Lots of replies! I was off running a game, so I have to catch up.
"Balance" much like the concept of "fair" in life is an affectation. People bring their own ideas of what a "balanced" game is to a system and seldom is there anything objectively balanced to draw on.
I am with you on this Clash. More, I have designed my games so a character can begin the journey in one direction, then switch or pick up skills unrtelated to his "class"...kind of like life. I am not a "game designer". I am not a "software developer". I am not a "gourmand". I am not a "coffee snob". I have skills in all these things and they do not make me "better" or "equal" or "balanced" with the next human being.
Now, do not get me wrong, "balance" is a comforting idea, just like the idea that the world is "fair" and you will get your chance. Also, I am not saying that game balance should be banned!!!111!!111! from game design but it is not my method and I think it bring a lot more problems than it solves.
It's clearly fair to say different people mean different things by balance -- that was the whole point of the the thread... but saying balance causes problems make a lot of assumptions about the mechanism used to create balance.
Hero is an example of a hugely flexible game that made a real attempt at balance. It's probably my poster child for a game that's both extremely flexible and... at least reasonably... balanced. It's clearly a game that put a lot of thought into balance, at any rate.
I've played all kinds of games in it and I have to say that claims that it's somehow crippled because of it's care about balance seem... wrong to me.
Like 180-degrees wrong.
I'd be interested to hear your analysis of it.
Well, that's how I run games. I had a new player come into one of my games. He promptly tweaked his character out as a combat monster. I OK'd the character. He played it for a few weeks, then came to me saying he wanted to redesign the character. When I asked why, he said that he made a character that was too optimized for combat. He couldn't do anything else well, and felt left out when the others we not in combat. So we toned it down a bit - no longer world class, but still a master. Then he could pick up other skills and broaden his interests a bit. That's what I meant when I said optimization can be it's own punishment. Itraps you into one thing. I don't know how others play my games, but however they do, it should work out fine.
-clash
Do you do super-hero games? Because those typically have a good deal of combat and (in my experience) get the best results when everyone's relatively even in power.
Unlike games focused on more realistic characters, supers games usually let you be a great scientist or a super detective or whatever fairly cheaply and only really charge for combat stuff -- so you get a scenario where no one's left out of the game for being a combat monster (even the combat monster has a few points left over for some other stuff).
If you do supers games, do you have the same approach?
Looking at 4E D&D, the one notion of "balance" which appears to be preserved with some precision in 1-on-1 combat duels, is for the case of a hypothetical "normal humanoid" where all the ability stats are 10 with no bonuses (and ignoring stat boosts at higher levels, for the sake of argument).
With the attacks and defenses having a +level/2 modifier, a hypothetical "normal humanoid" of any level has a 55% probability of hitting another "normal humanoid" of the same level (give or take one level up or down). The +level/2 modifier preserves this 55% probability.
I suspect this is possibly what the 4E designers started off with.
In earlier editions of D&D/AD&D, the base attack bonus varied from class to class (instead of a flat +level/2). It didn't appear that "balance" on the level of a 1-on-1 combat duel was the objective.
That sounds about right. Question: in 4e, is everyone expected to fight at about the same level, regardless of class? If so, that would be a radical departure from AD&D...
Amen Brother!
The same goes for design that limits abuse by bad GMs. A lot of elements of modern game design seem to be bringing on the era of the "nanny game", trying to curtail or prevent bad GMs or bad players. You start down that road and you too easily end up with the "this is how the game should be played" result, ie. most Forge games.
You get a rockin' GM who doesn't railroad and gives his players a real immersive world to sink their teeth into, no one talks about "screen-time", "shared authority" or "narrative focus", they're too busy having fun roleplaying their asses off.
... I'm struggling to see the Hero system as a "nanny game."
But it's (as I said above) a poster child for "balance."
I don't think balance is in the same category as the other things you've listed -- those are all story-telling elements. Balance is just having rules and a character build system that's had a lot of thought put into it.
Do you see Hero as either
a) A "nanny game" or
b) A game you wouldn't consider especially focused on balance?
Cheers,
-E.