The challenge: At its base, an RPG is an interactive story. A group of people come together to collectively create an entertaining tale. There are rules, of course, and it is a game, which means there has to be some element of challenge. However, the intrinsic definition remains the same.
That said, if players simply wanted to see a story unfold before them, they would read a book or watch a movie. RPGs are fun because players have a certain degree of control over how the story flows and what it entails. Players control the protagonists, who in many ways are the most important elements of a good story. Your actions will shape the way the story unfolds, even though most of the story is in the hands of the referee.
Ergo, all players should have the opportunity to influence the story. This skill is lost if the game designer fails to overcome the third challenge of RPG design: the challenge of character courage.
Even if you play a rogue in a combat oriented game or a warrior in a politically oriented game, a player should be able to affect the story. The challenge game designers face, then, is that the game needs to make sure that whatever type of character a player chooses, that player will be able to use their character and have fun. However, the designer should do so without hesitation in the first challenge, making sure that the different types of characters are, in fact, different.
Character value is based on the character being unique and having powers that are useful, but do not outshine other characters. The most common way to do this is by using a profit constraint design style. For each benefit a character has, he suffers a corresponding restriction (even if that restriction is “you don’t have other Benefits. “)
Creating an RPG following a profit constraint style is practically a requirement, depending on how much you distill the concept. The point of having different types of characters and abilities is that certain characters are better in certain situations. They are strong in one area only at the expense of being weak in another. However, the designer still has to decide how strong the character can be in his given field and how much he must give in to gain that level of power.
The risk: Carelessness here can potentially hurt an RPG more than any other challenge. A designer must examine the powers it grants, the restrictions on them, and the abilities a player must give up as a result, to determine the balance. There are no equations for this process and sometimes playtesting is the only way to truly decide whether a certain power is balanced.
But the characters must be balanced. If one type of character is much stronger than any other in most situations, there is no point in playing with other types. Players who do so will almost feel penalized for wanting to use the less than optimal characters. This flaw is more common on combat-oriented characters, who gain their superior combat stats at the expense of utility powers. These characters need reinforcements (healers, problem solvers, diplomats, etc.), but these other types of characters are severely limited in battle.
And combat, as a general rule, is the most common type of challenge in RPGs. Mock battles are exciting and easy ways to use the rules of the game and promote sharp thinking and logic. However, if only certain types of characters excel in combat, but other characters are necessary to be successful in other areas, players of less combatively powerful characters will find themselves suffering in most encounters. Meanwhile, on those occasions when they have a chance to shine, it is usually just a character in his best area. Other players, both combat and non-combat, must sit on the sidelines while one character manages the entire encounter.
Beyond the combat / no combat gap, there is also the risk of combat characters whose abilities come at a cost. Most RPGs have some fairly common character templates, with the most traditional archetypes being the Tank, Blaster, Healer, and Sneak. The tank is the ultimate fighter, capable of dealing respectable damage over and over again and taking the hits. The blaster can deal more damage than the tank and attack multiple enemies easily, but it has limits on how often it can use its powers and it also has poor survivability, poor defenses, and pathetic basic abilities. The power of the healer is of the utmost importance in a heavy combat game, but it is gained at the expense of true fighting talent. The sneak can generally surprise enemies and even deal great damage (often more than a blaster, but to individual opponents) when fighting on his terms, but he loses a lot in a standing fight.
These archetypes seem balanced enough, but they really create a powerful divide between the character types. The tank feels overshadowed by the blaster’s ability to devastate entire enemy groups and the stealth’s power to deal tremendous damage under the right conditions. The blaster envies the tank’s ability to continue fighting with full force battle after battle and the healer’s survivability. The healer longs for the power to take effect in battle when allies are not injured. The poacher would go a long way to have something to lean on if he cannot surprise his enemies.
The balance is there, and each player is more than happy for their choice when fighting in the right circumstances, but when the fight is not on their terms, they lose interest. This also puts the referee in a position where the best (or even the only) way to make a battle difficult is to specifically take advantage of each character’s weaknesses, which can lead to a number of clichéd fights. This is especially common at higher levels of play, where the characters are so powerful that trying to engage them with full force is an example of futility.
The solution: In QoTR, the first thing I did was make sure that each character pick had combat value. Sure, attackers do the most damage and defenders are the best at avoiding attacks, but they all have some offensive and defensive ability (although the latter is sometimes “the ability to knock them down before they get a luck to attack you. “)
I limit skills, but these are practical limits and costs that allow them to be used regularly, but not excessively. A blaster in QoTR can unleash its high-damage, high-area attacks battle after battle, but it has to charge up to get the really big ones, which takes valuable time or effort. A healer can also enhance his fighting powers (or those of his allies), even doing it in the same move while healing with a certain skill, but this also takes time and energy. Poachers can use their abilities in the middle of combat and for both offense and defense, and although if they don’t bother to do so, their basic skills may not be that great, they are rarely prevented from doing so. Tanks can play with their damage, resistance and hit probability, developing a series of tactics. And so.
Also, since the opponents have the same options as the players, it is not necessary to look for weak points in the abilities of the characters. Enemies can use the same tricks, allowing for challenging battles without the cliché that high-level mage enemies are strangely immune to magic (advice for inexperienced game masters: this isn’t an intriguing mystery, it’s a annoying cliche).
All the skills are useful and the higher level ones are quite powerful. I see that the best way to balance a game is that each character can handle various situations in their own way and with style. A purely defensive character may not win a fight as quickly as an offensive character, but can win the fight and have a better chance of surviving long enough to do so.
Character value is one of the most important factors when designing and balancing an RPG. By allowing each player a chance to defend themselves, especially on the important battlefield, their game will continue to be fun and interesting for more players in more situations. The limitations may seem balanced on paper, but the obstacles outweigh the benefits when put into practice.
