Castle Paradox

[Mr B]

In many games with which I am familiar -- especially RPGs -- that have multiple species to choose from, the Humans are the most balanced. Humans have no particularly negative traits or drawbacks, are decent in every stat, and suck.

Because of the urge (indeed, near-necessity) to min-max a character in order to survive the challenge of gameplay, characters with no particular strengths will almost always loose out to characters with large strengths and large weaknesses.

Why is this? As far as game mechanics are concerned, it is almost always far easier to compensate for a weakness than to develop a strength. For example, an Axemaster can generally find armor that provides dramatic protection against mental attacks, but how often will a Mind Mage find gauntlets of super hyper melee damage bonus? It is far easier to start with an inherent strength than to aquire one via equipment or somesuch. Considering that it's generally important to maintain distinctions between classes, this makes sense.

However, this means that Humans are out. If Humans have no particular weaknesses to cover, and it is difficult to generate strengths that are not inherent, much of the min-maxing mechanism ceases to work for the player.

Even if the dynamics of covering weaknesses and augmenting strengths are ignored, a specialized character will almost always have an advantage over a general one. To be specific, a character with one great strategy and one bad strategy will have a distinct advantage over a character with two pretty good strategies. Since you can only do so many things at once, the one character can pull off a great strategy while the other can only choose a good one.

With the way that these systems work, having an evenly-balanced and unexceptional character is a recipe for disaster.

Is there a way around this? I think there is, though I haven't hashed out the details too well.

Looking at this from a job-system perspective, could the dynamics be designed so that broadly divergent skills can work together in a useful manner?

For example, let's say that I have six jobs in my job system; warrior, knight, paladin, mage, monk, rogue. These six classes form a sort of ring, connected end-to-end. Each class gets a bonus based on certain stats.

Let's say that Martians are really intelligent -- they would get a bonus for the monk and the mage, but weak, so they would fail miserably at a warrior, knight, or paladin. Venusians are extremely wise, so they would make good paladins, but clumsy, so they would make poor rogues. Jovians are extremely strong, so they would make good warriors and knights, but stupid, so they would make poor mages and monks.

And then you have your Humans. The humans are average at everything, exceptional at nothing. They have no particular class bonuses, neither do they have any class negatives. While they are not good at anything, they can develop combinations of skills that the other species would not. For example, a mage-warrior would not be a good idea for a non-Human, but a Human could pull it off.

What do you think about Humans being average? Is it generally positive or negative? What kinds of ways can average-ness be put to good use?

[msw188]

As I stated before in the last topic (the one about something to debate), I'm not usually a big fan of the idea of being able to choose what sorts of 'jobs' (ie. skills) your characters have. However, one way around this trouble would be for players to be forced to use ALL of their characters. Then it is up to them to choose how to divide their humans to work well with their other guys (?), and they can't just ignore them.

The idea about having humans good at 'cross-jobs' is an interesting idea too. But then you may run into the trouble of non-humans being at a severe disadvantage, if humans can successfully master becoming good at all things (which is what the cross-job sounds like)

[Iblis]

I agree that it's not a good idea for humans to always be the average race. Not just for the reasons you said, but in a multi-race RPG they're almost always the least interesting (I can play a human in real life), so making them average at everything just makes them even less appealing.

[Fenrir-Lunaris]

Dungeons and Dragons solved this issue by allowing two things to give human characters an edge over other races, and allow them a chance to actually be picked as characters (as opposed to everyone who wanted to be an elf).

Firstly, they said that humans can be ANY class. Elves may make good fighters and rangers (+1 with swords and bows), and gnomes make for excellent wizards (+1 int I think), but they can only be so many things. A human character can choose to be anything.

Secondly is a level limit restriction placed on those few jobs that other races can be. Most cap out at around level 13 or so, which means that although these races will have quite an avantage over their human counterparts for some time, eventually the humans will pass them up and hit level 20 or so (the traditional point at which AD&D classes 'retire' or 'pass into legendary NPC status'. Imbalanced? Hardly.

Later editions (3rd, 3.5, etc) removed these restrictions and instead gave human characters extra feats/proficiencies. Some systems give humans a bonus to their charisma statistic, without any corresponding decline in another stat. I tend to agree moreso with the newer editions on this point, in that the human-type character turns out to be the speaker, and thus leader of the group. On that note, most of the games I've been involved in, it's nearly ALWAYS the bard who turns out to be the party 'leader', because they're the one who gets involved in negotiations with other NPCs, monsters, kings, and so on.

[LeRoy_Leo]

Intellingent beings are weak against a direct attack, but can avoid a direct attack by using a ranged attack. Physical beings are weak against an ranged attack but can try to make it direct, so the Intelligent being cannot use a ranged attack. In a perfectly balanced situation NOTHING HAPPENS.
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Planning Project Blood Summons, an MMORPG which will incinerate all of the others with it's sheer brilliance...

---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

[Iblis]

[Moogle1]

Element systems is an entirely different question.

Humans being the "balanced" race is not a trademark of fantasy alone -- any game that has humans and at least three other races to choose from will make humans the "balanced" race (sci-fi and fantasy, usually). It's universally boring.

Interestingly, the flagship of fantasy, Lord of the Rings, sidesteps this entirely. Humans are rare in Middle-Earth and generally better stat-wise than other races -- but they tend toward moral extremes, more often than not towards extreme immorality.

This subtle characterization of mankind would make for an interesting race choice in a game. Perhaps the dishonorable humans are the only race to use stealth. Maybe the unskilled humans can't use magic, but are adept at technology.

The real problem with humans as game developers is that they have no frame of reference for classifying humans. I mean, how is a non-human humanoid going to act? Non-human, right? Which basically boils down to "human except for a few changes."

The other flaw a human designer has is his pride in the human race. Anything anyone else can do, a human should be able to do. After all, what can't a human do? We can do everything! Anything that can be done can be done by a human! But we're talking outside the realm of reality here. Sure, anything a human can do in real life should be doable in the game, but the game should allow things that can't be done by humans -- in other words, the fantasy game should be a fantasy game.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Iblis]

[PlayerOne]

The whole issue is one of my pet hates. The existence of the other PC races in things like D&D just leads to lazy stereotyping. Elves and dwarves are usually two-dimensional compared to humans. I always tend to play humans, myself, and I don't tend to include other races in anything I create.

[LeRoy_Leo]

I agree with pretty much everything that has been said, but the point I was trying to make is that perfect balance is the state of tranquility. I'm going to tell y'all something y'all already know now (This is going to blow your minds! No, I'm joking).Neither side would win, if they were truely balanced. You need to have a strategy that is stronger than a select opponent or they will not go away. Likewise for the opponent. We want balance, but we also want a way to win.
Aye, there's the rub, gentlemen. The balance has to be tipped in order for something to happen.
This reminds me of a funny story, but we'll save it for later.

As for what PlayerOne said about Dwarves, Elves, and the like being 2 dimentional compared to Humans; that is also true. True to a disgusting extent, in fact. What's so difficult for us about creating all races evenly, 3 dimentional and eliminate the stereotypes. Not all Dwarves are drunk off their asses 24/7, for example. Stereotypes were easy to understand and relate to in certain situations 50 years ago, but this is the future. Does not one among us think a Dwarven Ranger/mage would be awesome?
Heh. Not that there aren't any... *sits back down*
_________________
Planning Project Blood Summons, an MMORPG which will incinerate all of the others with it's sheer brilliance...

---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

[Moogle1]

I don't mind the lazy stereotyping as long as the humans are also lazy-stereotyped in an interesting way.

Balance does not mean neither side will win. Balance means that neither side is unfairly likely to win. For example, in Warcraft III, the four races are pretty fairly balanced: no race completely dominates another.

Let's take it to the elements example again. Suppose that paper, rock, and scissors don't automatically beat each other. We'll balance them: statwise, they'll be comparable, but they'll be different. Paper has strategies that play to Rock's weaknesses. Rock has strategies that can defend against anything Scissors does, if used effectively. Finally, Scissors has a speed advantage over Paper: if the attack is made quickly, Scissors is very likely to win.

But clever players will come up with ways to make Rock beat Paper, Scissors beat Rock, and Paper beat Scissors. A player will have to choose between rock, paper, and scissors, but since they're balanced, he'll have to adapt his own play in order to come out on top in more than half of his matches. Isn't that more interesting? Yet it's balanced. If you think balance means impasse, you don't understand the concept.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[LeRoy_Leo]

I see. A really good example of complete balance is how Fire Emblem's battles work. Swords best Axes, Axes best lances, lances best swords. Likewise Anima magic bests Light magic, Light magic bests Dark magic, and Dark magic bests Anima magic. The trick is to tie the knot at the end to make it a cycle (chain).
_________________
Planning Project Blood Summons, an MMORPG which will incinerate all of the others with it's sheer brilliance...

---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

[Moogle1]

No, that's really only one way and usually not the best. In that way, you only need to know which weapon type to take into battle. If you take the right one, you win. If you take the wrong one, you lose.

If you've played Advance Wars 2, you might remember the Green Earth mission where Eagle is trying to destroy Hawke's fortress. Eagle starts with about twenty mixed air units; Hawke starts with about that many units that specialize versus air. The game as a whole is balanced; this battle is particularly imbalanced in Hawke's favor. But the player plays as Eagle.

It's a kind of rock-paper-scissors and you're playing scissors against your opponent's rock. But if you have a good strategy, the scenario is winnable -- in fact, it's not that hard.

There is no gimmick to balanced and interesting game design. Rock-paper-scissors is balanced, but it's not interesting. It's fine to give units superiority over certain other units, but the relation should be more interesting.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Mr B]

[Camdog]