Somewhere in this thread people have made a leap from talking about game balance to talking about perfect game balance and arena/vacuum game balance. That isn't how the thread started.

Quote from: soviet;679801Somewhere in this thread people have made a leap from talking about game balance to talking about perfect game balance and arena/vacuum game balance. That isn't how the thread started.

We are speaking in a vacuum though. What are some examples of balanced games in your opinion and imbalanced games.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;679804We are speaking in a vacuum though. What are some examples of balanced games in your opinion and imbalanced games.

I think that D&D 4e is a balanced game and D&D 3e is an imbalanced game.

And thinking about it that's a good comparison because they both try to do very similar things.

(This is not me arguing that 4e is the perfect ever game system or something BTW.)

(That would be Other Worlds )

Quote from: soviet;679806I think that D&D 4e is a balanced game and D&D 3e is an imbalanced game.

Okay. Those are two extreme ends i think. Do you think that the balance in 4E makes it a more enjoyable game?

For me, that is an example of exactly what people have in mind when they say. Balance is bad. I find 4E dull and unfun because of how balanced it is and how it is balanced. I find 3E fun and exciting, to some extent, because it has spikes and valleys in balance. So if those are my two choices, i would go with the less balanced 3E over the balanced 4E.

I do not think balance is bad, or that imbalance is good. I just think the kind of balance advanced by games like 4E tends to produce games I dont enjoy. I also think i am more open to balance that isnt so focused on parity. To me this is a classic case of balance not being weighed against other considerations, where the flavor of spells and spell casters lost a lot in an effort to make the game more balanced.

The simple, factual truth of the matter is that every player is different: Every player has a different notion of what is fun and not fun, every player likes to engage different levels of game play differenlty, including the rules themselves, which are just one tiny part of the equation, and NOT the whole equation itself, every player has different tastes, inclinations, intellect, and ways to use that intellect, some play to chill after a day's work, others not, etc.

So if you could somehow realize full, absolute theoretical rules balance on the printed page, these elements would come into play differently for each table and each player concerned, which means that the same feat in the hands of two different players would be used differently, and have different relevance, and usefulness, for each player concerned.

The ONLY way to mitigate this is to essentially can the gameplay, ensure that whoever is playing the game runs the exact same way, and that is a goal which I find is counter-intuitive, and really nocive, to the real, quintessential potential of roleplaying games as games of your imagination, to use the old TSR tag line. It's the polar opposite of what RPGs achieve that is unique compared to other game formats, and consequently, it is a notion that should be dragged in the barn at the end of the hobby's backyard and shot in the head once and for all, as far as I am concerned.

Conclusion: "game" (which really only means "rules" in today's parlance) balance is a theoretical pipe dream, and only BNGs with way too much time spent talking about games instead of, you know, playing them, will actually give a shit about this.

ACTUAL game balance (not just rules balance) is NOT necessarily a bad thing, but it can be achieved in many, many different ways, AND is not necessarily a prime component of a fun game to play for at least some people, as assymetric game design and organic/cultural developments have proven over centuries of actual game play.

It just depends on what you constitute as fun, and from there, what exactly you want to achieve with a particular design.

TL;DR: depends.

IME being concerned about "balance" is indicative of a player I want nothing to do with. Universally they have sucked the fun from games I've run and been nit-picking buzzkills.

Quote from: Piestrio;679816IME being concerned about "balance" is indicative of a player I want nothing to do with. Universally they have sucked the fun from games I've run and been nit-picking buzzkills.

Yep.

Quote from: Piestrio;679816IME being concerned about "balance" is indicative of a player I want nothing to do with. Universally they have sucked the fun from games I've run and been nit-picking buzzkills.

I think they've done more than that; they actual harmed the hobby.

For a tabletop pencil and paper rpg game, the answer to the OP is not so obvious.

For a video game with an emphasis on combat, balance in the technical execution rules may very well be a huge emphasis.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;679774Does balance mean a lack of power disparity? Does parity over time count as balance?

Well, that would depend on how long each individual campaign lasts, which is a variable that you (Usually) can't control as an RPG author, ending a campaign is a table-level event.

For example, let's say our fighters are strong at low levels and fade at higher, wizards are strong at high levels but rubbish at lower.
If the campaign never gets to higher levels, the fighter is stronger all the way through. If the campaign gets to high levels, then the wizard is going to get more time being stronger the longer the campaign goes on. Is that fun for the fighter or the wizard? Maybe, maybe not. And if the fighter doesn't get to fight much during those early levels, was he ever in the area he was balanced for (Answer : no).

Better, IMO, to give everyone their own field of specialty and demonstrate to GM's how to include multiple ways of solving problems in their adventures, ie. balance by screen time over the course of an "adventure", however long that takes.

Quote from: ggroy;679821For a tabletop pencil and paper rpg game, the answer to the OP is not so obvious.

For a video game with an emphasis on combat, balance in the technical execution rules may very well be a huge emphasis.

Yep.  Also, a good, creative role-player will dance circles around an uncreative or uninvolved role-player in terms of what can be accomplished in the game, regardless of who has the "more powerful" character.

Because unlike a video game, face to face allows you to interact with the entire environment in a non-linear way.  Computers can't do that.  My older brother, way back in a 1e game, had a thief that ended up killing more than half of the total bandit force himself because of the way he stalked them and set up ambushes.

RPGs are not limited to +/- modifiers and stat blocks on a character sheet.

Quote from: Ladybird;679850Well, that would depend on how long each individual campaign lasts, which is a variable that you (Usually) can't control as an RPG author, ending a campaign is a table-level event.

For example, let's say our fighters are strong at low levels and fade at higher, wizards are strong at high levels but rubbish at lower.
If the campaign never gets to higher levels, the fighter is stronger all the way through. If the campaign gets to high levels, then the wizard is going to get more time being stronger the longer the campaign goes on. Is that fun for the fighter or the wizard? Maybe, maybe not. And if the fighter doesn't get to fight much during those early levels, was he ever in the area he was balanced for (Answer : no).

Better, IMO, to give everyone their own field of specialty and demonstrate to GM's how to include multiple ways of solving problems in their adventures, ie. balance by screen time over the course of an "adventure", however long that takes.

The problem with this solution is it punishes the people who like long campaigns with balance occurring over that timeframe, to accommodate people who do not play full length campaigns. My opinion is both are viable and you make the game based on what you think the norm is.

My issue isn't that I think balance is bad. It is that leading up to 4E and in its wake we have had a 'one size fits all' argument out there for balance (i.e. it is better to balance through field specialty than to balance over the course of the campaign....well that depends on the group, it may be better for you but isn't necessarily better for me).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;679861The problem with this solution is it punishes the people who like long campaigns with balance occurring over that timeframe, to accommodate people who do not play full length campaigns. My opinion is both are viable and you make the game based on what you think the norm is.

It doesn't "punish" anyone. It just works differently.

Defining "full length campaign" is the problem, though. As a game designer, you don't have much control over how many sessions a campaign lasts. Really, the best you can do is say "this game is designed assuming campaigns of this particular length. These classes are designed to be powerful early on, these later on. You may want to revise some things if you're playing a longer or shorter game, or even just play something else" (And you probably should say something like this, regardless of your game, because designer notes are interesting and help with system hacking later on).

Quote from: Ladybird;679870It doesn't "punish" anyone. It just works differently.

).

If it is one possible solution among many, sure. But if it is being held up as the only way to balance, then it does. My whole point is these are just different ways to balance. One size fits all, is a bad measure of game balance.