Whether as a DM or a game designer, you get told by "experts" that "game balance" is important. That's wrong; balance will almost always make for a worse experience.

Yes, no, Maybe.

AD&D had a certain balance to it. But it was not in any way the same as the balance of say 4e.

AD&D balances mostly with the power curves of the classes and the rarity curves of gaining some classes. And in the Druid and Monk cases for example, defined level limits. And so on. Nuance.

4e feels very homogenized. Very board game-y.

5e feels balanced in a way, a bit of 4e a bit of A. It works where 4e failed.

3e is the tough one. I have the least experience with. It feels to me like it works... but only as long as no one is trying to break it. But that is a problem with every edition. Just 3 and 5e lend too well to being broken if the DM did not say "No"

Game balance is an important part of maintaining a campaign. The balance is what keeps the campaign from becoming a Monty Haul joke with little challenge or a soul crushing meatgrinder that makes gaining level two an impossibility. Taking an analogy from Mr. Miyagi, balance  not just for combat. Balance is for whole campaign. When one tries to apply balance on the micro level, turn by turn, move by move, you get too much board game design philosophy in the rpg. Balance on a macro level is what is needed to keep the game challenging and engaging.

This macro approach to balance is a factor that drives player engagement. For example, players love to come up with strange & outrageous ideas and approaches-but only if there is a change that they will work. If there is too much balance applied at the micro level, then all such attempts will get watered down to fit within the tight rule parameters of things the rules were built to handle. As a consequence, players will cease trying to think of cool stuff and just use the bog standard menu of options because the rules will reduce anything else down to one of them anyway. This is how balance at the micro level can kill player engagement.

Macro level balance takes the campaign as a whole into account and doesn't concern itself with a few incidents of creative play resulting in big wins for the players here and there. Maintaining challenge and engagement over the campaign course is the goal, not making sure that each individual trial or challenge has that perfect balance. From experience I know that players who know that their creativity and ideas can really impact outcomes, are more focused and engaged in the game. That is well worth a little imbalance here and there.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on February 19, 2025, 07:58:24 AMGame balance is an important part of maintaining a campaign. The balance is what keeps the campaign from becoming a Monty Haul joke with little challenge or a soul crushing meatgrinder that makes gaining level two an impossibility. Taking an analogy from Mr. Miyagi, balance  not just for combat. Balance is for whole campaign. When one tries to apply balance on the micro level, turn by turn, move by move, you get too much board game design philosophy in the rpg. Balance on a macro level is what is needed to keep the game challenging and engaging.

This macro approach to balance is a factor that drives player engagement. For example, players love to come up with strange & outrageous ideas and approaches-but only if there is a change that they will work. If there is too much balance applied at the micro level, then all such attempts will get watered down to fit within the tight rule parameters of things the rules were built to handle. As a consequence, players will cease trying to think of cool stuff and just use the bog standard menu of options because the rules will reduce anything else down to one of them anyway. This is how balance at the micro level can kill player engagement.

Macro level balance takes the campaign as a whole into account and doesn't concern itself with a few incidents of creative play resulting in big wins for the players here and there. Maintaining challenge and engagement over the campaign course is the goal, not making sure that each individual trial or challenge has that perfect balance. From experience I know that players who know that their creativity and ideas can really impact outcomes, are more focused and engaged in the game. That is well worth a little imbalance here and there.

Greetings!

Absolutely right, Exploderwizard! Balance emphasis on too micro of level gets tedious and can really grind a game in bad ways. On the macro level, as you said, maintaining balance from that level is critical and essential for the game as a whole.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Interesting vid. I was struck by the highly individualistic ethos in this endeavour to make all characters equal in their ability to contribute across all situations. I've never played a game with this design approach, but I take your word for it. I think it is ironic though, given that the political ethos of these game companies (e.g. WOTC) is allegedly left wing.

In a collaborative, cooperative model of play, where players are willing to pass the torch around, waxing and waning in terms of their (mechanical) efficacy at times, each character's distinctive abilities benefit everyone (e.g. when the thief pulls off that backstab or the fighter delivers a devastating blow).

But the individualistic approach to game balance you described operates on the assumption that players will not be able to abide being in the background sometimes, or that other players might enjoy a temporary limelight (mechanically) when a situation fits their distinctive capabilities.

In other words, these game designers treat players as fragile and assume they need to experience a 'group equality' that's thoroughly individualistic.

Balance is crucial but not on the nuts and bolts, turn by turn level in combat.

Actually imbalance on smaller level is better so that everyone can do awesome stuff under different circumstances both in combat and outside it. If no ability/spell stands out the characters will all be the same just as if a fighters abilities feel identical to a wizards all characters become the same and that was a common complaint for 4e.

Balance to strive for is that looking over a session or a few sessions, everyone gets as much bang for their buck even if it is unevenly distributed in different encounters. Let the wizard be great at room clearing while the fighter shines in one on one fights and so on.

Balance between characters is important, it just shouldn't be balance by symmetry - which is the easiest/laziest method of balance. (The D&D 4e method.)

Even in combat, if it's a combat heavy system then everyone should be in the same ballpark. Not equally powerful overall, but feel like they're pulling their weight.

As a classic one example - clerics with undead. Against undead traditionally clerics are kinda OP due to their specifically anti-undead abilities. But that doesn't mean that the rest of the party is worthless.

A Rock-paper-scissors system can be helpful for this to have characters be useful at different times and never really feel like they're being carried.

Balance should be a concern but not THE priority.   Or more accurately, there shouldn't be a notable or obvious imbalance between player options.

This title is kinda clickbait.  Pundit's actual argument isn't even that balance is bad (he spends much of the video arguing for what I understand as balance), it's pointing out that there's a definite trend (and if it was just D&D 5e that would be enough, but Pathfinder 2 does it as well, and so did D&D 4e, and many of the modern smaller games with celebrity access trying to kidnap some of 5e's audience are doing this too) of trying to force everyone to have roughly equal power in almost every situation.

I think the big deal is combat- most games have relatively detailed combat minigames (for D&D, some players just care about that, it's the draw for them), and out of concern that a character can undercontribute, supply more and more options for even the least combat-oriented character to provide a relatively high baseline of contribution.

Is this a big enough issue in practice?  I don't think Pundit bothers to make that case very strongly.  Homogenization of actions is a problem in 5e, but the game tries to have enough mechanical complexity that it's at least interesting- big effects with low chances of success, various defenses to target with weaker attacks so that you can choose something consistent, effects with riders, all of which tend to allow for a character whose main concern isn't combat to do something that can be good, but probably isn't as good as a fighting-oriented character. 

The big advantage of avoiding this is that the interactions between characters are much more interesting if they have different specialties.  Additionally, if you're playing a game that is not tailored directly to you (as in, the challenges in a given location would be the same regardless of your party composition and level), having a bunch of guys that are similar means that you will get totally wrecked should you need something else (a pile of mages against magic resistant monsters, for instance), which provides built-in incentive to have a wide pool of talents.  And the emergent play from this is way more interesting- and these are points Pundit expands on and makes a solid case for in the video.


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I had two thoughts not strictly related to the video but related to the idea of characters who are specialized in non-combat things.

1- What are good ways to avoid the "we have a guy who is good at repairing hyperdrive engines, and look what breaks in the middle of combat" situations, wherein a specialist / rogue / expert / engineer character ends up with a situation just crafted for him?  It's well within the kit of a fantasy game to have a locked door, but as a general trope how can these situations be constructed so as to not be forced?
2- A social situation often results in many players speaking their mind to an NPC.  Modern games have a variety of dice mechanics here (they usually lack many details as to how to apply them, however), and older games often give no guidance, or very minimal (Charisma and reaction roll).  Is "I'm good at talking" a valid thing to spend character build concept on in OSR games at all?  Is there a way to make this work in a modern game without trivializing what is actually being said by the players?

Quote from: Venka on February 20, 2025, 12:10:28 PM1- What are good ways to avoid the "we have a guy who is good at repairing hyperdrive engines, and look what breaks in the middle of combat" situations, wherein a specialist / rogue / expert / engineer character ends up with a situation just crafted for him?  It's well within the kit of a fantasy game to have a locked door, but as a general trope how can these situations be constructed so as to not be forced?

As a general principle, I'd say "provide rich environments", full of possibility, and let the specialists create their own situations.

Another thought: have critical misses (or other fighter-generated events) trigger environmental issues for the specialist to deal with.

Quote from: Venka on February 20, 2025, 12:10:28 PM2- A social situation often results in many players speaking their mind to an NPC.  Modern games have a variety of dice mechanics here (they usually lack many details as to how to apply them, however), and older games often give no guidance, or very minimal (Charisma and reaction roll).  Is "I'm good at talking" a valid thing to spend character build concept on in OSR games at all?  Is there a way to make this work in a modern game without trivializing what is actually being said by the players?

There's lots of talk on this forum about this subject. Folks go both ways. I'm in the camp that prefers social interaction to be entirely on the players. Alex Macris has a nice clear explanation about how he uses a hybrid approach that I've heard or read a few times (somehwere on this forum, maybe also on his YouTube channel).

The problem is the martial/caster disparity. Casters are given spells for every imaginable problem, while martials are extremely specialized  in just hitting stuff while standing still. They're not nearly as useful in any capacity as a spell. A rogue has to make skill checks to detect traps or pick locks, whereas a caster can cast a spell that automatically does so without a roll. Martials have to deck themselves in new magic items every level to address problems, leading to the Christmas tree effect. Etc.

This is stupid design. Sure, 4e "solved" it with a chainsaw, but at least it tried. 3e, 5e, etc. just put their fingers in their ears and pretend there's no problem.

Numerous solutions have been proposed over the years like allowing equipment to level up with martials, give them fighting styles and martial maneuvers, access to ki, etc. Nothing ever sticks. In fact, martials have steadily lost advantages over the editions, such as strongholds being dropped in 3e and never coming back since.

"Balance" is relative to rules describing how the world operates presumably post-hoc to the setting conceits.

"Balance" in terms of running a game is the GM making sure the implementation of those rules are consistent to the aforementioned conceits AND bends those conceits to the will of the players based on their agency within the game. The corollary of this is that the GM should be willing to change those conceits to match exceptions they introduced, organically. The only limitation on this is the skills of the GM in question.

Dumbasses that think by numerically balancing all options within the rules will produce a perfectly balanced game on the table, magically on their own, are delusional. It will neither work, nor be fun.

The only balance needed in D&D is encounter against the PCs. And that is not an absolute. it is supposed to provide enough to challenge the PCs to a certain degree. But not overpower them.

No, it always makes for a better experience. Try good systems some time.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley on February 20, 2025, 02:45:28 PMThe only balance needed in D&D is encounter against the PCs. And that is not an absolute. it is supposed to provide enough to challenge the PCs to a certain degree. But not overpower them.

Obviously false. Intraparty balance is the only balance that matters. The GM can do whatever he wants, so the idea of a balanced encounter is nonsensical, and not desirable in any case.

If some classes fail a same game test, then those classes are objectively bad and should either be re-written or removed.

Balance is a fool's errand, and also basically pointless. It's why 4E (at least on the PC side) sucked balls.