“The D&D designers did a good job of taking ideas from video games that help their game work better without overly diluting the unique feel of their game. Hopefully we can prove as competent at returning those influences as they were.”

Sure, but the last sentence is only true in games, where you have tons of options for your character (like 3.5).
AD&D 1st isn’t balanced, and I never had a problem with balance – each class has its own style and niche, so they don’t get in the way (maybe with the exeptions of the Barbarian, Monk and the Assassin). And that the MU was far more powerful later on – well, he was supposed to be, because of the world you tried to recreate.
But for games with different goals (3.5 with less archtypal approach to the classes (because of multi-classing), a different world (more movie/comic/manga inspired) and more focus on combat that the previous editions) and more class options this is true.

Good balance doesn’t matter.
Poor balance can ruin games.

Graham’s last post: Final thoughts after marathon 4e release day events

Also, folks almost never conciously worry about game balance whilst playing a game unless things get ridiculous…the system is usually constructed in a manner where the balance is inlaid…most of us would rather not have to tie a rock to our sword hilt in order to obtain the proper center of gravity, thus the blacksmith forges our sword proper…

Is that “Krog” as in Emperor Admiral etc. etc., Krog???

Sucilaria’s last post: What a difference a few weeks can make.

For what it’s worth, however, there are many that agree with you that balance is not a worthy design goal.

“Design ideas such as class balance and player involvement… can be solved in some elegant and interesting ways when it comes to an RPG… What people are incorrectly focusing on is where the idea has come from, and not the idea itself or how well it functions. … mean that the concept of having a character party made up of specialist characters who each gets to be uniquely successful at what they do and feel useful at the same time is a bad idea.”

I want to say that you are right. People are often too focused on specific examples and cliches, without looking at the underlying ideas.
However, I wonder why everybody is so crazy about “game/class balance”? I wonder how the game is played where this is such a big deal?(Frankly, I know these games and have to say that, to me it is not roleplaying, at least not what I seek in rpgs.) I can’t remember a game of AD&D where anyone was concerned about balance…

And yea…Picasso said it…”good artists borrow; great artists steal.”…

It’s why I plan on dealing solely with remaking really crappy movies into good ones…(i.e. Death Curse of Tartu)…

I’m glad that D&D and WoW ‘borrow’ from each other, and I don’t care who started it. It’s all-around better for gamers everywhere, similar to open source content for programmers. With the general increase in the fantasy genre (thank you Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, to name the biggest), it’s a good time to capitalize on that.

Would Wizards have been smarter to make their monthly fee non-existant, though? It’s easier to compete with the online crowd if you’re significantly cheaper.

3.x couldn’t pull in new gamers so easily, from my experience. There were a lot of times the players wondered, ‘Why are we playing a game with all this extra bookkeeping and busywork? At least in a videogame the computer does all that crap.’ In my first game of 4E, I’ve already had a ton of moments where I could smugly chime in and say, “Can you do that in a videogame?” And that should be the kind of thing that sets D&D and WoW apart. They can’t look like distinctly different games if you don’t start by comparing them in the first place.

Huzzah!

Graham’s last post: Final thoughts after marathon 4e release day events

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1044100

The bits on top pointing out (humorously) how D&D is actually not much like WOW at all are amusing, but the paragraph at the bottom where he says: “…they’re just examples of things that MMOs have borrowed from D&D and expressed in good ways. No harm in us borrowing them back.” pretty much hits the nail on the head for me. This is actually how the creative process works – when people say “nothing is original” that’s mostly true. Ideas feed on themselves and form new ideas.

My mantra is always see what comparisons can be made at a general level and then takes a look at what makes two things distinct. If the distinctions are still important then reassess whether the general comparisons are still valid.

I have come to the general conclusion that people are so used to looking at the details of things, that they have trouble stepping back and viewing things from a holistic point of view.

Adrian.

(damn pickle matrix…)

Graham’s last post: Final thoughts after marathon 4e release day events