Fantastic discussion.

“They can call upon magic that *very few* people in our modern world can do” Jeff. I love that this suggests that some people in the modern world can, in fact, channel the power of Orlanth’s lightning.

What a great interview! Game-design videos like this are so rare,thanks a lot for this content.

IMO the only balance that matters is spotlight time.

Guys, this is fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing, and for presenting a thoughtful, knowledgeable discussion of game design theory. I have been at this for more than 40 years now (!) and I am still learning a ton. (Also: look at that big-boy haircut, James! Your mom must be proud! :)

For me Balance is primarily a question of party vs adversary. Or what can I throw at the party and not end up with a TPK. That extends to opponents but also traps and environmental conditions. I just want to put the challenge in a similar ball park.

There is so much I love in this video. Thanks for taking the time and sharing it with us.

OMG. Thank you for this. Such good advice. One of the things that has always frustrated me about D&D is how closely tied to combat it is. Don't misunderstand me, I've done investigations and political games in which we had a combat once in six sessions, at the most. You can do anything in any setting. What I mean though, is that I have had a character I've wanted to play for almost 20 years that is a farmer who, through tragedy, is forced to become a warrior and eventually becomes a paladin. Its impossible in D&D. There is no way to build someone who isn't a combatant. especially in 5e with its "everyone has the same base attack bonus" thing. In RuneQuest though, its easy to have that kind of progression, going from a farmer or herdsman who eventually becomes a runelord or whatever.

I keep reading the thumbnail title as “DONT BALANCE OUR GAMES”, like don’t you dare!

Thank you so much for this video! You eloquently explained how I see roleplay games. I will be stealing everything you just said when convincing people to move away from... *Cough* cough* ... Other games with classes.

I used the musician analogy as well in the past. It's true beyond the points Jeff is making, because in a good jam session everybody should be granted some solo-time (=character spotlight). A well balanced table of players is made out of folks, who have no problem, when somebody other than him/herself has time to shine, once in a while. Collaborative storytelling > power fantasy!

I’m posting this at about 8 minutes into this video. I want to define the importance of game balance as I agree with it. It is when I can create challenges that could kill PCs but they always have a few ways of saving themselves in a way that allows them to feel like they accomplished something important in their growth as a TTRPG enthusiast. A game that continually surprises me in how simple or deadly encounters will be is a game that becomes too burdensome on the GM to be fun for long. PC death is acceptable only when that death is fair, given the investment of a serious player. Unintentional death, or too many miraculous saves, ruin the development of story Roleplaying. Now I’ll finish the video and see if they cover this aspect.

Loved this. Thank you. I like games to be as unbalanced as I am. Makes the world make sense to me.

To Jeff's point about Merry and Pippin vs Aragorn and Legolas, I agree that it's fine if you have players who are content to play characters who are significantly less proficient than half the group. And it is a truly great GM who can keep those players engaged when they are spending most of their time on the sidelines watching their friends do their thing. Another great (maybe better example) is the MCU Avengers where you have Hawkeye and Black Widow (ordinary people), Captain America and Iron Man (enhanced but still essentially human) and the Hulk and Thor (figurative and literal forces of nature). The problem with systemic imbalance (which is a whole different issue than the imbalance of an individual game) is that in the worst examples players don't choose the Merry/Pippin role but are forced into it by either random dice rolls (this was a huge problem in early D&D) or by the player's inability to properly understand the system (as happens in a lot of point buy skill based games)and this is a big problem. I would argue that the Chaosium games are actually much better in regards to systemic balance because (as long as the GM is doing their job and building/choosing scenarios to all of their players' characters) it's actually very easy to build what you want to play and the system doesn't really favor one approach over another since all skills are pretty much created equal and advance at the same rate so long as they're being used.

If you consider a game like, for instance, GDW Traveller (and even the latest Mongoose version to a large extent), the characters are pretty much all random. The player can opt for certain professions, but might not get them. They can choose which skill progression tables to roll on, but the results from them are then random. The game is, by no means, considered as "balanced" in terms of character abilities or relevance and makes no attempt at being so. The idea is, much like Jeff is saying, that you've got an actual person with some life experience, and now you're running them through some adventures. Some times they'll have abilities to help, other times not so much. Much like the Ringworld campaign that he talks about, Traveller isn't really about "levelling up" the character but more telling their story as they make their way through the world.

This is a great discussion and very much aligns with my own feelings about 'balance' in games... and focusing on the strengths of TTRPGs vs. video games. One picky point though: the soft transitions between questions/answers here are offputing to me. In film language, soft transitions usually suggest that some time has passed. So here it makes it feel as if the two people are not actually speaking to each other in real time, more like the interviewer is reading a question they mailed to the guest.

This explains so much about why these games fall short of their potential.

It occurs to me that the sort of TTRPGs that are "over balanced" and feel rather constrictive and limited because of the hard "balance" they hew to may be the result of those games being expected (or marketed?) to include strangers. The sort of games that came into being with the idea of being played at a game shop or a convention with whoever shows up. And so I can sort of see the thought process behind trying to solve the problem of strangers having very different views or expectations of what the game will be about or how they will inhabit the game's world by just fencing them in to a fairly rigid "balance" of player options. And, at least some times, that seems perfectly fine. But it does seem completely unnecessary and even detrimental to a game played among friends and family where the people know each other pretty well and may have even spoken at some length before hand about what they want to experience and have gotten on the same page. It's a competitor to Chaosium, but I think Fate is a great example of a game that relies on the players knowing one another at least well enough to communicate clearly with each other... but also it respects the ability of strangers (who share an interest in playing a game together) to be capable enough to communicate with one another about _what_ they want to play and how each other's characters and ideas will come together. Fate _does_ have a number of balancing parameters, certainly, but it also allows for a lot of freedom and _chaos_ in determining the details of the characters and the world and what the heck the story is going to be about. And what scale of abilities characters will have.

As someone who has found the Big Model helpful and considered myself primarily into Narrativist play, I used to find Hero Wars the very best "improv with a director" sort of game, to paraphrase another interview with Jeff. But now I think some of the "crunch" from older editions of RQ has been combined with what Hero Wars did best, and RQRPG (I see what yall did there, @chaosium) has rapidly become the most interesting and successful game with my play group, half of whom have only been playing ttrpgs since the pandemic began

48:15 Don’t you just hate munchkins! From memory the essay types were Real Man, Real Roleplayer, Munchkin, and Fool. Munchkin was synonymous with powergamer. Ok I was close, it was “loony” not “fool”.

I mean, you want to have just enough "balance" so that when you come to a point of making a choice, there's not one option that is immediately and clearly better (or worse) than any other. They should all be viable enough but offer something different. And it's that "something different" that can be and usually is lost when a game is overly focused on "balance". Where everything is essentially the same with just cosmetic differences. And at that point you could just delete all the mechanics and just focus 100% on improvisational roleplay with no die-rolling because the mechanics basically cancel themselves out. Of course, no rules-focused curmudgeon would ever dream of not having all the crunch possible even if it winds up being balanced into redundancy. And ultimately, I _could_ just not buy any game at all and just make up stories with my friends. But it does help to have some sort of guidance in the form of a game system to get everyone on the same page and to arbitrate those points that might otherwise become disagreements. And also for inspiration and maybe pacing. But it is important to remember that TTRPGs are not video games. Video games would love to have the same sort of free license for story and interactivity as TTRPGs, but they are limited by how complex they can make their algorithms in a given time frame and what sort of means they can think up for allowing for more variability in how things play out. But for a table top RPG it's a very different matter. So it really is best to not get caught up in the mathematical, equation-like balance between different player options/paths. Again, you need to tend to it to make sure they're all more-or-less equally *fun.* But that's a far cry from all being equal in any given gameplay moment. It's far better to allow for that player who wants to be really into the verisimilitude of pastoral life and community, or the one who wants to delve into political maneuvering and intrigue and mystery, or the one who wants to have a character explore concepts of honor and being a protector. Because... well, let's say there's this game out there -- massively popular -- that really only concerns itself with one aspect or concept of play: killing things. It comes up with like 9+ variations for fighting and killing things and gives those variations their own sub-themes, but ultimately it's a rather one-note kind of game. Can a player do other things in the game? Sure, it's all just talking and imagination so the game can't stop you. But it won't support you either, if you're "going off the rails" and not engaging in life-or-death combats on the regular, you're not really engaging with the bulk of the game and instead are stretching some periphery, under-developed sub-systems as far as they'll go to give some sort of structure to your play. If people want to jury-rig a game like that, you can't really stop them. But it is generally a good idea to provide a game that offers a fuller suite of tools for varied engagement.

Now... Balance can refer to many aspects. The simple balance for balanced play is approximately spending your role-playing time as follows: 20 % as GM 80 % as PC Technically what it says is to do it both as GM and as PC. - Do not get stuck in one of them. --- Something that I find very interesting is the rule of 7: Measure how much time you spend, while playing, in these three categories: At least 4 out of 7 should be "role-playing and NPC interaction". Around 2 out of 7 should be "investigation and exploration". At most 1 out of 7 should be "combat". That is the recommended distribution for healthy role-playing. Only a few people know about the rule of 7, despite it being based on a survey of approximately 6000 role-players. It often brings out a lot of discussions, as it tends to surprise people when they hear it. Though it does make sense, I do think the survey was not detailed enough. I would like to know about "role-playing" and "NPC interaction", each of them, which are the more important? The same goes for "investigation" and "exploration", though I can see there need not be a fixed ratio between them, just the amount is filled with one or the other, thus it matters less what the ratio is. --- I think where most people get derailed when they hear the word "balance" they think of the boredom optimization system, often nicknamed "CR". CR is from war games where it is used to balance the battlefield so both sides do have the same amount worth in soldiers and weapons. The problem is when it gets used in role-playing games it becomes "the boredom optimization system", as it breaks "the rule of 7" by forcing "combat" to fill 7 out of 7, thus leaving no time for anything else. Honestly! Dudes! CR does not belong in role-playing games. --- For balance between players goes, then it is worth keeping an eye on if all players get their "time in the spotlight", here the GM usually is sure to get time. - It is about being aware of if someone hogs the limelight, often the GM is the one taking the unfairly too large share of the time. --- An old classic balance problem is the random character generation (Which fewer and fewer systems use, due to this problem!) where the dice almost always cause one player to get the feeble dice rolls and end up as the lame character in a wheelchair. - It is not fun to be the slug who slows down the rest of the group. --- A more modern balance problem is again character generation, as we often agree on the group has to consist of a certain type of character. For example; musicians. If everyone creates the stereotypical musician, then it becomes boring as the characters are too identical. -> And it can go to the opposite end of the scale where the characters have too little in common for it to make sense that those characters are together. -> Or the most common: Some are too identical while some others are too far away.

Two words I hate when discussing creating a character are; "Build" and "Optimisation". I don;t give a toss about "Balance" and don't much worry about detailed back story. All I need from my players is that they know who their character is at the point they start playing. If that requires a 130 page novella FINE, if it needs a few lines to describe some of the background options/rolls from the books... FINE. Consequently my attitude to character creation is VERY laissez-faire, often not even using dice or point buy to decide initial attribute scores. The rationale I apply, that has stood the test of time, is that if a player is playing the closest they can to the character they have in their head, the less of a care they have about whether that character is on par with everyone else.

A usual problem (that gets fixed by mechanical balance) I encountered is having too many players... Instead of a comfortable 3-4 players and a GM some games I played had up to 8 players plus a GM. And in that big of a party there usually isn't enough time to do much but mechanical stuff.

If Jeff is at GenCon next week, I hope he can stop by the Jazz Kitchen.

Wanting players to make characters, not piles of stats and abilities, was what made me decide on only going to allow PHB races when I run D&D. I've been finding that people who want more esoteric races, classes, or combos of the two don't take their character beyond those aspects.

was hoping this would be captioned. guess not.

I dont know if I can agree with mr richard, it seems like he is saying "Mechanical balance doesnt matter, you can have fun being deadweight !" and maybe he can, but some of us dont enjoy being the only person at the table who fails to be effective, Sometimes when you have a goddess who has 300% chance to succeed at everything it just makes you feel like " Why am I here at all ? " and maybe thats an issue with me, but in a group activity there is some expectation that that you can meaningfully contribute to the group, and maybe you can sit there and tell jokes about how your character sucks and is a waste of oxygen, but sometimes it is nice to actually be able to do something that another person couldnt do better or faster.

I get that he doesn’t care much about “traditional” numbers balance… but I feel it’s lazy to ignore it too much. For instance, “you’re all knights, so it’s inherently balanced!” No, not at all. The mechanics themselves still need to be balanced. For instance, say I’m playing in an “only knights” game system as a one-handed axe + shield knight. My friend is playing a 2-handed sword knight. Axe does 10 damage, shield blocks 2 damage. 2H sword does 20 damage. Is this balanced? Could be, depending on total health pool, body armor, action mechanics, etc. But it very well could not be.

The entire discussion comes down to the false dichotomy of mechanics and roleplaying, the idea that in games with balanced mechanics players will inevitably engage with them to the detriment of roleplaying. Which can happen, certainly, but is in no way unavoidable, and is mostly up to the group. Besides, you can use a "balanced" system to run "unbalanced" high-concept games, the example of a goddess and a dolphin in a walker suit at the end of the interview even spells out how to do it: have a level 25 and level 1 characters in the party. What "balanced" systems allow you to do, however, is more easily run games in the manner they're balanced for, i.e. adventuring in D&D with equal-level PCs, instead of having to figure out how to let level 25 and level 1 characters have fun together all the time.

"Planned Progression" or "Power Advancement" isn't my whole bit of fun, nor does it lead to "long-term play" because eventually you're just a god.

“Build” is anathema to me.

Interesting second-order Meta discussion (a Meta discussion about Meta)

What I say is, “if you want game balance, go play Stormbringer”.

Balancing a game....... and then you have a campaign in Dorastor....

Once again another RPG video youtube is not letting me watch. Clearly other people are able to watch this from the comments.

I hate game balance because everything feels the same. See D&D 4E and pf2

This is a false dichotomy though. I am tired of TTRPGs creating a false equivalency between Combat and Social interactions. I am making a TTRPG where the social abilities are an entirely separate system from combat. Because just because someone likes to hit something doesn’t mean they should not be able to do anything socially.

Well, what did I expect from a company producing games like CoC? I've played TTRPG for 40 years and I can say that one of the worst written games are Runequest: Glorantha. Listening to this guy makes me understand that it couldn't be in any other way. This guy isn't on my side of the table, and I will not be playing RQ:G for long. I now understand why RQ never got to be anything else than a different TTRPG that not so many play. You got to respect them from the point that they didn't produce games that many people want to play just because they want to play the game in a certain way ... or not!