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I never thought it was supposed to be a handicapping system, I thought it was supposed to be a system for creating an initial board position from which a typical player would have equal chances of winning regardless of which side he played. So I am pointing out that: 1) At best, this sytem merely provides MOTIVATION for creating such a position. That's kind of like adverising a "method for lifting heavy objects" and then revealing that the method is to offer a higher wage to employees who can lift more. You aren't solving the problem, you're hiring someone else to solve it for you; the actual problem still needs to be solved by someone at some point. 2) Although this method aligns the player's incentives with the goal in an idealized case, there are many realistic cases in which the player can actually gain a larger advantage by strategically UNbalancing the game, rather than making it as balanced as possible. So you need to carefully consider your circumstances before employing it, even just as a motivator.
The balancing I am referring to is offsetting weaknesses intrinsic in a side in a game, NOT the skill level of the players. The approach is to give the players an abilities to adjust the game configuration so it is more fair, in a way that requires a player to factor things in. Because the approach requires multiple rounds to be played, both players have a chance to try to balance things. That is the idea here, not as some sort of handicapping.
Nothing is wrong with adding any gameplay element, skill-based or otherwise, if the players feel it enhances the game. But the subject of this thread does not advertise a skill-based gameplay element, it advertises a method for achieving game balance. Those are completely different things! If I'm acting as a game designer, I don't want a technique I use for balancing my game to change the nature of that game or alter the skills required to win.
If a game is faced with uncertainty in knowing what side has an advantage, and the only way to evaluate is based on skill of the players in the game, why not turn this aspect into a game element itself? Why is there a problem with having a game more clearly differentiate between the two players in the game, in a way that is measured by skill, as opposed to luck?
Is it unfair if it amplifies the inherent advantage one player already has? More to the point, is it desirable for it to amplify advantages in this way?
Also, I think there are real differences between the skills required to play well, to evaluate positions accurately, and to design an interesting and balanced opening position. There's certainly some overlap, but it's also quite possible to be noticeably better or worse at one of those things than the others. I could perhaps make a better guess at the material value of many fairy pieces than some chess grandmasters could; that wouldn't imply I could beat them with those pieces.
On a related note, if there is a particular piece that I'm very good at using and that my opponent is not so good at using, I can give myself an advantage by giving that pieces to BOTH sides. If I were playing against a chess grandmaster, I certainly wouldn't give both sides FIDE pieces. In fact, I would be tempted to give one side FIDE pieces, and then deliberately make the other side stronger, in the hope that my opponent will just choose the familiar pieces that he knows how to use.
The whole pie-cutting problem just becomes a whole lot messier once the question of skill comes up.
"The pie rule only works when both parties are highly adept at their assigned tasks." But adeptness at their assigned tasks is simply the ability to evaluate the quality of a board position as being likely to favor one side or another, and that's the essence of playing skillfully: choosing moves that create positions where you have the advantage. It isn't unfair if the pie rule leaves an advantage with the better player. The better player naturally has an advantage at every point in the game.
Actually, that's very often not what it does. The pie rule only works when both parties are highly adept at their assigned tasks. If the slicer is poor at balancing but the chooser is good at gauging each side's strength, then the slicer cannot help but include some imbalance that the chooser will exploit, and thus places himself at a disadvantage no matter what he does. Conversely, if the slicer is good at design but the chooser is poor at evaluation, then the slicer may deliberately provide misleading cues and trick the chooser into selecting the weaker side.
Thus, in many cases, applying the pie rule to game-balancing encourages confusing and misleading design decisions, to minimize the odds that the other party can correctly identify or utilize the advantages of each side. I think that would generally be regarded as undesirable.
But even in the best possible case, it only motivates you to balance the game, it doesn't provide any tools for doing so.
Why I disagree here is this: The pie rule drives someone to make the pie slices as even as possible, which is what you want to do when trying to balance. It isn't a solution to guarantee there will be balance, BUT it does make for a game within a game, that makes trying more interesting.
The pie rule merely prevents the pie-slicer from cheating; it won't magically make him any better at game design. If you have two players who both understand the game very well and your problem is that neither of them trusts the other to create a fair initial position, this will solve your problem. But if a designer already intends to make a balanced game and is having trouble with the execution of that intent (which is the assumption I see in most discussions about how to balance games), this doesn't help you at all.
This was discussed and put up on Boardgame Geek, as a game to demonstrate the concept. The game is: Heraclitus: The Meta Game. Rules are here: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/123658/heraclitus-the-meta-game The heart of the concept is this. A version of the pie rule is applied. One player sets up the game, with possibly unbalanced sides, and list of mutators and so on, and the player's opponent decides what side to play. Multiple rounds could go on, with each side being the one who sets up initial conditions and rules for what mutators are in effect and so on.
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