"Power gamer" hate?

[Rhedyn]

Not all class-based systems are as locked down as 3.X. But yes, point-buy systems tend to facilitate this type of mechanical reflection of character growth better.

Woah, Savage Worlds is not point buy like GURPS (outside of Supers). It's a bit simpler than that.

[Quertus]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_arc

Even If we take this as prescriptive rather than descriptive, or view it as the desired end goal for role-playing then, even according to the link you sent, growth isn't expected for anyone but the main character, and isn't even required for them. Seeing as how I've literally played a sentient potted plant next to a (figurative) Thor, one should not be surprised to hear that I not infrequently play a supporting role, for which such growth is not required, and can even be disadvantageous to the emergent story.

To continue to pick on my signature character, Quertus is very much an "app for this" wizard. Whenever he encounters something that he doesn't have a spell for, he goes out and researches a new spell to augment his capabilities. In that regard, he fits perfectly - far better than most characters I've ever seen, in fact - the linked notion of growth and increased capabilities. The only difference is, since he's usually traveling with parties capable of resolving the issues themselves, we don't have to put the campaign on hold for months while we run Quertus' training montage; instead, he can simply pick up these skills during downtime.

Because living people, real people, change based on their environment. Characters who merely observe and meddle, but aren't changed by the events of the campaign ring real hollow, like chess pieces. They're avatars, not people I can imagine being organically there. You don't expect a 2D cardboard cutout to change as he experiences events, but you do expect a person to change.

I've changed, greatly. Growing up, I set up my own character build as an MD-PhD. Academic medical research, because I hated interacting with people but liked science. I also said that

a) I hated high school. With a burning passion.
b) I strongly preferred physics to chemistry.
c) I strongly preferred cold climates to hot climates.

Then, in college, I realized that physics was more fun and I didn't care as much as the other pre-meds did. So I changed course and ended up doing a physics (quantum chemistry) PhD. My goal was to go into academic research. At first. Then I started teaching as a grad student, and discovered that a) I liked it, and b) I was good at it. So I figured I'd be a college professor.

And then I graduated and couldn't find a post-doc to save my life. So I decided to take that teaching thing and try teaching at an independent (private) school. As it turns out, I got a job teaching high school chemistry (and physics) in Florida. And I love it. My whole attitude toward people, toward teaching, toward lots of things has changed. My skill-set has changed. And I'd expect characters to do the same. Because I want to see characters that aren't caricatures.

Well, we're in strong agreement about wanting characters rather than caricatures.

So, let's say that I want to run a medical school game. The person playing you decides that their character doesn't care enough, and changes major. As for the rest of the character's, well... Adam can't handle the stress, and commits suicide. On a lucky roll, Bob wins the lottery, and decides to go for early retirement. Charlotte was doing fine, until Douglas raped her, then murdered her in a failed attempt to cover up his actions. Edgar found solace at the bottom of a bottle, until a drunk driving accident left him paralyzed for life, and a little brain damaged. So, of the entire initial party, not a single character made it to the boss round with the final exam.

If you actually play games Sandboxy enough to consider that a successful campaign, then, yes, I will fully support your position.

But I have been conditioned to consider that campaign a failure. I build, choose, and value my characters accordingly. And, if I say I'm running a political sandbox, I expect the other players to know their characters well enough to know that they can and will engage the political adventure politically, and not just murderhobo, or drop out because they discover that their characters don't do political. I'm not interested in a whole party full of unknowns for a serious campaign.

[Satinavian]

To continue to pick on my signature character, Quertus is very much an "app for this" wizard. Whenever he encounters something that he doesn't have a spell for, he goes out and researches a new spell to augment his capabilities. In that regard, he fits perfectly - far better than most characters I've ever seen, in fact - the linked notion of growth and increased capabilities. The only difference is, since he's usually traveling with parties capable of resolving the issues themselves, we don't have to put the campaign on hold for months while we run Quertus' training montage; instead, he can simply pick up these skills during downtime.

And how does this character work in settings where "researching a new spell" simply isn't a thing ? And where he coudln't even in his backstory ever researched new spells ?

[Quertus]

Greyhawk. Maybe Birthright?

Mystara, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and Eberron all use their own cosmology.

Ravenloft and Darksun may exist in the larger multiverse, but a big part of those settings is their isolation and difficulty with planar travel.

Spelljammer and Planescape are of course meta-settings which contain a version of all the other campaign worlds, but they have fundamentally different cosmologies to most of them.

Perhaps we're using words differently. Spelljammer and Planescape both connect... All?... Official settings? That's all I care about. I have no clue what the person who started this line of thought cared about.

And how does this character work in settings where "researching a new spell" simply isn't a thing ? And where he coudln't even in his backstory ever researched new spells ?

These words make no sense.

I mean, sure, not every D&D city, town, village, cave, and plane has an established library of research materials, thousands of gold worth of supplies for him to purchase, etc. But, as I said, as the issue is rarely pressing, Quertus can simply wait until he goes home. Or, in 3e, until he levels, and learns spells automatically.

The "couldn't have even in his backstory" is completely incomprehensible. It's like saying the USA couldn't have been a British colony, even in its backstory.

[PhoenixPhyre]

To continue to pick on my signature character, Quertus is very much an "app for this" wizard. Whenever he encounters something that he doesn't have a spell for, he goes out and researches a new spell to augment his capabilities. In that regard, he fits perfectly - far better than most characters I've ever seen, in fact - the linked notion of growth and increased capabilities. The only difference is, since he's usually traveling with parties capable of resolving the issues themselves, we don't have to put the campaign on hold for months while we run Quertus' training montage; instead, he can simply pick up these skills during downtime.

To be very honest, Quertus as described seems to me to be an utterly toxic character. The worst combination of the Load and the Mary Sue DMPC. You're either useless (since you've described him as utterly tactically inept and non-participatory) or overpowering (when you have the right spell). That concept would get an instant, peremptory ban at any table I'm DMing, and I would rebel as a player. Depending on how its played, it likely comes across as patronizing. You sit back, do next to nothing while everyone else is risking their lives, and then solve everything with a wave of your wand.

This may just be description, but no. Just no.

Well, we're in strong agreement about wanting characters rather than caricatures.

So, let's say that I want to run a medical school game. The person playing you decides that their character doesn't care enough, and changes major. As for the rest of the character's, well... Adam can't handle the stress, and commits suicide. On a lucky roll, Bob wins the lottery, and decides to go for early retirement. Charlotte was doing fine, until Douglas raped her, then murdered her in a failed attempt to cover up his actions. Edgar found solace at the bottom of a bottle, until a drunk driving accident left him paralyzed for life, and a little brain damaged. So, of the entire initial party, not a single character made it to the boss round with the final exam.

If you actually play games Sandboxy enough to consider that a successful campaign, then, yes, I will fully support your position.

But I have been conditioned to consider that campaign a failure. I build, choose, and value my characters accordingly. And, if I say I'm running a political sandbox, I expect the other players to know their characters well enough to know that they can and will engage the political adventure politically, and not just murderhobo, or drop out because they discover that their characters don't do political. I'm not interested in a whole party full of unknowns for a serious campaign.

I have no idea what you're trying to say or how it relates to my point. Can you say it in a different way maybe? I'm totally lost here.

[Talakeal]

Perhaps we're using words differently. Spelljammer and Planescape both connect... All?... Official settings? That's all I care about. I have no clue what the person who started this line of thought cared about

Its kind of a weird one-way thing.

Sort of like how the Marvel movies are canon to the TV series, but the TV series are not canon to the movies.

If I am playing Planescape I can travel to Toril because it exists in the setting. If I am playing Forgotten Realms I cannot travel to Sigil.

The cosmologies and metaphysics of the settings are just incompatible as written. For example The Great Wheel does not exist in Forgotten Realms or Eberron, and those planes contain the realms of setting specific deities who, in Planescape, have been moved to the Great Wheel.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Its kind of a weird one-way thing.

Sort of like how the Marvel movies are canon to the TV series, but the TV series are not canon to the movies.

If I am playing Planescape I can travel to Toril because it exists in the setting. If I am playing Forgotten Realms I cannot travel to Sigil.

The cosmologies and metaphysics of the settings are just incompatible as written. For example The Great Wheel does not exist in Forgotten Realms or Eberron, and those planes contain the realms of setting specific deities who, in Planescape, have been moved to the Great Wheel.

Exactly. Planescape has a sub-setting that shares the same name as the planet on which Forgotten Realms is set, but FR Toril =/= Planescape Toril. To borrow a computer science term, they're in different namespaces. Different settings entirely.

Not only that, but DM.JoeBob.FR.Toril and DM.Jane.FR.Toril are different implementations and cannot be assumed to be drop-in replacements. And that's by explicit rule in all editions, straight in the PHB.

[Quertus]

To be very honest, Quertus as described seems to me to be an utterly toxic character. The worst combination of the Load and the Mary Sue DMPC. You're either useless (since you've described him as utterly tactically inept and non-participatory) or overpowering (when you have the right spell). That concept would get an instant, peremptory ban at any table I'm DMing, and I would rebel as a player. Depending on how its played, it likely comes across as patronizing. You sit back, do next to nothing while everyone else is risking their lives, and then solve everything with a wave of your wand.

This may just be description, but no. Just no.

It must be the description - Quertus is arguably my most successful MMTFPC (Massively Multi Table Friendly Player Character)

Think - theoretically this tier 1 powerhouse that the playground would expect to totally overshadow the other PCs, but limited by his own tactics and personality.

I have no idea what you're trying to say or how it relates to my point. Can you say it in a different way maybe? I'm totally lost here.

I probably can't say it better (especially after my first rely was eaten!), but I'll try to explain.

You said that you like characters who are like real people, not caricatures. Same.

Then you said that you like characters to change. And you gave an example of how someone changed - yourself.

So I tried to show you what I think that would look like in a game.

If someone brought you as a character to a med school game, then left the campaign partway through, because the player realized that med school just wasn't your thing.

My question is, would the games you play consider that scenario a successful character / game / campaign?

Because, if so - if you really do play such Sandboxy, character first games, where leaving the game because that's what your character would do is considered a win, then your argument is internally consistent, and I can totally get behind your PoV. And I'm arguably a little jealous.

But me? I've been conditioned to consider that a fail case. An extreme one, actually, where a character billed as "strongly prefers physics to chemistry, strongly prefers cold climates to hot climates, hates high school with a burning passion" leaves the med school game to go teach high school chemistry in Florida.

For the style of games I'm used to, your player would have been considered disruptive, and probably kicked out. I've been conditioned to believe that it is optimal for the player to know the character better than you knew yourself before committing to a serious game.

So, my question is, which of those better describes the style of games that you play?

[CantigThimble]

The med school example is completely different from every RPG I've played because there is no 'party' the way you described it. You described 6 random, independent stories that just so happened to be in the same place at the same time.

When you get 6 people around the table to play an RPG they should be working together to tell the story. There should be some overarching purpose that unites them as well as individual relationships between them. There can be conflict between characters of course, but there also needs to be an understanding between the players that they're working together to tell a good story, and that they're going to resolve the conflict in a way that will allow the group to move forward.

If there is no cooperation, then you get the random unrelated stories that collapse into confusion like you described.

Allowing character development doesn't mean allowing any kind of character development whatsoever. There are constraints imposed by the structure of the game.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Quertus, let me respond using my own games as examples.

My starting premise for games I DM in my own setting is

"You are all graduating today from the Adventurer's Guild Academy as newly licensed Adventurers. Make characters that have a reason to be risking their lives as Adventurers. If it's an achievable goal, let me know if you want to pursue it and if reached, if you want to retire the character when it's done."

If, after some time (or even immediately), it was clear that someone wasn't cut out as an Adventurer or had reached their goal and no longer had a reason to continue, I'd gracefully transition them out and bring in a new character. Most likely, that old character would end up as an NPC that future adventuring groups could encounter. If they weren't a good fit but wanted to be, I'd talk to the player and see what events could be thrown their way to let the character become a good fit.

So yes, I'd consider a character who retired and went on to other things to absolutely be a win for that character, as long as the player was satisfied. I care to see where the character's thread leads. What knots it gets into. How its thread affects the others.

I have kids dropping out pretty frequently, as school life gets in the way. I started this last school year with about 10 players, and ended up with 4. Their characters drifted off, finding new things to get involved in or were written out of the story.

Without the unknown, with everything determined in advance, the game is boring. If the only choices are come out on top, unchanged, and fail and die, I'll put the controller down and play something else (to mix a metaphor).

In the game I'm in as a player, if my character hit a point where she'd retire or was becoming unfit for the story, I'd certainly retire her and switch to one that wants to be there. And the group would be just fine with that. Because the other options (force the character into shape or play with a character that's a bad fit) are horrific. I've seen characters grow. I've had characters retired because they were bad fits (either in mechanics or personality). And if it's the player that's a bad fit, I'll walk away or get them to (depending). I've done that too, on both sides.

The fun of the game comes first, for everyone. Wanting to play a particular character, wanting to go a certain direction, "plot coherence", all of these are secondary. If people aren't having fun, someone needs to change until fun is maximized. I do enough annoying stuff as an adult. Doing un-fun stuff in a game, especially out of pride, laziness, or ego is a total waste. Better not to play in that case.

Edit: and knowing where a character has been and what they're like now doesn't mean you know what they'll be like later. The past is but a prologue, the future is yet to come. Pay performance is no guarantee of future returns.

[Guizonde]

Character growth and not needing to know everything go hand in hand. Because you can start a game with a basic idea (the 1000' view of the setting) and iteratively expand your knowledge in play, unless you're tied to a very specific, inflexible character. I usually only have broad brush-strokes of a character when I begin--the rest comes out in play. Not even that it's changing, but that I'm discovering how this person was all along as they talk to me through play.

i re-learned that lesson with my inquisitor. my knowledge of pathfinder (and golarion) extended to the slums of riddle-port, and i'm being a bit generous here. my dm asked for an all-divine caster party, so i rolled up the inquisitor in the most stereotypical riddle-port "borderline scumbag" style i could. hell, the team only figured out after 3 sessions i wasn't a duellist or a rogue but a full-blown inquisitor used to going undercover.

the dm and i worked things out to center the beginning of the campaign in riddle-port, and off we went. let's just say that a half-drow riddle-porter is seen slightly worse than the plague outside. i had fun roleplaying that, and i learned enough about golarion to roll up a credible new character on my own after a year. the inquisitor, meanwhile, is becoming less of a cocky scumbag (to fit in better. he's still cocky) and is starting to learn that the world outside his city is both nicer and much worse than he could ever imagine.

for my rogue trader character, it was a bit easier. i'm a massive 40k nerd, so i'm willingly separating what i know to what an ex-stormtrooper would. poor raymond is finding out the hard way why you don't screw around with chaos and psykers. (40 corruption points gained in 4 sessions. i'm a bit miffed about that, but it's raymond's fault he's buddy with a very powerful psyker).

[PhoenixPhyre]

i re-learned that lesson with my inquisitor. my knowledge of pathfinder (and golarion) extended to the slums of riddle-port, and i'm being a bit generous here. my dm asked for an all-divine caster party, so i rolled up the inquisitor in the most stereotypical riddle-port "borderline scumbag" style i could. hell, the team only figured out after 3 sessions i wasn't a duellist or a rogue but a full-blown inquisitor used to going undercover.

the dm and i worked things out to center the beginning of the campaign in riddle-port, and off we went. let's just say that a half-drow riddle-porter is seen slightly worse than the plague outside. i had fun roleplaying that, and i learned enough about golarion to roll up a credible new character on my own after a year. the inquisitor, meanwhile, is becoming less of a cocky scumbag (to fit in better. he's still cocky) and is starting to learn that the world outside his city is both nicer and much worse than he could ever imagine.

for my rogue trader character, it was a bit easier. i'm a massive 40k nerd, so i'm willingly separating what i know to what an ex-stormtrooper would. poor raymond is finding out the hard way why you don't screw around with chaos and psykers. (40 corruption points gained in 4 sessions. i'm a bit miffed about that, but it's raymond's fault he's buddy with a very powerful psyker).

Honestly, I dropped my longest-running group into my world with the following introduction--

"Make characters from <race/class list>. You'll all start in prison in a highly traditional nation; one that believes that they're the only light left in the darkness. All I want to know at session 1 is why you're in jail. Could be a frame-job, could be for real, I don't care."

At that point, all I knew about the world was a rough map (now superseded multiple times over), a starting point (being given a choice between death and becoming an Expendable/Adventurer) and a first couple missions for them. After that, I built the world around them as they went. What was intended as a job-board campaign turned into an epic "gather the surviving nations and forge an alliance against a Demon Prince" campaign, then turned into "go where gods cannot, end an Age, begin a new one, and punch a Demon Prince really hard in his ugly, tentacled face a bunch of times at the center of the Astral Plane" campaign. I mean, one of the central players in the campaign was an NPC that was only supposed to exist for one session (to fill in for players who couldn't make it) but ended up becoming the mascot of the party and then sacrificing her existence (under the players' control) to make a world-reshaping Wish of incredible proportions. And that Wish wasn't at all what I had been thinking it would be, but was instead much better and more fitting.

No one had a doctorate in my setting at the start. Because most of it didn't exist when we sat down to play. It was entirely "and where do we go from here? What are they going to grab a hold of? What will I have to expand, what can fall by the way-side?" They ended up going zig when I was expecting zag enough that I got really really good at on-the-spot improv. I ended up making an entire micro-civilization of Symps (ape-human hybrids) when they decided the hole with the scary undead thing in it wasn't where they wanted to go right there.

[LudicSavant]

That's incredible. I don't think I have ever seen a single group, or even a single player, who didn't do that sometimes. Its also incredible that you have had the opportunity to play with dozens upon dozens of groups over the years, you are a very lucky gamer.

To clarify though, when you say "the most powerful option," do you mean the most powerful option in the given situation, or do you mean "THE MOST POWERFUL OPTION PERIOD," Like Pun-Pun or something? Because if its the latter I can see that a lot easier.

When I say most powerful option, I mean exactly that. Ergo, Pun-Pun would qualify. Doing 100 damage in a round would not.

For example, if I am a perfectly skilled optimizer and the group has decided that we are all going to play characters with a power level of six out of ten (just making up numbers here) but the character concept I had in mind is only a 4 out of 10 I am going to be torn between taking the more powerful option to better fit with the party or the less powerful option to stay true to my character concept.

If you are aiming for 6 out of 10 on the power scale instead of 10 out of 10, you are not in fact choosing the most powerful mechanical option the system makes available to you, now are you?

Personally i share the experience of the savant here. People with near perfect system mastery know very well how imbalanced the system is and how to break it effortlessly and that it would be utterly pointless to do they. They tend to use their skill to get exactly the power level for their character they want.

They don't have to impress anyone with system mastery. The whole table knows their system mastery level anyway. They don't get any feeling of accomplishment from winning through optimization because that is trivial. They might get it from making something subpar that is universally shunned into a powerful option. Because that is a challenge. But building a strong, even OP character alone is no challenge for them.

Pretty much.

[Satinavian]

These words make no sense.

I mean, sure, not every D&D city, town, village, cave, and plane has an established library of research materials, thousands of gold worth of supplies for him to purchase, etc. But, as I said, as the issue is rarely pressing, Quertus can simply wait until he goes home. Or, in 3e, until he levels, and learns spells automatically.

The "couldn't have even in his backstory" is completely incomprehensible. It's like saying the USA couldn't have been a British colony, even in its backstory.

If you are actually playing standard D&D with standard D&D wizard rules.

But you want to import Quertus into pretty much all games. Including non-D&D ones. If you insert him into some Call of Cthuluh game he won't be able to just develop new spells or get them by levelling up.
Even in pretty much all fantasy systems it is not possible for PCs to just create new spells. (Because then the rules would have to provide guidelines about all possible spells). And in nearly all fantasy systems spells are recognized as a source of power and can only be learned by permanently burning huge amounts of build point/ex or level ups. Even if you only want to get new existing spells. Most of those systems have wizards, but playing a wizard there does not mean you get to research completely new spells or that you ever get a huge number of spells you could theoretically cast.
And this can happen even if D&D dervates are used. It is not exactly uncommon to e.g. have Spheres of Power or something like that replace regular magic.

And yes, if the world has "There does not exist standard D&D Vancian wizard magic. Wizards can't just research new spells, that is not how magic works. It never did so. And those rules don't change if you step into some portal to get into some linked world." and you import Quertus, he won't have been able to have researched those spells in the past either.

[Quertus]

@PP - thank you for the explanation. While the style you describe sounds awesome, I have been conditioned to consider that disruptive behavior, and would feel awful about "messing up the game" that way. It'd take some careful (or bludgeoningly forceful) explanation to have any chance of acclimating my expectations to such a game.

But you want to import Quertus into pretty much all games. Including non-D&D ones.

Ah. I understand the confusion now. Although this may be a technically true statement, it has nothing to do with anything I've stated in this thread.

I was only talking about how, say, a 12th level D&D character (who happens to be a perfect fit for the group and adventure, no less) would be rejected for play in a 12th level D&D game simply because he's been played at another table.

Come to think of it, how did I get off on this tangent?

[Rhedyn]

Players can create spells in Savage Worlds. What you do is learn a new trapping for a power that you have. Powers are unlocked via leveling, but new trappings is basically a new spell.

Zadmar's Fan made Vancian Magic helps with this.

And with the Rifts setting, you can easily justify crossing through a multiverse and ending with roughly balanced characters through the MARS packages.

Otherwise Savage Worlds characters are still easily transferable because you just retrap powers as needed to reflect the setting and having Legendary Characters playing next to Novices can totally work out.

Idk what all this world hoping talk has to do with power gaming though....

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'll try to be more on topic with this--

I think that one environment that gives incentives to find every possible power-boost for a character is organized play (AL, PFS, conventions, etc). These tend to have low group coherence (party composition changes from session to session), inter-table play (same character, multiple tables), and in general lower-strength table norms (DM power, ability to use OOC "dude, just no" conversations, etc). This often breeds a competitive atmosphere--it's every player for themselves, no (legal) holds barred. In that case, it's not only normal to "power game", it's almost required if you want to stay relevant.

And to @LudicSavant--I was thinking more about marginal optimization, while you're discussing absolute optimization. Pun-pun and friends (TO builds) require complicit DMs and were never really designed to show up at a table. So of course you don't see many of them. What you do see are people who evaluate every possible choice through the lens of "how does this make me more powerful", with character considerations or "fluff" considerations second, third, or disregarded entirely. It's how (in 5e), you end up with so many people pushing 1H quarterstaffs and shields for paladins--there's a rules interaction between a paladin feature (smites) and a feat (Polearm Master) that grants that combo significant strength--you get most of the power of a 2H weapon, with the AC of a shield as well. Despite looking real goofy and making little in-universe sense.

[Arbane]

"A 'power gamer' is anyone who optimizes more than I do."

[Quertus]

I think that one environment that gives incentives to find every possible power-boost for a character is organized play (AL, PFS, conventions, etc). These tend to have low group coherence (party composition changes from session to session), inter-table play (same character, multiple tables), and in general lower-strength table norms (DM power, ability to use OOC "dude, just no" conversations, etc). This often breeds a competitive atmosphere--it's every player for themselves, no (legal) holds barred. In that case, it's not only normal to "power game", it's almost required if you want to stay relevant.

Well, this sounds a lot like my home turf, so I'll weigh in.

In the open tables where I learned to play, power gaming was indeed quite common. An analysis of the causes of this behavior could be quite informative to the thread topic. First, let me echo a lot of what you've said about organized play, as a lot of it holds true for my roots, too.

A high supply of tables and GMs, coupled with the fact that a given player may only be there for a session anyway, meant that the threat of getting "kicked out" was fairly meaningless. However, "dude, just no" was not only absolutely a thing, but common practice back in my day.

Players who were egocentric were given lots of positive reinforcement for that behavior - not the least of which was that metagaming was considered the greatest Evil. So, if you weren't looking at the metagame, weren't looking at other players, and only looking at yourself, Power gaming gave only positive reinforcement - you got to contribute more. I'd say that this egocentric attitude is a lot of what fueled my old tables' parallel to what you describe as "competitive".

The measure of group coherence is an interesting one. On the one hand, because groups were fluid, there would seem to be little incentive to form bonds with others. On the other hand, because people had such a huge pool of experience, when they found a group where they just "clicked" there was high incentive to stay, because you knew what other tables were like, and how valuable this table was. Subsequently, I'd argue that long-term tables were actually more cohesive back in the day than modern tables, because they were formed by like-minded individuals from a huge pool, rather than just whatever random group of people you happen to be friends with as is often the case in (some of the best of) modern groups.

So, most tables had primarily or exclusively players with war gamer roots. This led to a competitive attitude (in terms of player vs GM), as well as a cooperative attitude (in terms of players ganging up on the GM (or his monsters)).

But it also led to players treating characters like playing pieces, evaluating and optimizing their capabilities, and, often, carrying little about anything else. While this behavior is generally perfectly fine in a competitive, reasonably balanced war game environment, it does not translate to an RPG setting quite so cleanly.

As strong evidence that I have not been secretly replaced with Folders Crystals, I will, of course, lay much of the blame squarely at the feet of the GMs, as one would expect from someone with my general "it's the GMs fault" bias.

First, I'll put forth the notion that one of the leading causes of power gaming was that the GMs treated the characters like playing pieces. "Oh, you want to play x? Well, just change this and this and this, and it'll be fine." The United States, but not as a former British colony, instead as a thousand year old civilization created by the same aliens that created Egypt? Not the same thing. Most GMs, IME, didn't comprehend role-playing, didn't value the integrity of the character, and fostered the "character as a playing piece" mentality. Which is something I've been fighting against most of my life. If I want taco meat, I want taco meat, dagnabbit, not munitorium-grade taco meat substitute, substitute. It is not the same thing.

Then there's the more obvious faults to be laid at GMs feet: both the Killer GMs, and the meat grinders that were prevalent in ye olden days of yore. Meat grinders really encouraged players to view their characters as playing pieces. There's little point to invest in, get attached to, or go to the trouble of making a personality and backstory for your character if the ink wouldn't be dry when they hit the trash bin. And killer GMs who weren't happy unless at least one character died? Well, IME, the incentive was to optimize enough that that person wasn't you. And why stop there?

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Me, I come from war gamer roots. So, yes, I care about the G in RPG. But I'm in it for the RP - if what I primarily cared about were G, I could get that from a war game. But I also care about the enjoyment of the group, which meant carrying that everyone felt that they contributed, that they had a role to play.

I think a lot of players learned a lot, conceptually, by me joining their tables, or by them visiting one I played at. I'd demonstrate a great mastery of the rules... to create a highly suboptimal character - because the contribution to the game I cared about was primarily role-playing, and not overshadowing the other players. Or, when someone new joined one of the tables I played at, and brought something highly overpowered compared to the group metagame, I'd pull out something ridiculously much stronger, and then ask if they'd care to tone it back to the level of the group. I believe that I taught a great many players about the power of friendship the concept that power gaming wasn't the only possible Good in the world.

[Florian]

Funny, how different gaming culture can develop. In Germany, the 800 pound gorilla in the room is a system called DSA, which started as a sorta-kinda oD&D clone, but rapidly developed into something Gurps-like. Right from the beginning, the rules and mechanics were created with only one thing in mind, modeling the setting Aventurien, so it´s next to impossible to divorce mechanics from fluff. So, for example, there is no generic "Wizard" class or package, but there're various academies and teachers and you will have to create your "Wizard" based on one of those, which will influence initial spell and feat selections, cost for upgrading and new ones, so on.

The setting, Aventurien, has an extremely loyal fan base and many groups keep using it, even after switching to systems like SaWo or Fate. This is important, because the local scene doesn't have war-gaming roots of any kind, so unlike D&D, the focus on what's deemed important is the setting over the mechanics/rules and practically all groups will "nope" any character build or attempted action that would break the fluff. As it´s a "shared game world", it´s generally easy to find and join groups/tables and also no big thing to import pre-existing characters, because they will more or less automatically fit in (caveat emptor, assuming that all participants have characters on the same timeline).

DSA is a very rules heavy system, so attaining a high level system mastery is possible and even required. It´s also a ultra fine granular system that at times puts 3E/PF to shame in this regard (ex: Nothing auto-scales. Imagine having to buy each d6 of a Fireball spell separately or breaking Power Attack into Power Attack 1 to 20 as a feat chain, or having a "mercantile" skill, then needing to buy 10 feats to actually do something with it).

As a rules heavy system, you can quite easily power game it, optimize stuff and planning builds using Excel or something. This will garner some "hate" when going against established conventions. You're expected to create a more or less fully functional personality, reflected race, culture, background and previous job experience that should be able to function "in real life". So, for example, while it´s reasonable to only have one character in party with certain skills, like cooking or mending weapons/clothings and specialize on a role, like "face", a character without a broad skill and knowledge base would get rejected as not "fitting the setting".

Edit: As you can guess, this means that the players have to learn the setting before the rules, as the rules only make sense when you know what it is they're actually modeling.

[Talakeal]

When I say most powerful option, I mean exactly that. Ergo, Pun-Pun would qualify. Doing 100 damage in a round would not.



If you are aiming for 6 out of 10 on the power scale instead of 10 out of 10, you are not in fact choosing the most powerful mechanical option the system makes available to you, now are you?



Pretty much.

Its funny, this might be the first time I have ever misinterpreted someone by not taking them literally enough.

I really thought you meant "most powerful" as in the most powerful choice in any given situation or the most powerful of the options presented, not the best option period.

Yes, very few people want to play "Pun-Pun," even fewer DMs would allow it (even if they understood it, allowed all of the required sourcebooks, and went with the overly permissive reading of the rules it requires), and it is pretty much a problem unique to 3.5 D&D. Most other games don't have nearly as high a power ceiling and lack any single "best" option that is always the most powerful regardless of context.

But the divide between the "character first" and "power first" is not normally so binary, most of the time it is a spectrum and not always mutually exclusive, which is where the real conflicts arise.

[LudicSavant]

Its funny, this might be the first time I have ever misinterpreted someone by not taking them literally enough.

I really thought you meant "most powerful" as in the most powerful choice in any given situation or the most powerful of the options presented, not the best option period.

Yes, very few people want to play "Pun-Pun," even fewer DMs would allow it (even if they understood it, allowed all of the required sourcebooks, and went with the overly permissive reading of the rules it requires), and it is pretty much a problem unique to 3.5 D&D. Most other games don't have nearly as high a power ceiling and lack any single "best" option that is always the most powerful regardless of context.

But the divide between the "character first" and "power first" is not normally so binary, most of the time it is a spectrum and not always mutually exclusive, which is where the real conflicts arise.

Here's the thing:

If people actually followed the decisionmaking process that certain haters have ascribed to them in this thread (e.g. "choose character building options only on the basis of what's most powerful, with complete disregard for anything else") then the output of that algorithm would simply be "Pun-Pun." The fact that nobody wants to play Pun-Pun suggests that nobody is actually using that decisionmaking algorithm to construct characters.

Basically, we have people saying that people who drive faster than them are maniacs, and then claiming that the reason anyone drives faster than them is because they only choose cars based on which one is faster with disregard for any other features of the car. But the fact of the matter is that the fastest cars in existence are all left unsold at the dealerships, because there is no market for those cars. This suggests that their theory about car-buying behavior is false.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Here's the thing:

If people actually followed the decisionmaking process that certain haters have ascribed to them in this thread (e.g. "choose character building options only on the basis of what's most powerful, with complete disregard for anything else") then the output of that algorithm would simply be "Pun-Pun." The fact that nobody wants to play Pun-Pun suggests that nobody is actually using that decisionmaking algorithm to construct characters.

Basically, we have people saying that people who drive faster than them are maniacs, and then claiming that the reason anyone drives faster than them is because they only choose cars based on which one is faster with disregard for any other features of the car. But the fact of the matter is that the fastest cars in existence are all left unsold at the dealerships, because there is no market for those cars. This suggests that their theory about car-buying behavior is false.

False dichotomy. You're thinking in absolute terms, rather in marginal ones. On the margins, "power gamers" will choose power over concept where the two are in conflict. Pun-pun and friends are also off-the-table at 99.9 (repeating) percent of tables (since they require the active complicity of a DM and the lack of a real setting), and can only happen in one particular, badly broken game system. Power-gaming happens at real tables. So the only thing disproved is your assertion that only TO tricks count as power-gaming.

[LudicSavant]

False dichotomy.

That's not a false dichotomy at all. You literally either are picking the more powerful option, or you're not. For all A, A=X or !X. That's not a false dichotomy, that's the Law of Excluded Middle and it's one of the first laws of logic.

You're thinking in absolute terms, rather in marginal ones. On the margins, "power gamers" will choose power over concept where the two are in conflict.

Any option that deviates from the most powerful option in the name of concept is a place where the two are in conflict.

You cannot say "These people only care about money and nothing else, and will choose the most profitable option at all times" and then notice that these people are leaving money on the table and still say that they are choosing the most profitable option at all times. That's a contradiction.

If a person is skilled enough to identify a more profitable option, but does not choose it, this is sufficient for a formal deductive proof that they are not choosing options purely on the basis of profitability.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That's not a false dichotomy at all. You literally either are picking the more powerful option, or you're not. For all A, A=X or !X. That's not a false dichotomy, that's the Law of Excluded Middle and it's one of the first laws of logic.



Any option that deviates from the most powerful option in the name of concept is a place where the two are in conflict.

So everything is either pun-pun or unoptimized. Good to know.

Picking the most powerful option that's on the table is very different than picking the most powerful option globally. But both are power-gaming. Pun-pun (and other TO tricks) aren't on the table. They're not a valid option. For anyone. Even most PO tricks aren't on the table for most people. And lots of people play games other than 3e (which is one of the few that has such tricks to begin with). They're still power-gaming if they look at an unflavorful +1 as being more important to them than a more flavorful +0. Even if, in some other game, there's a +INF. All that matters is relative value. X is more powerful than Y, but Y fits the concept better. A power-gamer will choose X all the time, even if there's something else out there that's even better than X.

It's about competing priorities, and what you're willing to sacrifice.

And your edit is a pure strawman--no one says they only care about power, just that they care about power more than about concept in general. That's what I mean--you're taking everything as all-or-nothing. And that's not what's being argued here at all.

[LudicSavant]

pure strawman

So everything is either pun-pun or unoptimized. Good to know.

That is neither what I said nor what I meant.

Talk about "pure strawman."

no one says they only care about power

You wanna check again before you say that?

[JNAProductions]

Has anyone ever met this mythical powergamer who exclusively picks what's most powerful, even following the strictures of the table?

Because, again, I'm a mechanics first kind of guy. I'll often play a DFA in 3.5, which is FAR from the most powerful class available, but I just love the idea of being a fire breathing mofo.

[Lord Raziere]

well of course, they don't need to go for the most powerful option, they just need to be powerful enough to screw everyone else over. after all, the most powerful one is too obvious and they never want to be caught.

[LudicSavant]

Has anyone ever met this mythical powergamer who exclusively picks what's most powerful, even following the strictures of the table?

Because, again, I'm a mechanics first kind of guy. I'll often play a DFA in 3.5, which is FAR from the most powerful class available, but I just love the idea of being a fire breathing mofo.

Yeah, I've never seen this among players who were good enough at math to actually choose the best of two options in the first place.

I've seen a few forum posts to the effect of "I wanna break the game at my next session" but these always seem to be the sort of people who say weird things like "Vow of Poverty Monks are OP."

I mean, it could theoretically exist. It probably does somewhere. But I haven't seen it. I have, however, seen an awful lot of people crying wolf.

"Anybody driving slower than me is an idiot, anyone driving faster than me is a maniac" seems to sum up a lot of the instances I've seen.

In some cases I've seen it's not even about the guy driving faster, but just having a flashier car. For example, (in my experience) a player is more likely to get called a dirty powergamer if they play a character using Heavy Weapon Master and occasionally getting big damage rolls with their greatsword than if they play a character using Bless that actually contributes more DPR to the party (seriously, try to find threads about people being "powergamers" for using Heavy Weapon Master, then try to find threads about people being "powergamers" for using the often-more-powerful Bless). This has held true in my experience even if the guy using Heavy Weapon Master is taking the -5/+10 option in situations where it would be mathematically better to not use the feat at all. That's right, I've seen people get called powergamers for spending a feat to lower their overall damage output, just because it occasionally produces flashy lucky rolls.

I think the most egregious case of crying wolf I've seen at a table I personally played at was a game where one of the players at the table was more experienced than the others, so he intentionally nerfed his character in pretty extreme ways. He played a Psion fluffed as a civilian scholar being escorted by the mercenary PCs to study dungeon ruins. Pretty much all his powers were noncombat information gathering divinations and he played a purely support role. His damage output maxed out at about 1d3. He didn't even carry weapons, unless you count carrying the torch to provide light for the party and occasionally swiping at something with that. This player drew continous complaints of being a powergamer/munchkin from another player, just because "psionics is OP."

[JNAProductions]

well of course, they don't need to go for the most powerful option, they just need to be powerful enough to screw everyone else over. after all, the most powerful one is too obvious and they never want to be caught.

Lord Raziere, if my Dragonfire Adept is overshadowing your character, you built a very bad character, or the DM is intentionally screwing you over/favoring me.

Again, I'm a mechanics first gamer. I can be called a powergamer, and I won't object to the label, because it's accurate. But I still stick to a theme.

Moreover, when I do want to go balls to the wall OP, I tend to optimize for SUPPORT. Being a buffmaster Wizard or something. So yes, if you bother to break down technical contributions, I might overshadow everyone because they all got my buffs. But in play, they have a great time, because they're kicking ass and taking names, and they don't mind that they're receiving help from their buddy.