Game Balance

[Ron Edwards]

I agree with Mike (Epoch). My favorite example from comics is the membership of Hawkeye and Thor in the Avengers. In capital-E Effectiveness terms, the Asgardian outranks the archer so far it ain't funny. But if we consider "play balance" for characters like these, taking into account Metagame (which Hawkeye would have in spades), they both are fun to play and "balanced" in that sense.

Best,
Ron

[Gordon C. Landis]

Another term/concept I often see put into the "Game Balance" bucket - Niche Protection.  You know, one PC has to be "the best" at one thing, another PC "the best" at another, and so on.  Effectiveness, but effectiveness as applied to a particular problem set or issue type.

Rigorously, I would want this concept kept seperate from Game Balance, but I've seen many a player who defined game balance this way.

Gordon C. Landis

[Epoch]

Gordon,

I think that niche protection could be aptly considered an approach to game/play balance.  It's not equivalent, but it's one way to get there.  Interestingly, it's perhaps the earliest of the "spotlight time" mechanics, since when you segregate characters by things they're good at, they tend to naturally cede the spotlight to one another when areas in their specialty come up.

I'd say it also has another couple of goals -- keeping characters interesting (it's a frequently proposed argument among niche-protection enthusiasts that generalists are "boring,") and giving characters weaknesses (no matter how good a fighter you are in AD&D2 (strong niche protection), you'll never be able to be stealthy).

Interesting, isn't it?  You could almost draw an analogy between, say, niche protection and a real-world religion -- both are proscribed methodologies and goals that are meant to address a range of possible problems.  I wonder if there are other such constructs.

[Wart]

On 2001-09-17 13:44, Ron Edwards wrote:
Wart, I suggest that you are calling for a good look at what "screen time" may be. Perhaps you, like me, have suffered too many sessions in which my PC was PRESENT but PREVENTED FROM ACTION. I, like you, would not call that "screen time" at all. Is that more or less a good paraphrase of your point?

Pretty much, but I'd refrain from saying "prevented from action" because it's an extremely loaded way to put it. "Prevented" implies someone actually decides that PC X is simply not going to be able to advance the plot/contribute to the party's success/whatever this session. I think it's much less deliberate than that.

For example, a player might be new to the game, or to roleplaying, or to the GM and group's style of play, and simply not think up any effective actions.

Or, the player decides (perfectly reasonably, considering the clues the PCs have gathered so far) that the killer is hiding at the Blue Monkey Hotel. The PC goes to the Hotel, whilst the rest of the play group goes to interview Old Man Bluemonkey. But Old Man Bluemonkey actually turns out to be the killer, so the player checking out the Hotel not only ends up being excluded from the climax from the plot, his/her action proves to be useless.

90% of useless screen time is accidental, rather than deliberate, in my opinion, so I really wouldn't use the term "prevented".

[Wart]

On 2001-09-17 19:06, GB Steve wrote:
I'm thinking in particular of the type of game like Pendragon where one player might play a squire to a Knight PC. His time is spent looking out for the Knight, dealing with underlings, finding accomodation and helping his Lord with the ladies whilst getting laid by 3 times more by servant girls than his Lord who has to abide by some dumb laws of chivalry. I have played such PCs and had a blast.

Yes, but in that particular case you had a clear idea of
how much impact your character would have, how much would
be expected of him in terms of contribution to the plot/
party's success, and so forth. Your screen time wasn't actually useless at all: it was extremely useful, on your character's level, but only looked useless from the viewpoint of the major PCs.

Now, had you gone to that Pendragon game expecting to make an equal contribution to the rest of the PCs, you'd have been sorely disappointed. And if you'd failed to do your job as a squire because for some reason the decisions you'd
made in your screen time weren't effective, then it would
have been useless screen time.

[Mytholder]

Wart said:

Or, the player decides (perfectly reasonably, considering the clues the PCs have gathered so far) that the killer is hiding at the Blue Monkey Hotel. The PC goes to the Hotel, whilst the rest of the play group goes to interview Old Man Bluemonkey. But Old Man Bluemonkey actually turns out to be the killer, so the player checking out the Hotel not only ends up being excluded from the climax from the plot, his/her action proves to be useless.

This brings up a related idea. It's bad GMing to deliberately not include a player, by not giving them influence over the game (either metagame or ingame). Is it also poor GMing to have "dead air", where a player is doing something that's not going to have any impact on the game? To take the above example, should the GM add an encounter on the fly at the hotel?

I suspect it's a tradeoff between keeping the players entertained, and keeping the plot/setting/challenge from being damaged or degraded by unplanned and possibly incoherent additions. I know my Blue PLanet game has suffered from this - one player isn't hugely interested in the politics and research the other players are involved in, so I have to keep her character busy with other stuff - which means she's stumbled accross more mysterious murder victims than whatsherame from Murder She Wrote....

How far should play balance go? Is it just ensuring that players aren't excluded automatically, or should it include actively bringing players into the game?

[Marco]

It's early so maybe I'm missing something ... In the original post it was Play Balance, Screen Time, and Influence.

The first and lasts are (to my understanding) products of the game *system.* Screen Time is a product of the GM play-style (I realize that some games may give the players the ability to 'force' screen-time but really, in most even moderately gamist or simulationist groups how often someone gets to 'do their thing' is up to the GM).

So how does that relate to balance?

I read over the Hawkeye/Thor example and concluded that it's still a GM issue. A player who makes Robin to another PC's Batman had better square it with the GM in the vast majority of situations.

So ... I'm confused: how does Screen Time fit into any of the given models?

... maybe I just stayed up too late ...
-Marco

[Epoch]

Marco,

It's early so maybe I'm missing something ... In the original post it was Play Balance, Screen Time, and Influence.

The original post talked about Game Balance, Screen Time, and Influence.  I introduced the term "Play Balance," meaning "balance in actual play," versus "game balance," meaning balance at design time.

I'd argue that, ultimately, we're always concerned with what I call Play Balance -- nobody cares how theoretically balanced your game is if the practice is that the session they're dealing with is horribly unbalanced.  However, game balance can be a tool to achieve play balance.

You suggest that game balance and influence are products of system, and screen time is a product of the GM's fiat, noting that there are exceptions to that.  I reply that influence is also a matter of GM fiat.  It doesn't matter how games-mechanically powerful you are if your GM pitches you people who play to your weaknesses and another player's strengths -- or even that pitches problems that aren't resolvable with the games mechanics.

Eventually, everything comes down to GM fiat.  Even if the game has the best game balance in the world, a particular group can make it un-play-balanced.  The best that mechanics can hope to do is facilitate play balance.  But that's far from a minor or easy achievment.

Does that come somewhat close to answering your question?

[Marco]

Ok--I got it. Now, what's the practical application of these terms?

Could there be game-mechanics that facilitate play-balance (you're right--I misunderstood play-balance for game balance)? So if a player could buy a GURPS advantage that was "Extra Mini-Scenario" meaning that when the group sat down to play his character would get an one-on-one character-specialized adventure?

Or is the idea that you could analze a dysfunctional gaming group and say "Influence is okay ... but PlayBalance is off."

Or are they just discussion terms?

-Marco

[Epoch]

I'll humbly advance my own http://wso.williams.edu/~msulliva/campaigns/ag/framework.html">The Framework as an example of concrete mechanics aimed at (among other things) balancing spotlight time.  Obviously, mechanics which balance influence/effectiveness are a dime a dozen.

In general, think that the terminology is useful for analysis of a session or game and determining what makes it satisfying or not-so-satisfying for a given player, and for analyzing a player, and saying what he needs.  (Example:  I usually prefer play-balanced scenarios.  While I'm occaisionally interested in playing a secondary character, for the most part, I want my "fair share" of important decision-making/enacting.)

[ Edit to fix broken link. ]

[ This Message was edited by: Epoch on 2001-09-20 14:33 ]

[Ron Edwards]

This thread is awesome. Keep going! (cue 80s faux-metal soundtrack)

Best,
Ron

P.S. Yes, I know this post is totally unhelpful and quite likely offensive.

[Mike Holmes]

I think that Scott Knipe has come up with some interesting balancing mechanics in his new game The Hero Emergent. There is a link to it in the Indie RPG forum. For one thing, a player gets a scene that is defined as working towards and culminating in a resolution roll, and then the next player gets a scene, etc. For another Protagonism is completely shared as the players share the Hero character.

Very explicit methods to balance player enjoyment. Now if somebody would play the game and let us know how it works...

Mike