But if the game is about collaborativley generating an interesting story, what needs to be balanced is narrative interest, for want of a less wanky phrase. Equal story-stuff, if you like.
Frodo is in no way tactically or effectively balanced with Aragorn... but his attributes include the one ring which, though for his purposes not very tactically effective (I remember seeing a discussion ages ago on why an AD&D character would trade the one ring for a vorpal sword any day, unless you stat up the "control all the bad guys" power, missing the point by a mile), gets him insto the centre of the story...
If points in attributes are balanced, then as long as the GM equally balances exposure to those attributes, everyone should get roughly equal "screen time" or "story input" or "focus" or "impact". I find player "talent" increases in direct proportion to how much impact their characters have on the game; you have to work very hard to be dull with an interesting character that affects and is affected by their environment, I'd think as hard as you'd have to work to be interesting with an isolated, one dimensional character.
So the balance issues in HQ chargen is partly illusory, if you treat it as an excercise in making a character balanced in terms of diagetic, simulated, how many hit points, lowest THAC0 fashion. But it's not really about that, it's about giving characters equal story impact.
In HQ, you CAN run the fellowship as an absolute, straight down the line, numerically balanced party, or as a few heroes with sidekicks. You can also run, again as an absolutely perfectly numerically balanced starting party, a Lunar Noble & retinue, a family of Orlanthi, a pirate ship crew... sure, in the game world, one will be "in charge", one will be able to kick the other's asses, some will be low down on the pecking order with little apparent effectivenes, but they will have as much story stuff around them as the "big guys", as many numbers to throw around in their conflicts as them.
IN game power in HQ really is story power, whatever the combat, social, whatever abilities are. I'd stick with keeping everyone with the same number of abilities, points, etc, but encourage diversity in attributes.
On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 4:48 PM, Jane Williams <janewilliams20_at_...> wrote:
> 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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-- _______________________________ Pete Darby http://pete_darby.livejournal.com Every Child Matters? Each week: 450,000 children are bullied in school. Each year: more than 360,000 children injured in schools Each year: at least 16 children commit suicide as a result of school bullying Each year: an estimated 1 million children truant Each year: more than 1 in 6 children leave school unable to read, write or add up
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