Powergaming VS DM

[MukkTB]

I never really got it. Since the DM is effectively top god of the D&D world and can declare "Rocks fall everyone dies" anytime he wants whats going on with this?

Even a (bad) DM who doesn't optimize his encounters can crush players if he chooses to by dropping so much stuff on them that even the most optimized builds crumble under the weight. And HE CAN THROW THE DICE WHERE THE PLAYERS CAN'T SEE.

I thought the job of the DM was to load enough metaphorical weight onto the character's back that he could feel the effort of pushing forward without attempting regular total party kills or making play unfun through character deaths. The point being that the players feel they have accomplished something when the dust clears and they stumble out with a few hitpoints left, the golden harp, and a buxom wench.

I generally assumed that powergaming was mostly about competition between players, and possibly about getting as much satisfaction as possible from your heroics.

I'm writing this rant in response to a post in another thread where some guy was talking about breaking the DM. Bailing on a bad DM I can see. Harassing a DM by doing stupid cheese I can see. If he can't deal with the cheese it sounds like a bad DM. Getting into long rules arguments I can see. DM wins period. Unless you actually convince him through reason that your way is better.

Only kind of 'broken' DM I can picture is one who's said, 'I don't feel like DMing for those guys anymore." And that doesn't sound like much of win unless you're a troll.

[Gavinfoxx]

I think your assumption about the job of the DM is only *sometimes* true. Sometimes the job of the DM is to run a module. Sometimes the job of the DM is to make a setting with things in it, which the player characters choose to go to or not go to as they want, picking out things which may or may not be appropriate for them. In other words, there are a whole LOT of sorts of things which the DM could be doing. FURTHER, optimizers often optimize specific concepts. Sometimes that concept is 'I enforce my will upon the world around me in arbitrary ways, muahahahahah!', but sometimes it is 'I want to hit things real good'.

[candycorn]

You apply that label too generally, and you do many, if not most, powergamers a disservice.

Many powergamers do what they do out of a desire to be the best. Just as an olympic runner does what he does because he wants to excel, many powergamers treat the game, and the optimization of it, as their olympic event.

Not all powergamers try to break their DM.

[nyjastul69]

I think the GM's job is to make the game fun.

[Tzevash]

D&D is a game of numbers, and if the players use big numbers because of their powergaming... well, the DM can always use bigger numbers, sticking to the rules and not needing to use shameful tricks (like cheating on dices, and so on).

For this reason, powergamers aren't a real threat, and you can always manage to tell your story assuming that your players are interested in living it.

[Golden Ladybug]

I have to ask, was it my Sorcerer thread that you're referring to in the OP? Oh well, this is relevant regardless

I dislike Powergaming to try and get back at a DM, or show that you can make a more optimised character than everyone else, or anything like that. Thats not the reason I'll roll up a character that can take on an entire army and win, I do it to challenge myself. I do it in the spirit of friendly competetion, and if playing like that limits the enjoyment of the other players I'll stop. If the DM asks me to not try and outgun him, I'll stop.

Currently, my situation is that I'm being limited in what I'm allowed to do for the campaing we're about to go into, because I made a character that solo'd a BBEG way too early for the DM's liking. But, he never asked me to not make a character that was incredibly powerful; he just told me I wasn't allowed to do some things for this game, and I'm choosing to take it as a Challenge.

I don't have any problems with my DM, he's a great guy and a really good sport about it all. I've got a great group, who are happy to just laugh when the Bard takes out the Villain of the piece with a well-placed swing of a Vorpal Fiddle. If any of them start feeling like the game isn't fun anymore because of what I'm doing, I'll stop doing it, roll up a more balanced character and continue on.

But, really, the reason I'm doing this is the thrill of it; the DM is part of the game just like the Players, and if my character can be a challenge to his world in the same way his world would normally be a challenge to my character, well, I think thats the point when I can say I succeeded. As a man can challenge the gods, a Player can challenge the DM.

Or something like that...

[0nimaru]

What follows is all opinion:

I've heard the term "arms race" used for this topic before, and it seemed the most accurate. Weaker PCs are easier to challenge and DM for. Players are intended to develop their PCs, and as they learn they require more inventiveness to challenge. This never becomes a mechanical issue, as anybody with the SRD can throw out solar dinosaur-riders surrounded in anti-magic fields. It does become an issue to the storytelling when the DM decides he needs to do this every fight.

Now according to the DMG and good gaming theory, the moment a player starts to see good numbers charging you do NOT throw reach-weapon enemies with Hold The Line in every encounter. When a rogue gets his Open Lock to high ranks, you do not stop using locks because it is irrelevant. Countering or invalidating a player's choices does not better the game.

That being said, "optimization" of the kinds found within online boards like this one tend to create powerful binary characters. If you do not shut them down every combat, they will shut down that battle in a round or less. If you counter by inflating HP/DR/AC then you are just violating the rule above, by okaying the build and then shutting it down through unsatisfying means.

Conclusions drawn from this are different for each individual. The solution is a problem solved per group and depends on the maturity and experience of those involved.

[Coidzor]

Generally the problem is more the X vs. DM and the attendant DM vs. X it implies than the powergaming bit anyway.


And HE CAN THROW THE DICE WHERE THE PLAYERS CAN'T SEE.

And if he abuses this, he finds himself without players or nursing bite wounds. What's your point?

[Wings of Peace]

I as an occasional powergamer take offense to this. My logic is usually less about outdoing the dm than it is "Hah! I've been given another chance to build a character and I've just the idea." It's never about beating the DM for me, it's about taking an idea and seeing just how far I can push it in a numerically and elegant manner. Dead levels, ugly amounts of prequisite feats, etc, are not what I would consider elegant unless the payoff was immense.

[tiercel]

It is, as you've noted, pretty pointless to get into a real arms race with the DM. Where powergaming can (not necessarily, but possibly) become a problem arises from several broad sorts of situations:

Players powergame their PCs more than the DM powergames his prep. Typically fairly innocuous in the long term, since things are just easy for the players until the DM lifts the difficulty, either via greater powergaming or just by noting it takes a higher CR/EL to effectively challenge the PCs. [Note that the reverse of this problem is just as correctable, if more dangerous to PCs in the short term.]

One trick ponies. Min/max your character TOO much and it can be a challenge to DM for, just because anything your character is built to handle is a pushover and anything your character is NOT built to handle is impossible. Also, relying on one trick/Super Combo just gets boring after a while. [Note that the old "rollplaying vs roleplaying" chestnut could be considered a subset of this -- while powergaming certainly does not preclude an investment in the RP side of the game, chanting "Stormwind Fallacy" doesn't mean you can't sacrifice the *character* of your character by spending your time on purely game mechanics.]

Party imbalance. Perhaps the most insidious, and often lamented, optimization pitfall -- if some PCs are much more powergamed than others, the game can wind up suffering if some players feel less able to contribute than others (or players feel "held back" by their compatriots). As a DM, finding challenges that make the "weaker" characters useful to the party while not seeming trivial to the "stronger" characters can be tough; plus players may grow frustrated with each others' characters for being "too weak"/"too powergamed."

In the end, generally a good powergamer tries to optimize his party's strength, not just his own character's strength w/o regard to his party. D&D is in general a cooperative game and in most games, everyone has more fun when, e.g. the Cleric is a team player who ALSO does the occasional SuperAwesome thing, rather than going full ClericZilla all the time while the rest of the party prances along behind clapping halves of coconuts together.

[MukkTB]

I like character optimization along the line of cool combos. I don't dislike power gaming in general. My comments aren't related to power gaming in a vacuum. The only kind of power gaming I'm talking about is as used in some kind of combat with the DM.

[RndmNumGen]

A lot of it also may have to do because it's not about winning for some people, it's about being challenged. This goes for both the DM and the players - sure, the DM can make Rocks Fall, and the players could abuse obviously broken abilities, but there is generally an agreement(unspoken or otherwise) not to do this. After all, D&D is a communal game. When both the DM and the players get to push their skills while remaining fair, then balance has been achieved.

This type of gameplay does not appeal to everyone, and if you get groups where one person likes to optimize but the rest of the group doesn't, you will encounter balance problems. One way to solve this would be to give the optimizer certain penalties and seeing if he can work around them to make a character that lines up with the rest of the party, or conversely giving everyone else a power boost.

After all, why do you think computer games have difficulty settings?