Quote Originally Posted by Zeful View Post
No, I can't. I can't tell powerlevel apart from extensively documented builds, so if a player were to subtly optimize, I would be outright incapable of doing anything but throwing the player out of the group once caught. I cannot build anything to challenge his dominance at the table, I cannot trust the player at the table or in private, and unlike cheaters, munchkins, rules-lawyers, and powergamers, I have no ability to tell if the player in question is actually breaking discipline, and skewing the power until he has already done so.

To me, with my own abilities in mind: there is no functional difference between an optimizer and a powergamer, other than discipline, which I can't just trust.
So...you don't like optimizers as a DM because you don't know the rules well enough to gauge power level, you don't trust your players and so impose a "discipline" that they can "break," you expect people to try to sneak things past you as a DM, and your first reaction to "catching" someone with a more-powerful-than-average character is to kick them from the group, and as a player because you feel their rules knowledge eclipses yours and therefore any group with the two of you would involve your "kowtowing" to them and the DM or being a "remora"? How do you play any RPG more rules-heavy than FATE if that's your attitude towards the rules? And even rules-light games like FATE require a heck of a lot of player-GM trust with all the narrative control given to players.

We have two rules in my group to rein in over-optimization. Rule #1 is "Don't be a ****" and Rule #2 is "Be honest with the group," and we've never had a problem. I think you've either been incredibly unlucky in your selection of players, or any "acting out" they're doing is in response to said iron-fisted DMing. I do hope you give D&D another chance with a good group sometime; with a group of players who are friends rather than jerks, it's nowhere near as bad as you describe.