I was thinking about D20 game design the other day and remembered an old heated discussion on Wizards.com about the value of stats in D&D 3.X.  It was the old bickering about Gray Elves being too powerful for a +0 Level Adjustment because casting stats are essentially 'broken'.

The primary argument about casting stats was something the my opponent referred to as the 'edge-case' - essentially a game state at the far fringe of character ability where every last bit of optimization was required to be successful.  He argued that game designers should always build the game towards the 'edge-case' while I argued that it wasn't a big deal. In this case, it's a +1 modifier to spellcasting that he was worried about and insisted was broken.

Now, I've always been a bit of a designer, but I'm pretty curious. How many GMs around here design their games to include edge-case senerios? Personally, my game encourage players to allocate resources in a way that doesn't punish some specialization but does reward players being able to bring more then one ability to bear. How many GMs have players that attempt to 'twink out' or build towards these cases, and how many players attempt to do the same?

By the same token, are there any GMs that do the opposite? I'm talkling about posing senerios where hyper-focused PCs are at a loss. I realize that in D&D, players often rely on a group of hyper-focused PCs which gives some players a feeling that they can safely minimize certain attributes to focus on others because they can just rely on another character to pick up their slack (and indeed, only one character may be useful in the encounter at a time - I'm reminded of the Bard, Rogue, or Paladin who's relied on to be the groups 'face').

I know I've designed games where having only one socially competant PC would be a disaster, while a band of fully social-based characters would have gotten eaten alive. I'm just curious as to how others run and play, and how important others feel these 'edge-case' senerios are.

I think its very important in game design to consider the "worst-case scenarios" of player abuse. Players are wont to try to take every advantage they can bleed, swindle, or fennagle out of the rules.

RPGPundit

I'm not a game designer, but I agree with Pundit on this one. It's great to have a game that's mostly balanced, but if the other 10% allows for crazy crap comparatively, it's that 10% that will be picked apart by critics and abused by players.

Even if your players are not the sort who optimize based on rules, I think that handling edge cases well is important.  

You should not assume that the PCs are going to be bog-standard representatives of their type.  While there are times when PCs being a bunch of wierdoes is overdone, I think it is generally an improvement in the game to at least allow characters who break stereotypes and generally are out of the edge or expectations rather than the middle.  

What sucks is playing a game where no one is on the edge because it will either cripple their character or brand them as a munchkin.

Quote from: RPGPunditI think its very important in game design to consider the "worst-case scenarios" of player abuse. Players are wont to try to take every advantage they can bleed, swindle, or fennagle out of the rules.

This is true.

It also again demonstrates why system does indeed matter.

I don't worry about edge cases when I design a game. I try to make the systems self-balancing, but if it's a case of allowing creative players freedom and curbing edge case players, I go for the freedom every time. My job is to put the tools for fun in front of a role playing group. I let the group itself decide about the actual details - like edge cases.

-clash

I don't care if players design over-optimized one-trick-pony munchkinoids.  The trick is to do that and still have an interesting character.

I think the edge case should be considered... but it's hard for me to call a +1 bonus to spellcasting broken.

I mean... it's not more broken than +1HP per level is it?

Int. is probably a better stat than Str... but its not demonstrably better than Dex or Con or Wis.

Quote from: RPGObjects_chuckI think the edge case should be considered... but it's hard for me to call a +1 bonus to spellcasting broken.

I mean... it's not more broken than +1HP per level is it?

Int. is probably a better stat than Str... but its not demonstrably better than Dex or Con or Wis.

This is primarily what I was thinking of. While designing or running, I feel that's it's important to curb the really obviously broken stuff. Let's say that in D&D, you've got a level 3 Human Fighter. This is something that's not uncommon, and they end up with 5 Feats at that level - 1 for being Human, 1 for 1st level, 1 for third level, and 2 for being a Fighter. 3.0 was kind of wonky because instead of taking three levels of Fighter, it was mechanically better in just about every way to dip into one level of Ranger because you got 2 more Feats and didn't lose a thing.

So, designers should, I think, make balance issues like that a priority. When issues like that exist and the group is playing, I think it's important for the GM to kind of keep that behavior in check. (In this example case, it's as easy as saying, "Sure, but where did you pick up Ranger training and why?")

That arguement on Wizards.com was that, essentially, that was a +1 bonus to something that could not be made up elsewhere. Taken to its logical extreme, the edge-case, that was a +1 to what he considered the most potent game ability and because it couldn't be made up, it was a broken race.  I had a real issue with that, because I couldn't imagine hardly any game senerios that I had run where that +1 spellcaster level was needed to reliably use spells. In his opinion, there was no ability or stat bonus in the entire game that could make up for that +1 bump, because the edge case was that important to him.

I just don't think it's a designer level issue. Make it self balancing as you can, and any outliers are a group level issue.

-clash

Two things that matter a lot here are scenario design/situation creation and assumptions about party unity.

If the game is run in such a way that the things the PCs run up against are always calibrated to the abilitites of the party, then specialization makes a certain amount of sense. At least it means the party as a whole will be able to maximize their XP rewards or whatever. Meanwhile differentiation within in the party is maximized by specialization, which gives the GM a way to design scenarios that let each player shine in turn. On the other hand if scenarios or situations come up that don't have anything to do with the PCs per se, then the party as a whole will have to be generalists to make their way in the world, and there's also no guarantee of spotlight time simply because you occupy a niche.

Party unity accentuates these factors. If the group is always going to work together then it makes sense to specialize for the benefit of the group. If PCs are more about doing their own thing, then they need to be self-sufficient and can't specialize quite as much--depending on the sorts of situations they might run into. (See above.)

I think one way to get away from the edge condition/overspecialized characters is to encourage a set of core competencies and weigh them fairly high relative to special abilities. Thus, either

a) In character creation/development, make it much cheaper/easier (or even required) for characters to develop common skills than specialized ones. The specialized skills are more like "icing on the cake" than the center of the character.

b) In scenario design, place a high emphasis on core competencies. Award core competency more than uber specialization. Don't design scenarios toward edge conditions.

Quote from: Elliot WilenTwo things that matter a lot here are scenario design/situation creation and assumptions about party unity.

If the game is run in such a way that the things the PCs run up against are always calibrated to the abilitites of the party, then specialization makes a certain amount of sense.

Now this is a designer level issue! I got around it in the standard StarCluster System by dropping XPs entirely and rewarding only survival, thus things get darwinian. In the In Harm's Way series, I rewarded extreme bravery as well, in a different way - survival nets you skills, bravery nets you promotion.  that works out well for that game series, encouraging both, but you need a hierarchy like the military for it to work within. In any case I prefer Darwin to Pavlov.

-clash

Quote from: Thanatos02That arguement on Wizards.com was that, essentially, that was a +1 bonus to something that could not be made up elsewhere. Taken to its logical extreme, the edge-case, that was a +1 to what he considered the most potent game ability and because it couldn't be made up, it was a broken race.

Out of curiosity, was it a guy named Polaris?

Quote from: Thanatos02I was thinking about D20 game design the other day and remembered an old heated discussion on Wizards.com about the value of stats in D&D 3.X.  It was the old bickering about Gray Elves being too powerful for a +0 Level Adjustment because casting stats are essentially 'broken'.
...
In this case, it's a +1 modifier to spellcasting that he was worried about and insisted was broken.

What a fucking moron.  "Yeah, let me take a -2 Con penalty when I'm rolling a d4 for hp."  There are only three races for wizards:

1. Human
2. Halfling
3. Gnome (only if you're an illusionist, for race-specific prestige classes)

If you are using the racial substitution levels from Races of the Wild, a gray elf wizard might be approximately as good as the three races I just mentioned.  But anyone who thinks that race is broken needs his head examined.

Quote from: James McMurrayOut of curiosity, was it a guy named Polaris?

I can't swear by it, but I will say that the name sounds really familiar. I haven't a doubt that I've dicussed matters with him at least once.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of trying to balance every thing because game balance is really very subjective. The issue of Fighters in D&D, for example, is a contentious one with many players finding them too weak while others find them at least passable. I think that D&D is a well-balanced game, at least in most areas which is why, if for any reason, the occasional poorly balanced issues seem to stick out so badly.

What I'm interested in is, as DMs or players, do you guys design towards edge-case senerios? I sure as hell don't, which is why my players don't have to worry too much about optimizing their D&D characters and none of them have ever bothered to study the Exalted rules like a text-book like I seem to notice amoung other players. I always wondered if my perpective was skewed because I was one of the few DMs not to reward players building towards edge cases and to reward them for 'flavor' skills such as Professions, Crafts, or non-social fu users possessing above-average Charismas and social skills like Gather Information, Diplomacy, and Intimidate.