Mastering The Game: Character Balance VS Party Balance

Once again, we're talking about running RPGs and how to get started. Today, we're going to talk about party balance versus character balance.

 So, what's party balance and character balance? Glad you asked. What it really boils down to is focus. To start off, we're going to start with character balance.

What is character balance?

There's a few different definitions for this but, I subscribe to the philosophy that it's about making a well balanced characters. That means giving up on min/maxing. What's that? Sorry to keep throwing all of these terms at you, if you’ve never heard them before. Min/maxing is about making a character so powerful in ONE THING to the exclusion of all else. I've also seen Min/maxing called power gaming, but that might be a matter of opinion. When I think of power gaming, I think of people who aren’t coming up with a character so much as a bunch of numbers and stats that have been pushed to the limit just to get the most possible, usually with a focus around combat.

When you maximize one thing, it leaves you off balance or useless when things don't go your way. For example, most games have ranged combat and close combat. If you're maxed out on close combat, that usually means you're the worst in ranged combat. And then you have a battle when you get pinned down by long range weapons and can't do anything. Now, you're useless. You could be even worse than useless, by getting wounded and then someone has to move off the firing line to make sure you don't bleed out. You see what I mean?

Now, I'm not saying you can't good at one thing. You totally can, and should, have something your character is focused on. Ranged combat, melee combat, magic, healing, piloting, and the like, depending on the game. However, just because you're good at shooting doesn't mean that you have exclude all sorts of other stuff. Think of it like having a Major and several Minors in college/university. If you've read the Ferner Five stuff, you've seen that Dr. Penwood is, well, a doctor. But, he's also a fair gunman and knows a bit about the occult. However, he's terrible in a fist fight. Seriously. That does make sense for a refined Englishman to not be great at the fisticuffs. And he does make for a balanced character but his defects make sense for the character, and the setting, because it’s not just a matter of numbers.

The long and the short of it is don't make a character focused on one thing to the exclusion of everything else. Make a real character and have a reason for why they are and aren’t good at something.

We've all been there...

 What is party balance?

This is where it's a good idea to have a conversation with the group before everyone makes characters. Some people do “Session Zero” to do this, but I prefer to have one on one conversations with everyone instead (yes, a “Session Zero” article is on my list).

As I discussed above, you don't want to have a character focused on something too much. However, in a balanced party, everyone needs to have a focus or a role to play in the party. For example, if you're playing D&D, you have the classic line up of Healer, Tank, Caster, Rogue/skill monkey, with one of these doubling as the “Party Face.” And that pattern is there for a reason. You need to have a character who can take damage, someone who can heal damage, someone who can deal damage, and someone who can deal with traps. How you fill these roles is entirely up to the party. Your caster could be a wizard, warlock, or sorcerer. Your tank could be a barbarian, fighter, or paladin. And so on and so forth.

In a modern or sci-fi setting, you have to adjust that template up a little bit. Personally, I use the A-Team. You need your mechanic, your charismatic type, your pilot, and your shooter (or leader).

Of course neither of these examples are perfect. You need to have to have some other things. Your D&D party needs a “face” as well, as I mentioned. Your sci-fi team needs a “medic,” too. What usually happens is someone doubles up on a role or the skills/requirements are spread through out the party. Of course, if you have more players than the standard four, you can have everyone be focused on something and double up on important things, like healing and blasting.

When you're sitting down to look over your game, before you run it, take a look at the rules. If they spend a lot of time talking about magic, it's going to be a big part of it. If they spend a lot of time talking about healing, that means it's not quick and easy. If you're looking at a sci-fi game with space ships and lasers and loads of rules for surviving in the vacuum of space, you know you're going to need a pilot and a medic and someone who knows their way around a blaster. If they have any example characters, pay attention to them. Their example party is based around what the designers want the game to be about. However, you can skip to the parts of the game you, or your party, wants to be about. If they, or you, don't want to deal with piloting and ship to ship combat, don't force someone into the role. I'll talk more about this in my Session Zero article.

So, what is all this about? When you get into party balance, you want to make sure that each character has a place to shine and supports the rest of the party. The party needs to be able to handle each challenge that comes up. And that means it has to be balanced. In short, everyone needs to have that role to fill, so the party can survive and thrive.

Let's take the Ferner Five as an example of party balance:

Dr. Penwood was a healer (a very critical thing in that game) and had money. He was a good shot, because a lot of combat in Deadlands is shooting.
Dr. Heinrich was a real “skill monkey” with a load of skills relating to knowledge, science, and even artillery (which the player gripped about and we never did it to use it). He was also a decent shot and had some medical knowledge. He also had gobs of cash.
Deiter was a real gunman and could intimidate anything. While he didn't have much more going beyond that, he did a lot of the heavy lifting in gunfights, which was very important.
Ming was the close combat fighter, but even he had a few ranks in shooting shotguns. After leveling, he ended up being a bit of a ninja with some stealth. Even with the minimal character stuff he had, he always had something to do, even if it was carrying Penwood’s bags or being a bodyguard for Heinrich when the group split up.
Now, as great as this party was, they did have some gaps. No real Arcane Backgrounds (just Mad Scientist and Martial Artist, which don't really count in my book) and no Tracking skills. This is why, when I was going to start being a player, I made Nona “Cookie” Calhoon. She was a Huckster, a Shootist (magical gun stuff), and had ranks in Tracking and some social skills. It was about filling gaps. When I made Phil, I had him be a close combat monster because of a line in the Deadlands Player's Guide: “You don't bring a knife to a gun fight, but bringing a gun to a knife fight isn't much better.” Or something to that effect.

So, when you're getting ready to get a group together, look at what you need to make a balanced party. Look at any adventures you want to run, enemies you're going to set against the party, and etc. If you're seeing a lot of stuff that requires spells or is immune to physical damage, make sure that you let the party know what they might want.

Don't ever try to make a player make a character they don't want to play. If you have someone who wants to play D&D for the first time, and they're dead set on playing a Warlock, don't force them to play a cleric because you're short on the divine smack-down. Talk to them and explain to them what the group needs. If they still want to play the warlock, let them. Maybe talk with the rest of the party and see if anyone else is willing to take up the holy roller. If that doesn't work, change things. Switch monsters around, maybe give them more healing items, or create a DMPC cleric to keep everyone alive. You get ready to run a deep political thriller in Cyberpunk 2020 and everyone ends up making a Solo? Well, looks like you've got a perfect special forces team. Role-Playing is a cooperative game and you need to be able to adapt to what's going on. If the players want to play a game that you don't want to run, talk with them about it. However, I don't think that it's really going to happen.

And that, folks, is how you make a balanced party. At least in my opinion. What do you think?