hi guys,
I've watched The One Ring rpg design videos and one of the main guys behind the game seemed to poo-poo the idea that the player options had to be perfectly balanced. In particular he was talking about letting players be Noldor elves or Rangers be in the game as player options. He thought it was ok that they were tougher as long as everyone at the table understood that this was just the way it was.
I liked that. I'm not someone who suffers from power lust, where my PC has to be the toughest guy on the planet to have fun. I could dig an above average fellow PC being around my character. I'd probably have fun with it.
Do you guys think we pfinders obsess too much over race and class balance?
booger=boy
TBH, i think a race/class has a problem if it is clearly overpowered on all levels. Any player can look at the classes and pick the best things they can and go total munchkin, but if the average player just playing his joe/jane is op, then the class probably needs a nerf. The main issue is we don't have a clear definition of overpowered. A properly played ranger will of course outshine a party of idiots, as a munchkin ranger will outshine a party of average joes. Its a whole lotta grey and this makes it a troublesome issue.
Didn't we have this post a couple of years ago? I'm getting serious deja-vu.
It is critical that, if you do have one PC who is more powerful than the others at the table, that character not make anyone else's character redundant. It's okay to have overlap to a point, but if you have, for instance, a more-powerful bard who is a better caster than your dedicated wizard or cleric, you're going to run into problems.
To answer you question, No, balancing options is not anti-fun, the opinion of a developer on a Lord of the Rings RPG doesn't mean much in this regard.
And of course it's always a matter of degree. A properly min-maxed Two-Handed fighter might deal more damage than the rest of the party, but that doesn't mean the Four-Winds/Sacred Mountain Monk isn't a mean combatant in his own right, or that the Rogues trap-finding and disable device aren't invaluable.
However a Gestalt Cleric/Ranger would probably blow a lot of folks out of the water since they get an animial companion, lots of skills, spells, Domain abilities, bonus feats etc. Such a character could easily neutralize encounters left and right, making the party feel like there's no point to being there, and giving the GM a hard time of building encounters.
I've watched The One Ring rpg design videos and one of the main guys behind the game seemed to poo-poo the idea that the player options had to be perfectly balanced.
Perfect balance cannot be achieved, so I guess he's got something of a point.
|
A game can be fun if certain characters are stronger. It does get to be a problem if one character gets to constantly overshadow the other player's characters.
Ars Magica solved this problem nicely. In that system Wizards are far and away the strongest characters. It is not even a discussion. However, wizards do not gain experience by adventuring. They do it by studying in their chantry (wizard fraternity tower basically). So every player has a wizard. He also has a bunch of secondary characters who are people who help around the chantry. When a wizard does go out adventuring then he takes a bunch of these secondary characters out with him.
The next time an adventure comes up a different wizard goes.
I just looked it up. Noldor were the big bad elves who saw the light of the trees.
"Fingolfin in despair rode to Angband and challenged Morgoth to single combat. He dealt Morgoth seven wounds but perished, and he was succeeded by his eldest son Fingon, who became the second High King of the Noldor in Beleriand."
Let me get this straight. Morgoth is the equivalent of Satan, stronger than any of the Valar (or at least their equal).
This game designer doesn't see a problem with something like this? Translated into a game?
Tolkien may have had a big influence on fantasy, and indirectly on gaming, but if you translate his world faithfully it isn't going to be a very good gaming system.
Let's also keep in mind that Fingolfin was the High King of the Noldor, had lived in Aman with the light of the two trees, and the Noldor were serious bad-asses at those times of legend. Morgoth may be a Satan figure (although in decline), but Fingolfin is in D&D's Epic levels.
As far as the Noldor go, most of those elves had already left Middle Earth (or been killed) by the time of the Second and Third Ages. Aside from Galadriel, you've largely got later generations of Noldor descendents who aren't as old and mighty as the ones who made the crossing from Aman. In other words, the super-mighty elves were few and most suitable as NPCs. I'm reasonably sure, given the reviews of One Ring that suggest a very good understanding of the setting and a good translation of the narrative structure of the stories into the rules, that the designer understands that.
As a side topic, I thought Middle Earth Role Playing had an interesting take on building elven characters. Depending on how significant the elven line was, elf characters had restricted choices where they could invest their highest rolled stats. Presence was pretty much required of all of them, Noldor were more restricted than others.
Balance is important to some degree.
In star wars, the Jedi SHOULD be the most powerful character. The Jedi will often outshine the others, but there is not alot of overlap.
I stopped playing D&D at 4e because it seemed to focus too heavily on balance, making all classes feel the same. They all became these cinematic wizards that you could picture doing things in an action movie. Balance is important, but I do not think it should be the alter of game design.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Note that if you go the One Ring route, the onus is upon the GM to create the encounters that all players can contribute to meaningfully. Tolkien planned a way to make Hobbits work next to Gandalf and Aragorn.
RPGs are unpredictable. Even if you have the luxury of planning for your group, things don't always go according to plan.
Giant balance systems (like D&D and Pathfinder have) promise that players may freely browse a large catalog of character options, but still have all players contributing meaningfully in a generic context, such as a published module.
Whether or not these systems are GOOD at this task is a matter of its own debate. Regardless, you're better off with some kind of challenge yardstick in a game where you may not know anything about the player-characters until gameday.
Neither is superior. It's about what kind of game you're looking for.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Do you guys think we pfinders obsess too much over race and class balance?
Nope.
The base game should be as balanced as we can make it. If individual groups want to deviate from that and let people play crazy crap, more power to them, but the baseline should be a game in which all the players get to contribute without the GM having to go out of his way to make it happen.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Balance remains in the best interests of fun, so long as its primary concern is ensuring that the player options and game mechanics flow efficiently with one another, without forcing players into excessive spotlight or excessive uselessness. When done right, its hand is invisible.
Balance becomes a hindrance to fun when in it's name, game design and management becomes all about telling players what they can't do, as opposed to what they can.
Why does the roleplay rationalization used to excuse this kind of thing only go one way?
Why can't someone take a hobbit's stats and roleplay an elf?
Why can't you expect roleplayers to roleplay super-elves without having the mechanics to back it up?
I can answer the third one: Because generally speaking, it comes across rather awkwardly in-game if a character's actual capabilities per the game mechanics do not match up with, or support, what the fluff of his character says he should be able to do. Aside from breaking suspension of disbelief, which is maintained by consistency, it's bad game design.
Balance is an illusion. The pursuit of which is not useless however.
Each DM must find the balance that works for his group. A designers job is to facilitate finding that balance so that the DM can spend more time on the non-mechanical considerations.
TOZ said what I was going to say. +1
@ the OP: Didn't we have this discussion with admin input about your signature issue before?
I just looked it up. Noldor were the big bad elves who saw the light of the trees.
"Fingolfin in despair rode to Angband and challenged Morgoth to single combat. He dealt Morgoth seven wounds but perished, and he was succeeded by his eldest son Fingon, who became the second High King of the Noldor in Beleriand."
Let me get this straight. Morgoth is the equivalent of Satan, stronger than any of the Valar (or at least their equal).
This game designer doesn't see a problem with something like this? Translated into a game?
Tolkien may have had a big influence on fantasy, and indirectly on gaming, but if you translate his world faithfully it isn't going to be a very good gaming system.
Morgoth is the whole reason that there was evil in the TOlkein world. He had to be a bad bugger or evil wouldn't be an issue.
booger=boy
I think Sunbeam is pointing out the potential problems with having a PC race powerful enough to seriously wound the BBEG of BBEGs.
As for myself, I'm amused at the idea of PF fans being obsessed with balance. I suppose 'obsess' is a subjective verb in this case, but I always thought if you're obsessed with balance you're probably playing 4e. Like me. :)
Balance is important to some degree.
In star wars, the Jedi SHOULD be the most powerful character. The Jedi will often outshine the others, but there is not alot of overlap.
I stopped playing D&D at 4e because it seemed to focus too heavily on balance, making all classes feel the same. They all became these cinematic wizards that you could picture doing things in an action movie. Balance is important, but I do not think it should be the alter of game design.
Im glad you brought up star wars. I lost all interest in the Old Republic MMO because the sith seemed watered down. I saw a stormtrooper almost take out a sith lord by resisting his force lightning. Then I saw a Jedi resist his lightsaber with her hand! It was too much too bear.
booger=boy
Yeah, man, if you roll a Jedi you should just be able to effortlessly cut down other players! I mean, you're a Jedi! So what if that isn't any fun for the other players? It's fun for you, and fulfills your wild power fantasies! Sounds like a great game design! Fund it!
I think Sunbeam is pointing out the potential problems with having a PC race powerful enough to seriously wound the BBEG of BBEGs.As for myself, I'm amused at the idea of PF fans being obsessed with balance. I suppose 'obsess' is a subjective verb in this case, but I always thought if you're obsessed with balance you're probably playing 4e. Like me. :)
I think there is a huge difference between wanting balance and wanting blandness.
Balance is wanting all players to feel like they can contribute meaningfully and have fun.
Blandness is, everyone's the same regardless.
Really, dude? I make one self-deprecating reference to my favored game, and you're starting with the edition war BS already? We're not even on page 2 here.
As long as there is a vague sense of balance then I am happy enough.
And by vague I mean up to and including Paris Hilton levels.
Balance is indeed evil and has been the source of all the problems I've had in gaming.
I think balance is important when I gm because if to not tpk the group I get one character steamrolling most of the encounters I get bored as a gm and the game is meant to be fun. Of course that was a 3.5 fighter at first level with 18 strength 18 dex and 16 con so I had a hard time hitting him and he was tough and hit hard. I don't think everyone else in the campaign felt overshadowed. That player got busy and the campaign went on without him and was fairly sucessful and my longest after that.
Balance is indeed evil and has been the source of all the problems I've had in gaming.
Ignoring balance is indeed evil and has been the source of all the problems I've had in gaming.
:P
Good balance lets you get on with the roleplaying and stop worrying so much about whether the numbers line up. The better the balance (which is not the same thing as homogeniety; 4e is homogenous but far from balanced), the smoother the game flows and the better the players are able to roleplay without system interference.
Want to play a duelist? Sucks to be you. Duelists are vastly underpowered, no matter how hard you want to roleplay one. If they were balanced, it would be just as fun to play your duelist concept as any other.