[3.5 and PF ] Cool Factor or Optimization, which one plays mostly?

[ArqArturo]

As of late, when I finished my campaign, I took a close look at the character sheets of my players and how their character behaved. I have six friends, and we've been playing D&D/Pathfinder/nwod for a while, and looking at the sheets I've noticed something.

Two of my players are heavy optimizers (a ragechemist/barbarian, and a druid), and not only they managed to drag the party from bad situations during combat, they were also pretty good in survival and such. However, they sucked at roleplaying, and always stood on the sidelines when the talking started.

My other players were not so big on the other hand, but they loved the RP stuff, and here's the thing that calls my attention. They stuff they added to their characters goes with the rule of cool. Now, I am sort of 50/50 on this, because honestly, as much as I like to crunch numbers, and make builds work, sometimes I like to add things that look, well, cool.

So, has anyone have an opinion on the 'rule of cool' when it comes to making characters, or is it something that makes you wanna get angry?.

[genesaika]

I love to make characters and it doesn't matter how optimal they are. I like to start with an idea, or character to base them on, and try to build them. Of course along the way I find other interesting bits and soon I've got a character complete with backstory based on their skills, flaws, and abilities. I try to make them as viable as I can, but it's not a priority that they are optimal. Maybe that's why I enjoy DMing? Lol

Admittedly, my roleplaying is lacking because I'm use to chat room RP and the like... It's a completely different beast lol. I am working on other though and have greatly improved since I started DMing.

So my answer is build something fun, make it viable, build a story, enjoy.

[ahenobarbi]

Um.... why not both?

[Subaru Kujo]

Rarely do fully optimized builds. If I want a duelist, by god I'll pick feats and skills a stereotypical duelist would have (Combat Expertise and Improved Feint to simulate edging out your opponents defenses, Tumble to simulate a quick movement to get at someone's weak side, and so on).

I mean, I don't think optimization is bad, I just find themes more fun to play out if they are imperfect.

[Feralventas]

Optimization and Characterization are not mutually exclusive. Optimization is simply the means used to get the most out of a given idea or mechanic. Cool Factor, or character concept, or the like are the core of the character both in build and in terms of personality.

Let's say I want to make a silly character that's cat-themed and focuses on trying to pounce on enemies from above, trip them up and generally play up aspects of a feline predator. I could try to do this as a Barbarian, or a Druid sure, but Barb lends itself to a different kind of fighting, and the Spellcasting aspect seems like it would be tagged on rather than actually part of the idea. So, we look at the Tiger Claw maneuver set and realize most of the things applied to it work perfectly; one of the maneuvers is called Death From Above.

So, we go Unarmed Swordsage for a couple levels; light armor makes jumping around easier, and Wisdom to AC helps make up for lack of heavier defenses or shield. Then multi-class into Warblade for the full BAB and better recovery method. Take the feats for the pre-requisites of Tiger Claw Master, then maybe a dip in fighter for the others needed for Master of the Nine to advance both your Swordsage and Warblade maneuvers.

This gives you a character that works both in fluff and in crunch, at least with a bare minimum of the character concept. You'll of course want to add in things like why the character's obsessed with cats and suppliment that one aspect with other hobbies, ideals, philosophies and history to really flesh them out, but the ideal character works both mechanically and narratively.

Have your players talk to each other, figure out ways that they can gestalt their love for the number running and silver tonguing of RPGs. Have your crunch experts talk to the fluff-focused folks about making character concepts that work well in the game context, and have your characterization-versed players talk to the char-op team about things like character development, epiphany, ideals and story-telling.

[Alberic Strein]

I see it a bit like an alignment of sorts.

a)There are things you WANT for your characters, things you find awesomely cool and WILL NOT do without, they are part of the core concept of your character, what makes him cool and playable in your eyes.

b)Things you could see on your character, marginally cool, not part of the core concept, but still nice.

c)And things you DO NOT WANT on your characters no matter what. You don't care about the stat bonuses, you don't want Arthur McCool to be a kobold. Because no. Just NO.

So I get "a" no matter what, if possible in a relatively optimised manner (I want Die Hard ? Well, I'm ready to buy the two feats if necessary, but I can do with simply reaching a certain level in Crusader) then I use "b" as a guideline for my number crushing.

Edit : Because being good at what you do is cool.

[ArqArturo]

Nice to know that a lot of people see both as mutually beneficial, other than just one or the other.

I once played a mute Barbarian, both because I found interesting the idea of RPing someone that could not speak, and, to be honest, speaking is not my forte. Let me tell you, besides being a decent tank and damage dealer (falchion FTW), RPing is much harder when you can't speak.

[Urpriest]

I feel like properly applied the Rule of Cool encourages optimization. It's cool when you can do new things, while passive bonuses and background stuff like weapons are generally boring and not cool. In general, if something gives you a new type of action, it's going to be cool and it's going to be reasonably optimized.

[icefractal]

Well, they're mostly orthagonal factors. You happened to get a set of players where the ones who optimized were bad at RP, but that's not a general rule.

As far as the question - I use the set of stuff that doesn't contradict my concept. I may use stuff that's neutral to the concept, but not that actively doesn't fit with it. Since there's so much material in 3.x, I've yet to run into a concept I wanted to play that was hard to optimize within that limit.

However, a note - I make determinations based on the visible effect of something in-world, not the name of the feat/class/whatever. So something like Diehard - that's actually difficult to tell apart from just having slightly more hp, for anyone in-game. Thus, unlikely to be a key part of a concept.