Originally Posted by
Dienekes
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.