I'm thinking of my game.  And I'm thinking about balance, and I'm not sure I want it. 

I want may players to look for edges, look for angles.  Avoid fair fights.  If the are clever and understand the situation I want them to be able to leverage the environment or NPCs or monsters and solve the encounter with out rolly any dice.  Bot ever encounter.   Some times they'll have to fight and the dice or their tactics will decide.  But I want them looking for advantage. 

If they can never stack the odds to turn a close thing into a blow out there really isn't any point in planning ahead. 


Any one have any thoughts or suggestions on unbalanced adventures?

Nothing spoils verisimilitude in quite the same way as all of the encounters being slightly less powerful than the party. Sometimes they should be faced with overwhelming power (and not just when the GM wants to railroad them). And those small groups of goblins they used to fight at low levels? They shouldn't disappear as soon as the party no longer breaks a sweat dealing with them.

So let the players use their judgment of whether they can win an encounter, or whether they should run for the hills. I think that breathes life into a campaign.

Quote from: Headless on June 26, 2022, 04:35:17 PM
Any one have any thoughts or suggestions on unbalanced adventures?

I think like most things it's a question of finding the right midpoint. Encounters that kill most or all of the party too soon is just as boring as encounters guaranteed to always be a little less powerful than the party.

A good variety of easy vs. hard-but-beatable-by-the-clever sounds like a good approach, as long as you do two things: (1) always make sure the really hard encounters have a way around them or an Achilles' heel the PCs can use, and (2) give people at least a ballpark sense of what their real odds are before they're inescapably committed. Nothing ticks off players faster than feeling like the GM or the adventure tricked them into a challenge or contest they couldn't possibly win.

Quote from: Headless on June 26, 2022, 04:35:17 PMAvoid fair fights.

You are basically asking your party to be cold-blooded murderers. I've played games like this and they get very disturbing very fast.

Pausing to allow your enemy to draw his sword and prepare for the fight is the action of a hero. Stabbing them in their sleep is not.


That being said, I think the classic D&D dungeon style works the best. Since each dungeon level gets more and more dangerous as the party descends, it effectively allows the players to determine the difficulty of the game as they play it. So, the party can choose to delve deep and fact overwhelming odds or stick to the upper levels where it is safer but less lucrative. The main idea, though, is that players are just suddenly confronted with an overpowered enemy randomly, it is the result of a choice to travel away from the safer areas. Note that this doesn't have to be an actual dungeon, just any sort of system where it is possible for the players to guestimate the level of danger of different areas For example, letting them chose between an adventure in the Elven Woods or the Forbidden Forest.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on June 26, 2022, 06:36:21 PM

Quote from: Headless on June 26, 2022, 04:35:17 PMAvoid fair fights.

You are basically asking your party to be cold-blooded murderers. I've played games like this and they get very disturbing very fast.

Pausing to allow your enemy to draw his sword and prepare for the fight is the action of a hero. Stabbing them in their sleep is not.


That being said, I think the classic D&D dungeon style works the best. Since each dungeon level gets more and more dangerous as the party descends, it effectively allows the players to determine the difficulty of the game as they play it. So, the party can choose to delve deep and fact overwhelming odds or stick to the upper levels where it is safer but less lucrative. The main idea, though, is that players are just suddenly confronted with an overpowered enemy randomly, it is the result of a choice to travel away from the safer areas. Note that this doesn't have to be an actual dungeon, just any sort of system where it is possible for the players to guestimate the level of danger of different areas For example, letting them chose between an adventure in the Elven Woods or the Forbidden Forest.

So, for D&D and the like this is potentially a pretty solid point, depending on what a fair fight looks like from your perspective. Doing this sort of thing may perhaps encourage them to take every advantage, including immoral ones, unless you just mean that they should use environmental shoves, clever maneuvers on the fly, and the like, which I feel can be fun if done sparingly enough that they don't just become requirements or routine. Diplomacy can be fun, but also may encourage them to behave unheroically, which unless their alignments and the general tone of the campaign were meant to reflect that, IDK.

I might also add that in D&D and the like a lot of the draw is often in the combat crunch, since that's where characters are best mechanically defined, and the further away you go from that the less players get to use their abilities, and the more things are determined by fiat and what the DM and DM alone thinks is a clever idea. Which can be good with a creative DM everybody agrees with and sharp players on the same wavelength, but can potentially I think fall apart otherwise. Likewise, if a DM is seen as being too harsh with rulings they may be accused of "arbitrarily killing characters", whereas letting them constantly emerge victorious from fights they mechanically should not win may potentially be seen as diminishing player agency or risk/victory railroading, albeit not in a directly cheating way like DM "fudging" without player agreement.

Speaking of combat crunch, consider that players may take this as a challenge to optimize their characters through the roof if not told not to. Which is fun for some players and DMs but not others. Or lead to cheese mechanical combos being spammed. Likewise, if not everybody does the arms race but some do, you may have things like a low level 5e moon druid overshadowing everybody else because the player felt they had to bring their mechanical A game. Which is not always a problem intrinsically, but can be where player agency is diminished and the other players care.

That said, this all assumes D&D type stuff for lawfuls or goods. Call of Cthulhu is inherently punishing and random, as well as potentially vicious to players in combat, so that kind of fight avoidance or creative mentality will almost be the default there. Or heck, wanna play WOD with a further right ST reading? Combat is potentially quite brutal because you never know what lines of attack will be utilized for supernatural and natural approaches, they can gang up on you, and hits take a sizeable chunk out of hit points typically, assuming you didn't just max oWOD soak and they don't have aggravated damage. Plus loss of humanity and the like from sketch things is legit something they may have to worry about or be encouraged to work into their characters' story. Or in DFRPG a lot of an adventure, which is not necessarily raw combat to begin with, can come down to clever FATE maneuvers and aspect invocations, or smart spellcasting (which is admittedly pretty strong if you've built for it).

So I'd say a lot of it still depends contextually on a fair number of different factors.

Balance for balance sake is not a good thing.  Balance that emerges organically from reasonable rulings often is a good thing.  Because then it becomes a thing that players can reason from, for future actions, with some reasonable chance of making it work.

Note that action in setting terms is also separate from action via manipulating the game rules.  If you find yourself putting in rules solely to stop rules lawyers, stop.  Instead, leave it up to the GM to adjudicate.  That is, a clever plans in terms of the situations and setting and the abilities of the characters is great.  A "clever" plan that involves twisting a rule is not.

Balance of "screen time", opportunities to shine, etc. are also a function of the GM running the game.  That is, don't make the "sailor" character or the mounted knight have artificial constraints or boosts to make up for when there are no ships or horse around--or opposite, when they are.  If the game isn't going to feature those things very much, then let the players know.  If the characters are all more or less balanced for every possible scene, then that all but ensures that they are bland or the adventure is or both.

That leaves rules balance tweaks where the compromise of the game system meets the thing being modeled.  So OK, maybe a guy with a greatsword in your wizard's face is maybe not quite as threatening as you envision it, because you want mages not dying every time that happens.  With all such things, it's good to work backwards from the intent.  How dangerous is it meant to be when a guy waving a wand running around in a robe gets in melee with a warrior?  "Balance" the rules around whatever that intent is.

Quote
You are basically asking your party to be cold-blooded murderers. I've played games like this and they get very disturbing very fast.

Pausing to allow your enemy to draw his sword and prepare for the fight is the action of a hero. Stabbing them in their sleep is not.

Hedge hobbit.

That wasn't what I ment.  But it could be a pitfall if I'm not careful. 

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on June 26, 2022, 09:42:11 PM
Balance for balance sake is not a good thing.  Balance that emerges organically from reasonable rulings often is a good thing.  Because then it becomes a thing that players can reason from, for future actions, with some reasonable chance of making it work.



Balance of "screen time", opportunities to shine, etc. are also a function of the GM running the game.  That is, don't make the "sailor" character or the mounted knight have artificial constraints or boosts to make up for when there are no ships or horse around--or opposite, when they are.  If the game isn't going to feature those things very much, then let the players know.  If the characters are all more or less balanced for every possible scene, then that all but ensures that they are bland or the adventure is or both.

This is in the same ball park as what I mean.  If the party is mounted and have a mounted specialist of some kind, then I want them to trounce bug bears in the open.  Or archers.  The terrain favors cav.  Cav should win. 

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That leaves rules balance tweaks where the compromise of the game system meets the thing being modeled.  So OK, maybe a guy with a greatsword in your wizard's face is maybe not quite as threatening as you envision it, because you want mages not dying every time that happens.  With all such things, it's good to work backwards from the intent.  How dangerous is it meant to be when a guy waving a wand running around in a robe gets in melee with a warrior?  "Balance" the rules around whatever that intent is.

I want the guy with the great sword to be dangerous enough that he doesn't have to swing, because everyone, especially the mage knows he will be cut down.  Unless he has a trick.  Magic isn't a trick if everyone knows he has it.

QuotePausing to allow your enemy to draw his sword and prepare for the fight is the action of a hero. Stabbing them in their sleep is not.

Deep disagree. Either they deserved to die - in which case there is not reason to grant them any notion of honor, or they did not - in which case killing them in honorable duel is still wicked murder and wanton risk of life

Rare cases of tragic conflicts aside, where honor is sort of way of saying - we don't really want to kill another, alas circumstances.

Where I find balance useful is between PCs in the party. First, it cuts down on squabbling and hard feelings (I often run games with my godkids who range from 11-17 and adults are only theoretically more mature) and better allows me to judge the difficulty of the encounters I'm creating for them... i.e. do I want them to have an easy time or really push them... unbalanced PCs are harder to account for.

That said, this balance doesn't need to be absolute... more of "exists within a reasonable range."

When one PC has AC 16 and 25 hp and another has AC 19 and 30 hp then one is a bit tougher than the other when facing something with a +7 to hit that deals 9 damage, but it's close enough. Similarly, the slightly more fragile one might make two attacks for 1d6+5 while the other delivers a single one for 1d12+7 then those numbers are close enough too, but in the opposite direction so the two PCs feel balanced with each other for the players and also average out on offense and defense when you, as the GM are deciding how much they can handle.

Balance between PCs and individual monsters/encounters isn't that important... the only way it is important comes down to how easily the GM can determine if the threat is at the level they desire it to be. When you know threat X is something the party can handle all day long, 2X is something they can overcome 4-5 times a day before their resources are running dry and 3X is something they pull off once or twice a day then you can plan appropriately - particularly if PCs are robust enough to survive in even overmatched encounters long enough to realize they're overmatched and survive if they then try to flee or surrender.

ex. when a monster's hit deals 20 damage to either the 25 or 30 hp PC before they even get their turn they know the monster is above their weight class and can flee or surrender or attempt parley. By contrast, hitting one for 40 damage instakills one before they even have the opportunity to make a choice. This might be realistic in a "anyone can die" story perhaps, but most RPGs these days bill themselves as heroic fantasy and instakilling basically halts the game for that player by fiat until they can build a new character and the GM finds a place to introduce them.

I've had more than my share of games where no attention was paid to balance and its related metrics where the entire mood of the evening gets spoiled by a new GM not being able to reliably judge how difficult the encounter they set up was... and the "I'm gonna just fudge the dice here" ones are even worse than the "let the unavoidable TPK happen" ones as you know there are no real stakes for the first one (the latter one is still a buzzkill, but at least there's the prospect of a good game if the GM can figure out the system's difficulty scale.

"Balance" in this case is a big help for being able to figure out that scale. Knowing your party can easily handle threat X, will struggle with 2X, and surely die if facing 4X doesn't mean you're stuck throwing X at the party because that's "balanced"... it means that when you decide to throw 3X at them it'll be a hell of a fight they'll have to work at to survive, but it's not a hopeless fight. You'll also know that if you only throw X/2 at them it'll be a curbstomp in the PC's favor.

Balance/Solid Metrics are a tool. I am of the opinion that it's always better to be a PC with a rope in their pack they never need, than be the one who desperately needs a rope, but doesn't have one.

I tend to judge RPG systems by that same metric; better to have balance/metrics you can ignore if you want than not have them and have to guess.

Addendum on the deadly encounters thing; a maxim a very good GM once told me is that "for heroic fantasy to be fun then you need to allow for stupidity to lead to character death, but bad luck alone should not lead to character death."

If a PC dies because they choose to walk into a dragon lair at level 1 that's stupidity. If a PC dies because they stumbled into a dragon's lair at level 1 with no warning signs whatsoever it was even there that's not fun.

His correlary to this was "you can't count engaging with the game's core premise as stupidity on its own." Basically, if your game is about exploring dungeons then the act of entering a dungeon to explore it can't count as stupidity for the "can lead to death" evaluation. Not checking for traps? Sure... that's stupid. Not listening at doors? Sure... that's stupid. Getting hit with an earworm parasite that kills you for listening at the door? Stupid. Rocks fall. Everyone dies? Stupid.

It is a lot easier to apply this philosophy without the need to fudge dice rolls when you have good balance metrics.

Quote from: Chris24601 on June 27, 2022, 09:14:49 AM


"Balance" in this case is a big help for being able to figure out that scale. Knowing your party can easily handle threat X, will struggle with 2X, and surely die if facing 4X doesn't mean you're stuck throwing X at the party because that's "balanced"... it means that when you decide to throw 3X at them it'll be a hell of a fight they'll have to work at to survive, but it's not a hopeless fight. You'll also know that if you only throw X/2 at them it'll be a curbstomp in the PC's favor.

Thanks.  Your whole post was helpful but this part right here really gets to what I was talking about.  I don't want to be picking their fights.  I don't want to be throwing any Xs at them I want them to choose their own fights.  Not for every encounter.  But for some of them.

I don't want to run heroic fantasy.  So the players can walk away from lots of encounter's.  And I really want them to choose which challenge's to face and how to face them.  I will have to be clear on how dangerous and tough things are so they can make meaningful choices. 

Most of all I want them to be able to turn what I thought would be a TPK in to a cake walk. 

Moral is going to be a factor.  Most creatures won't fight to the death.  And I am going to add a crit table and a reliable way to get to roll on it.  I'm thinking if you have advantage and both dice hit you get to roll on the table.  I don't like the fights that go on like their chopping fire wood.

"Balance" is relative to what?.

Effectively "Balance" should be how the GM expresses the world to the PC's and it has to make sense. If Orcs are just as smart as humans, and they out-produce population-wise, there should be some very specific reasons why they are not the dominate species. It's all about controlling the context of the game either by outright mechanics, or by narrative establishment.

For example - in the case where Orcs are in fact as smart as Humans, while being physically superior and more aggressive, it might be that the Humans of that world have magic, and the civilizations of humanity reflect that (they live in sky-cities, or have magical means of protecting themselves from Orc invasions). BUT once the PC's are out and about, they must know that Orcs are *intensely* dangerous (or are they?) OR it might be that the Orcs are predated upon by much scarier stuff and their population is controlled by their own savage pursuits tied to their own survival.

The same calculus should be used to describe the world - even if on paper one species or race might be clearly "mechanically superior" the game should reflect the status quo of why they might not be the ruling class. The GM's job is to present that status quo and whatever intricacies that underpin that status-quo, and especially where that status-quo is deviated from.

"Balance" in terms of system should be aimed at task-resolution mechanics should make sense. If a firearm does less damage than a dagger, or if mechanics allow for a Thief to backstab with a catapult, then you might have some mechanical balance issues to work out.

The idea of "balance" based on the encounter level is playing a very thinly veiled boardgame. This notion of "balance" is not the way to present the world. It generally tries to emulate video-game mechanics in lieu of actual GM's presenting the world authentically. If you're running a Module or AP and not customizing it to your setting and personal needs, it's like microwaving a steak. Sure its steak... but it's the personal touch that makes it come alive.

"Balance" in the popular modern concept is an illusion of a player wanting his PC toon to be the most efficient murder-hobo in the prepackaged adventure and everyone else in their designated slot, but no one is mechanically superior to one another and all encounters are weighed and measured against some numerical indicators of the party's overall assumed strength.

"Balance" for sandbox GM's is keeping maximal plate-spinning on the setting details that wants the PC's to interact with the setting in the widest variety of ways that the PC's may never expect without all the plates crashing down around the group. What the player's are mechanically capable of is relevant only to the fact that any ability that exists in that setting does so for a reason. It's the GM's job to establish the context of those abilities in-game. (It magic common? How hard is it to get military grade weapons? etc. but most IMPORTANTLY - WHY?)

Application of the context of the setting is maintained by *consistency* of that application. This is the Way.

I view balance as having two types: meta and in-world (for lack of better terminology).

In-world balance is the Orc King sending a scouting party when it would be smarter to send a full warband, as long as there is a sensible in-world reason for doing so. The party can then gauge the strength of the Orcs without getting destroyed and it shouldn't break verisimilitude. This is one of the conceits of running a game. You sometimes find a reason to make NPCs behave sub-optimally to give the PCs a chance. Perhaps the Orc King was over-confident because of recent easy victories. The world dictates the balance.

Meta balance is the other one, i.e., when the warband does show up, it's conveniently right-sized to be beaten by the PCs. In this case, the balance dictates the world (i.e., the Orc King likes weak ass warbands for some reason).

First, no one believes in "balance" - if they did, the monster would win 50% of the fights.

What "modern" players want is that the PCs rarely risk being defeated, except, MAYBE, for the final boss.

I hate the idea that every foe the PCs encounter is tailored to give them an exciting fight with no real danger.

I LIKE the idea that PCs get to PICK their fight. They can negotiate, escape, sneak around, attack by surprise, retreat, parlay, surrender, bribe, etc.

The thing with the 3e experience for me is that it became an arms race to figure out who could deliver the most combat crunch in the shortest span possible, and it eventually annoyed the shit out of me because I hated serving as the punching bag... so the entire concept of combat balance just makes me want to vomit. Eventually, the whole experience revolved around planning combat encounters that provided some bit of challenge, where upon the clever PCs would (yet again) beat the sh!t out of all my planning. Just a fucking nightmare experience as a DM, trying to provide entertainment and only serving as a got-dang punching bag.

I'd rather create tension through other means, and combat should be a release of the tension (culminating in death). Then you build it back up again.

Threats should be personal, not attrition-based (chipping away HP to 0), IMO. In short, balance is for shite.