How Do You Handle Over-Optimization Player Characters And Enemies?

[kyoryu]

One person's optimization is another person's munchkinry, though. Most people who consider 'optimizing' to be a positive thing would call hunting for abusive loopholes being a munchkin, not an optimizer. It's either a terminology disconnect, or just a RPG-specific variant of the Geek Hierarchy; everyone needs a subcategory of people worse than them.

Everyone that drives faster than me is insane. Everyone that drives slower than me is a moron.

[The Insanity]

This sounds like a big stretch to say ''optimization is good''. Having a character that uses a dagger, take weapon focus dagger is ''optimization''

I guess optimizing to be bad is a thing.

but it is sure not what most ''optimizing players '' are talking about when they say it. Normal optimization is finding rules and loop holes and interpretations it's not just slightly making a character slightly better.

It's not. It is what YOU are talking about when you say it. Big difference.

[Max_Killjoy]

Everyone that drives faster than me is insane. Everyone that drives slower than me is a moron.

The crazy thing is, there are weather/road conditions where that's somewhat true.

(In heavy snow, going way too slow makes you an obstacle and a hazard... going too fast makes you a hazard too... and I'm always the one stuck in the middle trying to go the appropriate speed.)

[kyoryu]

The crazy thing is, there are weather/road conditions where that's somewhat true.

(In heavy snow, going way too slow makes you an obstacle and a hazard... going too fast makes you a hazard too... and I'm always the one stuck in the middle trying to go the appropriate speed.)

Yes, but everyone else on the road thinks *the same thing*. And they think that either you're insane or a moron.

Everyone thinks they drive at an appropriate speed. That's why they're driving at that speed (caveat: Some people in a hurry might know they're going too fast)

Everyone thinks they optimize "the right amount", too. People that optimize more are "powergamers" or "munchkins". People that optimize less "aren't effective".

So, ultimately, what you have to do in a game is say "No, this is the acceptable amount of optimization". And then go with that. In some cases, this might be choosing a system that allows for less optimization. In some cases it might be setting limits on things. In others, it might be taking a look at characters for approval.

[Mechalich]

To continue with the driving analogy, it is possible to optimize to such an extent that your car effectively rips the road apart as it passes.

If you optimize to the point that the setting shatters into a million tiny pieces, then you have a problem.

This is a problem in many games. In D&D all of the canonical settings are built around incredibly low optimization levels (and 2e assumptions carried over into 3.X that no longer hold) and it easily possible to build a party that quickly tears the setting in half and then force-evolves the world into some sort of Tippyverse analog.

In Exalted it's possible to build a character who literally kills everyone in Creation in a single move. In Vampire its possible to build a terrifying mind-control monster and trigger the apocalypse (or just nuclear war). Many other settings have various break points, and the more popular a setting the more likely it becomes for the internet to easily find them (at D&D levels of popularity the ability to discover game-breaking builds asymptotically approaches the existence of said builds).

And even at non-game-breaking levels of power, things become more difficult to control, and in many cases options become even more limited. The more speed you pour onto a car, the harder it becomes to control, and even if you can re-engineer the car to handle it, physics starts to dictate the kind of routes you can take. At normal driving speeds you can go anywhere, experience interesting terrain, even off-road on occasion. At NASCAR speeds all you can do is blast around a specially engineered circle over and over, and at drag racer speeds you can only go in a straight line.

So optimization isn't a problem in terms of the equivalent of doing 60 in a 45 zone. A skilled driver on a properly engineered road (roads are engineered to be safe well above their speed limit to compensate for conditions and to aid emergency vehicles as well as general safety) can handle that without any difficulty. If you try to do 120 in a 45 zone, you're probably going to crash and burn, no matter how awesome you are.

[Max_Killjoy]

Yes, but everyone else on the road thinks *the same thing*. And they think that either you're insane or a moron.

Everyone thinks they drive at an appropriate speed. That's why they're driving at that speed (caveat: Some people in a hurry might know they're going too fast)

Everyone thinks they optimize "the right amount", too. People that optimize more are "powergamers" or "munchkins". People that optimize less "aren't effective".

So, ultimately, what you have to do in a game is say "No, this is the acceptable amount of optimization". And then go with that. In some cases, this might be choosing a system that allows for less optimization. In some cases it might be setting limits on things. In others, it might be taking a look at characters for approval.

At least with driving, there's a fairly objective standard of "appropriate to the conditions". There are engineers whose job includes determining these speeds for the road type, the road's curves and hills, the traffic level, the type of land use surrounding the road, etc, and have adjusted values for the weather and lighting conditions as well.

[Newtonsolo313]

To continue with the driving analogy, it is possible to optimize to such an extent that your car effectively rips the road apart as it passes.

If you optimize to the point that the setting shatters into a million tiny pieces, then you have a problem.

This is a problem in many games. In D&D all of the canonical settings are built around incredibly low optimization levels (and 2e assumptions carried over into 3.X that no longer hold) and it easily possible to build a party that quickly tears the setting in half and then force-evolves the world into some sort of Tippyverse analog.

In Exalted it's possible to build a character who literally kills everyone in Creation in a single move. In Vampire its possible to build a terrifying mind-control monster and trigger the apocalypse (or just nuclear war). Many other settings have various break points, and the more popular a setting the more likely it becomes for the internet to easily find them (at D&D levels of popularity the ability to discover game-breaking builds asymptotically approaches the existence of said builds).

And even at non-game-breaking levels of power, things become more difficult to control, and in many cases options become even more limited. The more speed you pour onto a car, the harder it becomes to control, and even if you can re-engineer the car to handle it, physics starts to dictate the kind of routes you can take. At normal driving speeds you can go anywhere, experience interesting terrain, even off-road on occasion. At NASCAR speeds all you can do is blast around a specially engineered circle over and over, and at drag racer speeds you can only go in a straight line.

So optimization isn't a problem in terms of the equivalent of doing 60 in a 45 zone. A skilled driver on a properly engineered road (roads are engineered to be safe well above their speed limit to compensate for conditions and to aid emergency vehicles as well as general safety) can handle that without any difficulty. If you try to do 120 in a 45 zone, you're probably going to crash and burn, no matter how awesome you are.

thats not really a good analogy i mean characters usually don't loose control the more power they get, take for instance power word kill, clean controllable able to kill almost anyone in a setting. yes that one sidereal build can destroy the realm but they don't have to they don't lose the ability to make careful decisions just because they can kill literally everything

[Cluedrew]

To Max_Killjoy: You do realize that driving speed is a metaphor right? There is no "correct speed" in the metaphoric case. So the one driving the "correct speed" is the judgemental one.

There are speeds at which you should be driving in the literal case, and it is good if you drive in that range, but speed at which we drive in cars has nothing to do with optimization levels in a role-playing game. So let us keep the facts separate from the truth and stick to kyoryu's metaphor.

[The Glyphstone]

To Max_Killjoy: You do realize that driving speed is a metaphor right? There is no "correct speed" in the metaphoric case. So the one driving the "correct speed" is the judgemental one.

There are speeds at which you should be driving in the literal case, and it is good if you drive in that range, but speed at which we drive in cars has nothing to do with optimization levels in a role-playing game. So let us keep the facts separate from the truth and stick to kyoryu's metaphor.

No objective correct speed, at least. The 'correct speed' in this increasingly distorted metaphor would be, like kyoru said, a level of optimization specific to that table/game/road.

[Talakeal]

No objective correct speed, at least. The 'correct speed' in this increasingly distorted metaphor would be, like kyoru said, a level of optimization specific to that table/game/road.

Correct no, but intended, yes. If you look at the CR rules in the DMG and Monster Manual you can get a pretty good idea of the optimization level that the game designers had in mind.

[Cluedrew]

To The Glyphstone: So the speed everyone else is driving?

To Talakeal: So the posted speed limit?

... I could go on about weird things about driving and the theory vs. practice, but I think the metaphor has been established.

[Max_Killjoy]

To Max_Killjoy: You do realize that driving speed is a metaphor right? There is no "correct speed" in the metaphoric case. So the one driving the "correct speed" is the judgemental one.

There are speeds at which you should be driving in the literal case, and it is good if you drive in that range, but speed at which we drive in cars has nothing to do with optimization levels in a role-playing game. So let us keep the facts separate from the truth and stick to kyoryu's metaphor.

This is why I don't like analogies all that much...

[2D8HP]

.....I believe what you're trying to convey is that you do not enjoy the process of building characters. Or, if you do like it, you only like it a little, and find that anything which prolongs the process and complicates it beyond a certain point bores, disinterests, or frustrates you.....
.....Given some of the stuff I trimmed out of your quote, I'm actually becoming convinced that you find building characters to be a chore. You tolerate it because you want to play them, but you dislike having to pick and choose elements to go into them with more than a quick browse to know the rules in the first place. Is that accurate?

kyoryu has spoken well for himself already, but your description matches my attitude very well!

Except building things that break limits is fun. People don't make things like Pun-Pun....

Despite seeing it on this Forum a lot, I keep searching for, but not finding what Pun-Pun references!

I also don't assume people buy mustard dogs to spite me, even though I find the smell obnoxious. I assume they buy mustard dogs because they like mustard....

Apropos of nothing, I really like mustard dogs, it ketchup and relish I dislike on hot dogs.
I do like catsup on fries though, but mustard on fries sounds awful to me.

[Talakeal]

Despite seeing it on this Forum a lot, I keep searching for, but not finding what Pun-Pun references!

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun...acter_Build%29

[Newtonsolo313]

kyoryu has spoken well for himself already, but your description matches my attitude very well!



Despite seeing it on this Forum a lot, I keep searching for, but not finding what Pun-Pun references!






Apropos of nothing, I really like mustard dogs, it ketchup and relish I dislike on hot dogs.
I do like catsup on fries though, but mustard on fries sounds awful to me.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun...aracter_Build)
best reference material i could find

[2D8HP]

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun...acter_Build%29

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Pun-Pun...aracter_Build)
best reference material i could find

Thanks!

[awa]

Pun pun often just refers to the kind of infinite abuse manipulate form offers not any specific build to get their although level 1 paladin and puzuzu is popular.

Like others have what pepole consider optimized varies and some times its a matter type not degree for instance, in one game i played the dm felt a "high" AC or move speed of 50 was unspeakable broken but did not have any problem with a character being able to reliably one shot an entire encounter. Bag of tricks was broken but planer binding was fine etc.

The classic example of this is the people who think the monk is broken becuase they are dramatically over valuing something the monk can do like speed or saves and undervaluing spells or animal companions.

[2D8HP]

Pun pun.

Now that I've seen that Pun Pun refers to a specific 3.5 D&D "build", I have a more general 3.5 sort of "optimization" related question: with all the seemingly infinite Feats and Prestige Classes that the "splat" books provide (BTW don't "Google" splat!), you get quite a lot of customization, so much it almost seems more like a point-buy game like Champions, which makes me wonder, just what are classes and levels for?
If you just use the PHB than 3.5 seems much like old D&D, but add "splat", and with all the Feats and Prestige Classes it seems like the simplicity of classes and levels is lost, so why still them at all?

[awa]

originally prestige classes were supposed to represent specific organizations within the world so the dm was supposed to say these are my worlds prestige classes including making their own for specific organizations. But in practice no one used it like that not even the game designers. So in a sense prestige classes are pointless and to the best of my knowledge neither 4th or 5th edition uses them.

[kyoryu]

Now that I've seen that Pun Pun refers to a specific 3.5 D&D "build", I have a more general 3.5 sort of "optimization" related question: with all the seemingly infinite Feats and Prestige Classes that the "splat" books provide (BTW don't "Google" splat!), you get quite a lot of customization, so much it almost seems more like a point-buy game like Champions, which makes me wonder, just what are classes and levels for?
If you just use the PHB than 3.5 seems much like old D&D, but add "splat", and with all the Feats and Prestige Classes it seems like the simplicity of classes and levels is lost, so why still them at all?

3.x with all the books is basically a very "chunky" point-buy system. You buy one "point" in Cleric, one in Thief.... etc.

The original idea of a Prestige class is that it's something you can be, but you can't just be from the start. I originally thought Paladin would have been the *perfect* Prestige Class, but they wanted to keep it core.

And, yeah, you're right. 3.x with all the addons can easily allow more optimization than Champions.

[Newtonsolo313]

originally prestige classes were supposed to represent specific organizations within the world so the dm was supposed to say these are my worlds prestige classes including making their own for specific organizations. But in practice no one used it like that not even the game designers. So in a sense prestige classes are pointless and to the best of my knowledge neither 4th or 5th edition uses them.

5th edition does but its weak and kinda pointless and UA
its called rune scribe
https://media.wizards.com/2015/downl...tige_Class.pdf
its got good features but it looks weak on its own

[Coretron03]

3.x with all the books is basically a very "chunky" point-buy system. You buy one "point" in Cleric, one in Thief.... etc.

The original idea of a Prestige class is that it's something you can be, but you can't just be from the start. I originally thought Paladin would have been the *perfect* Prestige Class, but they wanted to keep it core.

And, yeah, you're right. 3.x with all the addons can easily allow more optimization than Champions.

Paladins (along with bards and rangers) were made into prestige classes later, I think in UA(Unearthed arcana)http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/cl...terClasses.htm.

[vasilidor]

I myself, unlike some others that have stated otherwise, do enjoy the optimize character part of gaming. it is why I used to have several notebooks worth of characters that never got played.

now I have multiple text files for characters for different systems.

the other bit of character design that I enjoy is coming up with short bits of background for personality and motivations. generally I come up with that, then try to make a functional character to theme. Do I always pick the absolute best options for said characters? only if it works with the theme. sometimes this is as simple as "bad-ass archer" or "wise woods man". sometimes it's "runaway prince who wants to learn to be a dragon" or "former military person turns research scientist on a space colony". how viable I can make these concepts varies by game. a fun one I have done in multiple systems is the hillbilly sorcerer. In BESM he has a flying RV (motor doesn't work), in DND/pathfinder I try to get the DM to allow the custom spell of summon duct tape (summons 1d4 +1/2 cl rolls of ductape to your location duration instant* range short, no save or SR *the magic is just the transportation of duct tape, the duct tape itself is none-magical in nature)

yes I know that can be silly, and not entirely RAW (with the exception of the BESM character having a msgic flying RV with a non functional motor, there are rules that totally cover that).

[Segev]

This sounds like a big stretch to say ''optimization is good''. Having a character that uses a dagger, take weapon focus dagger is ''optimization'', but it is sure not what most ''optimizing players '' are talking about when they say it. Normal optimization is finding rules and loop holes and interpretations it's not just slightly making a character slightly better.

No, "optimization" is exactly taking weapon focus for the dagger because it's the weapon you use most often. It is exactly also taking other dagger-specific feats to complement it.

One person's "obscure loophole" is another's "just using the rules put in front of me." "Munchkinism" is what you mean when you say "optimization." Munchkinism is subjective - one person's munchkin is another person's clever player. (At least, as long as we avoid the realms of it where the munchkin is actively cheating, such as by "accidentally" having too many feats, or knowing spells he can't know, or other more subtle things.)

Optimization is objective.

Use the words correctly, Darth Ultron, and you won't find people arguing with the points you WANT to make as much as you do.

I don't normally agree with Darth, but there actually is a nugget of wisdom in here. If you are doing something simply to find a loophole in a limitation you are probably doing it wrong. Like using the 5e wish / simulacrum combo to ignore the quite sensible limitations that the designers put in both spells.

Are they? Or are they discovering something that works because the limitation is poorly written on a number of levels? Or because simulacrum is broken? Or are they finding a sensible cost for a wish: the price it takes to make a simulacrum?

It will vary table to table. At some tables, taking simulacrum at all is going to be game-breaking "optimization." At others, having a wish a day for the cost of a 7th level spell and the material components for simulacrum is fine.

Everyone that drives faster than me is insane. Everyone that drives slower than me is a moron.

This is the best way to illustrate the point.

Everybody who optimizes with more enthusiasm than I do is a munchkin. Everybody who builds characters less optimized than mine is gimping themselves.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Everybody who optimizes with more enthusiasm than I do is a munchkin. Everybody who builds characters less optimized than mine is gimping themselves.

It's one of those irregular verbs - I optimise, you powergame, he's a goddamn cheating munchkin.

[vasilidor]

so having read through the previous bits over I think we might actually agree to the following(maybe):
1.what counts as good, bad and over optimization varies from one table to the next (or even one game to the next at the same table).
2.you should discuss with your players/DM what does and does not qualify as over optimized.
3.If someone has, through accident or intent, over optimized there character it is best to handle it OOC.

To be honest if I had over-optimized my character by mistake and the DM wanted to pull him out of the game, I'd probably ask to have him go down against a dragon or something (removing the character in a story fit for such a powerful warrior).

[Coretron03]

Are they? Or are they discovering something that works because the limitation is poorly written on a number of levels? Or because simulacrum is broken? Or are they finding a sensible cost for a wish: the price it takes to make a simulacrum?

It will vary table to table. At some tables, taking simulacrum at all is going to be game-breaking "optimization." At others, having a wish a day for the cost of a 7th level spell and the material components for simulacrum is fine.

Off topic but I've been out of the loop for 5e for a while but as far as I knew wasn't simulacrum-wish looping the most powerful thing you could do by effectively gaining access to any spell of 8th level and lower? Again, Been out of the loop for a while.

[Quertus]

I mean systems that allow for high values of optimization.

Or, to be more precise, systems that allow for highly varying levels of effectiveness based on character build choices, *especially* ones that are not intuitive.

In one of my programming classes, I once wrote a small bit of... assembly code, I think it was... that was so different from anything the professor had ever seen, he commented on it in class. After class, you should have seen the optimizers lining up, trying to learn the secret of this new way of coding. I had to explain to them that, while I hadn't done it the obvious way, it wasn't for optimization reasons, but just to see how it would turn out. While it was more elegant in the general case, because of how it had to handle a few corner cases, It wasn't actually significantly more optimized than what they had done. They lost interest. No one cared about the art, they only card about the cold, hard numbers. No-one could appreciate the beauty as it's own thing. I was sad. Not that this code was a thing of particular beauty, mind, but they would never see such beauty, even if they encountered it.

I do not enjoy games with varying levels of effectiveness where effort is not made to uplift the weak, but I am much more concerned with the failure of the group than that of the system. I mean, I like to be able to build my own character, to make the numbers match the vision, but, unless the system is particularly arcane and unapproachable, I'd be more disappointed in players who did not help me achieve my vision than in a system I hadn't learned.

I also don't like deck building in card games like M:tG, build orders in RTSes, or builds in MMOs.

In general, pre-game mathematical analysis is something I don't care for. I prefer the emphasis to be placed on game-time decisions, and not poring over rules prior to the game looking for an advantage.

So, I've got a question for you here: what if you don't play to win? What if you don't play to be competitive with the local metagame? What if you just build and play a deck for the joy of building and playing with elves and goblins and fireballs? What if you build all the decks that everyone plays with, and tweak the balance or retire the deck if you find one of the decks just isn't fun?

I had a bunch of friends who didn't own Magic cards, but enjoyed the game. So I had... 60-some-odd decks together, just waiting for people to play.

I've... won more than my fair share of tournaments, but I don't actually enjoy the excruciating minutia of building to win. My goal is simply to build a deck sufficiently competent to not be swept by every single opponent. I built one deck that was bad enough that I was swept by all but one opponent... and had a blast playing it. No-one new could have guessed that I had won the previous tournament given that show of "skill" and "optimization".

So, I'm curious if you tried MtG without the competitive attitude that usually accompanies the game, whether or not you'd still hate deck building.

It always astounds me that so few people include "wants to live" as part of their character concept.

This is partly a system problem - in that certain build methods will end up being geometric compared to others that are linear - and also a GM problem that stems from roleplaying tropes, particularly the 'don't split the party' trope.

Many experienced gamers recognize that their GMs will never, ever, ever split the party up and expect each character to handle all possible situations on their own. So they build characters who are absolutely devastating at one specific aspect of the game - usually killing people - but who are otherwise completely clueless and handle social situations like a small bird handles a glass window. Take a good OOTS example: Thog. Thog is a devastating combatant, he's much more optimized than Belkar or Roy, but he's also utterly clueless. He needs another person to tell him what to do all the time and if he loses that person he becomes someone else's lapdog.

Many games incentive warrior optimization by turning them into Thogs - all muscle, no brain, and no social awareness. The problem is, GMs don't enforce the limitations on such characters. They don't take their safety blanket companions away and they don't enforce the intelligence limitations effectively (the latter is admittedly difficult to do) and allow smart players to metagame stupid characters as if they are much more intelligent than they actually are.

D&D has really bad optimization metagaming incentives. The standard party of four has three characters who are almost completely focused on methods to murder their way through obstacles (including wizards, they just have more options than most) and one skill monkey character who handles everything else. Other games aren't quite that bad, but there are still incentives, especially if a group of players actively collude (like in oWoD games where only one player puts any points into drive so the others can save the points).

Hmmm... I have a different view on this, and I'd like your opinion on my PoV.

I don't assume the GM won't split the party, I don't assume challenges are balanced, I don't assume my character will survive. Most of my characters have "want to survive" on their priority list, although not always at the top.

Yet I still get to about the same place - it's just got a different reason. See, if someone - even me - builds a character who can do everything... well, what do they need the rest of the party for? If I build a god wizard face tactician... utilize Wield Skill & custom skill-boosting items... and an army of the undead... what do I need the other PCs for? I would never build this optimal, well-rounded character because... it just wouldn't be fun. For anyone.

So, if for no other reason than to make the game enjoyable by everyone at the table, I firmly believe in making sure everyone has a role to play, and that the easiest (and possibly best) way to accomplish this is to build more focused characters, who can't do everything well.

Thoughts?

I can understand someone wanting to play a character that is "out of their depth" or "out of their element", a character who doesn't start out as automatically usefully competent in some way for the context/content of the campaign.

What bothers me is someone doing this repeatedly, and then acting as if their character adapting to the situation / events they find themselves in (like real people normally do) would somehow violate that character's concept.

I can't speak to this particular behavior, but let me touch on one which will sound similar, if you don't examine it closly enough.

Let's continue talking about driving. There are an awful lot of really bad drivers out there. Sure, some of them are new, but you'd think someone who has decades of experience driving would get better at some point, right? Well, sadly, no - in fact, some of them, through positive reinforcement of their bad behaviors, get worse. Because they, say, haven't had an accident, they get more confident that their terrible way of driving must be good. And muscle memory, repeating the same bad techniques over and over probably also plays a part. As does complacency. Humans often need a catalyst, a reason to evaluate and improve their skills.

I happen to have a few characters who help me explore this aspect of humanity. One of whom, somewhat accidentally, is my signature character, for whom this account is named. Quertus is an academia mage - he knows he wasn't trained for combat. As luck would have it, as far back as I can remember, the only characters who tried to "teach" Quertus how to fight... were worse at it than he was. I... honestly didn't think that was possible. Quertus was supposed to be my attempt to play a character who was weak at one of my strengths, tactics, yet those who tried to teach him were so obviously bad at it that even Quertus had to point out the flaws in their thinking. You can't enlarge your enemies to make then qualify as valid targets for your Sword of Giant Slaying, for example.

Quertus views his role as an expert on magic theory, and to remove otherwise impassable barriers. Quertus is under the correct belief that wizards run out of spells, and (somewhat wisely) believes in conserving his resources for the things that matter. Now, yes, most any playgrounder could see ways an epic wizard could contribute to a battle more than by reading a book, or tossing shuriken at foes and recording the results, without straining his spell supply... but the people Quertus has adventured with have been so competent at their roles, he hasn't needed to.

So, realistically, there has been no catalyst to change his behavior. Quertus has seen no reason why his behaviors - which were wise for a first level academia mage - should change. Sure, if the entire tower the party is in suddenly disappears, and no one else has a solution to falling to their deaths, Quertus will cast his custom area of effect selective gravity manipulation and redirection spell... and you'll be glad he still has the spell available to do so... but, until then, unless anyone needs him, he'll be reading his book.

[Mechalich]

Hmmm... I have a different view on this, and I'd like your opinion on my PoV.

I don't assume the GM won't split the party, I don't assume challenges are balanced, I don't assume my character will survive. Most of my characters have "want to survive" on their priority list, although not always at the top.

Yet I still get to about the same place - it's just got a different reason. See, if someone - even me - builds a character who can do everything... well, what do they need the rest of the party for? If I build a god wizard face tactician... utilize Wield Skill & custom skill-boosting items... and an army of the undead... what do I need the other PCs for? I would never build this optimal, well-rounded character because... it just wouldn't be fun. For anyone.

So, if for no other reason than to make the game enjoyable by everyone at the table, I firmly believe in making sure everyone has a role to play, and that the easiest (and possibly best) way to accomplish this is to build more focused characters, who can't do everything well.

Thoughts?

I'm not advocating building a character who can do everything. Properly balanced that shouldn't be possible for a given system. D&D - in which god-wizards are not only possible but at high levels functionally baseline (especially in 3.X and PF) has massive balance issues between the classes. That's a separate problem, and why I used an example from within a single class.

Take the Thog versus Roy comparison. If they were both built using point buy then Thog is much, much more optimized than Roy. Roy's got points in intelligence, wisdom, and charisma he doesn't need. Roy's skills are also un-optimized - he's got cross-class skills in a knowledge of all things (and hey look, they helped him in precisely one encounter in his entire adventuring career, awesome). The story demanded that Roy defeat Thog but mechanically if they fight 100 times, Thog probably wins 90 of those bouts, most of them with ease.

If you're never going to split the party, then you should always build a Thog. Martials make inferior faces to any class with charisma as a primary or even secondary score and especially those that actually have a socially oriented class skill like diplomacy or gather information, and they lack the skill points to keep up with skill oriented classes in the skills department. Building Roy means you are doing nothing but throwing points away across the party as a whole.

Now, if you are going to split the party or challenge characters against their strengths, suddenly the super-specialist Thog approach becomes a death sentence and the much more well-rounded Roy makes more sense. Also, on the caster side the myopic nature of Varsuuvius' personality (low wisdom) shows its weaknesses when they're separated from Roy's leadership. Having the ability to handle a variety of challenges helps.

I should note that I don't expect characters to handle all sorts of level-appropriate challenges. That's super-characters and as mentioned, bad. The point of having well-rounded characters is that they can hopefully handle a bunch of much lower level challenges outside of their specialized skill zone. Whatever level Thog happens to be (12+ surely) he can't reliably handle a level 1 social challenge by himself. Whereas a much more balanced character like Haley can handle lower-level challenges outside her primary comfort zone - like running the Azure City resistance - with some efficacy.

This sort of issue becomes even more problematic in modern settings when you have characters who are supposed to be functional adults but have specialized to the point where they can't handle things the average 8-year-old would be expected to manage.

[kyoryu]

So, I've got a question for you here: what if you don't play to win? What if you don't play to be competitive with the local metagame? What if you just build and play a deck for the joy of building and playing with elves and goblins and fireballs? What if you build all the decks that everyone plays with, and tweak the balance or retire the deck if you find one of the decks just isn't fun?

You're assuming that the problem is that I don't like competition. I have no problem with competition. I enjoy it. I play hockey! That's why I didn't say "I don't like competition".

I. Don't. Like. Deckbuilding.

That "joy" you find in it? It's not there for me. I can't say this any more clearly. The times I've most enjoyed M:tG? Using prebuilt decks.

I could get into a lot of other high-level design discussion about preferring "game-time" decisions to pre-game decisions and a bunch of stuff like that, too. But suffice it to say I don't like optimization/deck-building/etc.

EDIT:

In retrospect, maybe I should have used the "deckbuilding" term more in this discussion, it may have helped people understand that I was saying I don't like the *process*, and wasn't talking about the *result*.