I like playing flawed characters

[Din Riddek]

Does anyone else like flawed characters? Characters who can't do everything well? Characters who aren't optimized to do godly powerful things?

I do. Am I alone?

[Yukitsu]

Yes and no. I like flaws in my characters, but not ones that prevent those characters from being incredibly powerful. In my view, an achilles heel style flaw where you are thwarted by something fairly easily means you would be an unreliable or poor adventurer, and likely a 6 foot under adventurer.

Most flaws that I introduce to my characters are personality based rather than tied to mechanics.

[Din Riddek]

Have you considered that maybe your character's flaw is covered by the other 3 or 4 members of the party? I think that's part of the fun, is if you are the specialist at something, there are situations where you are necessary and vital for the group's survival. This should also mean there are times when you aren't in the spotlight.

I guess some of my questions are:
Does everyone in your play group optimize?
How does that work in the dynamic of facing challenges?
Is optimization necessary for survival in your games?

[Amphetryon]

Does anyone else like flawed characters? Characters who can't do everything well? Characters who aren't optimized to do godly powerful things?

I do. Am I alone?

It depends. When you say "can't do everything well", do you mean "competent adventurer who is still fallible" or "cannot do things they aren't expected to do, very well" or "can't do some of the things typically expected of a [party role] well" or "has been known to shoot the back of his own knee with a ranged attack"?

[Yukitsu]

Have you considered that maybe your character's flaw is covered by the other 3 or 4 members of the party? I think that's part of the fun, is if you are the specialist at something, there are situations where you are necessary and vital for the group's survival. This should also mean there are times when you aren't in the spotlight.

There are members in a party that will be better (often vastly) than me at something, but I can't rely on that when it comes to whether or not I'm competent at something. Simply put, leaning on a party that may not all be there for me when I'm encountering my weakness means things get dicey.


I guess some of my questions are:
Does everyone in your play group optimize?

Yes and no. They often build their characters themselves, and often have very low op characters, but they then often ask me for build advice at which point they are usually above me in optimization (as I show more restraint for my own characters than for others. They never play them to full potential anyway.)


How does that work in the dynamic of facing challenges?

When one of us inevitably bites the dust, we're never short any particular resource, though whatever the problem is may get significantly more difficult. We're a good enough group that we don't deliberately step on toes just because we can all do a bit of pretty well everything.


Is optimization necessary for survival in your games?

No, but playing intelligently is. Where you don't have enough playing intelligently, optimization will half the time suffice. Unfortunately, we generally opt for optimization rather than being smarter, which means bad situations kill half of us as a par.

[Din Riddek]

I mean characters should fill their roll competently. I suppose it is a largely personal preference, but as both a dm and a player I prefer all pcs to have weaknesses. for one, it makes an individual feel awesome when he can do his specialized task, and in my opinion there's a great tension in being ill equipped to support the party. To me, that seems like a more fun game than 4 people all kicking ass in every scenario. In fact that sounds boring.

I also can't imagine playing a game where a specific class was considered "too bad to play."

[Vladislav]

I pretty much agree with everything Din Riddek said, except he may have been carried away a bit with his last sentence. Some classes, unfortunately, are too bad to play.

If two new players join a party of Druid, Sorcerer, Bard and Swordsage, and want to play a Fighter and a Monk, well....

[SgtCarnage92]

I enjoy playing flawed characters. My current PF character is an autistic savant Tiefling wizard (22 INT). It's currently an arena-style campaign so I don't have to deal with social situations all that often. He's effective at his job (blaster/BF controller) but wouldn't stand up in a situation where he would have to read social cues.

[Shadowknight12]

I like my characters flawed because I enjoy watching them suffer. I will never create a character I cannot break or torture, and the only way to psychologically destroy someone is through their flaws. A character without flaws is, to me, the very essence of boring.

Mechanically speaking, I find it boring to be able to do anything. I usually focus on doing one or two active things, and then massive amounts of protection and "no" buttons. You gotta let the other people do something too, you know.

[Din Riddek]

I pretty much agree with everything Din Riddek said, except he may have been carried away a bit with his last sentence. Some classes, unfortunately, are too bad to play.

If two new players join a party of Druid, Sorcerer, Bard and Swordsage, and want to play a Fighter and a Monk, well....

I would like it if you qualified this statement. You really think that no one should play a fighter? Ever? Not competent enough to have a viable roll in a party of spellcasters and skillful characters?

I only ask because I really and truly can not fathom playing in a game where I CAN'T play a monk or fighter because it really, really, really sucks.

{Scrubbed} I feel like I'm just missing something some of you apparently see that I don't.

[Yukitsu]

I would like it if you qualified this statement. You really think that no one should play a fighter? Ever? Not competent enough to have a viable roll in a party of spellcasters and skillful characters?

He did qualify it. It's hard to play a relevant fighter or monk in a party with all very powerful characters. They are fine however, in a party with lower power characters.

Generally, most people just accept that the game is basically broken into powerful classes and weak classes. And it gets so bad that the worst classes can very easily end up contributing absolutely nothing assuming there are more powerful classes around, and everyone at the table is equal at optimizing.

[navar100]

As an inherently imperfect being, it can't be helped that somehow somewhen I'll choose wrongly. Bad luck on the dice roll will mean I will fail at some task, even if it's just an attack roll or saving throw and suffer the consequences. With my character having a particular personality and his morals and ethics, I will make choices. Those choices have consequences for good or bad that will be different than if I had made other choices.

Those are all the flaws that I need. While I have nothing against my character having a -1 or some game mechanic disadvantage should character creation result in such, I do not feel the need to absolutely must have one. Colloquial you are not a better, more superior player for willfully choosing such. If my character is all out of bubblegum, then so be it, and I refuse to feel guilty about his awesomeness. If his lack of game mechanical disadvantages does not meet some player's approval, tough feces.

[Din Riddek]

You really think a fighter in a 15+ level party contributes nothing? As in, "presence is so meaningless that one might as well not play?"

[Calanon]

Try playing a Wizard that has a 10% Arcane spell failure for being an Amputee... Not very fun... :smallannoyed:

[Morithias]

One of my recent builds was a "Mute Wizard" who thanks to the non-verbal spell feat could still cast all of her spells. I haven't got to use her yet, but when I do I plan to speak as little as possible.

Do I plan to optimize her? Of course, I love the challenge put into making a powerful character.

Is she flawed? I dare you to walk up to a mute person and claim they're not disabled or flawed. Enjoy your punch to the face.

Just because I optimize doesn't mean all my characters are tier 1 gods. Hell I find it more fun to optimize weaker classes, more challenge that way.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I would like it if you qualified this statement. You really think that no one should play a fighter? Ever? Not competent enough to have a viable roll in a party of spellcasters and skillful characters?

I only ask because I really and truly can not fathom playing in a game where I CAN'T play a monk or fighter because it really, really, really sucks.

I kind of hope I just got trolled, but I feel like I'm just missing something some of you apparently see that I don't.

Fighter is useless because the druid gets his animal companion. An unoptimized fighter will feel out-fought by THAT. An optimized fighter is comparing himself to a SINGLE CLASS FEATURE. Then there's the swordsage.

But monk? Monk is even worse. Swordsage and druid will outclass it at its own schtick in every regard. It's weaker in combat than the animal companion. It's weaker out of combat than the same-skill-points-plus-spells-plus-animal-skills druid. Flurry of Blows is called Flurry of Misses for a reason, and swordsages have more skill points as well as some good utility maneuvers, and those utility maneuvers double as combat maneuvers, as well as the other combat maneuvers the swordsage has. Unarmed swordsage IS monk, but stronger.

As for fighter being dead weight on a level 15+ party, it's pretty much true. A level 15 fighter basically becomes a sink for the cleric's spell slots as well as a couple buffs from the wizard. The only use he really has is as a flanking buddy so the rogue can get good damage. A druid gets that as a class feature. A crusader can actually take damage. A warblade can dish out big numbers and do a couple other things as well.

For me, flawed character doesn't mean "relies on teammates to do his own thing". It means "relies on teammates to do OTHER things".

[Vladislav]

Try playing a Wizard that has a 10% Arcane spell failure for being an Amputee... Not very fun... Ha, my favourte character EVAR was the Sorceress who thought she was a Druid. As such, she didn't know anything about ASF, and was prancing about in Leather Armor. Whenever a spell failed due to ASF, she would invariably think it's because she was a bad Druid, and engaged on journey of soul-searching. That was fun...

[Din Riddek]

Those are all the flaws that I need. While I have nothing against my character having a -1 or some game mechanic disadvantage should character creation result in such, I do not feel the need to absolutely must have one. Colloquial you are not a better, more superior player for willfully choosing such. If my character is all out of bubblegum, then so be it, and I refuse to feel guilty about his awesomeness. If his lack of game mechanical disadvantages does not meet some player's approval, tough feces.


I never said my cup of tea was your cup of tea, and I can appreciate the "fun" in playing a character who is uber, but that seems very "video game" to me. Maybe that's the kind of RPGing you prefer to do, and I don't mean to say your wrong for having fun at something I don't care for. I apologize if my thread has given anyone an air of disapproval, I'm just trying to make a conversation about tabletop RPGs.

I have always been a fan of batman. Batman is awesome because he is very mortal, and very human. This is present in both his character and his lack of superpowers. Superman on the other hand is a boring hero to me. He is super power, indestructible, and aside from the weakness of kryptonite which is pesky at best, he is totally unstoppable.

I would rather play batman any day. Maybe you'd rather play superman. Maybe for me the fun is overcoming the challenge and the fun for you is winning, I do not know.

[Din Riddek]

So for clarification Jade Dragon (or anyone else), you could not have fun playing a fighter or a monk?

[Vladislav]

One's ability to play Fighter or Monk is only limited by one's capacity to tolerate mechanical incompetence. Which is obviously subjective.

[king.com]

Personally I like playing game systems that encourages a player to start as a 'Level 1 Guy'. I enjoy both the problem solving aspect of beign fairly weak and watching the characer grow into something powerful. Thats not to say theres no fun to be had in playing superman, its just I want to start as clark kent and one day, when the campaign ends I've become superman. Then again Im one of those crazy people who prefers levels 1-5 of D&D more than any other leve.

[erikun]

This depends on what kind of genre you're playing.

If I'm playing something where I'm supposed to be a component and well-rounded character, something like a World of Darkness game, then I prefer the character to have flaws. I prefer having a good chance at succeeding at skills I am good at, at being moderately component at most skills, have some areas that I am just poor at and having outright flaws.

In something like most Dungeons & Dragons games I've played, though, I wouldn't like to play a character like that. Most of D&D isn't about character analysis and interaction, but about characters killing each other and taking stock of who survived. In games like this, I tend to play the defensive healers - the clerics, typically. And in those cases, I generally don't like playing characters with flaws, as flaws get you killed, and if you're the guy the party is relying on to patch them up afterwards, getting killed gets your party killed.

This doesn't mean that such characters have no flaws, of course. You could argue their integrity as a flaw, especially against what most parties have in mind. However, playing this hand too much results in the Paladin/Chaotic Stupid problems, of one character forcing the party decisions for their own individual RP reasons. That's not something I generally like doing.

[Din Riddek]

Maybe the thing that bothers me is that certain attitudes on this website are very streamlined. It seems to me that after evaluation and tinkering there has been a consensus on what is "optimal." I'll even go as far to assume that they have really and truly run the numbers, and they have determined which ways are truly optimal to play.

This often is often equivalently treated as the "right" way to play.

I always thought the fun was in the openess of D&D. RPGs are indisputably not a contest of efficacy or power. Maybe you guys are really used to playing in high power, high optimization games. I'm certainly not, and I'd venture most people who play RPGs play "casually" (as if there is any other type of play).

Yet there persists this notion that one can't have fun playing a character not up to an arbitrary bar that's been set.

[navar100]

I never said my cup of tea was your cup of tea, and I can appreciate the "fun" in playing a character who is uber, but that seems very "video game" to me. Maybe that's the kind of RPGing you prefer to do, and I don't mean to say your wrong for having fun at something I don't care for. I apologize if my thread has given anyone an air of disapproval, I'm just trying to make a conversation about tabletop RPGs.

I have always been a fan of batman. Batman is awesome because he is very mortal, and very human. This is present in both his character and his lack of superpowers. Superman on the other hand is a boring hero to me. He is super power, indestructible, and aside from the weakness of kryptonite which is pesky at best, he is totally unstoppable.

I would rather play batman any day. Maybe you'd rather play superman. Maybe for me the fun is overcoming the challenge and the fun for you is winning, I do not know.

I should have known, Stormwind Fallacy.

As if "winning" is a bad thing. As if "winning" and "overcoming the challenge" are not the same thing. As if all there is to Superman is his power, his own personality, morals, and ethics meaning nothing to who he is and what truly makes him super. Only Captain America can compete in that regard.

What, pray tell, are Batman's mechanical disadvantages? He is wealthy. He is strong. He kicks butt in a fight. He's intelligent. He's a gadgeteer. His "flaws" are all roleplay: refuse to kill, moody, stubborn, forever in mourning, i.e. his personality, morals, and ethics.

[Jay R]

I like kryptonite, but I still want my character to be super.

I like being super, but I still think there should be kryptonite.

[Din Riddek]

I should have known, Stormwind Fallacy.

As if "winning" is a bad thing. As if "winning" and "overcoming the challenge" are not the same thing. As if all there is to Superman is his power, his own personality, morals, and ethics meaning nothing to who he is and what truly makes him super. Only Captain America can compete in that regard.

What, pray tell, are Batman's mechanical disadvantages? He is wealthy. He is strong. He kicks butt in a fight. He's intelligent. He's a gadgeteer. His "flaws" are all roleplay: refuse to kill, moody, stubborn, forever in mourning, i.e. his personality, morals, and ethics.


Sir or ma'am, I really don't know what I did to you to make you so mad. I don't recall ever saying roleplaying a flawed character was inherently superior (edit: in roleplaying) to a maximized one. I did say I preferred one to the other. I feel that the game runs better without uber PCs.

Winning and overcoming a challenge aren't the same thing. A 3rd level party defeating a tough enemy is overcoming a challenge. A 20th level party fighting that same enemy is simply winning.

[nyarlathotep]

Sir or ma'am, I really don't know what I did to you to make you so mad. I don't recall ever saying roleplaying a flawed character was inherently superior (edit: in roleplaying) to a maximized one. I did say I preferred one to the other. I feel that the game runs better without uber PCs.

Winning and overcoming a challenge aren't the same thing. A 3rd level party defeating a tough enemy is overcoming a challenge. A 20th level party fighting that same enemy is simply winning.

This post is overly condescending. You responses to him have all been very passive-aggressive, basically boiling down to "I'm claiming our playstyles are of equal merit but now let me mock your playstyle".

[WitchSlayer]

I'm fine with playing flawed characters, but I still believe in being effective. It's why I'm an adventurer and not a barman or the like after all.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Does anyone else like flawed characters? Characters who can't do everything well? Characters who aren't optimized to do godly powerful things?

I do. Am I alone?
No, you aren't alone.

Feel better? :smalltongue:

[Xzeno]

Hmm. I thought this thread was going to be about roleplaying, i.e. personality flaws. But this is just as interesting.

Personally, I prefer to play weaker characters, in a mechanical sense. Now, I don't mean as in fighter/monk or other "weak" classes: I play warblade over fighter any day, and encourage all my players to do the same. I find the stronger classes more interest mechanically. I even like full casters. Yet I still prefer a weak character.

I mean weak, of course, in comparison to the world around them. I prefer characters who have a lot of difficulty surmounting challenges and are generally outclassed by huge monsters and large groups of humanoids. That is, I don't like being able to defeat an army (which makes full casters interesting, but oh well). I prefer to be the clever type of hero to an action movie hero in terms of power. My daring dashing duelist is a competent duelist who can defeat most swordsman with ease, but he still doesn't want to alert the castle guards.

This is completely opposite of how I DM. I tend to run things as thrill-a-minute over-the-top three-hyphenated-words action scenes. I like to keep my players bouncing from one improbable danger to the next, using action movie logic to be awesome. Of course, that has a lot to do with their tastes, too.

[Din Riddek]

This post is overly condescending. You responses to him have all been very passive-aggressive, basically boiling down to "I'm claiming our playstyles are of equal merit but now let me mock your playstyle".

My apologies to all who have been offended by my demeanor. My intent was to defend my opinion to the best of my ability, though I don't think I have mocked the other play style. If you PM me the phrasing that was derogatory or mocking of that playstyle, I'll delete it in the name of keeping this thread as civil as possible.

[Slipperychicken]

I play dnd 3.5, and like playing characters who are good at their jobs, enough so that they are very likely to succeed whatever it is they're supposed to do (if they weren't, they'd be in a different line of work). I also like playing smart guys, since I like problem-solving.


I think it's cool to have a character with some emotional flaw like pride, overconfidence, falling for women, a strong moral code, going for the "right" thing even if it's not the optimal solution (but not when the "right" thing has absolutely no chance of success and is likely to get your team killed. Unless it's a heroic last stand which all participants agree to, in which case it's awesome.) As long as you can establish and develop it without cramming it down the team's throats or getting them killed with it.


In terms of mechanical flaws, if Ezio Auditore has a 5% chance of falling whenever he jumps from roof to roof, that doesn't make him a more interesting character, it makes him a corpse waiting to happen.

[Vizzerdrix]

Maybe not flawed character so much, but I love it when I botch a skill check. So much fun comes from that for me that I've tried to get all negatives before :smallbiggrin:

[Din Riddek]

I'm not arguing mechanical flaws are interesting. I'm arguing that they give the game better tension and a better feel in the world. If you knew you were going to make every jump check then there would be no point to the jump check because theres no tension when there is zero failure percentage. Isn't that the point of the dice? That when I roll I'm not supposed to know if it works or not?

The most boring story is one with no conflict or tension.

[Yukitsu]

I'm not arguing mechanical flaws are interesting. I'm arguing that they give the game better tension and a better feel in the world. If you knew you were going to make every jump check then there would be no point to the jump check because theres no tension when there is zero failure percentage. Isn't that the point of the dice? That when I roll I'm not supposed to know if it works or not?

The most boring story is one with no conflict or tension.

Actually, that's why most people take 10 on trivial skill checks. There isn't, and shouldn't be a chance of failure for simple tasks that you are competent at. Tension should be saved for the difficult, suitably heroic moments where the competency isn't the issue, it's the difficulty.

[Fatebreaker]

The most boring story is one with no conflict or tension.

Conflict and tension do not depend on your shortcomings; a character can do everything right and still encounter conflict, tension, or both. Being mechanically inept, insufficient, or inferior is not a prerequisite for exciting or compelling roleplaying.

[AsteriskAmp]

I'm not arguing mechanical flaws are interesting. I'm arguing that they give the game better tension and a better feel in the world. If you knew you were going to make every jump check then there would be no point to the jump check because theres no tension when there is zero failure percentage. Isn't that the point of the dice? That when I roll I'm not supposed to know if it works or not?

The most boring story is one with no conflict or tension.
If you are sure you'll overcome all of the jumps then you can focus on more transcendental things. Conflict does not arise necessarily from failure, but from a clash between the perceived reality and reality itself. Conflict between yourself and the way reality relates to you is one, that is the conflict of failure, the inability to do something you want.

But there are more interesting conflicts on higher realms. From the start it's moral, which if handled adequately and interestingly can reach far. It's more interesting to want to see if you can hold a dialogue with a Paladin on philosophy than to see if you can cross the gap or beat him in combat. Even if both are given, in a dialogue there is no way to simply "optimize", you need to think and see how everything reaches perhaps farther.

Another conflict is existential conflict, a character that despite being "perfect" is hollow. Roleplaying a hollow character is a challenge because you have to take across the message of nothingness. On that regard is also one of the most transcendental questions which is Why? While the petty incapable bard may see the jumping of a brook as a challenge I find more merit in the uber powerful chaingater of solars which manages to have a purpose. When you have unlimited power you realise power is not everything and have to start discerning what actually matters, what you would invest in, time or resources, or perhaps your own self. Nobillis for example makes you a god from the get go. Killing other god is child play, destroying earth as well, yet it is interesting because the system itself makes the question of what matters to you, and how strongly.

Finally you could throw in theological aspects for some systems. DnD which is criticised as telephoning god when making moral decisions (and 4E dumbing alignment down) poses a certain dialectic which higher level characters run into. Eventually if the god is both Evil and Lawful, what happens when what's evil is over what's lawful, how can such contrasting things coexist in one being, same as any alignment, since there are two components and the deity must be a perfect being the players can invest themselves into solving a theological paradox. Or on the evil side, understanding why a perfect being with aeons does evil, because evil at that level is not merely for the lulz but something far more "perfect" in a sense.

All of those things are easier to get into when you don't have to worry about losing combat, since the question then becomes, not merely I want to be able to kill, but why should I kill or use my time, which becomes precious on that.

[Mystic Muse]

The most boring story is one with no conflict or tension.

While true, it should be possible for a DM to make there be conflict and tension for just about any party. Assuming of course, the party is all within the same optimization level, or on similar levels.

It doesn't matter whether the party is all level 1 commoners, or all deities, as long as the DM can deal with it.

And power level does not necessarily correlate to how flawed a character is. While not a great example since this is freeform, there's this one character of mine. She is an eldritch abomination who is the most powerful being in her universe. She is also incredibly paranoid, afraid everybody she loves is going to abandon her, and about one step from falling over the edge into complete despair, the result of which depends on how she's pushed over the edge. could be complete isolation, could be suicide, could be her killing every other living thing on the planet in a mad frenzy, could be just general insanity, or a whole plethora of other things I haven't mentioned.

She's also an introvert, bad in social situations, bad at forgiving other people of slights committed against her (Eidetic memory will do that), and completely incapable of understanding romance or sexual attraction at this point in her life, and feels like she doesn't belong anywhere.

Roleplaying flaws tend to be far more interesting than "Oh, I missed the enemy with my killing blow dammit!" type ones in my opinion.

[Din Riddek]

All of those things are easier to get into when you don't have to worry about losing combat, since the question then becomes, not merely I want to be able to kill, but why should I kill or use my time, which becomes precious on that.

I get the point you are making about tension being derived from other sources. I don't think you'll disagree with me that combat is a focal aspect of most RPGs. If you always win your fights, there is no tension in the battle. I would not play a game where I always won. That for me is boring. Maybe no so for you, but when there is no fear of failure there aren't stakes, and when there aren't stakes it loses most of the thrill.

I know that failure in RPGs isn't equivalent to character death either. Perhaps I've been lucky, but many DMs I've played under have shown that killing a character is a much lamer way to punish them for losing. For example: paladin who fails without dying may have let innocent people die. A paladin who wins every battle never has to suffer that shame that he "wasn't good enough." Not only is that a challenge real humans beings face in real (the not good enough part), it further elevates the characters into more human, instead of more godly. Again, maybe it is just me, but I'd much rather role play a mortal that insanely powerful character.

I'll concede that you could do a similar sort of character development another way, such as tricking our paladin in to being in the wrong place while the people he needs to protect die, but that isn't the same as falling on the battlefield, or being captures, or being controlled by a mind affecting spell to slay an innocent. If the paladin is too strong to succumb those disasters, those forms of roleplaying are lost.

[Mystic Muse]

I'll concede that you could do a similar sort of character development another way, such as tricking our paladin in to being in the wrong place while the people he needs to protect die, but that isn't the same as falling on the battlefield, or being captures, or being controlled by a mind affecting spell to slay an innocent. If the paladin is too strong to succumb those disasters, those forms of roleplaying are lost.

Personally, I'd say "good riddance" to the being controlled thing anyway. Mind control, memory modification, mind alteration, forced personality changes, ETC. Are such boring plot elements. Forcing a character to do something they normally wouldn't through magical means just feels cheap. I like it much better when a previous ally becomes an enemy through their own choice, whether it was long and slow temptation, or they were already on the edge or what, but it just means so much more if it was their own choice.

I don't really even see much tension in being mind-controlled. You kill the person doing it, the spell ends. Or, if it's a spell that permanently changes the person, so what? That means the person is functionally dead, and there's nothing you can do about it. Might as well just make things official at that point.

But then, I have personal problems with mind control that most people don't, so I'm very biased. Hence the various mentions of it being my opinion in the post.

[Totally Guy]

I too prefer flawed characters. I have enjoyed playing games like Mouse Guard or Burning Wheel because bringing your character's stated flaws or quirks into the game is a key part of the advancement system and fate point economy.

The FATE games seem to work from a similar mindset.

Even World of Darkness gives you your willpower back when your stated sin matters and informs your choice.

[Amphetryon]

Maybe the thing that bothers me is that certain attitudes on this website are very streamlined. It seems to me that after evaluation and tinkering there has been a consensus on what is "optimal." I'll even go as far to assume that they have really and truly run the numbers, and they have determined which ways are truly optimal to play.

This often is often equivalently treated as the "right" way to play.

I always thought the fun was in the openess of D&D. RPGs are indisputably not a contest of efficacy or power. Maybe you guys are really used to playing in high power, high optimization games. I'm certainly not, and I'd venture most people who play RPGs play "casually" (as if there is any other type of play).

Yet there persists this notion that one can't have fun playing a character not up to an arbitrary bar that's been set.Here's the thing: because D&D is generally set up to be a group activity, your choices have an impact on other people's fun, also. If your character is so strong that the other people don't feel like they're meaningfully contributing to overcoming the challenges, you're probably negatively impacting the fun of everyone else at the table. If your character is so weak that the other people don't feel like you're meaningfully contributing to overcoming the challenges, you're also probably negatively impacting the fun of everyone else at the table.

That's the underlying notion behind the tier system, and behind most advice on creating a character with a certain level of optimization. It's also the reason so many posters ask for advice (their fun is being impacted), and why so many of the good responses include clarifying the parameters of the campaign, like what the other party members are playing. Few around here (or other boards I've seen) advocate bringing a DMM-Persist Clericzilla into a party with a Hexblade, a Warmage, and a Lurk, and few around here advocate bringing a Warmage to a party with a DMM-Persist Clericzilla, an Artificer, and a Spell-to-Power Erudite. In both cases, the reason is the same: the character would not be appropriately contributing, relative to the rest of the party. The DMM-Persist Clericzilla would likely roflstomp all the encounters and leave the other players with no meaningful contribution in the first example, while the Warmage would likely have nothing to bring to any encounters that the others couldn't already duplicate and surpass in the second example.

Oh, and if the response that springs to mind is "but there's more to it than the encounters! What about the role-playing?" then we're in Stormwind territory. You can role-play your character any way that makes sense to you, regardless of how mechanically strong or weak your character is. Certain choices may be influenced by what's on the character sheet (Thok the INT 4 Barbarian is probably not particularly well-spoken or good at puzzles), but your portrayal of your character's responses to the world around him isn't impacting other players' abilities to deal with the world around them.

[Hiro Protagonest]

So for clarification Jade Dragon (or anyone else), you could not have fun playing a fighter or a monk?

Sure I could. But for fighter it would have to be
A) a Thug fighter. I can't stand 2+int skill points on an MAD class.
B) I optimized it. A lot. I mean Guisarme+Improved Trip+Stand Still+Zhentarim Soldier. Complete lockdown build.
C) The group was too weak for a warblade and I didn't feel like playing a barbarian.

For monk, I would have to buy a bunch of splatbooks and go ACF-diving. I think there's one in Stormwrack that gives me Water Walk. In addition, I would probably go for more of a "sohei" feel with a reach weapon and Improved Trip and Stand Still. But in all reality, a TWF ranger with a quarterstaff does it better. And this is only if a warblade or swordsage is out of the question.

[Morty]

I too enjoy playing flawed characters. This is why I play systems where I don't have to tread carefully so some other member of the group doesn't end up rendering me redundant in one way or another.

[Bit Fiend]

I read and had these discussions a few times and they mostly boil down to "strawberry". Though I think there is a fine line between taking suboptimal Feat and Skill choices to reflect another background than "trained to be the best in his field" and intentionally making a character weak. You can have your Wizard have ranks in Perform: dance and the Silver Palm Feat because he is from a merchant family and enjoys dancing but you still have a fairly strong character simply because it's still a Wizard. Now if you give him a starting INT of 12 you can play him as a nigh useless joke character (from level 5 onward) but can't expect him to be a competent adventurer - and this is what you generally want to play.

[eepop]

I like to play characters that can contribute an equal amount to the characters that the rest of the party are playing.

If that leaves room for flaws, I'll put some in. If not, I'll roleplay flaws instead.

In either case, threads on optimization are very helpful. Just because its in the thread doesn't mean I have to use all of it. If I have 7 feats available, and through optimization, I can get on par with the other players with 4, I'll then spend the other 3 on other things than what the pure optimization would suggest.

And having the pure optimization example there helps greatly in knowing what NOT to pick when I have "free" options. Its quite easy in 3.5 to not recognize the power level something is, and accidentally pick something that sounded innocent enough but ends up being a game breaker.

[AsteriskAmp]

I get the point you are making about tension being derived from other sources. I don't think you'll disagree with me that combat is a focal aspect of most RPGs. If you always win your fights, there is no tension in the battle. I would not play a game where I always won. That for me is boring. Maybe no so for you, but when there is no fear of failure there aren't stakes, and when there aren't stakes it loses most of the thrill.
That's the central point though, combat will become phased out, or at least take a new dimension when one reaches new heights. It stops being lets kill the lich and starts becoming we need to stall Demogorgon's plan by doing strategic attacks to certain demonic cults in the abyss. The resource stops being HP or damage and starts being time, or knowledge, or information. And the stakes become different, it's not something like the little village or the kingdom but the direction of existence's future. Simply murdering everything is not possible, the Abyss is infinite after all, and the celestial host is also never ending. Failure comes not from a failed roll, but from a wrongly executed plan, an unknow variable, from an outside factor, the solar that appeared at the worst moment, the caster that gated him. Or on the other hand an infernalist compacting a demon you hadn't considered. You can win all the battles and lose the war because you didn't think. And at higher levels, intelligent play makes for a better story.

Even the highest OP-fu has to deal with the fact that there are simply un-stated things they have to overcome through some other means.


I know that failure in RPGs isn't equivalent to character death either. Perhaps I've been lucky, but many DMs I've played under have shown that killing a character is a much lamer way to punish them for losing. For example: paladin who fails without dying may have let innocent people die. A paladin who wins every battle never has to suffer that shame that he "wasn't good enough." Not only is that a challenge real humans beings face in real (the not good enough part), it further elevates the characters into more human, instead of more godly. Again, maybe it is just me, but I'd much rather role play a mortal that insanely powerful character.
A paladin who wins every battle can see the great temple burn because he stopped to help the children being kidnapped and didn't rush to tell the archcleric that there was a demonic army coming. And it takes a new level, it isn't simply I must acquire power to be better but it becomes a more profound goal of knowing when minor good can lead to major evil or minor neturality (or evil) can lead to a greater good. When you trascend mortal limitations you realise immortals also have limitations, they just are more interesting to try to understand. The resource again changes. You don't lose because you weren't strong, but because of short sight, or lack of information, perhaps being too centred or not centred enough. Even the lowest goblin has a wish for power, but a PC is not a simple goblin, they should aspire to something greater, and as such, their conflicts also are supposed to be greater.


I'll concede that you could do a similar sort of character development another way, such as tricking our paladin in to being in the wrong place while the people he needs to protect die, but that isn't the same as falling on the battlefield, or being captures, or being controlled by a mind affecting spell to slay an innocent. If the paladin is too strong to succumb those disasters, those forms of roleplaying are lost.
That's not roleplaying, that's merely a situation, how it is handled is what would be roleplaying. Failing on the battlefield can also happen due to sheer numbers. Even with a druid and a wizzard on top, hosts and hosts of enemy can still be too much, they won't kill the Paladin but they will get to the town and raze it, and in that case the strive is different.

Being captured is also possible for omnipotent beings, it just goes from I throw you to a jail to I have your loved one, submit. It becomes a much more potent incarceration since escape is not really an option, it forces exploration of goals and inner purpose. As for mind control, that's just a plot device which at higher levels should be phased out, you take out any real value of choice and make it a DMs lulz you fall or fail button. The paladin won't have any real dilemma there apart from murder annoying wizard of evil.

The bottom-line is that winning a fight does not mean winning the war if you fight all the wrong fights. Even if you win them. And most important, at higher levels you stop fighting and start plotting, you try to make the fights lead to something, and failure is in the plan, not on some dice roll. Luck comes when you go into it without knowing all the variables, not on some statistical trick.

[Philistine]

As a flawed person myself, I presume that any character I create will be flawed in some way. That said, mechanical flaws (that is, flaws that would make a character bad at their job) are not only the least interesting possible shortcomings from a character point of view, but also have a serious negative effect on the number and types of stories in which they can meaningfully participate. Adventuring is a high-risk (and yes, high-reward) occupation, after all, and characters with crippling mechanical flaws don't generally stick around long. One way or another.

Character flaws, on the other hand, are all plus. So the idealistic, optimistic priest is probably too naive and trusting. The militant crusader might be a little bit bigoted, and a whole lot too ready to resort to violence. The anarchistic assassin could be almost cripplingly cynical, and turn every encounter with authority figures into an argument. The sorcerer is, perhaps, an arrogant thrill-seeker who deliberately puts himself into harm's way just because getting himself out alive again is so much fun. And so on, and so on. I promise you, these characters experience no shortage of tension and conflict, despite being very good at what they do. Nor would they be "better characters" if they lacked that bedrock layer of competence at their foundations - in fact, the last three (at least!) would almost certainly be killed, and quickly. Better numbers on the sheet translate pretty directly to greater freedom and/or more time to flesh out a concept, resulting in a better-developed character in my (and my groups') head.

[Din Riddek]

Here's the thing…QUOTE]

This post makes a lot of sense, though I think it brings out part of the problem. As a DM I try to prevent my PCs from inhibiting each other’s fun. By your own statement, absurd power gaming limits the other player’s options if they want to compete with you for power/meaningfulness. You may argue that even a non-optimized wizard makes fighters and monks and such worthless, but you’d be wrong. People all over the world who play D&D 3.5 play in parties with fighters and monks, and regardless of the inherent difference in power, they manage to have fun. Otherwise I would assume they wouldn’t play.

I think this makes the “problem” that when players over-optimize they begin to limit what other players are allowed to do, and still matter (in the words of some on this forum). This doesn’t strike anyone as a problem?

[QUOTE=Jade Dragon;13211564]Sure I could…
Alright, here’s my point plain and simple: if you can have fun with it, then it is a viable option.


I read and had these discussions a few times ...
I would never tell someone to take toughness as a feat (unless they needed it to qualify for something worthless) for character reasons, but there’s no reason a player shouldn’t take worthwhile feats that fit his character because they don’t build towards a deific powerful being. I don’t think there should be pressure on players to make optimized builds outside of specific games geared toward that kind of play.

Maybe you only play in games like that, and that’s totally fine. My problem is when that is brought into games where it (in my opinion) doesn’t belong. Or when some poor soul who goes on this forum asking for advice gets “you really shouldn’t play that class, its total garbage.”



That's the central point though...
I wouldn’t play a game a D&D that was a political drama, or a chess board. As I said before, I wouldn’t play when I don’t really have to roll dice anymore. I’d also like to point out you can still play games where you fight high powered devils and demons in games where characters aren’t optimized, and you can retain the drama of planning and choice you desire, while still preserving tense combat. Having auto-win combat doesn’t automatically entail the type of game you play (although I see how it can highlight it).

At that point I would almost say you aren’t really playing a tabletop game anymore, since what really matters in that type of game seems to be the narrative, and little else. If that works for your playgroup I won’t tell you it’s the wrong way to play. Though it is wrong if you think it’s ideal for everyone. The games I play and direct have narratives too, and just because most of them don’t have grandiose scales of conflict with CR33 evil outsiders doesn’t make them inherently weaker, boring, or less fun.

[Din Riddek]

I never said characters should be bad at their job, just not good at everything, or godlike in power.

[Yukitsu]

I never said characters should be bad at their job, just not good at everything, or godlike in power.

A person likely to encounter an A) trap, B) various types of combat in different terrain and ranges, C) social encounters, D) puzzles, E) party separations all in a single day has to be good at pretty well everything to be a good adventurer. The alternative is you end up in the classical idiom of "don't split the party" which really limits what objectives you can achieve.

[KnightDisciple]

As a flawed person myself, I presume that any character I create will be flawed in some way. That said, mechanical flaws (that is, flaws that would make a character bad at their job) are not only the least interesting possible shortcomings from a character point of view, but also have a serious negative effect on the number and types of stories in which they can meaningfully participate. Adventuring is a high-risk (and yes, high-reward) occupation, after all, and characters with crippling mechanical flaws don't generally stick around long. One way or another.

Character flaws, on the other hand, are all plus. So the idealistic, optimistic priest is probably too naive and trusting. The militant crusader might be a little bit bigoted, and a whole lot too ready to resort to violence. The anarchistic assassin could be almost cripplingly cynical, and turn every encounter with authority figures into an argument. The sorcerer is, perhaps, an arrogant thrill-seeker who deliberately puts himself into harm's way just because getting himself out alive again is so much fun. And so on, and so on. I promise you, these characters experience no shortage of tension and conflict, despite being very good at what they do. Nor would they be "better characters" if they lacked that bedrock layer of competence at their foundations - in fact, the last three (at least!) would almost certainly be killed, and quickly. Better numbers on the sheet translate pretty directly to greater freedom and/or more time to flesh out a concept, resulting in a better-developed character in my (and my groups') head.

This right here sums up what I was thinking.

I mean, I went into the thread thinking the OP meant "personality flaws" or "ideological flaws". Not "mechanical flaws".

As others have said: Building a character who's good at what they do does not harm the game, and rather helps it. Flaws should first and foremost be within the personality, beliefs, mentality, and so on of the character. These provide much richer story opportunities than building a fighter who can barely fight, or a wizard who purposefully cripples their spell selection.

I'd rather play on the Justice League, where despite Batman not having superpowers he still contributes to the overall success of the team right alongside Superman, than...uh, I dunno, the Great Lakes Avengers?
If everyone is doing a good job, you can take on bigger and grander threats.

[xyzombie]

I think the big distinguishing factor here is between people who like to play difficult games for enjoyment and people who like to enter god-mode immediately without conflict, not just in DnD but also in video games or whatever else. There may be a mental block here for those who don't like conflict or difficulty in games; rather than saying "let's solve this puzzle given the pieces I was given" they tend to say "let's go through the motions and add this title to my block of achievements". Everything should be left to chance, much like in real life, or what's the point? I feel like the DMs would get SUPER bored if they had to adjust to a team full of Pun-Puns, and so should each player. Even if you are well suited to do something in real life, doesn't mean that you can't have a bad day, or an exceptionally good day, given the random chance. If you still oppose this idea of conflict, I'd advise to create a new game where one can simply go, and show off their characters, while opponents die around them without having to lift a finger; as this would be much better suited toward some of the above preferences than the game of DnD.

[AsteriskAmp]

I wouldn’t play a game a D&D that was a political drama, or a chess board. As I said before, I wouldn’t play when I don’t really have to roll dice anymore. I’d also like to point out you can still play games where you fight high powered devils and demons in games where characters aren’t optimized, and you can retain the drama of planning and choice you desire, while still preserving tense combat. Having auto-win combat doesn’t automatically entail the type of game you play (although I see how it can highlight it).
Yes you can, but the focus will be skewered to moar powerz are needed since DnD scales with level, not PC power, so a DM has to adjudicate, and you'll take more time to enter that realm if the DM is benevolent or die horribly if the DM goes by the tables. The issue is that if you play at that level and you lose because you rolled a one, that's not drama or tension, that's a plain old idiotic moment of dice causing the campaign to get stuck, the plan was brilliant, things were well laid out, and the failure happens due to random chance, it's hard to reconcile the level of power with such a trifle failure.

At that point I would almost say you aren’t really playing a tabletop game anymore, since what really matters in that type of game seems to be the narrative, and little else. If that works for your playgroup I won’t tell you it’s the wrong way to play. Though it is wrong if you think it’s ideal for everyone. The games I play and direct have narratives too, and just because most of them don’t have grandiose scales of conflict with CR33 evil outsiders doesn’t make them inherently weaker, boring, or less fun.
There are diceless Tabletop RPGs, so saying not rolling dice makes it stop being an Tabletop RPG is outright silly. A tabletop RPG IS a narrative, it just happens to be based on multiple narrators, each with a saying, while a system merely formalises it so conflict resolution is not arbitrary. It's a collaborative narrative, THERE is always a story being told, even if it is of the low level party who marches to a dungeon. At high levels a different part of the system comes into play and the more mechanized parts are left behind. But even then, there IS choice, it's not merely a story being told but one being created by each of the protagonists. And I return to my original point, that a game can go to those scales doesn't make it weaker or boring either.


I'm not arguing mechanical flaws are interesting. I'm arguing that they give the game better tension and a better feel in the world. If you knew you were going to make every jump check then there would be no point to the jump check because theres no tension when there is zero failure percentage. Isn't that the point of the dice? That when I roll I'm not supposed to know if it works or not?

The most boring story is one with no conflict or tension.

Which brings us back to the point I'm refuting. Lack of mechanical flaws is not lack of conflict or tension which in turn leads to the fact that mechanical flaws are not a necessity and do not necessarily make the game more interesting while their absence also do not make a game interesting, but also open a different panorama. There is a tradeoff when taking mechanical flaws and when not doing so, which is better depends, but the story is not more interesting because of any of those. Dice failure does not equal tension while lack of possibility of dice failure, does not equal infallibility.

[Shadowknight12]

If you still oppose this idea of conflict, I'd advise to create a new game where one can simply go, and show off their characters, while opponents die around them without having to lift a finger; as this would be much better suited toward some of the above preferences than the game of DnD.

Or, you know, we could just have both sides never meeting but still enjoying the same game in their separate ways.

That's what always gets me about these threads. I may completely agree with you on what game style we prefer, but I would never presume to tell anyone, no matter how awful their playstyle might be to me, what to play and what not to play. I am very much a follower of the school of thought that posits "If they have fun and they're not ruining anyone else's fun, let things be."

I will never comprehend the inexplicable urge some people have to get into other people's business to tell them what they can or can't do, should or should not do.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, but you can't all be from the same place.

[xyzombie]

Or, you know, we could just have both sides never meeting but still enjoying the same game in their separate ways.

That's what always gets me about these threads. I may completely agree with you on what game style we prefer, but I would never presume to tell anyone, no matter how awful their playstyle might be to me, what to play and what not to play. I am very much a follower of the school of thought that posits "If they have fun and they're not ruining anyone else's fun, let things be."

I will never comprehend the inexplicable urge some people have to get into other people's business to tell them what they can or can't do, should or should not do.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, but you can't all be from the same place.

{Scrubbed}

[KnightDisciple]

What is an "overly-optimized player"? What is a "real, risk-taking player"?

No, seriously, help me out here. This thread started in a state of "smoldering", and it feels ready to erupt into an inferno.

Maybe it would help if we were explicit with what we meant when we threw about terms?

So please, explain the above terms so we know whether we should be insulted or not.

[Totally Guy]

My entry to the forum motto contest:

"There is no one true way of roleplaying; except for the way D&D does it."

:smalltongue:

[Shadowknight12]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Again: Why? If the people you claim to want to benefit are already having fun with the game they're playing, there's no reason to change (i.e., don't fix what's not broken). No, it strikes me as you having a personal reason for not wanting to see those players playing the same game as you.


{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I never said "should", I said "could". "Could" means possibility without any influence from the speaker (unlike "should"). So I stand by what I said. We could have both groups playing separately. That's an option that seems to solve all problems for everyone involved, but I don't intend to push it as something that "should" be done (because that'd be presumptuous of me).


{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

Intriguing. You know, I read that, and I can't help but wonder who exactly are you trying to rouse, since I already made it pretty clear I enjoy playing flawed characters who have mechanical flaws and aren't good at everything (or even at any one thing at all), so it strikes me as incredibly amusing. Having said that, I still fail to see why it bothers you so much. Do you have players or DMs who are like that? If so, I'm sorry for you. Maybe you should get another group, one that's closer to your tastes. If you don't have anyone like that affecting your fun, why do you care what happens on someone else's home?

[KnightDisciple]

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{Scrubbed}

[Din Riddek]

I'd like this thread to stay civil everyone. I made this thread in the first place to understand and discuss the topic. I never said someone else's fun was illegitimate, or stupid. I said it wasn't for me.

Part of why I made this thread is that I see other people's play style shoved down the throat of almost anyone asking for help. Yeah, a lot of the threads on this forum are dedicating to optimizing characters. However, the truth is that there are plenty of threads where members of this site convince someone else that they shouldn't play what they want to play because it isn't good enough, which probably isn't true or accurate of their playgroup. A person saying "I want to play a monk" probably doesn't play in a group where the monk is as unviable as you accuse it of being, otherwise he wouldn't want to play the monk. Rather than posting in those threads and inevitably derailing all of them, I'm keeping the discussion here.

If optimizers get to voice their opinions, then I should be able to as well right? As I said before, if someone PMs a phrase I said that overtly insulting or offensive I'll delete it, if for no other reason than to keep this discussion going.

Again, please keep my thread civil. Thank you.

[xyzombie]

it strikes me as you having a personal reason for not wanting to see those players playing the same game as you.

It's in everybody's best interests.



Intriguing. You know, I read that, and I can't help but wonder who exactly are you trying to rouse. Why do you care what happens on someone else's home?

{Scrubbed}

[Knaight]

This post makes a lot of sense, though I think it brings out part of the problem. As a DM I try to prevent my PCs from inhibiting each other’s fun. By your own statement, absurd power gaming limits the other player’s options if they want to compete with you for power/meaningfulness. You may argue that even a non-optimized wizard makes fighters and monks and such worthless, but you’d be wrong. People all over the world who play D&D 3.5 play in parties with fighters and monks, and regardless of the inherent difference in power, they manage to have fun. Otherwise I would assume they wouldn’t play.

So what? It applies just as much the other way, if everyone else brings unoptimized monks and such nobody can bring a wizard. As for absurd power gaming - it's all relative anyways.


I think the big distinguishing factor here is between people who like to play difficult games for enjoyment and people who like to enter god-mode immediately without conflict, not just in DnD but also in video games or whatever else. There may be a mental block here for those who don't like conflict or difficulty in games; rather than saying "let's solve this puzzle given the pieces I was given" they tend to say "let's go through the motions and add this title to my block of achievements". Everything should be left to chance, much like in real life, or what's the point? I feel like the DMs would get SUPER bored if they had to adjust to a team full of Pun-Puns, and so should each player. Even if you are well suited to do something in real life, doesn't mean that you can't have a bad day, or an exceptionally good day, given the random chance. If you still oppose this idea of conflict, I'd advise to create a new game where one can simply go, and show off their characters, while opponents die around them without having to lift a finger; as this would be much better suited toward some of the above preferences than the game of DnD.

Power has absolutely nothing to do with conflict or difficulty. What changes is just the scale of the challenges. If everybody is playing talking mice, then skill checks may be involved in climbing up stairs (though I'm not really familiar enough with the climbing capability of mice to be sure about this). The local cat that eats too much, is a bit old, and doesn't really have the energy to be chasing mice around anymore is still a source of real conflict - there's very much room for characters being at each others throats because, say, one character exposed another character to too much risk from the cat by the standards of another character, which they both care about. There's even limited room for action scenes from said fat lazy cat.

Now, lets up this to able bodied, younger, humans. The fat lazy cat is no longer a source of conflict in the way it is with mice, though it may still be a source of conflict. It isn't dangerous. The stairs? Nobody is going to be making rolls to climb them, unless they're seriously injured. However, your example of a jump check? That may still be in play, perhaps in the context of a rooftop chase scene or similar. Other humans are dangerous, and there's room for physical conflict involving them. Moreover, to continue with the cats, the great cats are potentially very dangerous.

Up to incredibly heroic fantasy levels, things change further. Those jump checks are probably gone, as the characters are perfectly capable making gigantic leaps and sailing through the air. The stairs are never going to be an issue, at all, for anyone. Individual normal people are probably not a problem in physical contests, perhaps even large groups aren't. However, there are dangers. The PCs aren't the only people sailing across the air and running over water, there are others, some of whom are likely better than them. Perhaps the drama aspect is played up, and the PCs are likely to be pitched against each other, with a good chance of being stabbed in the back due to some sort of convoluted mess of relationships. Then there are creatures - dragons, demons, spirits, so on and so forth.

Somehow, I don't see the conflict and difficulty magically ratcheting down as power goes up. Sure, it changes in form to some extent (though it doesn't have to), but your thesis is that it goes away. That makes absolutely no sense. It is clearly relative. Even coming back to the first example, there's a way for low powered characters to have absolutely no conflict. You are the fat cat. You get to chase the mice. They don't threaten you. Whether you catch them or not really only changes how much weight you gain from all the canned cat food you eat. Is there conflict? No. Is the character powerful, or "over optimized"? No. Is there "real risk taking"? No. Why? Because those factors have nothing to do with each other.

[KnightDisciple]

{Scrubbed}

[Yukitsu]

I'd like this thread to stay civil everyone. I made this thread in the first place to understand and discuss the topic. I never said someone else's fun was illegitimate, or stupid. I said it wasn't for me.

Part of why I made this thread is that I see other people's play style shoved down the throat of almost anyone asking for help. Yeah, a lot of the threads on this forum are dedicating to optimizing characters. However, the truth is that there are plenty of threads where members of this site convince someone else that they shouldn't play what they want to play because it isn't good enough, which probably isn't true or accurate of their playgroup. A person saying "I want to play a monk" probably doesn't play in a group where the monk is as unviable as you accuse it of being, otherwise he wouldn't want to play the monk. Rather than posting in those threads and inevitably derailing all of them, I'm keeping the discussion here.

We're hard on those people because "monk" isn't a role play characteristic. It's a defined cluster of abilities that has nothing to do with characterization or personality. There is literally no reason someone should have to play the class to play a specific archetype, and deliberately shooting oneself in the effectiveness foot just to play a specific style that could have been played effectively with a myriad of other options.

When someone says "I want to play a monk" he likely isn't thinking his character core concept is "he is a monk" or if he does, that's very weak characterization. If your entire character concept is defined by out of character constructs, then it's going to be very shallow. If he gives a full story reason why his character is a warrior ascetic who eschew weapons for some reason, he has no reason to play a monk. There are plenty of effective, functional ways to play to the type.

[xyzombie]

{Scrubbed}

[Shadowknight12]

If optimizers get to voice their opinions, then I should be able to as well right?

Yes, but starting a topic like this doesn't seem very productive to me. The way I see it, if you want things to change, you have to start posting in several places, trying to educate people by showing them another way. Go in those topics you speak of and offer different advice. Don't be afraid to challenge the hivemind and tough out the mobbing that might ensue. A big, inflamed thread like this just gets everyone defensive and your argument gets diluted under endless arguments. The people you want to reach will probably never read this thread, and the people who do read it won't change their minds.


It's in everybody's best interests.

Forgive my lingo, but I roll Sense Motive on that.


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I feel very sorry for you and whatever event in your past caused your perception of reality to be so warped as to automatically hold a grudge on everyone who even remotely resembles the person who hurt you so badly. I am not being sarcastic, I really do hope one day you'll be able to move past that, it sounds like you must get pretty aggravated at the very thought of someone playing that kind of character, and that must not be a nice way of living. Again, sorry. :smallfrown:

[xyzombie]

You haven't even really defined your terms from earlier yet like I asked. Instead you're just insulting people who optimize (a definition you're not really giving, but from your tone sounds more severe than the common usage).

As having been described in this thread already, I assumed one could get from context clues what I was referring to. Sorry for not having reiterated yet. Remember how the original post of this thread read "Does anyone else like flawed characters? Characters who can't do everything well? Characters who aren't optimized to do godly powerful things?" and then how people responded with mixed or opposing answers that essentially amounted to "No, I like my characters God-tier if they are written that way", which were most all answered with "so you don't like challenge" and then it kind of spun out of control? Well, my definition of over-optimization is simply a character created with the intention of being good at everything, without flaw, sometimes to the point of rather than experiencing a game as he or she should, it's more of a running through the motions. {Scrubbed}

[Dimers]

Maybe the thing that bothers me is that certain attitudes on this website are very streamlined. It seems to me that after evaluation and tinkering there has been a consensus on what is "optimal."

Nah. It's just that the people on this site who shout the loudest and argue the longest happen to have similar opinions. I don't want to spend my time trying to quote-unquote "prove" that sometimes it's actually good to play a character less powerful than the group ... I know it, and that's enough.


Maybe you guys are really used to playing in high power, high optimization games.

Probably already addressed by now, but ... from what I've seen, most of the people here like Supreme Extreme Power only in thought experiments, and prefer to play medium-powered games. Tier 3, in JaronK's system.

[Cerlis]

Does anyone else like flawed characters? Characters who can't do everything well? Characters who aren't optimized to do godly powerful things?

I do. Am I alone?

just from the sounds of this post the title should be "i like playing Non-optimized characters" which in my opinion should be the standard.

[KnightDisciple]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

{Scrubbed} You're making wild assumptions about the motives of others, in the worst way possible, while still making very ill-defined statements and qualifiers.

What is a "god-powered character"? A wizard in Epic levels? A Warblade who's just good at fighting with a blade? A rogue who's good at sneaking, fighting, and picking locks?

What's over-optimized? What's "Real Roleplayers"?

{Scrubbed}
EDIT: What is "Optimized" as opposed to "Non-Optimized"?

[Lord_Gareth]

just from the sounds of this post the title should be "i like playing Non-optimized characters" which in my opinion should be the standard.

Define 'non-optimized'.

[xyzombie]

Is there conflict? No. Is the character powerful, or "over optimized"? No. Is there "real risk taking"? No. Why? Because those factors have nothing to do with each other.

If a character is over-powered, and good at every role without being flawed, then the game he or she is playing is essentially risk free and non-conflict. Nice try though.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I think the big distinguishing factor here is between people who like to play difficult games for enjoyment and people who like to enter god-mode immediately without conflict, not just in DnD but also in video games or whatever else. There may be a mental block here for those who don't like conflict or difficulty in games; rather than saying "let's solve this puzzle given the pieces I was given" they tend to say "let's go through the motions and add this title to my block of achievements". Everything should be left to chance, much like in real life, or what's the point? I feel like the DMs would get SUPER bored if they had to adjust to a team full of Pun-Puns, and so should each player. Even if you are well suited to do something in real life, doesn't mean that you can't have a bad day, or an exceptionally good day, given the random chance. If you still oppose this idea of conflict, I'd advise to create a new game where one can simply go, and show off their characters, while opponents die around them without having to lift a finger; as this would be much better suited toward some of the above preferences than the game of DnD.

...Right. Because I, the guy who can't stand to play an unoptimized fighter, LOVE playing Pun-Pun and going on big power trips.

Seriously, I am a HERO. Warblade isn't an "I WIN" button. If I ever play a wizard, I'd probably play a Focused Conjurer with Abrupt Jaunt (plus Improved Initiative, so that I'm less likely to be caught flat-footed), Precocious Apprentice, and Fiery Burst. Not because I want to break the game, but because I want to be a guy who can lock down his enemies and give his friends any buff they want, and can survive long enough to get to that point. I don't want to be some glass cannon who can shoot fire, I want to wield powerful arcane magic, and take to heart Spidy's words: "with great power, comes great responsibility".

[xyzombie]

What's "Real Roleplayers"?

Anybody who plays role-playing games I suppose? I dunno, I never said that, so your guess is as good as mine.


What is a "god-powered character"? A wizard in Epic levels? A Warblade who's just good at fighting with a blade? A rogue who's good at sneaking, fighting, and picking locks? What's over-optimized? Start making definitions instead of insults, and maybe the rest of us will give your words more credence. What is "Optimized" as opposed to "Non-Optimized"?
{Scrubbed}

[Hiro Protagonest]

{Scrubbed}

He can't. Those questions are all subjective. If the party is a high-op, high-tier group in the epic levels, that wizard is perfectly okay. If it's low-op, the optimized rogue is too powerful. He wants to know what YOU think is too powerful.

[Lord_Gareth]

If a character is over-powered, and good at every role without being flawed, then the game he or she is playing is essentially risk free and non-conflict. Nice try though.

If my Warblade happens to have a decent Charisma and takes ranks in Diplomacy, does that make him 'good' at being a party face? Or does it just make him not helpless?

[SlashRunner]

If a character is over-powered, and good at every role without being flawed, then the game he or she is playing is essentially risk free and non-conflict. Nice try though.

I haven't been following the conversation very intently, and so forgive me if I say something that has already been discussed earlier, but this statement just...bugs me.
You can have a character that's overpowered in relation to their fellow characters, but not in relation to the game, not really. You can't have a risk-free game. The reason being is that the DM is more powerful than any character in that they have complete control over the game world. No matter how optimized your character is, your DM can always throw a more powerful monster at you. Now, this is often a bad idea, because then this will be validating the existence of the inappropriately optimized character (they're the only one who can handle the DM's overpowered monsters), but you CANNOT have a risk-free or conflict-free D&D game.
Just my 2 cents.

[KnightDisciple]

Anybody who plays role-playing games I suppose? I dunno, I never said that, so your guess is as good as mine.

{Scrubbed}

Dude, you're the one who came in here tossing around blatant insults about "optimizers".

I was trying to establish a working common vocabulary to avoid misunderstanding.

You're the one who needs to "take a breath" and stop acting like you have the One True Way To D&D, and anyone who plays it even slightly more "optimized" than you is not only "doing it wrong", but is apparently inferior as a human being. :smallannoyed:

[oxybe]

truthfully, if i'm playing in a game and someone comes in with a character that's a liability (either mechanically by being unable to carry his own weight or requiring constant saving or role-play wise, by simply refusing to help the party or actively going against the party's goals), I will dump your PC's sorry ass at the first chance possible.

i don't mind a flawed character. i've played those and i don't see them any more intrinsically fun to play then a PC who's a paragon... it really depends far more on the campaign and the party if any given PC is going to be fun to play.

i do mind playing alongside a liability though.

[kardar233]

{Scrubbed}

Is it really your intention to make baseless, ad-hominem attacks against an ill-defined section of this board?

Let me give you an example.

I've been in two games recently. In one, I played a Dweomerkeeping Spelldancing Archivist/Sha'ir Incantator (basically, a gestalt Twice-Betrayer who can also tear your face off) with more than two hundred effects on him at any given time. He was very nearly invulnerable and could kill nearly anything with his heavily buffed melee attacks (in Gargantuan Dragon form) and any problem he couldn't solve by ripping it to shreds, breathing Piercing Cold on it or Dispelling it he could deal with with a Greater Request Miracle with no XP cost.

In-character, the guy had done everything he could to ensure he would live forever and had gone thousands of years doing things like pissing off archmages for fun. If he wasn't that powerful he'd be dead by then. Out-of-character I wanted to see if anyone else in the group had the experience and capability to get through his defenses.


Another character was a Paladin of Tyranny/Rogue, who specialized in being sneaky, charging and fear. A full third of his build was screwed against anything with Immunity to [Mind-Affecting], he had offensive ability only in the way of running at people and hitting them with his sword, and any physical damage dealer who looked at him wrong could annihilate him (low CON and DEX due to MAD).

He was a stealthy warrior and executioner for the tyrannical regime he worked for and was an amoral bastard whose only concession to being good in any way was never lying.


One of these characters is a world-destroying invulnerable badass. The other is a stealthy, steel-willed warrior who specializes in terror tactics, but was close to useless in anything that didn't involve sneaking, scaring or head-chopping. Did I have more fun with one or the other? No, I don't think so.

My fun is independent of the optimization level of my character. As long as I am at least in keeping with the rest of the group (so as not to be a burden or solve all their problems for them) I can find fun with whatever character I'm playing.

[Knaight]

If a character is over-powered, and good at every role without being flawed, then the game he or she is playing is essentially risk free and non-conflict. Nice try though.

1) Putting aside how "over-powered" is something you added, this doesn't follow. Lets take a literary example - the Reluctant King trilogy features a character who is competent at most everything. He's a jack of all trades who exploited his brief time as royalty to be trained up to second best of his retainers in a great many skills, before fleeing the country to avoid it's succession ritual.* Said character is still threatened however, because there are others like him, and specialists better than him. He is also threatened simply because the world is bigger than he is, even if he is widely competent - when you're in a city that is about to face an assault from an overwhelming force, it doesn't matter how tough you are, you're going to die unless the whole "overwhelming force" aspect dries up. Which, in the book, it did, for spoiler-laden reasons.

2) "Good at every role" is also your interpretation and yours alone. Things are only really flaws when they impact something that has been shown to matter earlier. It doesn't matter if a merchant can't fight, they're a merchant, not fighting well is the default. It isn't a flaw. However, if a swordsman has a tendency to freeze up in certain situations, it is a flaw, as that is actually germane to their role. That doesn't mean a swordsman who doesn't have any particular flaws can't be challenged. For one, there's everything outside of swordsmanship, where they are a fish out of water. For another, there's other warriors, who may also not really have any particular flaws per se, and are just better overall.

3) If you define "flaw" as "lacking relative to invincible perfection in any way", where so much as the capacity to have a negative emotional reaction to something is a flaw, then yes, a character without flaws can only exist in a risk-free, non-conflict setting. However, that is a terrible definition of flaw. Actual definitions, in this case from Merriam Webster are closer to this:
a : a defect in physical structure or form <a diamond with a flaw>
b : an imperfection or weakness and especially one that detracts from the whole or hinders effectiveness <vanity was the flaw in his character> <a flaw in the book's plot>

Notice that those refer to a specific defect, and not a general state that is less than some other general state.

*Lop the kings head off after five years, throw it in the crowd, the guy who catches it becomes the next king. The series featured a lot of rather unusual political systems, most of which worked about as poorly as one would expect.

[Averis Vol]

i think it boils down to 1) the character i'm playing (in respects to my group) 2) my DM (i have some TERRIBLE DM's i cant afford to make an aesthetic build with) and the overall feel of the game, i'm not going to make some crazy stupid powerful wizard in a game that has a .01% population of casters, and where martial warfare is whats normal. likewise i won't make a samurai in a world practically run by wizards (i'm confident enough in my building ability to make even a monk( multiclassed of course) useful, but samurai are just bad.)

but in a high low-op game, yea i enjoy having a flaw and overcoming it. you can damn well expect by level 10 i'll have fixed that flaw to almost non existance (if it's mechanical of course, if its all RP ill wait til someone tells me to man up.) because i do accept that by high levels it's optimize or get messed up and i don't want to be the parties weak link.

[Amphetryon]

This post makes a lot of sense, though I think it brings out part of the problem. As a DM I try to prevent my PCs from inhibiting each other’s fun. By your own statement, absurd power gaming limits the other player’s options if they want to compete with you for power/meaningfulness. You may argue that even a non-optimized wizard makes fighters and monks and such worthless, but you’d be wrong. People all over the world who play D&D 3.5 play in parties with fighters and monks, and regardless of the inherent difference in power, they manage to have fun. Otherwise I would assume they wouldn’t play.

I think this makes the “problem” that when players over-optimize they begin to limit what other players are allowed to do, and still matter (in the words of some on this forum). This doesn’t strike anyone as a problem?Please show me where I said "absurd", let alone "power gaming," because I don't recall using those words. What I said is that a player who finds his/her character to be at a substantially different level of efficiency in the party than the others in the party is inhibiting everyone else's fun.

DM interference to correct party imbalance is all well and good, but it's not the presumptive state of affairs in which replies are made when folks are looking for help with their characters or their games. Addressing issues not brought up rarely helps, and often offends.

Please don't presume what I may or may not argue, particularly just so that you can simply declare me wrong.

What you think is the problem has been fairly apparent since your original post in this thread. What I and others have been attempting to demonstrate is that 1) it's not that simple and 2) we've had this particular issue come up on D&D forums a bunch of times, so you're not arguing anything particularly new, or giving any evidence that the argument is suddenly more valid than it's been before.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Permanently locked for the general good.