For there were no more worlds to conquer
That's the designers job. If they do it well, we can just play it
There might possibly be a middle ground between "balance is pointless and doesn't matter" and this.
It’s just reflecting the setting accurately. It’s like I said above, Gazelle’s aren’t faster than Lions so that Cheetahs will get to eat too, or share the spotlight.
Verisimilitude is one game design goal, balance is another. It's true of strategy wargames as well - do you want to make a battle as true to reality as possible, or as balanced a game as you can? Design for the outcome you prioritise. Doesn't mean either has no meaning.
Which actually was my point. You can “engage in the game” without Mathhammering everything, and not Mathhammering everything doesn’t mean you’re LARPing.
I agree. Which was why in my post I was saying absolute balance probably doesn't exist, and isn't worth trying to hunt. I just think vague attempts are generally not a bad idea. Especially in systems that are effectively settingless, so they don't have setting conceits to drive the decisions.
Yes it is. In a dysfunctional, somewhat spectrum based way. But it is engaging.
Sure, but you can still take things that make sense for the character you want to play, accept that Chargen is about making choices, and not bitch whenever anyone does something better than you.
That's technically true, but not in a way that is enjoyable for many players.
Any ruleset should do what it’s designed to do. If the goal is to give players lots of tactical choice and verisimilitude is not a word in your vocabulary - boom, 4e. If verisimilitude and setting context are what you care about, and balance is making sure your books and figures don’t fall - boom, MERP and WFRP. If designing games is stream-of-consciousness shit you think is fun structured and organised like a Pollock painting - boom, Palladium Games.
It’s enjoyable for many players, just not the same ones.
If the reason the players showed up is because they actually like having setting integrity for once and realize they can get “whatever the players want, setting be damned” on every other bog standard gaming table in the Solar System then they’re getting the benefit they want. The new person who doesn’t like it probably just needs a different table. They’re entitled to play the way they want, they’re not entitled to force everyone else at the table to do so also.
I'm of the opinion that "we like rolling at this table, so you should roll too" is just as much forcing people to play the way they want to as "we don't like rolling, so you shouldn't roll either"; players who want to roll should get to, and players who don't want to roll shouldn't have to. I don't have much sympathy with folk who think someone else shouldn't get to roll (Or pick) just because they didn't want to roll or pick.
Yeah, while input balance is technically balanced, it feels an odd example to me. As you say, it often leads to the opposite in practice. Stuff only starts to even out if you're playing the kind of game where you expect to go through ten or more characters.
For me it is not even playing the character I want to play, as in catering to my specific needs and specific concept, it is when the game designer gets all hot for some character class concept that is just so much better in a role than any other in that role plus there are extras. No surprise if one looks at the history of these things the more capable character class comes later, it's simply power creep. For me, it is no different in effect than weapon fetishes, actually worse for ones setting.
Why not both? A random as well as point buy option? It's not hard to do or balance or even make one slightly better than the other if one is inclined to do so.
Agree and disagree, rereading the dragons and correlating it with what was going on at the time at TSR and speculate in his personal life, think he just lost his feel for the gaming community and his customers, and improving on and invigorating D&Ds design. At the time this was all coming out he was busy trying to get a movie going and divorce also in this time period. Certain he was making great content for his group, and his setting, and the way they played, but that sadly was no longer enough and too late.
Generally speaking a table has one rolling method. If everyone's cool then sure, do what you want, but don't expect it. That smacks of entitlement.
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They might be the best solo combatants in D&D, when compared to other classes of the same level.
I do, and I am, and I have a string of posts awaiting polish in my blog queue on using 13th Age with swashbuckling games like Flashing Blades.
Are you familiar with The Gaming Den?
Think you just laid out how that can be done, the simple thing is as you say to make INT cost more. The more something can do the more it costs, pretty simple. On the others, that sounds like a great way to balance, you want the high INT you will need to forgo the advantageous SIZ and DEX, and vice versa.
I do not see how that a character survived a long time through good play means there is balance in the game mechanics, it means they are a good player, and I assume as time goes on their character improves so the initial rolls are eventually overcome by other improvements. If anything, it may mean the advantage given by this stat is not as determinative as it appears on paper.
That's exactly my point about role or niche. I don't care if a Barbarian is a better solo fighter than a class that is about stealth, or magic, or something else.
I think this kind of design is just generally bad design.
Joining an established group and expecting them all to change things to your method when you’re a player? I couldn’t even possibly imagine the mindset that would expect that.
Is it though? If what you’re concerned with most is that you can’t point buy to maximize DPS, is it cooperative?
1) Focus of my argument was on CRKruegers argument (and I paraphrase) that fidelity to a setting is more important than considerations of balance, so my duellist was a counter argument to 'Barbarians should be the best fighters if that's what the setting says' that it doesn't make for the best games. A barbarian should absolutely have the capability of being best at Strength things, Wilderness things and anything else that is considered in his remit, but should not also be the best at fighting always. Unless everyone is a barbarian, in which case, not such an issue.
Its about game design, and as we know wargames birthed roleplaying in large part. I utterly reject the premise that balancing character effectiveness in roleplaying system design is impossible/without merit.
