[quote=RMS;7549]From reading this post and your posts in the past, you have far more of this disparity in player competence than I've ever had the displeasure of witnessing. In general, I've had very good, essentially equally skilled players. I've tended to run small groups for long periods of time, and have not look for additional players, or gradually have weeded out the poorer ones. I accept your experience, but it isn't something I can base any of my opinions off of since it's so far outside my experience. {/quote]
I wish I had been so lucky. Virtually every RPG I even ran or played in had players with a wide spread in capability. I've seen guys whose ability was damned near pyschic, and other who were so dense I'm surprised they made it to the gaming table (in fact, I knew one guy who consistently showed up at the wrong house and the neighbor had to tell him week after week). Even the conventions I've been to I tended to see a wide mix. Usually there was one or two people who I wished I could have in my regular group, one or two people I wished I'd never met, and the rest somewhere in between. I rarely had the luxury of a solid group. At best I had a good core of about 3-4 players for a time, but usually it was more like 2, with 2-4 others.
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Originally Posted by RMS
It just depends on the situation for me. I've done it, but just don't like it as a general answer.
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Ditto. I don't use too many "general" answers anyway. It tends to limit options and thinking. That is sort of how we ended up going down this thread. Some people believe that things
must balance. Things usually translating as combat ability. But depending on the GM, player characters, and nature of the adventures being run, that isn't necessarily the case.
I think the key factor is that each player character needs to be able to regularly contribute to the game. Balanced characters and encounters is merely one way to try and accomplish that. Give characters niches, and character classes are niches to some extent, is another way to try and ensure that each character contributes.
The low level character in the high level group or vise versa is quite workable in BRP. Less so in D&D due to increasing hit points and damage. Basically the low level guys can't take the fireballs, but if they make it thorough a session or two the level rapidly. In BRP it isn't such a problem. Two goblins keep the experienced fighters busy, yet a single gobbie is a challenge for a fledgling farmer.
Any RPG where a single hit can kill or incapacitate has some built in balance.
But balance is but one method, and not the only one. Just like combat is only one activity in an RPG, and shouldn't dominate to the exclusion of all else.