What's happened to gaming - balance point

[Nifft]

It's kind of weird. In online MMOs, the economic incentive is towards game balance - because the minute one class or build becomes too powerful all the competitive players (who are the ones who complain to the parent company and therefore matter) switch to that class and it ruins the gameplay.

"Sloppy balance is punished because play is competitive."

In tabletop, the incentive is against it, because keeping balance tight makes it much more difficult to churn out books to earn you money (perhaps the ultimate example is Rifts, which by utterly disregarding balance and frankly conceptual sanity spewed forth text at an almost unimaginable rate).

"Play is not competitive; sloppy balance is not punished."


Sloppiness shouldn't be rewarded anywhere. It's just not punished very hard in table-top design.