Should every race be balanced and equally powerful?
>>98646861What system?
>>98646861People aren't even the same, how are you going to justify races being the same? The only reason why races are being grey blobed is because retards want to be anything and play anything and having stat differences in races be key infringes on that. People care too much about the numbers metagame.
>>98646861No, but player options should either be balanced - ie. stronger races should be some kind of a drawback - or then the game should just completely upfront and explicit about different optiobs not veing balanced.
Unbalanced races work in systems in which you either:>are supposed to roll your race and have a small chance getting these stronger optionsor>have a strong narrative focus and being technically weaker has its own appeal, and being stronger is more about the narrative than dunking on monsters in front of the rest of the groupAnd even in these cases there are drawbacks that you can add to make playing a weaker race more interesting.
>>98646861on the off chance this isn't the obvious /pol/bait you made it look like, i prefer when there's reasons to pick different races in games. the change from 5e to 5e.1 eliminated inherent ability differences but kept the other effects which is somewhat ridiculous, because if i'm meant to believe a halfling can outlift a firbolg or goliath save the very strongest, i.e. adventurers, i don't. but dnd's been doing that for awhile - races haven't had negative abilities in decades. and for some reason it's usually abilities, because flat effects often aren't negative in the first place, or even a trade off, like dwarves having stunted speed but the ability to ignore over encumbrancepath/starfinder have also reduced what races mean in part because of the system change up, but even with abilities they've reduced their own flexibility. take dragonkin from starfinder for instance - they aren't dragonborn equivalents but more similar to halfdragonswith a soulbound thing going on. in 1e they were large creatures with 6 base hp, reach 10, +4str -2 dex, and inherently have a dim/limited dark vision, immunity to sleep/saves against paralysis, flight, fire breath, and a bond mechanic that lets them have limited telepathy and initiative bonusesin 2e, they've structured much of the mechanics classes/races formerly had baked in as feats you have to opt in to, so much of the inherent bonuses of races are split up into subraces/racial feats. dragonkin remain large, and now have full dark vision and 10 hp, as well as traded off flight and debuffed partner bond, but lose everything else, even the inherent 10 reach. the various subraces provide their own small effects that don't resemble the absent 1e abilities. some of those former are available as feats and even increased, but many are level gated, you can only get so many, and having to opt in means what a dragonkin is isn't so clear cut. some people like the ambiguity and modularity of it, but some don't>cont.
>>98647105>>98646861what annoys me comes down once again to abilities. starfinder ability boosts and flaws work as if the d20 ability modifiers were the only numeric value, so the +/-2 equivalent is +/-1. the standard setup for nonhuman races is 3 ability boosts - 1 of which is a free choice that doesn't double up - and 1 ability flaw, or opt out and choose 2 free boosts/0 flaws like a human. but in race selection, ability boosts/flaws don't stack on one attribute, so you can't have +4 str out the gate on dragonkin anymore. nor do they allow more than 3 ability modifiers at once, so you can't be good at 3 but bad at 2 which 1e would often do especially for pathfinder. so what does paizo do to differentiate their large flying dragonmen that can physically carry people on their backs? surely they'll keep A str bonus and have another as well, right?no. they decided that inherently dragonkin have the same fucking options as humans, which is to say they can be good at 2 things and bad at nothing. they did the same thing to fucking orcs. and that's not even getting getting into how they shy away from ever giving a race -int as a flaw, with races that formerly had it now having anything else butlike i understand don't imply something dehumanizing to a creature a player is expected to play. but the races are literally not human
>>98646877And that's when people here discover that systems like GURPS with a unified build currency can depict anything you want while still being balanced and without grey-blobbing.Want a psychic vampire elf? You get to build it and pay for it. You get no advantages anyone else at the table doesn't get.Want a caveman berserker? An awakened octopus cyborg hacker? A genetically superior interplanetary prince? You get the same budget as everyone else.And you can build all of these things for 150 points. It's not even that high powered.
>>98646861>BalancedYes>Equally powerfulNo.Make up the difference in XP advancement costs.Same logic can be applied to classes.Everyone wants to play Rapesthots the Red Dragon Defiler until they realize they're going to be hitting level 2 about the same time that Burke the Dude is hitting level 7 in Fighter.And I do mean old school style XP advancement, none of this Level adjustment shit. Race+Class often ends up as 'race as a smear of flavour atop your class' or generic madlib combos, race-as-class-or-classes is superior in every shape and form.
>>98646861Balance is more a feature of a particular campaign than a system. Nautical skills might be invaluable in a campaign where you're out on the water, but essentially useless when the campaign spends all of its time on dry land. If a session is mostly politicking, then a barbarian probably isn't going to be the most effective sort of character.Just like the previous, its entirely possible that a race has some innate facet that simply fits better or worse with the campaign, leading to a clear disparity in ability.
Yes, the balance being that all non-humans are equally worse than humans.
>>98646861Only if you are a PC, which means you are a little more capable of breaking trends or excelling within them than the rest of your race. You are still likely to be influenced by your stereotypes, but you don't have to be. It should make sense within the rest of the world, but it doesn't take much imagination to make a hero. I know this is thinly-veiled bait. I wish you would ask more interesting questions that haven't been posted 1000 times. I wish you had better things to do and better games to play than making slightly-incendiary threads on /tg/.
>>98646861No. That's what racial template XP costs are for.Bob spends 0 XP to be a human, and the rest of his 150 XP to be the best human he can be.Alice spends 150 XP to be an elf, who is superior to the average human in almost every way, but has no XP leftover to be anything more than an average elf. Though she is superior to the average human, she is still not any superior to Bob, who is not an average human.The PCs are balanced. The races are not. This is the way it should be. Unless you like troupe-style play, I guess. Then you can have some PCs who are just objectively superior to other PCs, but rotate PCs between sessions or adventures, so everyone gets a turn to be overpowered. If that's your thing.
>>98646870Hello?
>>98646861In terms of a game, truly equal power across all options can make things boring. Oh, this class has a bunch of fire spells, and this other class has the same thing but ice and that other class has the same thing but lightning etc. That's balanced, but also sucks to play.This class uses all of the weapons, and that class uses all of the magic is usually heavily imbalanced and also sucks to play for people who want to use weapons.Ironically enough, there needs to be a balance between balanced and imbalanced, where every option fits its own niche, but isn't just "here's the lightning hat and here's the ice hat and there's the fire hat."But chances are you're just asking about D&D and not game design, and in such a case your DM can just do whatever he wants and get over it or find a new table.
>>98647973aaah, no answer because no games...
>>98646861In my campaign, humans from different ages and civilzations aren't balanced, never mind different races.
>>98646861An trait at a given rank costs the same amount of points regardless of its source. They already are balanced.
Balance between options of the same tier. Plainly stronger options can exist and be plainly marked.
No.
>>98648537No answer because OP planted a thread hoping for something it didn't happen.
>>98646861Every option should be equally powerful. That's what makes them options. If one option clearly dominates the others, it's not a choice anymore.Also, if your system makes you trade mechanical optimization for flavor or flavor for mechanical optimization, it's bad, nothing else matters, it's steaming hot dogshit.
>>98646861No huwitey. There should be EQUITY! That means huwiteys get penalties to ALL STATS while proud nubian ebony player characters of colour get +20 MINIMUM to ALL STATS and ALL ROLLS.
>>98647380My based brother in GURPS.
>>98646861No but for player races, yes. You're playing exceptional members of your race.The elf is the best of 10 elves, the human is the best of 100 and the goblin is the best of 1000, not coincidentally aligning with how much those races outnumber each other, and they all end up about equal.
>>98646877Who said the same?Games are defined by rules. The numbers are all that matter. If you don't care about rules, stop playing games that have rules.
>>98646861They should have bonuses that allow them to be good at specific roles without being necessary for the function of those roles.
