As I was reading my previous blog post’s, I realized I come off as a kind of a humorless douche. I swear, I’m actually pretty likable, it just doesn’t translate well. Also, this is more of a technical type of publication.

See, I’m doing it again.

Some will be thrill-packed, some will just be crazy. Anyway, I think I ought to lighten the mood every once in a while, so I’ve decided to start publishing amusing game stories from gaming sessions in recent and distant memory. Some will be funny, some will be scary, and some will be exciting. So, without Further Ado,

Some Will Involve Autocannibalism!

An Account of Fantasy Gaming, By Daniel Koksal

*Names have been changed, to protect the… well, the fact is that I can’t really remember them anyway.

We were playing a homebrew game, whose secrets I will not divulge because frankly, the dude who wrote it scares me a little. A little background into the magic mechanics are necessary, though. Basically, it was a very heavily specialized magic system. One magic skill governed one aspect of magic(Life, Death, Fire, Ice, etc.) Each of us started out with one magical skill, and could learn more from spellbooks and such, however, this was toward the start of the game, so none of us had learned any more.

Anyway, we were crossing a mountain range and realized that we hadn’t brought enough food. Several setbacks had us stuck, foodless, on a precipice in a valley starving slowly and discussing what to do. One of us would have been able to fly to the city that we were headed too, but the mountains we were crossing were uncharted and there was no guarantee that he could get help to us. My character, though a series of strange and meaningful coincidences, was already in the city, nursing the hypothermia from the previous part of the journey, so I had already informed people of where my compatriots were, anyway.

Anyway, the deliberations of the party were numerous.

“What about foraging?”

“It’s too damn cold. Nothing can grow here. And how the hell do we know if it’s poisonous? ”

Well, we see animals every now and again. Why cant we hunt them”

“They’re bigger than us, and none of us can butcher meat.”

“Who said anything about butchering it. I just want to take the skin off and eat.”

“That’s wasteful.”

“Shut up, hippie.”

“What about scavenging food. I mean it’s cold out here, it can’t be that bad…”

“You want to eat something even these animals don’t want? Look at this place, I mean, if it’s edible, something here is eating it.”

Finally, just before my companions consigned themseves to death…

“Wait a minute. I can heal people, and regrow limbs and stuff, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, why don’t we just cut off little pieces of ourselves and I can just grow them back?”

That broke the DM. Everyone laughed for 10 minutes before quieting down enough to hear him say,”I’ve been playing RPG’s since I was eight years old. I have been a GM since I was 11. That was before any of you were even born. I have never heard an idea as stupid as that one that had any chance of working.  Somebody from the search party teleports in.”

They were saved.

Rereading my prior article, I realize it was clumsily written, poorly organized, rambling, and most of all failed to address my point.

So: The concise and clear summary of my argument against using system mechanics to balance the game.

• A game is more interesting if the characters are put into situations where they are forced to overcome the individual weaknesses that they have and the weaknesses of the group to which they beong.
• Hypothetical people having hypothetical professions should have varying degrees of competence, ranging from completely incompetent(Which, admittedly, will usual be NPC’s) to world renowned experts.
• I believe that the dice, and the central tendency thereof, will balance the game, and that the system should have no input on what the generic character can and cannot do, but rather the characters should be evaluated on their collective efficacy.
• The GM should balance the encounters, not the system.

Hopefully that sounds less idiotic than my former post.

Game balance is a funny thing. On the one hand, it is absolutely vital in board and war games, because they are strictly competitive. On the other hand, it is strictly unrealistic, and may or may not have a proper place in Role Playing Games. The inherent problem, as Harper Lee put it in the words of Atticus Finch “But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal- there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president.” The difference between the shared perceptual experience(I never use the word reality or any related terms) and a fantasy world is that the people in a fantasy world are placed in a setting which can directly challenge them at any moment, whereas most of us enjoy the benefits of an overprotective society where danger is constantly minimized and placed at a distance. Otherwise, this website wouldn’t exist. Or this one. Or this one. You get the idea.

Getting back to game balance, and how this applies to game balance… People in the real world have different advantages and disadvantages. People in the fantasy world should have roughly reflective advantages and disadvantages. To illustrate, I have written a very simple computer program to show how a 3d6 roll over six stats will cluster around the mean here are the results.

3d6 Properties: Mean=10, Standard Deviation=2.96, Range=Integers 3-18.
12.83
8.67
9.67
13
11.17
11.5
10.17
13
10
13.17
9.33
11.33
8.83
10.83
12.67
12.83
8.83
12.17
11.33
10.83
9.83
11.83
12.33
10.83
10.5
10.5
12.17
9.67
9
12.67
11.83
13.17

Generating 30 characters ability scores in a purely random way, I recieved a maximum average stat value of 13.17, with a mean stat of 11.14 and a standard deviation of 1.44. Of the thirty stats I generated, only 2 are statistically significant.This points to the fact that the game, even when unbalanced, will probably still be quite playable due to the nature of probability and the tendency of random numbers to be somewhat self-balancing. This inherent imbalance will make the game more interesting, and almost certainly much more enjoyable.

Some people are handsome. Some people are strong. Some people are intelligent. Some people are profoundly gifted in bed. Some people are jeaous of me for being all of these. Some people are not. Some people find ways to thrive without advantages. If a game is to include role-playing, shoudn’t it include this quintessential struggle against personal limitations? I, personally, would not be the same person I am today had I not struggled with psychosis. Dave Thomas(The founder of Wendy’s) gave huge sums of money to charities focused on orphaned children. He was an orphan. Move to fantasy. Frodo consented to go on the adventure with the ring because he was raised by Uncle Bilbo, who had many adventures and who Frodo admired. Harry Potter was focused on Voldemort, even though the rest of the wizards were content to ignore him, because Voldemort killed Harry’s parents. Sci-fi. Luke Skywalker wouldn’t have left Tatooine if Owen and Beru Lars hadn’t been murdered. None of these characters were without flaws. Dave Thomas didn’t graduate High School, Frodo was much ess resistant to the power of the ring than Bilbo, Harry was an altogether average wizard and kind of an emo kid, and Luke was seriously an emo kid and, like all males in the Star Wars Universe, was an incapable shot. Dave realized that people woud pay for hamburgers made from recycled tires, started a resaurant chain, and became a millionaire. Frodo inspired loyalty in his companions and tamed his hatred of Gollum. Harry made the same sacrifice his mother did, and protected his classmates from the Death Eaters. And Luke got all zen-jedi on us and decided a lightsaber made friendly fire less likely.

The lesson here? The truly interesting parts of our character do not come from our strengths, but from how we overcome, remove, or work around our weaknesses.

3.5 D&D Version:

Drawback: Broadcast Telepathy I

Prerequisite: The ability to cast spells or use psionic powers.

Effects: When the character uses any type of supernatural ability, an automatic reaction takes place. If the character fails a will save DC 25, he broadcasts his current thoughts to any character, PC or NPC, within 20 feet per level of spell. These characters must make a will save DC 13 or act upon the thought currently present in the broadcaster’s mind.

Drawback: Broadcast Telepathy II

Prerequisite: The ability to cast spells or use psionic powers.

Effects: When the character uses any type of supernatural ability, an automatic reaction takes place. If the character fails a will save DC 25, he broadcasts his current exact location to any character, PC or NPC, within 100 feet per level of spell. These characters must make a will save DC 13+spell level or become shaken and a will save DC 10+spell level to resist searching out the broadcaster.

Drawback: Broadcast Telepathy III

Prerequisite: The ability to cast spells or use psionic powers AND another drawback pertaining to mental illness.

Effects: When the character uses any type of supernatural ability, an automatic reaction takes place. If the character fails a will save DC 25, all characters(PC or NPC) within 20 feet per level of spell share in the mental illness of the character. These characters must make a will save DC of 17 or suffer 1 hour per caster eve of confusion, in addition the the symptoms of the broadcaster’s mental illness.

STTRPG Version

Character Flaw:  Broadcast Telepathy I

Resistance: Willpower Max Ranks -25

Whenever a character uses a supernatural ability, he must make a resistance roll or broadcast his current thoughts to any character within 100 feet per spell component. Those characters, in turn, must make a resistance roll against Willpower Max Ranks +0 or act on the thought present in the broadcaster’s mind.

Character Flaw: Broadcast Telepathy II

Resistance: Willpower -25

Whenever a character uses a supernatural ability, he must make a resistance roll or broadcast his current location to any character within 1 mile. Those characters, in turn, must make a resistance roll against Willpower Max Ranks +0 or become shaken and become compelled to seek out the broadcaster.

Character Flaw: Broadcast Telepathy III

Resistance: Willpower Max Ranks -40

Prerequisite: Another Flaw that involves Mental Illness.

Whenever the character uses a supernatural ability, the character must make a resistance roll or broadcast his mental illness to all characters within 25 feet. The characters must in turn make a resistance roll vs. Willpower Max Ranks -20 or become affected. In addition to the symptoms, the affected character suffers confusion.