When you build a character, be a PC or NPC, how do you balance gameplay and flavor? I've always been curious about this. See? My players just pick whatever they want when creating their respective characters and they always have some design choices related to flavor, such as a backstory. Gameplay is often secondary... unless it's related to the backstory, which relates to flavor. A PC might use a certain weapon because he used it to escape slavery and decides to keep it, even if that weapon isn't "the best one" stat-wise.
Another example would be me making a catfolk barbarian using the Mooncursed (tiger) archetype. It may not be the most optimal build, but flavor-wise, you cannot deny that a catfolk who somehow tapped into his animalistic nature to become a tiger works great.
Yet another example would be taking the Kineticist and slapping it onto the geniekins. What's wrong with an Ifrit pyrokineticist? Maybe a few problems mecanic-wise, but flavorwise, it works.
So... what's your stance on flavor vs gameplay when creating characters, be playable or not? (GMs are welcomed to share their opinions too ;) )
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Honestly, the question it comes down to for me is this:
What is going to be fun to play at the table?
Since flavorful build choices tend to stay on the character sheet*, that makes gameplay considerations far more important for me (since roleplaying a competent and successful character who *usually* achieves their goals is something I enjoy).
*In the sense that (for example) an Ifrit pyrokineticist is no different than any other pyrokineticist 99% of the time. Memorable PC traits aren't usually tied to the PC's mechanical design beyond a very superficial extent.
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Usually the flavor is meant to hide the min/max combination someone has dreamed up. I may have been in the company of rollplayers for too long, of course ;)
I usually start out with Race + type of combat.
then I make a character, then I make the build for that style of combat and back story.
I try to fit in flavor stuff but... some stuff I'm just always going to do. Like if I'm playing a divine caster, you can pretty much bet money I'm gonna take Fate's Favored and probably go Half-Orc for Sacred Tattoo. If I'm gonna be using Divine Favor, then I may as well make it the best I can.
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At our home tables flavor and mechanics are completely unrelated. The flavor text Paizo writes in the books are suggestions at best and really don't even need to be there. Just pick whatever mechanical options are fun for you and re-flavor them however you want.
For example, the OP said he's using a sub-par weapon because he escaped slavery with it? At our table grab the mechanics for a greatsword, call it a pickaxe and go to town with your 2d6 19-20/2 pickaxe.
I usually try to make characters with mechanical strength that is comparable to everyone else at the table, and with an amount of flavor/roleplay/theme/etc. that I feel comfortable playing without offending anyone. The former can fluctuate wildly, as mechanical strength of a character is easy to fine-tune. The latter is usually at the same level from character to character, though I do try to expand that range with each new character.
Overall I don't really think I "balance" them around eachother at all. I simply do what is fun for myself and my friends, which tends to keep the two categories apart from eachother more often than not.
Depends on how effective. All three of your examples are easily capable of being fine competent characters. And in like 90% of games played would do fine. A small decrease from a bad weapon is hardly character ending. Having a non-perfect stat array isn't going to cripple you. And The were-tiger would still be doing damage.
The issues with flavor v mechanics are things like fey founding or potion glutton having a strong fluff and being the only way to get that effect. The other is making bad crippling choices, like using a crossbow.
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The thing is most of the Pathfinder options (thankfully) don't have flavor attached to them, so you can make up your own. Most of the flavor brought to your character is brought by your roleplaying, not by the feats and spells you give the character.
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Given that the rules don't encourage or give me any incentive to make a "flavourful" but mechanically weak character I err on the side of making the character mechanically strong first and then narratively justifying the choices later.
Best practice is to build a working, sensible character and then explain the mechanics with that juicy chessclub brain you just used to get +9 to hit at level 1.
"He's really good at like, swords. He went to sword school, just like his dad, his dad who was murdered. Revenge and stuff"
My method for building characters differs from time to time. For example, in a modern based game, I had the idea to play an occultist, using a chainsaw as their weapon. From there, I flavored them, and found a really fun character that will be a blast to both play and RP as a back up character.
The character I'm playing now, I made largely stable and solid in terms of game play mechanics, however I gave him skills I'd normally never take (perform and craft skills) solely because of the flavor for the character. I've literally never tried to use these flavor chosen skills to ever make money, even though that's the only mechanical benefit he'd normally get from them.
So I guess I go 50-50. Start out with mechanics and then inject as much flavor as I can into the character.
We generally create characters based on considerations of story and 'what makes sense', in general making our choices level by level rather than having a pre-planned path of development. Having said that, there's a little bit of variation amongst the group. One guy has recently started finding 1-20 builds on the internet and then constructing a backstory around that. He's proving noticeably more effective than the rest of us, so that might begin to feed into how we do it.
As a group we're pretty poor at system mastery all around and our parties rarely survive beyond 6th or 7th level when we play Pathfinder - I don't think the rules really suit our kind of gameplay at higher levels unless the DM has sufficient system mastery to tone down the encounters from the 'expected' power level.
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When you build a character, be a PC or NPC, how do you balance gameplay and flavor? I've always been curious about this. See? My players just pick whatever they want when creating their respective characters and they always have some design choices related to flavor, such as a backstory. Gameplay is often secondary... unless it's related to the backstory, which relates to flavor. A PC might use a certain weapon because he used it to escape slavery and decides to keep it, even if that weapon isn't "the best one" stat-wise.
Another example would be me making a catfolk barbarian using the Mooncursed (tiger) archetype. It may not be the most optimal build, but flavor-wise, you cannot deny that a catfolk who somehow tapped into his animalistic nature to become a tiger works great.
Yet another example would be taking the Kineticist and slapping it onto the geniekins. What's wrong with an Ifrit pyrokineticist? Maybe a few problems mecanic-wise, but flavorwise, it works.
So... what's your stance on flavor vs gameplay when creating characters, be playable or not? (GMs are welcomed to share their opinions too ;) )
I make sure my characters are actually useful because I don't want to be dead weight. I also don't concern myself with making the most powerful character possible.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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When you build a character, be a PC or NPC, how do you balance gameplay and flavor? ...
So... what's your stance on flavor vs gameplay when creating characters, be playable or not? (GMs are welcomed to share their opinions too ;) )
My stance is that if the topic of this thread is even a thing to be considered, then you're probably not playing a very well-designed game in the first place.
:/
Flavor is more easily mutable, so I build for gameplay first and change things to work the way I want the to work. Though I will make mechanical concessions for particularly significant flavor things.
Also, what Jiggy said.
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People who like crunching numbers should create the flavor first and optimize the build to stay as true to the flavor as possible
Those who excel at telling stories should make the optimized build first and then create the backstory that superbly explains all of it
Each group will have a minimum level of expected mechanical competence. There is however no real competition between mechanics and flavor. The closest thing would be one's own mental strengths and resources.
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When you build a character, be a PC or NPC, how do you balance gameplay and flavor? ...
So... what's your stance on flavor vs gameplay when creating characters, be playable or not? (GMs are welcomed to share their opinions too ;) )
My stance is that if the topic of this thread is even a thing to be considered, then you're probably not playing a very well-designed game in the first place.
:/
This! So much this. Why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, do we still persist in this hobby with the idea that flavor and play-ability are mutually exclusive? Why can't my PC or NPC be both flavorful AND optimal for play-ability?!
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This! So much this. Why, oh why, oh why, oh why, oh why, do we still persist in this hobby with the idea that flavor and play-ability are mutually exclusive? Why can't my PC or NPC be both flavorful AND optimal for play-ability?!When you build a character, be a PC or NPC, how do you balance gameplay and flavor? ...
So... what's your stance on flavor vs gameplay when creating characters, be playable or not? (GMs are welcomed to share their opinions too ;) )
My stance is that if the topic of this thread is even a thing to be considered, then you're probably not playing a very well-designed game in the first place.
:/
"People can't imagine what they haven't seen."
— Mizuho KusanagiWhen your entire fantasy RPG experience is wrapped up in a handful of games who share a legacy of forcibly separating the mechanics and theming through poor design, you can't really imagine anything else. It becomes your definition of how things work, and the notion of "mechanics and theming should reinforce each other" becomes a foreign concept that you'll never think of on your own and is just incomprehensible white noise if someone tries to tell you about it.
For me it's very amorphous, and changes based on my whims when creating a character. If I have a particular flavor-based idea that I want to try out (a thief that hordes holy relics or something) then I'll base my mechanical build off of that (maybe rogue with some religious feats or maybe even a dip into cleric) whereas the opposite can also be true. If I have a mechanical build that I really want to try out (like if there's a class that I haven't played before that I really want to experience) then I'll make a borderline min-maxed version of that character, and then construct the flavor-based components of the character (backstory, weapon choice if I have options, etc.) off of what would make sense with the build.
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At our home tables flavor and mechanics are completely unrelated. The flavor text Paizo writes in the books are suggestions at best and really don't even need to be there. Just pick whatever mechanical options are fun for you and re-flavor them however you want.
For example, the OP said he's using a sub-par weapon because he escaped slavery with it? At our table grab the mechanics for a greatsword, call it a pickaxe and go to town with your 2d6 19-20/2 pickaxe.
But then you can't make a weak rogue and call everyone else power gamers.
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Flavor vs Gameplay? They aren't mutually opposed. It's like saying "How do you balance the color of the car with it's structural integrity". It is silly-you can have any car you buy painted red, and you can paint your favourite car whatever crazy color your ill imagination can dream up.
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Flavor vs Gameplay? They aren't mutually opposed. It's like saying "How do you balance the color of the car with it's structural integrity". It is silly-you can have any car you buy painted red, and you can paint your favourite car whatever crazy color your ill imagination can dream up.
I decided to look at this thread because I saw Klara posted in it. I am not disappointed unhappy with that decision. :P
When you build a character, be a PC or NPC, how do you balance gameplay and flavor? ...
So... what's your stance on flavor vs gameplay when creating characters, be playable or not? (GMs are welcomed to share their opinions too ;) )
My stance is that if the topic of this thread is even a thing to be considered, then you're probably not playing a very well-designed game in the first place.
:/
You can make a flavorful cool-looking character that ends up being weak gameplay-wise, just like you can make an optimized character that ends up being bland and boring...
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You can make a flavorful cool-looking character that ends up being weak gameplay-wise, just like you can make an optimized character that ends up being bland and boring...When you build a character, be a PC or NPC, how do you balance gameplay and flavor? ...
So... what's your stance on flavor vs gameplay when creating characters, be playable or not? (GMs are welcomed to share their opinions too ;) )
My stance is that if the topic of this thread is even a thing to be considered, then you're probably not playing a very well-designed game in the first place.
:/
Yes, you can. Typically in poorly-made games.
Was there a point you were trying to make?
You can make a flavorful cool-looking character that ends up being weak gameplay-wise, just like you can make an optimized character that ends up being bland and boring...When you build a character, be a PC or NPC, how do you balance gameplay and flavor? ...
So... what's your stance on flavor vs gameplay when creating characters, be playable or not? (GMs are welcomed to share their opinions too ;) )
My stance is that if the topic of this thread is even a thing to be considered, then you're probably not playing a very well-designed game in the first place.
:/
Yes, you can. Typically in poorly-made games.
Was there a point you were trying to make?
Define "poorly-made games"...
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Define "poorly-made games"...You can make a flavorful cool-looking character that ends up being weak gameplay-wise, just like you can make an optimized character that ends up being bland and boring...When you build a character, be a PC or NPC, how do you balance gameplay and flavor? ...
So... what's your stance on flavor vs gameplay when creating characters, be playable or not? (GMs are welcomed to share their opinions too ;) )
My stance is that if the topic of this thread is even a thing to be considered, then you're probably not playing a very well-designed game in the first place.
:/
Yes, you can. Typically in poorly-made games.
Was there a point you were trying to make?
I'll take a shot at it.
Games that create power disparities between things where they clearly favor certain stylistic choices. Such as a game where, hypothetically, you have to spend significantly more resources - let's call them feats - and effort - let's call them actions - merely to reach the same functionality your friend enjoys for free using a bow, for you to be able to use a crossbow on your rogue instead of a shortbow.
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Or games that constantly nerf anything good or useful that martials get while constantly adding countless new ways for spellcasting characters to steal the martial character's cheerios while giving up nothing in the process.
Games where the party gets free rings of spell knowledge (which are arcane only btw) and a book with every spell inside.
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Or games that are supposed to represent characters on an equal scale of "levels", considering characters of those scales to be equal in terms of things like treasures, rewards, experience points, and value, while in fact they are wildly and extremely different in terms of quality to the point that one of them could be worth more than thrice of their peers in terms of potential.
Such games would be even worse if things such as "flavor" or "it makes sense that these guys are better than those guys because of this stuff", because those things are merely measurements of that power since they are still measured on the scale and considered equivalent.
A better game would be one that recognizes that if you're sitting parallel on the same scale you should be more or less as worthwhile as your peers, and represents any innate power differences by different levels on that scale in world building where you want to represent the norms for that world.
For example, if Elves are just flat out superior to humans in your world, a bad game would consider all elves and humans to be on the same scale while one is better than the other. A good game would recognize that the humans are actually level 1 on average and the elves are level 3 on average instead.
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Games where the party gets free rings of spell knowledge (which are arcane only btw) and a book with every spell inside.
This sounds like an amusing horror story in the making.
I'll take a shot at it.
Games that create power disparities between things where they clearly favor certain stylistic choices. Such as a game where, hypothetically, you have to spend significantly more resources - let's call them feats - and effort - let's call them actions - merely to reach the same functionality your friend enjoys for free using a bow, for you to be able to use a crossbow on your rogue instead of a shortbow.
Oh, ok... let me actually lay down how I GM my sessions:
- I'm currently using a module- I gave absolutely free range to my players about what classes, races and items they could take, not to mention that none of them said that he or she needed this class in the party. No healer? Their issue, not mine :P
- My plan after the module is to take them on a world tour, since a NPC would like to hire them as bodyguards for a expedition. Each region would likely have self-contained adventures and their travel path is free for them to choose.
So right off the bat, I'm not really restraining my players at all. Furthermore, I kid you not, they've screwed ME over several times with the exact same tactic: they sneaked past encounters. That's right, instead of fighting, they literally avoided it, all skill-based I may add. They get rewarded accordingly and I'm not denying their efforts.
Point is, they do what they want and I have to adapt on the fly. The thing is though, I have a blast doing it ;)
Their characters are far from being carbon copies of regular builds I'm seeing here on this forum. They each bring very unique characters to the table, using possibly the weirdest combinations of races/classes/archetypes I've seen. For instance, I have a wizard/fighter who specialized in using and enchanting improvised weapons... Why? Because the guy hates training with a specific weapon and just pick up whatever he finds to fight. I got a suli samurai, an aasimar magus and a tiefling gunslinger in that same party, plus a ninja and fire-based sorcerer. Not your typical party ;)
As for me, I tend to create NPCs with specific designs, like a catfolk mooncursed barbarian or a half red dragon tiefling monk devilbound with a Nemesis devil. I don't really care about if they're good mecanic-wise, because I want to focus on the design and impact it will have when encountered. Same goes for your PCs, if you want to impress your teammates and GMs with a very unique character idea.
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I'm struggling to understand how that post is at all a reply in the dialogue about game design. It's like you're having a different conversation, JiCi.
Let's try again from the beginning.
In a poorly-designed game, there are some builds that are more mechanically powerful than others. You personally don't care about that power gap and build what you want anyway, which is fine.
In a well-designed game, the gap is never there in the first place. You can still build whatever awesome idea you want, but instead of "I don't really care about if they're good mechanic-wise" there just isn't a question about it in the first place.
With a well-designed game, threads like this can't even exist. You can't ask whether people are okay with their wacky characters being weaker if their wacky characters aren't weaker in the first place. The fact that you're asking the question at all proves that we're talking about a game where different character types are at different power levels. And I call that poor game design.
Was that clearer?
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We seem to be speaking about completely different things.
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In a poorly-designed game, there are some builds that are more mechanically powerful than others. You personally don't care about that power gap and build what you want anyway, which is fine.
In a well-designed game, the gap is never there in the first place. You can still build whatever awesome idea you want, but instead of "I don't really care about if they're good mechanic-wise" there just isn't a question about it in the first place.
Hi jiggy, I think this is nirvana fallacy. If you want a game to be asymmetric, which you do, some parts are going to be worse than others by definition.
What's important is the gap between them. If your game features literal gods and peasants and presents them as equals, that's a problem.
I disagree. You can have balance without symmetry. Starcraft is one of the poster children for this sort of thing where you can have characters, mechanics, and strategies that are wildly different from one-another aside from being contained in the same general framework.
A bard does not have to do the same things as the ranger for them to be equal to one another in terms of things like contribution or challenges. In some cases they may do the same things but they don't have to do them the same ways. If both are played competently and to their strengths, both provide similar threats and challenges.
Of course, as a GM, it's frustrating when the system tells you that engaging an 11th level Fighter is the same as engaging a level 11 sorcerer, worth the same experience, and carrying the same value of gear, when the sorcerer is leagues above the fighter in terms of difficulty. The Fighter is a speed bump, while the sorcerer may very well kill an entire party if they aren't careful.
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EDIT: And swordsage'd by Ashiel
Another Sign of their Divine Power!
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Fighters aren't speed bumps, they're experience pots!
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Fighters aren't speed bumps, they're experience pots!
Treasure Piñata is the correct term, I believe.
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Hi jiggy, I think this is nirvana fallacy. If you want a game to be asymmetric, which you do, some parts are going to be worse than others by definition.No.
In an asymmetric game, things cannot be all identical by definition.
There is no requirement that some things be stronger than others. Different, yes. Stronger or weaker, no.EDIT: And swordsage'd by Ashiel
Yay, initiator skillz! >:)
Speaking of Swordsage, I'd like to note that while Psychic Warriors, Crusaders, Warblades, Swordsages, Bards, Pathfinder Paladins & Rangers, Inquisitors, and Alchemists are all wildly different in terms of themes, abilities, gameplay mechanics, and playstyles, they all tend to be pretty equal in terms of overall strength. Some excel in certain areas under certain parameters better than others but they can all roughly contribute to an encounter or adventure equally.
This is simply not true for many parts of the game. And it's not just class balance, it also extends to character options like feats. I'm so tired of gem mining for feats and stuff that aren't absolute garbage.
Balance doesn't even have to be perfect. Most of the core classes are pretty well balanced with each other at most levels. Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger, Sorcerer, and Wizard get along pretty well through most levels of the game and it's really not until mid-high levels that the full casters go sailing off the charts (not that they're ever particularly bad).
However, we're still dealing with a game that tells me that an 11th level Fighter is equivalent to an 11th level Ranger, or Sorcerer, or Cleric, or whatever. And that's just a lie.
Fighters aren't speed bumps, they're experience pots!
I am reminded of Final Fantasy 7 where you can clear magic pot random encounters as certain way (feeding them elixirs) and they explode into thousands of ability points and gold.
Fighters are like that, instead of feeding them elixirs, you feed them your boot.
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Fighters aren't speed bumps, they're experience pots!Treasure Piñata is the correct term, I believe.
That works too, experience pot is just the term my school used in the Pokemon days to describe wild Metapods and other Pokemon that gave a notable amount of exp without posing a threat. |D
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So right off the bat, I'm not really restraining my players at all. Furthermore, I kid you not, they've screwed ME over several times with the exact same tactic: they sneaked past encounters. That's right, instead of fighting, they literally avoided it, all skill-based I may add. They get rewarded accordingly and I'm not denying their efforts.
Point is, they do what they want and I have to adapt on the fly. The thing is though, I have a blast doing it ;)
Some classes have more options than others. That's not inherently a bad thing but the extent to which it is true can lead to trouble quickly.
Their characters are far from being carbon copies of regular builds I'm seeing here on this forum.
Firstly, without pointing fingers, I'm gonna go ahead and say a lot of "builds" people find on internet forums like the Paizo boards are pretty garbage in actual play, because a lot of builds are often over specialized to the point that they aren't capable of flexing when the wind blows in a different direction.
Generally speaking, the mark of a well balanced class is one that you don't have to put all of your eggs in one basket. If it takes 7/10ths of your class features over 20 levels to shoot a bow worth a damn and all of that can be negated because someone cast fickle winds it doesn't really matter how good your backstory is or how much DPR your full attack does, you get to sit in the corner and twiddle your thumbs until the real adventurers are done.
They each bring very unique characters to the table, using possibly the weirdest combinations of races/classes/archetypes I've seen. For instance, I have a wizard/fighter who specialized in using and enchanting improvised weapons... Why? Because the guy hates training with a specific weapon and just pick up whatever he finds to fight.
Weird doesn't equate to flavorful, but aside from that, seems cool. I had a player who played a wizard who used a big axe and had a robust physical build, because he was a farmboy that ended up being an apprentice wizard 'cause this mage owed his dad a favor. Of course he was still a great adventurer. Nothing about this made him any worse at his job, just he specialized in things that were less about save DCs and more about dispelling, buffing, summoning, battlefield control, etc.
Likewise, if there was an archetype of say Magus that did the whole improvised weapon buffing thing better but had the same flavor, well, it wouldn't make the character less for going a route that works better mechanically (as an aside, I think psychic warriors can do something like this where they can just magic up random junk they find on the ground and whack people with it).
I got a suli samurai, an aasimar magus and a tiefling gunslinger in that same party, plus a ninja and fire-based sorcerer. Not your typical party ;)
Is there a typical party? It seems like people are downright allergic to things like humans, elves, and dwarfs half the time. To the point you just about need a warning lable on the character sheet: "warning: may contain core races". >_>
As for me, I tend to create NPCs with specific designs, like a catfolk mooncursed barbarian or a half red dragon tiefling monk devilbound with a Nemesis devil. I don't really care about if they're good mecanic-wise, because I want to focus on the design and impact it will have when encountered. Same goes for your PCs, if you want to impress your teammates and GMs with a very unique character idea.
How does this have anything to do with "flavor" vs "mechanics"? Nothing you listed is flavorful at all. It's just a random assortment of classes, races, templates, etc. What makes it flavorful? What did they do that makes them enrich the world?
If you want to talk about NPCs who are just unusual, well we could do that. My players have met Captain Scurvy the Pigmy Pugwampi Pirate a few times. He's a runty pugwampi who rides on the back of a large warf rat named Skitters, who is the brains and much of the brawn of an outfit of gnoll pirates known as "Scurvy Dogs". The gnolls aren't particularly strong or special but they're highly successful 'cause their captain sneaks onto ships and waits for unluck to strike and the gnolls come in and clean house. What he is isn't particularly flavorful or interesting (outside of being a fun tongue twisted to shout "Arg, he be a Pigmy Pugwampy Pirate!") but he's not particularly forgettable because of how he actually interacts with the party.
And of course, his mechanics contribute heavily to how he functions. For example, he's a ranger and he uses a bow more than anything else. His warf rat mount is his animal companion. His favored terrains are quite helpful in being a pirate, and he's a surprisingly mobile little squirt thanks to his rats ability to zip around, climb, and swim, while he goes "pew, pew, pew" at folks with his tiny bow (which is remarkably dangerous given certain factors). So the way his mechanics interact with the world makes him somewhat memorable because his build directs him towards specific styles (such as being a tiny mobile jerk who spreads unluck as he zips about while having a jolly good time).
But that's half of it. His personality, mannerisms, and devilish charm combo with the mechanics to ingrain him in the minds of onlookers. Of course, all the personality and flavor in the world are for naught if the mechanics can't back it up. You can roleplaying all you want but it won't make you shoot better, swim faster, or pirate better.
But we seem to have a different idea of what makes something "flavorful". My idea of flavorful is not some sort cthulu spawned tiefling werepoodle with a splatbook magical girl class who has tentacles growing off of her ass (though that would definitely be different).
Flavorful to me is more like the character Jeo that Aratrok played in my last long-running campaign. Jeo was a kumiho (korean fox demon, similar to kitsune) shapeshifter that grew up as a slave. She escaped from her master who collected exotic slaves when her friend, a tiefling and fellow slave, grabbed a guard to give her a chance to run. She ran, and didn't come back for a long time. She spent some years without a sense of purpose, and drifting about eating people and dealing with her own doubts about whether or not she was okay with that. Of course, her goal was to get revenge on her former slaver and rescue her friend who helped her escape. Over the course of the campaign she made friends and formed some real bonds, found her mothers, and was following a legend about a member of her kind that transcended eating people.
She was a multiclassed abomination on paper but that didn't really matter because she just worked. And worked well (almost too well in some cases), but the fact she had like 4 different progressions wasn't what made her interesting or unique and certainly not flavorful. It was of course, the character. And since one of her key personality traits was being able to lie to god with a strait face, well, I'm pretty sure she needed that unholy bluff check to fit her flavor.