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Polaris: I said 'futile' which means 'pointless', not 'impossible'.

There's a couple ways to balance things.

The tic-tac-toe way, which means that after you learn how to play the game, everyone has an equal chance of success, regardless of what choices they make.

The chess way, which means that the game treats all players equally, but players who make better choices, because of experience or natural aptitude, will almost always win.

The problem of balance in RPGs is simply a matter of determining what parts of the game the person calling for 'balance' cares about. They want to make the parts they don't care about tic-tac-toe balanced - so they'll try to make choices there not matter, in terms of absolute efficacy. The parts they do care about, they'll go for chess balance - and try to make choices there matter, that is, be important to success.

In RPGs, there are many schools of thought. One school of thought is that all choices made in the game should 'matter' in absolute terms of how successful you are. Another is that only choices made after campaign play begins should matter. Another is that only choices made in one particular part of the game should matter. Depending on what parts of the game they think should matter as much, they'll have different opinions on 'balance'.

People who want the wizard and the fighter balanced think your choice of class shouldn't matter. People who want feats to be balanced think your choice of feats shouldn't matter. People who want character ability to determine capability rather than player ability think your choices in play shouldn't matter.

And this, in fact, is why trying to balance an RPG as a designer is futile. Because different groups are going to think different choices should matter. 

What the designer should be doing is making sure there's an interesting variety of choices available in every section of the game, so that different groups have those choices available. The DM and Players should decide what parts of the game they want to focus on, and then take some simple steps to make choices in the other parts of the game not matter.

What the 'Balance' advocates of various stripes want to do is force the designers to focus on choices they think are important, and flatten all others.

In the interest of full disclosure: Personally, I think choices made in character creation shouldn't matter much. So I play a system where you only make a couple choices during that part of the game, and then I flatten those choices in play by making sure any time you get a benefit for your choice made back then, everyone else gets a compensating benefit. That flattening is how I 'balance' my game.

I find it odd, sometimes, that people have the balance tastes they do. For instance, wanting class choice not to matter, but they're fine with skill choice making a difference - both are choices made in character creation. Or, they want nothing to matter except choices made in combat. Or, they don't want choices made in character creation to matter in combat, but they want them to matter in social situations and exploration. Or some other combination. 

I find it frustrating that people try to portray 'Balance' as this absolute, gleaming tenet of game design, that everyone should agree on, when, in fact, it's just their opinion on which choices should matter more, or less, in the game as it's played at individual tables. People who call for Balance just want to control how everyone plays.

Monte's article isn't about these kinds of balance at all, as he rightly recognizes that trying to force one area of balance on everyone means you alienate all sorts of people who will suddenly find the game bland and boring, because the parts they used to focus on as 'chess-balanced' are now 'tic-tac-toe balanced', and the choices they don't care about are now 'chess-balanced'. Monte's article on balance is mostly about how mechanically, you can't enforce spotlight balance or challenge balance in an RPG. That's entirely dependent on players and DMs.

Feb 7, 2012 -- 10:07AM, Polaris wrote:

Then stop it.  I can only judge by what is SAID not what I think someone meant to say and in this case Kaldric made a claim that I thought to be very questionable and I called him on it.  Nothing more.


-Polaris  

Except you're taking what you want out of one article, and applying it in a way that supports your very clear anti-Monte-Cook stance (given a large number of posts on these very boards.

So when you start taking the entirety of what was said into account, as opposed to part of it (or, a "soundbite" in modern media parlance, as they are very, very good at using those to set up anyone to look how they wish), then you'll have a leg to stand on. Until then, your argument in this case is a bit moot.

@cirno Ah, ah, ah - read where I say what 'matter' means in my post. As in 'matter' in absolute terms of how successful you are. Not 'matter' in terms of 'provides pleasing variety', which is how you're using the word.

So... anyway.

Also, I say that personally, I think choices made in character creation shouldn't have an absolute effect on whether you're more or less successful. Character classes are picked during character creation. Thus, my personal opinion... which I just stated... in the post you replied to... was, to paraphrase, 'I like classes to be balanced in my games'.

And you responded with what looks like your canned rant that you use for all arguments about balance, rather than reading what I posted.

@tco Pretty much the same thing. 

At the very least, your choice of phrasing was wholly misleading.

Honestly, if you correct the phrasing, I think you may be correct, but manage to miss the thrust of things entirely.

Folks seem to differ in opinion with you about which kind of "mattering" actually matters.  That choices don't "matter, in terms of absolute efficacy" does not itself matter.  That choices do "matter", in the more common use of the word - that they are significant, in this case, in that they can give vastly different experiences (even if the same "absolute efficacy") - is what actually matters.

Failing to include that aspect of the "issue" is likely my second biggest problem with your post.

(The first remaining your choice of phrasing.)

EDIT: I don't want you to take this post too strongly, especially since you already apologized for the post not being entirely clear.

That said, to phrase my own thoughts a bit more succinctly:

Your post seemed to imply that choices only matter when one is clearly superior to another, and I find that idea preposterous.

It's really just the use of the term, in a non-standard fashion.

When I say that*, I mean that while "this choice does not alter absolute effectiveness" is what a lot of people want when they talk about balance (after all, isn't that what it means?), "absolute effectiveness" is not where most people look for - or want - variation.  Instead, they look for - and want - variation in play.  Different actions, different events, different characters, and different stories - this is where most people want variation.  This is where people want their choices to "matter".

The idea is that people don't want some choices (class, let's say) to affect "absolute efficacy" - to use your phrasing, they want that choice to "not matter, in terms of absolute efficacy."

But they do want those choices to create different experiences - to affect actions, events, characters, and stories. 

They do want the choice to "matter", just not "in terms of absolute efficacy."


*(I was going to copy-paste, but honestly all the "matters" 'matters' and matters are just making things more convoluted than they need to be.)