Re: Let's see if this gets some discussion going - "party balance"

From: Raymond Turney <raymond_turney_at_...>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:34:18 -0700 (PDT)


Hi,

The storytelling vision of what rpg's should be like hides a key point:

In Tolkien, all the characters were under Tolkien's control.  He didn't have to worry about the actor {or in RPG terms, player} of Frodo complaining that he did not get to hit anything, or the player of Galadriel complaining that her part was not big enough.

Party balance, in a storytelling context, says that over the course of a campaign, all player  characters should be at least significant, and preferably crucial, to the story.  It also says that, for those players who care about the size of their parts, that the significance of the characters to the story should not vary so widely that one player feels his or her character is central while another player feels his or her character is marginalized.

A couple of key points:

  1. some players don't much care about the size of their parts; they're at the game because they want to be with the other players.   Also, players who fit Robin Law's categories of "butt kickers" and "tacticians" often don't care about what their characters do when they are not in combat. It is better if their characters are important in the story, but it is not crucial. 
  2. the significance of a part has no objective measurement.  It is possible to run a combat oriented game, in which the healer of the group is objectively crucial {no way would anyone get half way through without a healer} and yet leave the player of the healer feeling marginalized.  This can happen if the other characters treat the healer as a magic item, looking to her only when they need healing, and the GM does not involve the healer in any role except healing.  The simplest way to monitor "significance of a part" is to watch how the time at the game is distributed among the players.  If one or two players are doing most of the talking, you probably have a problem in this area.  Also, imagine how your scenario would play out if you simply dropped one of the PC's.  If one of them is completely dispensable, you probably have a problem with relative part significance.
  3. Because most games contain at least some of the players Robin Laws calls "butt-kickers" or "tacticians" {the two types are distinct, but they both focus on combat}, combat is very important.  This forces GM's to mix in a fair amount of combat, because combat is necessary to give these players what they want.  Also, combat in RPG's is like chase scenes in action movies.  When the GM's imagination fails, combat becomes a good fall back option.  The centrality of combat means that even in a game moving toward storytelling, the traditional 1980 D&D concept of party balance is still relevant..

Hopefully, this is a start toward generalizing the concept of party balance to cover contexts outside of combat. 

                                                                         Ray,

            Something I've been vaguely wondering about over the last few weeks: I'm not sure I can even crystallise the questions, but I know there's something here I don't understand.

If the purpose of the adventuring party is to beat up the monsters and take their treasure, with the GM as the opposition, then I understand the concept of party balance. It's no fun having one player doing all the fighting and the others just dying. That's easy. Compare damage done per round, keep it level.

If you've moved towards contests not necessarily involving combat, it gets harder: whether a PC with X points in Hitting Things is the same "level" as one with X points in Persuading People depends on what sort of contest you run into most often. But you're still competing at Win Contests, the GM is still the opposition.

If you've got a GM and players cooperating to create a shared story, where does "party balance" come in? I can see a concept of some characters being better suited to making interesting story than others, but much of that is likely to be down to player talent than numbers, isn't it? Thinking about the Fellowship of the Ring, it isn't exactly a balanced party in terms of PC-power, but the characters who get the best lines are usually the ones with the *least* power. And that is a good story: if our games came out like that, I don't think we'd be complaining.

HQ is, I think (?) intended to help us do the "shared story" thing (yes, you can play it other ways, but...). Yet character generation rules seem to be concerned with keeping all PCs at the same level of PC-power: party balance. What am I missing here?

So far I've run games on the assumption that PCs "should" be at roughly the same level of in-game power. Those games have worked, but am I limiting myself and my players too much? If I'm writing a story, sharp contrasts in power are fun - would the same apply in a game? Has anyone tried it?

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