The Man Keeping the Martial Down

[Florian]

"Sorry you assumed that the burgers in my restaurant were made with food-grade beef. What, you think you see a sign anywhere in here promising that it's fit for human consumption?"

Not funny when that situation is true for where you live.

[Arbane]

Obstacle courses. Those have holes you can fall in, intentionally put there. I'd love to see you sue them. Also THEY DID NOT PROMISE THAT. They didn't explicitly say otherwise, which I'd have liked, but the idea that having two things in a game present means that they are of equal utility to all styles of play is absurdist.

Character generation should not be an 'obstacle course' unless you're playing something like Paranoia.

Yes, Scouts in Stratego are promised to be as useful as Marshals or Spies, Pawns are promised to be as useful as Queens, Rooks, or Bishops and the 2 of Clubs is promised to be as valuable in spades as the Ace of Spades. Your claim is patently false. There are dozens of games where this is not the case, in fact in most competitive strategic games it is not.

Is this the part where I have to remind you again that in a game of chess, both players get the SAME SET OF PIECES? It's not like one player has the 'opportunity' to pick 15 pawns and a king, which I guess would be the equivalent of playing a 3.X Fighter vs. a spellcaster.

[Max_Killjoy]

Not funny when that situation is true for where you live.

It wasn't meant to be funny.

At all.

It was meant to parallel the assertion that if a system doesn't explicitly promise that its character classes are all balanced and equivalent, then it's the player's fault if they assume any sort of balance and get burned.

[Florian]

@Arbane:

This is the part when you should give a little bit of thought when you are offered to pick and play one (and only one) chess piece and that choice is treated to being equal and balanced to every other choice.

[AMFV]

The difference between an "obstacle course" and D&D chargen is that an obstacle course is a competitive event where the other players are the enemy and victory is defined by using your superior knowledge to defeat them.

Right the enemy isn't other players, the enemy is the rules. The same way as in an obstacle course the enemy is the course and your body not other people on the course. This is why runners and lifters talk about PRs more than they talk about winning competitions, because they are most frequently competing with themselves.

D&D, for the most part, is a cooperative event with no defined victory condition and in which the purpose of your performance is to enhance the other players' performance or at least their enjoyment of the game.

It's all well and good to have an enjoyable character creation minigame, but when that minigame takes place at the expense of the actual game being played at the table, your design philosophy and execution are fatally flawed. 3.X is very much that game, and saying that it's better that way marks a person as someone who fundamentally fails to grasp the nature of D&D as a group activity and doesn't have any business playing D&D with other people.

The "git gud scrub" mentality has its place in less cooperative games, but in D&D it just makes you a toxic impediment to others' enjoyment.

I agree that 3.5 D&D did not work as well as it could for this case. That's never been in question here. Although I would argue that people who play with a lot of optimization and competition at the table aren't inherently toxic unless they take that attitude and attempt to force it on people who prefer a different style. Which actually in the current trends I've seen it's the other group more likely to try to force that.

"Sorry you assumed that the burgers in my restaurant were made with food-grade beef. What, you think you see a sign anywhere in here promising that it's fit for human consumption?"

No, this is you coming into a restaurant and throwing a fit because the meat in the burger is medium rare, and NOBODY COULD POSSIBLY LIKE A MEDIUM RARE BURGER AND MAKING BURGERS MEDIUM RARE IS BAD COOKING. That's the analogy. Non food-grade beef can hurt you. A character creation mini-game is never going to hurt you unless you already have some pretty serious issues. This is a matter of taste, people like different things.

By promoting character creation as a supposed "minigame" that players need to "develop skill in", he's unavoidably implying a gap between players in that skill, and unavoidably implying a win-loss scale that puts one player ahead of another.

It is true that some people are better at creating characters in games than others are. Some people are better at roleplaying in games than others are. Some people are luckier with dice than others are. If you're playing a game of the sort I'm discussing then the responsibility if you're better is to give other players advice (if they ask) and to generally not brag up your character, and to try to make a character that fits with the power level of the group. That's an element of the mini-game.

Furthermore, the results of character creation have ongoing effects on the subsequent actual gameplay, that unavoidably advantage the enjoyment of those players who quote-unquote "win" character creation over that of those who quote-unquote "lose" character creation when a system if full of "challenges and complexity" (that is, traps and bad options).

I'm not competing with the other players (although there could be a system where that was the case). I'm competing against myself and the rule system, the same way as when I lift weights I might not be competing with anybody but the weights.

Character generation should not be an 'obstacle course' unless you're playing something like Paranoia.

So unless the game is designed for that? That's exactly my point. Thanks!

Is this the part where I have to remind you again that in a game of chess, both players get the SAME SET OF PIECES? It's not like one player has the 'opportunity' to pick 15 pawns and a king, which I guess would be the equivalent of playing a 3.X Fighter vs. a spellcaster.

Might I again remind you of exactly what I've been saying.

1.) The Wizard is largely exempt from the character creation mini-game in 3.5. You literally just write Wizard on your sheet.

2.) The Fighter has a lot more work to do to make it work efficiently (and never as well as an optimized wizard in any case).

3.) Some games (4e and 5e) have made it so that the fighter has less work involved in the mini-game, and you just write fighter on your sheet to make it work as well as it should work in the game.

4.) I personally enjoy games where there is a character creation mini-game, so I enjoy playing fighters or gishes in 3.x.

5.) I was suggesting a hypothetical game where greater balance is achieved by forcing the wizard to play the same sort of character creation mini-game the fighter is

[Florian]

t was meant to parallel the assertion that if a system doesn't explicitly promise that its character classes are all balanced and equivalent, then it's the player's fault if they assume any sort of balance and get burned.

But we are talking about the situation that this particular promise is made, everything is paid for with the same coin and what you get for that has equal value, no matter your initial choice.

[Max_Killjoy]

No, this is you coming into a restaurant and throwing a fit because the meat in the burger is medium rare, and NOBODY COULD POSSIBLY LIKE A MEDIUM RARE BURGER AND MAKING BURGERS MEDIUM RARE IS BAD COOKING. That's the analogy. Non food-grade beef can hurt you. A character creation mini-game is never going to hurt you unless you already have some pretty serious issues. This is a matter of taste, people like different things.

Wow, way to just make it crystal clear and obvious you're only here to "win"... not that this should shock anyone at this point.

Here's the exchange again, for context:

And I would say that for what 3e intended to do, as measured by what they said in the books, 3e's design was an utter failure. This is also evidenced by what actually came out of it (ie not what they claimed). 3e made the promise that any of these classes would work. They didn't. They made the promise that Toughness was a valid choice for a bonus feat and roughly on par with a decent spell. It isn't. Etc. They (intentionally or not) left giant holes in their design that people could fall in and get hurt (metaphorically speaking). If a business did that physically, that'd be a tort lawsuit waiting to happen. Here, it's a design failure. And an objective one.

Also THEY DID NOT PROMISE THAT. They didn't explicitly say otherwise, which I'd have liked, but the idea that having two things in a game present means that they are of equal utility to all styles of play is absurdist.

They present all characters of level X as being equally valid and present that as the default assumption. So yes, they'd have to explicitly say that they intended it to be imbalanced. Otherwise they're either incompetent or malicious. Obstacle courses are explicitly marked as such. The entrance to a business is not. And character creation (as presented) is merely the prelude to the game, it's not the game itself. So it's much more like the entrance to a business, not an obstacle course.

Did they? They didn't say that, it's not written in the text. You have made that assumption...

"Sorry you assumed that the burgers in my restaurant were made with food-grade beef. What, you think you see a sign anywhere in here promising that it's fit for human consumption?"

By presenting a list of Classes without any ranking or notes, by presenting a list of Feats without any ranking or notes, and so on, by having them all cost the same, and presenting them in a framework where Levels and such supposedly measure character "power", the writers of 3e lead the reader to the reasonable conclusion that the Classes, Feats, etc, were fairly balanced. If, as you assert with your link to the Monte Cook comments, they did this on purposes, then they engaged in a knowing lie of omission by not telling the reader otherwise at any point, and engaged in deliberate deceit.

By presenting the beef for sale -- as food, for people, in a restaurant --the hypothetical owner made an implicit promise that it was safe for human consumption. A knowing lie of omission, a deliberate deceit.

(The relative danger is entirely beside the point, and that you'd latch onto that part is quite revealing.)

[Max_Killjoy]

But we are talking about the situation that this particular promise is made, everything is paid for with the same coin and what you get for that has equal value, no matter your initial choice.

When a player takes a level in Fighter or Wizard or whatever class, they're paying for that in exactly the same coin -- one character level. That the writers of 3e made them unequal, but not clearly so, reveals that they were either incompetent or malicious.

When a player takes one Feat over another, they're paying with exactly the same coin, but for two things that are unequal while not clearly so. That the writers of 3e made them unequal, but not clearly so, reveals that they were either incompetent or malicious.

[AMFV]

By presenting a list of Classes without any ranking or notes, by presenting a list of Feats without any ranking or notes, and so on, by having them all cost the same, and presenting them in a framework where Levels and such supposedly measure character "power", the writers of 3e lead the reader to the reasonable conclusion that the Classes, Feats, etc, were fairly balanced. If, as you assert with your link to the Monte Cook comments, they did this on purposes, then they engaged in a knowing lie of omission by not telling the reader otherwise at any point, and engaged in deliberate deceit.

By presenting the beef for sale -- as food, for people, in a restaurant --the hypothetical owner made an implicit promise that it was safe for human consumption. A knowing lie of omission, a deliberate deceit.

You're forgetting the goal is for the players to find the best ranking and feats. You're the one who made a conclusion that is the exact opposite of what the designers intended. Now I do think that they probably ought to have mentioned it in the primary source material. But they certainly mentioned it elsewhere. Also having played previous editions of D&D I would argue that the assumption is that things are unbalanced and you have to be a canny player to avoid character traps and literal traps. That's changed now, but when 3e came out it certainly hadn't.

When a player takes a level in Fighter or Wizard or whatever class, they're paying for that in exactly the same coin -- one character level. That the writers of 3e made them unequal, but not clearly so, reveals that they were either incompetent or malicious.

When a player takes one Feat over another, they're paying with exactly the same coin, but for two things that are unequal while not clearly so. That the writers of 3e made them unequal, but not clearly so, reveals that they were either incompetent or malicious.

1.) They are CLEARLY UNEQUAL. Like if you read the game rules they are not equal, they have different abilities, they are not intended to be equal. It's not lying to not come out and say that, although I think that it should be better for them to do so.

2.) It's not malicious to have some game elements be better than others.

[Max_Killjoy]

You're forgetting the goal is for the players to find the best ranking and feats. You're the one who made a conclusion that is the exact opposite of what the designers intended. Now I do think that they probably ought to have mentioned it in the primary source material. But they certainly mentioned it elsewhere. Also having played previous editions of D&D I would argue that the assumption is that things are unbalanced and you have to be a canny player to avoid character traps and literal traps. That's changed now, but when 3e came out it certainly hadn't.

If the designers actually had that intention, and never stated it in the text, and allowed the players to assume otherwise, they engaged in willful bad faith. More likely, they doubled down with an elaborate just-so story after the fact, when they realized what a mess they'd made, which would just be a different lie.

Either way, they engaged in deliberate deceit, and it says nothing good about their product.

I played D&D for 10+ years, and it never once occurred to me that the quirks and faults of the system might have been some sort of sick little "game" meant to "test and challenge" me as a player before the actual campaign ever started. The effort everyone I ever played with put into dealing with those quirks and faults was always, 100%, focused on fixing them or avoiding them, not exploiting them.

Of course, I left D&D behind 5 years or so (sometime in the mid 90s) before 3e came out, so it's likely that the editions I played never had the sort of intentional malice that Monte Cook ascribes to himself and his fellow devs on 3e.

1.) They are CLEARLY UNEQUAL. Like if you read the game rules they are not equal, they have different abilities, they are not intended to be equal. It's not lying to not come out and say that, although I think that it should be better for them to do so.

No, they are clearly DIFFERENT. "Different" and "unequal" are not matched sets, things can be different without being unequal.

It only became clear that they were outright unequal with actual experience, usually through quite a bit of gameplay over real time and many levels of progression -- and no, that is not a laudable design goal for an RPG system, ever, for any reason. It doesn't do anything to make the actual gameplay better, it doesn't help the players get anything out of the campaign, it doesn't "teach" anything, it just wastes time and effort.

2.) It's not malicious to have some game elements be better than others.

It is when it's intentionally obscured and designed to screw the players over until they realize what's going on.

[Talakeal]

Do note that Monte Cook himself says that, in hindsight, that sort of design was a mistake.

[Max_Killjoy]

Do mote that Monte Cook himself says that, in hindsight, that sort of design was a mistake.

Which is to his credit.

[AMFV]

If the designers actually had that intention, and never stated it in the text, and allowed the players to assume otherwise, they engaged in willful bad faith. More likely, they doubled down with an elaborate just-so story after the fact, when they realized what a mess they'd made, which would just be a different lie.

Again that quote is from early in 3.5's history, not later 3.5 history. Before people had realized that this was a polarizing subject.

Either way, they engaged in deliberate deceit, and it says nothing good about their product.

Not saying something that you should read in the text itself in the rules themselves with even a little thinking is NOT deliberate deceit, you could argue that it's being unclear, which it was, and that it could be improved on, which it could.

I played D&D for 10+ years, and it never once occurred to me that the quirks and faults of the system might have been some sort of sick little "game" meant to "test and challenge" me as a player before the actual campaign ever started. The effort everyone I ever played with put into dealing with those quirks and faults was always, 100%, focused on fixing them or avoiding them, not exploiting them.

Of course, I left D&D behind 5 years or so (sometime in the mid 90s) before 3e came out, so it's likely that the editions I played never had the sort of intentional malice that Monte Cook ascribes to himself and his fellow devs on 3e.

So you haven't actually spent any time with the rule system you're criticizing?

No, they are clearly DIFFERENT. "Different" and "unequal" are not matched sets, things can be different without being unequal.

It only became clear that they were outright unequal with actual experience, usually through quite a bit of gameplay over real time and many levels of progression -- and no, that is not a laudable design goal for an RPG system, ever, for any reason. It doesn't do anything to make the actual gameplay better, it doesn't help the players get anything out of the campaign, it doesn't "teach" anything, it just wastes time and effort.

It teaches you to be better at the game. When somebody plays golf it doesn't teach them much of anything other than being better at golf. Tiddlywinks, only makes you better at tiddlywinks. I mean you might get minor health benefits, the same way as D&D might make you a little better at math, but that's neither here nor there.

It is when it's intentionally obscured and designed to screw the players over until they realize what's going on.

I don't think it was intentionally obscured. I think reading Monte's statement and looking at the rules that they believed it wouldn't be something that they'd have to say. Which I think is the problem here more than any

Do mote that Monte Cook himself says that, in hindsight, that sort of design was a mistake.

He has said that, and I think the mistake was not being more upfront about it, not the design in general.

[Florian]

Do mote that Monte Cook himself says that, in hindsight, that sort of design was a mistake.

But he leaves out the why of it when talking about this particular topic.

They tried to replicate something that is quite successful in other types of media. When playing something like, say, Witcher, Mass Effect, Fallen, Fallout or something in this direction, the overall gameplay is so fast that you can repeatedly try out different "builds" and compare them against your own progress in one afternoon. I don't want to know how many games of Fallout 3/New Vegas I started until I managed to hit the right sweet spot for me.

Same as with one of the main driving forces behind games like Diablo and World of Warcraft, the intentional split in advancement between "levels" and items, which is the basis of why we have WBL in he first place.

So unless we talk about certain indy games, it is rare that we finish a game in one session, let alone finish a major plot line in 40 to 80 hours straight. Because of the lack of speed, I also don't see people willing to try and cut their teeth running characters against a model of, say, Ravenloft until they get it "right".

[Cluedrew]

As I am concerned, the only reason this is relevant is that whole archetypes* of characters are "trap options".

I once made a comment about a story that had a pretty crazy power curve that as crazy as it was you could stat one of the most powerful people in the setting as a mid-high level D&D wizard. Any you would need 60 levels of monk or something to stat their partner.

Does anyone have any other insights about how this topic is relevant to the thread? If not do you think we could wind this aside down soon? I don't mean to be a kill-joy but its been about 4 pages or so since this got started.

* With occasional narrow exceptions.

[Max_Killjoy]

It teaches you to be better at the game.

It just teaches players to be "better" at exploiting the system, picking away at the faults and holes and cracks to find advantages over other players. It's the worst parts of "Gamism" on ugly display, with obvious problems in the system being regarded as "part of the rules, so part of playing the Game".

[Max_Killjoy]

As I am concerned, the only reason this is relevant is that whole archetypes* of characters are "trap options".

That's where it started, before someone suggested that the "solution" was to make sure that all Classes would be trap options if played as simple single-class builds...

I once made a comment about a story that had a pretty crazy power curve that as crazy as it was you could stat one of the most powerful people in the setting as a mid-high level D&D wizard. Any you would need 60 levels of monk or something to stat their partner.

Huh -- were the two characters meant to be around the same "power"?

[FaerieGodfather]

I agree that 3.5 D&D did not work as well as it could for this case. That's never been in question here. Although I would argue that people who play with a lot of optimization and competition at the table aren't inherently toxic unless they take that attitude and attempt to force it on people who prefer a different style. Which actually in the current trends I've seen it's the other group more likely to try to force that.

Well, straight up, enjoying charop exercises and enjoying playing high-op characters doesn't make a player toxic. You're right.

But a system that requires charop expertise for PCs to have basic competence in a cooperative environment is going to foster a toxic mindset and attract players who already have a toxic mindset. You may not have witnessed this firsthand at your table, but I've seen it firsthand and I've heard about it secondhand at many tables.

The system design you're advocating for here works well in a game that lasts a couple of minutes or a couple of hours, where the consequences of failure are points awarded to one's opponent. When a game lasts for months and the consequence for failure is not defeat but rather irrelevance, treating "system mastery" as a virtue means making the game objectively worse for the majority of its players, both by definition and by design.

[Max_Killjoy]

Well, straight up, enjoying charop exercises and enjoying playing high-op characters doesn't make a player toxic. You're right.

But a system that requires charop expertise for PCs to have basic competence in a cooperative environment is going to foster a toxic mindset and attract players who already have a toxic mindset. You may not have witnessed this firsthand at your table, but I've seen it firsthand and I've heard about it secondhand at many tables.

The system design you're advocating for here works well in a game that lasts a couple of minutes or a couple of hours, where the consequences of failure are points awarded to one's opponent. When a game lasts for months and the consequence for failure is not defeat but rather irrelevance, treating "system mastery" as a virtue means making the game objectively worse for the majority of its players, both by definition and by design.

Not only does the game last a lot longer and take more investment per "run", there are no points awarded and no opponent to award them to to begin with.

[Cluedrew]

That's where it started, before someone suggested that the "solution" was to make sure that all Classes would be trap options if played as simple single-class builds...

I did not deme that was worthy of a response at the time. Now I feel it certainly wasn't worth multiple pages of this thread.

Huh -- were the two characters meant to be around the same "power"?

Yes. They have different strengths and weaknesses in and out of combat (because they both do things other than fight) but generally it is around the same level.

[AMFV]

As I am concerned, the only reason this is relevant is that whole archetypes* of characters are "trap options".

I once made a comment about a story that had a pretty crazy power curve that as crazy as it was you could stat one of the most powerful people in the setting as a mid-high level D&D wizard. Any you would need 60 levels of monk or something to stat their partner.

Does anyone have any other insights about how this topic is relevant to the thread? If not do you think we could wind this aside down soon? I don't mean to be a kill-joy but its been about 4 pages or so since this got started.

* With occasional narrow exceptions.

The original topic was started because I was discussing making Wizards have to jump through the same sort of hoops that fighters do. Which seemed like a really fun idea to me, since I absolutely love those kind of exercises. Of course, the idea that character creation complexity could be something people could enjoy is apparently heresy to some.

Basically in 3.5 (and other similar systems) when you're playing a "martial" character you have to jump through a lot more hoops to have the character work at its intended role. Like Wizard 20 is a fine practical optimization build for the Wizard, and your feat choices don't really matter (though they can help) nothing matters but that 18 in your casting stat and those levels. I mean other things can help, but they certainly aren't going to stop you from contributing. Whereas the fighter (or martial, since it's never a pure fighter) has to carefully plan feats, carefully plan dips and multiclassing as well as prestige classing (and usually winds up with a single trick at the end).

Now some systems (like 5e and 4e) have made it so basically the fighter is just writing fighter down on his sheet, and simplifying creation to where everybody shares a fairly simple character creation, so we've seen that as an attempt to bring the mundane and the martial classes closer.

The thing is that I enjoy that character creation mini-game, I enjoy building characters that are complex so much that I'll build sub-optimal casters to enjoy it. So I was speculating that it might be interesting to try to make a system that complexifies the Wizard builds instead of simplifying the martial builds, which is relevant. Until it got bogged down in telling me how anybody who enjoys competitive stuff is pretty much literally Hitler.

It just teaches players to be "better" at exploiting the system, picking away at the faults and holes and cracks to find advantages over other players. It's the worst parts of "Gamism" on ugly display, with obvious problems in the system being regarded as "part of the rules, so part of playing the Game".

It's not "exploiting" if the system is intended with that in mind. And most of the "exploits" that I recall tended to be things that DMs could shut down pretty easily. Most of the Pratical Optimization isn't any kind of exploitation. Generally speaking even at tables where things that are explotiative of the rules are tolerated they're somewhat frowned on.

Well, straight up, enjoying charop exercises and enjoying playing high-op characters doesn't make a player toxic. You're right.

Yes, I am.

But a system that requires charop expertise for PCs to have basic competence in a cooperative environment is going to foster a toxic mindset and attract players who already have a toxic mindset. You may not have witnessed this firsthand at your table, but I've seen it firsthand and I've heard about it secondhand at many tables.

Very possibly, but all sorts of games attract different kinds of toxic players. I don't think enjoying competitive stuff is a toxic mindset, I think that it's a style of game, and a fine one to enjoy.

The system design you're advocating for here works well in a game that lasts a couple of minutes or a couple of hours, where the consequences of failure are points awarded to one's opponent. When a game lasts for months and the consequence for failure is not defeat but rather irrelevance, treating "system mastery" as a virtue means making the game objectively worse for the majority of its players, both by definition and by design.

Typically in games of the sort we're discussing DMs are pretty lenient with allowing people to reroll. Since that's part of the game. So it probably won't last more than a couple sessions at worst. And I'm not sure that you could argue that the majority of gamers wouldn't enjoy a competitive game. At all. You could argue that it would be worse for a very vocal minority, who doesn't really have to play, they have their own games. I would think they're worse off, since variety is the spice of life, but whatever.

[Lord Raziere]

The thing is that I enjoy that character creation mini-game, I enjoy building characters that are complex so much that I'll build sub-optimal casters to enjoy it. So I was speculating that it might be interesting to try to make a system that complexifies the Wizard builds instead of simplifying the martial builds, which is relevant. Until it got bogged down in telling me how anybody who enjoys competitive stuff is pretty much literally Hitler.

Very possibly, but all sorts of games attract different kinds of toxic players. I don't think enjoying competitive stuff is a toxic mindset, I think that it's a style of game, and a fine one to enjoy.

Well, here is the thing, while I get that you feel your being attacked, I honestly can't disagree with Max Killjoy or his argument.

while your technically right in a general sense, that distracts from a looking at what makes a game toxic specifically and how to fix that. its like saying every nation has criminals, it doesn't address the specific crimes or how to deal with them.

[AMFV]

Well, here is the thing, while I get that you feel your being attacked, I honestly can't disagree with Max Killjoy or his argument.

Max Killjoy and others have explicitly attacked my preferences as being "toxic" without any evidence, and without even really understanding my preferences. I have done nothing like that.

You can't disagree with the argument that there is only one kind of game that people should play? If that is the case then you are part of the problem. The problem being that there is a culture that suggests that only one kind of game is appropriate. I want to have my variety.

while your technically right in a general sense, that distracts from a looking at what makes a game toxic specifically and how to fix that. its like saying every nation has criminals, it doesn't address the specific crimes or how to deal with them.

A game that is competitive is not inherently toxic. Period.

[Satinavian]

A game that is competitive is not inherently toxic. Period.

So you compete in the hours before the game in building strong characters. And when the actual game takes place, the players with the best rule knowledge, who can make most out of their characters, play the most powerful characters as the result of rhe prior build escersice. Session for session.

Sorry, but that is not a good design for a competitive game. In competitive games, you start over from scratch once one has won. Maybe you give out handicaps to make it less certain and obvious who will win. You don't get to transfer your score from earlier games into current matches to lord about players who were bad at the game a year ago.

So yes, to play that way is toxic.



Look, i do like character build minigames. Taking rules and thinking "how can i make this option actually work". Or "how can i approach this particular inspiration with the rules i am given even if the system is not the best match for such a character concept" or "How can i put a new, interesting spin on this old and boring archetype".

I do like barbie gaming and can waste many hours on a single character. But building for more power is not something i do. I build to have as much power as i intend for my character with consideration of the planned campaign and the rest of the group, certainly not more. Building for power as competition breaks the game.

[AMFV]

So you compete in the hours before the game in building strong characters. And when the actual game takes place, the players with the best rule knowledge, who can make most out of their characters, play the most powerful characters as the result of rhe prior build escersice. Session for session.

Sorry, but that is not a good design for a competitive game. In competitive games, you start over from scratch once one has won. Maybe you give out handicaps to make it less certain and obvious who will win. You don't get to transfer your score from earlier games into current matches to lord about players who were bad at the game a year ago.

So yes, to play that way is toxic.

First, I've stated that raw power is not the only metric that matters for this kind of system. As I have stated repeatedly (IN ALMOST EVERY SINGLE POST) I would build gish characters to get a more complex experience even though any time the Wizard dips or stops writing Wizard on their sheet it is almost always a net loss in power.

Yes, if people are lording it over other players that's bad. But you don't get to do that either. Because all that has to happen to change the dynamic is for the new player to do some research and read some books and come back with something that's more powerful than what I have.

In competitive games you get to keep your team or your deck (the equivalent of a character), when the Pirates win the world series, they aren't going to murder all of them and force them to start from scratch. When somebody wins an MtG tournament they don't burn his cards. And building good teams and good decks is inherently part of both those games. That's pretty nearly the analogue to building a character. You get to keep using your character, but that's not going to stop somebody else from coming along with something better (especially if there is more content released).

So not really toxic by that metric. The problem is that you are envisioning toxic people in that environment. Well I can tell you as probably one of the few people who enjoy as wide a variety of games as I do. There are toxic people in every kind of RPG, it manifests in different ways. But the toxic edgelord story guy in VtM is no less or more toxic than Ubercompetitor in D&D is.

Look, i do like character build minigames. Taking rules and thinking "how can i make this option actually work". Or "how can i approach this particular inspiration with the rules i am given even if the system is not the best match for such a character concept" or "How can i put a new, interesting spin on this old and boring archetype".

I do like barbie gaming and can waste many hours on a single character. But building for more power is not something i do. I build to have as much power as i intend for my character with consideration of the planned campaign and the rest of the group, certainly not more. Building for power as competition breaks the game.

It breaks some games. But if your table has everybody doing that (including the DM) it's probably not going to break the game. And a DM savvy enough to be running that sort of game is likely to know how to houserule things to fix any major breaks that come up.

[Satinavian]

In competitive games you get to keep your team or your deck (the equivalent of a character), when the Pirates win the world series, they aren't going to murder all of them and force them to start from scratch. When somebody wins an MtG tournament they don't burn his cards. And building good teams and good decks is inherently part of both those games. That's pretty nearly the analogue to building a character. You get to keep using your character, but that's not going to stop somebody else from coming along with something better (especially if there is more content released).

I'll give you the MtG deck, but not the team. The team are players and their competence is player skill. The analogue to keeping players is that you get to continue to use your skill at building characters, not that you keep the character you built.
And MtG only continues to be a thing because they introduced rotation so that people can't continue to use their overpowered decks in most formats and have to basically rebuild every season.

It breaks some games. But if your table has everybody doing that (including the DM) it's probably not going to break the game. And a DM savvy enough to be running that sort of game is likely to know how to houserule things to fix any major breaks that come up.

If everyone including the DM does it, then we have a game where all PCs and NPCs are built based no brainer picks, outliers and around rules with unintended consequences, gameplay will revolve around edge cases and leave behind most of the stuff the system tries to provide a rule base for.

Yes, you can do that and maybe even have some fun, but i would argue that such a game still counts pretty much as broken.

[Florian]

If everyone including the DM does it, then we have a game where all PCs and NPCs are built based no brainer picks, outliers and around rules with unintended consequences, gameplay will revolve around edge cases and leave behind most of the stuff the system tries to provide a rule base for.

Yes, you can do that and maybe even have some fun, but i would argue that such a game still counts pretty much as broken.

That's the whole reason for wanting a "balanced" game system. You see, this is a friendly form of competition that requires a level playing field and clear set of rules and accepted boundaries. It´s more like team-based sports games that have you act together as a team in competition with the other team, but also allows for internal rivalries and competition in individual performance.

The stuff that you describe has not much to do with a friendly rivalry but is rather trying to win at any price.

[AMFV]

I'll give you the MtG deck, but not the team. The team are players and their competence is player skill. The analogue to keeping players is that you get to continue to use your skill at building characters, not that you keep the character you built.

The character creation phase is most like building a team. You don't practice to get better at it, you crunch numbers.

And MtG only continues to be a thing because they introduced rotation so that people can't continue to use their overpowered decks in most formats and have to basically rebuild every season.

They do that to make money, there are other games where strategies have varied depending on what was introduced but where the game fundamentals have stayed mostly the same throughout.

If everyone including the DM does it, then we have a game where all PCs and NPCs are built based no brainer picks, outliers and around rules with unintended consequences, gameplay will revolve around edge cases and leave behind most of the stuff the system tries to provide a rule base for.

Yes, you can do that and maybe even have some fun, but i would argue that such a game still counts pretty much as broken.

That's not necessarily the case, there are games that have differing strategies with different advantages. I mean let's take D&D, what's the best fighter build? There's no direct answer for that question, because there are many different fighter builds with different advantages. I mean there are a lot of builds based around a theme, but getting mileage out of the theme is not always that easy.

[Satinavian]

That's the whole reason for wanting a "balanced" game system. You see, this is a friendly form of competition that requires a level playing field and clear set of rules and accepted boundaries. It´s more like team-based sports games that have you act together as a team in competition with the other team, but also allows for internal rivalries and competition in individual performance.

The stuff that you describe has not much to do with a friendly rivalry but is rather trying to win at any price.

Yes, that is why i write that seeing the character building minigame as a competition for power is a stupid way to play the game, if actually taken serious.

The character creation phase is most like building a team. You don't practice to get better at it, you crunch numbers.

No. Looking for other players to start a group is like building a team.

That's not necessarily the case, there are games that have differing strategies with different advantages. I mean let's take D&D, what's the best fighter build? There's no direct answer for that question, because there are many different fighter builds with different advantages. I mean there are a lot of builds based around a theme, but getting mileage out of the theme is not always that easy.

As i said, you can build for other things, like trying to build around a theme. I actually mentioned stuff like that as a way to have an enjoyable character building minigame.

But that is not a competitive game. It is not like people choose the same theme and compete to get closer to it in the current ruleframe.

[AMFV]

Yes, that is why i write that seeing the character building minigame as a competition for power is a stupid way to play the game, if actually taken serious.

What about the mini-game taken for it's own virtues as a game? That's what I was talking about. And have been since the very beginning outside of defending myself against a variety of accusations that have very little to do with my actual position.