Lost Songs of the Nibelungs Part I: Re-Introduction (where's this game at nowadays?)

Started writing a post about the state of the blog, didn't like where it was going. Twice. Too much doom and gloom. You know where the world's at, and I'm busy, too, so ... fuck it. Prime function of the blog is me talking about rpg stuff I have on my mind. That did connect with some sort of "scene" a couple of years back, but now I'm truly lost in the woods. I should embrace that and move on. If you encounter this post on your travels through the internet, I hope you'll sit down with me for a couple of minutes and lend me an ear. Maybe we'll chat a bit, too. Then we move on.

For today we'll have a little retrospective about how it all came together ... until it didn't. Enjoy!

Proper artwork?

So many words to talk about ... what again?

A lot of me writing here was about me finding my own voice in a thriving hobby space. Back when I started 12 years ago (and I was late to the party) the retro-clone movement was in full swing and all people did was sharing fantastic facets of what our hobby can be. Lots of fun, all around. And what a rabbit hole to jump into! So many small creators, lots of diy. Inspiring, all of it.

The OSR bitch fights came later, but not much later (although it always had the occasional flame wars).

Back then I tried a lot. And I wrote a lot, although more short pieces. 214 posts in the first three years alone. Looking back at it, I think I managed to find out a lot about myself over the years and how I play games. Enough to start designing and writing some of my own as well. This was always supposed to be a trial and error approach to game design (hence the title of the blog), so I would find an idea, play around with it, and put it aside for a while. Often promising some sort of follow up I wouldn't deliver.

Kinda "sounded great at the time" way of gamer ADD. But nothing stuck.

What started with exploring where to go, pretty definitely settled for "doing something with D&D no one thought about", mainly because the more fringe thinkers of the scene had the most inspiring stuff to begin with. They talked "world engines" and weird narrative constructs and non linear settings with lots of interesting twists to dive into.

All of it fed my D&D RC camapign rules. As a matter of fact, I tested and changed so much that one player actually threatened to leave the game if I kept adding and tinkering. Can't fault the guy. He'd been somewhere on the autism spectrum, and for him playing D&D with me was what for a cat is petting it the wrong way.

Anyway, so the blogging went on and gaming fell a bit behind. I'd still write about D&D now and again, but my focus shifted a bit towards the theoretical of it all.

I know the exact moment that changed: November 30th, 2014. Pretty much exactly 3 years into blogging.

The clip linked in that post changed the trajectory of the blog for good. The post directly after that already formulates the core idea that made Lost Songs of the Nibelungs. There is your spark, the idea that started it all: Charisma is not a good word for what it does in D&D.

With that, I seriously started dismantling D&D. Here's an attempt to replace most of the terms on an old school character D&D sheet with synonyms. See how that jives with you (and what a game using those terms would be like):

Only change terms, get a different game?

The ideas started coming, I kept on the ball, people started being enthusiastic about it and even left comments. Those were the days. Good times.

After a couple of months, talking LSotN looked a bit like this:

Along that, I started chewing through what kind of world this would be set in. I was burning fuel on all cylinders, so to say. And that ended up to be the main focus of a lot of my writing in the last 10 years, one way or another. As a matter of fact, just the other day my good friend Mark pointed out to me that every game design I did in the last 10 years was, in the end, about LSotN. Damn.

A complicated approach to game design ...

However, back then I was in no way, shape or form ready to write and publish a complete role-playing game.

Contrary to popular belief, it actually takes a lot to write a book and process it to a point where it can be published, even if you have (to accept) low standards. So if this were to be my opus magnum, I had ways to go to get it out there.

And development would hit walls, obviously. To this day it needs a system for magic that fits the game and that I'm happy with. Not for lack of trying, but I'm not there yet. Same goes for the GM side of the game. Although that has lots of working pieces, it'll need some more ideas incorporated to be where I'd like it to be.

Progress on that has been slow, but not zero. Which segues into another aspect of what I'm trying to do here: the more complex a problem appears to be, the more I tend to look for ways to explore it indirectly. Because sometimes the solution is found by exploring the opposite or only aspects of it. But that could lead to writing another entire game first.

Yeah.

And I'm not that fast to begin with.

So a lot on the blog looks like me shifting focus on something entirely different, like developing a lite rules system for a DungeonPunk setting, while truly exploring how complete a system on the GM side needs to be to create a sufficient and distinct gaming experience, like this a mission generator.

It's called Brawlers! now ...

And while I gain some insights in the process, I might go back to Lost Songs until I hit a wall again, only to start something new, covering a different angle altogether. 

Or find new walls to hit ...

I write about some of it and call it a blog. Haha.

When all is said and done, I ended up with lots of little ideas and concepts, some follow me unfinished to this day (The Goblintribe Generator, among others), some stand on their own very well (the Random Narrative Generator being the biggest one).

And then, all of a sudden ...

... I start something, and actually finish it. Although "sudden" is a bit of s stretch, as you might have guessed already. Anyway, first major publication happens May 2017 and is called Monkey Business. Not a game, but a game supplement for Labyrinth Lord. Still HUGE in scope, around 120 pages, offering enough ideas and tools to create a whole campaign, no less.

I started it as PWYW to see if that worked. Did so for 5 years and it didn't work, so now it costs what I think it's worth. It was downloaded roughly 500 times, but paid for only 50 times (yes, two short of making copper, after all those years).

I consider it a success, especially when taking into account that it was the first proper publication I got out there. Alas, it was more or less ignored by what the "OSR" was back then. Bit of a bummer. But I got some reports from people playing it, and all of them had a blast. 

The bigger picture was, that I got to play with some DM tools in general. Some of Lost Songs made it into the book (a variant of the Random Terrain Generator, for instance), some of what I tried there will make it into Lost Songs. Eventually.

Another aspect was learning a bit more about publishing using Scribus and inkscape. 

At that point I thought things would take up some speed, too, and I'd keep pushing modules out there. Yet again, I found rabbit holes to fall into. Wanted to write a more contemporary module with the working name "Robo-Hitler". A grindhouse shlockfest about shooting historical Nazis that use (alien?) tech for their nefarious plots ...

But the game I wanted to use for it, I couldn't use (the designer basically said, he has different plans and I shouldn't), so that opened a can of worms, because now I needed a set of rules. I thought I'd go and use my D&D house rules, make a LL supplement out of it and have it with the module. So I started digging into that before starting with the module.

Meanwhile LL fell into decline and the OSR stopped being what it had been. Things shifted, as they always would, given time enough. And I gave it plenty of time.

*sigh* ... never mind. [source]

So that supplement for the weird sixties ended up being a complete book ... that I'm still writing (150 pages in, the end is nigh). Robo Hitler has even seen play, with all the maps being conceptualized and some wild ideas to get this done.

It just didn't happen in a vacuum. Not only did I start working on (at least) four more modules, some of those would also need a be67 fantasy supplement before they can see publication. I have that in pieces (27 classes, original magic system ...), but it needs to be written and layouted, of course.

All the while I kept playtesting and developing Lost Songs. Eventually I'd hit the final wall (magic just would not manifest) and I shifted focus to yet another game: ORWELL. It was about a lot I had on my mind at the time, and also something completely different. An original set of rules, from start to end (although parts of Lost Songs would find its way into this as well).

That game, however, I would get done. It was even more fringe than Lost Songs will ever be, but it is complete ... and opened up even more strands of ideas and concepts to follow up on (see the "Would You Play That?"-Series here on the blog).

Every now and then I get an idea for (the now called) Brawlers as well, and that game ALSO has seen some writing. It also gave me ideas for at least FOUR more games featuring aspects of the rules written for it. Rebellion was one of those, and fell out of my hands completely by accident.

It was a set of rules that occured to me over night, and gave me a great opportunity to play around with Midjourney for a bit.

I know, it's crazy. When all is said and done, I might have around 30 projects in my WIP folders, done to one degree or another (some only concepts, some with writing, some have even seen playtesting ...)

Eventually, I had to get back to LSotN

All of the above somehow feeds into Lost Songs, one way or another. And I have the blog to prove it. Ha. But where's that game at?

Well.

I never finished thinking about it, but also didn't get a chance to work on it again. But I got to read Hrolf Kraki's Saga by Poul Anderson last year (2023) and it hit me right in the feels. That book reads like a session report of Lost Songs of the Nibelungs, and I'm not even kidding. It's EXACTLY what the game is about and how it actually plays.

Recommended reading ...

 Got me thinking again, soon I started talking about it again, even made some notes ... and finally got an idea how magic might work, which will have implications on the GM section, but that was to be expected.

My good friend Mark also keeps pestering me about finishing it. And while I started a shit load of projects, he might be right that it is time to tackle this beast again. I'd have to see what I got and where I need to go with it. Maybe write the whole thing from scratch? Because ...

Because I've come some way since I last touched LSotN. Not only because the last four years sucked HARD and did not go by without taking a toll. No, I think my outlook overall changed quite some bit. Or rather, I'm a bit further down the road I wanted to take while the road ALSO changed. Although I'm still somewhat lost, I feel I have a better grasp at what this game is supposed to be.

Either way, I'm ready to get back into playtesting again. Time to put some more energy into this beast

What about EVERYTHING ELSE?

I know, loaded question. I'm talking projects, not state of worldly affairs ... I got a review for ORWELL, but it's not a good one. Guy didn't read it in depth, then said it was too convoluted ... I mean, I get it, for it to be content it needs to be processed fast, and ORWELL definitely needs some digestion, which runs counter to that. He says as much (and he wanted to like it).

In the end, I feel the review ended up being somewhat unfair but well intended. I mean him no harm, after all it got some eyes on the book, and we are not done talking about it (I think?), so his "3 of 5, satisfactory" is fine.

And he gets the setting mostly right, so there is that.

However, it makes you wonder how one can review a game that hasn't even been played, because playing it might at least make sure that its read deeply enough to use it.

You wanna get a free look at the book and some words on it, too (with the caveats I offered above), go and see it here. James might end up giving it a run at his virtual table. Not holding my breath here, but if it were to happen, I'd very much looking forward to it. He might end up liking it after all. Either way, I'd accept his final word on it even if his result doesn't change.

I also got a chance to do a Q&A about the game over at The Hardboiled GMshoe's Office. It was done via their discord server Randomworlds TTRPG Chatroom, which is all kinds of fun and well worth checking out!

Other than that, I keep trucking. some things in the works, might actually get something new finished soon. Playtests for Angry Little Aliens VERSUS King Arthur have been VERY promising, but to make that a book is still some work. And I'm already chewing on something new ... We'll see.

As far as the blog is concerned, I'll make this a series about rediscovering Lost Songs of the Nibelungs, but I might have a couple of other ideas worth following up (rules for immortals in be67/BASIC, for instance). It happens when it happens, but it will happen :)

Also:

 

Protect your Gamemasters (and don't call it "fudging")

November last year I went to check out X. I had heard lots of promissing things about the changes there, and the possibilities that come with them. Gotta say, I'm not disappointed. Already met a couple of interesting people and had some inspiring conversations. As far as you can have that on X ... if you can't get your point across as an aphorism, you might just as well not try. I like it. Anyway. Last big discussion was about "fudging" and how bad it is. I was on no side in this argument as my take is somewhat different. Thought I'd share my thougts here.

One more thing: using X I was reminded that there isn't only "right" or "wrong" but that there are many valid truths that might not even be compatible, but nonetheless co-exist. Still lots of bullshit, too, but the reminder that we can be right and not agree was welcome.

The first truth about fudging is ...

Every GM worth something is able to pilot a narrative to where they want it to be and without touching the dice. Doing so by "ignoring" die results is something mostly inexperienced GMs will do, and only as a last resort (what kind of last resort will be explored later). The dark truth about this is, then: if your GM wants to do something you'd feel "robbed" about if they'd tell you, they'll have PLENTY of chances to do so before any kind of rolling is involved, even to a degree where you will NEVER be able to get even an idea that it happened.

Because that's the main thing GMs do: they adjust their games towards the outcome they think appropriate. Always has been like that.

Even if they are not happy with a die result, it is easy enough to find ways AROUND a result that shifts a narrative away from what is happening. Attack targets are switched, special abilities ignored, NPCs make "dumb" decisions ... The list goes on and on. Rolled a heavy encounter but the group is in no shape to deal with it? Have them rest first, trigger the encounter then. I could go on.

Admit it, it's a lot ... [source]

But is that already fudging? Some people seem to believe so.

My point is, part of the game is trusting the GM to make the right call most of the time while being able to adjust all elements towards a good game that might go sideways. Most games even explicity state so: the GM is the arbiter of the rules, in ALL ASPECTS. That includes, imo, the dice, and it is not arbitrarily so, or to do "harm" to the players, but to ensure the integrity of the gaming experience.

There are now those who will say that a GM deciding a roll is "wrong" and therefor can be ignored, "fudges" in the sense of the word because the rules used that led to the roll are ignored, and players playing by those rules are, therefor, cheated out of a legit result.

Well, let me tell you a little something about game design, then.

Because games are machines, too ...

... and machines can go wrong, every now and then. What I'm saying is, there is no role-playing game out there that addresses all possible scenarios, including those it was written for. Add adventures and splatbooks and different authors, even lack of playtesting, and you'll get a collection of rules that will fail a group every so often, IF not a GM steps in to adjust towards the intention of the game. Towards its ideal (or gestalt?).

Mostly it is little things that need adjusting. That's an important part of it for ALL role-playing games, because it is important to realize that GMs need to find consistent ways to play a game WAY before they even introduce "house rules". And for a plethora of reasons, too, like when rules are not well written or clear enough in aspects.

The oldest role-playing games we know are great examples of that. We are, to this day, exploring the intricacies of what OD&D means or how it is played. I'd say it is important to find common ground like that, even if it takes decades to get there. That said, role-playing games are little machines used by individual GMs, and both of them need to click to find their unique version of that game, again, towards the ideal the game proposes.

Switch between groups playing the same game, and you'll find those nuances of interpretations even among those who play RAW. In a sense, GMs are necessary elements of games, just like a driver is a crucial part of a car (again with the car analogy ...).

I'm a great proponent of writing rules in a way that allows those using them the same experience they'd have when the designer is GMing it. Actually quite difficult to achieve, believe it or not, and not done often enough. Even if done properly, the amount of playing a new game needs before a GM can achieve mastery of that game, especially if it is more on the "crunchy" side (say, AD&D is a good amount of crunch many would already shun nowadays), is hours upon hours of play-time and preparation.

What it takes, then, is a series of lessions that is bound to be riddled with misunderstandings and mistakes and short term adjustments, just for playing the game while learning it. At some point all playing in a group will be content with how they play the game (or rather, how they interact with the game).

All part of the learning process. [source]

And then you get an errata that changes some of the assumptions you had to work with, or even a new edition that actually expands on the established! What I'm saying is, playing a role-playing game is always a work in progress, even for those who wrote it.

Which begs the question: what game are people playing, then? And where does the "cheating" in this process start? Is it even legitimite to call it "fudging" or "cheating" if one where to look honestly at what GMs are doing?

The second truth about fudging ...

One thing you'll experience on X is that ALL issues end up being argued along a binary of extremes, even if the issue is not easily divided into just two sides. I feel that is the case here, too, because while one side took umbrage in the idea that a GM might adjust die results and called that "fudging" or even "cheating", the other side claimed it is necessary for "the story" to "fudge" occasionally. For instance to save a PC from death.

And all of a sudden, it was "storygamers" versus "role-players" ... or something along those lines. With the problem framed like that, a proper discussion ended up being impossible and what was left was taking sides.

BUT those are NOT true opposites. Although they understand how they play the game very differently and like to fight over how to play "properly". So a fight it was.

Anyway, the thing is that the original game already relied A LOT on people filling the gaps they found. And it was a game full of gaps, which is easily enough proven, since no one group played like the other, so diverse had the different interpretations been (Gygax, arguably, had to write AD&D to have his interpretation of what they had published originally, canonized). 

In many cases that made additional rules necessary, in other cases gaps had filled easily with, well, narrative tools. I think the original game was seen as a guideline of what to play, not a set of rules how to play, if that makes any sense. What I mean is, D&D is (was?) an idea of a game for and foremost, and that ideal is ABOVE the rules. The source, if you will.

In a sense we never stopped exploring what that first pitch proposed 50 years ago actually means, as far as rules are concerned as well as all social aspects of it and how all of that interacts.

So the "fudging" both sides are talking about is, more often than not, the clumsy attempt to work towards that ideal. I firmly believe that. And while one side sees more the mechanical aspect of the game as dominant (hence the umbrage), it's the other side that is too far into the narrative aspects of the game to see any issue.

Both sides aim for an ideal of a game that the other side doesn't play while ignoring that both ideals are variants of a more removed, a pure ideal of the game. And they all adjust the rules one way or another down the line, just with different preferences.

In summary I'd say that people often confuse WHAT they are playing (role-playing games) with HOW they are playing (the specific set of rules and customs they are using). The one is a meta, if you will, of what the game can be, the other is an attempt towards that ideal in form of a set of rules. If you GMed more than one game in your life, you know you bring that meta to other games.

The "meta" isn't a moving target ...

All right, I think that last point needs some clarification. What's the "meta" or "ideal" or "gestalt" of role-playing games? And how are those two positions not opposites?! In order to answer both, we'd have to answer what lightning actually was in that bottle that is the original game. That's not as easy to pin down as one would think, and maybe something a game designer may have a very different perspective on than most others would.

First of all, if you see D&D as a cultural phenomenon, you'll find very quickly that while D&D was the focus of the hype, it wasn't really about D&D at all. D&D was the entry point to be part of something that went beyond what people knew about games and gaming. And by a huge margin, too.

Remember, no computers to speak of yet, war games had been the pinnacle of complexity as far as board games went but had also been VERY fringe, and beyond that you got some classics (chess, monopoly and so on) and some simple games and toys. Compared to that, D&D was a quantum leap.

But towards what?

Primarily I see two strong basic tenets, the first big one being EXPLORATION with a hint of danger (the UNKNOWN and CHANCE), the second one being the promise of GROWTH (gathering EXPERIENCE and KNOWLEDGE). There are a couple of secondary tenets as well, mostly things put in place to enhance the primary ones, chief among them would be having a guide, of sorts, that evaluates your progress (the GM) AND a group of mutuals that alternate between witnessing and playing.

A third important aspect attached to the original premise would be that it happens by way of cooperative storytelling (in the most basic sense).

And there you have it, the secret sauce that make rpg tick and spawned several billion dollar industries. A bit of gambling, some school-of-life type of learning and a bit of cooperative campfire storytelling in a structured and controlled small group setting. D&D hit the Zeitgeist right on the nerve with its proposal and it would weave its magic through a complete culture for decades to follow.

It is the "what" I was talking about.

The "how", now, are the different expressions that can have. All play around with the dials outlined above, and we saw several surges of innovation in the last 50 years (how about exploring desires? ... Vampire:TM), as well as some setbacks (arguably corporate culture aiming to make role-playing games costly theme park experiences) and some experiments (games without an element of chance, solo rpgs ...).

All of it is fair game, of course, and all of it helped the hobby to nail that higher ideal, BUT we are not yet done doing so. As a matter of fact, we might not live to see that happen.

Think about Chess, for instance, a game already over 500 of years old (older if you take precursers into account). You know when the last revision of the rules we know had been? 2023.

2023!

So it's STILL discussed what the "true" gestalt of that game is. But Chess can show you another thing, too: at some point a version gained popularity that appeared to be superiour to all other variants. It's a bit of a transfer to imagine the same for rol-playing games in general, but for D&D it is very much possible ... just not yet done.

Because, although it seems to be pretty easy to pin down an agreeable version of the basic rules, scope, best practice and GM advice are very much still a matter of discourse.

That is to say, all those "how to"s capture aspects of the "what", but not entirely so. And that's important to acknowledge, because (and here we go full circle) all honest attempts carry a piece of the truth and are, therefor, not wrong within their confines. Or rather, arguing one case does not negate the other because both might be true.

In that sense, where a GM "adjusts" in a game and to what degree is entirely up to individual compromise. Higher degrees of compromise are usually not possible, but may occur within certain groups of games. A "final truth" or a "one true way" has not yet been found.

It's not "fudging", then?

"Fudging" is, as far as I'm concerned, a misnomer for what it aims to describe in the context of the work a GM does to make the game happen. There are, for sure, examples of bad practice among GMs out there, but I think all can agree that Gamemasters who actually "cheat" (which would be abusing the rules to achieve something that has nothing to do with the game) should NOT GM a game.

Don't abuse the game for ill goals ... [source]

Other than that, all I see is that it is within the broader idea of what a GM can do or should be able to do, sometimes maybe even HAS to do. Experienced GMs will not even bother with the dice but easily work around any result they might get but not like. Beyond that, if players are bothered by it and want to take the dice as they come, well, that's one way of playing it. Just not the way of playing it.

The whole notion of calling it fudging already implies something fishy is done on the sly, so I wouldn't go and apply it to anything a GM does in the game to begin with. A GM should have the best of the group at heart. Always. And people should agree what that means in their game, of course, but the far more important point is that in order to achieve that, GMs have to work with what they get, which is never perfect.

Can't be, for all the reasons summoned above. It also is a tough gig to do on the side AND for free (in general). People seem to forget that, too. So when I hear arguments like "he cheated the character out of their death" or whatever, I think, what an ungrateful piece of shit do you need to be to bring that to a table and denigrate the good work done for you?

Because that's what it is, most of the time, good work and good intentions.

So I think it'd be a good idea to not call anything a GM does "fudging" or "cheating" as long as they are within the realm of doing their "job". You can still diagree with the solutions a GM finds for the problems a game poses, but it is presumptious that someone got robbed of something because of a difference in taste or approach.

Just be kind to people, for fuck sake, especially if they take the time of their day to do something for you.

Just be nice ...

My take?

I roll all of it in the open, most of the time (there are games with mechanics that make it necessary for a GM to withold the result, however). I also don't need to adjust dice rolls, as I think it is a nice challenge to weave results into the game I don't "like". GMs are players, too, you know. But I'm ALSO doing this for over 30 years now, and it was a long road to get to where I'm right now with it.

Unexperienced me, decades ago, in my teens, maybe even early 20s ... I might have taken a liberty or two with the results every now and then. In ALL those cases, swear to god, it was because I thought I saw a better outcome by ignoring a result. It's, imo, all part of the process of getting this role of being a GM done properly and finding your own voice.

You can't tell me there's anything wrong with that.

There's also the somewhat prevalent idea of "role-playing as sports" that NEEDS consistency in the rules to the degree you'd expect with war games or games like Chess. It is problematic, as you can see outlined above (no rpg is THAT well written, to my knowledge), but that would (again) cook down to something a table agrees on, not a general "truth" or a way of playing that'd protect players from the system failing them at the fringes.

Beyond that I see with concern how our perception what the game is shifted a fair bit away from the idea that the GM is the head honcho at their table, undermining their authority constantly, reducing them to being mere entertainers in the long run.

I don't play that way, and I don't write games for people like that, but I see the opinions behind those shifts permeating through all the discussions. But that and "player conduct" (or lack thereof) may be isues for another post.

In the end, if someone plays the game differenty, ask them how they made that work for their group and what's fun about it, instead of going on a crusade. Maybe you'll learn something about how you play and why in the process. Everybody wins that way.

Let's close with my favorite Bob Ross D&D meme, shall we?

Everyone needs a friend ... [source]

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MINIMUS LUDUS by Mark van Vlack is still new on OBS. It is a very lite rules rpg that comes with EIGHT complete worlds to explore and play around with for one shots or even short campaigns. Check it out if you want to support our work here!

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I'd like to close this post again with that little mantra I've learned about a couple of weeks ago, Ho'oponopono (a great article about it can be found here). It keeps having a positive impact on my life, and I feel we all need something like this right now (or always, actually), so here you go:

I'm sorry!

Please forgive me.

Thank you.

I love you ...

Addendum on Balance: Players Maketh Balance (or do they?)

Alright now, I said a lot about what I believe balance to be and how it is all connected in Part 1, and yet I did not convince my good friend Eric that m argument is sound. Sort of. We talked about it afterwards a bit and it baffled the both of us that we could not agree, since we both (seem to) have almost the same idea of what makes a good game. We've tried, we had the same fun. How come we did not see this one the same. I think I found an answer to that, although that might just be another can of worms to open. Lets take a look.

You want to catch up? Read Part 1 here and follow the bread crumbs.

 

Something about balance ... [source]

A flawed understanding?

What "balance" is should be the easiest thing to answer. And yet, especially in gaming, there are very different takes on it. But if you take a closer look at the topic, you'll find that while all are talking balance, they seem to do so from very different points of view.

I know for a fact that a GM will have a different understanding of what "balance" means for him than a game designer will have, with a player being the third element in a game that might also have yet another take on it. What I think I managed to establish was that at least those playing a game should be on the same page in that regard, but gaming culture is not so open in its terminology that you could find a difference, never mind an agreement (if it doesn't happen accidentally).

The irony is I thought I had understood one of the basic aspects about the whole affair, and yet, it did not even translate to someone like-minded. How can we have so different understandings of balance that we cannot even talk about it? Anyway, we kept talking and it went back and forth a while. Then it hit me: what we are talking are two different understandings of balance, all right. Mine was that a game needs to be balanced to work properly, Eric's was that he did not like it when the game was balanced towards the players, giving them an even challenge every time.

I do not like that either. We still disagreed, since he assumed that me talking balanced design meant that part was included ... or even the sole purpose of balanced design.

Really not. Not in my opinion. But how to explain that? What is the fucking difference between a balanced game and a game skewed towards the players? It hit me then that the balance Eric criticized (rightfully so) was a flawed yet popular understanding of "balance". Basically the idea that we need to play our games in tourist mode.

Let me explain that.

Morrowind versus Oblivion

This is what it comes down to: my understanding of what "balance" means in a game is best explained with what Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind does. The sandbox is balanced and filled with encounters that range all across the spectrum, from very easy to very hard. Quests are mixed in, traveling is an adventure (but there are shortcuts). As a player you have to find a way to make that balance work in your favor.

The balance players in Morrowind are striving for is the one they can force on the game.

If you are clever and crafty you can create all kinds of shortcuts and tricks to beat tougher challenges then your level would suggest. I once robbed a powerful elemental blind just by being sneaky and patient. Took a couple of reloads, but I looted that mine he had protected somewhat fierce, gaining material I shouldn't have access to at that point. Ha! It was the kind of fun I'm looking for in a game. Still do.

Best CRPG. Ever. [source]

You'd die more often, especially when encountering something tough you haven't seen before. But that was all part of the fun, all part of the learning process needed to beat the game. All part of the challenge.

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, on the other hand, came out a couple of years later and is also regarded a classic of the genre. Supposed to be great combat, even better storytelling, huge sandbox. And yet, I never touched that game, because the first thing that went public about it was that encounters scale towards the player, like, all the time.

That seemed wrong to me.

Because it doesn't matter what you do or where you go, everything that opposes you will be your level. Even the end boss, for that matter! If you puny level one character knows where to go and where to find a sword on the way there, he can go right up to the big end boss and beat up his level one ass ... But you could also play hours and hours of the game, fights being even as they are while you are getting more and more powerful. Better equipment, better weapons and spells. The dressing changes, but you are going through the motions.

No surprises, no real challenges, just be what you can be on a level, and beat what is opposing you. For at least roughly 30 hours if you do it to have it all touched, but for as much as 184 hours (or so the internet says).

Either way, seems to me like a HUGE waste of time.

 

Oblivion: a waste of time? [source]

It is something I see in computer games more and more often nowadays, the time you can waste in those games just to grind levels, or even to go from a to b and harvest and loot all the way through ... you could spend hours driving through Vice City in GTA V, no problem. The game would even throw you a bone every now and then to show that you are "progressing" somehow.

Blech.

Anyway, there you have it:

The skewed understanding of balance is to make the players part of that balance instead of challenging them to find and make that balance themselves.

This is neither good nor bad game design, it is dark game design. Ask yourself which games you've played that do this to you. If you ever felt like you've wasted your life playing a game, then it'll most likely be because the game offered no challenge while you went through the motions of playing it. Maybe you experienced a good story, and made you gained some levels, but in the end it is an empty accomplishment.

I get that there are people out there liking games like that. Oblivion certainly has its fans. I don't have to agree with that, and if you have fun playing games like that, more power to you.

But don't tell me that those games are "balanced" in a sense that makes a game a game. It might be balanced in the sense a theme park experience is balanced. Keeps you busy enough with the illusion of doing something. Like a joyride ... being completely safe, but you can easily and safely act as if it was dangerous until it is over.

It might even be fun, but it is very much its own thing, very different to the original understanding of what ttrpg or even computer games are. Which is easily enough seen when looking at modules and the like, because they basically do what Morrowind does: that dragon you encounter will not end up being level 2 just because you are. It will tear you a new one if you go at it weak.

As it should.

With games like D&D you'd have to be strategic and clever. You'd have to work together and there always had been that aspect to overcome the game and, to some extent, the GM, because that was what made the game so much FUN.

Player skill is what that was called. That's why those games needed to be balanced. Because how else could the players learn from playing how to overcome the game? If the output a system has is unreliable, you can not reliably plan what to do ... which is where the game ends. Players will never have agency with an imbalanced game.

Just as they don't have agency when playing Oblivion.

So, Oblivion is imbalanced?

I would say that balance in gaming should be an active endeavor, something to aim for in all aspects of the game. When you are level 1, you try and test and see what you can get away with, and you continue to do so throughout the game. From the player side of the equation balance seems to be, as far as I can say, the flow of progressing with every challenge towards growth through gauging what can be achieved within the game.

You know how it works. [source]

 They are autonomous agents within the system, free to roam within its rules (free to fail, too). Take that away (because you do take it away if every challenge is symmetrically adjusted towards a group's power level), and you are left with what exactly? Telling stories, basically.

So in that sense Oblivion, and the many, many games that follow the same design principles, many of them being ttrpg as well, reduce you to being a consumer with some stage directions how to play along. Your achievement will be that you played an elf in Oblivion for 150 hours to see the stories the game tells you.

Because you have not created a story yourself, obviously, since all you did was invest enough time into the game to see it through. There is a passive balance to it, if you want to use the term, but as I said in Part 1: be careful about the balance you chose.

We might have a problem here ...

I'll keep it short today, but the points made above hint at a bigger problem. Of course people will say it is balance if the player is part of the balance without his own doing. And there are many, many popular games that use that kind of design. It has its audience, too.

But what they are talking about is CONVENIENCE, not BALANCE, and the difference should be obvious even to a casual observer. Behind the two are different design goals, mostly resulting in very different games with very different people attached to them.

That is to say that there is meaning in this difference.

So I get now where Eric is coming from. We basically agree, but talk about it differently. When he says, he likes when modules keep it "imbalanced", what he's talking about is that players should be able to figure it out. They create balance by interacting with the game, and that balance is a smooth progress forward by overcoming the challenges the game throws at them every which way possible.

I'm saying the same, but following the above reasoning, I might add that what he's criticizing as "Encounter Balance" is not "balance" at all, it is false symmetry. A railroad of the mind, if you will. Because any progress is meaningless that comes from following the path someone else made for you.

I'll try something different now and quote someone else how crucial balance is (the whole, very much recommended, essay about balance in video games can be found here):

Know that imbalance is actually bad. The first thing that I think everyone has to do is to internalize the idea that balance is good, and imbalance is bad. I've actually heard people try to argue that a little bit of imbalance is necessary for a fun game. Not only do I disagree, but I think that they don't even really believe that. (Keith Burgun)

Lets leave it at that. I'll take care that all the rules I'm publishing will have a proper definition of how balance works within the context of the game and what to look for. Because it is important that GMs get the difference and see what works how. Not only to run the games I published, but also to be able to see what else is out there and how to categorize that.

And if you after all that still believe that Encounter Balance is a myth, I don't know what to tell you. If you mean Encounter Balance is talking about making encounters as strong as the group, or even weaker to have them win all the fights, let me tell you: you are not talking "balance". From a game design perspective, Encounter Balance simply means that encounters within a system should follow the principles used in that system. Because if they don't, it'll break the game.

Thanks for reading all of that. Buy my shit :D

And now ...

[source]

Joking. There is no one here ...

Revisiting Balance in Game Design (in which I ramble a bit ... you have been warned)

Balance, that old chestnut. People with opinions talking gaming seem to think it ain't necessary, because "player agency" solves all that, or that encounter balance is a myth, something that cannot be achieved so it needn't be tried ... I get it. If all you do is DMing games, you'd have to realize at some point that a Gamemaster is one key element to achieving balance in a game. And yes, it is a multi-faceted problem. Just doesn't mean it can't be solved. Lets talk about it once more ...

This is following up a discussion I had with my good friend Eric (of Methods & Madmen fame) on X, where I'm also at now (find me! follow me! hehe). It was his idea to change medium and write posts about it, too. Read his take here. I have also talked plenty about this with my good friend Mark, and he pointed me towards this nice little nugget of his about balance in a game he wrote. You can read that here.

Over the years I've taken several stabs at the project, and as I got more and more serious about designing my own games, my perspective somewhat shifted. One of my early takes on this (2014!) can be read here. Spoiler: I'm a bit further down the road right now, so I might not even fully agree with what I wrote back then, but clever young me already took that into account and left open what he couldn't know. Ha!

[source]

Anyway. This one will be a bit all over the place. You'll find this examined through all kinds of lenses, as the discussion was all over the place as well.

Preamble

Balance is everything, and everything is balance. Anything that goes against that simple truth will produce some disharmony, if you are lucky, disaster, if you are not so lucky. So purely on the face of it, it is ridiculous to assume that games don't need to be balanced one way or another.

Assuming so, then, needs to come from some skewed understanding what is happening in game design, or what it means to play a game. Something different to what the original games offered. A paradigm shift of sorts.

I think I have a grasp on what is happening and why. It took a while and some discussion, but in the end it was right there in front of me. As usual it is there to be seen, but you have to look. Now I have to find a way to actually explain this in a way that gives others the chance to gain that same understanding.

I'll say it up front: this is no joke. We have been way too lax with how we talk and write games, what game design really means. And in the end (not "the end" end, but where we are at nonetheless), it fucked up what little gaming culture we had. what we are seeing now is the corpse of our hobby looted.

You think this is hyperbole? Keep reading ...

[source]

Where we come from, where we are ...

I'll keep this one short. It will just be a reminder what was offered in the beginning and how that changed. It will be important to understand where I come from when I talk "balance".

Out of several different attempts to make role-playing games happen, D&D was the one that stuck, that actually produced a hype that not only carried itself quite well, but also inspired a wave of innovations in this new hobby that still needs proper reviewing.

What was the essence of that game? What was able to catch the inspiration of so many gamers all over the world? We know today that it wasn't just the rules, it also was the "zeitgeist" back in the early seventies. What the sixties sowed had been in full swing in the 70s, and it showed. The books people read, the movies that went along with it ... very fertile ground for something like role-playing games.

People had been ready to experience the stories themselves they had seen or heard and read about. I think it is hard to grasp what it actually meant to grow up in that time. For one, computer games hadn't been a thing. Board games hadn't been that big yet, either. If you really were into "gaming" and lived in the USA, it would have been in one of the war gaming clubs. A very fringe group of individuals, and ground zero for role-playing games.

Nerds! [source]

 So the hobby takes off and innovates up to the 90s like crazy. Hundreds and thousands of games come into existence. the hobby is broad enough at that point so that there is a general agreement on what it means to play the game, but yet no proper research. No one is looking, everyone is doing. Basically. Some forums here and there discussed aspects of the big picture, but it was all very much wild west.

The only way to find out if a game designer back then understood what they were doing, usually was publishing it and seeing if it worked or not (simplified, of course).

The end of TSR in a way marks the end of that momentum as well, even for the competition. Hasbro buying WotC (because of M:tG) then killed it for good and fully made it a corporate endeavor.

Then the revisioning started for good, and the strongest for that first game: D&D. 3e did what 3e did, but people wanted to keep playing that original game, so all the retro clones and blogs happened ... and ended up being successful.

4e failed, 5e tried to play catch up with a crowd that would rather play the old games. That worked a bit, but all the while another movement gained momentum out of the retroclone scene many associate with the moniker "OSR": minimalist games really started taking off.

Basically, we ended up with three distinct kinds of games. The "old" games that started it, including those designed in that tradition. The minimalist games, that basically take the core assumption of the old games, add a concept to that and assume that those playing know what they have to do. And finally, the corporate vision of role-playing games, that would rather have the game being a theme park, of sorts, where you pay and pay and pay to participate.

That's the way I cut it, and those three distinctions are crucial for the argument I make.

The Basic Tenets of  RPG Game Design

Role-playing games are, despite their war gaming roots, first and foremost about NEGOTIATION. You talk about what's happening until a disagreement makes it necessary to consult the tools the game offers until the problem is resolved.

Ongoing negotiations ... [source]

Those tools exist along a hierarchy, with the basically talking being the lowest, and the most complex tools being the highest spot in that hierarchy of negotiations. I go into detail about this in the GM section of be67 when talking encounters (following the paradigm established by the D&D RC). It goes like this:

Other than seeing Encounters as elements that form a cohesive narrative, they also need to be seen as interactive elements. As such, they will have several degrees of possible interaction. They are, ordered hierarchically (from easiest to most difficult):

•         Superficial – Can be negotiated without the use of dice.

• Passive – Can be overcome with a Save.
  

• Resource based – Can be overcome, but it costs.
  

• Active, Attribute based – Can be overcome with active use of Attributes.
  

• Active, Skill based – Needs specific Skills to be overcome.
  

• Combat – High resolution challenge triggering some or all the resources.
  

All elements can be combined, of course, and it should be possible to cleverly negotiate encounters towards a lower hierarchy solution in almost all cases. Instead of fighting, Characters could use Skills, instead of Skills, they could argue the use of Attributes or spend some resources they got available. Arguing Saves would be possible, if it is imaginable that a challenge could be overcome instinctively, and arguing down to “superficial” would render the challenge harmless because Players could talk their way around it. The Gamemaster needs to entertain the argument first, however, and has the last word in all things.

This holds true through all sorts of designs (hence "basic tenets"). You can add to this, or leave stuff out, but along these lines game design happens as soon as talking won't bring the narrative forward.

In a sense, and this is important to understand, the design starts where the negotiation ends. Or rather: the rules of a game EXPAND on language towards the narrative the game intents.

This is, then, where you decide how a game should play. The vision. But what makes a game?

Definition Time & Some Analogy

At this point we can start talking balance, then. We'll start with the analogy and go from there:

The relation between gaming system and GM is the same as between a car and a professional driver. Ideally, both compliment each other to completion, which means, if both work as they should, you get the best possible result. It also means that one balances the other. A good driver will easily tell what problems a car has and what changes need to be made, a good car is designed to accommodate a driver as good as possible.

So for one, a gamemaster needs to know systems like a professional driver needs to know cars. That may come with individual tastes and biases (and will produce new problems I'll address further down), but the more you know, the more you'll appreciate how a game is done before positioning yourself towards it (incidentally how you recognize a good reviewer as well).

By that same token, games need to be designed properly to elevate the performance of a good GM. If all a GM is doing is reduced to compensating for a lacking system, you might still have a game, just not as good as it could have been.

Proper design, therefore, needs to establish standards that new games can build on, just like cars developed standards and still evolve to this day.

In game design, that standard should be (as far as I'm concerned) that someone buying a game can expect to gain the same experience from it as the designer was able to conjure when testing it if playing it by the book. This is no small feat to begin with, to be fair, because it means that the designer must have done extensive testing to present the game in a way that takes all possible uses into account (as far as that's possible).

The only way to assure that is to have the engine of a game BALANCED to the extent that it actually takes some punishment before producing false results.

See it like this: a guy has a vision for a game. It is supposed to do xyz when playing it. That means, it needs to produce results to that effect on all levels of resolution. It is the "first principle" of the game. The base line. Now, when testing reveals a problem where, say, leveling breaks or classes aren't progressing properly or combat produces undesirable effects, or a plethora of other problems that could occur when designing a game, a designer would look at the problem and adjust the system towards the established first principle.

Doing so throughout will produce a BALANCED SYSTEM within the parameters established in the beginning. Which means, as a matter of fact, that there is a metric by which encounters are balanced within the system. It is the equivalent to having a sports car do the things a sports car does.

He's saying something about speed ... [source]

So what does "balance" mean, then? Well, chess, for instance, is balanced. Other than who starts, everyone has the same rules and moves. You play two games and switch who starts between the two of you, and it is the same for both.

The balance is in the symmetry of the game, as well as in how the single elements within the game move and interact. Making that happen is the act of designing a game. "Fairness" is not in the opponent you get, but in the fact that all have the same chance to reach the goals the game sets. finding an individual way to make that work is up to the player.

There you go, game design 101. You decide what your game wants to do, then you engineer it towards that goal anyway you can, balancing all elements towards the vision you have for the game. If you manage to make all that manifest, you have a balanced game on hand.

Balance is unnecessary?

Why aren't there proper distinctions and definitions? Or how come that balance is deemed unnecessary in role-playing games? The answer to both would be that gaming is part of our culture to an extent that general assumptions of what that entails interferes with a need to have a distinction to begin with.

We are expected to know games. At least the general principle of what "gaming" is. We are also expected to accept that while there are general distinctions between categories of games, our only purpose is to know what we like so that we can go and consume that. In other words, you don't need to know how a car is built to drive one. Or even enjoy driving one.

So on the customer side, we only learn to look for the signs of what we think we like, not how that is achieved or, necessarily, how something actually aligns with what we could, would or even need to enjoy. There is a huge wiggle room where selling and buying the illusion of what we want is absolutely fair game. That would be consuming for the IDEA of doing something, with no intention of actually doing so.

I have bought enough games to know exactly what that means. And I have bought games because I liked their presentation, not really thinking about actually ever playing them. Or pdfs, because of an appealing idea and some nice cover art. Guilty as charged, on all those points. Which is why there is a market for it, which also is why that market is over-saturated but, for lack of a better word, flat.

That said, make no mistake, producing artifacts that superficially manage to summon the air of being a role-playing game is not the same as actually writing a role-playing game. There might be overlap, for sure, but to satisfy the market of the former is far easier than doing so for the latter.

That same wiggle room also produces another problem: it results in a faulty understanding of what playing a role-playing game actually entails. It skews our meta-knowledge of this niche of gaming towards an idea of entertainment more akin to going to a theme park.

At this point we are back at the distinction made in the beginning, those three different approaches we call "role-playing games" without distinction. Following the original paradigm will lead to a different understanding of what the game needs than following that of a minimalist game. And corporate has its very own idea what it wants of a gamer (basically WotC wants for the game what Adobe does for its apps). 

With all three having very different approaches and need for their designs (again, with overlap), there will be confusion about what a game needs if the distinctions aren't clear.

Coming from a faulty premise like that will make it impossible to evaluate the requirements of a good game from a customer perspective, even if you end up playing a lot of games that spawned in that dreaded wiggle room. The idea of "balance" would not even occur to you, as it is not needed for the kind of games that don't need it. You agree at the table what you want to experience, and then you experience that. The rules are more about engaging socially and how to behave. More LARP or improv theater than D&D.

Still my favorite LARP pic ... [source]

 What's more, the "balance" those minimalist or corporate games need is not necessarily anchored in the system, but outsourced to the participants (although with a different focus for each). That hierarchy I've talked about above doesn't track with those games.

Minimalist games, arguably, reduce the game to mostly the negotiation part. That has to mean that those mean rely on a proper "social contract" between the participants to make it work. That can be through having an experienced GM bringing their "meta understanding" of what constitutes a game to the table, compensating for the lack. It can be some form of ideology, that will force the experience through the same lens for everyone.

The corporate approach would be to gear the experience towards being a theme park. In that, you'll have always fun and never struggle and own nothing of the game and be happy (to know is to know). The first thing to castrate for that is the GM as well as the authority of the game itself.

Also seems to work well with ideology, as politics try to determine who is allowed to play and who isn't. Social engineering replacing the system, fucking up that nice hierarchy I shared above simply by giving a "get out of jail card" for all levels of resolution.

But all of it is, in its own way, a form of balance. Otherwise you couldn't play.

But people play games how they want to play them!

The one thing a game designer should ignore is how people are NOT playing their game as published but go their own way with it. If a game is designed as described above and playing it really does what the designer intended, then those playing it differently do so at their own peril. If the game is not at fault (and it might be, but if ...), then the gamer is. Limits of control and all that.

I mean, there is value in learning that a huge variety of people ignore a rule or use it differently. Something like that should be considered for revision, naturally. But if someone, say, uses a horror game to play a superhero campaign, the designer is not at fault.

But that's not even what I'm hinting at.

There is a whole movement in the ttrpg community to see systems as a mere trappings for their individual expression of the story they had in mind. Systems doing their jobs will then be seen as intrusive, disruptive even. And since that's a market, it's easy enough to find content creators (not game designers, mind you) accommodating that need.

That is all fair game, of course, but all the same something different to playing a proper role-playing game. Not even denigrating here. If you find enjoyment in playing something akin to what heavily scripted you tube theater groups call "playing a role-playing game", feel free to do so. It's just very different to what role-playing games had been originally and should be regarded as such.

Same goes for lite rules/minimalist games. Of course there is a beauty to keeping it nice and succinct, and of course is there the possibility that they will offer a proper gaming experience. Just not without an experienced gamemaster, who'd have to invest a whole lot of work to make a game with few rules worth playing for a campaign, if it's possible at all. Or without external forces (as in "not part of the rules") that engineer cohesion into a group.

It's all just different. You wouldn't take a Trabi to a Formula One race, is all I'm saying.

Unless it's pimped? [source]

In all cases, first principles apply: if you write a game with improvised theater in mind, maybe even for Twitch streaming or what have you, it will bring different necessities than writing a proper role-playing game that group of friends can play for decades without getting bored of it, or even writing something that's just supposed to last for a couple of sessions.

That all of this has its place does not mean that one form of design replaces the other. It is, rather, to be treated differently. That's not always easy, it seems.

Why bother, then?

To keep with the analogy, if you shift gears in a car to the next tier, you expect that car to behave like a car that has been shifted one up (ideally, going faster then before). How you react to the car performing is directly related to the feedback it gives. The same goes for players in a game. They'll try and test, maybe even read the rules, to get an idea how a game behaves and act accordingly. System mastery is, to use another buzzword, giving them "agency" over their characters.

If a system, now, produces unreliable results, their performance will be geared towards balancing and compensating the problems the system is producing themselves. Same goes for the GM, of course. They might even work together to address the shortcomings and find compromises to solve them.

It is, naturally, something the designer should have done to begin with to present a "complete" game. And if all of that produces more hustle than playing the game is worth, people will move on and play something else.

So this is why designers should bother with offering games that work properly, which means, they are balanced in a way that reliable results allow for all involved to have an enjoyable experience when engaging with the game. And those things will get apparent over time, of course, so even if a game is successful for, say, the sheer marketing power of its publisher, it will fall short sooner or later when people find out what a game is lacking.

D&D 3e, for instance, broke when characters reached mid to high level. The work load for the GM just got too big too handle, plus, the system did not take into account how powerful characters impact a setting and so on and so forth (I hear 5e has some of the same problems, actually). 

50 years into the hobby, examples are legion. But so are examples of good design. It just seems that people have a hard time accepting standards and building on them. Ignoring them, however, doesn't mean you'll get away with something subpar, because gamers will notice sooner or later. They always do.

Another important point why game designers should bother is that leaving the task to make a game work to a gamemaster is unfair to begin with and also introduces so many additional variants to playing the game that the outcome of playing the game is random at best, futile for all involved in its worse manifestations. Because you can't know who is running the game, how experienced, which tastes and biases. It is why the first principles discussed above are so crucial. It is why balance is crucial.

[source]

 Which is, ultimately, why people find ways to argue that it wasn't needed to begin with. Or that it's okay as long as all follow the same ideology. Or that it can be known what a rpg is and therefor will sort itself out at the table. It is why those three distinct groups exist and fight for dominance.

My bias is towards writing games as complete as possible, following the design principles outlined above. I think it has value to do so and that it is important to see other games for what they are: different.  

To close with the analogy: give a good car to a mediocre driver, and you'll get a good performance out of it. Give that same driver a bad car and you open the result up to such a huge variance of failure, that everything between "passable" and "disaster" could be the outcome. A good car avoids that, as does a good game. Both car and game will follow or even develop standards and need to be engineered towards producing reliable output throughout.

And that's why you bother.

Conclusion

This will be a long one no reads or bothers thinking about. Yet, I stand by the above. We need proper definitions for what's happening around us, if only to recognize what has been done, what can be done and even how to do something else. It is also to save what is left of gaming culture, I assume.

All of this is already happening, but of course some people have a vested interest in keeping it foggy, unexplained and vague. Because then you can claim "this is how it's supposed to be played" or that something that isn't, is a natural evolution of a design (as, say, AD&D 2e to D&D 3e ... rather a neutering than an evolution, I'd say). People earn money or just street cred by keeping things just as they are.

Not an evolution ... [source]

That is a problem.

Not that I have anything against them doing so, but y being honest about what a game can do, maybe even MUST do to fulfill certain criteria, it might end up appealing to far less people. What happens to D&D now regarding rewrites and 6e is a very good example for what I'm talking about here.

What's worse, the fact that the gaming community is split across political and ideological lines is very much due to the fact that lots of rules don't care to create an experience SO COMPLETE that those things don't matter. Or the other way around, if all you argue is rules for that years long campaign you are in, then the game did you a service. Once a game leave too much room for interpretation, those spaces are filled with all kinds of nasty surprises instead, like what the publisher wants you to do, think or buy. Or that political/religious/ideological bullshit someone wants to push down your throat.

So we need definitions, we need to be clear about what game does what service for what audience. And we need to understand that balance is a very real aspect of games, but the kind of balance you chose has a HUGE impact on your gaming experience. And some of that has NOTHING to do with the original idea of what role-playing games are.

If you are like me, you'd want that hustle on the system side of the game, not anywhere else.

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Cheers and all the best for the next year!