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Killer Angel
2011-08-04, 06:47 AM
We all know (or, at least, we all should know), that the SF is, as the word says, about a fallacy. There's absolutely nothing that prevents you from role playing while having a powerful, optimized character, and having a weak character don't mean you're a better roleplayer.
If a player cannot focus on roleplay 'cause it's absorbed by hunger for power, or if deliberately and constantly sacrifices good choices for his build, using the excuse or roleplay, well, it's the player's fault.

And now, the BUT.
...but this misconception, must be based on something real, right?
If it's a so debated point, and if there are so many examples of jokes around it (here's one (http://www.wizards.com/global/images/rpga_hq_polyffs1_picMain_en.gif)), I suppose there are / were many real characters and real players, that with their builds and their behaviors, contribute to enforce this false mith.
So, my question (and the purpose of the thread) is: have you ever seen examples of it? do you (or your friends) ever commited the mistake of minmaxing, forgetting RP, or build a character with poor choices, thinking it would be a great concept, only to find that the (optimized) group leader, was far more charismatic (aka well played) than your poor, neglected PC?

Here's mine example, and the player its (sadly) me.
I usually like to have a good RP, and enjoy campaigns with something more than a simple hack and slash. I like powerful character and, usually, the more I play them, the more well developed it's their personality.
Once, I played a Spellguard of Silverymoon. It has a good background, very fun to play and with unusual personal traits. The more I played it, the less I was interested in its personality; slowly, i became more focused on efficiency and spells combo. It ended in a still very powerful character, but it had no more its peculiarities... it was a generic optimized wizard n. 347, and my complains is that I could have had much more fun with it, if only I didn't forget to play the character. :smallsigh:
Luckily, it was the only time i did such an error.

Now, your turn. :smallwink:

dsmiles
2011-08-04, 06:59 AM
I may be guilty of this myself:
I used to be a huge optimizer. As time went on, I found that the more I optimized my character, the less interested I was in their personality, history, goals, dreams, and life than if I just let the mechanical choices grow out of their experiences. Now, I play in a low-op group, and barely have to optimize anything beyond having my highest stat roll in my prime requisite. I love it.

Autolykos
2011-08-04, 07:09 AM
It's all about motivations really. Some find it fun to play with the numbers and optimize their character, some like dialogue, some like puzzles/tactics (did I forget something?). You can belong to multiple of those categories, but you will belong to at least one (or the game will not be fun for you). This usually means that bad roleplayers do at least like optimization, and leads people to the faulty conclusion that people who like optimization are bad roleplayers (that old correlation vs. causality thing again).
And there's also people who don't know very much of the rules and suck at roleplaying, but just like to hang around with their friends. This type is usually completely ignored in these theories, saying they are just "inexperienced" and will fit into one of the above stereotypes given enough time.

Zen Master
2011-08-04, 07:23 AM
I'ma try an analogy.

Consider singing. Once upon a time, Whitney Houston was famous for having a divinely clear and beautiful voice - whereas Tom Waits was (and is) similarly famous for not having that.

This clearly isn't a direct analogy, and I'm not claiming it is. But out there in the throngs of humanity, you will find people who enjoy the clear singing voice, and others who like the rough and gutteral bark.

You will have some people argue that Tom Waits has more character, more charm, more depth of expression (I'm one such), but there will be others who argue the opposite.

None of them are right. Or both.

In a similar vein, some may argue that roleplaying a flawed character (with the flaws represented in the actual stats, that is) is deeper, more charming roleplay with a greater depth of expression. And others will argue the opposite.

None of them are right. Or both.

Thar. Best shot.

erikun
2011-08-04, 07:42 AM
Everyone plays the game for different reasons, and thus has different priorities when sitting down at the table. Most people are not a super roleplay gamer, wishing to do everything possible to the greatest extent that they can manage. Instead, you find people who wish to optimize, caring little for the story or characterization, and end up with characters exceptionally mechanically viable but poor or contradictory on story. You also find people caring solely about story, making poor mechanical or tactical decisions in exchange for ones more fitting to the character. (You will also find people who don't care much about story or mechanics and just hang around for the fun, but they are curiously ignored.)

The myth, I believe, is that Game Masters see these two kinds of players and (falsely) assume that it is the optimization level that is preventing the first type of player from roleplaying as well as the second. "Oh, this optimization has ruined their character concept! If only they would ignore optimization for the sake of the character!" Nevermind that the optimization is what the player enjoys, of course, or that the character concept may just be 'being good with a gun'.


And yes, I've found myself in a similar situation. I remember a Star Wars game where I played a starfighter pilot, and where we kept going on missions fighting super-zombie-vampires that were stronger than wampas with jedi powers. Needless to say, my character didn't talk much (no between-mission roleplay, quiet on missions) and he traded in his ship for some good guns and gun skills. Rather out-of-character? Perhaps, although it was likely the only thing keeping him alive at that point - I'm not convinced it was that far against roleplaying. :smalltongue:

Killer Angel
2011-08-04, 08:28 AM
A further tought.

Stormwind, explaining the fallacy, was talking more about D&D (old school players, new edition styles, yadda yadda), but, as pointed out by Erikun's example regardin SW, this is a (false) problem you can encounter in every system.
In your opinion, can a game system (thanks to its mechanics) "encourage" the making of powerful characters and roleplaying, at the same time?

I'm thinking 'bout GURPS (for example): the point system favors minmaxing, while the quirks/disadvantages, not only give you more points to your minmaxing, but give you a solid base, "builded" in the character, to roleplay. If it's in the sheet, it's harder to forget about it, right?
Years ago, i had a character (a gnome diplomat) that was almost game breaking, and still it is remembered for its personality... and generally, in GURPS, i cannot recall any PC (mine) that wasn't strong and with peculiar traits.

sdream
2011-08-04, 09:20 AM
It's a fallacy with a core of truth.

Core of Truth:
Yes, every player has limited attention, and the more they pour into mechanical optomization and smart mechanical choices, the less they pour into relationships, playing a flawed persona and getting into the moment.

Fallacy part:
People interested enough in the game to optimize are at least VERY interested in the game, and can often be more into the immersion and play than someone who is just there for the cheetos and to hang out, even if that is not their main focus.

Bottom line: Remind the players that making their characters perfect just means they'll fight slightly harder enemies, but making their group dynamics interesting means they will have real stories shared as a group.

Killer Angel
2011-08-04, 09:34 AM
It's a fallacy with a core of truth.

Core of Truth:
Yes, every player has limited attention, and the more they pour into mechanical optomization and smart mechanical choices, the less they pour into relationships, playing a flawed persona and getting into the moment.


I doubt this part is true...
It requires a limited amount of time to have an optimized character. It's the time you spend on its creation and when you have something to invest on it (be it gold, points, levels, new spells, and so on). The rest of time, aka when you're effectively playing it, you can concentrate fairly easy on role playing... if you're interested in it.

The problem (that imo fuels the mith) is when you're so interested in how your character shows its skills, that you play more for those moments, and the rest fades away. As for the case of a PC optimized for combat, and the player reads a comic saying "call me when we fight".
The latter is a real case, that i saw at a convention.
Do you have some real case to support you PoV? :smallwink:

erikun
2011-08-04, 09:38 AM
In your opinion, can a game system (thanks to its mechanics) "encourage" the making of powerful characters and roleplaying, at the same time?
Not easily, no. From what I've seen, the only way to do it is to narrow the options down so that anything the player chooses makes their character more competent.

I've only seen this done two ways. One is to limit the mechanics to basically one aspect of the game - combat, for example - and force the player to take stronger options as they become stronger. D&D 4e is a good example of this, and one that a lot of people end up complaining about. The other way is to make the skills so broad and various that there isn't that much overlap, so that a character lacking a skill useful to a particular situation isn't much worse off than one with the skill. Faery's Tale does something like this, where you can have a skill (such as Levitation or Stealth) that allows you to do something or get a bonus, but can be handled other ways. Skills don't have "ranks", so even when something like Stealth grants a bonus, it's simply a static bonus that cannot improve.


I doubt this part is true...
I wouldn't say that every player has an attention limit for their character, but more likely a time limit to what they wish to devote to their character. A player that wishes to highly optimize and craft an extensive background can certainly do so, but a player with limited time will likely spend it optimizing well or spend it working out a good personality, rather than doing a mediocre job at both.

LordBlades
2011-08-04, 09:49 AM
From my own experience, there's little connection between how optimized a character is and how well the player roleplays. The people that I know as good roleplayers have usually managed to RP equally well, whether it was with a druid 20 or a crippled commoner 1. Same goes for the opposite.

The only time I've noticed a connection between the level of optimization and roleplay is when the mechanical aspect take the player out his/her 'comfort zone'. Whether you're struggling to keep up with the rest of the party (not everyone in able to play optimized tier 1) or trying to hold yourself back not to overshadow anyone, or just playing something you don't like and/or fully understand (either because the party needed a certain role filled or because you copied a build of somebody else), if you don't 'feel' and aren't comfortable with the mechanical aspect of your character, roleplay will usually suffer.

Boci
2011-08-04, 10:33 AM
I wouldn't say that every player has an attention limit for their character, but more likely a time limit to what they wish to devote to their character. A player that wishes to highly optimize and craft an extensive background can certainly do so, but a player with limited time will likely spend it optimizing well or spend it working out a good personality, rather than doing a mediocre job at both.

The two don't usually clash though. Roleplaying comes mid-session, whereas optimizations comes up during levelling.

awa
2011-08-04, 11:15 AM
there is another aspect to this and thats how pepole build the charecters lets say your background is a farmer. some groups would expect you to put ranks in profesion farmer and handle animal and maby knowladge nature and in extreem cases even put a feat like skill focus into the mix. so a charceter with a back ground other then i do nothing but train to kill pepole is unoptimised.

a second factor is some groups play with classes and prestige classes representing organizations thus a charecter dipping several prestige classes would need a massivly convultted and in many cases contrived back ground in order to get into them.

finaly a 1-20 build may in large part assume your charecter never grows as a person except in a way you determin before he even started playing.

now in a group that says a warblade is just some guy really good at hitting things this wont be a problem but then stormwind faliacy likely would not have come up anyway.

personaly i played a game of all flesh must be eatten where one of the players took addiction to everysingle drug and a number of other flaws i have since forgoten becuase. and then didnt play anything diffrently in his charecter.

p.s. the spell checker isnt working or something and i know i cant spell to save my life so apoligies in advance

Boci
2011-08-04, 11:32 AM
there is another aspect to this and thats how pepole build the charecters lets say your background is a farmer. some groups would expect you to put ranks in profesion farmer and handle animal and maby knowladge nature and in extreem cases even put a feat like skill focus into the mix. so a charceter with a back ground other then i do nothing but train to kill pepole is unoptimised.

One way of looking it at it is he did use to know how to but has forgotten due to his new focus. It is probably best to have some skills ranks, but a feat is pushing it. Some DMs realize this and give players free skill points to spend on a profession.


a second factor is some groups play with classes and prestige classes representing organizations thus a charecter dipping several prestige classes would need a massivly convultted and in many cases contrived back ground in order to get into them.

Not neccissarily. "I practice both martial combat and magical" will generally suit a gish build.


finaly a 1-20 build may in large part assume your charecter never grows as a person except in a way you determin before he even started playing.

Such as? I don't quite get what you mean.

vanyell
2011-08-04, 11:33 AM
I personally find that when I optimize, all the work is before the game, and it lets me not worry about "how am I going to be useful to the party" and more worry about how can the "character" of the character stand out a bit more.

by building to be competent in combat, it lets me focus more on being realistic outside of combat.

that's just my take on it

hiryuu
2011-08-04, 12:45 PM
Such as? I don't quite get what you mean.

If you plan out a build, then something crops up in game that makes that build harder to justify, and a different mechanical choice is in character, then there might be a clash. I have this problem with L5R all the time. I always get so tied up in buying skills and advantages the character should have due to things that happened in session (such as buying an ally or picking up a rank of Calligraphy because of that month spent waiting on another character, etc.) that I never get around to raising rings and Insight.

SowZ
2011-08-04, 12:55 PM
I let the characters choices, motivations, and experiences determine class/multiclass levels. But within those choices the 'character' makes, I try and... utilize. I will optimize if it is in the characters backstory. A power hungry wizard like V should be optimized because he studies the most effective spells and strategies so much.

But other then that, I utilize. Basically, I want feats that will be useful. I want stats that complement the class. If I have a Wis. mod of 2, I want to find a way to use that. Roy and Belkar, for example, are non-utilized. (Despite Belkar being a fairly useful combatant with his 6 attacks per turn.) Durkon, Elan, and Haley are utilized. V is optimized.

Boci
2011-08-04, 12:55 PM
If you plan out a build, then something crops up in game that makes that build harder to justify, and a different mechanical choice is in character, then there might be a clash. I have this problem with L5R all the time. I always get so tied up in buying skills and advantages the character should have due to things that happened in session (such as buying an ally or picking up a rank of Calligraphy because of that month spent waiting on another character, etc.) that I never get around to raising rings and Insight.

I rarely find such issues a challange ingame. Between keeping the events as fluff and them being relativly minor it never really interfered with my character.

hiryuu
2011-08-04, 01:05 PM
I rarely find such issues a challange ingame. Between keeping the events as fluff and them being relativly minor it never really interfered with my character.

It would really depend on the game, I guess. As far as our group goes, I've watched someone turn off a Wizard path he'd planned our and take a sharp left into taking levels in Psion to shoot for Cerebremancer because he found out Psionics is ur-magic in the setting, I've had another go from his Warblade plan to Factotum as the reality of the historicity of his noble family sunk in, and so on. Just as no plan survives contact with the PCs, the reverse should also be no. No PC should survive contact with a plan.

Especially if they didn't talk with the GM about it beforehand: I had somebody ask me the mechanical benefit of a homebrew feat that seemed to do nothing at all to him (it let you sense planar portals and automatically know what key you needed to open it, and even try to jigger it if you didn't have the key; taking it basically made you indispensable to the local infrastructure (or your party) if you made a deal of it), and he planned out a half-ogre tripper build through 20 levels, but he didn't tell me, so he got upset when events occurred that made it harder to justify (which is weird, because he was also stiff as a board when it came to any RP at all).

Boci
2011-08-04, 01:10 PM
It would really depend on the game, I guess. As far as our group goes, I've watched someone turn off a Wizard path he'd planned our and take a sharp left into taking levels in Psion to shoot for Cerebremancer because he found out Psionics is ur-magic in the setting, I've had another go from his Warblade plan to Factotum as the reality of the historicity of his noble family sunk in, and so on. Just as no plan survives contact with the PCs, the reverse should also be no. No PC should survive contact with a plan.

For the first one I would have looked into forsaking the wizard levels for psion and just going pure psion.
For the second one, its a valid choice. You swap combat power for versatility. A different character concept, bit not weaker.

SowZ
2011-08-04, 01:21 PM
For the first one I would have looked into forsaking the wizard levels for psion and just going pure psion.
For the second one, its a valid choice. You swap combat power for versatility. A different character concept, bit not weaker.

I've been thinking of going cerebremancer, actually. Take the feat that raises your CL up to four for each HD you have not devoted to casting for both Wizard and Psion, then by level ten you are casting 4th level Wizard and 4th level Psion spells. Sure, you would have been casting 5th level so raw power is lowered, but you can cast for longer before running out and have a different kind of versatility. Is your power level still diminished? Sure. But it can be a neat concept.

Boci
2011-08-04, 01:24 PM
I've been thinking of going cerebremancer, actually. Take the feat that raises your CL up to four for each HD you have not devoted to casting for both
Wizard and Psion, then by level ten you are casting 4th level Wizard and 4th level Psion spells. Sure, you would have been casting 5th level so raw power is lowered, but you can cast for longer before running out and have a different kind of versatility. Is your power level still diminished? Sure. But it can be a neat concept.

Do you loose 2 or 3 levels going cerebremancer?

SowZ
2011-08-04, 01:32 PM
Do you loose 2 or 3 levels going cerebremancer?

You need to take 3 levels of Wizard and 3 of Psion. So that's 7th level of each by level 10.

Gamer Girl
2011-08-04, 01:47 PM
The problem I have is the old roll vs role playing problem.


The optimized character is roll playing, to them the game is all about numbers. They are having fun with the numbers and are always thinking about the numbers. They tend to ignore the fluff and role playing parts of the game and just focus on the numbers.

The optimized player character just sees the game as a much of math problems. Every encounter is just 'what is the DC/AC' and then they start figuring out the numbers. Even worse optimized player characters will actively avoid role playing: 'I walk into town and buy stuff and rolled a 22 on my shopping roll'.

And then you have the one trick pony optimized character that I see all too often. They can only do one thing. Any other time, the player will just sit back with their arms folded. Most of the time they put 110% into the build and then have nothing left over. And they get very depressed when they can't do their optimized stuff.(A great example here is the spiked chained optimized trip anything character fighting some urds and simply throwing a rock on their turn)

Caphi
2011-08-04, 01:51 PM
Point-based games don't really have that problem because going out of your way to do "character" growth doesn't interrupt or hose your natural growth pattern, just pushes it down.

Also, any system or GM that requires you to spend additional points to redeem rewards for in-character effort, pushing down your own automatic natural growth, is trash and should be scrapped.

awa
2011-08-04, 01:55 PM
multi classing requiring contrived back stories is less about a wizard fighter gish and more about someone with 3 or 4 prestige classes when a prestige class represnts and organisation

ImperatorK
2011-08-04, 01:58 PM
Snip.
Is that true? you talking like it's some kind of fact. Peculiar.


multi classing requiring contrived back stories is less about a wizard fighter gish and more about someone with 3 or 4 prestige classes when a prestige class represnts and organisation
Depends. If the DM says the prc is tied to an organization then it is. But it does not have to. The DM can come up with different fluff. I would if my player would ask nicely.

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-04, 02:03 PM
The thing to remember about Stormwind is that the direct opposite, "optimization and roleplaying never go contrary to each other", is just as much of a fallacy. Optimization isn't limited to character creation or leveling up, it's ubiquitous through all mechanical portions (and some times, non-mechanicals as well) - shortly, for any given situation, there's always a or the best solution.

It's possible to roleplay a person who always seeks out the best possible solution, but from a dramatic point of view, it might not be a whole lot of fun. Which is why I suspect many mechanically powerful characters end up much less efficient than they theoretically are due to being played as idiots.

SITB
2011-08-04, 03:03 PM
The thing to remember about Stormwind is that the direct opposite, "optimization and roleplaying never go contrary to each other", is just as much of a fallacy. Optimization isn't limited to character creation or leveling up, it's ubiquitous through all mechanical portions (and some times, non-mechanicals as well) - shortly, for any given situation, there's always a or the best solution.

It's possible to roleplay a person who always seeks out the best possible solution, but from a dramatic point of view, it might not be a whole lot of fun. Which is why I suspect many mechanically powerful characters end up much less efficient than they theoretically are due to being played as idiots.

You are wrong, check out the Stormwind fallacy again; he is talking about mechanical optimization.

And roleplaying and mechanical optimization don't go against each other because you are usally optimizing a specific concept. If you always take the best option you end up with Pun-Pun or similiar shenigans, most people choose a concept ('Powerful Wizard', 'Badass Fighter', 'Sauve Bard') and then try to create those characters according to the mechanics of the system, optimizing for optimization sake is purely TO.

Zeofar
2011-08-04, 03:06 PM
The problem I have is the old roll vs role playing problem.


The optimized character is roll playing, to them the game is all about numbers. They are having fun with the numbers and are always thinking about the numbers. They tend to ignore the fluff and role playing parts of the game and just focus on the numbers.

The optimized player character just sees the game as a much of math problems. Every encounter is just 'what is the DC/AC' and then they start figuring out the numbers. Even worse optimized player characters will actively avoid role playing: 'I walk into town and buy stuff and rolled a 22 on my shopping roll'.

And then you have the one trick pony optimized character that I see all too often. They can only do one thing. Any other time, the player will just sit back with their arms folded. Most of the time they put 110% into the build and then have nothing left over. And they get very depressed when they can't do their optimized stuff.(A great example here is the spiked chained optimized trip anything character fighting some urds and simply throwing a rock on their turn)

You've discovered the Stormwind Fallacy. Congratulations.

Zonugal
2011-08-04, 03:09 PM
I don't know if it has been brought up but everyone optimizes, everyone. You're a Fighter and you decide to take Weapon Focus? Optimization, perhaps not very strong optimization but it is still gearing your characters towards performing their goal/niche with the best results.

To not optimize is simply to reject the notions of the game. If you throw Extend Spell on a Barbarian build you are simply playing the game incorrectly. Putting an intelligence score of 9 onto your Wizard? You are going counter-productive to the entire activity of DnD 3.5

Now it would seem that the bigger debate originates from weak optimization versus strong optimization. I can understand the outlook/perspective of a weak optimizer who might be favoring role-playing over game mechanics, but there comes a distinct problem. Weak optimization hurts role-playing. If you say your character is a dragon slayer and mechanically they could have never slayed any dragon than you are playing a failed character, you are doing some type of reverse-metagaming.

"My character is the greatest thief in the land."
"No.. No he is not. He doesn't possess any of the aptitudes, talents or abilities to even be a mediocre thief."

Now the goal between weak & strong optimization should be to find an appropriate base for a character. A high-mage who excels at everything is a boring character. Being good at everything is just plain boring. Now, an ice mage who is the best he can be at ice/cold/water spells is an interesting character who can flourish with proper optimization.

Killer Angel
2011-08-04, 04:02 PM
The optimized player character just sees the game as a much of math problems. Every encounter is just 'what is the DC/AC' and then they start figuring out the numbers.
(snip)

And then you have the one trick pony optimized character that I see all too often. They can only do one thing. Any other time, the player will just sit back with their arms folded. Most of the time they put 110% into the build and then have nothing left over. And they get very depressed when they can't do their optimized stuff.(A great example here is the spiked chained optimized trip anything character fighting some urds and simply throwing a rock on their turn)

That is a problem with the player. It's this kind of attitude that creates the false impression that you can follow one thing or the other.
But again, I asked for real examples. Have you ever seen one of those spiked chain tripper, unable to do anything but that? The only one vaguely similar I've seen in real play, was an elaboration of Saph's horizon tripper, and it was a really eclectic character.

awa
2011-08-04, 04:02 PM
"Depends. If the DM says the prc is tied to an organization then it is. But it does not have to. The DM can come up with different fluff. I would if my player would ask nicely."
I was talking about instance where the storm wind does have a kernal of truth of course their are situation where you can refluff anything you want but thats not relavent because some dms do not allow you to refluff anything.
and in a situation where total refluffing is allowed the storm wind falicy would likely never come up.

and just to head off anything i am making no statment on the validity of either allowing refluffing or not

randomhero00
2011-08-04, 04:04 PM
Aye, even tho my group is high opt, they still tend to believe (or the DM anyway) in SF. Its like (in my group) you're given a wink and a pat on the back if you're low opt.

WarKitty
2011-08-04, 04:09 PM
multi classing requiring contrived back stories is less about a wizard fighter gish and more about someone with 3 or 4 prestige classes when a prestige class represnts and organisation

I think the question with multiclassing is "which came first, the character or the class?" I've had a couple of different characters that had multiple classes, but in both cases the reason for the multiclassing was that none of the available books had a class that fit the character.

Urpriest
2011-08-04, 04:23 PM
One issue that can make optimizers appear to be worse roleplayers is the illusion of competence:

Many optimizers (and yes there are exceptions) are fairly intelligent people. Intelligent people tend (again with exceptions) to be more self-critical than less intelligent people.

Many roleplaying concepts tend to be pretty pathetic, at least by the standards of readable fiction. Looking at the comic quoted earlier in the thread, we have dark dark mcdarksalot and a swashbuckler with a backstory that reads like a cheesy fanfic. I submit that most roleplaying concepts are like this: cheesy, cliche, and juvenile. This isn't because the people writing them are somehow worse than average, they may even be substantially more creative than average. They're not making money as authors though, and there's a reason for that.

Now for a person who's not particularly self-critical, this isn't an issue. The Illusion of Competence is an effect that makes people with only mediocre ability at something think they are quite good at it because they don't have the skill to tell bad work from good. And many of the more roleplaying-oriented players suffer from this. Which really isn't a bad thing, it's generally where self-esteem comes from.

But optimizers, as mentioned earlier, are often intelligent, self-critical people. They aren't going to even think about playing dark mcdarksalot or generic swashbuckler with generic traumatic backstory because they realize that the very idea is stupid. They know they can't intentionally create a character that they would bother reading about if they met it in a bookstore. So they don't. Instead they optimize, which they can actually be good at since there aren't any professional optimizers around. And the story they tell is based on the mechanics, which makes it different from all the stories they read, so it doesn't end up competing with them, and thus it doesn't have to be perfect.

Shadowknight12
2011-08-04, 04:31 PM
The Stormwind Fallacy should not exist as its own special type of fallacy. It is simply another example of a false dichotomy. The underlying flaw in it stems from the assumption that you can only do one thing at the table. You can either optimise or your can roleplay. This is, of course, false, like saying that you are either "with us or against us."

That clarification aside, I have to say that the entire discussion irks me. What, exactly, is the problem here? What is so terrible and unsolvable that we're still talking about this issue? Haven't we, the gaming community as a whole, been dragging this dead weight for years?

If you prefer to optimise and dislike roleplaying, find a group that's okay with that. If you prefer to roleplay and dislike optimising, find a group that's okay with that. If you prefer to actively develop both equally, find a group that's okay with that.

There, problem solved. No need to bring up the Stormwind Fallacy ever again.

WarKitty
2011-08-04, 04:31 PM
There's also the fact that roleplaying can genuinely be harder for some of us than others. I am a fairly good optimizer for our group. However, I absolutely cannot do voices without sounding really stupid, and it tends to take me a few seconds to come up with something to say (not an immersion problem - I can't do it in real life either). Does it mean I'm not invested in roleplaying? No. But someone who looks at me and sees someone who's playing an optimized character but isn't as responsive IC is likely to think that I'm not into roleplaying.

Andorax
2011-08-04, 04:32 PM
I think the one place that the Stormwind Falacy has a kernel of truth is when you get into the "optimization at any cost" approach and attitude.

I don't care, as a DM, if you can write a 6-page explanation as to why you're the utterly-unique, one-of-a-kind combination of 4 different templates that's decided, after reaching venerable age, to go out and earn that second level...you're torturing versimilitude so far to death that I'll need a full resurrection to bring it back, even raise dead won't work anymore.

Nevermind the characters who've stacked enough feats to make Warhammer miniatures' weapons look undersized.


It's not that these players can't role-play, even role-play well...it's that they've gone way too far out on a limb to make a character that's incredibly difficult to fit into the campaign setting.

It's not always a powergaming issue either...I have a player who has an incredible love of the weird, and I've been forced to limit his racial options purely to maintain the character's ability to function in an urban social setting and empathise with the characters in the storyline. But from my experience, it seems as if the optimization-at-any-cost crowd is more vulnerable to these sorts of problems.


As a DM, I expect players to reign in their choices until they're able to take into account:

1) The general optimization and playstyle level of the group as a whole (whether that's adding or removing power...outliers don't do anyone any good in either case)

2) The overall feel and approach to the campaign (stealth is a major theme in this campaign...please try your Dwarven Defender build another time).

3) The mental health and blood pressure of the DM (I don't want to spend all week designing an encounter that will last more than one round and devolve into "guess my invulnerability").

As a player, I try to do all of the above as consistently as possible.

Killer Angel
2011-08-04, 04:48 PM
That clarification aside, I have to say that the entire discussion irks me. What, exactly, is the problem here? What is so terrible and unsolvable that we're still talking about this issue? Haven't we, the gaming community as a whole, been dragging this dead weight for years?


The original point of the thread, wasn't to discuss the SF.
It was to hear story 'bout real examples that we saw and supported the false dichotomy on which the SF is based.

And anyway, it's a "dead weight" in the same way are dead the discussions on ToB, monks, and so on...

Shadowknight12
2011-08-04, 04:56 PM
The original point of the thread, wasn't to discuss the SF.
It was to hear story 'bout real examples that we saw and supported the false dichotomy on which the SF is based.

And anyway, it's a "dead weight" in the same way are dead the discussions on ToB, monks, and so on...

I would concur, actually. They're all dead weight.

Other than that, no, I haven't seen any real cases of it, because the entire point of it being a fallacy is that its assertion is based on invalid logic. If it's based on invalid logic, it can't actually translate properly into reality.

Killer Angel
2011-08-04, 05:11 PM
I would concur, actually. They're all dead weight.


I can certainly see your point and I could somehow agree.
But see it this way: the roman history don't tell us nothing new, neither the one hundred years war, but History Channel periodically shows some documentary on it.
Or, if you like it more: it's not the reason we discuss for... sometime, it's merely for the sake of discussion in itself. :smallsmile:

Now, for me it's past midnight, I go to sleep. :smallwink:

erikun
2011-08-04, 05:23 PM
The two don't usually clash though. Roleplaying comes mid-session, whereas optimizations comes up during levelling.
I find it difficult to roleplay properly without some sense of the character.

Oh, I can certainly act out and do whatever I feel like at the time. I can also act in the mind of a timid or boastful individual. This doesn't feel much like roleplaying to me, though, because I'm not playing a role in that case as much as acting randomly to the situation.

Dralnu
2011-08-04, 06:04 PM
My first character in a D&D campaign was a halfling rogue. I played the stereotypical "steal everything" thief. It was fun, he had a personality. But as the campaign continued I got annoyed that I contributed almost nothing in combat due to the large amounts of undead, often hiding behind the druid (shapechanged into a tree) while our barbarian destroyed things. When he met his end at the hands of some raptors, I decided to roll up a wizard.

Unfortunately, I did some research into spell choices for my wizard since it was confusing to me at the time. I stumbled upon "Treantmonk's Wizard Guide". I became a human conjuror with zero personality and a fetish for this new Glitterdust spell. I trivialized the first encounter with some ogres. Then the second. After that, the spell simply never worked again, all the monsters would pass the saving throw.

I realized my mistake now, but honestly I regret ever looking up D&D stuff on the internet. At least playing a crappy combat class forced me to be creative and pursue non-combat objectives. Having to consciously avoid every broken spell / ability / class in the game or purposefully playing "toned down" has sucked a degree of fun away from the game for me. I miss the days when the absolute strongest combat class in my mind was the Barbarian, ACFs be damned.

Claudius Maximus
2011-08-04, 06:36 PM
So are you trying to say your wizard had no personality because he was powerful? Why do you think that? What would you say made it happen?

awa
2011-08-04, 06:37 PM
actually in my experience optimizers (people that refer to them selves as such) tend to have the stupidest back stories in the group. So optimizer are smarter and more self critical then role player strikes me as false.


of course small sample size and all maybe im wrong.

my group when i was younger where most of my gaming history lies was very anti power gaming to the point where a barbarian with boots doubling his speed and spring attack using a reach weapon was considered border line overpowered.

we had plenty of Sidhe from changeling the dreaming and do to a combinations of ruling on a particular mechanic were all basically interchangeable in particular mind controlling my character at the drop of a hat and i don't get a save and aren't allowed to get mad becuase of the setting.

p.s. im totally not bitter about this thing that happened 10 years ago becuase that would be completely unreasonable

navar100
2011-08-04, 06:41 PM
The closest I came to this in real life was way back in college. We were playing GURPS Supers and having a good ol' time. However, one player was upset that our characters were all so awesome despite that being the point. He continued to talk about it and was able to convince the majority of the players to start a new campaign of GURPS Wild Cards, based on a series of books that was in the superhero genre where because of the Plague people got mutated. If you wanted to play an "Ace", your typical superhero, you got a limited amount of points to spend. However, if you were willing to play a super "Joker", that is, a horribly mutated person but you still had super powers, you got a lot more points to spend on top of the Disadvantges points that revolve around your mutation. This player thought it was so cool everyone now had a Suckage they were forced to deal with. We would roleplay all so much better.

I didn't want to switch campaigns at all let alone thought having Suckage made you a better player. I finagled my way into playing an Ace but got the Joker extra points by convincing the DM to accept my mutation - my Insubstantial power had the Always On disadvantage. I had the Partial advantage so I could make my hands solid when necessary to pick up things or fight or any body part I needed solid for whatever reason temporarily. The DM wasn't the player in question. He was my favorite DM at the time. He's intelligent enough to have seen through what I did if he saw through it, but he allowed it anyway. I wasn't trying to get one over him. I was getting one over the campaign itself.

He's still my favorite DM.

Zonugal
2011-08-04, 07:18 PM
i actually in my experience optimizers (people that refer to them selves as such) tend to have the stupidest back stories in the group. So optimizer are smarter and more self critical then role player strikes me as false.

Creating a back story is easy as dirt, it requires no expertise or training. Optimizing actually requires a backlog of knowledge and experience in application.

There is a distinction. One is making up absolute fiction while the other is using mechanics in conjunction with themselves to provide an actual result. You can show good optimization, you can not show good role-playing.

The other aspect of the matter is that role-playing is a wholly different entity than optimization in every manner. My best friend doesn't have the most familiarity with rules or game mechanics but because of his eight years in improv comedy few can equal him in character immersion and 'role-playing.'

WarKitty
2011-08-04, 07:23 PM
I also wonder if it has anything to do with the subculture around D&D. After all, D&D is a nerd game, and us nerds are stereotypically better at math than at social skills...

Urpriest
2011-08-04, 07:59 PM
i actually in my experience optimizers (people that refer to them selves as such) tend to have the stupidest back stories in the group. So optimizer are smarter and more self critical then role player strikes me as false.


Well there is the countervailing factor that a person who wants to optimize is putting a lot of effort into their character, and as such more likely to have a stupid backstory (since again, most gamers can't write). Perhaps it's more fair to say that people who describe themselves as roleplayers tend to have stupid backstories, irrespective of optimization level.

Gamer Girl
2011-08-04, 08:01 PM
That is a problem with the player. It's this kind of attitude that creates the false impression that you can follow one thing or the other.
But again, I asked for real examples. Have you ever seen one of those spiked chain tripper, unable to do anything but that? The only one vaguely similar I've seen in real play, was an elaboration of Saph's horizon tripper, and it was a really eclectic character.

Oh, Korg the half giant spike chain tripper was a character in one of my games for a while. He was all optimized to trip and kill. He however could do little else. Unless it was a melee foe within a couple feet, he would often sit back and throw rocks.(he had no other weapons)

At least half of the optimized characters I see have the one trick pony problem. Or even the 'well I only want to do my optimized thing' problem.


Tazo was a blaster wizard, that could only blast. He was useless except in a big fight. He burned through his spells/abilities/such extremely fast, often leading him to beg ''guy can we rest?'' all the time.

Zonugal
2011-08-04, 08:11 PM
Oh, Korg the half giant spike chain tripper was a character in one of my games for a while. He was all optimized to trip and kill. He however could do little else. Unless it was a melee foe within a couple feet, he would often sit back and throw rocks.(he had no other weapons)

At least half of the optimized characters I see have the one trick pony problem. Or even the 'well I only want to do my optimized thing' problem.


Tazo was a blaster wizard, that could only blast. He was useless except in a big fight. He burned through his spells/abilities/such extremely fast, often leading him to beg ''guy can we rest?'' all the time.

Those two characters aren't sounding too optimized. It sounds like they were both built to be glass cannons. A good, optimized character should perform well in their primary role and at least be able to contribute in a secondary (perhaps even third).

Any standard fighter can act as a primary tank, back-up 'face' as well as an obstacle crusher.

awa
2011-08-04, 08:27 PM
optimizing doesn't require that you actually know the game that's what the internet is for. its easy to go online and find a powerful build.

optimization or lack of it is largely unrelated to intelligence or even knowledge of the game.

(someone could choose to play a less powerful character then they could for game balance.)

Terazul
2011-08-04, 08:27 PM
i actually in my experience optimizers (people that refer to them selves as such) tend to have the stupidest back stories in the group. So optimizer are smarter and more self critical then role player strikes me as false.


Eh, if we're quoting anecdotal evidence, I'm the "optimizer guy" in my general groups, and I tend to have the longer, more well-written backstories, with distinction and personal spin on flavor for each of my character's abilities regardless of setting or system, compared to some of the other colleagues in the group.

On the other hand, I have been in a group with someone who claimed they were playing a bounty hunter and let me see their sheet, I offered them some advice on a feat that would help them out with that concept, and they pretty much explained straight to my face with a bunch of snark that they were intentionally taking a bad feat that didn't actually help them, "for flavor reasons" because they cared more about "roleplaying than mechanical benefits". Which strikes me as all kinds of backwards, because how are you supposed to play your role when your character can't actually do any of the things listed in his backstory with so much as mediocre competency?

So yeah, I've actually seen people who assume that just because you're good at what you've designed and described your character being good at, you're not really all that invested in playing the character. Which seems completely backwards since I actually want my character to shine in his chosen field, which is why I bother to optimize towards whatever goal that is in the first place!

Alot of the hubbub over this topic seems to come from stuff like this: Optimizers, such as myself, get offended when we show up to possibly a new group, and because our character is decently competent at their job are scoffed at as "not really caring about the game", which blows all logic to the wind as far as I'm concerned. Meanwhile, those who aren't particularly apt at specialization and such may show up to a game with their two page backstory on how their character is such a grand conversationalist, with a 14 in Cha and only a few ranks in social skills, and get upset at quirked eyebrows when despite giving a grand personal oratory, their actual success rolls come up far shorter (which I've also seen personally, but that's getting off on another pet peeve tangent).

So yeah. Seen it. People are silly. You can easily do both. Also alot of people throwing hissyfits over multiple classes, but that's the whole in-game vs metagame construct dealy. Which is funny, because most PrCs really don't have organizations, and many of the ones that do don't even do anything involving them (Assassin, I'm looking at you). And if they all do, good lord that's alot of organizations for subtle differences alot of the time.

Gamer Girl
2011-08-04, 08:36 PM
Those two characters aren't sounding too optimized. It sounds like they were both built to be glass cannons. A good, optimized character should perform well in their primary role and at least be able to contribute in a secondary (perhaps even third).

Any standard fighter can act as a primary tank, back-up 'face' as well as an obstacle crusher.

Optimization is like any skill. Almost everyone thinks they are the greatest at the skill, just because. This is true with say music, everyone thinks they can be a Star(and this makes for great fun in the American Idol 'pre show').

And it's typical of a good 50% of optimization for a game. The player saw/heard of a really cool character. So they set out to be even cooler and make a character just like that, just better. But optimization, like anything, takes skill and practice. So without that, you get tons and tons and tons of badly optimized characters.

Worse optimizing players come from the worst sort of 'I must win the game and rule the world in my mind' type people. Their idea of 'fun' is to show how cool and great they are, while others fall at their feet. And if they can't be 'king of the world', they cry and go home. Or in other words:Cartman.

Narren
2011-08-04, 08:39 PM
In my group, the ones that optimize the most have the least back story. They also role-play the least. The ones who don't bother with optimization tend to be best role-players, have the best back stories, and drive the game forward. And when I say they don't optimize, that doesn't mean that they play wizards with Int 10. Their character is good at what they do, but they may take a sub par feat, skill, or piece of equipment for flavor reasons. They feel that it gives their character more...character.

This is just in my experience, and other groups may be totally different. I see nothing wrong with any play style, as long as the group is having fun.

WarKitty
2011-08-04, 08:42 PM
See, in our group, the most optimized characters tend to be the ones with the best backstory, because they're the ones with the most experience and investment in the game. The less optimized characters usually come from the guy who's there to hang out with his girlfriend but doesn't actually want to put a lot of effort into the game.

Zonugal
2011-08-04, 09:04 PM
I never quite saw the point in wasting a feat on establishing an element of character. Skill points work pretty well, you can always afford to throw some spare skill points into a craft, knowledge or profession but feats? You typically only have seven. Seven!!! It just seemed like a waste of better spent opportunity in exchange for some, immaterial aspect of your character that you could represent in a better way.


Worse optimizing players come from the worst sort of 'I must win the game and rule the world in my mind' type people. Their idea of 'fun' is to show how cool and great they are, while others fall at their feet. And if they can't be 'king of the world', they cry and go home. Or in other words:Cartman.

I don't think it is fair to throw this type of mentality towards optimization. There are awful optimizers just like their are awful role-players just like there are awful DMs.

Shadowknight12
2011-08-04, 09:11 PM
Oh. My. God.

I cannot believe this. All these... these examples! These examples of people saying that some people are good at optimising and roleplaying, while others saying that some people are only good at one of them. It's like... oh, god... it's like there isn't a connection between optimising and roleplaying!

I know, I know, I couldn't believe it either.

I think I have to lie down for a while until my head stops spinning.

Narren
2011-08-04, 09:15 PM
Oh. My. God.

I cannot believe this. All these... these examples! These examples of people saying that some people are good at optimising and roleplaying, while others saying that some people are only good at one of them. It's like... oh, god... it's like there isn't a connection between optimising and roleplaying!

I know, I know, I couldn't believe it either.

I think I have to lie down for a while until my head stops spinning.

I think that was the point.....

Shadowknight12
2011-08-04, 09:18 PM
I think that was the point.....

I didn't think such a thing was actually possible, but it appears I used too much sarcasm.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-08-04, 09:20 PM
I think that was the point.....

It's called sarcasm.

The point he's making is that they are not mutually exclusive, but they are not tied together. It depends on the imagination of the player.

Narren
2011-08-04, 10:47 PM
I didn't think such a thing was actually possible, but it appears I used too much sarcasm.


It's called sarcasm.

The point he's making is that they are not mutually exclusive, but they are not tied together. It depends on the imagination of the player.

Yeah...I picked up on that. Maybe I misread the thread earlier, but I thought that's why we were providing the examples.

Perhaps I misunderstood your post, but I thought you were sarcastically pointing out something we agreed with you on.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-08-04, 10:54 PM
Yeah...I picked up on that. Maybe I misread the thread earlier, but I thought that's why we were providing the examples.

Perhaps I misunderstood your post, but I thought you were sarcastically pointing out something we agreed with you on.

Now I'm all confused.

Shadowknight12
2011-08-04, 11:03 PM
Now I'm all confused.

Ditto. I thought the point of the thread was like "we all take it as a fallacy, but does it really happen in real life?" and people were like "well, it does have some truth to it..." and then it devolved into personal anecdotes.

So it wasn't that clear.

erikun
2011-08-04, 11:11 PM
I thought the point of the thread was asking for personal anecdotes relating to optimized characters that were roleplayed poorly, or well-roleplayed characters that were poorly optimized.

That's not very Stormwind-related (the fallacy is that one part does not exempt the other, not that it is impossible to only focus on one part) so perhaps the title is misleading.

Lord.Sorasen
2011-08-04, 11:44 PM
The underlying flaw in it stems from the assumption that you can only do one thing at the table. You can either optimise or your can roleplay. This is, of course, false, like saying that you are either "with us or against us."

It doesn't, though. The Stormwind fallacy claims to disprove an idea that there is a link between A and B. Many people who don't believe in the fallacy don't think that it's one or the other. They simply think that after a certain point optimization takes over good roleplaying.


I don't know if it has been brought up but everyone optimizes, everyone. You're a Fighter and you decide to take Weapon Focus? Optimization, perhaps not very strong optimization but it is still gearing your characters towards performing their goal/niche with the best results. To not optimize is simply to reject the notions of the game.

I hear this all the time, but that's not what optimization means. If I am at my house and I need to get to the store, it is not optimizing my movement if I choose to get there on my hands. Picking weapon focus is not optimal. Sure it's better than nothing, but that's not the same.


Creating a back story is easy as dirt, it requires no expertise or training. Optimizing actually requires a backlog of knowledge and experience in application.

There is a distinction. One is making up absolute fiction while the other is using mechanics in conjunction with themselves to provide an actual result. You can show good optimization, you can not show good role-playing.

That's just not true. A good backstory takes time and effort just like anything else.


Ok, now that that is out of the way, I want to say some things of my own. First I'm going to dig my own grave here by saying that I don't believe in the Stormwind Fallacy. There is plenty of reason to believe roleplaying and optimization might be related.

Let me go further however in saying I don't view optimization as "making smart choices for a character". Optimized, to me, means the most beneficial for a goal. With that in mind, one can optimize towards a real roleplaying concept, and in this roleplaying and optimization can have a strong friendship, where each strengthens and reaffirms the other. This is how it should be. But sometimes people optimize towards the battle almost exclusively, and figure because of the Stormwind Fallacy that since roleplaying and optimization are separate, there will be no problems...

But... let's take druids. See, druids are animals a lot, so druids don't need strength or dexterity. They do, however, need constitution, for health purposes. So most druids you will see in D&D have high endurance but are also painfully weak and painfully slow.

You can sort of do this for a lot of the classes. There are very few charismatic people in D&D who don't use their charisma to cast spells. Wizards, like druids, tend to have a lot of bulk but almost no strength at all, and there's very little chance you'll see a monk with all that much appeal or intelligence (with this last one I blame the monk for being a badly written class, but the point sort of stands.) Elves live a lot longer and have more interest in the more sophisticated things, but they're rarely wizards because constitution is valuable. Aasimar are by fluff celestial beings, but lesser aasimar tend to be more likely because they have no level adjustment. Characters tend to have 2 flaws which luckily never conflict with the character's goals and actually manage to increase the character's potential.

I sort of see a connection here. A limit in what people will create based on what will be mechanically sound. Some are very good at roleplaying with the traits that are best mechanically, I won't deny that. But that doesn't mean they aren't limited by the mechanics. The same goes for those who refluff whatever doesn't fit with their character. They can claim their wizard is frail when he has 22 constitution, but by doing so you're taking away the very idea of constitution.

This next part... take it with a grain of salt, but I am far more likely to see someone who optimizes base a character around a mechanical advantage. "I want a guy who is a battlefield controller" or "I need a guy who hits really hard." Perhaps they actually thought up their character concept and later picked a build and asked for help, but the case seems to better suggest that they want a mechanical benefit and will make their entire character around that benefit. Race, stats, or whatever else comes second to a character who fights like they want it to fight.

When I hear about a character, I want the most notable thing about them to be something I won't be able to find by its stats alone. And yes, too much concern with optimization seems to be connected to this.

flumphy
2011-08-05, 12:34 AM
I sort of see a connection here. A limit in what people will create based on what will be mechanically sound. Some are very good at roleplaying with the traits that are best mechanically, I won't deny that. But that doesn't mean they aren't limited by the mechanics.

My take on the issue basically boils down to this. There are a LOT of roleplaying concepts that just aren't viable using D&D rules. There are so very many concepts I'd love to be able to play and can't, because you can't roleplay a character if they're dead.

So yes, there is often a very real choice between playing the type of character you want to play (or the even type of character you're good at playing!) and playing a character that will contribute meaningfully to combat encounters.

Qing Guang
2011-08-05, 12:34 AM
I think there is a connection between optimization and roleplay. A couple of them, actually. They're not mutually exclusive, but there are a couple things to make it harder to do both (at least for me).

1) With an optimized character, you're that much closer to Mary Sue territory. It's more difficult to keep perspective on your character, because you might very well be the best rogue in that world. You have to work harder to keep your character flawed, mainly becaues those flaws can't affect the combat mechanics.

2) IMO, it's easiest to create a character by starting out with a schtick. Obviously, the character has to have more development than that, or all you have is a gimmicky character with a shallow personaltiy, but it's a good starting point. Unfortunately, schticks don't lend themselves to optimization.
For example: in my Warlock game back home, I tend to run one of my three characters per universe (like a campaign, but with less plot) as a Mage. A few universes back I had a nice, well-rounded Class V (water/ice) Mage. She wasn't exactly optimized, but she was effective in pretty much any situation. I really struggled with making her interesting as a character, though (heck, I can't even remember her name anymore). This universe, I've got a Class III (harder to explain, but it's mostly utility and control) Mage. I actually was going to base her off Tsukiko, but we don't have Mystic Theurges and my DM doesn't allow Evil characters. So I kept the name, look, and attitude (and changed the alignment to *Lead Sheet*) and changed the rest. While I was rolling her up, I gave her mostly charm spells, which got me thinking, "Hmm... maybe she only uses all or nothing spells, because... Oh! Because she's so tightly wound and can't stand anything messy or out of her control!" I've stuck by that. It renders her useless every once in a while (not often enough to make her a truly pointless character), but it gave me a good launching point for her roleplay.

Lord.Sorasen
2011-08-05, 01:52 AM
My take on the issue basically boils down to this. There are a LOT of roleplaying concepts that just aren't viable using D&D rules. There are so very many concepts I'd love to be able to play and can't, because you can't roleplay a character if they're dead.

So yes, there is often a very real choice between playing the type of character you want to play (or the even type of character you're good at playing!) and playing a character that will contribute meaningfully to combat encounters.

In my first campaign, I played a half-orc cleric with the healing domain and the strength domain who used a mace and a shield and only really casted heal spells. There are like 3 problems with that character mechanically. Our team also had a bard, a rogue, a monk, and a druid. I made specifically sure to have decent charisma and intelligence so that I could be the party face, even though those stats were at a penalty. Long story short, I actually succeeded in all of those things.

For what it's worth, you actually can be a frail spellcaster and still contribute. Maybe not as much as more optimized people, but you still can.

That might be part of what fuels the idea of the Stormwind Fallacy more than anything. That once you have one optimized character, the others are forced to optimize if they still want to compete. The character you worked so hard on, the world-class fencer (mechanically a rogue/fighter or straight swashbuckler if you had the book) is outdone by the optimized characters. You have to throw out most of your plans if you want to contribute.

Killer Angel
2011-08-05, 02:02 AM
I didn't think such a thing was actually possible, but it appears I used too much sarcasm.

Probably you broke the scale of the sarcasm-o-meter...


Ditto. I thought the point of the thread was like "we all take it as a fallacy, but does it really happen in real life?" and people were like "well, it does have some truth to it..." and then it devolved into personal anecdotes.


Almost. It was more: the SF is indeed a fallacy, but was made to answer a certain misconception. Do you know of some cases that fits this misconception? Mine example in the OP was (i hope) clear from this point.


That's not very Stormwind-related (the fallacy is that one part does not exempt the other, not that it is impossible to only focus on one part) so perhaps the title is misleading.

mmm... I can concede that. But it seemed catchy when i wrote it. :smallwink:

LordBlades
2011-08-05, 02:07 AM
In my group, the ones that optimize the most have the least back story. They also role-play the least. The ones who don't bother with optimization tend to be best role-players, have the best back stories, and drive the game forward. And when I say they don't optimize, that doesn't mean that they play wizards with Int 10. Their character is good at what they do, but they may take a sub par feat, skill, or piece of equipment for flavor reasons. They feel that it gives their character more...character.

This is just in my experience, and other groups may be totally different. I see nothing wrong with any play style, as long as the group is having fun.

Everybody does that. The moment you're choosing not to play Pun Pun you have made a mechanically suboptimal choice.

Practical optimization, as it has been said, is about optimizing a character concept, not building the best possible character. If you're taking a feat/skill/whatever for fluff reasons (aka. to fulfill your character concept)you are optimizing, because your character is now a better fit for your goal.

The issue most 'roleplayers' seem to have with optimization is that they feel no need for their character mechanics to actually support their RP. I've seen more than once guys coming with backstories along the lines of 'my character is a great fighter' and the char sheet of a sword&board fighter with weapon specialization and cleave. That character will never be able to prove in game how great of a fighter he is, because he's not.

Zonugal
2011-08-05, 02:18 AM
I hear this all the time, but that's not what optimization means. If I am at my house and I need to get to the store, it is not optimizing my movement if I choose to get there on my hands. Picking weapon focus is not optimal. Sure it's better than nothing, but that's not the same.

It's 100% better than Extend Spell and certainly going to provide more than the Deceitful feat. It may not offer very much but it is still guiding a warrior towards their niche within the game. It is optimization. You are taking a concept and making it more viable through mechanical aid. You are actualizing a concept through the rules in a positive manner, that is the most basic of optimization.

ImperatorK
2011-08-05, 02:28 AM
Don't bring a knife to a gun fight, ESPECIALLY when you're supposed to be "The Best Gunman In The World".

Killer Angel
2011-08-05, 02:32 AM
It's 100% better than Extend Spell and certainly going to provide more than the Deceitful feat. It may not offer very much but it is still guiding a warrior towards their niche within the game. It is optimization.

Nope, that's the basic standard default.
If you must drive a car, you don't pick the abandoned one without wheels (fighter with extend spell). The standard will be to pick a working car (fighter with weap. spec.). The optimizer will look for Fast and Furious stuff.

candycorn
2011-08-05, 02:44 AM
If you plan out a build, then something crops up in game that makes that build harder to justify, and a different mechanical choice is in character, then there might be a clash. I have this problem with L5R all the time. I always get so tied up in buying skills and advantages the character should have due to things that happened in session (such as buying an ally or picking up a rank of Calligraphy because of that month spent waiting on another character, etc.) that I never get around to raising rings and Insight.

See, you're overlooking something.

Ever see someone try something over and over, and bless their heart, they just don't get it?

Sometimes things just don't click. You don't need to get better at everything you do. This is a justification of not picking up that rank of Calligraphy, and it's a justification that happens all the time in the real world.

candycorn
2011-08-05, 03:23 AM
Let me go further however in saying I don't view optimization as "making smart choices for a character". Optimized, to me, means the most beneficial for a goal. With that in mind, one can optimize towards a real roleplaying concept, and in this roleplaying and optimization can have a strong friendship, where each strengthens and reaffirms the other. This is how it should be. But sometimes people optimize towards the battle almost exclusively, and figure because of the Stormwind Fallacy that since roleplaying and optimization are separate, there will be no problems...If "optimized" means "the best choice for the goal", then the moment you don't choose "pun pun", you are not optimized. Pun Pun is pretty much the best at all things, including NOT being Pun Pun.

That's the problem with your view. Optimizing isn't a "yes" or "no". It's a sliding bar. At the lowest end, it's choices that actually hinder or weaken your character (a melee character taking the Noncombatant Flaw for Extend Spell (in D&D 3.x), for example). At the highest end, one is unkillable. Everything else is a varying level.

It's like sweet. Some things are more sweet than others, even if you can generally tell if something has sweetness or not.


But... let's take druids. See, druids are animals a lot, so druids don't need strength or dexterity. They do, however, need constitution, for health purposes. So most druids you will see in D&D have high endurance but are also painfully weak and painfully slow. This is because, in D&D, there is generally a causal relationship between stats. If one is higher, another must be lower to compensate. If we say that generally, people that meet the requirements for a class take it, then generally, strong people will be more successful at being a barbarian, and wise people more apt to be blessed by gods with divine spellcasting... Or at least, more apt to survive, when they are in that role.

Yes, in real life, clumsy take gymnastics.

You won't see them at the Olympics, though. At the top, the people there are optimized by success. The people who are less skilled are winnowed out along the way.


You can sort of do this for a lot of the classes. There are very few charismatic people in D&D who don't use their charisma to cast spells. Wizards, like druids, tend to have a lot of bulk but almost no strength at all, and there's very little chance you'll see a monk with all that much appeal or intelligence (with this last one I blame the monk for being a badly written class, but the point sort of stands.) Elves live a lot longer and have more interest in the more sophisticated things, but they're rarely wizards because constitution is valuable. Aasimar are by fluff celestial beings, but lesser aasimar tend to be more likely because they have no level adjustment. Characters tend to have 2 flaws which luckily never conflict with the character's goals and actually manage to increase the character's potential.Many of these things are simply choosing to be the person who has a shot at the olympic medal, rather than choosing to play the person who gets 4th place in the elementary school talent show.

I sort of see a connection here. A limit in what people will create based on what will be mechanically sound. Some are very good at roleplaying with the traits that are best mechanically, I won't deny that.But those traits are mechanically imposed. Those flaws, and stat changes, and all that, none of that has anything to do with how a character role plays.

One takes, Weapon Focus: Longbow, because they want to use a bow well. But it says nothing to WHY. Mechanics and roleplay are not cause and effect, unless you choose to see them that way.


But that doesn't mean they aren't limited by the mechanics. The same goes for those who refluff whatever doesn't fit with their character. They can claim their wizard is frail when he has 22 constitution, but by doing so you're taking away the very idea of constitution.People are limited by mechanics in real life. I'll never seriously consider myself a weight lifter. Nor will I ever try to found a philosophy. My personal limitations define what I choose to do.


This next part... take it with a grain of salt, but I am far more likely to see someone who optimizes base a character around a mechanical advantage. "I want a guy who is a battlefield controller" or "I need a guy who hits really hard." Perhaps they actually thought up their character concept and later picked a build and asked for help, but the case seems to better suggest that they want a mechanical benefit and will make their entire character around that benefit. Race, stats, or whatever else comes second to a character who fights like they want it to fight.And there is nothing wrong with that.


When I hear about a character, I want the most notable thing about them to be something I won't be able to find by its stats alone. And yes, too much concern with optimization seems to be connected to this.And you can have that. Because those memorable parts are gained through play. and if the player does a good job making their character memorable, it won't be the psywarrior pouncecharger. It will be Samir the Trollslayer, forever living in the shadow of the man who stole his glory. His frustration and protestations over everyone else's hailing of someone else as the war hero then shade his future non-combat encounters, and the rivalry drives him to compete in other ways, and even try to trick the usurper into embarassing situations.

But that could be true of any number of builds. And it was, I assure you, most memorable.

ImperatorK
2011-08-05, 05:51 AM
Guys, could this be considered Stormwind Fallacy-ish? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=210248)

Serpentine
2011-08-05, 06:23 AM
If choosing to alter stats for roleplaying reasons comes under the Stormwind fallacy, then I have no faith in said fallacy as a legitimate observation.

ImperatorK
2011-08-05, 06:40 AM
Lowering stats for RP purposes - Stormwind Fallacy.
All it takes to make his concept work is to rearrange the stats differently, which I suggested in the thread.

Serpentine
2011-08-05, 06:41 AM
If that is true, then the Stormwind Fallacy has itself become fallacious.

ImperatorK
2011-08-05, 06:42 AM
So you don't believe in SF.

Serpentine
2011-08-05, 06:44 AM
If that is what it has come to mean - that is, that any mechanically suboptimal decision made for roleplaying reasons falls under it - then no, I don't. It has become an opposite fallacy.
If it still means "the claim that optimisation and good roleplaying are mutually exclusive" (iirc), then I do.

ImperatorK
2011-08-05, 06:52 AM
If that is what it has come to mean - that is, that any mechanically suboptimal decision made for roleplaying reasons falls under it - then no, I don't. It has become an opposite fallacy.
Lowering stats isn't a sub-optimal decision, it outright nerfing yourself. So yes, it's Stormwind Fallacy.

Killer Angel
2011-08-05, 06:52 AM
I agree with Serp, here. If the concept I've had in mind is about a character with one peculiar phisical (or mental) weakness, and my lower stat is a 13, I could have some problem justifying the RP of said concept.
Edit: probably, i would trade with the DM the lowering of the stat, for something else...

ImperatorK
2011-08-05, 06:54 AM
Having high stats doesn't mean you have to act upon them.

Yora
2011-08-05, 06:54 AM
I think the actual build is not part of the real problem.

The problem is the players expectations about what the campaign will be like. People with heavily optimized characters expect the campaign to be full of incredibly powerful characters like in Exalted or a superhero comic.
Whereas, in my experience, the players who prefer characters with complex personalties and motivations, strongly lean toward more "average guy" characters.

When you have a number of low-fantasy players and one player who wants to play a superhuman superhero, such a character would destroy the consistency of the world the other players want to play in. And so they say "your character can't work in our game!". Which is true. But I think it's really an issue of the campaigns setting as envisioned by the players, than the actual potential for roleplay.

Years ago, when you could make custom game worlds for Neverwinter Nights with dozens of players on a server, and several servers linked together, I was involved in screening the character concepts before players could join the game. And at least as I defined our work, we did the whole process to check if the new players understood what kind of power level the game world was supposed to be, and which ones we would point to the guidelines to familiarize themselves with what this whole thing was about. What people did with their characters once they reached the first level-up was left completely free (though with 300+ characters in the database, this would have been impossible anyway.)
Though admitedly, while this game world was incredibly popular in germany, I have no idea if this is really representative for gamers as a whole.

Serpentine
2011-08-05, 06:55 AM
Lowering stats isn't a sub-optimal decision, it outright nerfing yourself. So yes, it's Stormwind Fallacy.It's changing mechanics to better suit the character concept. If I want to play a really dumb character, and I don't roll lower than a 12 for all my stats, why is it so unreasonable for me to voluntarily choose to lower my Intelligence stat? I'm not saying anything about how anyone else can play. I'm not saying it would be impossible to play a character with all stats 12 or higher. All I'm saying is that a 12 Intelligence does not work for this character.

I propose a new fallacy:
The Stormwing Fallacy Fallacy: Any suboptimal or deliberately disadvantageous mechanical decision made for roleplaying reasons is an example of the Stormwing Fallacy.

Killer Angel
2011-08-05, 06:59 AM
Having high stats doesn't mean you have to act upon them.

That's true, but I would feel unconfortable, playing Raistlin with 13 Str and 14 Con.

ImperatorK
2011-08-05, 07:01 AM
That's true, but I would feel unconfortable, playing Raistlin with 13 Str and 14 Con.
But you're not playing Raistlin. you're playing a Barbarian.

Serpentine
2011-08-05, 07:05 AM
Here's the earliest comprehensive definition of the Stormwind fallacy I could find:
The Stormwind Fallacy, aka the Roleplayer vs Rollplayer Fallacy
Just because one optimizes his characters mechanically does not mean that they cannot also roleplay, and vice versa.

Corollary: Doing one in a game does not preclude, nor infringe upon, the ability to do the other in the same game.

Generalization 1: One is not automatically a worse roleplayer if he optimizes, and vice versa.
Generalization 2: A non-optimized character is not automatically roleplayed better than an optimized one, and vice versa.
...
Proof: These two elements rely on different aspects of a player's gameplay. Optimization factors in to how well one understands the rules and handles synergies to produce a very effective end result. Roleplaying deals with how well a player can act in character and behave as if he was someone else.
A person can act while understanding the rules, and can build something powerful while still handling an effective character. There is nothing in the game -- mechanical or otherwise -- restricting one if you participate in the other.

Claiming that an optimizer cannot roleplay (or is participating in a playstyle that isn't supportive of roleplaying) because he is an optimizer, or vice versa, is committing the Stormwind Fallacy.Here is what windweaver said:

...
Here were the stats I rolled and where I decided to put them.

STR-17 (+2 for the human racial bonus to one stat so it'll make that one 19)
DEX-15
CON-15
INT-17
WIS-14
CHA-13

Now here are a few questions I pose the playground.

1. Do you think a DM would let me tweak the stats a bit by lowering a couple of them? My luck with character stat rolls is a bit too good sometimes and I felt like this character was just a bit too powerful from a story perspective so I'd like to take like 2 points off of DEX, WIS, and CHA just to balance the character a bit more for RP purposes.
In no way was windweaver making any comments on the ability of a rollplayer to roleplay or vice-versa. All he was saying was that those all-high stats didn't work for the character he had in mind and/or the story in which he was playing.

Killer Angel
2011-08-05, 07:08 AM
But you're not playing Raistlin. you're playing a Barbarian.

I was referring to your (apparently) more general statement "Lowering stats for RP purposes - Stormwind Fallacy".
In the case of Raistlin, RP almost requires poor phisical stats.

ImperatorK
2011-08-05, 07:10 AM
Okay, you're right. It seems that I misunderstood a little what the SF is.
My primary point is that I don't really think that lowering hisyour stats is necessary. Like I already said, rearrange them or take that flaw called Pathetic.

Serpentine
2011-08-05, 07:11 AM
Okay, you're right. It seems that I misunderstood a little what the SF is.
My primary point is that I don't really think that lowering his stats is necessary. Like I already said, rearrange them or take that flaw called Pathetic.To echo yourself, I did suggest that he take the ability-lowering Flaws.

ImperatorK
2011-08-05, 07:12 AM
I know. I'm suggesting it again.

Serpentine
2011-08-05, 07:14 AM
Schweet.
(/derail)

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-05, 07:30 AM
You are wrong, check out the Stormwind fallacy again; he is talking about mechanical optimization.

I know that. I was pointing out that mechanical optimization doesn't end in character creation or tweaking, since that's not the extent of mechanics.


And roleplaying and mechanical optimization don't go against each other because you are usally optimizing a specific concept.
"Specific concept" more often than not already includes a roleplaying elements that state "I won't do these things, whether or not they'd be optimal". And unless your concept is absurdly specific in what you want and don't want to do, I'm pretty sure it can still run head first against one sort of Morton's Fork or another.

Do note: I'm not saying optimization and roleplaying are inherently contrary to each other. The idea that they are never contrary to each other is, however, crap. Two elements don't need to be fundamentally opposed to get on each others' way.

Gamer Girl
2011-08-05, 09:28 AM
Do note: I'm not saying optimization and roleplaying are inherently contrary to each other. The idea that they are never contrary to each other is, however, crap. Two elements don't need to be fundamentally opposed to get on each others' way.


Well, 'bad' optimization is contrary to role-playing. When you go down the 'bad' optimization route you are choosing not to role play. The 'bad' optimizer does not think of their character as a 'real' person in a 'real' world, they just think the character is some scribbles on a page to make them look and feel better in the real world.

The 'bad' optimizer is not making a character to play in the game, they are making a character to stroke their own ego. The game is just getting in their way.

And sadly a good 75% of the optimizers types are the 'bad' ones...

Sucrose
2011-08-05, 09:53 AM
Well, 'bad' optimization is contrary to role-playing. When you go down the 'bad' optimization route you are choosing not to role play. The 'bad' optimizer does not think of their character as a 'real' person in a 'real' world, they just think the character is some scribbles on a page to make them look and feel better in the real world.

The 'bad' optimizer is not making a character to play in the game, they are making a character to stroke their own ego. The game is just getting in their way.

And sadly a good 75% of the optimizers types are the 'bad' ones...

[Citation needed]

In direct response to the OP, I've almost never had that problem in a game: my real-life games are generally beer & pretzels affairs anyway, and so making a particularly well-developed personality for my character would be pointless and possibly annoying.

In internet games, on the other hand, I generally write up the backstory at the same time as the mechanics, so I can tell if I'm just writing something as an excuse, or if it's a story that I think is genuinely cool. I have caught myself trying that on occasion with gish characters, though, who I can never seem to make a realistic backstory for without some sort of warrior-mage military group like Aundair's Knights Arcane.

The one time that I did show the behavior that the believers in the Stormwind Fallacy consider typical for optimization was when I wrote up a story for a crazy level 27 gestalt game that was basically an excuse to play a time, space, and light-focused warrior mage. Didn't get into that game anyway.

ImperatorK
2011-08-05, 09:59 AM
Well, 'bad' optimization is contrary to role-playing. When you go down the 'bad' optimization route you are choosing not to role play. The 'bad' optimizer does not think of their character as a 'real' person in a 'real' world, they just think the character is some scribbles on a page to make them look and feel better in the real world.

The 'bad' optimizer is not making a character to play in the game, they are making a character to stroke their own ego. The game is just getting in their way.

And sadly a good 75% of the optimizers types are the 'bad' ones...
You have some kind of, oh I don't know... proof? World-wide poll or some scientific statistics should suffice.

Alchemistmerlin
2011-08-05, 10:05 AM
Mechanically it makes more sense to always kill your opponent, and you take penalties for doing non-lethal damage. Optimally you would not "waste" feats on getting rid of non-lethal penalties, because those feats could be better used for killing faster and thus doing your job "better".

This is inherently contrary to playing anything other than the "total psychopath" that most adventurers are.

Sucrose
2011-08-05, 10:12 AM
Mechanically it makes more sense to always kill your opponent, and you take penalties for doing non-lethal damage. Optimally you would not "waste" feats on getting rid of non-lethal penalties, because those feats could be better used for killing faster and thus doing your job "better".

This is inherently contrary to playing anything other than the "total psychopath" that most adventurers are.

Incorrect. There are several situations where it is suboptimal to kill everything. A few would be:

-When you can find a Merciful weapon (which is incidentally generally superior to the elemental bonus dice, which can be negated fairly easily)
-When you are a Paladin or cleric of a Good god
-When you are an ally of same
-When you need a diplomatic solution, and killing the guards would be problematic
-When you work in a more civilized area, like a city, where lethal force is frowned upon
-When you are using a Vow of Peace build
-When, in general, your concept would be opposed to it.

Optimization is not about being combat-focused to the exclusion of all else. Even Powergaming isn't that, given how effective a Diplomancer can be.

Optimization is about choosing the path that represents your desired character, and does so while keeping you relevant against the enemies that you face. It is meaningless without constraints.

Tzi
2011-08-05, 10:23 AM
You have some kind of, oh I don't know... proof? World-wide poll or some scientific statistics should suffice.

It is a stereotype but one I think is born of experience. In my party the one hyper optimizer that is always seeking to play tier 1 classes is consistently a bad roleplayer. In fact that player has openly said RP is often pointless and generally doesn't like doing anything that doesn't get loot or experience.

While yes, it can be a fallacy that just because someone has put an eye on optimization, does not mean someone is going to be a bad RP'er. However enough people have seen signs that usually up the odds of someone being disinterested in RP.

ImperatorK
2011-08-05, 10:28 AM
It is a stereotype but one I think is born of experience. In my party the one hyper optimizer that is always seeking to play tier 1 classes is consistently a bad roleplayer. In fact that player has openly said RP is often pointless and generally doesn't like doing anything that doesn't get loot or experience.

While yes, it can be a fallacy that just because someone has put an eye on optimization, does not mean someone is going to be a bad RP'er. However enough people have seen signs that usually up the odds of someone being disinterested in RP.
Anecdotal evidence does not a fact make.
I've seen players that where so centered on their roleplaying that they couldn't care less about the mechanics, going as far as trying to ignore them when the game was obviously with mechanics. One time one dude did a wonderful speech to an NPC. He got pissed when the DM asked him to role for Diplomacy. His PC had 8 Cha and zero social skills. The DM gave him a +2 circumstance bonus for good roleplay, but he still didn't convince the NPC. The player was of course raging. "How did I not succeed?! My arguments where PERFECT! :smallfurious:"
Also, Gamer Girl is talking about a problem that doesn't have to be exclusive to optimization. It's more of a motivation or gaming habit concern. Even when you're not an optimizer, when you mainly play video games, you are bound to have some different imagination of the game.

Tzi
2011-08-05, 10:50 AM
Anecdotal evidence does not a fact make.
I've seen players that where so centered on their roleplaying that they couldn't care less about the mechanics, going as far as trying to ignore them when the game was obviously with mechanics. One time one dude did a wonderful speech to an NPC. He got pissed when the DM asked him to role for Diplomacy. His PC had 8 Cha and zero social skills. The DM gave him a +2 circumstance bonus for good roleplay, but he still didn't convince the NPC. The player was of course raging. "How did I not succeed?! My arguments where PERFECT! :smallfurious:"
Also, Gamer Girl is talking about a problem that doesn't have to be exclusive to optimization. It's more of a motivation or gaming habit concern. Even when you're not an optimizer, when you mainly play video games, you are bound to have some different imagination of the game.

"Personwho" even in psychology there is always the rule breaker. Sure, not every person who does crystal meth will become a tweaked out waste on the streets, but plenty do. See what I am saying? Some become optimizer mostly because they look at D&D as less cooperative roleplay and more of a venue of Player vs. Player in which one person has to be the best.

There is at least a correlation between optimizers and Munchkins. It does not mean that the former always causes or indicates the later, but the former is needed to be the later.

ImperatorK
2011-08-05, 11:00 AM
There is at least a correlation between optimizers and Munchkins. It does not mean that the former always causes or indicates the later, but the former is needed to be the later.
Not entirely true. You certainly can cheat and lie even when you're not an optimizer. Because that's what munchkinery mainly is, cheating and lying. An optimizer has it easier to cheat in a game, but only because he knows the rules better. This dude that I was talking about in my previous post is also a munchkin.

Daimbert
2011-08-05, 12:37 PM
I think the biggest issue here is that while the Stormwind Fallacy is probably correctly identifying a fallacy, it also is mainly addressing a strawman argument.

The idea is that you can optimize inside a character concept, and so that therefore optimization and roleplaying aren't mutually exclusive or even problematic. Fair enough. But note that Serpentine's quote also talks about "Roleplayer vs Rollplayer", and that's not what that means. If you talk about someone who builds a character concept and then wants that character concept to be as effective as that concept can be, that person isn't a Rollplayer, but is a Roleplayer who understands the mechanics of the system. Conversely, if someone wants to build the best possible mechanical character and contorts their character concept to try to explain how they got all of those advantages, that's not a Roleplayer, but a Rollplayer who's trying to provide a character concept for the DM.

The key difference is where you put the emphasis. The Roleplayer thinks character concept first, mechanics second (if they can). The Rollplayer thinks mechanics first, character concept second.

Now, can there be someone in-between? I don't think so, and don't think that the arguments over cases where the Roleplayer and the Rollplayer might make the same choice cut it. What you need to do is look at cases where the character concept says to take something and the mechanical advantage says to take something else. So, a case where the character should improve their Knowledge (history) skill but that's in a campaign where that isn't as useful as, say, Knowledge (geography). Roleplayers will at least desperately WANT to take Knowledge (history) while Rollplayers will aim to take Knowledge (geography). It's when there are ties that things get interesting.

I also don't think cases where the mechanics lead to someone altering a character concept to better fit or add something really cool count either. Again, it's all about main focus. If you see something that's interesting in the mechanics that would fit your character well with a minor tweak, that's Roleplaying. If you see something in the mechanics that will make you more powerful and so you tweak your concept, that's Rollplaying. The only middle ground at all is a case where you see that you need to take X, Y, and Z mechanics to make your character concept do what it's supposed to ... but that's still clearly Roleplaying.

Knaight
2011-08-05, 02:14 PM
Well, 'bad' optimization is contrary to role-playing. When you go down the 'bad' optimization route you are choosing not to role play. The 'bad' optimizer does not think of their character as a 'real' person in a 'real' world, they just think the character is some scribbles on a page to make them look and feel better in the real world.

The 'bad' optimizer is not making a character to play in the game, they are making a character to stroke their own ego. The game is just getting in their way.

And sadly a good 75% of the optimizers types are the 'bad' ones...

You seriously need to find a better gaming culture. I've seen a scant handful of these at most, among scores of players. Moreover, there are plenty of people who can't or won't optimize who also can't or won't role play. Some people learn to optimize in a system so that they can role play more characters - this is why several people I know, including myself can make an optimized D&D character, so that if they happen to be playing D&D for whatever reason they can make a character who can do what the character can do. Most of these people view D&D as fundamentally flawed for requiring one to learn to optimize to get that, but that is a different case entirely.

As for 75% of optimizers being the "bad" ones, I can't help but notice that you play D&D. I've consistently seen that people who are willing to try multiple systems tend to care more, and tend to be able to role play well, and understand the systems they choose to play most. Now, there are some people who know multiple systems well, and still choose D&D, but there are also a lot of people who only know about D&D, and pretty much anyone who doesn't really care about the game all that much, but wants to play for some reason and needs to find some way to amuse themselves -the typical problem player- is probably going to end up in that group. Some of these problem players power game, some act disruptively, so on and so forth. These can be almost completely avoided simply by playing a non D&D, non WoD game.

Shadowknight12
2011-08-05, 02:33 PM
This is seriously still going?

Wow, you'd think people would have picked up by now that optimisation and roleplaying are not only completely disconnected (just like optimising and using minis, or roleplaying and exploring the campaign setting) but that at the end of the day, it all boils down to personal preferences. Some people would rather optimise than roleplay. Some would prefer the opposite. Some are keen on developing both simultaneously.

Come on, people. Give it a rest. Stop trying to find connections that don't exist. I know we all want to know more about the world we live in and the hobbies we enjoy, and we all like the safety of finding rules to predict reality, but we have to know when to stop.

Zonugal
2011-08-05, 02:37 PM
Perhaps we should examine a link in dedication and base assumptions within optimiztion and role-playing?

If you have some skill at optimization than you have probably a degree of competence with game theory. What does this mean? Well swinging the huge bat of assumption lets say you have traded doing a social activity for strengthening your knowledge of DnD [Optimization]. You have traded X amount of time for DnD math, a very personal and solitary activity (perhaps the least social one can be at a moment).

Now if we inverse this we might see that instead of applying ones self to a keen sense of game theory and DnD [Optimization] you decided to become heavily involved in theater. While rehearsing your scene on stage you are being very social but are contributing nothing to your knowledge of DnD [Optimization].

So we have two relationships born:
Those who are very knowledgeable about DnD Optimization will be less theatrically inclined.
Those who are more theatrically inclined will possess less knowledge about DnD Optimization.

Now working off of assumptions once more, because they are as well all know super fun, traditional DnD players are pretty bad with theatrics. That isn't to say they aren't social or incapable of interaction they just are awful at the theatrical skills that may apply towards DnD. Character immersion, improv' reflexes and accents/voices all fall to the ground as if one has no suitable experience/training than they will more than likely not try.

It is here where we might find another connector between 'roll-players' and 'role-players' in the universal aspect of shame. A standard optimizer will not attempt a great variety of theatrics in the game because of fear of shame. They are afraid of being mocked, laughed at and criticized. This applies to anyone who has limited training speaking/acting in front of others. So to off-set this shame they delve into the one area of comfort, the stable and absolute knowledge of DnD optimization. It is secure and like any base of knowledge represents an area of dedication far removed from receiving shame. For the 'role-player' they off-set their shame in their character not being the most mechanically powerful through theatrics. This is a diversion of strengths and talents. That is to say it isn't a negative thing, everybody highlights their strengths while minimizing their weaknesses (read: Optimizing), but the problem comes in the inferiority of role-playing being greater than optimization. This springs from that same fear the optimizer feels but comes from another angle of anger. While the optimizer may feel inferior for their role-playing they have a safe haven in the mechanics of the game, but the role-player has no safe haven. While they may flex their role-playing & theatrical skills they offer little security within the game (they are beyond the game mechanically speaking) and thus they have a greater motivation to lash out.

As DnD is concerned there is no safety or bonus afforded to those who are good at role-playing, only those who are mechanically strong. Naturally this creates a hostile dialectic between the optimizer and the role-player, and thus springs forth the wrath from role-players. To offset this limitation they elevate themselves above their weakness. They make the game no longer about mechanics but purely about story and penalize the optimizer for not fitting in within their 'new game.'

Now the hope would be for optimizers to become comfortable with their theatrical presence at the gaming table and for the role-player to strengthen their mechanical knowledge in a mechanical game.

But than again this is all fueled by assumptions which everyone seems to be hurling around so what do I know?...

WarKitty
2011-08-05, 02:38 PM
This is seriously still going?

Wow, you'd think people would have picked up by now that optimisation and roleplaying are not only completely disconnected (just like optimising and using minis, or roleplaying and exploring the campaign setting) but that at the end of the day, it all boils down to personal preferences. Some people would rather optimise than roleplay. Some would prefer the opposite. Some are keen on developing both simultaneously.

Come on, people. Give it a rest. Stop trying to find connections that don't exist. I know we all want to know more about the world we live in and the hobbies we enjoy, and we all like the safety of finding rules to predict reality, but we have to know when to stop.

It's summer. I don't have anything better to do than get into pointless discussions online. :smallbiggrin:

leakingpen
2011-08-05, 03:28 PM
Simply put, in the late 80's, early 90's, it was VERY true. Thankfully we have a lot more gamers these days.

Geigan
2011-08-05, 03:47 PM
I don't see optimization in an rpg as anything more than doing your intended goal better by making mechanical choices to support that. A ranger maxes survival, know:geography, and takes the track feat because he wants to be able to find anybody anywhere. A character wants to be the best at a particular school of magic so he takes levels in several PrCs that support that type of spellcasting. Optimization in an rpg isn't about being the best at everything ever. It's about picking a goal and doing your best to get there.

In the case of windweaver his goal was to make a typical strong man, that was also clever, but he also wanted to not be powerful in several other areas. He had above average wis, cha, and dex that didn't fit in with the concept that he was working towards. So he thought about a choice that he might have perceived as optimal for his intended goal. Yes, making himself less powerful was the optimal choice in this case.

I think a lot of the people who don't like optimization at all aren't realizing that they make optimal choices themselves all the time. Whenever you pick the feats or skills that best suit your character concept you are making what you consider the optimal choice for your intended goal. Your goal just wasn't necessarily to gain more power. There seems to be confusion for some in making the best choice, and making the most powerful choice.

Making your character "the best" at a single thing is a bit disingenuous, because to be the best often means to sacrifice other things. (like time, other goals, or table happiness for instance) So when you say you want your character to be the best in his chosen field, be prepared to list the things you aren't willing to do to make that goal happen or else people will assume you want to get there by any means necessary. That's why picking pun-pun isn't the optimal choice for any goal as not everyone's intended goal is to be a god. Pun-Pun is merely the most powerful option. People don't say that they don't want to sacrifice time or table happiness so they can go off and play out a god complex while the other players watch, it's just implied by the rules of common courtesy at most people's tables.

The only time I see the problem of the Stormwind Fallacy actually happen, are when people have 2 conflicting goals. One is to have a powerful character and the other is an RP concept that would make him less powerful(why do they have goals that would directly conflict with each other? I don't know). Now this conflict is about as notable as 2 people meeting on a road in each others' way. One has to alter their course slightly for the other to get through. Now RP concepts as opposed to mechanics are typically a lot more fluid and easier to twist so that you can have both sides get past on the same road whereas mechanics require more work to redo, so typically if one changes course it's going to be the RP. But the fact that RP had to make any change at all to it's course for the purpose of mechanics is enough to send some people into a frenzy, and vice-versa. The thing is, when one stepped aside for the other the optimal choice was made for one goal at the expense of the other. Where optimization gets a bad rep at this crossroads is that optimizers will try to do the best to compromise. Twisting one or both to fit both into the same character and sending one or both sides into a frenzy over the changes. The fact that you can twist things around so they don't get in each others' way is enough to mean roleplay and rollplay don't have to conflict. But the fact that there had to be any twisting at all is proof that the two can conflict. Now I don't believe the fact that they can conflict to be very important, as if they do conflict it's merely an unwillingness to compromise that caused it. Or you could just not pick character goals that conflict with each other and avoid the problem entirely. :P

tl:dr Optimization is not inherent to either roleplay or rollplay in and of itself. Rollplay and roleplay can conflict but shouldn't have to.


It's summer. I don't have anything better to do than get into pointless discussions online. Ditto :P

Rixx
2011-08-05, 04:18 PM
I'm saving a bottle of champagne for the day the world finally lays the term "Stormwind Fallacy" to rest for good.

Geigan
2011-08-05, 04:22 PM
I'm saving a bottle of champagne for the day the world finally lays the term "Stormwind Fallacy" to rest for good.

I'm saving one for when fallacy is the never used as someone's first response to an others argument. Same goes double for "strawman argument".

Rixx
2011-08-05, 04:23 PM
I'm saving one for when fallacy is the never used as someone's first response to an others argument. Same goes double for "strawman argument".

Maybe we can pool our resources and have one bangin' party at the end of time.

Alchemistmerlin
2011-08-05, 04:24 PM
People are arguing against anecdotal evidence...and yet the title of the thread at least is specifically ASKING for anecdotal evidence.



And if you want a prime example of why I don't like Optimization (And specifically the culture that moved here from the Wizards forums with the advent of 4E) look into any thread where someone says;
"Hey I'm playing an X and I want it to do Y at next level, what feat should I take?"
and people respond with
"You should play a Z with A class feature instead!" totally missing the point of the thread. It is a toxic mindset at best.

Geigan
2011-08-05, 04:25 PM
Maybe we can pool our resources and have one bangin' party at the end of time.
Sounds good to me.:smallcool:


People are arguing against anecdotal evidence...and yet the title of the thread at least is specifically ASKING for anecdotal evidence.



And if you want a prime example of why I don't like Optimization (And specifically the culture that moved here from the Wizards forums with the advent of 4E) look into any thread where someone says;
"Hey I'm playing an X and I want it to do Y at next level, what feat should I take?"
and people respond with
"You should play a Z with A class feature instead!" totally missing the point of the thread. It is a toxic mindset at best.

Well said respondants aren't being optimal because they fail to take X and Y into account, therefore making Z and A poor choices if they would compromise X and Y which were apart of the OP's intended goal. Those sorts of questions are a sort of range finder for the ability compromise. If the OP makes it clear that X and Y are non-negotiable then they are officially apart of the intended goal and shouldn't be messed with, the Z and A suggestion however might have fit the goal better, and are merely suggestions. The OP can take em or leave em.

Alchemistmerlin
2011-08-05, 04:31 PM
Sounds good to me.:smallcool:



Well said respondants aren't being optimal because they fail to take X and Y into account, therefore making Z and A poor choices if they would compromise X and Y.

And from your interpretation of the word Optimal (which is...shaky at best) they would be wrong, but it is still part of the culture that came to roost here in the time between 3.5 and 4e.

I'm sure for most people it was a very gradual change, but I took a biiiiiiig gap of time off from GitP and so upon my return it was a rather jarring philosophical change.

WarKitty
2011-08-05, 04:31 PM
People are arguing against anecdotal evidence...and yet the title of the thread at least is specifically ASKING for anecdotal evidence.



And if you want a prime example of why I don't like Optimization (And specifically the culture that moved here from the Wizards forums with the advent of 4E) look into any thread where someone says;
"Hey I'm playing an X and I want it to do Y at next level, what feat should I take?"
and people respond with
"You should play a Z with A class feature instead!" totally missing the point of the thread. It is a toxic mindset at best.

Right along with "well if you'd just give up fluff point X you could do mechanical point Y so much better!"

Geigan
2011-08-05, 04:37 PM
And from your interpretation of the word Optimal (which is...shaky at best) they would be wrong, but it is still part of the culture that came to roost here in the time between 3.5 and 4e.

I'm sure for most people it was a very gradual change, but I took a biiiiiiig gap of time off from GitP and so upon my return it was a rather jarring philosophical change.

My definition is to make the best choice for your intended goal. If player wants to specifically use X and Y to get to his intended goal then they are a part of that goal. Optimal choices would not conflict with X and Y while still working towards the part of the goal he hasn't reached yet.

Terazul
2011-08-05, 04:56 PM
And if you want a prime example of why I don't like Optimization (And specifically the culture that moved here from the Wizards forums with the advent of 4E) look into any thread where someone says;
"Hey I'm playing an X and I want it to do Y at next level, what feat should I take?"
and people respond with
"You should play a Z with A class feature instead!" totally missing the point of the thread. It is a toxic mindset at best.

I still have yet to see this happen as often as everyone claims it does. But the reasoning behind most suggestions of something different come from the fact that very often people are enamored with the idea of Y, but X isn't very good at Y at all. See monks and punching things and rangers (compared to say, fighters) at shooting a bow. If someone is interested in a particular trait of ranger/monk/whatever that they have to have for whatever reason, people are often more than not accommodating.

WarKitty
2011-08-05, 05:00 PM
I still have yet to see this happen as often as everyone claims it does. But the reasoning behind most suggestions of something different come from the fact that very often people are enamored with the idea of Y, but X isn't very good at Y at all. See monks and punching things and rangers (compared to say, fighters) at shooting a bow. If someone is interested in a particular trait of ranger/monk/whatever that they have to have for whatever reason, people are often more than not accommodating.

Course, this doesn't account for the number of times I've heard "You could do Y so much better if you'd just change your race/alignment/main stat." In many cases despite my saying those were non-negotiable parts of the character.

Knaight
2011-08-05, 05:48 PM
And if you want a prime example of why I don't like Optimization (And specifically the culture that moved here from the Wizards forums with the advent of 4E) look into any thread where someone says;
"Hey I'm playing an X and I want it to do Y at next level, what feat should I take?"
and people respond with
"You should play a Z with A class feature instead!" totally missing the point of the thread. It is a toxic mindset at best.

Honestly, that seems to be a forum or D&D culture problem more than an optimization problem. On other forums I'm on -I won't name names, because the last thing I want is drift to them from this one- optimization advice never takes that form. If one already has a character, it restricts itself entirely to where to go from there, if one is building a character from scratch, then the classes come out, usually on request. However, said forums also tend to focus far more than this one on the non mechanical side of the hobby. They also universally focus on either a much wider range of role playing games, or a specific few role playing games that aren't D&D.

navar100
2011-08-05, 06:46 PM
Ok, now that that is out of the way, I want to say some things of my own. First I'm going to dig my own grave here by saying that I don't believe in the Stormwind Fallacy. There is plenty of reason to believe roleplaying and optimization might be related.

Let me go further however in saying I don't view optimization as "making smart choices for a character". Optimized, to me, means the most beneficial for a goal. With that in mind, one can optimize towards a real roleplaying concept, and in this roleplaying and optimization can have a strong friendship, where each strengthens and reaffirms the other. This is how it should be. But sometimes people optimize towards the battle almost exclusively, and figure because of the Stormwind Fallacy that since roleplaying and optimization are separate, there will be no problems...

...



My group's first campaign, 3E. I join in playing a cleric. There was no 3.5 at the time. All I wanted to play was a cleric. DM helped to create a backstory. I was the youngest son of the Baron of our home city. I chose the ecclesiastics instead of politics.

As the campaign progressed political intrigue became prominent. At one point I made a terrible discovery. My father, the Baron, had committed treason and framed the previous Baron; hence how my father became Baron. Do I turn in my father? Gut-wrenching choice. I did. Father was imprisoned. The previous Baron was restored to the throne. I was dubbed a Knight. Great game.

By coincidence, by the time the treason was exposed I had purchased the splat book Faiths & Pantheons a week before. Upon reading the Prestige Class Church Inquistor, I saw the special requirement: exposed corruption within the Church. The words leaped out at me. That was my character! True, it wasn't technically Church corruption but to turn in your own father for treason had to be fair equivalence. Also by coincidence I was only a few skill points shy of the prerequisites. Two levels later, I went into the Church Inquisitor Prestige Class. Now, not only was I a cleric, I was a cleric on steroids. Full spellcasting, continuing Turn Undead, +4 to all dispel checks, and eventually dispel illusions and immune to charm/compulsion effects as later class abilites. I was CoDzilla!

Optimization and roleplaying are not mutually exclusive. You can have both with great abundance.

Adamantrue
2011-08-05, 07:57 PM
My group's first campaign, 3E. I join in playing a cleric. There was no 3.5 at the time. All I wanted to play was a cleric. DM helped to create a backstory. I was the youngest son of the Baron of our home city. I chose the ecclesiastics instead of politics.

As the campaign progressed political intrigue became prominent. At one point I made a terrible discovery. My father, the Baron, had committed treason and framed the previous Baron; hence how my father became Baron. Do I turn in my father? Gut-wrenching choice. I did. Father was imprisoned. The previous Baron was restored to the throne. I was dubbed a Knight. Great game.

By coincidence, by the time the treason was exposed I had purchased the splat book Faiths & Pantheons a week before. Upon reading the Prestige Class Church Inquistor, I saw the special requirement: exposed corruption within the Church. The words leaped out at me. That was my character! True, it wasn't technically Church corruption but to turn in your own father for treason had to be fair equivalence. Also by coincidence I was only a few skill points shy of the prerequisites. Two levels later, I went into the Church Inquisitor Prestige Class. Now, not only was I a cleric, I was a cleric on steroids. Full spellcasting, continuing Turn Undead, +4 to all dispel checks, and eventually dispel illusions and immune to charm/compulsion effects as later class abilites. I was CoDzilla!

Optimization and roleplaying are not mutually exclusive. You can have both with great abundance. In my first 3E experience, I was playing an Elven Fighter in an all Elf Campaign. The character was the front-liner, drawing the fire away from the more squishy characters and providing the muscle (the stats were very un-elvish).

Its worth noting he spent the first hundred years of his life in Dwarven lands, and had an affinity for their kind (as well as their habits and temperament).

During the course of the game, after strange experiences with corrupted forest spirits, my character developed a sort of affinity with them as well, serving as their voice. It became character-appropriate for me to take a level in Druid, but that choice compromised my use of all of my gear, which was a heavy focus for my character.

I took it anyways, and it forced me to always choose to either be a low-level Druid (and voice for the forest spirits), or a lower-level Fighter when a martial character or Dwarven interests were required. But both aspects began to lag behind in power when compared to the others, requiring their buffs to keep up.

It still was my favorite character to play, specifically because it required me to work without the best mechanical tools in the traditional sense, having to find ways to make what I had work somehow, and yet having a significant role in the game.

I suppose it could be argued that it was still optimizing (for a Role rather than for my rolls), but I often refer to it as my "build a poor Ranger" character, and remember that game more fondly than most. But if I had tried for more conventional choices, I may have had a stronger character, but I'd have missed out on so many other opportunities and challenges.

Snails
2011-08-06, 02:12 AM
Well the Stormwind Fallacy is indeed a fallacy, but less so than many like to think.

Playing less optimized characters just seems to loosen many players up. With expectations lowered, less mental effort is spent on making the absolute optimal move, and more stylishness comes out as the player looks for sound moves that make "good enough" sense for the particular PC.

Being the most badass person of type X of level Y this world has ever seen is not really a role. It is an achievement that requires moving faster and faster to stay still.

No, there are no absolutes here.

And I really doubt the reverse holds at all. To roleplay well requires the player to be mentally engaged and to want his or her own character to be interacting with this world of imaginary characters. PC competence facilitates interesting interactions and interesting conflicts/disagreements.

SITB
2011-08-06, 05:27 AM
I know that. I was pointing out that mechanical optimization doesn't end in character creation or tweaking, since that's not the extent of mechanics.

Yes it does, that's why those are actual mechanics of the game.


"Specific concept" more often than not already includes a roleplaying elements that state "I won't do these things, whether or not they'd be optimal". And unless your concept is absurdly specific in what you want and don't want to do, I'm pretty sure it can still run head first against one sort of Morton's Fork or another.

Do note: I'm not saying optimization and roleplaying are inherently contrary to each other. The idea that they are never contrary to each other is, however, crap. Two elements don't need to be fundamentally opposed to get on each others' way.

No they do not. Decide on an idea and then build it, or decide on a build and then fluff it, or twink around to refluff and rebuild you character. Saying that "You have to take the most powerful option. Forever" is powergaming, not optimising.

If you decide to hinder yourself to add character then bully for you, you can still optimize under those constraints, that what optimizing a concept means.

Boci
2011-08-06, 07:05 AM
And I really doubt the reverse holds at all.

It is for me. If my character is not optimized, I cannot roleplay it because I get boared with them. I was not a pleasant player to have at your table before I learnt to optimize because I needed to resort to shock tactics to keep myself interested in my character.

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-06, 09:48 AM
Yes it does, that's why those are actual mechanics of the game.

Almost all rules systems I know of have have rules for more than just creating or improving a character; hence, there are options that are demonstrably better for any given goal within the context of the mechanics. Saying picking optimal choices in actual play is not optimizing is pretty useless dichtomy.

No matter how beautiful character build you have, if you don't make the character act in-game in ways that allow him to benefit from that, you are not playing optimally. This holds true regardless of what you are optimizing towards. If you make your character the best at weaving baskets and then never weave baskets, you've wasted your time.


No they do not. Decide on an idea and then build it, or decide on a build and then fluff it, or twink around to refluff and rebuild you character. Saying that "You have to take the most powerful option. Forever" is powergaming, not optimising.

If you decide to hinder yourself to add character then bully for you, you can still optimize under those constraints, that what optimizing a concept means.

I know that idea fair well. But saying "optimizing is not contrary to roleplaying since I can pick an arbitrary cut-off point to optimize towards" is not a very strong argument against "optimizing and roleplaying can detract from each other".

Let's say you want to play a fool. For the sake of my concept, the first choice in a lot of situations is to do something stupid. However, doing so can get in the way of other players and the game as a whole, so often, I have to either tone down the idiocy of my character (compromising his role) or accept that I'm going to screw things up (making a bad or sub-optimal choice in context of the game).

If you try to hide behind the idea that it's not a mechanical choice, I'd like to point out that in more complex rulesystems, almost anything a character can do falls under some mechanic. For example, in D&D, anything from health to menial skills has rules for it. I'd say it'd be hard to find ways to botch things up without mechanics getting involved.

If you start to handwave any conflict, ever, that could arise between the role of a character and what's mechanically best for them with "but I meant to do it, since it's what my concept is!", you've done away with optimization entirely. At that point, there's just playing the character. Again, if you're not making optimal choices, you're not optimizing.

Sure, if you know the system you're using, most of the time, what you want to do and what you can mechanically achieve will align with each other. Doesn't mean they always do.

Boci
2011-08-06, 09:55 AM
Sure, if you know the system you're using, most of the time, what you want to do and what you can mechanically achieve will align with each other. Doesn't mean they always do.

True, but asking people on the internet for help can greatly increase the chances.

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-06, 10:01 AM
Of course, but that's a different topic alltogether. :smallwink:

SITB
2011-08-06, 10:29 AM
Almost all rules systems I know of have have rules for more than just creating or improving a character; hence, there are options that are demonstrably better for any given goal within the context of the mechanics. Saying picking optimal choices in actual play is not optimizing is pretty useless dichtomy.

No matter how beautiful character build you have, if you don't make the character act in-game in ways that allow him to benefit from that, you are not playing optimally. This holds true regardless of what you are optimizing towards. If you make your character the best at weaving baskets and then never weave baskets, you've wasted your time.

No it's not. The SF meant optimizing within the confines of the game mechanics while you talk about taking the optimal solutions for problems within the game, if you don't play the character to it's full potential doesn't mean you are not optimizing, it means you are not playing the character to it's full potential.


I know that idea fair well. But saying "optimizing is not contrary to roleplaying since I can pick an arbitrary cut-off point to optimize towards" is not a very strong argument against "optimizing and roleplaying can detract from each other".

Let's say you want to play a fool. For the sake of my concept, the first choice in a lot of situations is to do something stupid. However, doing so can get in the way of other players and the game as a whole, so often, I have to either tone down the idiocy of my character (compromising his role) or accept that I'm going to screw things up (making a bad or sub-optimal choice in context of the game).

If you try to hide behind the idea that it's not a mechanical choice, I'd like to point out that in more complex rulesystems, almost anything a character can do falls under some mechanic. For example, in D&D, anything from health to menial skills has rules for it. I'd say it'd be hard to find ways to botch things up without mechanics getting involved.

If you start to handwave any conflict, ever, that could arise between the role of a character and what's mechanically best for them with "but I meant to do it, since it's what my concept is!", you've done away with optimization entirely. At that point, there's just playing the character. Again, if you're not making optimal choices, you're not optimizing.

Sure, if you know the system you're using, most of the time, what you want to do and what you can mechanically achieve will align with each other. Doesn't mean they always do.

But that's still a problem with the actual play of the character, if you create a character then is inherently disruptive to play you can optimize it to be as undistruptive as you can. But you still created a distruptive character. It's still not a problem with optimization, it's a problem with the concept you created. So yeah, it's your problem not a problem with optimization.

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-06, 10:42 AM
No it's not. The SF meant optimizing within the confines of the game mechanics while you talk about taking the optimal solutions for problems within the game.

Since problems within a game often fall within confines of game mechanics, I can't help but feel the distinction you're making is both arbitrary and useless.

SITB
2011-08-06, 10:58 AM
Since problems within a game often fall within confines of game mechanics, I can't help but feel the distinction you're making is both arbitrary and useless.

No they are not, a character that is obsessed with setting things on fire, getting caught in the act isn't a mechanical problem. In the example you have given, you have deliberately chosen to play the fool in a manner that can cause troubles to the other PCs and thus have to tone it down. This is not a mechanical problem it's a problem with your character concept. Most games follow rules, not all problems that arise from playing the game are because of those rules.

Caphi
2011-08-06, 11:31 AM
My group's first campaign, 3E. I join in playing a cleric. There was no 3.5 at the time. All I wanted to play was a cleric. DM helped to create a backstory. I was the youngest son of the Baron of our home city. I chose the ecclesiastics instead of politics.

As the campaign progressed political intrigue became prominent. At one point I made a terrible discovery. My father, the Baron, had committed treason and framed the previous Baron; hence how my father became Baron. Do I turn in my father? Gut-wrenching choice. I did. Father was imprisoned. The previous Baron was restored to the throne. I was dubbed a Knight. Great game.

By coincidence, by the time the treason was exposed I had purchased the splat book Faiths & Pantheons a week before. Upon reading the Prestige Class Church Inquistor, I saw the special requirement: exposed corruption within the Church. The words leaped out at me. That was my character! True, it wasn't technically Church corruption but to turn in your own father for treason had to be fair equivalence. Also by coincidence I was only a few skill points shy of the prerequisites. Two levels later, I went into the Church Inquisitor Prestige Class. Now, not only was I a cleric, I was a cleric on steroids. Full spellcasting, continuing Turn Undead, +4 to all dispel checks, and eventually dispel illusions and immune to charm/compulsion effects as later class abilites. I was CoDzilla!

Optimization and roleplaying are not mutually exclusive. You can have both with great abundance.

Not that I want this to reflect on my broader position for or against this thread, nor am I trying to lead anywhere in particular with this question...

but you kind of got lucky. What would you have done if the Inquisitor was a half-caster?

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-06, 11:43 AM
No they are not, a character that is obsessed with setting things on fire, getting caught in the act isn't a mechanical problem.

As far as there are rules for setting something or fire, for the pursuers to catch him, etc., yes it is. Though a better example would be a pyromaniac who wants to set something on fire, but would have to do something utterly out-of-character to do that.

Again: most games have mechanics beyond character creation and tweaking. Mechanical decisions are made during actual play as well. If your definition of optimization is seeking mechanically optimal solutions, those occasions should be included.


This is not a mechanical problem it's a problem with your character concept. Most games follow rules, not all problems that arise from playing the game are because of those rules.

For the purposes of my argument, it's irrelevant where the conflict arises from, since it doesn't change the fact that there's conflict. Player wants A, but the rules say B. The player might be stupid and the rules flawless, or vice versa, but it doesn't matter.

Boci
2011-08-06, 11:47 AM
but you kind of got lucky. What would you have done if the Inquisitor was a half-caster?

Luck comes to those who use a boatload of source books.

SITB
2011-08-06, 11:59 AM
As far as there are rules for setting something or fire, for the pursuers to catch him, etc., yes it is. Though a better example would be a pyromaniac who wants to set something on fire, but would have to do something utterly out-of-character to do that.

Again: most games have mechanics beyond character creation and tweaking. Mechanical decisions are made during actual play as well. If your definition of optimization is seeking mechanically optimal solutions, those occasions should be included.

No it's not, it's the DM decision that the in-game goverment/law-foorce/wahtever punishes those who engage in arson. There is no rule in the game detailing the mechanical effects of getting punished for being convicted in arson. The rule say how you can set things on fire, or even the mechanical effect of those, they do not say what happens afterwards unless it has mechanical parts. A character getting punished for beng conviced of arson isn't a part of the game mechanics.



For the purposes of my argument, it's irrelevant where the conflict arises from, since it doesn't change the fact that there's conflict. Player wants A, but the rules say B. The player might be stupid and the rules flawless, or vice versa, but it doesn't matter.

No, it is important. Optimization covers the mechanics of the game, if the conflict is between the how the concepts play out it's not a proble with optimization, it's a problem with the concept itself. And even in the worst case secnario where you can't play that character at all no matter who you try to optimize it (or limit it as it may be) it can simply be a problem with the system itself.

Tvtyrant
2011-08-06, 12:00 PM
I think the real point behind the "Stormwind Fallacy" is that any attempts to state a binary judgement are going to be too shallow to cover every example. "Roll playing vs. Role playing" is simply taking two aspects of the game and simplifying their rolls to be diametrically opposed, when they are not.

Some people can choose to be focused on one or the other to the exclusion of the other, but the two choices are essentially unrelated to each other. If I said "Roll players vs. Snack bringers" there would also be some people who "roll play" but aren't "snack bringers." The same arguments about limited focus and time could be used trying to prove that point of view as well, but they would similarly not apply.

Shadowknight12
2011-08-06, 01:38 PM
I think the real point behind the "Stormwind Fallacy" is that any attempts to state a binary judgement are going to be too shallow to cover every example. "Roll playing vs. Role playing" is simply taking two aspects of the game and simplifying their rolls to be diametrically opposed, when they are not.

Some people can choose to be focused on one or the other to the exclusion of the other, but the two choices are essentially unrelated to each other. If I said "Roll players vs. Snack bringers" there would also be some people who "roll play" but aren't "snack bringers." The same arguments about limited focus and time could be used trying to prove that point of view as well, but they would similarly not apply.

*cough*


Oh. My. God.

I cannot believe this. All these... these examples! These examples of people saying that some people are good at optimising and roleplaying, while others saying that some people are only good at one of them. It's like... oh, god... it's like there isn't a connection between optimising and roleplaying!

I know, I know, I couldn't believe it either.

I think I have to lie down for a while until my head stops spinning.

It will still get repeated many more times.

Tvtyrant
2011-08-06, 02:55 PM
*cough*



It will still get repeated many more times.

Well, maybe if people say it enough others will start to listen. Worked for Manson, maybe it will work for good?

Shadowknight12
2011-08-06, 03:06 PM
Well, maybe if people say it enough others will start to listen. Worked for Manson, maybe it will work for good?

Hmmmmm. Okay, you have an excellent point there.

Did you know what I heard? I heard that roleplaying and optimisation aren't connected at all!

Tvtyrant
2011-08-06, 03:16 PM
Hmmmmm. Okay, you have an excellent point there.

Did you know what I heard? I heard that roleplaying and optimisation aren't connected at all!

Your completely wrong, as they are not in fact connected at all!

Killer Angel
2011-08-06, 04:46 PM
Did you know what I heard? I heard that roleplaying and optimisation aren't connected at all!


Your completely wrong, as they are not in fact connected at all!

Even the OP knows it! :smalltongue:


There's absolutely nothing that prevents you from role playing while having a powerful, optimized character, and having a weak character don't mean you're a better roleplayer.

Shadowknight12
2011-08-06, 05:49 PM
Your completely wrong, as they are not in fact connected at all!

You, sir, are a heartless liar! Everybody knows that that they are utterly disconnected! It shames me that you'd think you could get away with such blatant lies.


Even the OP knows it! :smalltongue:

Bollocks! The OP is clearly as right as it gets!

Physics_Rook
2011-08-06, 06:28 PM
What's this I hear? Being a good optimizer doesn't make you a bad roleplayer and vice versa?!:smalleek:

Absurd! :smallfurious:

The truth in fact is that being a good optimizer absolutely in no way whatsoever makes you a bad roleplayer! :smallannoyed:

Whew! I'm glad we got that sorted out before it got out of hand!:smallsmile:

Tvtyrant
2011-08-06, 07:36 PM
The truth in fact is that being a good optimizer absolutely in no way whatsoever makes you a bad roleplayer! :smallannoyed:


Balderdash! Clearly the obvious realization that optimization and roleplaying don't effect each other hasn't occurred to you :P

navar100
2011-08-06, 08:29 PM
In my first 3E experience, I was playing an Elven Fighter in an all Elf Campaign. The character was the front-liner, drawing the fire away from the more squishy characters and providing the muscle (the stats were very un-elvish).

Its worth noting he spent the first hundred years of his life in Dwarven lands, and had an affinity for their kind (as well as their habits and temperament).

During the course of the game, after strange experiences with corrupted forest spirits, my character developed a sort of affinity with them as well, serving as their voice. It became character-appropriate for me to take a level in Druid, but that choice compromised my use of all of my gear, which was a heavy focus for my character.

I took it anyways, and it forced me to always choose to either be a low-level Druid (and voice for the forest spirits), or a lower-level Fighter when a martial character or Dwarven interests were required. But both aspects began to lag behind in power when compared to the others, requiring their buffs to keep up.

It still was my favorite character to play, specifically because it required me to work without the best mechanical tools in the traditional sense, having to find ways to make what I had work somehow, and yet having a significant role in the game.

I suppose it could be argued that it was still optimizing (for a Role rather than for my rolls), but I often refer to it as my "build a poor Ranger" character, and remember that game more fondly than most. But if I had tried for more conventional choices, I may have had a stronger character, but I'd have missed out on so many other opportunities and challenges.

There's nothing wrong with the concept of playing a non-optimal character. That does not violate the Stormwind Fallacy. The violation comes when you insist you are the better player than one who does optimize by the mere fact you are playing a non-optimal character.

Lord_Gareth
2011-08-07, 01:21 AM
There's nothing wrong with the concept of playing a non-optimal character. That does not violate the Stormwind Fallacy. The violation comes when you insist you are the better player than one who does optimize by the mere fact you are playing a non-optimal character.

This, right here, is what has caused me to actually physically assault people in my gaming groups. Do you have any idea how insulting it is to sit down at, say, an Oriental Adventures campaign with a "samurai" (Warblade) and have the dude playing a CWar Samurai sneer at you for "not really playing a character"?

Killer Angel
2011-08-07, 03:51 AM
This, right here, is what has caused me to actually physically assault people in my gaming groups.

:smalleek:


Do you have any idea how insulting it is to sit down at, say, an Oriental Adventures campaign with a "samurai" (Warblade) and have the dude playing a CWar Samurai sneer at you for "not really playing a character"?

I can only imagine it. They weren't your friends, I suppose...

ThunderCat
2011-08-07, 07:48 AM
This, right here, is what has caused me to actually physically assault people in my gaming groups. Do you have any idea how insulting it is to sit down at, say, an Oriental Adventures campaign with a "samurai" (Warblade) and have the dude playing a CWar Samurai sneer at you for "not really playing a character"?Exactly. Imo, dedicated 'roleplayers' (the kind who split everything up into rollplayers and roleplayers) can be terrible roleplayers due to their inability to view mechanics as mechanics, and insisting that they're really roleplaying choices.

There was a thread on the 4E boards a while back about a player who wanted to play a ranged paladin, but because the 4E paladin only has melee powers, he ended up being useless, never doing anything but making basic attacks from the back, and not even using his lay on hands because he was never near the characters who took damage. Some people on the thread logically suggested that he became a ranger with the cleric multiclass feat instead. That way, he could do awesome stuff with a bow, and still do a bit of healing ability and get religion as a trained skill. Cut to people whining that this proved that 4E had destroyed roleplaying, because no one who played a paladin without having a class with the name 'paladin' on their character sheet could possibly roleplay a paladin.

Never mind that the mechanics of a ranger/cleric fitted the player's concept much better than the paladin class, no one could just roleplay a holy warrior specialising in ranged combat by having abilities making them good at ranged combat, rather than having the word 'paladin' on their character sheet. This is on par with people who think someone whose character concept includes being tough must take the toughness feat to represent it, someone who is deceitful must take the the deceitful feat, and someone whose character is a barbarian must take the barbarian class. There's even an OotS comic about how stupid it is: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html

I optimise because not doing often lands me with characters whose abilities do not fit with my concept. And because some aspects of a concept can require so many sacrifices that it can end up weakening other aspects of the character, unless you optimise. And because having a character that is ineffective in combat and yet insists on going on dangerous adventures for payment usually breaks suspension of disbelief. People who believe that their mechanical weakness makes them superior roleplayers often, ironically, end up making less believable characters, as well as being a lot less fun to have at your table.

Lord_Gareth
2011-08-07, 10:12 AM
Hilariously, the shogun we served eventually ended up demanding that the CSamurai offer his life up in payment for his flagrant incompetence.

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-07, 01:53 PM
No it's not, it's the DM decision that the in-game goverment/law-foorce/wahtever punishes those who engage in arson. There is no rule in the game detailing the mechanical effects of getting punished for being convicted in arson. The rule say how you can set things on fire, or even the mechanical effect of those, they do not say what happens afterwards unless it has mechanical parts. A character getting punished for beng conviced of arson isn't a part of the game mechanics.

At no point did I talk about being convicted from arson. I mentioned things like setting things on fire and pursuit - both are things which D&D, for example, has rules for. Mechanical rules. As such, in-game decision to set things on fire doubles as the decision to involve those mechanics, making the situation a mechanical problem. As such, it's possible to search for the mechanically optimal solution, making it a question of optimization.

Your argument boils down to "optimization doesn't apply when there are no mechanics to optimize!", which is irrelevant for my claim that there are mechanics beyond character creation and tweaking.


No, it is important. Optimization covers the mechanics of the game, if the conflict is between the how the concepts play out it's not a proble with optimization, it's a problem with the concept itself. And even in the worst case secnario where you can't play that character at all no matter who you try to optimize it (or limit it as it may be) it can simply be a problem with the system itself.

The problem is that two elements are in conflict. My argument is that this can happen; I make no judgement of which element is at fault. What you say here does not refute my point at all - you're just trying to assign blame.

navar100
2011-08-07, 06:39 PM
Optimizers can violate the Stormwind Fallacy too. They would claim that those who play a non-optimal character are playing wrong. They metaphorically yell at people who play a fighter instead of a warblade or actually want to take the feats Dodge and Weapon Focus. They also scoff at spellcasters who multiclass.

Popertop
2011-08-07, 06:52 PM
Any system (thanks to its mechanics) "encourage" the making of powerful characters and roleplaying, at the same time?

One of the players of a new group I'm in used to GM for Deadlands a lot. Deadlands gives you Edges and Hindrances, and the game rewards you for roleplaying them well.

Lord_Gareth
2011-08-07, 07:03 PM
Optimizers can violate the Stormwind Fallacy too. They would claim that those who play a non-optimal character are playing wrong. They metaphorically yell at people who play a fighter instead of a warblade or actually want to take the feats Dodge and Weapon Focus. They also scoff at spellcasters who multiclass.

This isn't so much violating the fallacy as it is straight up being a jerk on the part of the player in question.

Knaight
2011-08-07, 07:10 PM
This isn't so much violating the fallacy as it is straight up being a jerk on the part of the player in question.

Exactly, though "jerk" is rather mild language to describe it. Now, if they were to claim that one can't role play without being optimized, that would be a fallacious argument covered by that fallacy.

Boci
2011-08-07, 07:14 PM
Exactly, though "jerk" is rather mild language to describe it. Now, if they were to claim that one can't role play without being optimized, that would be a fallacious argument covered by that fallacy.

The argument I like to use (because I'm interested in what they have to say) is why is your character taking weaker options. They have a dangerous job, so logically they want to be powerful to avoid early retirement by means of stomach acid, so are they not aware there are more powerful techniques they could learn? If not, why are they choosing things that increase the chance of them dying?

WarKitty
2011-08-07, 07:45 PM
The reality is, there are cases on either extreme that are blatantly ridiculous. The uber-optimized builds can't be roleplayed, because there's no game for the completely cheesed-out top-tier characters when they can solve everything in a single shot. At best you have a game of rocket tag; at worst they just kill everything. On the other extreme, the guy who claims to be a mobile fighter but won't do something as basic as taking spring attack over skill focus (basketweaving) is also not roleplaying because he can't actually do in-game what his character's schtick is supposed to be.

SITB
2011-08-08, 05:09 AM
At no point did I talk about being convicted from arson. I mentioned things like setting things on fire and pursuit - both are things which D&D, for example, has rules for. Mechanical rules. As such, in-game decision to set things on fire doubles as the decision to involve those mechanics, making the situation a mechanical problem. As such, it's possible to search for the mechanically optimal solution, making it a question of optimization.

Your argument boils down to "optimization doesn't apply when there are no mechanics to optimize!", which is irrelevant for my claim that there are mechanics beyond character creation and tweaking.

But how do those mechanics then relate to roleplay or the lack of it thereof? Yeah, there are mechanics beyond character creation, you are considerate of them when you create your character, but optimizing still doesn't mean that you can't role-play your character, you just use an 'optimal' (or up to a limit anyway) strategy to interact with the mechanics of the game.


The problem is that two elements are in conflict. My argument is that this can happen; I make no judgement of which element is at fault. What you say here does not refute my point at all - you're just trying to assign blame.

No it's not. If by sytem mechanics you can't play a 'Mighty Wizard', because the concept itself can't exist within the system it's problem with the system itelf. The problem isn't with optimization (which is within the rules of the game) it's a problem with the game itself which contains the rules.

If there's is a problem with A and B is a subset of A; then A is at fault not B. Transativity does not hold here.

Knaight
2011-08-08, 05:25 AM
No it's not. If by sytem mechanics you can't play a 'Mighty Wizard', because the concept itself can't exist within the system it's problem with the system itelf. The problem isn't with optimization (which is within the rules of the game) it's a problem with the game itself which contains the rules.

Its only a problem if the 'Mighty Wizard' concept should be supported. If the game is strictly historical, if magic works in a very particular manner, if the game is sci fi, space opera, modern day, has very universal magic and a lack of any real "wizard" class, or fits into any number of other categories that would prevent the concept, then it isn't a problem. The only problem is people trying to use a game for what it shouldn't do, which is a problem with the people. If I want to play a game where I'm a communist system planner, and pick up Monopoly, the problem is entirely mine.

SITB
2011-08-08, 06:08 AM
Its only a problem if the 'Mighty Wizard' concept should be supported. If the game is strictly historical, if magic works in a very particular manner, if the game is sci fi, space opera, modern day, has very universal magic and a lack of any real "wizard" class, or fits into any number of other categories that would prevent the concept, then it isn't a problem. The only problem is people trying to use a game for what it shouldn't do, which is a problem with the people. If I want to play a game where I'm a communist system planner, and pick up Monopoly, the problem is entirely mine.

Yeah, that's what I meant. But sometimes the system has 'hidden' catches that can catch unaware players/DMs. For instance, Truenamer in D&D. I like the fluff of truenaming as a whole, but the concept is not that viable in play because the system doesn't support it as much despite appearing too.

Knaight
2011-08-08, 06:16 AM
Yeah, that's what I meant. But sometimes the system has 'hidden' catches that can catch unaware players/DMs. For instance, Truenamer in D&D. I like the fluff of truenaming as a whole, but the concept is not that viable in play because the system doesn't support it as much despite appearing too.

Its really not a character creation problem though, more a systemic problem in general. Consider the feel of swashbuckling movies. 7th Sea does a good job capturing this. A game where the combat mechanics took about a minute to resolve any individual attack, where a single gun shot would probably hit and kill someone unless they were behind cover, where swordplay was a matter of carefully picking a predesigned move from a very long list, so on and so forth would be a failure as a system. Those mechanics don't fit with its feel, and while character creation mechanics can be a part of this, it isn't a problem with character creation mechanics.

SITB
2011-08-08, 07:05 AM
Its really not a character creation problem though, more a systemic problem in general. Consider the feel of swashbuckling movies. 7th Sea does a good job capturing this. A game where the combat mechanics took about a minute to resolve any individual attack, where a single gun shot would probably hit and kill someone unless they were behind cover, where swordplay was a matter of carefully picking a predesigned move from a very long list, so on and so forth would be a failure as a system. Those mechanics don't fit with its feel, and while character creation mechanics can be a part of this, it isn't a problem with character creation mechanics.

This was my point all along. Mechanics clash with the character concept because either: 1)The concept is flawed for the game 2)Because you don't know how to use/implement the mechanics enough for it to work 3)The offending player/DM being a d**k.

It's not a problem with optimization it's a problem with either the system or how a specific player uses it.

Tytalus
2011-08-08, 07:36 AM
I propose a new fallacy:
The Stormwing Fallacy Fallacy: Any suboptimal or deliberately disadvantageous mechanical decision made for roleplaying reasons is an example of the Stormwing Fallacy.

That's a statement, not a fallacy.

Also, your post seems to imply that you are reading something into the SWF that's not there. Here the relevant part is summed up pretty well:


There's nothing wrong with the concept of playing a non-optimal character. That does not violate the Stormwind Fallacy. The violation comes when you insist you are the better player than one who does optimize by the mere fact you are playing a non-optimal character.

Serpentine
2011-08-08, 07:43 AM
That's a statement, not a fallacy.Alright, upon review it's not structured properly. At that point I hadn't found a comprehensive description of it, and I thought it was "The Stormwind Fallacy is that optimisation is incompatible with roleplaying" or something similar. I'm sure you get my meaning, though, anyway.

Also, your post seems to imply that you are reading something into the SWF that's not there. Here the relevant part is summed up pretty well:The Stormwind Fallacy is, more or less as I said, the claim that optimisers cannot roleplay. At the time - and we have cleared it up since - he was saying that the fact that someone made the decision to reduce their ability stats for roleplaying reasons meant he was falling into the Stormwind Fallacy. We subsequently established that he didn't realise the Fallacy had that accusation factor.
In other words: it was not me who was reading something into the Fallacy that wasn't there. I was addressing the arguments of someone who was.

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-08, 08:47 AM
But how do those mechanics then relate to roleplay or the lack of it thereof?

When there's a mechanic to represent X, decision to do X with a given character is both mechanical and roleplaying choice. So the way a character acts has mechanical ramifications, and mechanics have ramifications on how a character can act.

So a situation can easily arise where a roleplaying choice made by the character can not mechanically lead to the desired optimal outcome, or picking a mechanically optimal option precludes a desired roleplaying option.

The original fallacy is that this will happen, always; but the direct opposite, that it will never happen, is equally fallacious.


No it's not. If by sytem mechanics you can't play a 'Mighty Wizard', because the concept itself can't exist within the system it's problem with the system itelf. The problem isn't with optimization (which is within the rules of the game) it's a problem with the game itself which contains the rules.

I feel you are talking about a tangent still. To clarify:

I'm talking of situations where one type of goal gets in the way of another; when a roleplaying choice leads to mechanically sub-optimal choice, or vice versa. Due to some combination of factors, you can't get your cake and eat it too.

You're assigning fault; you're trying to pin the blame on either the game, the player, or the system, maybe to fix it or whatever. This does not mean there wasn't a problem of the type I described; if anything, it's a really roundabout way of acknowledging it.

SITB
2011-08-08, 09:07 AM
When there's a mechanic to represent X, decision to do X with a given character is both mechanical and roleplaying choice. So the way a character acts has mechanical ramifications, and mechanics have ramifications on how a character can act.

So a situation can easily arise where a roleplaying choice made by the character can not mechanically lead to the desired optimal outcome, or picking a mechanically optimal option precludes a desired roleplaying option.

The original fallacy is that this will happen, always; but the direct opposite, that it will never happen, is equally fallacious.

No it's not. The Stormwind fallacy does not talk about this at all.

I mean, by your logic all players fail at optimizing because they do not have their characters chant "Pazuzu Pazuzu Pazuzu" at the start and become Pun-Pun.

Yes, playing a role can ead to suboptimal choices (See also every tragedy ever) but that's not what SF was ever about.




I feel you are talking about a tangent still. To clarify:

I'm talking of situations where one type of goal gets in the way of another; when a roleplaying choice leads to mechanically sub-optimal choice, or vice versa. Due to some combination of factors, you can't get your cake and eat it too.

You're assigning fault; you're trying to pin the blame on either the game, the player, or the system, maybe to fix it or whatever. This does not mean there wasn't a problem of the type I described; if anything, it's a really roundabout way of acknowledging it.

It's still not true, optimizing for optimization sake will lead to Pun-Pun and other related shenigans. It's always subversent to something, otherwise it belongs to Theoratical Optimization. The SF talks about the fact that having System mastery (Or the lack of it) does not change the ability of one person to role-play. That's why you are wrong, if the problem exists that it doesn't mean the necessarly it's a problem with optimization; just like if I think that Monopoly drags why too much, doesn't mean that the problem lies with the dice.

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-08, 10:01 AM
No it's not. The Stormwind fallacy does not talk about this at all.

Think for a moment: what would have caused the negative stereotypes that perpetuate the fallacy?

How about players who make their characters act in absurd ways to squeeze the last bonus to their actions?

In my mind, the stereotype of the Munchkin, which contributes to the fallacy, has always been about that as much as having the biggest numbers on your sheet. Ie., playing by the numbers (playing, not just creating your character!), leads to bland and uninteresting actions.


I mean, by your logic all players fail at optimizing because they do not have their characters chant "Pazuzu Pazuzu Pazuzu" at the start and become Pun-Pun.

Only true if you consider optimizing an on/off switch, which it is not. You and I already agreed on the idea that there are different degrees of optimization and different goals to optimize for; but picking an arbitrary point where to stop optimizing does not necessarily preclude facing a Morton's Fork.

So no, by my logic, someone who doesn't make Pun Pun doesn't "fail at optimizing". They just stop before it, or maybe creating Pun Pun would've been against their actual goals. But just because they aren't Pun Pun doesn't mean they can't still face a situation where a roleplaying choice prevents them from reaching their desired mechanical effect, or vice versa.


Yes, playing a role can ead to suboptimal choices (See also every tragedy ever) but that's not what SF was ever about.

Of course SF fallacy doesn't talk about this, because this branch of discussion started with me analysing an opposite fallacy (:smalltongue:), and how few things said by different posters relate to that.

Which is why I'm not very amused about your arguments; you're repeatedly saying "no, it's not like that!", when you don't even seem to be talking about the same thing. Made even funnier by the fact that you agree with my conclusion, evidenced by the above.


That's why you are wrong, if the problem exists that it doesn't mean the necessarly it's a problem with optimization; just like if I think that Monopoly drags why too much, doesn't mean that the problem lies with the dice.

*groan* The problem with optimization I've been talking about is inability to pick the optimal desired solution! If facing a situation where you're forced to pick a sub-optimal choice is not a problem with optimization, I don't know what is.

Nevermind that like I said priorly, the problem is not optimization: it's conflict, between it and something else. I've pointed out repeatedly that there isn't necessarily conflict - just that there occasionally is.

SITB
2011-08-08, 10:28 AM
snip

I think I see the problem, you are talking about optimazation as the optimal startegy for everything (ala Game Theory), I (And the SF itself) talks about the optimization in terms of game mechanics only. That's the problem, you are saying (paraphrased) "It may be not fun to play a perfect character"; which is true, but it has no relavance to SF whatsoever.

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-08, 10:42 AM
Are you still excluding mechanical events during the actual game from the type of mechanical optimization SF talks about? 'Cause I didn't see a reason for that in the original analysis of the fallacy, and I aren't seeing it now.

SITB
2011-08-08, 10:56 AM
Are you still excluding mechanical events during the actual game from the type of mechanical optimization SF talks about? 'Cause I didn't see a reason for that in the original analysis of the fallacy, and I aren't seeing it now.

Yes, because those mechanical events are the consquences of choices that the character make and thus fall under roleplaying. the effects later can be dependant on mechanics but the choices themselves are not. If your defention holds, we go back o the Pun-Pun analogy which is clearly the most optimal strategy devised in D&D and thus everyone who des not use it is not optimizing in character.

Your defeniton is so inclusive as to be useless because every act in the game is optimizing. Apart from (maybe) actualy deciding to play the game.

ImperatorK
2011-08-08, 10:59 AM
Are you still excluding mechanical events during the actual game from the type of mechanical optimization SF talks about? 'Cause I didn't see a reason for that in the original analysis of the fallacy, and I aren't seeing it now.


The Stormwind Fallacy, aka the Roleplayer vs Rollplayer Fallacy
Just because one optimizes his characters mechanically does not mean that they cannot also roleplay, and vice versa.

Corollary: Doing one in a game does not preclude, nor infringe upon, the ability to do the other in the same game.

Generalization 1: One is not automatically a worse roleplayer if he optimizes, and vice versa.
Generalization 2: A non-optimized character is not automatically roleplayed better than an optimized one, and vice versa.
...
Proof: These two elements rely on different aspects of a player's gameplay. Optimization factors in to how well one understands the rules and handles synergies to produce a very effective end result. Roleplaying deals with how well a player can act in character and behave as if he was someone else.
A person can act while understanding the rules, and can build something powerful while still handling an effective character. There is nothing in the game -- mechanical or otherwise -- restricting one if you participate in the other.

Claiming that an optimizer cannot roleplay (or is participating in a playstyle that isn't supportive of roleplaying) because he is an optimizer, or vice versa, is committing the Stormwind Fallacy.
SF is talking about optimizing characters, not optimizing in general.

ThunderCat
2011-08-08, 11:55 AM
Think for a moment: what would have caused the negative stereotypes that perpetuate the fallacy?

How about players who make their characters act in absurd ways to squeeze the last bonus to their actions?And the reason these kinds of players are so often singled out as THE WORST THING EVER!!!!! is because this goes against the arbitrary and limiting standards set up by roleplaying purists and other jerks, unlike other forms of bad roleplaying, which is readily accepted.

Seriously, some people are obsessed with a concept when they play. Some of them always want to be the most powerful, some always want to be the most attractive, some always want to be the highest ranking, some always want to be the centre of attention (such as by creating trouble for the party). There are tons of cases where a player's wish-fulfilment fantasy can get in the way of the game, or where a player's constant obsession with a certain concept can lead them to create badly fleshed out cookie-cutter characters.

It's only if you have some misconceived notion of what 'true' roleplaying is (e.g. “People have to create the character first and then find the mechanics afterwards” and other nonsense) that they start to view the first example as a special category apart from the others.

I assure you, if a player is determined to play “Conan the Mary Sue Barbarian who became the best fighter in the whole world at age 15, and is also skilled in the wilderness, well-read and educated, a stealthy and street-savvy thief, a leader of men, and so charismatic that women have been known to spontaneously orgasm and fall on their knees begging to be his sex-slave at the mere sight him” the amount of optimisation does not matter.

If he (this particular Mary Sue is usually played by a he) doesn't optimise, he will try to justify doing awesome stuff despite the mechanics, or complain that the mechanics don't make him as powerful as he thinks he should be, and if he optimises well enough, he'll end up overshadowing everybody else. But either way, the concept is the problem, not the degree of optimisation.

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-08, 12:16 PM
Ie., playing by the numbers (playing, not just creating your character!), leads to bland and uninteresting actions.


Just to clarify this, since I forgot: this idea (that playing by the numbers necessarily leads to bland and uninteresting actions) is itself a stereotype and fallacious in the same way as Stormwind. If you buy into it, Chess must be the most boring game ever to you.

. . .

Wait, Chess is the most boring game ever. Bad example. XD

Lord_Gareth
2011-08-08, 12:31 PM
Wait, Chess is the most boring game ever. Bad example. XD

Tiddlywinks contests this claim.

SITB
2011-08-08, 12:38 PM
Just to clarify this, since I forgot: this idea (that playing by the numbers necessarily leads to bland and uninteresting actions) is itself a stereotype and fallacious in the same way as Stormwind. If you buy into it, Chess must be the most boring game ever to you.

. . .

Wait, Chess is the most boring game ever. Bad example. XD

So having no role-playing at all leads to a character with no role-playing capability? Tautological statement is tautological.

And that still have nothing to do with optimization, only with a lack of role-playing.

Besides, some of people enjoy tinkering with mechanics (TO) or playing a (almost) purely mechanical games (Chess, Go).

Sucrose
2011-08-08, 05:37 PM
Wait, Chess is the most boring game ever. Bad example. XD

Them's fightin' words, icefoot.:smalltongue:

NNescio
2011-08-08, 06:43 PM
Just to clarify this, since I forgot: this idea (that playing by the numbers necessarily leads to bland and uninteresting actions) is itself a stereotype and fallacious in the same way as Stormwind. If you buy into it, Chess must be the most boring game ever to you.

. . .

Wait, Chess is the most boring game ever. Bad example. XD

What about Sudoku?


Them's fightin' words, icefoot.:smalltongue:
Agreed. :smallbiggrin:

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-09, 08:05 AM
So having no role-playing at all leads to a character with no role-playing capability? Tautological statement is tautological.

No, I said the stereotype is that palying by the numbers leads to bland and uninteresting in-game actions. I also said it's not a general truth.

And that still have nothing to do with optimization, only with a lack of role-playing.

Besides, some of people enjoy tinkering with mechanics (TO) or playing a (almost) purely mechanical games (Chess, Go).

It has everything to do with me adding a note to something I previously said, and very little to do with anything else.:smalltongue:

SITB
2011-08-09, 08:20 AM
No, I said the stereotype is that palying by the numbers leads to bland and uninteresting in-game actions. I also said it's not a general truth.

So in the end, you say that the stereotype of having no role-play depth to the character leds to no actual role-play depth of the character during play?

I relly don't understand your point here, even more so after reading and re-reading your first comment which inspired this whole debate.

If your point is that playing a character purely by taking the most mechanical options can lead to a dearth of roleplaying, then I agree. But I honestly have no idea what your point is anymore.

Frozen_Feet
2011-08-09, 08:40 AM
That's because you're trying to shoehorn everything I've said to be about one point, when I've had and discussed several. My last two posts have not been about the same thing as my first post in this thread.

You're also twisting my statement in really bizarre ways. Here's what I actually intended: The stereotype is that playing by the numbers leads to bland and uninteresting character actions, but that's not necessarily true. This was a clarification to my stance about the stereotype of the muchkin I outlined priorly.

SITB
2011-08-09, 08:53 AM
That's because you're trying to shoehorn everything I've said to be about one point, when I've had and discussed several. My last two posts have not been about the same thing as my first post in this thread.

You're also twisting my statement in really bizarre ways. Here's what I actually intended: The stereotype is that playing by the numbers leads to bland and uninteresting character actions, but that's not necessarily true. This was a clarification to my stance about the stereotype of the muchkin I outlined priorly.

Then I misunderstood you, I tought that by replying to me you were talking about the same point AKA the correlation between optimizing and role-playing (My stance: There isn't).

And I agree that playing by the numbers can lead to dull characters (Ala Trenchcoat McNinjasword).

I still don't undestand your first post though, it seems you switch the defentions of optimization mid-sentence.