 Today I want to address the concept of balance in RPGs. I have specific lines of inquiry one should consider when discussing balance: -Do we need balance in RPG rules -Where exactly do we expect balance to reside within an RPG - between players based on classes or between the players and the game reality -Should balance emerge from game play rather than game mechanics -Why would one prefer an imbalanced war game -Why would one prefer an imbalanced RPG Perhaps most disturbing to me as a game historian is the desire by gamers who are focused strictly on RPGs to separate Original Dungeons & Dragons and contemporary D&D by defining OD&D as a war game, which it never was. I also see a good deal of disparaging language in regard to war games. The only conclusion I can come to in consideration of these arguments against war games, within today's RPG game community - these gamers have no idea how war games are deeply embedded within every edition of Dungeons & Dragons. One can easily spot RPG war game heritage as a tangible property in all RPGs. Common RPG language terms such as, attack die roll, damage die roll, flank attack, and rear attack; all of these ideas come straight out of war games. Yet, if one looks with a critical eye, there are far more subtle and complex war game concepts embedded in every RPG produced to this day. I often spend time on social media discussing games in general and today one of the common discussions popped up again; the concept of balance in RPGs. While many argue the pros and cons of balance in RPG design, I consider the real issue at hand to be why balance is always a problem for these games and how the true nature of good RPG design and game play is ideally rooted in war game concepts that can go entirely against ideas about balance within game rules and scenarios. One such deep design idea may not be exclusive to one specific game designer, yet it should be noted how the confluence of war games with RPG elements, and what is more visibly defined as RPGs, resulted in the exploration Asymmetrical Game Scenarios by none other than David Wesely.  It all began when a handful of gamers in Minnesota had the synchronous experience of all reading a very old War game called, Strategos the American Game of War. Without knowing it these kids were poring over actual military training manuals. Yes, it is a game, but it is the official U.S. Army game of 1880.
Most over the counter board war games of the 60's era were designed to be balanced. They came with what was essentially a set piece battle where units had specific start points and the overall forces were balanced on strength. Of the many ideas presented in the Stretegos rules, and I can tell you it is expansive because I've read it cover to cover, David Wesely fixated on, and expanded, the crazy idea of having military forces be uneven. It may be that Wesely took these ideas so far beyond what was presented within Strategos that he was inventing a new kind of war game already by this point. The Twin Cities group was already exploring miniature battles and so the idea of having a tool kit of military toys to build armies and battle scenarios was familiar to them. In many cases these commercial war games came with charts for "purchasing armies." What this meant was that each player would get an imaginary value like Monopoly money in order to buy all the units for their army. These types of systems were designed to provide an equal chance of winning and enjoyment for both sides in a game with the only unbalanced element being the use of terrain and unit position to gain advantage during play. No one likes an uneven game. Even in a real war, if either side perceives their force to be too small, or not have enough bonus tactical advantages to balance a battle, they will simply retreat. While you will not see it in a war game, balance is a real element for real military leaders. They know they have 3 options: 1. Fight ; 2. Negotiate*: 3. Run Like Hell!* *Option #2 can also be read as: Maneuver for a stronger position. *Option #3 Run Like Hell, does not make for good war game scenarios thus while you will not see it in most games, it is an important part of game design. If as commander you have all those choices, you can avoid losing a battle by running and preserving your force for later. Many RPG players seem to not know this option exists and proceed straight to option #4 known as the Total Party Kill. As always with my long rants, I am trying to make a point here. This point is simple: Balance is created through the choices taken by players in a game, just as balance is often achieved by real leaders in real wars by their command decisions. Of course, a real commander's goal is to tip the balance in their favor. Since RPGs arise from war games, and war games are simulations of real war; one can only come to the realization that balance cannot reside within game rules and that balance comes from player agency. Lets get back to David Wesely. For whatever reason, he ended up becoming the primary referee in the war game group. As referee he began to explore how to make the game scenarios he was preparing for his players more interesting. This would lead him to doing all kinds of crazy things from having units that began the game hidden by the landscape, to having local civilians in the town that his players could gather intelligence from.* *One has to ask: Is this war game an RPG? I think it is. What this created is a war game that has a commodity within it of knowledge and information. If you know where the other guy is, you can move your troops to take advantage of that information and win a battle with a weaker force. Or, as Stonewall Jackson was fond of doing, if you move around a lot and your enemy has no idea where you are concentrating your forces, you can pick a weak spot to overwhelm. At the same time, Wesely added another layer to his war game RPGs - hidden agendas. If each player has a secret motive that no one else knows about, they can fulfill their objective and win a game without the need for winning a battle. These Wesely devised co-factors within his war game scenarios expand everything. If you have forces of differing strength, yet who's chances of winning are not based on military strength but rather these other ephemeral ideas, a game does not need to be balanced at all! When we Interviewed the Blackmoor Bunch, Ken Shepro pointed out how most battles are won even before the two sides meet on the battle field. That this Pre-Battle Activity of, maneuver, intelligence gathering, and who knows what else, is what their game group was most interested in simulating. How does one do it though? Here is an example for a game scenario one could create by using Wesely's ideas: Player A is commanding a large military force that is marching in a column along a road. The map has many roads and the commander can choose which is preferable. It is entirely up to Player A how to proceed. They can send out scouts to watch for enemies. They can take a wildly divergent route somewhere else where they may need to build a bridge before they can cross a high running river. Maybe they do something to create a decoy for possible enemies. It's all up to the player to decide. Yet their orders are simple: March over the map and meet up with the main column. Player B has a force that is about 20-25% the size of the Player A's force. They have been ordered to scout and if possible delay the approaching column of troops. Perhaps this is all part of a much larger imaginary story. The enemy column is on its way to form up with an even larger enemy force somewhere off the map. If you can either stop them, or delay them, your tiny force can change which side will win the imaginary off board battle. Maybe you can burn all the bridges where the roads cross rivers, or maybe you can be really sneaky and ambush the marching enemy column. It's up to you what you want to do as Player B. Consider that at some point, it may be Player B's best choice to sacrifice their entire force in a losing battle in order to achieve the greater objective. There is a lot going on in this scenario. Players are interacting with the world setting as well as the potential direct confrontation of a battle. Certainly any scouts that come into contact will be having minor skirmishes. Wesely was doing things very similar to this example and much more beginning around 1965. And it is this kind of behavior within a war game that, for me, leads to asking questions such as: Is this kind of Asymmetrical Game already a Role Playing Game? Let's get back to my list of original inquiry: -Do we even need balance in RPG rules -Where exactly do we expect balance to reside within an RPG - between players based on classes or between the players and the game reality -Should balance emerge from game play rather than game mechanics -Why would one prefer an imbalanced war game -Why would one prefer an imbalanced RPG David Wesely would go on to invent a type of Role Playing Game called a Braunstein. It was entirely asymmetrical, or imbalanced. In a sense, each player had to create their own balance during game play as part of achieving their winning objectives. I will leave you to decide for yourself, the value of balance in RPGs, as well as whether or not RPGs should acknowledge their war game heritage as an essential element of the game. Thanks for reading, Griff
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 While many gamers are fixated on creating a serious game setting, I feel at least 30% of any adventure has to include some humor to keep things relaxed and fun. Commonly known as Gonzo D&D this kind of not quite serious fantasy play adds a lot to game sessions. In my own game, players are used to seeing things like Laser Penguins, or a magical talking door named Isadore. Get it: IS-A-DOOR (pause for effect) AH HA HA HA HA I always feel really clever coming up with bad humor for my dungeon adventures. My players, maybe not so much. It's surprising how easy it is to switch between serious and silly within the same campaign. Gonzo encounters can range from harmless role play to deadly combat. Most of you may already be playing Gonzo without even knowing it. Many of the original D&D monsters were intended to be Gonzo; especially the Dungeon Clean Up Crew monsters, the oozes, jellies, puddings, rust monsters, and several others. When Ken Fletcher sent us his drawing of a Gelatinous D12 I realized I had to add this creature to my Gonzo dungeon world, Journey to the Chewy Center of Laser Penguin Island Is the T'awesomenest! What follows is a suggestion for making the Jellies even more absurd.  The Many Scented Fruity Platonic Jelly Many different kinds creatures can be found in the world of, Journey to the Chewy Center of Laser Penguin Island is T'awesomenest! Of these, perhaps the most feared, colorful, and possibly flavorful, is The Many Scented Fruity Platonic Jelly. It is described by those who have met one as fearless, cunning, and jiggly in equal portions. The Platonic Jelly has the overall consistency of Jell-O desert cubes along with coming in a variety of colors. Adventurers are more likely to smell one before they see it. Each variety emanates a fruity scent with the exception of the clear variety which do not have a color or scent. None have lived to tell if the colors also have flavors. All of them are nearly transparent and thus have a high chance of surprising adventurers, but the scented ones will make their presence known fairly early even if they are not spotted visually. Nothing will terrify a party of adventurers more than hearing the referee say: All of you are overcome by the smell of Tropical Fusion Fruit Mix. These creatures should be treated just like an ordinary Gelatinous Cube with the following differences and additions. Hit Dice for the creatures per D&D are based on the number of sides they have.* List of Shapes and Sizes: 2 sided, or flat ( although these are small, they can be very dangerous as they can stretch across a hallway like a net waiting to trap its victims, or drop from the ceiling.) 4 sided pyramid shape 6 sided cube 8 sided double pyramid 12 sided polygon 20 sided polygon *It is said there are extremely large 30 and 50 sided ones as well. Occasionally they may also come in a bundt form. They consume anything organic they come into contact with and can be found wandering underground in ruins and mines. What makes them unique is that each color will also have an additional special ability that allows them to affect characters in strange ways. In order to make the ones in your game unique to your dungeon, and not have players know ahead of time what color has what property, you should use this list of fruity colors and roll randomly to determine what color has what effect. Over time and several encounters, your players can begin to remember what to watch out for when encountering these jellies. The Many Scented Fruity Platonic Jelly List of Common Varieties: a. Clear Unflavored b. Grape Violet c. BlueBerry Blue d. Water Mellon pink e. Raspberry Medium Red f. Lime Green g. Green Apple Green h. Banana Yellow i. Lemon Yellow j. Pineapple Orange k. Orange l. Strawberry Red m. Tropical Fusion Bergundy (This one has several abilities roll 3 times on ability list.) Obviously, this is just a brief overview as the possibilities for color and flavor are limitless. The Many Scented Fruity Platonic Jelly Determination of Special Abilities Chart: 1. Electrical, roll 1d6 on a 1 it can shoot a lightning bolt that turn, otherwise the effect only works if it touches a player 2. Fire, same as above for probability of it being a touch or a fireball 3. Cold, same as above for probability of it being a touch or a cold blast 4. Acid, same as above for probability of it being a touch or a acid splash 5. The Flying Jelly, easily recognized by the "clearly visible" wings attached to it's body. It moves 120' per turn just as an unburdened character does 6. Confusion, also known as the Jell-O shot 7.Teleportation,yes it can skip around between rounds even appearing on players, or teleporting away with someone inside of it! 8. Fire resistance 9. Poison, save vs 2d6 poison damage 10. Anti Magic, highly resistant to any spells 11. Paralysis, save or be immobilized for 2d6 rounds 12. Roll Twice for this Jelly's abilities. 13. Level Drain, save or lose 1 level of experience 14. Death, save or die 15. Shoots Marshmallows for sticky damage, movement and actions halved Roll a d20 ignoring numbers higher than 15. Each Time a jelly is assigned an ability, other colors may no longer take that ability, except for the Roll Twice and Tropical Fusion Variety.  Side Effects
If a player gets ingested by a Jelly and manages to survive, they will suffer odd side-effects. There is no saving throw against the result of this die roll. The Many Scented Fruity Platonic Jelly Side-Effect Chart: 1. Remove Curse. Oddly enough, if one manages to survive being ingested by this variety they will discover that it has removed all curses they may be under 2. Cause Blindness. Player is blind until the proper healing spell is applied 3. Player gains dark vision ability just as an elf or dwarf 3. Loss of Touch, victim unable to feel anything 4. Lose speech, victim can no longer speak 5. Victim loses sense of smell, or rather, all they can smell until magically healed is whatever scent the jelly that engulfed them is 6. Player gains powerful smelling skill, can get on all fours and track things like a dog 7. Loss of hearing 8. Acute hearing, player has ability to hear at twice normal ability. 9. Victim changes into human sized talking animal: 1. Squirrel; 2. Rat; 3. Frog; 4. Otter 10. Same as above except the victim is the same size as the creature they become 11. Lose 1 point from an attribute 12. Gain 1 point to an attribute 13. Gain one Experience level 14. Player's skin glows like a light spell, they get to be a human lantern 15 - 19. No effect except the player will be told they feel different. The referee should encourage the player to think they are somehow more capable 20. The player takes on the special ability of the kind of Jelly they were consumed by Many Thanks to Ken Fletcher for being the Zany inspiration for these monsters. Also, make sure to get some Jell-O for your next game session! https://www.myfoodandfamily.com/brands/kraft-jello/products/25001/products  All artwork by Walter Moore from the Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg BookQUESTION: What is your reach when it comes to fighting? Should a human do more damage on smaller creatures? Many of the ideas that are applied to combat in RPGs were established very early on within a few years of the invention of the genre via Gygax and Arneson's, Dungeons & Dragons. Just a year later Tunnels and Trolls adds the 2nd approach to the genre. D&D presents the chance to hit + damage done approach. Tunnels and Trolls uses a dice pool system for total damage rolled with the difference being applied as damage to the losing side. In Tunnels and Trolls Armor has no impact on the chance to hit, what it does do is subtract damage from an individuals damage taken. Both games offer a simplistic and fast playing game mechanic. OD&D creates the problem of longer battles at higher levels which may not be easily solved with this system. The point of the OD&D and later systems is to even out odds and give players a better chance of living The concept of having dice pools is an interesting one, yet it doesn't exactly work with how OD&D presents combat. On the other hand, OD&D was super simple and everything caused the same amount of damage per hit. When Greyhawk supplement came out, it added variable dice types based on weapon type. This would get carried into AD&D as the standard practice for weapon damage, what is more, the method ends up in most RPG's since the release of Greyhawk supplement in 1975. RPGs are about simulating results and not necessarily about simulating every little detail involved in getting from Point A to Point B. A lot of games claim to be simulating combat, but really it's just another way of achieving a result that has nothing to do with reality. But some kind of basis in reality is needed. At the same time, I feel the greatest flaw in design I see these days is what I call subtractive design where a player's actions are limited by conditional rules that disallow actions. I am much more partial to an additive approach, which goes back to David Wesely's statement that "A player should be allowed to try anything, though not always successfully." So lets look at Weapon Damage by Type. It has several built in flaws that make the approach a bit too limiting. As an example, lets say your character Grond decides to challenge someone to a fight to the death in single combat. The other party accepts, yet demands the battle be fought without armor and the weapon of choice should be daggers. This sounds good except Grond and his opponent are both 5th level fighters with 5x hit dice due to level and daggers only cause 1d4 damage when they hit. It is at this point that all the other players leave and go to a movie, since this combat is gonna take a while. How can we speed this up by at least half the time needed? The greater issue in combat is the one of reach. Longer weapons always have an advantage in a fight. Sorry, the M.U. with a dagger shouldn't even get a chance to hit someone armed with a long sword. Yet, I never design in anything that says "You Can't Do That." I like to design toward incentives and I always design toward minimalism, simplicity, and playability. As I keep saying, just let your wizards use swords, but they only do half damage, or some other penalty, but do not stop your players from exploring possibilities. I recently had one of those ideation moments where I decided to approach how damage is applied in D&D and came up with a different system from the Greyhawk weapon base damage approach that allows for standard base damage in most cases, yet also allows for greater damage in many of the commonly found situations. As with everything I post as a OD&D Variant, feel free to cut and paste the text and then alter it to suit your needs. Following is a set of very rough rules for basing damage on both weapon size and creature size.  Some optional 1st Round Advantages Any weapon vs. a surprised opponent does not suffer length difference minuses. Consider that it may even get a bonus die for damage of it's value vs. a 0 for the un armed defender. Or, you may even multiply the damage done on one die by the target's number of hit dice to simulate the chance for an instant kill. i.e. you have your dagger out and stab someone who has not drawn their weapon - it's gonna hurt, a lot. A pole arm charging or defending against a charge will gain a bonus modifier in the first round vs. all but similar weapons of +1 due to their added reach. If you thank of anything else that could happen, or if something does happen in your game, simply make a note of it here for future game sessions. Initiative OD&D has no such thing as Initiative and to my way of thinking it should never use it - EVER! OD&D uses Parallel Actions; everyone does what they do in a round and then results are applied. You engage the orc and you are both circling and looking for an opening… roll your attack, oh you hit it for 7! The orc falls to its knees mortally wounded, in a last effort it swings at you missing and falls face down on the ground in front of you. The orc got its attack in even though you killed it. Oh Oh, sometimes things should not happen in a parallel order. What you can do is apply reasonable results to any situation. Lets say our heroic fighter decides to attack a troop of orcs armed with pole arms. The pole arms should do about the same damage if they get a hit as our hero's sword. Yet our hero has decided to be The Man in this situation and is charging at pole weapons, this is not a good idea. He needs to clear those pole weapons before he gets his attack roll. Thus I would judge that the orcs get to roll their attacks before he gets past their pole weapons and can strike with his sword. The same can be said for spell users. While our more pointy weapon obsessed friends are dancing around and swinging and dodging wildly, the Magic-user is conjuring. That is all they do this round. Then after everyone is done doing their thing the result of their spell is applied to their target. Base Damage is always 1d6 per OD&D unless there is a weapon size difference, thus we get these values. smaller creatures 1d4 in combat, or what is listed in the MM if you are using that.* Human sized 1d6 (All characters generally do 1d6 per OD&D rules.) Larger than human 2d6 Very large 3d6 *a dagger armed person fighting another dagger armed person should do 1d6 damage. If you want to switch to this simpler system with Holmes or AD&D then all D6 dice should be D8. The same applies for Greyhawk based d8,d6,d4 hit dice. Consider that HD are a d8 and a Sword is a D8 in Greyhawk. OD&D uses the d6 as the base unit of hits and dmage caused. Weapon Classes Defined by Length Values applied to combat based on weapons. Small weapons such as daggers and small javelins, smaller creatures like rats or snakes = 1 Most average swords and spears, and average monsters with physical weapon traits use this mod. = 2 Above average swords and pole arms 2 handers and halberds and larger monsters= 3 Large pole arms like Pikes, larger than ogre sized creatures get this as a bonus = 4 Creature Size 1 -smaller than human, dogs, giant rats, halflings kobolds have a shorter reach. 2- Man sized as well as beings about the same physical strength as men like dwarves. 3 - Larger than man sized, trolls and ogres. 4 - Very large, Dragons. You then tally up your weapon + physical size and you get a value. Compare your value to your opponent's. value to see how much damage a hit does. The difference in size totals is a damage die bonus. i.e. A giant rat is a 1 + 1 vs a human with a sword for 2 + 2, thus 2 vs 4, for a 2 to 1 advantage for a 1d6 damage roll by the lower value and a 2d6 damage roll for the greater value. Spill Over Damage, or slashing damage. A damage roll that is greater than an opponents total hit point will affect a creature either behind, or adjacent to the figure attacked without the need for a second attack roll.  Using this System
Lets put it together to see how the numbers actually work. 1. All creature have an abstracted base damage they do. 2. Everything has a combat value that is a fixed value of: Creature Size + Weapon Length 3. Compare size and weapon lengths to see if the base damage is modified. Commence to Fightin' Y'all! A dragon attacks a party of adventurers. The front line is human sized fighters with spears and swords. The dragon is very large for a 4. It also gets 4 for its weapon length of large claws on long arms, and long neck for biting of 4+4 = 8 our humans are only 2+2 = 4 The dragon can already do 3d6 dice damage vs the 1 die for each fighter. Yet in this system dragons and dragon sized creatures are doing their base damage of 3d6 plus they get a +1 die damage roll for a total of 4D6. Our meat shield fighter types in the party are having more chances to hit, but they are only doing 1 die damage. Meanwhile our Dragon is doing an average of 14 points damage on every hit. Consider that 14 points can also mean a lot of spill over damage in a big fight too. Now the mere mention of fighting a dragon will chill the blood of any party coming across one. Optional ideas None of this is written in stone and you may want to explore some changes of your own. Maybe the base damage is ignored when a weapon discrepancy is encountered? Rather than size, you can use hit dice as an indicator of skill and force combined. Thus you can make some kind of chart up, like so: HD less than 1 is a value of 1 HD1-2 is a value of 2 HD 3-4 is a value of 3 HD 5-6 is a value of 4 Etc. You may want to play with this a bit. My high level Character should get a bonus! Perhaps do it by class and level of fighting skill increase that they get based on experience, thus you do a gain of +1 for each 3 levels for fighter, 4 of cleric, and 5 of M.U. Hopefully this is all fairly clear and easily understood. And… I haven't left in too many confusing typos as I wrote this. Sorry, I do that a lot. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section. I would also be curious to hear from anyone who tries this system where damage is modified by what your opponent has in their hand. Support Secrets of Blackmoor! Check out the posters in our online store: https://store.secretsofblackmoor.com/collections/t-shirts/products/emergence-of-blackmoor-poster  The following is a sample from an upcoming Blackmoor setting book. All rights Griffith Morgan and The Fellowship of the Thing, LTD. |
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