So, spinning off from the "Balance", "Fairness" ? thread, I thought I'd continue with a point I was fumbling toward at the end there. Before I get started, I want to say that this is a point that's very much entrenched in the "traditional" view of RPGs, particularly as it pertains to that more-or-less awkward Sim/Gam hybrid that was, I suspect, how many of us got into RPGs. So forgive me if I talk like I'm ignorant of the diversity of modern RPG design; what I have to say applies less, I think, to a lot of modern indie games, which often don't handle character creation in the way a lot of games concerned with "balance" do.

So then. Daniel got the ball rolling on the balance question, and way way back when it was originally raised, I think he was discussing it in terms of a forthcoming game. I could be wrong about this. But it got me thinking about the role that balance plays in system design, and I think that balance in system design may, to some extent, be a red herring.

Now when I say "balance" I'm talking very much just about character effectiveness -- the idea that Player A, choosing among the available character options (classes, Feats, Disciplines, superpowers, whatever), will have a roughly equal chance of making an equally effective character to Player B, doing the same thing.

But who decides what player options are effective? At the risk of sounding bitter, I'll take an example that's happened to me many's the time: building a Vampire character with a bunch of points in Finance. If skill points were real, putting them into Finance would be roughly equivalent to using them to light a cigar or something. You will, 99% of the time, never see any benefit from them. To me, though, it's the "99% of the time" that's interesting. Why is Finance useless most of the time? Well, it's for two reasons.

Firstly, in most traditional RPG structures, the GM takes a widish range of character creation options that apply to a very large gameworld and then narrows the campaign down to a smaller subset of that. A Vampire game about hacking through the trackless jungles of Central America in search of ancients to diablerize and one about ruthless intrigue in Silicon Valley boardrooms will obviously put different emphasis on different abilities, but both will have Finance and Survival on the character sheet, although in one case or the other one of the skills will be as useful as tits on a boar hog. So there's one thing: in most traditional RPGs, the GM has a huge deal of say in how effectiveness your effectiveness is at a campaign level -- and is expected to have.

Secondly, as if that weren't enough, a lot of character effectiveness in your standard RPG design is "mother may I," to borrow a phrase from Mike Mearls. Even if your character has the relevant skill, and the situation fits it, it's usually the GM who calls for the rolls, and there's a grand tradition of handling certain areas of character effectiveness through unwritten systems -- as any 98 pound weakling who's ever put lots of points into Intimidation in a LARP will know.

Overall, then, I think it's very hard to predict, at the stage of writing the rulebook for a traditional "it's a great big world, do your thing" game, exactly what's going to be effective and therefore what constitutes balance. I suggest, although it's just a hunch, that the more you can tell in advance what a session of your game is going to look like -- that is, the more Situation is hardwired into the design -- the better you can predict this kind of thing.

So what's to be done? I've always kind of handled this at the campaign level by saying "yeah, don't bother putting any points into Swim: if it ever comes up we'll just roll Body or something," and I suspect that this -- heavy GM interference in character creation -- is exactly how most Sim type GMs handle this. Some gamebooks are very upfront about this (my perennial example being UA 2nd ed). So maybe a big wodge of advice to the GM is the way to handle this. I would suggest more than Orkworld, which I always thought drew attention to the problem, gave the GM a license to feel smug about his approach to it, but didn't really offer anything constructive.

Anyway, I don't particularly have a recommendation here: I'm perfectly happy establishing very firm guidelines at character creation, and I'm not at all bothered by the gamebooks I buy being less RPGs and more kits to make RPGs out of. But from a design perspective, I think this makes balance kind of a blind alley unless you have a very clear idea what's going to happen in a session. I note that a lot of indie games have this trait, their designs being "seated in the anticipated session," to quote Malcolm Sheppard.

I could be wrong. What do you guys think?

First: Is your discussion of balance purely in terms of character creation (not in terms of resolution or character development) a deliberate one? Do you want to discuss these questions in that context, or more broadly?

Heya,

Now when I say "balance" I'm talking very much just about character effectiveness -- the idea that Player A, choosing among the available character options (classes, Feats, Disciplines, superpowers, whatever), will have a roughly equal chance of making an equally effective character to Player B, doing the same thing.

Hey guys -- I'll address both questions together, since I think they're related.

Tony: no, it's not deliberate that I decided to discuss balance in character creation except that it was the original context of the discussion and, I think, probably the balance-related area people experience most, since more characters are created than are advanced. But I'd be interested in seeing how balance issues come up in other areas.

Troy:

You have a player who is wanting to engage in one of the Arenas of a CA while the group and/or GM is wanting to engage in another. You have clashing CAs and therefore less fun.

A Character Component: quantities or terms which are directly used to determine the success or extent of a character's actions during play.

Anecdotal evidence is not always most useful when discussing something like balance of character as a design goal. Every individual group will engage the CA of the game differently. And getting bogged down in the minute details of things like skill lists and superpower rankings is really just a form of min-maxing IMO.

James Holloway wrote: it's very hard to predict, at the stage of writing the rulebook for a traditional "it's a great big world, do your thing" game, exactly what's going to be effective .... it's a common consequence of game texts that marry system to Setting rather than Situation, if that makes sense, and don't provide direction on how to adjust.

That makes perfect sense to me.

"These two Amazonian warrior tribes are feuding because one needs highest quality ropes to build a network of bridges to ease travel, while another has the rope, and doesn't take kindly to the notion that they should just give it away so that everyone can profit from it. By God, Jesby, it's a good thing you're here... the only way to make peace is to introduce these savages to the concept of venture capital immediately!"

It would be a terrific way to help direct the game-master (if any) in creating challenges, too. You look at the skills of the characters, figure out which ones haven't yet been used as often as their objective importance justifies, and make a challenge involving those.

Sydney Freedberg wrote:
And so I just said what James said, only three times as lengthily.

Sydney Freedberg wrote:
So (here's Ben's point, made about my own game design but massively generalized): Why not turn this around? Why not make the "price" of an ability dictate how often it comes up? If I paid 1 point per level of Finance Skill, maybe I get to use it in one scene a session; if I paid 5 points, I get to use it in five scenes -- and it's a Social Contract issue to make sure that makes some kind of sense. In other words, the price of an ability is no longer an estimate of its potential value, but a game-mechanical factor that controls scene framing.

And it's late, and that may make sense to nobody but me.

James Holloway wrote: One small thing, though: allowing skill cost to determine frequency of use would make Daniel's group (and maybe half the gamers I know) howl like scalded cats: whither in-game causality?!

I like the cost-dictates-frequency approach, but I have an alternate proposition: 1 situation = 1 game.

'Amazon Survival' can be a game in its own right. There are certain charectaristics relevant to 'Amazon Survival', but which haver little in common with those required by the prior situation, 'Silicon Valley Finance'.

When we were playing the Silicon Valley game, therefore, we *expressed* our characters in terms of financial acumen etc. When we play the Amazon game, we express our character in relevant terms, such as 'Wield Machette' and 'Save vs. Malaria'.

The key sense here is the EXPRESSION of the character, rather than their definition, through attributes. If we see attributes as being properties of thr game, rather than properties of the character, then we can switch one character in and out of various reprasentative systems. Then, any game should be able to acoomodate any character on all the appropriate terms.

Domhnall wrote: (I know, "how do you decide what's useful and what's weak?")

contracyle wrote: I like the cost-dictates-frequency approach, but I have an alternate proposition: 1 situation = 1 game.

Looking at my last post, it seems like I didn't really grasp Gareth's point clearly enough. That sounds interesting, too, and is done in a slightly different way whenever someone converts a campaign over from one system to another (an idea that sounds really weird in an age of directed design, doesn't it? Can you imagine trying to convert your kill puppies for satan game to another system? Why would you?). But this idea is a little more weird and compelling. It really requires thinking differently about the relationship between the character as an element of the SIS and the character sheet as a play document.

You crazy kids!

A lot of people don't WANT a game where one situation is one game... they want to see their characters move from one set of challenges to the next, possibly dealing with entirely new problems from a completely different perspective, as they go along.

I'll use DnD because it's the only game I know that has a quantified "encounter" system... that is, that combat scenes, puzzle scenes, and social scenes are all dealt with under one mechanic...

One of the basic truisms of being a good DM is that if a player gives his character an ability, it is a fairly good first assumption that he wants to see that ability come up in play (there are exceptions to this, but they are imho rare). After a gaming group makes up their characters, I will gather them up and look at their skill and ability choices.

"Okay, both the party rogue and the cleric took Diplomacy skill, okay, need some negotiation scenes... and the wizard has change self on his spell list, not to mention cross-class skill in disguise, clearly he wants to go undercover somewhere... hm, a monk instead of a fighter, that's an unusual choice..." And I write a first adventure about sneaking into a wizard's guildhall to make contact with a spy who's trapped in the cellars.

Really, I'm surprised when I hear that people DON'T do this.

Now game design could more explicitly handle this.

Since I'm a radioactive fanboy for Capes right now, I'll use it as an example... Let's say that after you've set up some characters, each character's powers and styles are written down on slips of paper and dropped into a hat. When it's time to frame a new scene, two slips of paper are drawn from the hat, and the scene framer is challenged to somehow incorporate an element of those powers in the scene he frames... perhaps he gets a story token if he manages it. An example would be, if "flight" and "super strength" are highlighted, then the setting would be a cargo jet, in flight.

James Holloway wrote: Well, if categories exist for "useful" and "weak," just make sure to provide some guidance on how to adjust the levels to fit a particular campaign and Bob's your uncle. Don't just say "adjust these as you see fit," but explain roughly what proportion should be of what cost, etc.

Vaxalon wrote: A lot of people don't WANT a game where one situation is one game... they want to see their characters move from one set of challenges to the next, possibly dealing with entirely new problems from a completely different perspective, as they go along.

(Aside: God, I hate it when people refer to people by RL name, and online handles are the only ones displayed. I hate having to figure out who people are referring to. But that's a personal peeve. In this case, it was obvious.)

Having tried, on several occasions, to transfer a character from one system to another, I have always found that they didn't really feel like the same character after the job was done. It's like when they switch actors in Doctor Who... he's only the same guy in one sense of the word.

I'm not sure I'd find the style of play that contracycle suggests comfortable... not without seeing how it would be handled on a more specific level.

I mean... one of the things that defines a person, is the sum of his memories and experiences, things that show up on the character sheet as skills and abilites. To change those around from one game session to the next... it doesn't seem to me that it would be the same character.

Those exceptions I mentioned? They're important here.

Let's say I'm making a character for DnD. He's an ex-marine... a fighter trained to fight aboard ship. I give him a few cross-class ranks in perform (sea chanties)... not because I want for an adventure to, at some point, revolve around that ability, but because it's just something he might know, and it helps define the character.

Vaxalon wrote:
I mean... one of the things that defines a person, is the sum of his memories and experiences, things that show up on the character sheet as skills and abilites. To change those around from one game session to the next... it doesn't seem to me that it would be the same character.

Those exceptions I mentioned? They're important here.

Let's say I'm making a character for DnD. He's an ex-marine... a fighter trained to fight aboard ship. I give him a few cross-class ranks in perform (sea chanties)... not because I want for an adventure to, at some point, revolve around that ability, but because it's just something he might know, and it helps define the character.

I'll start a new thread.

Vaxalon wrote:
I mean... one of the things that defines a person, is the sum of his memories and experiences, things that show up on the character sheet as skills and abilites. To change those around from one game session to the next... it doesn't seem to me that it would be the same character.

Let's say I'm making a character for DnD. He's an ex-marine... a fighter trained to fight aboard ship. I give him a few cross-class ranks in perform (sea chanties)... not because I want for an adventure to, at some point, revolve around that ability, but because it's just something he might know, and it helps define the character.

contracycle wrote: Now I agree that this seldom works in practice becuase of the Finance problem mentioned, but I still like the principle.

contracycle wrote: ...Then you take your character definition document in one hand (on which the history and anecdotes are recorded), and the character representation document in the other, and fill in the numbers for those necessarily relevant skills.

Vaxalon wrote:

This sounds like a refinement on my character inventory/play sheet idea upthread, except that instead of an inventory, you have a character concept.

In practice, though, I think this will have problems. For one thing, what if little in the character concept is relevant to the situation, a la bankers in the amazon?

Vaxalon wrote:
In practice, though, I think this will have problems. For one thing, what if little in the character concept is relevant to the situation, a la bankers in the amazon?

Hm.

It strikes me, that characters have three possible tracks for any given... not "situation" because that's already got a forge meaning... encounter.

A character can either drive conflict, resolve conflict, or observe. A character driving conflict could be a saboteur, but he could also be a bumbler who, for example, stumbles into quicksand.