Balance? BALANCE?! We don't need no stinkin' balance!

>From: Robbie Taylor 

> This is one that I've been thinking about for a while. How much do you
actually
>  care about balance? Personally, I don't care at all. If you're willing to
kill
>  characters off, then I guess you can say your game is balanced, but unless
you
>  are, the game is always tilted in the player's favor. Since I like to have
fun
>  and don't want to deal with pouty players who've just had their favorite
>  character killed, I don't give a flip about making sure that they don't get
too
>  big for their britches.
> Also, if they get powerful, I have no problem coming up with powerful things
to
>  send against them. So, there's always some challenge; but who needs balance?

Balance isn't something I'd be terrible concerned with; but it's been my
experience that too often games are played in which the players need never
consider that they are not big/tough/powerful enough to handle what the gm
puts them up against.  I've always had more fun in games where the risk of
my characters ever reaching retirement age was exceedingly small.  We had to
try to find a variety of ways to avoid trouble rather than go toe to toe
with it, and actually completing a scenario meant something, it felt like an
accomplishment.  If there's no real risk of death or dismemberment, what's
'the point in playing?  Players need to know they're fighting the odds, not
working with them.



***********************************************
It is hard to master both life and work equally
well.  So if you are bound to fake one of them,
it had better be life.
        -Joseph Brodsky
************************************************
jjones@twsuvm.uc.twsu.edu


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Balance? BALANCE?! We don't need no stinkin' balance!

From: Robbie Taylor 

> are, the game is always tilted in the player's favor. Since I like to have
fun
> and don't want to deal with pouty players who've just had their favorite
> character killed, I don't give a flip about making sure that they don't
get too
> big for their britches.
>
Actually I always saw it as a sign of trouble if no-one had been killed in a
while.  Not that I actively try to kill the characters, but if a death
hadn't happened then it  meant I was either getting lazy or soft.

A character death reminds everyone that the stakes are high.  Gets the edge
back on the game.  Gotta have that smell of fear every month or two to make
the work worthwhile  :-)

I did have a player who tried "This had better not be too tough - if Moose
get's killed I'm never playing again".  My reply was "That's unfortunate -
I'd be sad to see you go."  NOBODY threatens the GM.  When you've got a half
dozen intelligent, fiendish, committed players actively scheming against you
the absolute power of the GM is the only thing keeping the game balanced.

Chris.

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Balance? BALANCE?! We don't need no stinkin' balance!

This post I find stunning, in it's almost complete divorce from reality.

>-----Original Message-----
>To: gmast@phoenyx.net Date: Tuesday, 15 February 2000 06:16
>Subject: GM: Balance? BALANCE?! We don't need no stinkin' balance!


>This is one that I've been thinking about for a while. How much do you
actually care about >balance? Personally, I don't care at all. If you're
willing to kill characters off, then I guess you can >say your game is
balanced, but unless you are, the game is always tilted in the player's
favor.

    Wrong.
    Any roleplaying game is tilted against the players. The rest of the
world only has to destroy the player's character or render them unplayable,
and that character is no longer viable.
    The world, on the other hand, can afford to lose as many times as it
likes.


> Since I like to have fun and don't want to deal with pouty players who've
just had their favorite >character killed, I don't give a flip about making
sure that they don't get too big for their britches.

    The degree of poutiness of your players is of statistical relevance,
only to you. I dislike DMing pouty players. I ask them to leave my game.
    As far as how tough a character gets, the only real concern is that it
makes internal sense to the game story, and the character's story.

>Also, if they get powerful, I have no problem coming up with powerful
things to send against >them. So, there's always some challenge; but who
needs balance?

    Balance is just a term we use to measure suspension of disbelief
against, in this case, character development. If the character progesses
unnatually quickly, or slowly, then it has no balance within the frame of
referents of the story. It is a jarring and dissonant note that threatens
the integrity of the game.

>
>I am at one with my duality...
>_____________________________________________
>__________
>Try Visitors(tm), a UFO RPG, at
>http://homepage.av.com/visitors
>______________________________________________________________
>
>Love is in the Air...on a 747  to Paris ... Click here to Win !!!
>http://shopping.altavista.com/vday.sdc?campid=682421084
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Balance? BALANCE?! We don't need no stinkin' balance!

         When I was *much* younger, my Dad used to ask me "did you win?" 
when I went to friends to roleplay.  I was never able to make him 
understand that everyone won.  I try not to make the game a contest between 
myself and the players.
         As for unbalanced players, make sure everyone starts off at 
approximately the same level, pts, etc.  It hard enough as it is to keep 
all the players involved.  If you let one player dominate due to the fact 
that his/her character is more powerful/effective the other players will 
resent it.  If you get a player character that becomes to powerful retire 
him, let them become NPC's, demi-gods whatever.  Or let them die a glorious 
death that all will remember.    I try not to kill players.  I long ago 
stopped letting people bring in there favorite dual classed 12th level 
fighter/18th level wizard with a demon arm grafter to them.  JUST SAY NO!!!
         I never liked my favorite character being killed or screwed with, 
you understandably get attached to a character.  So I don't do it to other 
players.
         Don't be afraid to hurt them but avoid killing them outright.  If 
they do something dangerous or foolhardy ( er, say crawling down a storm 
pipe head first after a unknown creature)  give them an out.  It is harder 
in some games than others.  I never had a problem in pulling punches in a 
fantasy game, I am more cautious in a sci-fi one.

I am not sure if that is what you mean by balanced,  I worry about keeping 
the story moving and all the players involved and challenged.  I am am 
usually in turn entertained by what the players come up with.

At 11:01 AM 2/14/00 -0600, you wrote:
>This is one that I've been thinking about for a while. How much do you 
>actually care about balance? Personally, I don't care at all. If you're 
>willing to kill characters off, then I guess you can say your game is 
>balanced, but unless you are, the game is always tilted in the player's 
>favor. Since I like to have fun and don't want to deal with pouty players 
>who've just had their favorite character killed, I don't give a flip about 
>making sure that they don't get too big for their britches.
>Also, if they get powerful, I have no problem coming up with powerful 
>things to send against them. So, there's always some challenge; but who 
>needs balance?
>
>I am at one with my duality...
>_____________________________________________
>__________
>Try Visitors(tm), a UFO RPG, at
>http://homepage.av.com/visitors
>______________________________________________________________
>
>Love is in the Air...on a 747  to Paris ... Click here to Win !!!
>http://shopping.altavista.com/vday.sdc?campid=682421084
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>GMAST Home Page:  http://www.phoenyx.net/gmast/
>Tech support questions go to support@phoenyx.net.

"Nac mac Feegle wha hae!"
-- (Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum)

Rolando R. Gomez
ICQ#:11947788
shadoe@kscable.com
                   
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Balance? BALANCE?! We don't need no stinkin' balance!

> Balance isn't something I'd be terrible concerned with; but it's been my
>  experience that too often games are played in which the players need never
>  consider that they are not big/tough/powerful enough to handle what the gm
>  puts them up against.  I've always had more fun in games where the risk of
>  my characters ever reaching retirement age was exceedingly small.  We had 
to
>  try to find a variety of ways to avoid trouble rather than go toe to toe
>  with it, and actually completing a scenario meant something, it felt like 
an
>  accomplishment.  If there's no real risk of death or dismemberment, what's
>  'the point in playing?  Players need to know they're fighting the odds, not
>  working with them.


I would be inclined to agree.  If the tasks that a group of characters 
perform are supposed to be very dangerous/difficult and they walk away after 
each adventure with nothing but a scratch, such things become routine and 
thus not terribly exciting.  Of course, in the case of very powerful 
characters (high-level) such things are truly trivial, and the definition of 
"dangerous" goes up a couple of notches.

Then there's the "kill everything that moves" campaign...

Regards,
Alan H.
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Balance? BALANCE?! We don't need no stinkin' balance!

Greetings,........

Nice to see life on GMast again.

I guess I am very guilty of not paying attention to
the game balance but... I am happy that my players
still come and still enjoy the game. I've been in far
too many games where the DM's sole purpose
was to kill every PC created.

Oh and yes there was always a way out, Hidden under
 rock # 13 with 15 black dragons armed with nuke 
hand grenades!

I may rarely kill off PC's but they know that at -10 HP's
dead is dead.  Clerics cost lots of money and broken 
bones and teeth take lots of time to heal.

Few players are not dual class, most are weapon's 
specialists, and they know to bring healing and 
healers or body bags.

They also know that I run thoughtful games as well
as blood and guts. You should watch them play low
level VS mass of troops. they bring magic, they bring
spear carriers, they buy armour and pray.

thats roleplaying, thats game balance.

not who got the best of who!

In the void is virtue, and no evil.
Wisdom has existence, principle has existence,
the Way has existence, spirit is nothingness.

A Book of Five Rings 
Miyamoto Musashi

Voidstar
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Balance? BALANCE?! We don't need no stinkin' balance!

Robbie Taylor wrote:
> This is one that I've been thinking about for a while. How much do
> you actually care about balance? Personally, I don't care at all.
> If you're willing to kill characters off, then I guess you can say
> your game is balanced, but unless you are, the game is always
> tilted in the player's favor.

  Okay, so by 'balance' you mean the proportion of power between GM and
players?

> Since I like to have fun and don't want to deal with pouty players
> who've just had their favorite character killed, I don't give a
> flip about making sure that they don't get too big for their
> britches.
> Also, if they get powerful, I have no problem coming up with
> powerful things to send against them. So, there's always some
> challenge; but who needs balance?
> I am at one with my duality...

  It's one way to play.  I wouldn't say it's the 'right' way, but if it
works for your group - why not?


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Balance? BALANCE?! We don't need no stinkin' balance!

> I would be inclined to agree.  If the tasks that a group of characters
> perform are supposed to be very dangerous/difficult and they walk away
after
> each adventure with nothing but a scratch, such things become routine and
> thus not terribly exciting.  Of course, in the case of very powerful
> characters (high-level) such things are truly trivial, and the definition
of
> "dangerous" goes up a couple of notches.

I've been encountering this in my recent game. The warrior has through magic
and agility managed an AC of -8, and averages 15 HPs damage per blow. When
she criticals, it's sickening how much damage she can give out.

Worse is the player's husband, who's one of the most conniving and sneaky
players I know and who is intelligently running a 12th level wizard. Using
spells that might be considered useless for rather bright tasks. He used
Ventriloquism to get a message inside a house from the outside while in the
form of a rat. Later, when hit by a Hold spell, he used the Ventriloquism to
tell the local priest to remove one of the enchanted rings he wore (Spell
Storing) and replace it with another (Free Action). He's taken to putting
stoneskins on everyone.

So now I have things ignoring the Stoneskins. One player recently came real
close to dying (his character did) to a poison needle. Coated with Goblinkin
saliva to go through the stoneskin. (I did that on a fluke as the player was
"Oh well, I still have my stoneskin up. Lost one, right?" so I turned around
and said "No, the needle went through the Stoneskin") (I do allow slow
thrusts to penetrate a Stoneskin - thus if you have a knife to someone's
throat and slowly cut, you will cut his throat despite the Stoneskin -
similar to the personal Shields in the first Dune movie/book)
Also, they fought an (un)holy statue dedicated to the Kuo-Toa Goddess. The
female warrior went up against it, confident that her Stoneskins would
protect her. I had the divine essence of the Goddess allow the attacks to go
through the protection.
In that case, they managed to destroy the statue (which is what they wanted
to do), but they had to flee before the Ixzan (flying fresh water magical
manta rays) overwhelmed them as reinforcements to the Kuo Toa.

So, even over-powered, the group still occasionally gets concerned with
their health- especially as they lost their healers and only have one NPC
Priest left - with access to only the lower-powered Healing magicks. (Taught
Bill a lesson in using necromantic magics blatantly around a Priest who
hates necromancy - lost his greatest ally and the greatest healer in the
group all in one fell swoop.)

Rob, you know who

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Balance? BALANCE?! We don't need no stinkin' balance!

From: Robert A. Howard 
>Worse is the player's husband, who's one of the most conniving and sneaky
>players I know and who is intelligently running a 12th level wizard. Using


Now _there's_ a dangerous combination.  My brother and a cunning friend of
his used to achieve more with rogue magic (1st to some 3rd level) than most
of the campaign's higher level mages could with 5th to 6th level magic.
Many of their nastier creations were clever combinations of otherwise
harmless spells.  Can't remember examples right now, but do remember
mentally doubling the strength of a couple of scenarios as they cut their
way through the first rank without a scratch (or just side-stepped them
altogether).

I've also proved to the party on numerous occasions that the most dangerous
opponents they can face are a well organised group of intelligent
adventurers.  I only ran attacks by NPC parties three or four times over ten
years of campaign because the party spent most of the fight in panic
screeching about "Evil GM's throwing grossly over-powered NPC's against the
unprepared adventurers" and most of the aftermath grumbling over my proof
that they were ripped apart by NPC's two or three levels _below_ them.

>So, even over-powered, the group still occasionally gets concerned with
>their health- especially as they lost their healers and only have one NPC
>
To be honest, I've found that getting to the level where survival isn't a
day-to-day problem is when things get interesting.  It separates the
role-players from the rule-lawyers and power-gamers.  Some players simply
don't know what to do once their character has enough wealth and power to
live comfortably.  For other players this is just providing them with the
foundation to really unfold the character.  A fair proportion of the
scenarios a few higher-level players faced were just me desperately trying
to keep up with what they were doing to the world.

One of the worst cases was a dwarven high priest who created the world's
only inter-continental trading concern in order to fund his efforts to
become a japanese war lord.  It sounds like munchkin nonsense but this guy
spent vast amounts of time and cash establishing each organisation properly,
studying both cultures in detail, gifting the right people, ignoring the
right people, head-hunting the right experts.

He even argued convincingly that the warrior ethic, clan bonds and retainer
loyalty of the dwarven warrior and samurai were similar enough for careful
work to overcome the natural opposition to a foreigner.  When players do
cultural research it's time to be afraid.

Chris.

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Balance? BALANCE?! We don't need no stinkin' balance!

On Tue, 15 Feb 2000, Rolando R. Gomez wrote:

> I try not to kill players.

That's a good thing... they probably frown on roleplayers in prison.  If
my wife didn't kill you before the trial. 

>          Don't be afraid to hurt them but avoid killing them outright.  If 
> they do something dangerous or foolhardy ( er, say crawling down a storm 
> pipe head first after a unknown creature)  give them an out.  I

It was a very in-genre action.  (Of course, it occurs to me that this is a
genre in which the monster is usually introduced by killing someone.  But
don't forget... it's never a main character that dies!)

--
Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net)
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!

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