A note on Balance

[Doplegager]

I definitely agree that a game's CA can be promoted by the penalizing of other CAs by the system.  IMO, though, there is little difference between encouraging a CA and discouraging others.  While it's very possible, and arguably a very good thing, to allow multiple CAs to work well with a system, I would argue that they work because, to some extent, all of them were encouraged by the system.  CAs not intentionally constructed into the rules of a system will have a hard time operating in that system unless they can bypass the rules.

I was rummaging around in some college of my college textbooks from last year, and I came across my graphic design textbook.  There will probably be protests of erroneous analogies, but I thought I might share them any way.  Feel free to bash:
Symmetrical Balance: Balance achieved through similarity.  This is similar to Sean's first form of balance.  All of the characters have equal influence in all of the conflicts.  I would put forth the definition as balance through general equality.
Asymmetrical Balance: Balance achieved through disimilarity.  This is similar to Sean's second form of balance where specific characters have inequal influence in specific conflicts.  I would put forth the definition as balance through specific inequality.
(As a side note, I was looking over Sean's third form of balance.  I'm not entirely surely that I fully understand.  While it's definitely important, wouldn't any attempts to fix this third kind of balance take the form of one of the first two types of balance?  Is there any way to implement this kind of balance independently of the first two?)

There were a couple of other terms that I think would transfer well between system design and graphic design, especially emphasis and focal points.  It might be interesting to do a graphic representation of how system elements interact.  If it's been done, does anyone have any links?

[PlotDevice]

Heya again.

I think what I am getting at here is that, for me, like for some of the others that have posted, the word balance is bandied about in different contexts with different meanings, and what I am driving for is the creation of an uber-concept for the word balance, and then sub categories similar to what Doplegager has suggested to indicate what kind of balance we are talking about.

I think "coherance" has some merit but suffers of mistaken context as Sean points out.

I don't think we need to throw out the baby with the bathwater here. I think the term balance can catch all the sub meanings, and that we should subsequantly be able to nail in some terms for the subsidiary areas.

Mike, thanks for the graciousness. I miss stuff all the time. Don't have a mind for detail.

On to point: In my mind how the game supportive stuff is rewarded and how equitable those rewards are is a question to fit within the topic of balance. It could be unbalanced if cirtain things are rewarded inappropriately or without equity. So, to take a simple example, d20: you give 100 xp per session if players write a log of the session. One player writes 2 sentences. Another writes 1000 words. Both get same reward. Or, you reward xp based on word length, but it turns out one player has an urge to get published... and uses your game as an avenue to have others read their work... Or, you reward for character portraits, and one of the players is an artist. Or you give too much reward for one type of activity, too little for another in a continual ongoing game, and thus one player or group gets heaps more rewards than others.

Whoops! Too many examples.

Anyhow, I think I hit my point. More or less.

Warm regards,
Evan

[Mike Holmes]

How about:

Balance refers to system methods or player efforts intended to create a coherent CA, by ensuring that players have proper incentives to play that CA?

Neatly addresses any purely social issues as they might pertain, Ron's concerns, and rolls the positive and negative up into one statement. And it matches all commonly used meanings for the term when used by gamers.

Evan, coherence is jargon from the GNS essays, meaning simply a CA that is understood by all to be one thing. The idea being that this produces better play. If we see balance as trying to promote better play, then we can see why the above all works together.

And, yes, "fairness" or even better "equity" is an essential part of balance. Meaning the same incentive for the same action.


Doplegager, the Symetrical Balance, and Asymetrical Balance is a perfect way to describe what we were discussing before. For instance, the GM having more power than the players is Asymetrical Balance that works when the GM is, for instance, in "referee" mode. As we all know, too, Asymetrical Balance is problematic when the GM is in competition with the players. This would be an Intra-CA problem.

Oh, and I've been a huge proponent of the ideas of emphasis and what I've called "focus." I like your terms better, however, because people have a problem with my use of focus, occasionally. These, I think, are tangential to balance, but related to CA. That is, I think that Ron would say, again that Focus per se, having one, is coherence, again. But what I wanted it to mean was what, specifically is focused upon. Focal Points is perfect. Focal Points are the individual things focused upon to create a focused, or coherent CA. Emphasis is how you make something a Focal Point.

I reeeely like that. I'm so going to use that. In fact, I'd be tempted to ask for instant introduction into the glossary. But instead I'll put it through a test thread (in part to separate it from the balance concerns).

Mike

[Doplegager]

Something you said gave me an interesting thought, Mike.  When I mentioned Symmetrical and Asymmetrical balance as analogies for types of system balance, I was predisposed to entirely dismiss the asymmetry between a game master figure and player figures.  Most of the games I have participated in have had some sort of centralized control structure.

However, since you bring it up, it occurs to me that in some, if not most, situations, there may be a difference between Player Balance and Character Balance.

By Player Balance, I refer to the balance of input that the players have.  This may vary from symmetrical, where all players have equal control over the events in the game, to asymmetrical, where there is centralized control in one person (ie the GM).    In some ways, this may be described as balance by controlling how players create the SIS (Please note: by creating the SIS, I am refering the 'actual' SIS, not the just the individual's interpretation).

By Character Balance, I refer to ways in which characters are relatively balanced.  In some systems, the difference between Player Balance and Character Balance may be null, but, in some, such as when there is strong centralized control, Character Balance can play a bigger role.  In some ways, this may be described as balance by controlling how characters interact with the SIS.

Now that I think about it, this may be getting at the same issue that Sean's third form of balance was trying to resolve.  Whereas Sean's first two forms where describing Character Balance, the third was describing Player Balance.

This is all based on the presumption that you can seperate Player as Narrator and Player as Character, which may be erroneus since it's arguable that they are both system manifestations of the player and that any difference between the two is artificial.  However, I can also see arguement for, in some cases, being able to seperate the two (Interaction with the SIS may be considered to be development of the SIS, and thus a form of creation, but I would argue that Player Balance is focused on the framework of the SIS and Character Balance is more supplemental).  Thoughts?

[Doug Ruff]

I think the are 3 different balance 'issues' here:

The first is balance at the 'Social Contract' level: the most simple expression of this is that everyone needs to be enjoying themselves (not necessarily for the same reason.) At this level, the role-playing session constitutes a 'game' in the Transactional Analysis sense - it's a vehicle for increasing self-esteem by exchanging social 'stroking'.

The second issue is balance at the SiS level, which equates to 'Player Balance' in the last post.

The last issue is 'power balance', which I think equates to 'Character Balance' as defined in the last post.

The reason I mention this is that I think that a campaign has to function at the first level in order to be a success. However, this is the hardest issue to address through game design - I think that the best that can be achieved from a design standpoint is to interfere as little as possible with the group's Social Contract.

Similarly, a large number of games (and especially earlier games) are heavily focused on power balance, but this doesn't really matter if the other two levels (social and SiS) are balanced.

I'm not saying that power balance is a bad thing - and if I've understood the terminology correctly, power balance is a vital part of ensuring higher-level balance in a Gamist environment. However, I think it comes in at the end of any process of ensuring that player 'balance' needs are met, and not at the beginning.

Am I on the right track here? I've taken the 'fast course' in Forge Terminology, so please correct me if my usage of terms here is slack.

Tetsuki

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

By Player Balance, I refer to the balance of input that the players have. This may vary from symmetrical, where all players have equal control over the events in the game, to asymmetrical, where there is centralized control in one person (ie the GM). In some ways, this may be described as balance by controlling how players create the SIS (Please note: by creating the SIS, I am refering the 'actual' SIS, not the just the individual's interpretation).

This looks like Balance of Power to me as it was stated in the Provisional Glossary.

By Character Balance, I refer to ways in which characters are relatively balanced.

This, to me, seems like you have failed to define anything.  In essence what you said was "Character Balance means characters are balanced."  I really dislike the term "character balance" because it can mean SO many different things to SO many different people.  It could mean the character has a number of things he is equally good and equally bad at, or could mean his values for all his skills are close in range, or it could mean he is good in at least one skill from each catagory the game supports, or could mean he can perform an action or ability from each type of character within as system and so on.  You're not going to nail that down very easily IMHO.

I think Mike hit on something here:

And, yes, "fairness" or even better "equity" is an essential part of balance.

Which is what I discuss in this thread .  

Now this is only how I see things and I am still struggling to come to a full understanding of all the terms and concepts in GNS.  I feel Im making headway, which is exciting, but I know I have quite a ways to go, so I may be off on some of the things I say here.

Peace,

-Troy Costisick

[Mike Holmes]

Dopplegager,

That split is what's often refered to as Metagame, vs. In Game. Basically, does the power in question derive from the player's ability to manipulate their agent (the character, normally) in the game, or do they manipulate things on a level outside of the game, or at the Metagame level. Many rules try to blur this line, by refering to the metagame as something that may seem to be In-Game, for instance, Karma Points. I refer to this as "Semi-In-Game" meaning that it's actually metagame, but trys to seem to be in-game.

Tetsuki, again, the end goal of all RPGs is to have a good time. Yes, we assume that it's a form of transaction. And, again, I don't think there's a lot we can do in terms of this here, other than to deal with the metagame and in-game balances, other than to remind each other to be nice to one another. Again, this is what would exist if we were watching a movie together, and as such isn't a part of RPG design or theory, AFAICT. That's not to say that it shouldn't be noted, just to say that it has been, and that I can't see where we need to discuss it.

Power Balance, is tough to nail down in terms of what it's good for. Everyone agrees that it tends to be important for Gamism. That said, the "gentlemen gamists" will tell you that it's not as important as people think. That is, they'll tell you that they don't need this balance, because they basically handicap themselves in their heads so that all interactions are equal. Still, certain kinds of gamism make power balance even more neccessary. PvP for instance, would be hard to properly handicap. Further, if power levels get too disparate, then some characters may fall out of a range of adversity where the player actions are judegable at all. That is, for instance if the challenge makes loss automatic, then there's no test for the player.

All that said, the real problem is the term power. Because, if I have the ability to change a story, not to win, but to create theme, isn't that power, too? For instance, in Hero Quest, I personally see the ability ratings as intended to show relative importance of things in terms of story, and not so much the power that those things provide. The point being that, in that game, it's important that all characters have similar "breadth" to their characters such that the player has similar power to affect the story.

This is, perhaps, my fault for using power to mean player ability to change things - especially since it's very similar to the idea of Credibility as it pertains to the Lumpley Principle. But the point remains that character effectiveness ratings can be designed to provide player ability to affect things in more than just gamism. In fact, it remains the primary source of player ability to change things in most games that support narrativism as well. Perhaps also for Simulationism if you consider a need for balanced experiments?

Mike