Quote from: RPGPundit;682249Obviously some level of basic balance is required in a game, so you can't just say "ignore balance completely", but there's the "balance" of being able to create broadly-playable groups, and the "balance" of insisting that every class be exactly equally weighted in every possible respect.  Those are two very different things.

Yeah I'd view the latter as actively counterproductive - you may as well just have one class and leave it at that if all classes are meant to be equal. Actually that's kind of what classless point buy systems already do, 4e's mistake appears to have been trying to mimic that while still retaining discrete classes.

Y'know, I just ran my Dark Sun 5e game. The heroes decided they were going to set a trap for a travelling general from South Leopedus. They knew that he was travelling with a 'very small' contingent, and would arrive at Fort Glamis sometime the next day. So they go out and prepare the ambush.
 It's a thing of beauty: The characters are all set up, and they wait. And wait. And five hours later, the sole wagon trundles by. With no small amount of trepidation, they launch their assault. It opens with the ranger casting spike growth. Then the paladin casts Darkness. Then the fighter rolls a boulder into the wagon.

And then three vampires leap out of the wagon. There is one magical weapon between the four of them. 5e vampires are back to being immune to nonmagical weapons.

They end up using their scroll of protection from undead. They learn that fire hurts them, and the Paladin's divine damage is the only thing really taking chunks of them out. So they have this system of constantly moving outside the protection from undead spell, attacking, and moving back in, hoping their saves hold out from the relentless Dominate attempts.

In the end, the combat monster fighter was only able to drop 1d4 damage thanks to his flaming sword. The Monk made judicious use of his Fire path, acting as the 'tank' and taking fire. The Ranger held the vampires at bay with the spells he had.

But the hero of the day was Mimi Appletoad, the Assassin from Kankbottom. The little ancestor-worshiping halfling paladin killed the master vampire and the two brides.

That's the kind of balance most people want: people are okay with being the odd man out from time to time if they get a chance to shine when it matters most. Not to get all Swine-y on you, but when a player picks their class, they're telling you what matters most to them.

Quote from: RPGPundit;682249Obviously some level of basic balance is required in a game, so you can't just say "ignore balance completely", but there's the "balance" of being able to create broadly-playable groups, and the "balance" of insisting that every class be exactly equally weighted in every possible respect.  Those are two very different things.

RPGPundit

My favorite example is Batman and Superman, as opposed to Superman and Jimmie Olson.  In the Batman case, the Batman character gets to do interesting things and has an impact as a empowered actor in the story.  

Nobody cares that Superman is stronger, and in fact his strength can weaken him.  He has to be far more careful whereas Batman can push a lot of limits.  And being the smart guy who figures stuff out isn't a boring role either.

Quote from: RPGPundit;682249Obviously some level of basic balance is required in a game, so you can't just say "ignore balance completely", but there's the "balance" of being able to create broadly-playable groups, and the "balance" of insisting that every class be exactly equally weighted in every possible respect.  Those are two very different things.

Who exactly is arguing for the second one?

Quote from: StormBringer;680996The degree to which a game is balanced is the degree to which it provides a greater number of interesting choices than obvious choices.

That's a pretty useful statement. Different people may place emphasis on different axis or means of balance, but that sums up well the basic function.

Quote from: soviet;682615Who exactly is arguing for the second one?

Currently it's the majority opinion on rpgnet - or at least the one enforced by the mods. Also characteristic of people I've encountered from The Gaming Den.

Quote from: StormBringer;681000I know what you are saying, there are valid reasons for the one attempt.

Chiefly, that "Plan A: Just Because I'm a Type X Figure (and I Got a Lucky Roll)" gets BORING pretty quickly. There's little or no live choice or creative thinking involved. It's more interesting to move on to Plan B (which can also get dull if it gets too stereotyped).

Many people find the same in simple "hit, miss, miss, hit" combat. Some sort of maneuver, use of terrain, or other tactics becomes necessary to sustain interest.

Quote from: mcbobbo;681241And see, I have always interpreted the emotional state at the table as equivalent to these forces.  It it wouldn't be fun for that lock to be locked, then it never was.  It isn't as if I have a hard time imagining an unlocked door.

Some considerations that may vary from one group to another:

1) Fun for whom? There was some advice in Legend of the Five Rings (and similar text elsewhere) that boiled down to "for the GM," since the example was of thoroughly smacking down something a player was finding great fun. That might or might not find agreement from a given player.

2) Is it this or that particular thing (e.g., a door) that is the more important contributor to game fun content, or is it instead a wider process? For some common definitions both of "role playing" and of "game playing," certain attitudes toward the particular are counter-productive of the more important general.

Quote from: mcbobbo;681270Like I said, 'more fun' is the goal.  If I thought you were enjoying unlocking them, I would lock more of them.  I try hard to read my table and adapt things to fit.

I bet some of you already do this with other things, too.  Like number of opponents,  maybe? Say you get a sense that people are tired of combat tonight, so you trim the number of kobolds?

You clearly have adapted to players who prefer a more GM-driven game (which I have been attempting to do in recent years). In a more player-driven game, the answer to being tired of X (unlocking locks, fighting kobolds, whatever) is to choose a different course of action.

It can be pretty difficult for players long 'trained' to GM-driven habits to shift gears to taking responsibility for their own use of time. Going the other way, the difficulty seems to rest more on GMs who find it hard to moderate a game that takes a course they did not anticipate.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;681312So I guess what I'm getting at is that I'd prefer a game world where everything in it reacts to the actions in the game world, and individuals or groups of people just don't disappear because the PCs want to get to the next murder hobo dungeon.  IMO, there is a lot of role-playing opportunities to be lost there by doing that.

This factor of wide-ranging exploration or simulation is for many of us (especially old-timers) a key part of the appeal of paper & pencil RPGs, and a relative deficiency in computer games so far. It's the big departure from the field of wargames from which D&D, etc., branched off: the radical opening up of the scenario, of the domain of possible moves and strategies.

Quote from: mcbobbo;681313I find the duality where things can spring into existence but cannot likewise cease to exist hard to understand. As far as the PCs know, the room always was as they find it.

As far as the players know, they are not really free to explore, their apparent choices are false choices, because you are playing a rigged "shell game" on them.

Quote from: Votan;682555My favorite example is Batman and Superman, as opposed to Superman and Jimmie Olson.  In the Batman case, the Batman character gets to do interesting things and has an impact as a empowered actor in the story.  

Nobody cares that Superman is stronger, and in fact his strength can weaken him.  He has to be far more careful whereas Batman can push a lot of limits.  And being the smart guy who figures stuff out isn't a boring role either.

Perhaps curiously, I have found usual concepts of character balance not very important in superhero games. This has to do with the way things work in comicbooks, and the degree to which a game emulates that source material.