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Post by Martin on Jun 2, 2013 6:02:32 GMT -8
How important is game balance?
By game balance I am refering to the idea that any and all encounters, traps, road blocks, etc. the PCs will interact with are numaricaly and mechanically created for the PCs to be able to overcome. The question is: Should balance or story or some combination be the goal of the game session?
For me it is the story that is told by the group and initiated by the GM. I am not a fan of balance and it gets little consideration from me. If the party does something crazy in a game that crazy gets you dead, then they will likely die. However, the group decides what they do and I don't administer rails, just a softly whispered suggestion and a setting.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2013 6:53:13 GMT -8
I think this is one of those situations where it comes down to what type of game is the group after. If the players are expecting a combat heavy dungeon crawl for example then having relatively balanced encounters becomes more important in order to avoid TPKs from becoming a regular occurrence. Sure if they do something insanely stupid (such as charging an entire enemy army) then the encounter shouldn't be balanced, it should reflect the story, but it should be as a result of the player actions not because the GM wants to throw a wall in their way (ie "We'll sneak in though that sewer we used last time. Oh wait it's now full of giant poisonous rats that have eaten our faces, guess it's time to roll another character")
The trick though is not to paint them into an autodeath scenario, which I think requires two elements. One, the ability for the players to recognise / deduce how difficult the encounter is. This could be as simple as "you're outnumbered 4:1" or something along the lines of "these soldiers are wearing the uniforms of the Kings elite guards, they're clearly not the town militia you were expecting". Two, a way to survive the encounter that isn't winning. Running away is the obvious and easiest solution, being captured is another but generally there should be an out the PCs can take once they've realised how against them the encounter is. Then they can regroup, rethink and try to come up with a new plan to take on or get around the encounter.
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Post by jazzisblues on Jun 3, 2013 5:12:24 GMT -8
Personally I think that balance should be an organic thing. By this I mean that rather than worrying so much about numerical balance for every encounter the game should be written to give the characters a challenge, but some encounters within it are going to be easy and some are going to be more challenging and some are going to be so terrifying to contemplate that the characters don't even think of charging into the howling horde of goblins. The thing that I try to keep in mind is to present the encounter with some clue as to how the characters should perceive it.
Mook is pure genius at this (though that's not a shock really).
When we go into an encounter based on Mook's descriptions I have a really good idea of how hard I expect it to be, and that often informs my decisions about what I do in character.
Cheers,
JiB
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maxinstuff
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Post by maxinstuff on Jun 4, 2013 3:34:23 GMT -8
Balance is only important if combat is the only way to win.
I have a few concepts/rules I (try to) adhere to if a challenge is not combat-balanced.
1. Strong alternatives - there have to be alternate courses of action that are equally attractive to the players.
2. Multiple solutions - combat shouldn't be the only way to 'win'.
3. RUN AWAY - if the characters still get themselves into an impossible combat situation, try to ensure retreat is an available option (even if there is a cost).
I'm sure others will have more.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Jun 4, 2013 6:33:57 GMT -8
When we go into an encounter based on Mook's descriptions I have a really good idea of how hard I expect it to be, and that often informs my decisions about what I do in character. Cheers, JiB ^ This. A role-playing game needs players interacting in their roles. A GM is the sensual input to the other players. Without the GM doing his/her job in this regard - OR without the players understanding that the GM is imparting essential data within that interaction of the game - the game is all dice. There is no balance here. There is collaboration. A dice game, like craps for example, has odds for success. They're slim odds. But the players of such games know that, eventually, the odds in an ongoing game dictate players are going to roll poorly more often than the house. A lot of this is apparent in role-playing games that stress fudging and soft failure. It's called balance. And such a game requires neither mediation from a GM role nor player interaction within their roles to be successful.
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maxinstuff
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Post by maxinstuff on Jun 4, 2013 17:08:20 GMT -8
A dice game, like craps for example, has odds for success. They're slim odds. But the players of such games know that, eventually, the odds in an ongoing game dictate players are going to roll poorly more often than the house. A lot of this is apparent in role-playing games that stress fudging and soft failure. It's called balance. And such a game requires neither mediation from a GM role nor player interaction within their roles to be successful. I think this is a really good point to explore - all the balance in the world is for naught if the dice are not behaving themselves. This is why I think grittier systems lean towards more 'fair' mechanics (like the 3d6 bell curve) with a more certain result, and more random ones (like d20) where anything can happen on a given roll tend to soften the outcome (I lost a few HP, no biggie). These are two very different approaches to balance which achieve much the same net outcome. Which of the approaches you prefer is down to whatever you find more fun. I personally prefer the 3d6 bell curve as the numbers behave much more consistently. This generally means you can run a much grittier game while still being balanced - and have much faster combats as a result. I wont go into detail as to why - or I will risk derailing the thread.
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Jun 4, 2013 18:08:53 GMT -8
"Balance" is a crock of shit. If every encounter is built mechanically and numerically so that the PCs are capable of overcoming it, what's the point of playing? If every encounter is "balanced" so that the PC's have a 50/50 chance of beating it, there's no excitement in my opinion. I guess you could play to see how many resources you have to burn to get through the encounter (HP, time, healing surges, spell points, materials, etc.), but that seems incredibly boring.
Any and every encounter should be appropriate for the fiction of the game world. As discussed by the hosts on a previous show, if you fight with the city watch, they're gonna call a bunch of reinforcements down on your ass and you'll have an unwinnable encounter on your hands. Unless you run. And even then they might track you down and kill you anyway.
There is another kind of balance that hasn't been mentioned yet. The balance a GM has to reach between "making the player characters' lives interesting" and "being a fan of the characters". Too much wrench throwing by the GM and the game becomes frustrating for the players, as they can accomplish anything. But "being a fan" doesn't mean the GM should let the players succeed at everything their characters attempt. It can be a fine line to tread sometimes.
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Post by Kainguru on Jun 4, 2013 20:29:12 GMT -8
"Balance" is a crock of shit. If every encounter is built mechanically and numerically so that the PCs are capable of overcoming it, what's the point of playing? If every encounter is "balanced" so that the PC's have a 50/50 chance of beating it, there's no excitement in my opinion. I guess you could play to see how many resources you have to burn to get through the encounter (HP, time, healing surges, spell points, materials, etc.), but that seems incredibly boring. Any and every encounter should be appropriate for the fiction of the game world. As discussed by the hosts on a previous show, if you fight with the city watch, they're gonna call a bunch of reinforcements down on your ass and you'll have an unwinnable encounter on your hands. Unless you run. And even then they might track you down and kill you anyway. There is another kind of balance that hasn't been mentioned yet. The balance a GM has to reach between "making the player characters' lives interesting" and "being a fan of the characters". Too much wrench throwing by the GM and the game becomes frustrating for the players, as they can accomplish anything. But "being a fan" doesn't mean the GM should let the players succeed at everything their characters attempt. It can be a fine line to tread sometimes. +1 You have nearly summed up my long standing objection to using probability and mathematics to resolve what is, essentially, a role playing issue. All the math in the world won't overcome a dick PC move or a brilliant insight/novel solution . . . Aaron
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Post by The Northman on Jun 5, 2013 3:54:40 GMT -8
What about the topic of balance as it relates to one player as compared to another? The gospel of gaming tends to state that players should all be created equal all the time, and I agree when it comes to any sort of long-term games. But I've also played in some shorter games where there was a wild disparity between character power levels and experience. Is that okay, or maybe even desirable when playing a certain type of story?
I mean, hey...Kevin Sembieda says a game doesn't need to have balanced classes, and RIFTS worked out just fine...
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maxinstuff
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Post by maxinstuff on Jun 12, 2013 23:43:38 GMT -8
"Balance" is a crock of shit. If every encounter is built mechanically and numerically so that the PCs are capable of overcoming it, what's the point of playing? If every encounter is "balanced" so that the PC's have a 50/50 chance of beating it, there's no excitement in my opinion. I guess you could play to see how many resources you have to burn to get through the encounter (HP, time, healing surges, spell points, materials, etc.), but that seems incredibly boring. Any and every encounter should be appropriate for the fiction of the game world. As discussed by the hosts on a previous show, if you fight with the city watch, they're gonna call a bunch of reinforcements down on your ass and you'll have an unwinnable encounter on your hands. Unless you run. And even then they might track you down and kill you anyway. There is another kind of balance that hasn't been mentioned yet. The balance a GM has to reach between "making the player characters' lives interesting" and "being a fan of the characters". Too much wrench throwing by the GM and the game becomes frustrating for the players, as they can accomplish anything. But "being a fan" doesn't mean the GM should let the players succeed at everything their characters attempt. It can be a fine line to tread sometimes. So how do you reconcile this with the possibility that the party will engage in a combat they cannot possibly win? This could be anything from a horde of zombies to an old woman who is secretly a powerful witch - or maybe just the captain of the guard who is a far more capable combatant than the players expected? Others have mentioned that good GM's will provide descriptions which convey how challenging you should expect it to be - but I really see this as just another way of ensuring the players only take part in balanced encounters - ones they can overcome. How do you even convey how challenging something is going to be if you haven't run your numbers - you wouldn't even know how challenging it is. I don't see any escape from having to measure the character's odds as long as dice are involved.
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Post by Kainguru on Jun 13, 2013 6:33:00 GMT -8
"Balance" is a crock of shit. If every encounter is built mechanically and numerically so that the PCs are capable of overcoming it, what's the point of playing? If every encounter is "balanced" so that the PC's have a 50/50 chance of beating it, there's no excitement in my opinion. I guess you could play to see how many resources you have to burn to get through the encounter (HP, time, healing surges, spell points, materials, etc.), but that seems incredibly boring. Any and every encounter should be appropriate for the fiction of the game world. As discussed by the hosts on a previous show, if you fight with the city watch, they're gonna call a bunch of reinforcements down on your ass and you'll have an unwinnable encounter on your hands. Unless you run. And even then they might track you down and kill you anyway. There is another kind of balance that hasn't been mentioned yet. The balance a GM has to reach between "making the player characters' lives interesting" and "being a fan of the characters". Too much wrench throwing by the GM and the game becomes frustrating for the players, as they can accomplish anything. But "being a fan" doesn't mean the GM should let the players succeed at everything their characters attempt. It can be a fine line to tread sometimes. So how do you reconcile this with the possibility that the party will engage in a combat they cannot possibly win? This could be anything from a horde of zombies to an old woman who is secretly a powerful witch - or maybe just the captain of the guard who is a far more capable combatant than the players expected? They learn to run away and regroup . . . The opportunity of attack afforded against a fleeing 'monster' exists for PC's too. In a fully immersive world and story there are by necessity challenges that are too great . . . eg: if all the nations of good have failed to defeat 'Gonad the Layer of Waste and His Kingdom of Incredibly Dark and Painful Suffering and General Nastiness' why should an entry level PC expect to be allowed to march thru said Kingdom and knock on the door of the main keep? Shit should be real and when that entry level PC marches thru said Kingdom of Nastiness -passing all the 'go no further death and general unkind things lie beyond here' signs - he should get his/her arse handed to him/her on a platter with a nice sauce and a side salad - in other words 'go back NOW get some levels, get some cool shit, get some allies and then take on 'The Evil Overlord Gonad'. Which is basically saying - 'fuck off I've made a world for you to explore and an enemy for you to be challenged by . . . Please explore it . . . Please make your story in it and don't just skip to the last chapter'. Aaron
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D.T. Pints
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Post by D.T. Pints on Jun 13, 2013 6:47:51 GMT -8
"Balance" is a crock of shit. If every encounter is built mechanically and numerically so that the PCs are capable of overcoming it, what's the point of playing? If every encounter is "balanced" so that the PC's have a 50/50 chance of beating it, there's no excitement in my opinion. I guess you could play to see how many resources you have to burn to get through the encounter (HP, time, healing surges, spell points, materials, etc.), but that seems incredibly boring. Any and every encounter should be appropriate for the fiction of the game world. As discussed by the hosts on a previous show, if you fight with the city watch, they're gonna call a bunch of reinforcements down on your ass and you'll have an unwinnable encounter on your hands. Unless you run. And even then they might track you down and kill you anyway. There is another kind of balance that hasn't been mentioned yet. The balance a GM has to reach between "making the player characters' lives interesting" and "being a fan of the characters". Too much wrench throwing by the GM and the game becomes frustrating for the players, as they can accomplish anything. But "being a fan" doesn't mean the GM should let the players succeed at everything their characters attempt. It can be a fine line to tread sometimes. So how do you reconcile this with the possibility that the party will engage in a combat they cannot possibly win? This could be anything from a horde of zombies to an old woman who is secretly a powerful witch - or maybe just the captain of the guard who is a far more capable combatant than the players expected? Others have mentioned that good GM's will provide descriptions which convey how challenging you should expect it to be - but I really see this as just another way of ensuring the players only take part in balanced encounters - ones they can overcome. How do you even convey how challenging something is going to be if you haven't run your numbers - you wouldn't even know how challenging it is. I don't see any escape from having to measure the character's odds as long as dice are involved. I understand Hyvemynd's frustration with attempting the sisyphean task of attaining game balance. You spend hours prepping villains and NPCs and then some min-maxer comes along and just steam rolls right over you...and then you try it again with just hopefully the right amount of tweaks...crush...roll....repeat. And yet. Don't we as GMs want dramatic, nail biter encounters just as much as our players ? I understand that 'dice fudgers' (I'm going to take a nod from an old Tappy comment when he got tired of calling shit crunch, as I have groan rather weary of the concept of dice fudging...from now on its random brownies or more simply RB.) will make it exciting for their players no matter where the dice fall. I however as a player often feel that if my GM is engaging in RB than I feel the dramatic tension is sucked out of a game. As a GM I for the most part want to let the shit just happen and hopefully provide a decent escape route if shit heads south with a quickness. My most recent game of Pathfinder I set a group of level 5 characters up against a horde of worm infested zombies and eventually a devil...I honestly didn't know how this encounter would go. I know I am a shit tactician so I typically try to pull encounters a bit higher than the holy templars of Paizo would recommend. This has worked to good effect so far, for how we like to game. Numerous journeys into the "bloody negatives" but no player death yet. This encounter really walked a razor's edge. The devil had been fucking with the paladin for several sessions as voices in his head and flaunting with possessing him. Playing off of PC paranoia and previous PvP conflict was a great way to ramp up that tension. Until finally the devil gave the paladin a "Jesus in the desert" sort of temptation. "If you're so powerful just give up yourself so your companions can live...jump and I'll spare your friends." I figured if the paladin says NO then they've got a fight on their hands that could kill a couple PC's or at least maim them but with the paladin OK they should have a pretty square chance. But he said YES. And I was reeling with the potential of having the party now having to figure out what to do with a devil possessed paladin who was definitely not going to keep his side of the bargain. So, anyway game story cut short (or not so short) after nearly bashing the brains of the monk in the paladin regained control of himself for a moment enough for the party to bind him... In the end if I hadn't at least given some consideration to game balance we would probably have had a TPK on our hands.
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Post by Kainguru on Jun 13, 2013 7:00:15 GMT -8
In the end if I hadn't at least given some consideration to game balance we would probably have had a TPK on our hands. TPK = that's pretty balanced . . . everyone is equally dead ;D Aaron
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maxinstuff
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Post by maxinstuff on Jun 13, 2013 14:16:43 GMT -8
Perhaps we are taking on a restricted view of what 'game balance' actually is. If we stop restricting the concept to combat balance then it might resolve itself. Hyvemind mentioned that it should be narrative appropriate - I would take this to mean that seeing as nobody in their right mind would try to take on the entire town guard, then neither would the PC's. This is a kind of game balance, as you are basically saying to your players, 'use common sense, if it looks impossible then it is'. This moderates PC behaviour rather than ensuring every battle is math appropriate - but at the same time the goal of balance is still achieved, because they still only take part in combats they can win In theory that is. I suppose you would run into problems if your players decide to test you on this. What then? Just kill 'em??
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Post by Kainguru on Jun 13, 2013 14:33:08 GMT -8
Perhaps we are taking on a restricted view of what 'game balance' actually is. If we stop restricting the concept to combat balance then it might resolve itself. Hyvemind mentioned that it should be narrative appropriate - I would take this to mean that seeing as nobody in their right mind would try to take on the entire town guard, then neither would the PC's. This is a kind of game balance, as you are basically saying to your players, 'use common sense, if it looks impossible then it is'. This moderates PC behaviour rather than ensuring every battle is math appropriate - but at the same time the goal of balance is still achieved, because they still only take part in combats they can win In theory that is. I suppose you would run into problems if your players decide to test you on this. What then? Just kill 'em?? I always sound pretty hard line but in reality I'm not. Hard line : YES Soft option : kick the shit outta them create an opening for escape and/or a reason to be captured alive (and then escape minus an adventuring lifetime of collected goodies ie: "you're alive, you'll just have to get over loosing your +3 knob crusher - next time when it seems obvious you're out powered it's probably because you are"). Aaron
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