Game Balance

A popular topic. Personally I think it's easiest to comprehend when viewed through the lens of making choices meaningful (ie giving players choices where all options have meaning within the game).

Let's consider the following: here are three options and you get to choose one when your character gets a bonus.

• +1 attack bonus.
• +1 damage bonus.
• +2 damage bonus.

I said three options, but what's that one in the middle? That's the option you choose in order to show everyone what a fuckin dumbass you are. The only two viable options presented here are an attack bonus or a damage bonus, and if you are going to take a damage bonus, you take the +2 and not the +1. The middle choice is a trap.

What happens if we add more context to each choice?

• +1 attack bonus, vorpal blades.
• +1 damage bonus, acid.
• +2 damage bonus, fire.

Now all three options have some narrative flavour to them. One bonus comes from blades, another from acid, the third from fire. Fire and acid do different things, and can be used for different purposes. Escaping from handcuffs or a jail cell is much easier with acid than with fire. Now each of these three choices is a distinct and meaningful option. Yes, the actual damage bonus rating is different, but that only matters if you don't want acid more than fire. If you want the narrative properties of acid, the lower damage bonus is worth it.

I wrote this real fast because the above is one of my go-to examples. Anyway, here's some more just to wrap it up:

Now apply this logic to all choices in a game. If you have a choice between four different character classes and one of them is obviously overpowered, everyone will choose to play that one. Perhaps some people will choose another because of the aesthetics or whatever promises it makes, but if the play experience shows the same one class getting all the spotlight time, then those classes are out of balance.

Imagine a game called Caster Supremacy, with 4 character classes:

• Archer: +5 attack, +3 damage, Bow, Attack Range: 100 feet.
• Fighter: +3 attack, +5 damage, Sword, Attack Range: Touch.
• Thief: +1 attack, +1 damage, Dagger, Attack Range: 30 feet.
• Wizard: +6 attack, +6 damage, Magic Missile, Attack Range: Sight / Infinite.

If these are the only stats that differentiate characters and the game is mostly fighting, there is no reason to play any class other than a Wizard, unless (for some non-game reason) you want to play an ineffective character. Or you just don't know that one choice is clearly superior. But you will find out in play that either you choose Wizard or you suck. This game is not balanced because there is only one meaningful choice.

If one class looks overpowered, but playing the game shows that actually all four classes get spotlight time, have meaningful roles to play, fill different niches, and follow through on whatever promises their aesthetics made to the people who play them, then those classes are balanced. Even if they don't look like it. Because balancing choices isn't always about making all the numbers equal, it's about making different people's different choices enjoyable and not suck.

This is true of every choice a game offers players. If they all lead to distinct outcomes, each of which might be desirable for different reasons (or different people, different circumstances, etc), and none of those choices are traps, then the game is "balanced."

Only Monsters Here

 

 

Only Monsters Here is a 227-page, full colour setting supplement for The Nightmares Underneath (second edition) that focuses on overland exploration in a hostile wasteland full of monsters. It is a product of the Monthly Monsters patreon.

Go to DriveThruRPG for the pdf and premium colour print options.

Go to Lulu for the standard colour softcover option.

Only Monsters Here contains:

• An overland hexcrawl exploration setting, with factions, landmarks, a hex map, and new rules for travel and vehicles. There is both a dangerous wasteland AND a ruined city to explore.
• Numerous random tables for generating dungeons, encounters, events, settlements, and other locations.
• Playable monster types, including chaos riders, dark elves, goblins, mutants, pirates, orcs, spider people, and trolls.
• A complete bestiary with over a hundred different monster stat blocks.
• A conversion guide for other old school fantasy role-playing games, in case you want to use this setting with a different set of rules.

A note of caution: This is an open world, sandbox style setting and it leans heavily on random tables and wandering monster encounters. There are a lot of monsters in it, but if you are looking for already-detailed dungeon maps or adventure scenarios, this may not be the book for you.

RPG Focal Points: Characters vs Maps

Let's say I'm running a game and  you are playing a character who has a Sword of Giantslaying and a Ring of Fire Resistance. Cool.

When are you going to run into fire giants?

1

In a game focused primarily on your character and their adventure, you encounter fire giants when I decide to introduce them. When I want to see your character kick ass and do their thing, I bring the fire giants. But when I want to give you a challenge, I bring the frost gnomes. When the frost gnomes show up, you can't just fall back on your fancy sword and your magic ring, you have to rely on your other qualities.

Or I can give you a choice. I can put the threat of the fire giants over here, and the threat of the frost gnomes over there, and let you decide what order you confront them in. But the point of including them is still based on their relation to your character: the fire giants are a threat your particular character is uniquely well-equipped to deal with, and the frost gnomes are a threat that forces you to come up with a different solution.

This ends up being a deliberately narrative process, driven by our understanding of what an interesting story is. Instead of relying on randomness or chance, it relies on the sensibilities of the people playing the game. Thus, it tends to feel more like a coherent narrative arc.

Or, perhaps it feels too staged. Like every situation has been crafted for you. You might feel too much like a character in a story, instead of a character in a world.

2

In a game focused primarily on exploring a map that one player keeps secret from the others, you encounter the fire giants when the map tells you to. Either the random encounter tables say they show up, or you enter the area of the map that says it contains fire giants.

Ideally, the map is created either through random procedures, or before the players make their characters. This tends to make it feel more “real” because it relies on players exploring an already-fixed structure instead of relying on the narrative sensibilities of the participants. When you know the encounter with fire giants is random, instead of planned, it can feel like you lucked out and hit the jackpot.

Or, perhaps it feels too random. Like your decisions don't matter and none of the things you do have any connection to each other. You might feel lost in a world that has a life of its own but no connection to your character.

3

To make this difference even more abstract let me put it this way:

A good story is a series of events that are somehow connected, arranged in an order displaying cause and effect. Anything not related to the specific events the storyteller wants to highlight is abstracted out. Thus: a series of situations arranged in time.

A good map is a collection of locations that are connected in space, where interesting things happen (otherwise you wouldn't want to go there). The map has borders, leaving off places that are not important to the specific locations the cartographer wishes to focus attention on. Also, places on the map might be abstracted as well, leaving out small details that are of no consequence. Thus: a series of situations arranged in space.

Also it sucks to have a Sword of Giantslaying and a Ring of Fire Protection in a setting that has no giants, no fire-themed monsters, and no fire-themed locations. But that's a matter of building a game with a self-contained setting.

4

Obviously this distinction is to some degree artificial for the purposes of comparison. Few actual rpg campaigns are exclusively focused on one or the other, and you will notice that this is not an important distinction being discussed by other people. I like both types of games, but I also like to know which one I'm playing, so it's important to me, at least.

Call of Cthulhu uses a relationship map of clues instead of a spatial map usually. Yeah fuck it, send tweet.