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View Full Version : A matter of Experience



Orannis
2010-07-01, 04:50 AM
This post is 50% rant and 50% appeal for help.
I have been playing in a group with VASTLY different skill levels. On the one hand there is one guy who's characters without fail break the game due to the well done optimization he employs and who finds any hint of RPing as an opportunity to try and work the system. On the other hand another character wants to befriend literally everything that is trying to eat her, has no idea how to use her character, and makes frankly bizarre decisions like using a fireball wand on...our....wizard, (thank god he buffs himself to the hilt). Everyone else falls somewhere between those two poles. This has resulted in some truly painful games as the DM keeps changing his tactics to try and adjust every game and I have to keep changing mine.One day he encourages heavy optimization in the form of templates, items, classes, and outlook. The next he decides that everyone is too powerful and cuts everyone back. The heavy optimizer just builds another character that is destined to destroy the game and the rest of us scramble to make something semi-functional. Then he will try to strike a middle ground and we can have the powerful characters but he starts using his baddies as if they are the Borg collective, they all march in unison, have perfect tactics, and adapt after every encounter. It is the most surreal thing to one day have a character that is on the level, the next is over power, the third is under powered and the forth replaced. I keep trying to keep my character but he gets irritated at the cheese I have to employ to make my (yes, groan) monk viable. Wizard cheese? Totally cool. Cleric cheese, no problem. But a monk that is hard to hit? Unbalanced. In the middle of this is everyone else who sort of just try to ride out the waves until they subside but with everyone being significantly different in their experience they end up only being effective if they got help from the optimizer. This got me thinking, how DOES one balance a situation like this? If we worked as a team, used good tactics, and all built good characters then this would be simple but what do you do when you don't have any equality between the players. They can't learn because the stronger (better built or played) characters do most of the work. IS there even a solution?

Snake-Aes
2010-07-01, 05:08 AM
One does not balance that situation. Either the group has a closer view of what they want to do, or they don't play well together. If those two are minority, bash their heads against the wall till the munchkin is too dumb to multiclass, and the too-dumb-to-live is completely alien to the concept of a fork.

Earthwalker
2010-07-01, 05:38 AM
I think the best way forward is to discuss all this with the group.

Find out what people want out of the game and also get a statement up front what the expected powerlevel of the game will be and what is a reasonable character.

The ideal is to find a play style you are all happy with, the GM raising and then lowing the power bar (so to speak) just makes it more annoying you need to sort these issues outside of the game.

Its terrible to say but you may also have to speak to one person and say that their play style is incompatable with the group.

I would think it would be easier to help the less optimised characters become better then to convince someone that wants to optimize the best he can to tone it down.

Talk to your GM and if he agrees take the issue to the group.

(One thing I did when I had a similar situation was allow everyone to make thier characters (this was in shadowrun) then make them pass the character sheet to the player on thier left before the first game session began, I had a group at the time that didn't mind that for a few sessions and I think it gave two people in the group alot of perspective)

kamikasei
2010-07-01, 05:50 AM
On the other hand another character wants to befriend literally everything that is trying to eat her, has no idea how to use her character, and makes frankly bizarre decisions like using a fireball wand on...our....wizard, (thank god he buffs himself to the hilt).

This part jumps out at me, because it's not actually about skill or optimization. This sounds like someone who's new, hasn't learned the rules, and feels lost enough that she's just kind of flailing around. You want an optimizer who's breaking the game with every character to rein it in, but it's even more important to figure out what's up with this person here. If some of the group are simply not contributing, it's harder to get the optimizers to tone it down because they feel they have more weight to carry (and they're right).

So. Do character creation as a group. Make sure people understand the abilities of their characters and how they can contribute in different situations. Don't let the optimizers make characters for the newbies which the newbies will then not understand. Make sure the newbies are engaged and actually paying attention to how their characters are put together or, at least, what they can do. (I can't tell you how to accomplish those two things - that's a matter of the social dynamics of your group - but those are the things you must accomplish.) Work out group tactics so that people don't feel lost when combat starts. If everyone has a reasonably clear role they can play and knows how to play it, it'll be less problematic for the optimized characters to play their roles well, especially if the players can focus on support roles which boost the party and make everyone better off rather than scene-stealing encounter-ending abilities.

Make sure to discuss expectations. Trying to use diplomacy instead of violence is entirely viable, but if when a fight breaks out one character refuses to contribute to the group's survival then you have a problem. This may come naturally once the group have a greater sense of cohesion and the currently lost players have concrete options available to them that they're aware of, but it still never hurts to make sure everyone's on the same page as to what they want from the game.

Aroka
2010-07-01, 07:09 AM
Switch to a system with less mechanical differences. There's even many d20 games that don't have anything like D&D's breadth of power differences.