"Power gamer" hate?

[Drakevarg]

Harsh D&D truth: Virtually every player out there is playing to win. Certainly do several players prefer story-based character options, mechanical synergies, big bursts regardless of viability or streamlining the character to be ideally suited for the campaign at hand. But once everyone sits at the table, unless someone is a massive problem player who only wants to cause trouble, everyone is working together to fulfill the campaign's objective with their given characters - in other words, win the campaign.

I don't think that I've ever once played in a campaign that had a clear win condition. Even ones with an obvious main antagonistic force (which was far from all of them) were never obvious in how they would actually be beaten. Most people I've played with aren't intent on winning the campaign so much as they are intent on experiencing the campaign (and by logical extension, survive it). I doubt it's that unusual for players to view a campaign as a story expressed through obstacle courses rather than obstacle courses contextualized with a story.

Now obviously in the shorter term, "survive the campaign" does imply "win the encounters." But playing to not lose is a relevant philosophical distinction from playing to win. The implied onus to excel is significantly more lax, and all that's really needed is to not be actively incompetent (which really should not be that hard).