Is Imbalance Even a Problem?

And Good Lore vs Bad Lore

This Week’s post questions whether imbalance is actually a problem.

This is even more of a stream of consciousness than normal, sparked by a recent playtest of MAC Attack.

With some handy unit cards

When we finished the game my friend asked:

"Why would I ever take a Short ranged weapon? I'd just make every weapon in my force Long ranged if I was building a new force"

Of course, we need to test this out, but for the time being it's given me food for thought.

Some context: In MAC Attack you have Short weapons (Max range: 9") and Long weapons (MIN range: 6"). There are also Arc weapons but ignore them for now.

Both weapon types cost the same, there are no other restrictions on their use, and they function identically beyond simply having a minimum or maximum range.

As you might imagine, if we're fighting on a big flat desert then Long weapons are the order of the day. Likewise, if the battlefield doesn't have any open stretches wider than 6" then Short weapons are going to dominate. For this discussion, let's imagine we're on a more balanced battlefield.

In fact, let's pretend my friend is right. Let's work on the assumption that Long is broadly a better choice than Short for most scenarios.

Is that a problem?

I've discussed before that the purpose of balance, for me, is to preserve interesting choices, not to make everything equal.

Now, at the very least, we can say that the choice between a minimum range and a maximum range still feels like a choice. The advantage of not having a minimum range is that you can collide and brawl with your target as well as shooting at them.

Better yet, if my friend wants to create a force of exclusively Long weapons then I'm absolutely going to double down on Short weapons and rush inside his minimum range to dirty box him with impunity.

Easier said than done, I suppose, as the quirks of the initiative deck mean you can't always put every MAC where you want them to be.

Engaging at Shorter range also means there's less chance of an annoying obstacle blocking the line of sight to your target.

So maybe the answer is to include a mix of short and long weapons on each MAC. I deliberately left a "sweet spot" between 6-9" where both Short and Long weapons can attack for this very reason. Could equally lead to some inefficient turns when you don't have the right target at the right range, though.

For another angle, what could we do it we wanted to make them feel more equal?

How does Battletech, an obvious inspiration for MAC Attack, handle this? It actually uses range quite differently. As well as defining a weapon's minimum and maximum range, weapons break down their range into subcategories of short/medium/long range, with medium and long providing penalties to hit. With a 2d6 system like Battletech these penalties can be hugely significant, so having a longer range generally has the side effect of making the weapon more accurate at common engagement ranges. Totally different to what we're dealing with here.

Previously in MAC Attack, Short weapons provided a bonus to hit, but that had some undesirable side effects. Piercing Type weapons (more effective when you have an easy shot) felt like a little too much of an obvious synergy with Short weapons (make your shot more likely to hit), and I wanted every combination of range, type, and subtype to feel viable. It was also one more modifier [shudder] to remember when calculating your target number to hit.

I could give Short a longer maximum range, but that risks making the distinction feel irrelevant.

I could Long an even more restrictive minimum range, but I don't want things to end up feeling too restrictive.

Or maybe it's fine as it is.

Back to the playtesting table I suppose.

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Elsewhere

• Mazirian’s Garden highlights what makes for good lore in a TTRPG.

• Behind the Helm discusses designing your own spark tables.

• A Knight at the Opera continues a series on a topic close to my heart, alphabetically delving into a big list of monsters.

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Coming Soon

Over on Patreon I talk about something I get from videogames that I miss out on in TTRPGs.

First I want to talk about some videogames.

ADOM does this cool thing where the overworld is (mostly) set in stone, but all of the dungeon levels below are randomly generated. So you're improvising a lot in the dungeon, but you learn the layout and secrets of the world above.

Expect the full post here and on the blog next week.

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