Rainbow or Monocolor Brokenness?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Do you really think that? Do you really think people are okay with rules that say 'The person who plays the dog gets an extra 100 bucks when they play Monopoly' or do you think we've been trained as human beings to ignore unfairness at the sake of group cohesion?

Some people honestly do not care at all. Most people say that they don't care but what they really mean is that unless it gets bad enough to derail a game they'll keep their mouths shut.

[Previn]

Do you really think that? Do you really think people are okay with rules that say 'The person who plays the dog gets an extra 100 bucks when they play Monopoly' or do you think we've been trained as human beings to ignore unfairness at the sake of group cohesion?

Some people honestly do not care at all. Most people say that they don't care but what they really mean is that unless it gets bad enough to derail a game they'll keep their mouths shut.

You are still missing my point as your example shows.

There is nothing 'interesting' or 'fun' (unless you're the dog) about the dog getting 100$ extra and everyone else getting nothing. But if the dog got 100$ extra, and the car got an extra move, and the top hat got a discount on rent, and every other piece got something, then you'd start to have what I'm talking about.

You are refusing to admit that people can be different from you and what you have experienced, so anyone who isn't exactly in line with your opinion is wrong.

It could be that people don't care unless it gets so bad that they can't have fun because they actually don't care at all as long as they're having fun. Which is my point.

{Edit: Actually I can boil this down simply: You're telling me that no one can have fun playing something weaker. I'm telling, as a person who has had fun playing something weaker, that yes I can.}

[Lago PARANOIA]

You are still missing my point as your example shows.

There is nothing 'interesting' or 'fun' (unless you're the dog) about the dog getting 100$ extra and everyone else getting nothing. But if the dog got 100$ extra, and the car got an extra move, and the top hat got a discount on rent, and every other piece got something, then you'd start to have what I'm talking about.

The dog getting an extra hundred bucks is what happens when you do the aggregate bonuses of everyone else's abilities.

But okay, let's use your example. Let's say that instead of Monopoly being upfront about the game's unfairness, they decided to hide it be making the other options more 'interesting'. So the tokens got those above abilities but the dog token had the option to move one square forwards after stopping in the square.

Chances are, despite the dog having a blatantly overpowered ability, people still won't actually complain about it when it comes time for Monopoly. Many people won't even realize how overpowered it is, but those in the know decide that making Junior or Grandpa upset over game balance isn't worth making sure that the game is balanced. And even if you said 'everyone can be a dog token if you feel like it', there are still going to be suckers who pick the Top Hat or Battleship because it 'looks cool'.

It could be that people don't care unless it gets so bad that they can't have fun because they actually don't care at all as long as they're having fun. Which is my point.

You don't have to enjoy every facet of a game that's unbalanced or even broken to have fun with it. But that doesn't mean that there aren't problems with the game. And if you're making extra Monopoly tokens you'd better make sure they're as good as the dog.

[Roy]

Where exactly is the problem besides the intellectual masturbation on how it isn't perfectly balanced?

Because then you have situations where someone decides that a soulknife is really fucking cool and can he pretty please play one in your party of rogue/cleric/druid/beguiler.

You have a series of choices, none of them good.

A) You refuse the soulknife (or don't allow it without significant changes, same thing), making the player sad.
B) You allow the soulknife in and decrease the challenge of encounters, making everyone else sad.
C) You allow the soulknife and keep the challenges the same, causing the soulknife to either get overshadowed or bring everyone else down. More sadness.
D) You allow the soulknife in and give them stealth buffs, which can either create mistrust among the other players or make the player feel singled-out for sucking. And you know what? This one is the best option.


Of course, all of this drama could've been avoided if the person who wrote the fucking soulknife class just printed a decent class.

Soulknife = has a weapon. So ignoring just telling them to play something with a weapon, you tell them to play a Soulbound Weapon Psychic Warrior, thus allowing them to do their psychic weapon thing and not suck. Then he can do his thing without being a gimp, and can play the same game as the rest of the party.

[Previn]

Chances are, despite the dog having a blatantly overpowered ability, people still won't actually complain about it when it comes time for Monopoly. Many people won't even realize how overpowered it is, but those in the know decide that making Junior or Grandpa upset over game balance isn't worth making sure that the game is balanced. And even if you said 'everyone can be a dog token if you feel like it', there are still going to be suckers who pick the Top Hat or Battleship because it 'looks cool'.

If you insist on trotting out "blatantly overpowered ability" when I have specifically said many, many times, very clearly, that the weaker abilities were not absurdly weaker, then I'm just going to have to question your reading skills because they do not seem up to par for participating in this discussion.

You don't have to enjoy every facet of a game that's unbalanced or even broken to have fun with it. But that doesn't mean that there aren't problems with the game. And if you're making extra Monopoly tokens you'd better make sure they're as good as the dog.

I don't have to make every token as good as the dog as long as none are so bad that the game doesn't work (i.e. the dog always wins, or a token never gets chosen). If the dog is a little better mechanically, but everyone is having fun, there is no issue.

Is not the purpose of a game to have fun? If everyone is having fun, where lies the problem?

[Roy]

Anyways, the original topic.

If anything is 'broken' then there should be variety in the brokenness. Doesn't matter if you're defining the term as simply high powered or as brokenness. If only one thing qualifies then everyone will do that. If many things do you have meaningful choices. The only other way of doing it is to not make anything broken... except that's impossible as stuff will break anyways. Also, even if you did somehow get it to work, you just end up with 4.Fail, so have you really accomplished anything?

[Lago PARANOIA]

If you insist on trotting out "blatantly overpowered ability" when I have specifically said many, many times, very clearly, that the weaker abilities were not absurdly weaker, then I'm just going to have to question your reading skills because they do not seem up to par for participating in this discussion.

Oy vey.

Okay, the dog getting to slide his token? While that is better than every other ability another token would get, it probably won't actually cause the game to grind to a halt or make the dog token win more often. If you're playing a 6 to 8 player game, it'll probably make so little difference as to be one player just getting a +1 to all abilities.

But seriously, toss me a frickin' bone here. I've given you several examples of things that are more powerful than their other options but won't cause the game to grind to a screeching halt but you keep deriding them as 'too boring' or 'too overpowered'.

So give me an example of something that's 'inferior, but not TOO inferior!' I thought the ranger vs. the avenger/barbarian was adequate but apparently even that's too extreme.

I don't have to make every token as good as the dog as long as none are so bad that the game doesn't work (i.e. the dog always wins, or a token never gets chosen). If the dog is a little better mechanically, but everyone is having fun, there is no issue.

Look, we know for a fact that in 3rd Edition the casters were blatantly better than everyone else at around level 9 or so. And yet people not only

So I'm tired of you trotting out the 'No True Scotsman' examples. I've given you a wide range of situations where some options are inferior to existing options but you keep telling me that they are too extreme. But these are actual examples of times when people go 'eh, it's in the ballpark so let's not worry about it'. So why don't you give me some 'inferior, but not TOO inferior!' options in D&D or another board game?

Is not the purpose of a game to have fun? If everyone is having fun, where lies the problem?

Because fun is not a binary state, it's a continuum. If someone's little brother came in every hour and punched me in the knee, I might still actually have fun at the game--but you know what would be more fun? If I didn't have that little shit punching me in the knee. So why can't I get rid of that little bastard? Why can't the avenger and barbarian be as good as a ranger?

[Roy]

Truncated?

[hogarth]

Why can't the avenger and barbarian be as good as a ranger?

Because the harder you work at making one class "as good as" another class, the smaller the variation there is between classes, and the less variety you have in classes, the more boring the game is.

Not to mention that no two people will agree what "as good as" means in terms of PC classes (e.g. the dimwits who think that a 3.5 monk is "the ultimate wizard-killer").

[Lago PARANOIA]

Because the harder you work at making one class "as good as" another class, the smaller the variation there is between classes, and the less variety you have in classes, the more boring the game is.

In 4E, rogues and rangers, barring extreme high-level cheese, are roughly the same level of utility as each other in a fight (as it were) if you 'play them right'.

They have, for 4th Edition, have a good amount of variety between them and neither have a strict edge over the other.

But we can also evaluate two other melee classes, the barbarian and the avenger, and because 4E makes it easy on us we know that they will be generally inferior.

Not to mention that no two people will agree what "as good as" means in terms of PC classes (e.g. the dimwits who think that a 3.5 monk is "the ultimate wizard-killer").

That's why understanding game mechanics is important, otherwise you'll release bullshit options like Sure Strike.

[Previn]

But seriously, toss me a frickin' bone here. I've given you several examples of things that are more powerful than their other options but won't cause the game to grind to a screeching halt but you keep deriding them as 'too boring' or 'too overpowered'.

Which is patently not true. I've not called anything too boring, and have repeatedly pointed out that your examples are very, very far off from what I've suggested. Literally you're comparing the best (wizards) to the worst (soulknives) and then complaining that weaker is bad when I've very clearly been talking about comparing say the sorcerer to the wizard.

You can't widen the gap anymore in your example unless you move on to the commoner. And you keep doing it over and over, screaching like some deranged child that everything has to be perfectly balanced or else "bad things." The problem is, you never tell us why it's bad except that because you personally don't find it acceptable that everything isn't at the exact same power level.

I've never derided anything as too powerful, just not the range that we're talking on the scale of how much weaker we're talking about because you seem to like to talk in absolutes with no sense of scale.

So give me an example of something that's 'inferior, but not TOO inferior!' I thought the ranger vs. the avenger/barbarian was adequate but apparently even that's too extreme.

You complained about the barbarian being weaker and bad design, not me. I think it's perfectly fine, and it proves my point. I never called it too inferior in anyway. Are you sure you're reading the same thread as the rest of us?

Look, we know for a fact that in 3rd Edition the casters were blatantly better than everyone else at around level 9 or so. And yet people not only

Clearly you have major issues with the balance of casters and melee in 3.x. Get over it and move on. You look like an idiot repeating the same thing over and over, especially when it's been explicitly state not to be the scale of difference that we're talking about.

So I'm tired of you trotting out the 'No True Scotsman' examples. I've given you a wide range of situations where some options are inferior to existing options but you keep telling me that they are too extreme. But these are actual examples of times when people go 'eh, it's in the ballpark so let's not worry about it'. So why don't you give me some 'inferior, but not TOO inferior!' options in D&D or another board game?

You've trotted out 2 examples, and a made one up with no support (the monopoly one). Your main example is clearly not the level of imbalance/weakness that we're talking about. Examples have already been given, but you ignored them to run off with your melee vrs casters imbalance as if that was going to be the level that we're talking about, and have clung desperately to it.

It's like I say 'we can do it with a few less eggs, but with different colors,' and suddenly you come in screaming 'NO! YOU CAN'T HAVE 1 COLORED AGAINST 12 NOMRAL ONES! IMBALANCE!' Very clearly I wasn't talking about 11 less eggs, more likely 2-3 less. You then continue to insist on the 1 vrs 12 example over and over and over.

Why can't the avenger and barbarian be as good as a ranger?

Who exactly said they couldn't?

I said that you can design and sell a game/splat with weaker options than the most powerful as long as those options were interesting enough that the players didn't mind the weakness (explicitly stated to not be absurdly weaker). That doesn't exclude having ones on the power level or above it. It just points out that not everyone is a number cruncher or cares that they do less damage if they do it flashy enough or in a way that they find interesting. Which, yet again, has been my point this entire time.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Hey, you still haven't given me any gaming examples. So shut the fuck up about me 'not listening' and 'focusing on the wrong thing' when you don't answer my simple question in return.

Give me an example of something you would call that's 'inferior, but cool enough so that it's not game-breaking'.

And you know what?

Which is patently not true. I've not called anything too boring, and have repeatedly pointed out that your examples are very, very far off from what I've suggested

Yes you did. The 100 dollar bonus to the dog token. I didn't bother giving up bullshit abilities to the other tokens because I wanted to make the 'superior, but not game-breakingly superior' result clear.

Who exactly said they couldn't?

If you have a game design mentality of 'eh, close enough' then what you are going to get is people releasing avenger and barbarian classes--which are flat-out inferior to the ranger class but won't cause the game to explode. It has actually happened.

I said that you can design and sell a game/splat with weaker options than the most powerful as long as those options were interesting enough that the players didn't mind the weakness (explicitly stated to not be absurdly weaker). That doesn't exclude having ones on the power level or above it. It just points out that not everyone is a number cruncher or cares that they do less damage if they do it flashy enough or in a way that they find interesting. Which, yet again, has been my point this entire time.

You can't widen the gap anymore in your example unless you move on to the commoner. And you keep doing it over and over, screaching like some deranged child that everything has to be perfectly balanced or else "bad things." The problem is, you never tell us why it's bad except that because you personally don't find it acceptable that everything isn't at the exact same power level.

The fact that there people out there aren't number-crunchers or will choose options based on what's flashiest is the biggest reason to release balanced material.

Because really, people who pick barbarians and avengers are probably the same kind of guys who will also enter into these classes as tieflings and will also sink a few feats into Skill Focus. Shit rolls downhill in RPG design.

[violence in the media]

Look, there is nobody who cares so little about effectiveness versus cool that they'll willingly play a Monk in a game where everyone else is a Wizard, Cleric, or Rogue. After a few game sessions it becomes clear that they add nothing to the party and exist only as a mobile hit point battery. It doesn't matter how cool their Leap of the Clouds or twin-kama style looks, because the graphics on this game are really bad and those things don't fucking contribute meaningfully.

Four hours of uselessness-for-fun will wear on anybody. And don't you dare suggest that the DM fix it--nobody should get special attention because the game designers failed and their character sucks ass.

[Maxus]

I think the point here is that, while, yes, you can totally have a blast playing with subpar or bad mechanics. BUT. There's some people who will have fun regardless and therefore won't see a reason to change mechanical imbalances and invest brain sweat in it. There's people who can have fun with a thread spool, a pin, and a marble.

The game has some annoying wrinkles in it, and they're best ironed out before you even get to the table. It'd have been nice if the designers had written things so there was not a problem, but they didn't, so it's up to people to have a fix for it.

Oddly, talking about fixes for mechanics or classes isn't about making fun things. It's working the kinks beforehand so they don't kill the fun in the middle of a game when it'd be a bad moment to have a lengthy rules discussion and then design session.

I dunno. Maybe I'm not making sense. Maybe there's several things which make sense and I'm not connecting them well. Anyway,

The Den's view seems to be "Make the most balanced system you can, smooth out the rules, and there'll be minimal chance for a game stopping in the middle of an encounter because grapple rules suck or someone's character is mostly being a mule to carry the loot."

[Quantumboost]

Look, there is nobody who cares so little about effectiveness versus cool that they'll willingly play a Monk in a game where everyone else is a Wizard, Cleric, or Rogue. After a few game sessions it becomes clear that they add nothing to the party and exist only as a mobile hit point battery. It doesn't matter how cool their Leap of the Clouds or twin-kama style looks, because the graphics on this game are really bad and those things don't fucking contribute meaningfully.

I'm getting the sense that Previn is trying to use the example of "willing to play a rogue in a party of clerics and druids for the flavor" rather than "willing to play a commoner in a party of gatling rocket-launchers with robots attached for the flavor", and that is not being successfully communicated.

Although there was that one movie...

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm getting the sense that Previn is trying to use the example of "willing to play a rogue in a party of clerics and druids for the flavor" rather than "willing to play a commoner in a party of gatling rocket-launchers with robots attached for the flavor", and that is not being successfully communicated.

And I still think that it's bullshit to intentionally produce new rogue-level classes.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

I'm getting the sense that Previn is trying to use the example of "willing to play a rogue in a party of clerics and druids for the flavor" rather than "willing to play a commoner in a party of gatling rocket-launchers with robots attached for the flavor", and that is not being successfully communicated.

And I still think that it's bullshit to intentionally produce new rogue-level classes.

The Problem is that I'm unsure of what a Rogue-Level class means when a Wizard (or Cleric) can use spells and polymorph to duplicate many of the Rogue's abilities.

But really that's one point I wanted my initial discussion to come to.

"Is it worth adding new abilities to a game that are less powerful than the top game powers?" Yes or No, and Why

[Lago PARANOIA]

The Problem is that I'm unsure of what a Rogue-Level class means when a Wizard (or Cleric) can use spells and polymorph to duplicate many of the Rogue's abilities.

Okay, the rogue class, unlike the fighters, never becomes 'completely superfluous'. They can still do a couple of feats that spellcasters can't such as abusing the crap out of UMD or disarming certain kinds of magical traps. Even at really high level it's still perfectly possible and not too much of a detour to design encounters where the rogue player can shine.

So when people say 'rogue level' that's pretty much shorthand for a class that's generally inferior but has enough going for it so that it's not a 100% bad idea. Compare this to the high-level sorcerer, who is more powerful than the high-level rogue but there is no reason to grab one if wizards are allowed. Weird, but true.

[Maxus]

Yes, but conditionally.

If you're playing with people who use those top game powers, you've got to be in acceptable range of keeping up. Even if you're not, you should ideally still be doing something.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Did you ever read one of my old Arcane Thesis threads? You can do a lot of fun stuff with Sorcerors that you can't do with Wizards.

[Previn]

Hey, you still haven't given me any gaming examples. So shut the fuck up about me 'not listening' and 'focusing on the wrong thing' when you don't answer my simple question in return.

Give me an example of something you would call that's 'inferior, but cool enough so that it's not game-breaking'.

Read the first paragraph of my above post. The very first one; "I've very clearly been talking about comparing say the sorcerer to the wizard."

I said 'not absurdly weaker' because I wasn't talking about a specific system. I cannot be held responsible that you cannot figure out what 'not absurdly' means in the context of any game of choice, and the start running with as many absurdly weaker examples as you can.

Yes you did. The 100 dollar bonus to the dog token. I didn't bother giving up bullshit abilities to the other tokens because I wanted to make the 'superior, but not game-breakingly superior' result clear.

Oh, yes, I did call the idea of just giving the dog a bonus, and nothing else, not interesting. I didn't call it too boring.

That is entirely the wrong argument however. Yes, you can have ability so good that they basically have to be taken, or so bad that you never want to take them. There's also huge oceans of space between those two extremes. It's a pity that you refuse to acknowledge this.

If your had said the dog started with 1 dollar, there really wouldn't be much effect on the game if any. Yeah, the dog starts with 1 more dollar, but I really like the top hat. I'm not going be at a noticeable disadvantage if I take the top hat because I happen to like top hats.

That's the difference of scale that's causing you to completely miss the point.

If you have a game design mentality of 'eh, close enough' then what you are going to get is people releasing avenger and barbarian classes--which are flat-out inferior to the ranger class but won't cause the game to explode. It has actually happened.

Again, you very clearly do not understand the concept. It's not an 'eh, close enough' it's an active decision to create an ability that is slightly weaker but does something unique and/or in a fun way. Sorcerer vrs Wizard.

The fact that there people out there aren't number-crunchers or will choose options based on what's flashiest is the biggest reason to release balanced material.

I'm not advocating balance so bad that you're screwed if you take a slightly worse option, and you're the idiot that keeps saying that. I'm saying that you can make weaker choices appealing for other reasons, and that the weakness doesn't have to be game ruining. Again, 'not absurdly weaker.' You do know what 'absurdly' means, yes?

I can also choose not to have a perfectly balanced game without having it be so unbalanced that the layman is destroyed for not taking the best choices. You seem to be stuck that a game must be one or the other and that there can be no middle ground.

Because really, people who pick barbarians and avengers are probably the same kind of guys who will also enter into these classes as tieflings and will also sink a few feats into Skill Focus. Shit rolls downhill in RPG design.

Yes, god forbid someone wants to be good at skills, or take a race for flavor reasons, or actually wants to play the barbarian. Because clearly a tiefling barbarian can't possible be useful or playable in 4th, right? Surely we should burn them at the stake for their transgression of not taking the absolute best choices? Damn them all for having an opinion on what they want to play!

Compare this to the high-level sorcerer, who is more powerful than the high-level rogue but there is no reason to grab one if wizards are allowed. Weird, but true.

Except that you know, maybe I like the spontaneous casting and am willing to give up some power to play with it since I find it more fun. Surely I can't do that because I can't do anything in the game because I'm weaker than the wizard.

[Previn]

"Is it worth adding new abilities to a game that are less powerful than the top game powers?" Yes or No, and Why

Yes it is worth it if done properly. If it adds something unique to the game and increases fun, then it is fine being less powerful than other things. If it is so weak that detracts from fun, or makes things effectively unplayable, then it is not worth it.

[violence in the media]

You're arguing about a difference between the Wizard and the Sorcerer where they both still have the capacity to Be Awesome and [/i]Win D&D[/i]? Why are we even arguing?

[Previn]

Look, there is nobody who cares so little about effectiveness versus cool that they'll willingly play a Monk in a game where everyone else is a Wizard, Cleric, or Rogue.

Ironically, I had a player make a goblin rogue, and deliberately not have any stat higher than a 13. At 4th level, he had a grand total of 9 hit points. He also didn't make it past 4th, but that's neither here nor there.

I've also had a wizard player with a Con of 3, that they kept because they thought it would be fun to roleplay (made it to 14th before retiring).

So clearly, yes, there are people who will give up effectiveness completely for the cool factor. I myself would not do so, but I realize that others have different ideals of fun when they play.

[Previn]

You're arguing about a difference between the Wizard and the Sorcerer where they both still have the capacity to Be Awesome and [/i]Win D&D[/i]? Why are we even arguing?

Exactly.

There's a different in power, but it's not even worth worrying about. We're arguing because some people don't get how little the difference in power can be, and why yes, you can have weaker things and not have the game ruined.