shot of not being insta-smite-killed.

ezekielraiden
2019-10-06, 06:09 AM
For me: 1 is a non-sequiteur, 2 is 'yes', 3 is 'partial yes', 4 is not applicable, 5 is 'no, 2 and 3 apply, 1 and 4 do not apply'
In the interest of saving space, I'm only quoting this part. Also, to avoid needless repetition: "spellcasting+" and related forms refer to spellcasters (Wizard, Cleric, etc.) and anything primarily like spellcasting (psionics, Incarnum, magic items that generate spell or spell-like effects and usually needing a spellcaster to craft them, etc.), while "non-spellcasting" refers to...everything else (mundane Fighters, non-UMD Rogues, etc.)

I'm glad you and I agree on both 2 and 3, and I accept your caveat for 3 in that sufficiently-simple systems can make it not apply...but D&D, and basically every game of comparable style and development (PF, 13A, retroclones, etc.), is not sufficiently simple. Now, for the two questions where we may not (probably not) agree.

1: I assert D&D-alikes force a power hierarchy of archetypes, unless players work (knowingly or not) to play rather sub-optimally. Smart players that put reasonable work into exploiting their resources will find some archetypes have a much lower participation "ceiling," almost regardless of at-table effects. Even with some access to spellcasting+, you have far greater space to play in, unequivocally. You get more game to play with, both in rules and in solutions. I.e., "rules" because like a fifth to a third of all mechanics are bloody spells/etc. And "solutions" because there are few to no effects available to non-spellcasting archetypes that aren't also available to spellcasting+ ones, but many effects that only spellcasting+ (in whole or in part) can access that non-spellcasting emphatically cannot. You have zip-zero-nada control over that as a player. If you prefer Herakles-type characters and you play PF, you either have to accept that you'll never be even comparably good to the tales of Herakles, or you have to choose to play a gorram spellcaster, as (more or less) said in that now-infamous blogpost (https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lai0?Pathfinder-RPG-Advanced-Players-Guide-Classes) by Mr. Bulmahn.

TL;DR: You aren't allowed to choose to participate equally, if you have preferences that don't match the game. And the game goes out of its way to avoid telling you this (and may even conceal it). Spellcasting+ archetypes always have greater freedom of choice than non-spellcasting archetypes; they can choose to "play down," but non-spellcasting archetypes cannot choose to "play up."

As for 4: We just disagree then. I think it's quite easy for a system to interfere with the ability to play what you (generic you) wish to play, to feel the experiences you wish to feel. It does so by radically restricting the rule- and solution-space available to you, such that you may literally be unable to do what you want to do and still follow the rules. Herakles is one example, to be sure, but even Conan requires some pretty heavy optimization *and* DM buy-in just to exist, let alone survive even half of the adventures he went on, and that was back in the days when spellcasting+ had far more limitations than it does today.


The first bit is quite simple but only applies to systems that are supposed to balanced. Systems should not have false advertising, they should do what they say on the tin, how ever you want to put it. I think that is just bad design.
Given that the designers of Pathfinder (1e and 2e), as well as (3rd, 4th, and) 5th Edition D&D, 13th Age, Shadowrun, and literally every other "prominent" game in the TTRPG market at least talk about balance, and write their eventual book-text such that balance is a concern, it would seem to me that this requirement is trivially met. All prominent RPGs make at least some claim, both in explicit author intent and in implicit in-book statements, to desiring balance. Several fail to meet this bar. (Shadowrun under its current owners has experienced some similar issues, with some fans deriding it as "Magicrun" because intelligently-employed magic outpaces other solutions by too significant a degree.)


The second part is that balance isn't actually the point, the ability to make a meaningful contribution.
I grant without question that you can artificially make any character the "most important" in a game. That's never been in doubt. It is the (degree of) necessity of it that I have major problems with. Spellcaster+ archetypes will naturally drift into being "more important" characters. Non-spellcasters will naturally drift away from it. The game's rules therefore discourage some archetypes over others, purely on the basis of their aesthetic traits. Those natural drifts can be fought against--but you emphatically should not have to fight them. Who becomes important should be something purely decided by the players (counting the DM as a player), or by the roll of the dice, not by the game's designers.


There is, in overall design a certain tension between offering as many options as possible, and offering balanced options. <snip> The less options you're dealing with the more it's possible to keep those options balanced, while the more options you permit the more impossible it becomes to manage balance.
While true, that doesn't mean there are zero ways to address this tension. For example, extensible framework rules: rules that don't try to provide individual solutions for every specific case, but which have a flexible framework that can adapt to fit the vast majority of applications. To reference, for example, 13A's core book: there is a Heroic (starting tier) and Champion (mid-tier) Linguist feat, but no Epic (final tier) version, because if you want an Epic Linguist feat, you already know better what you want than they do. Explicit recognition that the Feat system, and in particular its application to languages and the like, is an extensible framework that can and should get extensions to apply to any given campaign.

Again, I'm not saying this makes the tension go away, nor that it can resolve all forms of it. But there is room between knowing that the tension is there, and surrendering to an allegedly "impossible" problem. It's a lot more tractable than you give it credit for, but it may require creative solutions.


There are, after all, people who want to play swashbucklers, knife fighters, and the like, and so there's an incentive to offer those as options even when the system mechanics means they'll never be viable. Likewise there are certain abilities and powers that spellcasters have gotten used to having over time and if you nerf them away people get annoyed.
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.


Personally I've come to develop the opinion that if you want universality you're going to have to sacrifice balance and accept that your game is enjoying the gonzo
And what of extensible framework rules? Though 4e's skill challenges were very rough around the edges (as is often the case for entirely brand-new mechanical systems), I have seen them work utterly brilliantly for capturing an incredibly wide variety of situations. Extensible framework rules, with the explicit notion that they can cover lots and the places where they don't work would need DM involvement anyway, can be extremely well-balanced while also being sufficiently general as to cover the vast majority of use cases. (13th Age's "montage" and "fighting in spirit" rules, among other clever innovations, are other examples.)


1) yes. 2) yes. 3) huh? 4) yes. 5) mu.
Cool. As above, clipping a long but quality reply to save space. (This is already a long post!) In response to your "huh?": In D&D, it's expected that the group collectively contributes to the progress of the game. If a player chooses to play a Paladin, the DM not only can but should take that into account. Whether that's because they're the only Paladin and thus the world takes on a darker look so it can be made brighter through her efforts, or there are many Paladins and their good deeds have helped make the world a better place, or whatever else, the DM takes the players' preferences (in both "what I choose to play" and "how I choose to play it") and builds that into the experience for the group collectively--and the DM is just as much a "player" here as the people with character sheets. Thing is? D&D both overtly and covertly supports some preferences better than others. It actively works against DMs who try to make non-spellcaster archetypes (which are collections of preferences) more relevant...because the rules spend far, far more time, words, and effort on the relevance of spellcaster+ archetypes. And no choice you make, at any point, can change that inherent bias. A DM who works their ass off can enable characters like OotS's Roy...but it requires working your ass off. In any other game, Vaarsuvius would automatically be the most important person, because V is world-warpingly powerful even without the mega-power side-plots they've had.


Best bit: you had me at "zero ability to invalidate what others might choose to bring". What matters is that the players are having fun. What matters is what matters to a player's fun. [Snipped: fun is unique to each player.] But, yes, at its simplest, what most people IME care about is "contribution", even though most people IME cannot actually conceptualize their complaints when things fail beyond "balance".
Because balance, when rigorous, provides a starting position of equanimity. In the ideal case (read: an impossible goal, but one worth pursuing to get reasonably close), the system induces no preconditioning at all, meaning it is only the active choices made by the players and DM that matters for determining who or what is "important." Ideals and perfection are impossible, but pursuing them gets us close, and in this case people often treat the impossibility of the target as a reason to not even try--when trying really, truly can get partial results.

And, as I said above? I really don't care much about the opinions of people whose fun requires other people forced into an inferior position. That's an incredibly selfish, petty kind of fun that cooperative gaming in general, and D&D specifically, could do without. (Frankly, I doubt there really are very many people who feel that way.)


Balance to the table. If you do that, do any of these "problems" still exist?
What on earth does that even mean? I legit don't see how that sequence of words cashes out as...anything. As far as I can tell, it's as useful a design guide as "balance to the cheese."


What else? Ah, yes, "imbalance is mandatory for certain types of fun". Thus, *enforced balance* / systems without unbalanced elements, are less fun overall. But even they require informed consent - the players should know what they are getting into (even if that is "the unknown").
What kinds of fun are these, that don't boil down to "I need someone to be in an inferior position to me before I can actually have fun"? Because, as noted, that's a seriously toxic form of "fun" that I genuinely think should be ejected from game design. Not all reasons for having fun are appropriate to tabletop gaming--competition is obviously a form of fun, but has no place in a cooperative game. (Barring tournament modules, but that's a pretty rare form of D&D entertainment these days--and one that actually depends on there being some reasonably strong balance so that you can meaningfully say each tourney group had the same start position.)

IOW: When, exactly, does enforced imbalance create more appropriate kinds of fun? Because you have to choose which kinds of fun you support. You cannot catch 'em all. You're acting like including imbalance costs nothing but adds much, when in truth it is a trade-off, and I'd argue a very costly one.


What if an RPG came with chess clocks, and what was balanced wasn't "how much you contribute", but "how much you cost the group by contributing"?
Sounds like a great way to generate real-world player-vs-player arguments to me. It means that players who are simply faster-thinking, or who have a better memory, etc. will be massively favored over other players, and it will start to show extremely quickly if your example turn is a typical scenario. It would be like conditioning social skills on a player's actual ability to lie, or act, or the like--you'll be driving home differences between your players in a way that produces tangible benefits and detriments. I have known fellow players who were dyscalculic or dyslexic, who often had to rely on others to make sure they were using the rules correctly; they would be severely limited in a system like this. As would gamers with ADD. Game design that makes player disabilities a problem, rather than a non-issue, is...well, I don't recommend it if you can avoid it.


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.
An oversimplified model, but not wrong. The trick is developing statistically testable goals, and then rigorously testing whether those goals are actually met. Of course, not all goals are easy to translate into a statistical statement, but many are, since the three major components of game design are mechanical (which is inherently numeric for almost all games), dynamical (the "process of play"), and aesthetic (the "user intent" aspect--not aesthetics in the sense of beauty but in the sense of the "itches" that a game scratches). Even the aesthetics in the strict sense, e.g. do Fighters feel Fighter-y, is at least somewhat amenable to statistical testing (if you make real surveys and not frickin' push polls...)


Funny. We have a sorc in my game. Who feels our paladin outshines him completely. <snip> Meanwhile the paladin steamrolls through the daemons.
So...assuming you're talking about 5e...one of the strongest classes, which is also at least a partial spellcaster, put up against an enemy type it is specifically designed to be powerful against, is doing better than a full-caster trying to affect an enemy type specifically designed to be strong against the most common forms of attack from that full-caster.

What, exactly, is "funny" about this? Again, assuming you're referring to 5e, there's literally nothing surprising about this. Now, if this is Pathfinder or 3.x, it would be more than "not surprising at all," but not totally shocking either. Because, again, you're literally pitting enemies designed to be hard to kill with standard elemental damage but easy to hurt with smites. That daemons are weak to paladins and not weak to the weakest form of sorcerer (presumably a non-mailman sorcerer) says...basically nothing about the overall point. If anything, all it shows is that the archetype hierarchy can still affect spellcasters, if they don't choose to play the right kind of spellcaster!

NichG
2019-10-06, 07:27 AM
In the interest of saving space, I'm only quoting this part. Also, to avoid needless repetition: "spellcasting+" and related forms refer to spellcasters (Wizard, Cleric, etc.) and anything primarily like spellcasting (psionics, Incarnum, magic items that generate spell or spell-like effects and usually needing a spellcaster to craft them, etc.), while "non-spellcasting" refers to...everything else (mundane Fighters, non-UMD Rogues, etc.)

I'm glad you and I agree on both 2 and 3, and I accept your caveat for 3 in that sufficiently-simple systems can make it not apply...but D&D, and basically every game of comparable style and development (PF, 13A, retroclones, etc.), is not sufficiently simple. Now, for the two questions where we may not (probably not) agree.

1: I assert D&D-alikes force a power hierarchy of archetypes, unless players work (knowingly or not) to play rather sub-optimally. Smart players that put reasonable work into exploiting their resources will find some archetypes have a much lower participation "ceiling," almost regardless of at-table effects. Even with some access to spellcasting+, you have far greater space to play in, unequivocally. You get more game to play with, both in rules and in solutions. I.e., "rules" because like a fifth to a third of all mechanics are bloody spells/etc. And "solutions" because there are few to no effects available to non-spellcasting archetypes that aren't also available to spellcasting+ ones, but many effects that only spellcasting+ (in whole or in part) can access that non-spellcasting emphatically cannot. You have zip-zero-nada control over that as a player. If you prefer Herakles-type characters and you play PF, you either have to accept that you'll never be even comparably good to the tales of Herakles, or you have to choose to play a gorram spellcaster, as (more or less) said in that now-infamous blogpost (https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lai0?Pathfinder-RPG-Advanced-Players-Guide-Classes) by Mr. Bulmahn.

TL;DR: You aren't allowed to choose to participate equally, if you have preferences that don't match the game. And the game goes out of its way to avoid telling you this (and may even conceal it). Spellcasting+ archetypes always have greater freedom of choice than non-spellcasting archetypes; they can choose to "play down," but non-spellcasting archetypes cannot choose to "play up."


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). I'll go to a system, and a particular campaign, and ask 'what would be good to play in the context of this particular situation?'. If it's D&D and I want lots of options and an easy time, I am entirely empowered to choose a spellcaster to play - the system can't force me to participate less. There are many many things that won't work that I might like playing or be inclined to play - I can either leave those for other systems, or approach the game with the idea of 'I know that I'm challenging myself here'. I feel your explanation of point #1 here is really more to do with your point #3. I do have a problem if the game system says 'the coolest thing to do in this system is to be a Fighter' when it basically sucks. But I wouldn't say that e.g. non-casters sucking at all obligates me to play an ineffectual character.

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. If it turns out that mundanes don't get anything in Mage to balance them against mages, that's perfectly fine, even if the system has rules for statting mundane characters. The reason its not unreasonable on the face of it to approach D&D with the desire to play 'the guy at the gym' at high levels has to do with miscommunication leading to erroneous expectations. Correct that miscommunication (by for example publishing explicit statements as to what is expected of characters at different level ranges, how things compare, etc) and 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'.

Now, that said, I do have preferences. However, those preferences are only weakly impacted by my choice of character class. I'm fine using a Swordsage base in order to play as a fallen deity, or play a 'wizard' entirely supported by Use Magic Device and a lot of Bluff. When it comes to whether or not I consider my participation effective, it has almost nothing to do with prowess at the tactical level, and almost everything to do with strategy-level scale reasoning and decision making about the scenario as a whole. If someone kills 30 enemies and I only mildly wound one, that doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is that I correctly determined who should be approached as an enemy and who should be approached as an ally. Making those decisions correctly is what I consider to be the core of my participation, and while it's not totally system-neutral (divinations are indeed useful tools for that kind of thing), conversations can just as well be a much more powerful tool than spells.



As for 4: We just disagree then. I think it's quite easy for a system to interfere with the ability to play what you (generic you) wish to play, to feel the experiences you wish to feel. It does so by radically restricting the rule- and solution-space available to you, such that you may literally be unable to do what you want to do and still follow the rules. Herakles is one example, to be sure, but even Conan requires some pretty heavy optimization *and* DM buy-in just to exist, let alone survive even half of the adventures he went on, and that was back in the days when spellcasting+ had far more limitations than it does today.


Again it sounds like you're talking about point #3, not point #4 (which was about invalidating other players or players invalidating you). So I'm going to go back to my response about point #3, which is that if the system miscommunicates its expectations, this is bad, but if it communicates clearly then I have no expectation that all systems should cater to all experiences, styles, themes, etc. The best experiences are had, IMO, by identifying what is good in a particular system and playing heavily into that.

I don't expect D&D to support a Conan archetype. I might still try to pursue building a Conan archetype, but if I do that I'm going to do it with the understanding that what I'm trying to get from that gameplay experience is the optimization challenge. I'll be doing it to prove that, in fact, it's possible. If I just want to play Conan, there's Iron Heroes (or Black Company d20, or even Exalted).