Hi, thanks for sharing your thoughts on"balancing". That's exactly the misunderstanding: not balanced = unfair. I myself prefer adventures where I don't know the outcome of a fight in advance. It keeps me thinking of alternatives: parley, run away, try to talk my way out of the situation, try not to get in such a situation in the first place. :)
There are adventures where losing the fight makes the ending much more interesting. I had one of those where we failed to stop a ritual to turn a captured angel into a fallen angel. It triggered a chain of events that changed the entire setting.
Thanks! It's good to meet enemies that we cannot just squash, or even dominate with good strategy. Some enemies should be too hard for us (at least, right now)
I think the best way to look at it is to compare it to heroic fantasy. Encounters are meant to be overcome for the PCs to be heroic and grow. The world exists to take them on a heroes journey. In OSR the world exists regardless of your characters
One thing I love about the Borg games is that reminder that your goal (usually) isn’t to save the world, so lean in and have some fun in your fragile meat sack on the way through. In my weekly 5e game we have the opposite problem: we’re overpowered for our level so the party is somewhat lazy in problem-solving, just plowing through whatever we see.
Hi, thanks for sharing your thoughts on"balancing". That's exactly the misunderstanding: not balanced = unfair. I myself prefer adventures where I don't know the outcome of a fight in advance. It keeps me thinking of alternatives: parley, run away, try to talk my way out of the situation, try not to get in such a situation in the first place. :)
There are adventures where losing the fight makes the ending much more interesting. I had one of those where we failed to stop a ritual to turn a captured angel into a fallen angel. It triggered a chain of events that changed the entire setting.
Exactly! Losing can be fun too!
Thanks! It's good to meet enemies that we cannot just squash, or even dominate with good strategy. Some enemies should be too hard for us (at least, right now)
This warms my grognard heart.
I think the best way to look at it is to compare it to heroic fantasy. Encounters are meant to be overcome for the PCs to be heroic and grow. The world exists to take them on a heroes journey. In OSR the world exists regardless of your characters
One thing I love about the Borg games is that reminder that your goal (usually) isn’t to save the world, so lean in and have some fun in your fragile meat sack on the way through. In my weekly 5e game we have the opposite problem: we’re overpowered for our level so the party is somewhat lazy in problem-solving, just plowing through whatever we see.