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  1. - Top - End - #241
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    This is really still going?

    Min-maxing is necessary to acquire feats and statistics normally not allowed due to limitations.

    If you could just roll until you had statistics you were satisfied and would make min-maxing stats pointless. Feats on the other hand are basically impossible to ever acquire them all, but having even more can be a big boost depending on what it is.]

    Min-maxing is one of those things people say they dont care about, but they really do some degree. I dont see people willingly using the minimum statistics possible and trying to just play. Its more like you want 14 all round rather than 5 Charisma and 20 strength.
    Last edited by Chaosticket; 2018-01-31 at 11:17 PM.

  2. - Top - End - #242
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Koo Rehtorb View Post
    Only if you hate the idea of your character being vulnerable to anything...
    Max mostly covered this, but no. When being a muggle is (perceived as being) nothing but disadvantageous in 3e, do people really just continue playing muggles with neither complaint nor attempt to rectify the situation? Or do they display a clear desire to optimize their situation somehow?

    This inability of many GMs to make attachments anything but disadvantageous has logical consequences, that most such GMs rarely think through, and then complain about when they reap what they sow.

    Personally, I'm less concerned than Max on this particular point. So long as the GM isn't butchering my backstory, they're welcome to play my heartstrings in their monotone dirge of only viewing the people, places, and things that they've introduced in their world as "meat hooks", if that's all that they're capable of.

    Quote Originally Posted by Boci View Post
    Yeah, and there's a reason for that. Firstly of all, by RAW, there was no way to reliable tell the difference between a CR 2 monster and CR 10.
    Aside from Knowledge checks, Sense Motive, or even using "red shirts"?

    Quote Originally Posted by Boci View Post
    So no, its not demonstratably false for 3.5. The DMG has a rule that very few use, because it would literally be the opposite of fun for the majority of groups.
    I'll grant you that most groups believe that it wouldn't be fun. But, as I recall, your original position was one of "none", which was demonstrably false just from my own experiences, let alone being enforced by RAW.

    Quote Originally Posted by Boci View Post
    Every DM has their house rules. Ignoring them in a discussion about how people expirience the game will make for a rather pointless discussion.
    Unless discussing RAW, this is a mostly true statement. Is "don't be a ****" a house rule? If not, then one could argue that I've played at 3.x tables with no house rules. And I've certainly played at 2e tables with no house rules.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2018-02-01 at 01:04 AM.

  3. - Top - End - #243
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Max mostly covered this, but no. When being a muggle is (perceived as being) nothing but disadvantageous in 3e, do people really just continue playing muggles with neither complaint nor attempt to rectify the situation? Or do they display a clear desire to optimize their situation somehow?

    This inability of many GMs to make attachments anything but disadvantageous has logical consequences, that most such GMs rarely think through, and then complain about when they reap what they sow.

    Personally, I'm less concerned than Max on this particular point. So long as the GM isn't butchering my backstory, they're welcome to play my heartstrings in their monotone dirge of only viewing the people, places, and things that they've introduced in their world as "meat hooks", if that's all that they're capable of.

    I'll grant you that most groups believe that it wouldn't be fun. But, as I recall, your original position was one of "none", which was demonstrably false just from my own experiences, let alone being enforced by RAW.

    Unless discussing RAW, this is a mostly true statement. Is "don't be a ****" a house rule? If not, then one could argue that I've played at 3.x tables with no house rules. And I've certainly played at 2e tables with no house rules.
    this really sums up my point on why my backstory is "to be developped". if it's necessary, it'll appear in 3 sessions' time. if it's not, i won't really bother fleshing out the past in favor of the present. if a dm butchers my backstory (and it has happened), i'll be very angry, especially if the dm gloats about it. like my anecdote stated, my current dm is acing my backstory, and we're fleshing it out together. he's the exception to my experiences, and he loves a good backstory. for him, when the character retires, it'll read like a true biography, full of ups, downs, successes, failures, and overcoming challenges, like a good biography should contain.

    as for the last bit, correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't that rule n°1 of pen and paper? i know for a fact it's in the first 3 pages of the pathfinder phb, and fairly confident it's in the intro to the 3.5 dmg. who in their right minds would play with jerks? as we say in french, that's fetching the stick to get beaten with.

    @chaosticket, i think you're accidentally contradicting yourself in your last sentence: you posit that most players would rather play with overall
    good average stats with no dump stats rather than outliers, and yet you say that people do care about min-maxing? i agree i prefer playing with no real outliers (and so do a lot of my fellow players, unless they want a challenge), but the way you wrote it seems self-contradicting. do you mean "people think about min-maxing a lot specifically to avoid it"? your 20 to 5 example is clearly min-maxing, you straight 14's sounds like a plea for "balanced" characters where they're jacks of all trades rather than specialists (again, my favorite kind of character, but with its own set of limitations).
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  4. - Top - End - #244
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    If your going to have the players just make demi god characters, why even bother to play the game?
    Because it's fun. Why else would you be doing it?

    Re: Backstories

    Using backstories to help find things to motivate characters is also complicated a bit by how much the player wants their character's backstory to be relevant. In some games, it could be expected that "something related to your family's mine happened, so you want to go figure out what's going on" and the like the norm for quests. In others, "your family is asking for a favor" is going to be an annoying distraction from the real story.

    That being said, I can't see the direct link between "threaten low-level PC family" and "PCs rapidly grow in power over the course of the story". In fact, it seems like a bit of a gamble for anyone who doesn't have effectively infinite resources, given the amount of travel that can easily be involved in a game. Yes, Mighty Mage Mark's family may be a pair of level 2 Experts, but finding out who they are, where they are, and then going all the way over there to threaten them seems like a waste of resources you could otherwise use to just ambush them (since you can obviously hit them with plenty of divination or gather information all about their past for this to work). Worse, it's not even a guaranteed success. "I have a family?! The monks said I was an orphan!" and "Eh, my family? They kicked me out when I showed signs of sorcerous talent, why would I care about them more than Peasant Bob?" are just as possible as "Well this sucks, better run into the obvious trap to save them", after all.
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  5. - Top - End - #245
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Boci View Post
    Yeah, those are all pretty terribly ways of handling the issue. IC aproach to an OOC problem rarely end well.
    I think we're talking by each other on this.

    1) There're game systems that explicitly allow for this kind of choice, but also tie them into the character mechanics. So you can start with your bodyguard, but you have to pay character XP to upgrade the bodyguard, for example.

    2) Difference between Internal and external stuff. You can start with a +5 sword, and that sword can simply be stolen, the bodyguard can be killed, the manor house you inherited burned down. So that's a very simply issue to handle, unlike stuff that is internal to the character, like extra feats, higher ability scores or more skill points.

    3) Blatant cheating. If stuff like gaining the sword, bodyguard or manor is not part of the character creation rules that you players should use and the issue is not brought up as a polite request before the actual game and the player shows up trying to enforce it by "power of backstory", there's the door.

    That's why itīs a bit different from the proposed "stats as you like" variant, as that still follows some rules, is talked about in the group and may take many forms, like a gm saying "ok, use PB 40, no attribute lower than 12, no higher than 20" or "hereīre three arrays, chose one and a free template".

  6. - Top - End - #246
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Chaosticket View Post
    Something bothers me about roleplaying games involving luck. Focusing on abilities, statistics, and ways to improve them is frowned upon but you still need those things to succeed and progress. You need as many bonuses as possible to win at life and death dice rolls.

    I personally like well rounded characters with synergy between abilities. I keep thinking about different ideas but when I do they are compared to and compete with min-maxed classes which can be optimized further.

    Different discussions ive read reinforce negative behavior. I want to make characters I can have fun with but it's either waiting to gain the abilities to start functioning and being useless before then or making something good now but generic and that will fade into obscurity.

    So either play with a fun concept and suck or follow trends so I can play well.

    EDIT: this isnt about minmaxing being bad. Its about games that push players to make them not out of personal goal but necessity.
    High difficulty checks, invincible enemies or ones with powerful abilities you cant counter. Unbalanced difficulty spikes negating any fun unless you win.

    I play in organized campaigns and each scenario is wildly different. There are no resurrections, no difficulty adjustments, just minmax to win.
    I find it fascinating that you create a thread for something you answer yourself, even in the very question you ask.

    Obviously, if you need minmaxing to play, it is not bad. That's nothing but basic logic.

    The issue, of course, is if you can imagine that there may be cases when minmaxing is not needed to play. In those cases, people can find it good or bad for various reasons.

    How on earth did this thread get so long from such a simple question?
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    More like zero to demigod, at least in some editions. Not that I think "heroic fantasy" is defined by zero to anything -- that strikes me as over-applying The Hero's Journey as prescriptive instead of descriptive/analytical.
    Hm. Interesting point. Thinking of it, you might be right, that will lead to a huge detachment from the setting and in-game reality by focusing only on overcoming the challenge and the resulting growth.

    As I mostly gm tightly themed campaigns anyway, I've got the luxury to work with it in reverse. I hand my players a list of "plot hooks" and they must chose one each concerning locations and persons to integrate into their characters backstory and hand my a plot hook based on the backstory of their own in return. So a "kidnapped family" will get you a "story feat" with an "ongoing" and a "completion" reward, like "Your family has been kidnapped by the Night Heralds, your investigation has lead you to the town of Rushmoor. Ongoing: Favored Enemy: Night Heralds. Completion: a +2 bonus against charm, compulsion, fear or pain related spells".

  8. - Top - End - #248
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    And yet "endangering the character" is entirely beside the point.

    Most player characters can take care of themselves.

    It's about endangering things and people that the character cares about, that often can't take care of themselves -- if the only thing that happens to things the character cares about is that they get killed, kidnapped, threatened, endangered, and otherwise used as leverage against the character, ...
    If that's all that happens to them, the the player characters can't take care of anything. In fact, their loved ones also get rescued, in every game I've had in which they were involved at all.

    Something is going to get used as leverage to get the PCs to the adventures. That doesn't change.

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    ... then that only gives the player incentive for their characters to care about absolutely nothing, to have no attachments and no connections.
    That may be true for some players, but I find that experience points and loot and rescuing people I care about is at least as satisfying as just experience points and loot.

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Plus, it's just plain contrived when it keeps happening. It's like the TV series wherein if "our dashing hero" falls in love, you know the object of his affection is going to die, get sick, get kidnapped, have a dark secret that takes her away by the end of the episode, turn out to be an enemy plant or spy, or be the mysterious enemy catburgler that the episode is about catching.
    A. I've never had that incompetent a DM. In fact, my characters' families have been threatened, lost in the woods, kidnapped, and then we rescued them. Are there really DMs who are setting up games in which the PCs always fail? And if so, why do people play with these DMs?

    If the DM is arranging that the rescue mission always fails, then it makes no difference to me whether we fail to rescue our loved ones, the princess, a village full of strangers, or a stray cat. In over 40 years of role-playing, I've never had such a bad DM. But if I did, I would blame the DM who did it, not the backstory he used as a tool.

    B. Yes, of course a series of D&D sessions is just like an adventure TV series. We're trying to tell a series of stories. How many times has Lois Lane been kidnapped, robbed, or just been present at an earthquake?

    C. Yes, having the loved ones threatened each session by monsters of exactly the right CR is exactly as contrived as going to the tavern and finding a quest that sends them each session to fight monsters of exactly the right CR. The basis of a D&D campaign is contrived. But don't blame the PCs' families for that.

    Families or not, the PCs will be fighting the monsters over something that matters to them.

  9. - Top - End - #249
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    I'm running Savage Worlds in the Starfinder setting.

    One guy is the CSO of a large corporation on Eox. He ended up in a death game with all the other COs and their minions for control of the company. (This is a side mission)

    Every CO he named ended up being an enemy and he named a lot of powerful undead creatures.

    Maybe that's a "meat hook" to your group but my group hasn't expressed such an opinion so far.

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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    Something is going to get used as leverage to get the PCs to the adventures. That doesn't change.
    True, but that doesn't mean that it's all the same and equal. "Leverage" in terms of "do what NPC X says or you explode" is different from "you're in a nice village, and it's being attacked by orcs".

    C. Yes, having the loved ones threatened each session by monsters of exactly the right CR is exactly as contrived as going to the tavern and finding a quest that sends them each session to fight monsters of exactly the right CR. The basis of a D&D campaign is contrived. But don't blame the PCs' families for that.
    Only if you don't bother to make it not contrived (or use it as a catch-all for "anything that happens due to chance or wasn't done by explicitly planned-out actions by known actors). I wouldn't call a campaign hinging on 'go to a tavern for quests of exactly your CR every week' bad, but I wouldn't expect it to be praised for its story.
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Aside from Knowledge checks
    Does it though?

    "In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster."

    That doesn't sound like it would tell you how dead you are. Unless "identify" also gives you CR, which I doubt it will since CR isn't really suppose to exist in game. I would assume "identify" gives you a name and three word description. Maybe you luck out, and one of its special abilities is "finger of death as a spell like ability" which probably tell you it isn't CR 2, but short of that knowledge checks are surprisingly unrealible, especially since higher CR monsters will need a higher knolwedge check to identify. Unless a players metagames knowing a 17 not identifying the creature means it is high HD and thus probably CR, they're not goin to know to run away.

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Sense Motive
    I'm guessing you're refering to the Complete Adventurer expanded use for sense motive, since core won't help you. The new one will (provided the creature doesn't have any ranks in bluff), but it requires you to spend a standard action and be within 30ft, which is not that safe.

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    "red shirts"?
    Sure, that works, but the tactic has practical and ethical questions.
    Last edited by Boci; 2018-02-01 at 10:37 AM.
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Boci View Post
    Sure, that works, but the tactic has practical and ethical questions.
    "Red Shirts" in the sense that you show the power and danger of a monster before the actual encounter. Example: In the setting I use, Hellknights are a highly competent knightly order and each one must have bested a devil with greater HD in single combat to gain entry (PrC requirements, earliest entry is at 6th level). As these are well-known facts in the setting, you can describe the deadlines of an over-CR monster by describing how it takes down and munches on one of those knights or showcase how an Save or Die abilities/Aura of Insanity mows down some commoners. Most of the time, that will serve to take the point across. If not, good luck.

    Quote Originally Posted by PersonMan View Post
    Only if you don't bother to make it not contrived
    Why should you bother? As a working adult, I just have limited free time to engage in hobbies. RPGs are already a luxury because they need prep time outside the actual gaming session. For me that means a weekly group of Pathfinder and a biweekly group of L5R. If I have to "sugar coat" it in verisimilitude or "convince the character", than no, that's wasted time. You want to play, then bring a character that is eager and willing to play along, as "Ok, the usual. We need to fly, we need to drug B.A." is only getting in the way.

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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    If that's all that happens to them, the the player characters can't take care of anything. In fact, their loved ones also get rescued, in every game I've had in which they were involved at all.
    Whether they get rescued or not is entirely beside the point, which is why I didn't even mention it.

    The point is that when their only involvement in the campaign is when they're used as leverage against the PC, when they're in danger or threatened or killed or missing or whatever... it gets old and contrived in a hurry, and provides perverse incentive to have no connections.

    There are so many other ways in which those characters could end up involved in the game, although some of those other ways do involve elements other than conflict and combat. (Example, I once had only two of six players show up for a session due to weather, so I ran the two through one of the PCs going to visit his home village, learning that his sister was engaged, dealing with a minor crime spree mystery, and exactly one "round" of barely-threatening combat the entire time. No one was under mortal threat, or missing, or possessed, or... whatever. The village was in no danger of being burned down or turned to undead. And the two players had an absolutely blast.)

    But if the focus of the game is so narrow that only "fighting, loot, and XP" counts, then I see no reason at all for the GM or other players to care in the first place whether a PC has any connections at all.


    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    Something is going to get used as leverage to get the PCs to the adventures. That doesn't change.
    If a PC only moves when a large and scary lever is applied, then that's an entirely different problem.


    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    That may be true for some players, but I find that experience points and loot and rescuing people I care about is at least as satisfying as just experience points and loot.
    The list of motives and elements that can make a game "satisfying" is far larger than that, and "rescuing loved ones" is a very small part of it. Your post appears to be an assertion that the choice is between "XP and loot", or "XP, loot, and rescuing people you care about".


    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    A. I've never had that incompetent a DM. In fact, my characters' families have been threatened, lost in the woods, kidnapped, and then we rescued them. Are there really DMs who are setting up games in which the PCs always fail? And if so, why do people play with these DMs?

    If the DM is arranging that the rescue mission always fails, then it makes no difference to me whether we fail to rescue our loved ones, the princess, a village full of strangers, or a stray cat. In over 40 years of role-playing, I've never had such a bad DM. But if I did, I would blame the DM who did it, not the backstory he used as a tool.
    Who said anything about always failing? I don't recall saying anything about success or failure.

    The analogy was about the predictable, cliched pattern that develops.


    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    B. Yes, of course a series of D&D sessions is just like an adventure TV series. We're trying to tell a series of stories. How many times has Lois Lane been kidnapped, robbed, or just been present at an earthquake?
    And it gets contrived, and old, and boring, and predictable, and cliched, whether it's a TV series or a game. It gets even more so because the pattern carries over between works of fiction, and it caries over between games.


    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    C. Yes, having the loved ones threatened each session by monsters of exactly the right CR is exactly as contrived as going to the tavern and finding a quest that sends them each session to fight monsters of exactly the right CR. The basis of a D&D campaign is contrived. But don't blame the PCs' families for that.
    No, I blame the DMs for that, whether it's always "tavern and quest of the week" or always "threatened cared-about-NPC of the week".

    As a GM, if you ask your players to give their characters things they care about, it is incumbent upon you to vary how you involve those things they care about -- have a bigger toolbox than just the hammer, and stop looking at all families and home towns and love interests as nails to be pounded on until the PC reacts.
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Florian View Post
    "Red Shirts" in the sense that you show the power and danger of a monster before the actual encounter. Example: In the setting I use, Hellknights are a highly competent knightly order and each one must have bested a devil with greater HD in single combat to gain entry (PrC requirements, earliest entry is at 6th level). As these are well-known facts in the setting, you can describe the deadlines of an over-CR monster by describing how it takes down and munches on one of those knights or showcase how an Save or Die abilities/Aura of Insanity mows down some commoners. Most of the time, that will serve to take the point across. If not, good luck.
    Which makes it sound like your Hellknights get "Worfed". Eventually people stop taking them seriously, and they become a running joke.
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Florian View Post
    "Red Shirts" in the sense that you show the power and danger of a monster before the actual encounter. Example: In the setting I use, Hellknights are a highly competent knightly order and each one must have bested a devil with greater HD in single combat to gain entry (PrC requirements, earliest entry is at 6th level). As these are well-known facts in the setting, you can describe the deadlines of an over-CR monster by describing how it takes down and munches on one of those knights or showcase how an Save or Die abilities/Aura of Insanity mows down some commoners. Most of the time, that will serve to take the point across. If not, good luck.
    I doubt that's what he meant, since Quertus has been advocating Combat as War, and in war you don't always get a handy demonstration to see the power level of an enemy before you engage.

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Which makes it sound like your Hellknights get "Worfed". Eventually people stop taking them seriously, and they become a running joke.
    Only if it happens a lot. In most games its rare for PCs to be face to face with monsters that they cannot hope to defeat, and if its just once or twice it can be memorable, serve a point, whilst still keeping the hellknights as the awesome order of warriors they are.
    Last edited by Boci; 2018-02-01 at 10:19 AM.
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Florian View Post
    Why should you bother? As a working adult, I just have limited free time to engage in hobbies. RPGs are already a luxury because they need prep time outside the actual gaming session. For me that means a weekly group of Pathfinder and a biweekly group of L5R. If I have to "sugar coat" it in verisimilitude or "convince the character", than no, that's wasted time. You want to play, then bring a character that is eager and willing to play along, as "Ok, the usual. We need to fly, we need to drug B.A." is only getting in the way.
    Why should you? Because it makes the game more fun. Otherwise, there's no need. So in your case, you shouldn't. In my case, I absolutely should.

    The reason I worded my previous statement the way I did was because of the claim of "The basis of a D&D campaign is contrived", which implied if not outright stated that every game of D&D is of said variety, and I disagreed. In hindsight, a more neutral formulation like "Not if you put in the time and effort to make it not" would have been better, but as-is the wording shows my preference quite clearly.

    EDIT: I think the key difference can be explained this way: For you, the work in question is unnecessary, so it's either a waste or, at best, inefficiently-used time - and time is limited. So it's a bad idea. For me, not investing that time drags down the entire experience, making it an especially valuable use of time since it enhances all of the time spent playing.
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Florian View Post
    Why should you bother? As a working adult, I just have limited free time to engage in hobbies. RPGs are already a luxury because they need prep time outside the actual gaming session. For me that means a weekly group of Pathfinder and a biweekly group of L5R. If I have to "sugar coat" it in verisimilitude or "convince the character", than no, that's wasted time. You want to play, then bring a character that is eager and willing to play along, as "Ok, the usual. We need to fly, we need to drug B.A." is only getting in the way.
    Quote Originally Posted by PersonMan View Post
    Why should you? Because it makes the game more fun. Otherwise, there's no need. So in your case, you shouldn't. In my case, I absolutely should.

    The reason I worded my previous statement the way I did was because of the claim of "The basis of a D&D campaign is contrived", which implied if not outright stated that every game of D&D is of said variety, and I disagreed. In hindsight, a more neutral formulation like "Not if you put in the time and effort to make it not" would have been better, but as-is the wording shows my preference quite clearly.

    EDIT: I think the key difference can be explained this way: For you, the work in question is unnecessary, so it's either a waste or, at best, inefficiently-used time - and time is limited. So it's a bad idea. For me, not investing that time drags down the entire experience, making it an especially valuable use of time since it enhances all of the time spent playing.
    You're both right.

    It's possible to make a game less contrived and more "natural feeling" with even a moderate bit of work on tying things together and dealing with more complex PC motives.

    It's also absolutely reasonable to expect the players who show up with characters who do not need massive effort or a running "drug BA" gimmick to get them involved in the events of the campaign. I've had my absolute fill of PCs who would be minor non-POV secondary characters appearing in three scenes in most fiction... or the "POV character" of too many lit-fic novels (books that also have really long names and lots of positive critical response...)
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Boci View Post
    I doubt that's what he meant, since Quertus has been advocating Combat as War, and in war you don't always get a handy demonstration to see the power level of an enemy before you engage.
    True. But, in a more realistic world, you'd be steeped in the history and stories. You'd know the tale of the Hellknights who surrounded an orb of many eyes, only to die in many horrific ways. You wouldn't need to see them die in front of you to understand the threat it represents.

    But, since no-one wants to get a PHD in "Quertus' World" to go along with their Associates Degree in 3e, especially for a drop in game, well, sometimes, you have to cheat to make things as close to real as feasible.

    So, while that may not be my preferred implementation of the "red shirts" technique, it is a valid implementation nonetheless.

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    I've had my absolute fill of PCs who would be minor non-POV secondary characters appearing in three scenes in most fiction... or the "POV character" of too many lit-fic novels (books that also have really long names and lots of positive critical response...)
    Just curious what you meant by this - what type of characters, and your fill of seeing others play them, or of being forced to play them yourself?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Just curious what you meant by this - what type of characters, and your fill of seeing others play them, or of being forced to play them yourself?
    Having to be in the same games with them; they were often repeatedly made by the same specific players.

    Characters who possess neither the mindset, nor the skills / abilities, nor the motivations, to make them any sort of protagonists/heroes/main characters in a work of fiction, nor to make them worthwhile PCs in an RPG.

    * The guy who just wants to run his shop and go home to his family at night and constantly has to be dragged out to engage with the content of the campaign ever damn session -- not the sort who starts out reluctant, but rather the sort defined by their reluctance.

    * The "over their head" character who stays "over their head", or the inept character who never gains any competence... because their defining trait is their utter uselessness and the player has decided that making them anything better than utterly useless would "violate the concept"... so a year into the campaign they still can't get out of their own way and constantly have to be rescued, or at best they hide when anything dangerous starts.

    * The character who should be useful, but the player steadfastly refuses to make their mechanical competence reflect their fluff/concept competence because "that would be optimizing".

    * The sort of character who, in most science fiction or fantasy would be that guy the protagonists run into at a shop, or have to rescue when the ship is boarded by pirates, and then we never see them mentioned again.

    * The sort of character so tertiary that they never get a name in the book or movie.

    * The sort who is the main character of a "literary fiction" novel (probably with a 17-word title) detailing a random week of his life and spending entire chapters on his trips to the local market and his inability to decide on oranges or tangerines for this weekend when he has the kid, and the entire book he's waffling over whether to get a dog but never actually comes to a decision....
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

    Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.

    The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.

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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    Having to be in the same games with them; they were often repeatedly made by the same specific players.

    Characters who possess neither the mindset, nor the skills / abilities, nor the motivations, to make them any sort of protagonists/heroes/main characters in a work of fiction, nor to make them worthwhile PCs in an RPG.

    <snip>
    Wow. A rare time I'm in absolute, full agreement. None of those are proper RPG PCs in any game I'd like to play. There may be games where they fit, but I don't want to play those styles of games. And especially not fit for a D&D-style adventuring game (heroic people doing heroic things heroically).

    I tell players to make characters that want to be there and that the rest of the party wants to have along. No obnoxious jerks, no anti-optimized drags-on-party-resources, no "I'm just a crafter who can't really adventure", no "I'm a god/noble with castle/whatever."
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    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    There may be games where they fit, but I don't want to play those styles of games.
    I often play games that are more "down to earth" in power level and story impact, but even then they donīt fit in due to passivity or not wanting to participate (I donīt consider "Slice of Life" stuff to be game, really). In most of the cases, I just offer them to be there when we game, sit at the table, share a beer and have a chat, but not play along.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    * The guy who just wants to run his shop and go home to his family at night and constantly has to be dragged out to engage with the content of the campaign ever damn session -- not the sort who starts out reluctant, but rather the sort defined by their reluctance.

    * The "over their head" character who stays "over their head", or the inept character who never gains any competence... because their defining trait is their utter uselessness and the player has decided that making them anything better than utterly useless would "violate the concept"... so a year into the campaign they still can't get out of their own way and constantly have to be rescued, or at best they hide when anything dangerous starts.

    * The character who should be useful, but the player steadfastly refuses to make their mechanical competence reflect their fluff/concept competence because "that would be optimizing".
    i chuckled at that, imagining a situation where i'd be confronted to this player.

    unless you're serious and have had personal experience with such players, in which case i'm mortified for you.

    there's anti-optimizing, and anti-game. one i'll forgive (playing a drunken monk and acting like the main damage dealer? sure! go ahead, i'll be your backup!), the other i'd like to share a cup of something with the player and ask for motivations as to why one would play that style of load. i mean, you're not only a load to yourself but to your team.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    True. But, in a more realistic world, you'd be steeped in the history and stories. You'd know the tale of the Hellknights who surrounded an orb of many eyes, only to die in many horrific ways. You wouldn't need to see them die in front of you to understand the threat it represents.
    Except you kinda do. The hellknights after all could just be 2nd level fighters with good equipment, an infernal aethetic and good PR agent. Yes, in a realistic world you are going to hear stories. Plural. You'll hear how a troll once ate the entire town guard of a city over the course of the day and shrugged off the mage guild's spells, but also how another troll in the neibouring kingdom was killed by a shepard boy with a sling shot to the head.
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    Quote Originally Posted by PhoenixPhyre View Post
    Wow. A rare time I'm in absolute, full agreement. None of those are proper RPG PCs in any game I'd like to play. There may be games where they fit, but I don't want to play those styles of games. And especially not fit for a D&D-style adventuring game (heroic people doing heroic things heroically).

    I tell players to make characters that want to be there and that the rest of the party wants to have along. No obnoxious jerks, no anti-optimized drags-on-party-resources, no "I'm just a crafter who can't really adventure", no "I'm a god/noble with castle/whatever."
    Quote Originally Posted by Florian View Post
    I often play games that are more "down to earth" in power level and story impact, but even then they donīt fit in due to passivity or not wanting to participate (I donīt consider "Slice of Life" stuff to be game, really). In most of the cases, I just offer them to be there when we game, sit at the table, share a beer and have a chat, but not play along.
    A "slice of life" session or side-arc can be work as part of a campaign, as a counterpoint or "emotional balancing" element, for example, or as a side-session with one or two players as opposed to the entire group. This is usually a bit more workable if the campaign centers more around a particular locale so that the characters' lives outside of "the campaign" are accessible without derailing or diverting the "main arc".

    Unless the campaign demands immediate engagement without any buildup or framing first, I'm fine with the character who starts out reluctant, or who is an unremarkable person thrown into remarkable circumstances... but they have to adapt and find some reason to engage with what's going on. The character who starts out just wanting to be with his family realizes that what's going on is a threat to his family and "steps up" to join the fight and protect the place his family lives, stop the threat to the things he cares about, etc.
    Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2018-02-01 at 03:15 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Guizonde View Post
    i chuckled at that, imagining a situation where i'd be confronted to this player.

    unless you're serious and have had personal experience with such players, in which case i'm mortified for you.

    there's anti-optimizing, and anti-game. one i'll forgive (playing a drunken monk and acting like the main damage dealer? sure! go ahead, i'll be your backup!), the other i'd like to share a cup of something with the player and ask for motivations as to why one would play that style of load. i mean, you're not only a load to yourself but to your team.
    I have played with those players, and they ran those characters.
    Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2018-02-01 at 03:02 PM.
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

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    The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.

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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Boci View Post
    Except you kinda do. The hellknights after all could just be 2nd level fighters with good equipment, an infernal aethetic and good PR agent. Yes, in a realistic world you are going to hear stories. Plural. You'll hear how a troll once ate the entire town guard of a city over the course of the day and shrugged off the mage guild's spells, but also how another troll in the neibouring kingdom was killed by a shepard boy with a sling shot to the head.
    I used that specific example, because in the game world I use, there are some things you cannot fake, act like, or make copies of. A "realistic world" often doesn't include people having a tangible "aura" that's unique and unmistakeable, as an example, so we tend to discuss these matters in the way we understand it, which certainly doesnīt include an "Aura of the Hellknight". Same holds true for a "Halcyon Aura" and other some such things, that people above 6th level tend to develop and exhibit.

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    A "slice of life" session or side-arc can be work as part of a campaign, as a counterpoint or "emotional balancing" element, for example, or as a side-session with one or two players as opposed to the entire group. This is usually a bit more workable if the campaign centers more around a particular locale so that the characters' lives outside of "the campaign" are accessible without derailing or diverting the "main arc".

    Unless the campaign demands immediate engagement without any buildup or framing first, I'm fine with the character who starts out reluctant, or who is an unremarkable person thrown into remarkable circumstances... but they have to adapt and find some reason to engage with what's going on. The character who starts out just wanting to be with his family realizes that what's going on is a threat to his family and "steps up" to join the fight and protect the place his family lives, stop the threat to the things he cares about, etc.
    Iīm negatively influenced by the german RPG scene, where D&D is not really existent and DSA is the mainstream leader. Itīs common here that you find one player, we call the character an "Alric", that doesn't want to "step up" or make an "transition", but keeps RPing "slice of life" and trusts on the gm giving up and handing them a free pass for bypassing each challenge. So, "Alric the baker" will never be "Alric the hero that started as a baker".

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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Florian View Post
    I used that specific example, because in the game world I use, there are some things you cannot fake, act like, or make copies of. A "realistic world" often doesn't include people having a tangible "aura" that's unique and unmistakeable, as an example, so we tend to discuss these matters in the way we understand it, which certainly doesnīt include an "Aura of the Hellknight". Same holds true for a "Halcyon Aura" and other some such things, that people above 6th level tend to develop and exhibit.
    Alexander the Great's soldiers believed that if they pressed too far east, demon/giants would devour them. I'm sorry but no, the hellknights are not rumour proof. Peasants are not reliable recorders of a knights power. The fear aura could be mundane fear to an organization called hellknights, which is an entierly reasonable response. When I was 14 I was stopped by the police after they had reports of someone spitting on them in my streets. I wasn't involved, it was the first time I had heard of it, and yet I was trembling talking to them.
    "It doesn't matter how much you struggle or strive,
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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    I would guess people who don't like min-maxing would generally be more interested in systems that don't require it as much, and maybe have more focus on the narrative aspects?

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    Default Re: Why is min-maxing bad when you need it to play?

    Quote Originally Posted by Boci View Post
    Alexander the Great's soldiers believed that if they pressed too far east, demon/giants would devour them. I'm sorry but no, the hellknights are not rumour proof. Peasants are not reliable recorders of a knights power. The fear aura could be mundane fear to an organization called hellknights, which is an entierly reasonable response. When I was 14 I was stopped by the police after they had reports of someone spitting on them in my streets. I wasn't involved, it was the first time I had heard of it, and yet I was trembling talking to them.
    Sorry, Boci, you donīt seem to have a firm grip on what it means when you drop the "Natural" and firmly replace it with the "Supernatural". The Worldwound is populated by demons, every mountain is populated by giants, the Human homeland of Atlantis was sunk by a god called down for the stars and the few surviving human "empires" cover barely the edge of our mediterranean sea. The night sky is really the Dark Tapestry and it hungers to devours your soul, and so on.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Florian View Post
    Sorry, Boci, you donīt seem to have a firm grip on what it means when you drop the "Natural" and firmly replace it with the "Supernatural". The Worldwound is populated by demons, every mountain is populated by giants, the Human homeland of Atlantis was sunk by a god called down for the stars and the few surviving human "empires" cover barely the edge of our mediterranean sea. The night sky is really the Dark Tapestry and it hungers to devours your soul, and so on.
    Yes, that does rathe undermine your point. In an age of no magic, people invented demons/giants. In an age of magic....peasants would certainly not be mistaken about what a hellknight, or any knight for that matter, could do because....reasons? The existence of magic will just make the exaggerations more believable.

    "A knight in Tulsworth snapped his fingers and half the village burst into flame"

    What actually happened was the knight led a unit of soliders into the town to search for a traitor who was hiding there, and as part of the search effort ordered the tavern birned down. But between panicked eye witnesses, later embelishments and honests mistakes, by the 19th reletelling it had the above. How does the existence of spellcasters who could genuinly do that, or something very close, somehow prove the nights cannot be distorted by rumour?
    "It doesn't matter how much you struggle or strive,
    You'll never get out of life alive,
    So please kill yourself and save this land,
    And your last mission is to spread my command,"

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