The class balance thread (let's try to keep this one trolling free)

[Sigmund]

I've stayed on the sidelines in this because I'm not a big believer in balance at all. I think it's non-genre, impossible to achieve and harmful to chase after in that it produces bland rules and blander encounters as anything becomes winable through any method.

RISUS is perhaps the ultimate expression of balance, as one's skill in baking pies has a equal chance of defeating a swordsman in combat. At the other extreme was the attempt of D&D 4E, where special abilities become magic by another name- and it doesn't smell as sweet.



More commonly called niche protection IME. While I don't believe in balance, I do find value in niche protection.

Your example is an extreme case that has no counterpart in any game design that I'm aware of. No reasonable designer would have a major character class usable against only one creature, or only in 5% of a typical game's encounters.

It should be noted that Niche Protection starts with the game design by offering niches up front, but it's effectiveness is determined in play by the GM offering a range of encounters that allow the various niches to shine. A stealth class for example may well be more valuable than a warrior in a campaign where detection equals death. But useless in one that always starts with both sides lined up for battle. Niche protection is thus rather demanding, it requires the GM to offer a good variety of encounters (or requires the players to seek them out). It also requires a group of players that can enjoy watching one of the fellows dominate the game at times.



Lastly I think that as one moves away from D&D, and it's heavy dependence on resource management and unrealistic mechanics, balance become even less important. The selection of a well designed game will alllow player skill in actual play (as opposed to taking advantage of character generation) to overwhelm any mechanically base balance issues between characters.

Holy shit, a g-man post I agree with almost completely. Wonders never cease. I disagree about D&D's ability to allow player skill to shine, or that it's mechanics are to any degree more or less realistic than the vast majority of other RPGs. Otherwise, I agree with the more relevant to this thread bits.

[MGuy]

MGuy won't bite on that one as he has been down that path on other threads.

His response I suspect would be something like 'If its not on the character sheet then anyone can do it. If anyone can do it then its a zero sum and doesn't affect the balance of the classes.'

So in effect what differentiates the classes is what is on the character sheet. The stuff the players bring outside the character sheet is the same for any class.

Now you might argue that in your games that component accounts for 80% of what the character brings and you might say in a 4e game it only accounts for 20%. And from that you might be able to argue that if 80% is about the player then the relative value of the 'character sheet bit' their HP, feats, powers, skills, spells etc is relatively less important because 8/20 versus 17/20 really equates to 88/100 versus 97/100 so they are relatively balanced anyway.
However MGuy will focus on the stuff on the character sheet because logically the rest just nets out anyway in a particular game so all you can compare is the character sheet stuff.

If you see what I mean.

(don't mean to talk for MGuy here and he can feel free to tell me to shut up if I have misconstrued his position)

This is pretty much it. I've got nothing to add on that front.

[MGuy]

This is so not true that it's laughable.  The reason why a significant portion of pages are dedicated towards combat (which you were also wrong on, btw in your claim above) is because resolving combat is more often than not reliant on a mechanical, mathematical resolution system.

I'm not sure I completely dis/agree with either of you. DnD started out as a war game and fighting stuff is the default assumption of the game. While "technically" not a lot of page space is spend directly on the mechanics of combat MOST of the game (at least as far back as 2E) is dedicated to fighting. Weapons lists, armor lists, most spells have combat effects (and are obviously intended to be used in combat), a large number of class abilities have a direct combat effect, etc. Even if you excuse the amount of combat rules to claim that other sections of the game didn't need to be fleshed out that still means most of the game's rules focused on combat to some degree. Combat in DnD is doubtlessly an expectation. Most conversations about DnD is about combat. The very act of going into a dungeon suggests that there' will be combat and you are expected to fight dragons in most games of DnD.

I mean that much is everywhere. Discussions about DnD, anecdotal stories about actual game play, it's what designers often talk about, etc. While Combat may not be all there is to DnD the designers put a lot of work into forging the combat engine and that does promote combat oriented play. If more emphasis was put on "not" fighting or there was a better minigame for things other than direct conflict then I'd agree more with Sacro. As it stands however more "stuff" is geared towards the combat minigame than any other thing you can participate in for DnD.

[MGuy]

This is what I was trying to say. The rules of the game exist to support what people are doing in game time. If all/most the classes have combat abilities and one or more classes is heavily weighted towards combat then that implies a game that's combat heavy.

Actually some classes might be more weighted to different portions of the game but that highly depends on how the game rules work. For example you'd magine that the Bard Class (3e) would be weighted very well toward the social/espionage part of the game. The bard's abilities are almost all things you'd imagine someone could use out of combat for intrigue and the like. However the Bard class falls behind because the game is geared more towards combat. Now that's not to say people can't do anything other than combat what I'm saying is more that there are so little social mechanics that the Bard's abilities often feel useless and unnecessary.

[tangent]Now this is the major problem with lacking a coded social minigame and not necessarily with the bard class itself. Given a robust and important social minigame the Bard Class would outshine others when socializing however because the rules for socializing are so FUBAR the Bard's special bits are either reduced to his High Diplomacy bonus and his "socializing" becomes a single die roll and nothing else affair or people who don't like social rules instead "role play" it out and the bard's abilities are wasted because you are playing MTP instead. This is another subject though.[/tangent]

I think you're also touching on another important point. The game should try to avoid locking out one of more characters for a long period of time. If there are say complex social rules and only one character can interact with them then the rest of the party has to spectate while he dose his stuff. This problem is usually summed up by the indictment of the 4e skill challenge system, the rules encourage one player to roll all the dice while everyone else plays Smash Bros or something. If I remember correctly this is also a problem with Shadowrun hacking, in general only one person has something to do and everyone just watches

This is something I wholesale agree with. While I don't mind a solo encounter if the rest of the group (in game) just isn't where the action is happening the game should never have a portion where, despite the whole team being present, only one person gets to do anything. 4E's Skill Challenges were bad because the math was bad and (personal experience) sometimes punished the group for having everyone participate. Shadowrun Matrix stuff is equallt frustrating.

I came up with this solution to a problem I have with other games. To break it down for those who don't want to read it is a (still unfinished) mechanic that dictates how many useful NPCs, Holds, Vehicles, Organizations, etc a PC can get to do "stuff". They work as being extra hands and allowing the players to expend a resource to directly effect/change the plot. The details and an example for how I want it to work is actually in the thread but I figure it is an example of using the rules to influence styles of play. I figure if you want to get people geared towards doing different things than expanding on that section of the game works about as well as having the GM pushing players into it. If people read your rules and think to themselves: I like the way the social/exploration/combat rules work they are more likely to pick up your rules and use them for that purpose.

[LordVreeg]

What do you know about game design 101?  How many games have you designed?



This is so not true that it's laughable.  The reason why a significant portion of pages are dedicated towards combat (which you were also wrong on, btw in your claim above) is because resolving combat is more often than not reliant on a mechanical, mathematical resolution system.  Most everything outside of combat didn't require a ton of designated rules explanations because it was role-played out at the game table based on common sense and logic.  Lack of explicit role-play rules doesn't mean that player didn't spend a lot of time role-playing.  I mean, Christ, a huge portion of the PHB is spells, but the game doesn't end up being nothing but spellcasting.

But this has already been pointed out to you, and yet you continue to hold onto these positions that have been proven as false.  You also have no experience on games you are making these generalizations about.  And you're outright lying to boot.  Each time someone points this out to you, you start complaining about how people aren't fair to you and are not arguing in good faith.

:jaw-dropping:

That's why I'm beginning to think that you're less of an incompetent like I earlier thought, and now more of just a troll.  Otherwise, most people at this point would have just said, "I've never played those games, and I was totally wrong with my preconceived notions about how they were played."

You know, I normally agree with much of what you say, But I disagree with some of this post.
The amount of space taken up by any part of a game system is a pretty good determiniate of the type of game you should be playing with it.  I am not saying you are wrong about earlier games, where the roleplay and problem solving did not take up that much space; but i notate that most games and what gamestyle they are built for can be seen by how much rulespace is dedicated to it.  Maybe not as an absolute rule, but if a ruleset has simple combat rules but tons of rules for acquiring social power and social classes and clan structures, that tells you a lot about the type of game it is built for.

[Lord Mistborn]

Christ, a huge portion of the PHB is spells, but the game doesn't end up being nothing but spellcasting.

50% of the "standard party"(fighter, rouge, priest, mage) are casters.

6 out of 8 2E phb classes cast spells

7 out of 11 3E phb classes cast spells

yeah I think spellcasting is a big part of D&D and most of those spells are probably used in combat. ^_^

This is the way some people feel RPGs should be designed. Other people feel differently. While you may have your favorite theory of the correct way to design TTRPGs, that does not mean everyone agrees with that theory or uses it.

The idea that the rules of the game should work to enable the sort sort of experience that the designers intend is the crux of modern game design. If I'm a designer and I find out that most people are ignoring the rules I wrote and MTP things instead then I would have to assume that those rules don't work and probably need to be written. CoC is not a game about fighting Cthulhu so they adjudicate the problem of "fighting Cthulhu" very simply, he just eats 1d6 investigators per round.

That's why I'm beginning to think that you're less of an incompetent like I earlier thought, and now more of just a troll.  Otherwise, most people at this point would have just said, "I've never played those games, and I was totally wrong with my preconceived notions about how they were played."

You see from where I'm sitting it's more like this.

Me/MGuy/deadDM: Game design stuff and well reasoned arguments.

Grognards: Those infidels! Advocating anything other than a return to old school, clearly they are OCD autistic rules lawyer munchkins who hate fun. We must circle the wagons and never concede any points to them ever.

[Black Vulmea]

The amount of space taken up by any part of a game system is a pretty good determiniate of the type of game you should be playing with it.

Poker has no rules for bluffing.

[Lord Mistborn]

Poker has no rules for bluffing.

However the rules of Poker encorage and reward bluffing.

There are no rules in the 3e books for minmaxing either.

[RandallS]

The idea that the rules of the game should work to enable the sort sort of experience that the designers intend is the crux of modern game design.

If true (instead of just your opinion), that might explain why many so-called "modern" TTRPGs turn me off. Fortunately, I don't have to play them, design them, or even stand by quietly while people attempt to replace the rules good "non-modern" designs with rules based your favorite modern design theory.

If I'm a designer and I find out that most people are ignoring the rules I wrote and MTP things instead then I would have to assume that those rules don't work and probably need to be written.

Whereas I'd simply assume that this shows that people don't want mechanical rules for that part of the game and would prefer to have the GM simply rule on things. After all, if my rules were bad and they wanted rules instead of the GM rulings they are using, they would have likely created some rules to replace the ones of mine they do not like.

[StormBringer]

50% of the "standard party"(fighter, rouge, priest, mage) are casters.

6 out of 8 2E phb classes cast spells

7 out of 11 3E phb classes cast spells

yeah I think spellcasting is a big part of D&D and most of those spells are probably used in combat. ^_^

For those of you following along at home, this is pretty textbook goalpost shifting.  In the first instance, we have 50% of the "standard party", but the other two are total classes.  In 1st edition, there are ten total classes,  and only four of them could be considered 'spell users'.  The Paladin and the Ranger eventually get spells, but it is at about mid-levels, and they are never particularly powerful.  The classes could be considered a half, taken together, so 45% of the original AD&D classes are spell-users.

In 2nd edition, once again, Paladins and Rangers do not get spells until mid-levels, although the Bard gets spells almost right away.  So, out of the eight classes in the core book, four of them could be called 'spell casters'.  Another 'half' for Paladins and Rangers makes 56.25%.

Secondly, as I have done before, an examination of the spell lists themselves shows a pretty even mix of combat, non-combat, and utility spells.  Perhaps a third of the spells are usable more or less strictly in combat; another third can be useful in combat, but mostly used outside of combat; and the remaining third are utility spells that don't have any direct combat applications.  'Most' of the spells are not used in combat, in other words.

About half the classes in 1st and 2nd edition are casting classes.  A small number of spells are strictly combat oriented.  Hardly the overwhelming super-majorities the above argument claims.  I thought Lord Mistborn had been advised that speaking with authourity about editions where he has neither knowledge nor experience is a bad idea.

[StormBringer]

However the rules of Poker encorage and reward bluffing.

How so?  Cite a poker 'rule' that encourages or rewards bluffing.

[jibbajibba]

How so?  Cite a poker 'rule' that encourages or rewards bluffing.

There are no rules in Poker that encourage or reward bluffing. There are rules in the playing of poker for money , ie gambling over poker that reward and encourage bluffing.

If you play poker without gambling then bluffing is pointless.

[deadDMwalking]

Does D&D (any edition) reward combat?

Yes.  You get experience points for murdering humanoids and anything else that's called a 'monster'.  

If you want to level-up, which is a built-in assumption of the game, you need to plan on killing things.

Suggestions for giving XP for 'bypassing' an encounter or as a 'role-playing' award are just that - suggestions.  While different DMs may encourage other styles of play, they're swimming upstream.  

So while it's possible that the game having only 1 page devoted to combat and 99 pages devoted to everything else might seem to have little in it to encourage combat, you can get a true sense of what the game 'intends' based on how characters are rewarded.  In D&D, it's by killing monsters (and/or stealing treasure).  

It doesn't have to be 'hack & slash' which is intended to be derogatory, but it tends to have a significant amount of combat - and the game REWARDS success in combat.  That's part of the reason why all classes need to be good at combat - if only Fighters were good at it, they'd be the only one advancing to name level.

[LordVreeg]

There are no rules in Poker that encourage or reward bluffing. There are rules in the playing of poker for money , ie gambling over poker that reward and encourage bluffing.

If you play poker without gambling then bluffing is pointless.

DAmnit, beat me to it.

[Lord Mistborn]

Sigh, once again deadDMwalking states my position better than I do.

Apparently StormBringer can't into not only logic but also sarcasm.