If you ask me... moderation in everything, and that includes balance.
Aiming for a balanced balance. I like that.
'findel
The main thing that seperates Mutants and Masterminds from GURPS and Hero to me (granted it has been a while since i looekd at the last two) is that M&M has a continuing governer in the form of power caps according to level. While not having a class system it does have a level system that limits how far you can take things.
Hero has something similar in Active Cost, CV, Defenses, and Skill limits. Depending on the power level of the campaign, the GM can set starting and maximum limits on powers, attack/defense bonuses, protection (armor, force fields, etc.), and skill rolls. Usually, Active Cost, CV, and Defenses are the most important, as they determine what sort of opponents are viable in combat situations; if they are high, then the characters are unlikely to be challenged by "normal" agents, criminals, etc., but they will be able to face powerful organizations, threats, villains, etc. Skill limits will vary in importance depending on the importance of skills in the campaign (and the importance of skills to the particular character).
The GM can tailor the limits to taste, depending on how dangerous they wish combat to be. Alternately, for very high-powered games, they can set no limits at all.
True balance is like any ideal of perfection: Wisdom lies in the effort of attaining it, rather than in the impossibility of actually attaining it.
I am just saying that is my style of handling balance, player balance is a non issue. As for players; in my game they have to play their characters; that means development and social interaction between pc's and npcs. It would seem that the way a player develops his character has more to do with game balance than most things a GM does. There are characters in my games I could give a planet cracking sword to and it just doesnt matter; they are so ineffectual that the guy with a butter knife outplays them and gets more accomplished. I dont know of any gm way to counter players who just sit there like a lump and dont do much and I hate to see other character run away with the game; but trying stuff and coming up with ideas should be rewarded.
Balance to me is more of trying to create a niche for each character so that they are important and seeing that those situations come up from time to time with each character so that characters in turn feel important and get a little time in the limelight.
I have found that when most people talk about balance; they are talking about combat abilities. When I talk about balance; I am talking about the game as a whole. Ultimately, the gm decides how much combat; or npc interaction there is going to be in any game and sets the tone of the adventure. Pc's respond to whatever stimulous the gm thows out. Doesnt matter how tuff a pc mega damage fighter is when it comes to solving a riddle or goodwill negotiations or dealing with traps or saving someone from some non combat situation or solving a mystery. Using these tools is how I suggest a gm control game balance. Pc's should win more than they loose; but certainly loose sometimes. If you game has a mega tuff pc in it that can fight his way through every situation; I would suggest your game need to expand its horizons. To me; just my opinion; that would suggest that a game like that lacks sophistication. This is not a bad thing; sometimes we all want to get together and play a mindless game of Zarg the Barbarian who smashes everything; but for a long term campaign; those characters get boring pretty fast.
If you character is more about what your items do or your class abilities; which granted are important; I would suggest that the gm needs to put more "balancing" situation in that challenge the players to think; bond together; work out issues; argue points of view; and like that; all things that cause character development.
I think players have a lot on their plate just dealing with various social situations; races; other classes; various religions and their dieties; miss information from npc's, trying to tell which npc are really on your side and who is lying through their teeth and consider that it could be month before you find out...if ever.
If a gm doent care if you bring in the big bad sword or the ultra armor; I would thing the pc should be very very wary. In my game that means knowing who to hit and when; and who not to hit; and when to take a hit; all very important skills for a player.
Perhaps this gets my point accross a little better; if not; you could always read either of my pbp games to get a idea of what I am talking about. Soon I will be handing out experience points; the single most powerful balancing tool a gm has to motivate players to develop thier characters.
perhaps some of the long term guys who have been playing in various of my games for decades could explain it better; maybe Lorm or Balfic or Baelinor or Ty's mage (sheesh how could I forget his name) could chime in; they each probably think one of them or the other is the tuffest around; and in any certain situation; they are right; in other situations; thier wimps. Each could tell you how they "ruled" a given situation; and got slapped down hard in another [regardless of who they may blame it on]
well, I hope this clarifies my point that balance between pc's doesnt matter to me and why and hope that it might inspire your game to try something new.
I could perhaps answer questions like; "ok wiseguy, how would you handle this situation...." then give me the situation.
ok; let me tackle these questions.
copies from above:
On the otherside of that what if players contuine to confound the DM with inventive way to over come any threat that has been thrown there way?
Does this make them great players or the DM a bad DM?
Also by the same token what if the players have a favourite strategy they enjoy?
Classic example the 'tank' players spend a alot of time buffing a single character so that s/he maybe launched at the enemy?
Should a good DM seek to disrupt this always?
After all it takes all semblance of balance away from the game.
I would often let them have there fun because, fun seems more important than balance
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hmm, I cant really relate to getting confounded very much; pretty much only had one or so speachless moments <which I am forever reminded of in good humor>. When I was young; back roughly a couple or so decades in this game; I used to make dungeons that I thought would last a few good nights playing and have them over in a couple hours; poor design on my part; but live and learn. Pc's got the task done and went straight to the end; my bad. I guess this is confounding the gm; it was inexperience on my part; now that I have been gm'ing for somewhere around 30 years; I have played in a lot of games; and seen a lot; read a lot of books; got loads of background and inspiration. So, if someone confounds me, I would grant them an experience bonus. Good luck trying.
I suggest any gm read and watch movies and the like with a critical eye; how was the situation set up; who were the players that drove the scenario; what were the things that confounded it. Remember most of those things from everything you see and read and your game will vastly improve.
No constant strategy should always win; like every general says; a battle plan is only good until the first shot is fired. If pc's use a constant strategy; the bad guys are going to learn about it; after all; npc talk; success breeds contempt; copycats; word gets around; somebody is gonna find a way to use that stragegy against them...adventually.
A gm has to have his bad guys have strategy also. If some guy is tanked out to be uber tuff; see what happens when he gets levitated so he cant run about or some such and have your bad guys ignore him and kill everyone else. If you players put all their eggs in one basket like this; it is very easy for a gm to break that sort of thing up; besides; nobody has every defense; think about grappling; nets; poison; pits; sheesh I could go on for an hour; there are lots and lots of ways for a gm to divide and conquer. Just send in a swarm or mass amounts of little guys; the big tuff guy cant protect everyone; there are just to many guys for him to clobber at once; add missle weapons; magic of all kinds; any gm that just lets the one fighter get to the bad guys and lets the party huttle back safe and sound every time is just not doing his job. It should work once and a while; but a gm should create a game where the players need to keep it fresh; have a few basic strategies and not be to sure which is gonna work when have the need to change tactics based on changing situations. Make sure you reward you character for clever ideas even if they fail; just makes your game better.
Balance should not really be on a players mind; being in character should be on a players mind; have a character that is interesting and seeing how he developes; I always let players do a few tweaks to adjust their characters in the first few levels as a character doesnt always turn out like you thought it would.
Players need time to learn a gm as well; get a good balance of skills and fighting ability for each different game. That is where balance really comes into play; does your character have a change to do the things that you want him to do.
If your fighter is telling your mage how to run his character; hmm, this gm would frown for various reasons.
I would also agree that in some game system; player balance is more imporant than in other game; my comments are for aD&D thinking 1.0 to 3.5 versions only. if your playing marvel rules; its a whole different ballgame as a player with a incredible ability just cant affect a guy who is even a right shifts up on the chart.
Balance has to be really watched carefully for character in Heroes game systems; players can create devistating characters with 300 pts; or complete wimps; building a character in that game is half the game.
Balance has to be really watched carefully for character in Heroes game systems; players can create devistating characters with 300 pts; or complete wimps; building a character in that game is half the game.
If you put some effort into it, you can create a devastating character with 250 points (i.e., robotic armor bought as a Vehicle). For Heroes, the system allows such a high degree of customization that it is crucial for the GM to set the ground rules of the campaign before the players even start creating their characters: setting, tone, starting and maximum limits, special rules (i.e., required skills/perks/package deals/talents/powers/limitations/etc.), and possibly even types of characters/personalities, campaign expectations, minimum limits, and/or disallowed/restricted powers as appropriate. The GM can even set more granular limits, such as a rule stating that characters can only exceed the starting limits in one category (i.e., Active Point Cost, CV, Defenses, SPD, or Skills), allowing each character to be "the best" in their specialty.
In short, balance in Hero is as customizable as the system itself.
very true; Heroes is a lot of work; that is a game that is really time invasive to gm; unlike D&D; but I think Rolemaster is the worst to gm; that game sucks your live away; takes hours and hours of work just to get a fight ready and balance is totally out of the window; they dont even try; and it so deadly; like OMG deadly which I think is unbalanced considering the huge amount of time it takes to create a character; you could be dead in a couple swings in your first fight. hehe at least they balanced that better in warhammer rpg; takes a few minutes to make a character which isnt so bad when you could go through them like potatoe chips; you can loose them just as fast in Rolemaster; but sheesh; its like growing the potatoe and making the chip by hand; then eatin only one hehe.
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...I think most folks are just unaware that mechanical game balance is only a recent popular phenomenon/trend/ideology.
When we originally played the game, if a player was even concerned about the plusses she had, or thought about what they would need to get to optimize a situation.... we knew right away that "they just didn't get it." Those were folks we didn't wish to play with. Those were folks who never understood the nature of the game, played with ease, collaboratively, and the great conceit that still binds the game together. Everyone knew there could never be a mechanical/rule/book/system solution, and we still played anyhow, because we knew those facets of the game rested, and still rest today with the GM.
Want a good fun and fair game? Do the following:
1. Select your players wisely. Either they work collaboratively to promote the flow of the game and "get it" or they don't. If you are inflexible with your game ideology, then don't be surprised that there are a few different ones who will clash at your table. All it takes is 1 munchkin to make the roleplayers feel cheated. Its not the lack of fair rules that cause unfairness, its the perception that someone is consciously trying to finegle the rules that makes others feel it is unfair or unbalanced. This is one pink elephant that never used to sit on top of the table. Good players knew it would always be there, but acted maturely to never make this an issue. The GM would sometimes have one player be powerful a while, then shift focus throughout a campaign. The idea wasn't that everyone be able to do everything equally—that is sheer Incredibles-factor: if everyone is special than nobody is. The flow of a good game evolves the development of each character, in their own course of time, within the context of the story—not the context of "character builds" and widgit balancing.
2. Stay in character. If you do this as a player, you won't worry that in tonight's episode the paladin finds a +4 defender. It shouln't matter. The last decade has been more about the marketing and sales of rule books, than it has truly been about the best interests of playing a game who's focus is a "party" of adventuring classes who work together to overcome obstacles. If you're in character, you're not worried about balancing anything—that's the GM's job. As a player, your responsibility is not to be a dick; especially by not constantly talking about balance as though you're either cheated all the time, or that you're more crafty than the next player. Bottom line, learning the rules for the sake of optimizing them to the point where it it would be taxing for anyone including the GM to to conduct an "audit" of your character sheet because you have found convoluted ways of parcing the ruleset to give you more power makes you a poor player, not a good one.
I didnt know it was a competition; my rule is always when gaming; if you say it; your character said it hehe unless you put your hand over your head making the talking guesture hehe.
so how does choosing your players wisely answer the thread question about balance; I would guess that just means balance isnt an issue for you either.
want to really get rid of balance issues?
I played in a game where we didnt even see our character sheets; you just roleplayed and rolled dice; you had no idea if you had this plus or that plus; you just did what you did and rolled and responded to what the gm said; you didnt even know what level you were; nothing game mechanics wise; was a really cool game
Thanks Neff; whereever you are for such a great game back in 1983 at Ft Gordon.
balance wasnt an issue; staying alive was; hehe.
The more simulationist your game, the more you'll be concerned with 'balance'. As you add more narrative elements, moving from simulation to storytelling, you'll find balance less important - and in fact, less meaningful or even desirable.
It all depends on the game you're playing, I guess.
...I think most folks are just unaware that mechanical game balance is only a recent popular phenomenon/trend/ideology.
When we originally played the game, if a player was even concerned about the plusses she had, or thought about what they would need to get to optimize a situation.... we knew right away that "they just didn't get it." Those were folks we didn't wish to play with. Those were folks who never understood the nature of the game, played with ease, collaboratively, and the great conceit that still binds the game together. Everyone knew there could never be a mechanical/rule/book/system solution, and we still played anyhow, because we knew those facets of the game rested, and still rest today with the GM.
I have to disagree with this statement. Even long time players of D&D have had problems with the balance issues in previous editions of the game. Which is why many were actually happy to see 3rd edition try to address those same issues.
It has nothing to do with "they just dont get it." Often it had to do with consistent issues of the game that at time interfered strongly with character concepts. And since beginning, many people who have played D&D looked for ways to optimize their characters in their view...hence multi-classing, magic weapons, magic items, etc. How many paladins did not want a Holy Defender Sword? How many Magic-Users (man, i hated that term) looked at the Staff of the Magi and did not drool?
As for everyone knew there could never be a mechanical/rule/book/solution...obviously there was (3/3.5/PFRPG) and many thought there could be (house rules that attempted to balance the game more mechanically).
As for balance being recent, attempting to reach it is something that has been part of gaming for a while now...which is what gave rise to point-buy creation in games like Cyberpunk (2013-2020) and Shadowrun.
-Weylin
I'm going to agree with this. Balanced aspects of the game such as wealth by level and the CR system were added in an attempt to address what was seen as a real need. That said in some ways they did more harm then good. By pitting the characters against enemies of specific CRs the players are rewarded, more then was historically the case, for creating builds that are optimized to beat these kinds of threats. Furthermore the wealth by level system took away one of the most powerful balancing tools away from the DM. Historically if your players seemed to have a power balance problem you could pick out or design a potent magic item specifically for your player that seemed on the weak side or give them some kick ass companion or what have you. If the mage seemed to kick to much ass you could give the fighter a Dragon to ride or a big ass sword of awesomeness and the fighter player would be pleased as punch.
Well, I have heard a lot of people, in storyteller games from White Wolf in first ed of that game, whine and complain that werewolves were way over powered and not balanced with Vampires. So i guess balance was important in that narrative game to some people. Seems to me the game was intentionally unbalanced as mummies were by far head and shoulders above everything. I was in a few game where people played from various books and I think by and far some of the fae were tuffer than the weres who were regarded as combat monsters and way over the top by any vamp player.
Guess what I am saying is balance seems to be a personal thing; someone always seems to be complaining they are the underdog; like that never happens in real life.
Wolfgang Baur had a really interesting editorial on this topic in Kobold Quarterly a few months back (though I cannot remember what issue off the top of my head). Basically, what he pointed out is that most people want to "feel" like the game is balanced.
Actual balance can be subjective. If the bard feels like he's doing something useful and "bard-like," and the fighter is doing something useful and "figher-like," generally those players aren't quite as worried about trying to figure out some way of quantifying class features to see how they match against each other.
The point is that if the game runs smoothly, and everyone gets to do something interesting and useful, and it "feels" balanced, then that is actually what ultimately important.
I'll need to figure out which KQ that was in, because I can't do justice to the editorial here.
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Actual balance can be subjective. If the bard feels like he's doing something useful and "bard-like," and the fighter is doing something useful and "figher-like," generally those players aren't quite as worried about trying to figure out some way of quantifying class features to see how they match against each other.
Totally agreed. An "unbalanced" character "usually" refers to damage output during a combat. I think this is a misconception and reinforces the idea that RPG's are all about fighting. Throw in an equal number of interesting encounters where damage output doesn't matter and the one trick ponies of the "combat gods" mean squat. I know this can be a complete pain sometimes and most of the D&D-type games have lots ands lots of rules on sticking monsters into an encounter and making it "balanced" but not so many of providing equally stimulating non-combat encounters*. Of course there is still the issue of character A and character B having the same skills and one being decidedly better than the other - a real DM headache...
I like Pax's idea of trying to get the PC's to stay in character and how this would avoid the capitalist style roleplaying (but I NEED more than her, I do, I do).
S.
*Strangely enought the version of D&D (4e) I would call most combat orientated has some of the best non-combat encounter advice (4e DMG2).
If you game has a mega tuff pc in it that can fight his way through every situation; I would suggest your game need to expand its horizons. To me; just my opinion; that would suggest that a game like that lacks sophistication.
For the last time Steve, GMs of the world don't want expanded horizons, they want to feel 'safe'. Players don't want options or sophistication, they want fair-and-balanced.
Now, if you only read thoroughly these papers of the superhero registration act I brought you I'm sure you'll find them most compelling.
If you game has a mega tuff pc in it that can fight his way through every situation; I would suggest your game need to expand its horizons. To me; just my opinion; that would suggest that a game like that lacks sophistication.For the last time Steve, GMs of the world don't want expanded horizons, they want to feel 'safe'. Players don't want options or sophistication, they want fair-and-balanced.
The idea that you can't have options and fairness at the same time, or that you can't have sophistication and balance at the same time - that's flawed thinking.
so how does choosing your players wisely answer the thread question about balance; I would guess that just means balance isnt an issue for you either.
While my opinions usually differ from those of Pax, I have to agree with him on this one (even if for different reasons). Sure, it provides no answer to the balance issue, but then there'll never be an unanymous answer to this one. Everyone has different criteria as to what they consider "balanced", everyone and their brother knows someone they consider a muchkin, and someone else they consider a nazi*, so all you can do is play with like-minded people, and save yourself the grief of going mad over the way things are done by people you wouldn't want to play with anyway.
As a matter of fact, I cherry-pick my players much like Pax does. I like my games full of all kind of crazy options, so I play with adults, that way I don't have to worry about having to treat them like childen. =)
* dammit! Godwin's Law! Does this mean I 'lost'?
The idea that you can't have options and fairness at the same time, or that you can't have sophistication and balance at the same time - that's flawed thinking.
Indeed, as I mentioned on an earlier reply, the best games are those with the right mix of each; then again, as I also mentioned in that same reply, examples of those are few and far between.
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To a limited degree, yes. When I mean limited balance. I am thinking that no class should be able to do things equally well if not better in the exact same area as another class. For example, a paladin should not get enhance armor and weapon bonuses and bonus feats like a fighter while gaining 9th level clerical spells. That is unbalanced. A wizard should be able to pawn a fighter at extremly high level because he has been unbalanced compared to the fighter for most of his career. (weakest attack table, no armor, poorest weapon selection, weak hp, ect.) IMHO, if you create an adventurer template and just have to pick powers without a class structure you have to water down all the powers to where the choices become meaningless.
The DM can be a huge influence on whether PC's or the game in general feels like it is unbalanced. A DM can create both combat and non-combat challenges to ensure that everyone feels like they can contribute. Not everyone has to contribute equally every single encounter for a game to be balanced. I remember playing D&D basic as a wizard and I stocked up on many daggers because at 1rst level I had one lousy sleep spell. If zombies or skeletons were encountered I either threw a dagger or I chucked some oil at them, then lit a torch and chucked it at the undead to try to catch them on fire. It may not have been optimal but I had to make due with what I had.