Stormwind Fallacy discussion, continued

[ben-zayb]

So as not to avoid derailing the Optimization Timeline thread, it'd be great if this little discussion gets its own thread.

The following were the relevant exchanges:

Maybe not the best contribution, but my opinion is that obsession with optimization is one of the worst things that can happen to a campaign. If you use all of the Paizo material and especially if you dig into 3rd party stuff, you can easily craft an extremely overpowered character to break the game in any number of pieces you choose. Maybe your friends at the table, hearts in the right place, built their PCs with an emphasis on the actual character. Maybe they "wasted" a feat or trait on something wildly ridiculous or thought it would be fun to be an orc wizard. Alas, the Min-Maxer will always take over the combats and make the others feel unnecessary out of a bizarre need to treat tabletop gaming like League of Legends. What fun is that?

So to be a tad saccharine and a lot trite, just build your characters with fun in mind. If you are a barbarian that loves to study poetry, so what if you didn't max out your strength at level one! Be the best Alfred, Barbaric Chieftain Tennyson you can be! Be an antisocial bard that only raps the spoken word or a Merfolk druid afraid of the water! Be the ratfolk fighter in a party of catfolk rogues! Be you, my friends! Let's all have fun!


how would you feel if I told you to take your magical tea party back to drama club?

cause that's kind of how you're coming off- really goddamn rude


My point isn't that a degree of optimization isn't ok or even good, it was that these threads often serve the purpose of convincing players, especially new ones, that this is a stat game of the same sort as any MMORPG. But it isn't. Feel free to take offense, but I really do think playing for optimization's sake will burn anyone out really quickly. So you had the thrill of building the best character possible and then what? When the party's bard interacts in town, the optimizers yawn and wait to show off their combat bonuses?

I don't mean to step on everyone's toes and certainly all of you are invited to join me at the tea party in the drama club room at high noon Wednesday, but the players that have been at my table that focused intensely on optimization also were the biggest buzzkills, the worst (read: laziest) roleplayers, and also had the least fun actually playing the game.

With that, I hope to see you at the party. We have chocolate biscuits and piping hot Earl Grey.


I think you may have missed my purpose, and I'm sorry for not responding to you earlier. Though the subject of this is Optimization Timeline, what i really want to encapsulate is any player-created achievement concerning the game. It just so happens that most of those involve optimization.

I'm not sure what the purpose of mentioning the tea party, but I can say that you represent an excellent example of the Stormwind Fallacy. Would you mind if I included this post to demonstrate it?


You may certainly reproduce anything I post if you find it useful, though I believe the context of my argument is rather that an obsession with optimization is the bane of good roleplaying, rather than demonizing any optimization at all as does the Stormwind Falacy.


No, the Stormwind Fallacy is saying "an obsession with optimization is the bane of good roleplaying". The two are mutually exclusive.


I tend to disagree. While, granted, a player might very well be excellent at optimization AND a strong roleplayer, maximizing every stat and ability does prohibit the player from delving into the finer nuances, quirks, and deficits a good character ought to have. Very few can build the perfect, completely optimized, min-maxed character and also have a dynamic, interesting, compelling persona. It isnt't impossible, but given how often it becomes a stumbling block to good roleplaying, I continue to maintain my assertion that is "the bane of good roleplaying."

Exceptions: Those trying to roleplay Superman, Hercules, and Goku obviously might benefit from obsessive optimization.


An obsession with optimization interferes with roleplaying, but the problem isn't the optimization, it's the obsession. An obsession with anything will interfere with roleplaying. And in my experience, an obsession with a lack of optimization poses a problem more often than an obsession with optimization.

Just remember: The people who post TO tricks don't actually use them in game. Some of us like roleplaying with sane optimization levels around the table, but also like coming up with these crazy ideas when we're not sitting around the table, with almost no connection between them.I'd almost agree with Chronos, except for the generalization part. Instead, obsession, whether to optimize or unoptimize, may (or may not) interfere with roleplaying. That is, even obsession and roleplaying are mutually exclusive.

[Hecuba]

Exceptions: Those trying to roleplay Superman, Hercules, and Goku obviously might benefit from obsessive optimization.

As has been said, you seem to not be making a distinction between Theoretical Optimization exercises (which rarely if ever see any play) and Practical Optimization (which generally focuses on mechanically representing a specific goal or idea).

Practical Optimization generally won't be focused on getting the most pluses or having Near Infinite strength.

They will, instead, generally be focused on things like making sure that you character who you describe as using his wit and intellect in melee combat has some mechanical avenue to represent that when participating in combat.




There's a particular character of mine that comes to mind as an example.
A while back, I made a character that focused on making and using alchemist items in combat.
Gatrengs was a Dragonlance-style gnome whose chosen profession was chemist, specifically with respect to explosive chemistry*.
Because he needed to make Alchemical items he had a caster level. I could have gotten by with 1, but I gave him 5 instead to qualify for 1 level in the Alchemist Savant PRC: the prestige class vastly speeds up alchemy crafting, allowing him to have enough Alchemical items to both use and sell (it's very expensive to throw alchemy items every turn). I also grabbed some feats to speed up and cheapen the crafting further. Mad Alchemist was also an obvious choice.

With the exception of adding magecraft to his alchemy crafting however, he never cast a single spell. Dang it Jim, he's a scientist not a stage magician.

After 6th level, he focused almost exclusively on precision damage and facilitating it, as splash weapons qualify for the initial target.
This allowed him to continue contributing after the base damage and checks of alchemy items started lagging behind.


He was not the most powerful member of the party. He also would have been much more powerful if I ditched the alchemy focus and just had a caster.

He was also very much optimized: he was optimized to create and use alchemical items.


*my tribute to A.G. Streng (http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_wont_work_with_dioxygen_difluoride.php)

[Amphetryon]

To varying degrees, Characters built without an effort to optimize them toward their shtick(s) are bad at their jobs. In a world where their job is 'adventurer' and where monsters and magic are real, being bad at their job means they won't get hired to do their job. . . assuming they don't get killed attempting to do it before it's clear that they aren't good at it.

[Blackhawk748]

I agree, but theres optimizing to be good at your job (ie the archer taking Rapid Shot and Precise Shot and other feats to improve their shooting ability) and then theres OPTIMIZING (ie why play an archer ever when you could just be a wizard?) its the latter that is the problem. The fallacy itself even admits that some optimization is necessary, as we all know.

[Kraken]

If you take someone who's good or bad at roleplaying, and change the optimization level of the character they're playing, I still find it an untenable assumption that this will somehow make them better or worse at roleplaying. People who are both bad at optimization and roleplaying are just as prolific, in fact I'd argue more prolific based on my own experience, than people who are bad at roleplaying but good at optimization, but the former are simply more likely to be unnoticed at a table simply for the fact that they're not making an impact in any way, either in the story or in gameplay.

[Amphetryon]

I agree, but theres optimizing to be good at your job (ie the archer taking Rapid Shot and Precise Shot and other feats to improve their shooting ability) and then theres OPTIMIZING (ie why play an archer ever when you could just be a wizard?) its the latter that is the problem. The fallacy itself even admits that some optimization is necessary, as we all know.

Can you demonstrate, conclusively, where that particular 'line in the sand' is between 'optimizing' and 'OPTIMIZING,' as you put it, for any given group and/or Character concept? I ask because you've identified the latter as a problem, so I'm trying to determine the parameters wherein this problem is said to exist.

[Madara]

In my group I have players who are bad at both. Granted, some are fairly new. In particular one player often sits in the background during any sort of character interaction, rarely saying something in character. On the other hand, his character is often completely useless mostly because of bad rolls but also because of a lack of strategy.

That said, I have talked to him before and he's quite happy. He only said he doesn't want to be useless. So of course I helped him redo his feats a bit. Optimization from an experienced player is a way to graft experience onto a new player, providing them with enough of an ability to survive to learn the game without becoming easy prey for the game itself.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Can you demonstrate, conclusively, where that particular 'line in the sand' is between 'optimizing' and 'OPTIMIZING,' as you put it, for any given group and/or Character concept? I ask because you've identified the latter as a problem, so I'm trying to determine the parameters wherein this problem is said to exist.
When you switch from "here's a character I want to play, how do I make it work?" to "here's a trick I made work, how can I use it in a game?" perhaps? Or when your character's power greatly exceeds that of your partymates'.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I agree, but theres optimizing to be good at your job (ie the archer taking Rapid Shot and Precise Shot and other feats to improve their shooting ability) and then theres OPTIMIZING (ie why play an archer ever when you could just be a wizard?) its the latter that is the problem. The fallacy itself even admits that some optimization is necessary, as we all know.

Archery is a good example, because it's severely underpowered without the right build. If you want to make a character who's a great archer, and make a single-classed Ranger, that character (in-character) would be delusional if he considers himself to be a great archer. If he's a proper Swift Hunter then his shots will be deadly enough to reliably defeat a weak opponent in a single shot (CR 2 Bugbear at ECL 12 for example), and it would be fitting for him to be known as a great archer and to consider himself to be one in-character. A Fighter could be a great archer, considering sufficient feats and exclusives such as Ranged Weapon Mastery, but he's only a great archer if he gets the right items (Energy Bow with Splitting and a few other properties).

If you make an Otherworldly Elf Cloistered Cleric/Seeker of the Misty Isle/Contemplative with DMM: Persistent buffs including Draconic Polymorph into an Arrow Demon via Greater Anyspell, he would probably be considered the greatest archer ever, but that would be OPTIMIZING.

As I said, archery is severely underpowered without the right build, so this is a great example of optimization being necessary in order for the RP to fit the game mechanics. If you compare a given archer character to what a great archer could be, and if there are heroes who are or were truly great archers in this setting, your character should be able to judge for himself whether his archery capabilities are up to snuff. If you get something like Order of the Bow Initiate, you'll actually end up worse at archery than if you had stuck with a proper archery build.

TL;DR: If you want to RP your character as a great archer, but don't optimize your character for archery, then you'd better also RP that he's delusional because non-optimized archery is incredibly weak.

[BRC]

I agree, but theres optimizing to be good at your job (ie the archer taking Rapid Shot and Precise Shot and other feats to improve their shooting ability) and then theres OPTIMIZING (ie why play an archer ever when you could just be a wizard?) its the latter that is the problem. The fallacy itself even admits that some optimization is necessary, as we all know.

Well, at that point you're just playing a different character.

Unless, somehow, you're like "I want to play a savage barbarian...but since playing a wizard is the optimal build, I'm going to roll up a wizard." And so you're roleplaying your character as an illiterate axe-swinging barbarian, but casting spells and making knowledge: Arcana checks anyway.


That said, I do believe that the Mindset of the optimizer, while not mutually exclusive with the mindset of a good roleplayer, can lead to friction, largely because they have different priorities.

Somebody who spends six hours tweaking stats wants to use those stats, and so they will want to get into combat quickly in order to flex their numerical muscles.
Somebody who spends six hours musing on their character's personality wants to use that personality, and so they will want to hang around the tavern talking to people.

as for the "Great Archer" thing, consider:
in most settings, your standard Archer is going to be a single-class Ranger or Fighter.

Therefore, a high-leveled, Archery-focused, Single-class Ranger or Fighter is a great archer by the standards of the setting.

If you're polymorphing into an arrow demon, you're something beyond an archer.

It's like meeting an olympic sprinter and saying "You're not a great runner. If you were a great runner, you would be driving a racecar".
Yes, the person in the Racecar is getting from point A to point B faster than the sprinter, that does not mean that the sprinter isn't a good sprinter.

So yes, a single-classed ranger can call themselves a great archer.

A sorceror with Weapon Proficiency: Bow and a Dex of 14 should not.

[Svata]

Well, at that point you're just playing a different character.

Unless, somehow, you're like "I want to play a savage barbarian...but since playing a wizard is the optimal build, I'm going to roll up a wizard." And so you're roleplaying your character as an illiterate axe-swinging barbarian, but casting spells and making knowledge: Arcana checks anyway.

I remember there being a build that did the opposite of that somewhere around here.

[Blackhawk748]

Can you demonstrate, conclusively, where that particular 'line in the sand' is between 'optimizing' and 'OPTIMIZING,' as you put it, for any given group and/or Character concept? I ask because you've identified the latter as a problem, so I'm trying to determine the parameters wherein this problem is said to exist.

Honestly its really hard to draw that line and it changes from group to group. For example most groups would not be ok with a DMM persisted Polymorph to turn yourself into the greatest beatstick ever, though they might be ok with a DMM persisted Blur or Displacement.

The best answer i can give is, look to the average of your group.

[Chronos]

One point that's often overlooked is that many different things can be optimized. Not all optimization is for overall power. A good example of this is Tarquin, from the Order of the Stick: He confused a lot of people because he's presented as being highly optimized, and yet he has a lot of capabilities that nobody would take just for maximizing their overall power. The key is that Tarquin isn't optimized for power; he's optimized to be really cool. He has Snatch Arrows not because it's a practical defense, but because it looks awesome when he uses it. He knows Drow Sign Language not because he anticipated being deafened, but because it helps him pick up large-bosomed dark elf babes. He's optimized to the hilt, but he doesn't really care about power, except in that it helps him gain the fame and infamy that's really what he wants.

[Kazudo]

Optimizing unquantifiable traits is probably one of the more fun ways to optimize.

While I'll admit that once you've "taken the red pill" as it were and gone into Optimization of any kind it's REALLY hard to go back to being the naive, monk-loving player you used to be, there's an old saying that I've seen and been flamed for quoting that I still enjoy. But, for fear of starting a flamewar, I'll only mention it as I have.

Basically speaking, there's a difference between being a good player and being a good optimizer, but the two are not mutually exclusive or inclusive. Knowing how to play the game and knowing how to take advantage of how it works does not make you a good player, and really since it's a game one school of thought is that you should focus on being a good player and if you must take advantage of how the game works, you do so to make yourself a better player.

[thethird]

I agree, but theres optimizing to be good at your job (ie the archer taking Rapid Shot and Precise Shot and other feats to improve their shooting ability) and then theres OPTIMIZING (ie why play an archer ever when you could just be a wizard?) its the latter that is the problem. The fallacy itself even admits that some optimization is necessary, as we all know.


Honestly its really hard to draw that line and it changes from group to group. For example most groups would not be ok with a DMM persisted Polymorph to turn yourself into the greatest beatstick ever, though they might be ok with a DMM persisted Blur or Displacement.

The best answer i can give is, look to the average of your group.

Then why does it sound like a bad thing to use a wizard that uses a bow? It is a way to contribute to my group.


I remember there being a build that did the opposite of that somewhere around here.

Indeed, here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?195049-Help-Me-Be-Annoying-with-a-Barbarian-Wizard)

[Snowbluff]

TL;DR: If you want to RP your character as a great archer, but don't optimize your character for archery, then you'd better also RP that he's delusional because non-optimized archery is incredibly weak.

I'm seconding this. Good work, BiFu. :smallbiggrin:

[Kraken]

Then why does it sound like a bad thing to use a wizard that uses a bow? It is a way to contribute to my group.


I always use a crossbow (or bow, if an elf) as a wizard. If you put yourself in a situation where you can't get hit, it's a great way to conserve resources if there's no compelling reason to end the fight quickly. I've never done it, but realistically there's no reason you couldn't use a lot of your feats on archery as a wizard. In a core only setting as a wizard if I wanted to be an archer, probably the only non-archery feat I'd take would be flyby attack (at level 9), aside from level 5, 10, etc. feats, which are from a limited list (probably extend at 5 and quicken at 10). Given how few good feats there are for both archers and wizards in core, this isn't actually surprising the more I think about it. Out of core, things get easier no matter which angle you take, of course.

[Seppo87]

Actually it's not about optimization. It's about wanting to win.
Some people approach the game as a way to pump their ego. And they try to do this by achieving in-game success.
This attitude will inevitably interfere with good roleplaying because it will prevent the player from considering unoptimal (but maybe narratively appealing) choices, both when building and when playing.
And it's not all about numbers. You can try to look cool to pump your ego even in a social setting. Because your goal is to be told that you won, that you were cool; not to create a good story, so it is just as wrong.
It can be coherent as long as you play a narcissist character, this is true. But who likes a narcissist companion anyway?
If only the player learned to have fun even when his character fails or loses something (which can be very fulfilling to roleplay) the problem wouldn't exist at all. :smallsmile:

[GolemsVoice]

Yeah, I'm firmly in the camp that says some optimization is neccessary, even for character and realism reasons. As another poster already said, if we take D&D, the characters are usually expected to see combat regularly, and combat is usually deadly. That means somebody who isn't at least competent at defeating enemies will die, sooner or later. It's a bit like joining the military, they don't take you if they are sure you would be no use in a fight, and they train you hard so that, when the bullets start flying, you'll be able to contribute. Because if you can't, you'll not only get yourself killed, you'll also endanger your comrades.

Thus I consider it realistic that anyone who adventures seriously, or even finds himself in regular conflict for a long time, such as a campaign, has to be able to defend himself.

And as other said, optimization, in the general sense, doesn't say you'll have to always pick the best option available, out of ALL options, or else, everybody would play some variant of wizard or Pun-Pun. When people optimize for an actual game, they take a concept (which CAN be suboptimal) and try to make it work on a reasonable level. Indeed, people often find a fun challenge in making a specific concept work as well as possible.

The tale of Pete the blind swordsman who used mystical senses to find his enemies is much more exciting than the tale of Pete, the blind swordsman who fell into a pit and died because he was blind, yet somehow decided he wanted to go adventuring.

[Kazudo]

A thing that gets brought up at my table sometimes is the notion of wanting to play a character. Not a D&D character, but a specific entity of some other work of fiction. Often times Elder Scrolls, JRRT, GoT, animes, mangas, television shows, movies, etc.

The thing that comes up is that when building Legolas, he seems to scream "Ranger", if Ranger had both fighting styles. However, we isolated in one game that a better way to build him is as a TWF Ranger with Scout in there since the good majority of his in-movie fighting is done at close ish range, and he's always moving around a lot.

Another thing is that when someone says they want to play a sword and sorcerer dude, do you point out a Fighter/Sorcerer/Spellsword, a Bard, a Warmage, or a Duskblade?

[Seppo87]

And as other said, optimization, in the general sense, doesn't say you'll have to always pick the best option available, out of ALL options, or else, everybody would play some variant of wizard or Pun-Pun. When people optimize for an actual game, they take a concept (which CAN be suboptimal) and try to make it work on a reasonable level. Indeed, people often find a fun challenge in making a specific concept work as well as possible.
I think we should differentiate between Johnny and Spike here.
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr11b
Johnny is fine, Spike rarely is.

(before I get attacked for comparing MTG to dnd, it was not my idea. The designers themselves adimitted they made use of these profiles when designing dnd 3.5 because they wanted some timmy feats that would reward spike who wouldn't fall for them)

[ahenobarbi]

I'd like to add a bit of my personal experience which may explain a bit why stormwind fallacy may seem plausible: when I started playing RPGs I played mostly free form WoD-inspired games and I did not have need to optimize much. I cared a lot about roleplaying then. After that I started to play with a Story Teller ho cared about mechanics and my characters (built using my methodology good for my previous games) strted to suck at roleplaying (because they did not have stats to back up role-play). This caused me to seek out optimization guides, simultaneosly my rolplaying took a hit (because I had only so much time to spend on RPG). After a when I finaly became decent optimizer (to make sure my characters are actually good at what I want them to be good at) I stated to roleplay properly.

So for roughly 1/3 of my RPG playing time I was role player, for 1/3 I was optimizer more than role player, and for 1/3 I was both. So I was a decent role player 100% time I wasn't optimizing but only 50% of time when I was.

[Sorry about poor spelling but my current keybard sucks]

[Knaight]

I'm going to take a somewhat unconventional stance here: Optimization is a sign of a better roleplayer. The short version is that roleplaying is deep within the hobby, and basically everyone who plays roleplaying games with any amount of hobby-seriousness* will role play. Optmization is a strong indicator that someone actually cares enough about the hobby to roleplay. Someone who doesn't roleplay with any real frequency and doesn't actually care about the roleplaying game aspect of roleplaying games (but only the socialization one), will not optimize. Optimizing is a sign that someone actually cares, and that is a sign of a good roleplayer.

This gets particularly overt in D&D 3.x. Generally, being good at something is part of the character - the system is clearly made to model adventure stories, and adventure story protagonists tend to be capable. Meanwhile, the system imposes major difficulties in doing this with a lot of characters. Archery has come up here - if you want to make a character who is, among other things, a capable archer (which is downright common in the source fiction) you're going to need to jump through some hoops. It's unfortunate, but it's built into the system. Thus, optimization opens up the number of characters that can be played regarding what they can do, and what they can do plays into who they are enough that it genuinely opens up characters. Say you've got an arrogant prince, from a bit of a pampered background, who considers himself all but invincible. This doesn't really work unless there's a reason he does that, such as being a particularly capable swordsman who things that he'll never lose. Optimization is necessary for this in D&D 3.5 (in other systems it's often more straightforward), and it also sets the field up really well for a character epiphany - as soon as the character has to be bailed out by their allies because they got in too deep, there's room for change.

*Which is to say that it is at least a major hobby, if not the main one.

[BRC]

I'm going to take a somewhat unconventional stance here: Optimization is a sign of a better roleplayer. The short version is that roleplaying is deep within the hobby, and basically everyone who plays roleplaying games with any amount of hobby-seriousness* will role play. Optmization is a strong indicator that someone actually cares enough about the hobby to roleplay. Someone who doesn't roleplay with any real frequency and doesn't actually care about the roleplaying game aspect of roleplaying games (but only the socialization one), will not optimize. Optimizing is a sign that someone actually cares, and that is a sign of a good roleplayer.


I'm going to call out Correlation does not equal Causation here.

Being Passionate about the hobby is likely to lead to both Optimization and good roleplaying, true. However I don't think you can call it a rule.
Passionate Players will be more likely to role-play well.
Passionate players will be more likely to optimize.
However, I think its misleading to say that optimizers are going to be better roleplayers.

[GolemsVoice]

(before I get attacked for comparing MTG to dnd, it was not my idea. The designers themselves adimitted they made use of these profiles when designing dnd 3.5 because they wanted some timmy feats that would reward spike who wouldn't fall for them)

That comparison is pretty good, yeah. The thing is that Magic is a competitive game in which two (or more) players try to defeat each other. You're not trying to tell a story or live our your character, you're trying to win. As such, a player who does everything to win might not be popular, depending on the level of cheese he uses, but he'll get what he wants, and in the end, somebody has to loose, somebody has to win, and that is the basic foundation of Magic.

Roleplaying is very rarely competitive, neither among players nor between players and the GM. So when you "play to win", that is, you only ever use the best of everything, you're more or less automatically infringing on the fun of your fellow players.

I would however argue that the group-based nature of roleplaying games means that a player who optimizes poorly or dominates the group with his roleplaying fancies might be just as much of a drag as an aggressive optimizer.

[eggynack]

Actually it's not about optimization. It's about wanting to win.
That doesn't seem accurate to me at all. I often optimize for no other purpose than the sheer joy of optimization, of discovering things that have yet to be discovered. I spent a good amount of time over the last month just poking through obscure sources, trying to find weird monsters that a druid can make use of in varying fashions, and not even aimed towards any sort of game that I'm currently in. Just optimization for optimization's sake, because it's cool. Man, if a DM of a game I was in came up to me and said, "Hey, can you help me optimize this weird enemy that you're about to fight?" I wouldn't even have to think about it. I'd just do that stuff to the best of my abilities, and not even for some metagaming purpose. Just cause optimization.

[Captnq]

WoD is a game where if you make a bad PC who can't do anything, you can still survive and earn XPs just be being a really good talker. I've run oWoD for 8 years, I've seen it time and time again. The most worthless PC in the hands of a good player can still do awesome stuff. Most impressive player I saw was a guy who played a normal human who was a volenteer firefighter. Armed only with a Fire extinguisher, he was a true hero.

D&D 3.5 is a game where is you make a bad PC, you will die, or get someone else in your party killed. If you fail to survive and win the encounter, you will fail to earn XPs and won't be able to improve. D&D does NOT lend itself to talking your way out of problems. In WoD, A player can pull out a copy of American Science Surplus and buy a frickin' Russian cold-war era jet engine, because the game is based on the modern world and if you know the modern world, you can pull some serious crap out of your ass.

In D&D, you have Wealth By Level. Maybe you can mail order your custom magic item to save your ass, but you need to know the game in order to pull off that sort of BS. And guess what? That's optimizing. If you can't optimize, you can't survive. You can't survive, you drag everyone else down with you. Don't tell me it doesn't happen, because I've been DMing for 20+ years and I've run Paranoia, D&D, Macho Women With Guns, Carwars, Battletech, WoD, and a half dozen other games I can't even remember. I've seen enough Girlfriends with PCs made by the Significant Other to know that if you care about the game, learn about the game. Optimizing is part of it.

(I wanna be the daughter of Elminster and the Simbul and be able to turn into a dragon and be an Aquatic Desert Dwelling Elf. BARF! I'll take a full blown munchkin any day of the week.)

Every game has a style. A flavor. Some games are about combat. This is one of those games. It's hard to get XPs without snapping some necks. BLot23C was all about the optimizing. At the time, I make RP-heavy PCs and wound up with the most KiAs of any player. I went through a baker's dozen. Why? Because I SUCKED. I couldn't optimize my way out of a paper bag. The party suffered for it.

Learn the game. Go Big or Go Home. You wanna do it with style? Go ahead, but don't let other people pay the price for your suckage.

[chaos_redefined]

I'm going to call out Correlation does not equal Causation here.

Being Passionate about the hobby is likely to lead to both Optimization and good roleplaying, true. However I don't think you can call it a rule.
Passionate Players will be more likely to role-play well.
Passionate players will be more likely to optimize.
However, I think its misleading to say that optimizers are going to be better roleplayers.

First, if there is an error, it's not Correlation -> Causation. He gave good reason for causation, but not any sign of correlation. If there is a problem, it's reverse implication. (Since passion implies optimization, therefore optimization implies passion.) This is sometimes true, but not always. For example, since tomato implies red, therefore red implies tomato. For this to be the problem, you need to show that there exists a third category, where there are non-passionate players who optimize.

Second, he never said it was a rule. He said that optimization is a sign of better role playing. A sign. An indication. It is an indication that they are better at role playing. That is, if you take the percentage of optimizers who role-play well, and the percentage of non-optimzers who role-play well, then the first percentage will be larger than the second.

Please do not make straw man arguments. It does not help your argument, as we see it and think you are ignoring what people are actually saying.

[Knaight]

I'm going to call out Correlation does not equal Causation here.

Being Passionate about the hobby is likely to lead to both Optimization and good roleplaying, true. However I don't think you can call it a rule.
Passionate Players will be more likely to role-play well.
Passionate players will be more likely to optimize.
However, I think its misleading to say that optimizers are going to be better roleplayers.

I explicitly said it was a sign of it, and not a causation. For that matter, I even pointed out that it wasn't a causal relationship, but more a correlation because of a common cause.

[Seppo87]

That doesn't seem accurate to me at all. I often optimize for no other purpose than the sheer joy of optimization, of discovering things that have yet to be discovered. I spent a good amount of time over the last month just poking through obscure sources, trying to find weird monsters that a druid can make use of in varying fashions, and not even aimed towards any sort of game that I'm currently in. Just optimization for optimization's sake, because it's cool. Man, if a DM of a game I was in came up to me and said, "Hey, can you help me optimize this weird enemy that you're about to fight?" I wouldn't even have to think about it. I'd just do that stuff to the best of my abilities, and not even for some metagaming purpose. Just cause optimization.
What I meant is that optimization per se is not a problem.
The problem arises when a player approaches the game with the hidden goal of "winning" or "looking cool" either via optimization or via roleplay.

I never said "all people who optimize want to win"

I said "wanting to win is what hinders good roleplay"
wanting to win often involves optimization, but it can also be about playing a mary sue/gary stu type of character

Optimization for optimization's sake is not a problem for good roleplay.
A wrong attitude is.

[Kraken]

Wanting to win can manifest itself in entirely non-mechanical situations, I've seen optimizers and non-optimizers try and hog the spotlight in completely superfluous situations too. My exact recollection of the session has grown hazy, but it's still my favorite example just because of how gob-smacking it was to witness. Once when trying to enter a gated (and haunted) mansion, several of us tried to open the gate, including "Bob." Eventually "Jane" walks up to the gate and it swings open automatically, and we walk up to the front door and Jane is greeted as a noble (she had royal blood and didn't know it), and we are presumed to be guests of hers, and are all let in. Inside there's a party going on, and Bob is affronted at not being recognized as a noble, immediately talks talking up his nobility as lord Bloodbane, of a famed house of vampire hunters or something, and generally trying to play up his stature as much as possible. I talked with the DM later. Absolutely none of this was given to him from Bob in a backstory, he had either kept it to himself up to that point, or made it up on the spot to try and seize prestige. Edit: some additional information just for the hell of it. Bob was also a compulsive BSer out of game about real life things too, making all sorts of outrageous boasts that generally were unverifiable. But every so often he'd boast about something he didn't know was an area of someone else's expertise, and we'd all shake our heads later.

[Vogonjeltz]

I'd almost agree with Chronos, except for the generalization part. Instead, obsession, whether to optimize or unoptimize, may (or may not) interfere with roleplaying. That is, even obsession and roleplaying are mutually exclusive.

Optimization often means making choices that act counter to suspension of disbelief and consequently damages immersion.

This is the scenario in which optimization runs counter to roleplaying, the so-called fallacy that tempest stormwind came up with is little more than a straw man argument whose time has long since past.

Can one optimize without damaging immersion? Yes, but it requires effort that I've never once seen expended by an optimizer.

[Svata]

Optimization often means making choices that act counter to suspension of disbelief and consequently damages immersion.

This is the scenario in which optimization runs counter to roleplaying, the so-called fallacy that tempest stormwind came up with is little more than a straw man argument whose time has long since past.

Can one optimize without damaging immersion? Yes, but it requires effort that I've never once seen expended by an optimizer.

Well, then you obviously haven't looked around these forums much.

[Karnith]

Optimization often means making choices that act counter to suspension of disbelief and consequently damages immersion.
I am genuinely curious: how does optimizing interfere with suspension of disbelief? That is an assertion that really needs some kind of explanation.

[Vogonjeltz]

Well, then you obviously haven't looked around these forums much.

If anything the forums provide a wealth of evidence for this.


I am genuinely curious: how does optimizing interfere with suspension of disbelief?

Optimization often means making choices that act counter to suspension of disbelief and consequently damages immersion.

Consider the various builds that involve extremely specific dips of spirit lion totem barbarians, as if every character in the game came from the same tribe before branching out to try new things.

[Vedhin]

Consider the various builds that involve extremely specific dips of spirit lion totem barbarians, as if every character in the game came from the same tribe before branching out to try new things.

You see "break immersion".

I see "plot hooks".

If the characters came from the same tribe, why did they chose different paths? Did they separate to follow their own dreams, or did they tackle it as a group? Are they just now reuniting? Are there old grudges between the characters that drove them apart? Do some wish they had remained true to their heritage?
All sorts of questions to ask.



If anything, I see the "frankenstein dip builds" as being good for roleplaying. They're a challenge, and you get better by pushing yourself rather than staying in the same old range of characters.

[Vogonjeltz]

You see "break immersion".

I see "plot hooks".

If the characters came from the same tribe, why did they chose different paths? Did they separate to follow their own dreams, or did they tackle it as a group? Are they just now reuniting? Are there old grudges between the characters that drove them apart? Do some wish they had remained true to their heritage?
All sorts of questions to ask.



If anything, I see the "frankenstein dip builds" as being good for roleplaying. They're a challenge, and you get better by pushing yourself rather than staying in the same old range of characters.

See, I wish it worked that way in practice. I don't see that happening though, just attempts to paper over it all.

[thethird]

You seem to assume that fluff is immutable. The mutation of fluff is roleplay. The shackles that seem to be constrains are self imposed. Thus the "suspension of disbelief" isn't broken unless the roleplaying capacity is sub par. Claiming that a failure to roleplay a class feature such as "spirit lion totem" is like claiming that all rangers need to roleplay their capacity to endure, beyond reason, because they possess the endurance feat (unless they optimized out of it).

[Lord_Gareth]

So...because other people don't assume that the default fluff is the only fluff, optimization breaks suspension of disbelief?

[Karnith]

Optimization often means making choices that act counter to suspension of disbelief and consequently damages immersion.
Re-stating your premise isn't explaining it. How do the choices involved in optimization damage immersion?

Consider the various builds that involve extremely specific dips of spirit lion totem barbarians, as if every character in the game came from the same tribe before branching out to try new things.
Fluff mutability aside, Spirit Totems are a choice on the part of a character - they represent a personal totem that a character has taken on. It doesn't matter what tribe such a character comes from, because the character feels a deep, personal connection the her totem animal.

Or: That probably wasn't the best example you could have picked.

[Svata]

If anything the forums provide a wealth of evidence for this.

Yes, ignoring all of the optimizing a concept, and attempts for baseline competence in your characters and using your own fluff instead of the default (rather poor) fluff given by WOTC, and the fact that even the contests for optimization's sake require a fluff component. Yep. The forums show that no one who optimizes roleplays.

[Vogonjeltz]

You seem to assume that fluff is immutable. The mutation of fluff is roleplay. The shackles that seem to be constrains are self imposed. Thus the "suspension of disbelief" isn't broken unless the roleplaying capacity is sub par. Claiming that a failure to roleplay a class feature such as "spirit lion totem" is like claiming that all rangers need to roleplay their capacity to endure, beyond reason, because they possess the endurance feat (unless they optimized out of it).

Not really. The features go hand in hand with the way the character behaves.


So...because other people don't assume that the default fluff is the only fluff, optimization breaks suspension of disbelief?

The term fluff is insulting. The lore behind various abilities is what it is, trying to demean that with epithets doesn't change its importance.

[Trundlebug]

Optimization often means making choices that act counter to suspension of disbelief and consequently damages immersion.

Sorry my 20yrs of playing mostly DM'ing experience directly contradicts this.

Every awesome character, party interaction, tear to my eye evolving story, scary aspect of versimilitude personified and player that not fought, not went along but evolved my world and the experience of the other players has been an optimizer. They have the system knowledge, maturity to use it and intelligence to inject synergy and fun into the game.

Every non-optimizer self professed "role-player" has been a system ignorant self professed "awesome" player that time and evidenced proved to be a whiny, hands out, needs the world to bent for their "awesomeness" to be showcased fraud. They often used their charisma to browbeat and override more laid back group members (read the rest of) They where 99% of the time voted out.

Then there are the "Munchkins" which I think this whole topic is really addressing. They have system mastery but serious personality flaws. They don't want to take part in an epic tale. They aren't looking for a team. They want constant control, adulation, progress and domination. They make mechanically excellent characters that often have little to no place in the campaign/setting. They delight in "winning" the game you win by playing and don't seem to realize that by competing with others that aren't competing they are losing the bigger game.

They no longer make it to the table. I can spot them a mile away.

Then there are average players. They're cool.

Funny. Now that I think of it. The people I have met that are loudly against optimization (I don't think they really understand what that means) fall into category 2. These hybrids if you will are often very controlling, biased people with seriously limited viewpoints on a very broad game. They often tout words like broken or playing wrong or fluff is crunch. They also tend to be people that can't leave the past in the past.
"In my day..."
"I'm older than you and played the same editions. I've adapted, why can't you? Go play 1st then."
"No one to play with."
"It's not the edition mate."

In addition they tend to be draconian DM's that have had the same group for ages, never pass the power and think their players love them when really they are looking for a lifeline.

You and 99% of those complaining about optimization are really complaining about munchkins and you should get your story straight.

[Thiyr]

Optimization often means making choices that act counter to suspension of disbelief and consequently damages immersion.

Consider the various builds that involve extremely specific dips of spirit lion totem barbarians, as if every character in the game came from the same tribe before branching out to try new things.

Generally speaking, answering a question to clarify something by repeating the same basic statement doesn't really help. The example helps clarify a bit more, but it has a problem. See, it isn't an example of something that -inherently- "acts counter to suspension of disbelief". For that specific example, part of why I say that is...well, that would imply there is only a single tribe which would venerate a single spirit totem. Why would that have to be the case? Multiple disparate tribes could easily look to the same spiritual animal, if its even tied to a tribal culture to begin with. And what's saying barbarians have to be from a tribal origin to begin with? All sorts of flexibility there.

And that's just sticking with the default, provided fluff for it. Why is the lion the only thing that can pounce? The bear the only thing that can grab? Fox the only thing that can hide? There are other animals out there that can do these things, which further opens things up. And if you don't take the later abilities, why does it even need to be a spiritual totem to begin with? Perhaps you just studied the lion (or other animals) to better do that whole move'n'attack thing. Maybe that half orc just sat there and thought "Krug, me know what good idea? Move and smash lots of thing, instead of one thing. Should work on that." Or any other number of reasons, of varying degrees of importance to a character.

9 times out of 10*, choices like that, be they dips, feats, etc., can work -for- you if you let them. And I mean on the level of roleplay, not mechanically. One of my favorite hodge-podge builds gave me a wonderful pile of hooks and backgrounds to draw from, even if some elements seemed contradictary (Its why alignment restrictions are one of the first things to go for me. Monks and barbarians are not at odds, imo. I can share the character if you'd like).




*I say that because I can think of a single example to the contrary, and I also am fully aware of the reason behind it. Craven is a wonderful feat, and its a must-have any time i play someone with sneak attack, even if its a bit jarring that the fear-save is there. That said, that's because there is _absolutely no connection_ between "being afraid" and "being good at shivving someone while they're not paying attention" outside of "because we said so". So that 1/10 case where a choice breaks my suspension of disbelief is generally when something gives a bunch of abilities with are not, in any way, able to be related on a basic level.



EDIT: On the term "fluff" being insulting....Not really. Its a term used in the context of "what impacts gameplay". Fluff (or Lore, if you prefer, though that has other connotations in the context as well) is the stuff that isn't important in figuring out the dice'n'numbers side of things. But calling it fluff doesn't make it less important. Most of us pllay the game because of the fluff. And we recognize that. But we also recognize that the stuff in the books is....well, kinda bad a lot of the times. So if we have an interesting idea that involves changing things around, why not?

[Svata]

Not really. The features go hand in hand with the way the character behaves.

They're more guidelines for it. The barbarian doesn't have to be foaming at the mouth when he rages, he could be completely calm, entranced by and focused competely on the battle.


The term fluff is insulting. The lore behind various abilities is what it is, trying to demean that with epithets doesn't change its importance.

It isn't demeaning. It's just using a descriptive term.

[Lord_Gareth]

'Kay, I'm out. I remember the previous 'is fluff immutable' thread way too well, I don't need to be traumatized again. Have fun at your own table, dude.

[Karnith]

The term fluff is insulting. The lore behind various abilities is what it is, trying to demean that with epithets doesn't change its importance.
"Fluff" is the nickname we use to contrast it with the "crunch," or the mechanical parts of the game. It's not an insult, it's just a naming convention that gamers have adopted. I don't know that anyone uses it as a pejorative.

[Trundlebug]

I just went over vogon's posts and I'm out as well.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Consider the various builds that involve extremely specific dips of spirit lion totem barbarians, as if every character in the game came from the same tribe before branching out to try new things.
Classes are metagame constructs. Say it with me, now. "Classes are metagame constructs." It's not hard.

No-one in the gameworld can tell what feats you've taken, or what classes you have levels in. There's not some floating tag explaining your mechanics. You can't cast a spell to see that Regdar is a 6th level Fighter. Characters are defined by what they do, not what their character sheet says. Who cares if my sheet says that I'm a Sorcerer/Paladin/Spellsword/Abjurant Champion/Sacred Exorcist? I'm Solren Dawnheart, mystic champion of light.

It's your character, not some WotC writer's. There's no reason you should bow to some external authority on how to play your character.

[HammeredWharf]

Most of the time, I find multiclass characters more colorful from the premade fluff standpoint than single-classed ones. Let's say you got Ugh the half-orc barbarian 4. Grog's RAW fluff is that he comes from the wilderness, gets very angry from time to time and can't read. On the other hand, you've got Brugh the half-orc spirit lion totem barbarian 1 / fighter 1 / ranger 1 / cleric of Ehlonna. Brugh was closer to nature than his tribe's berserkers, so he focused on hunting and scouting for resources. He left his tribe after reaching adulthood, traveling to human settlements in order to learn from their culture. He enlisted in a town's militia, getting their formal training and expanding his combat skills. There, he learned of the goddess Ehlonna, whose faith fascinated him. Although Brugh isn't wise enough to cast divine spells, he joined Ehlonna's church and tried his best to become her cleric. The goddess blessed him after seeing his dedication, granting him access to her domain powers. Brugh admires lions, considering them the kings of wilderness and his fighting style closely resembles that of a pouncing lion.

So, Brugh's "horrible" multiclass build can be used to tell a story, while Ugh is just an angry half-orc.

[QuackParker]

If anything the forums provide a wealth of evidence for this.



Optimization often means making choices that act counter to suspension of disbelief and consequently damages immersion.

Consider the various builds that involve extremely specific dips of spirit lion totem barbarians, as if every character in the game came from the same tribe before branching out to try new things.

So much truth

[Jeff the Green]

So not touching the mutability of fluff.


When you switch from "here's a character I want to play, how do I make it work?" to "here's a trick I made work, how can I use it in a game?" perhaps? Or when your character's power greatly exceeds that of your partymates'.

The second one I'm fine with; the first I'm not. I'm at least a fair roleplayer, and I start from tricks fairly frequently. So far I've made characters based on:

Dexterity, Constitution, and Intelligence are the only real abilities a beguiler cares about. Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, and Wisdom are the only real abilities an archivist cares about Urrkrau illumian is a thing, as is necropolitan.
A vampire monster class I wanted to use requires blood, and the game was a long dungeoncrawl. There's this class called Nar Demon Binder that can call bloodbag imps pretty early. Bloodbag imps have low grapple scores. An octopus familiar gives you a bonus to grapple.
Changelings can use Racial Emulation to enter racial substitution levels, such as the level 3 ability of elf Wizard that doubles the bonus you get from your familiar. Changeling wizards can have a familiar that shapeshifts so you can swap around that bonus as you please.
Dryads can bind to livewood. The homebrew dryad I found becomes a Charisma-SAD cleric with a bit fewer low-leveled spells. There's a feat only open to fey that can (Also, as this was a gestalt game, barbarian can give you a climb speed and girallon's blessing lets you fire from your perch on the ceiling.)


I don't switch characters all that often, so these three are actually a significant portion of the ones I've played and am planning on playing in the near future. And they've all been well-fleshed out characters, about whose fluff I spent a lot more time on than the crunch. For example, the host of Charisma-using and archery-boosting dips my dryad took on the non-cleric side of the gestalt ended up providing inspiration for her backstory as first a wild being wreaking vengeance on the loggers who destroyed her forest (including her livewood tree that she crafted into a bow), eventually fighting in the Last War and serving as a scout and eventually a leader of one of the first units of warforged. This is similarly true for the couple of characters I made primarily because I wanted to test out some of my homebrew.


as for the "Great Archer" thing, consider:
in most settings, your standard Archer is going to be a single-class Ranger or Fighter.

Therefore, a high-leveled, Archery-focused, Single-class Ranger or Fighter is a great archer by the standards of the setting.

If you're polymorphing into an arrow demon, you're something beyond an archer.

It's like meeting an olympic sprinter and saying "You're not a great runner. If you were a great runner, you would be driving a racecar".
Yes, the person in the Racecar is getting from point A to point B faster than the sprinter, that does not mean that the sprinter isn't a good sprinter.

So yes, a single-classed ranger can call themselves a great archer.

Eh, the sprinter/racecar analogy isn't all that great. While the sprinter in a racecar isn't sprinting, the polymorphing wizard is firing arrows. It's just that his ability to use a bow isn't a result of practice but rather of magic and it's probably not "what he does" the same way archery is what the archer does.

Also, single-class rangers aren't great archers. They need another source of damage, likely from Swift Hunter or the prestige class that essentially gives it Power Attack.

[gomipile]

Can one optimize without damaging immersion? Yes, but it requires effort that I've never once seen expended by an optimizer.

See, I wish it worked that way in practice. I don't see that happening though, just attempts to paper over it all.

Looking at both of these quotes gives me the impression that you would interpret(and likely have interpreted) any effort to account for optimisation within backstory and role-playing as "attempts to paper over it all," no matter how sincere or how much effort was expended.

[Kraken]

Consider the various builds that involve extremely specific dips of spirit lion totem barbarians, as if every character in the game came from the same tribe before branching out to try new things.

You probably couldn't have picked a worse example, nothing indicates spirit animal worshipers come from a single tribe. Every continent that contains lions has multiple groups of people that use them in various kinds of idolatry. The same is true of eagles, hawks, wolves, dogs, bears, and well, probably every relevant animal contained in the game.

[NichG]

I'd almost agree with Chronos, except for the generalization part. Instead, obsession, whether to optimize or unoptimize, may (or may not) interfere with roleplaying. That is, even obsession and roleplaying are mutually exclusive.

I don't think 'mutually exclusive' is the term you want here, if you meant it in the sense of 'unrelated'. I'm going to assume you meant 'unrelated' since thats more consistent with your disagreement with Chronos' comment, but if you really did mean 'mutually exclusive' (as in, you can't both be obsessed and roleplay) then ignore what I'm about to say.

The reason that obsession interferes with other things is that obsession is, by its nature, a singular focus on one aspect of something to the detriment of all else. Obsession with roleplay wouldn't (necessarily) harm roleplay only because in that case the obsession is perfectly aligned with that particular feature. However, obsession with anything else would do so because it would limit the scope of that person's roleplay for sake of being consistent with the obsession.

For a ridiculous example, if you're obsessed with the number 3 in real life (maybe you hate it, and refuse to allow the number 3 to be anywhere near anything you do), then that requires that any character you roleplay either share that obsession or end up being in potential conflict with your obsession (thereby meaning that roleplay would be sacrificed for the sake of that obsession). So either you play only characters who hate '3', or the obsession will at various points harm your roleplay. But being only able to play characters who hate '3' means that your roleplay ability - in the sense of being able to play a wide array of characters - is being harmed. So either way, your roleplay ability is interfered with.

I can swap 'roleplay' for any other aspect. Being obsessed with the number 3 will also harm your optimization ability. It may even harm your ability to make tea, or to sing, so long as the number 3 can show up anywhere within these tasks.

In the case of something like obsession with optimization, the way it tends to manifest in roleplay is that the player has difficulty playing characters who are irrational, because optimization is the extreme form of applied rationality. Often this results in a reduction of scope rather than a reduction in quality - that is to say, the player chooses to play the archetypes that are consistent with their obsession and does so well, but basically refuses to or is unable to play archetypes other than that particular narrow set.

But this isn't because of the optimization part, its because of the obsession part. Because an obsession means that you focus inordinately on one thing at the exclusion of other things.

[Knaight]

Classes are metagame constructs. Say it with me, now. "Classes are metagame constructs." It's not hard.

This is a matter of interpretation. I personally prefer it for 3.5 D&D, but there are very much systems which are actually designed with the classes being game constructs representing particular things, and which work better with that - these tend to have a more specialized design, and work vastly better when the game comes with an actual setting (and not some vague allusions to an optional one). Take Pendragon - it wasn't a class based system, unless you mean social class. However, if it were it would be a glowing example of classes being both game and meta game constructs. Picking a class confers a fair amount on the character here, and it's entirely reasonable to go into a game like that with no idea of what you're doing, read through the classes, pick one, and do some small amount of building from there. On the other extreme you have something like HERO, in which you absolutely have to go in with a character with distinct abilities in mind, which you then build from a bunch of mechanics that don't have even the barest vagaries of fluff.

[Grod_The_Giant]

This is a matter of interpretation.
Fair enough.

3.5 works best when when you treat classes as metagame constructs. Other games with more specific themes and settings might work differently.

[Knaight]

Fair enough.

3.5 works best when when you treat classes as metagame constructs. Other games with more specific themes and settings might work differently.

Pretty much my opinion on this.

[NichG]

I'd say D&D works best when its homebrewed so much as to be completely unrecognizable, and what classes remain given very strong connections between mechanics, 'fluff', cosmology, and society while also each being mechanically viable on its own in the context of the overall power scale the campaign is aiming at.

If you've gotta make classes into metagame constructs in order to make the game function, then so be it. But if you can, I always prefer to have things where everything is more tightly integrated together.

[9mm]

This really needs to be said about optimization.

It doesn't matter what your players CAN do. It's what they WILL do that matters.

I don't care if you can rewrite the physical laws of the universe, If I don't put you into a situation where that's a bad idea I'm not doing my job as DM properly.

With very few exceptions, every RPG ever is designed to favor the players, all optimization does is determine how much in their favor it is. I am not the players enemy, I'm their antagonist, the one who forces change in their protagonists. If optimized characters are destroying your campaign its not their fault, it yours.

[Gabrosin]

There's a lot of truth already in this thread, but I want to add a few points of my own.

First, I think the most important thing has already been mentioned: successful games come from parties which are internally balanced. If one party member is consistently overshadowing everyone else, the game will cease to be fun for anyone. As a DM, you can permit whatever optimization level you feel comfortable with, but you should encourage your party members to find a happy medium amongst themselves. No one likes to feel useless. It doesn't matter that the wizard could be a better skillmonkey than the rogue with the right spells; if the wizard starts doing so, the skillmonkey is going to lose interest in the game. Same if the chargepouncer is dominating every combat. You can achieve balance in a number of ways, from forcing the optimizers to tone it down or encouraging them to provide help to the less optimized, but the balance is crucial.

Second, it matters what you are optimizing towards. It's true in D&D that the best defense is a good offense, but when optimizing is involved, this becomes problematic. The faster your encounters end, the less likely it is that everyone in the party is satisfied by their contributions. Yes, the chargepouncer can take down the demon in one swing, or the arcane caster can use Shivering Touch to drop the dragon in the first round. This is by far the safest way to conduct your combats, but also the worst when it comes to having fun. A good optimizer, in the company of less optimized companions, will hold back his or her best tricks for emergencies. Further, a great optimizer will optimize for defense and versatility, not for offensive firepower. Yes, be capable of contributing decent damage or battlefield control, but make sure that when everyone else is stuck in the solid fog or captivated by the illusion, you're still operating, and can whisk the party away or neutralize the threat. You don't need to be a caster to do this; sometimes just selecting the right set of items to acquire is enough.

Finally, the methods you use matter. Avoid things that are clearly against RAI, such as infinite loops, or ludicrously large numbers in some category. It's nice to prove that clever use of Footsteps of the Divine could make you really really fast, but at the actual table, such tricks don't have a good place. Usually, a party won't begrudge the casters for buffing themselves into competent fighters, if that's what they want to do; it's when they clearly outclass the non-casters in every conceivable way that problems begin to occur.

I agree with the notion that optimizing can add to the fluff, when done right. We all want to explain why our characters are unique. You can do this first and foremost with actual roleplaying, but the pieces of your build that look out of the ordinary are inspiration. Maybe you dipped Church Inquisitor for that extra domain, but now you have a reason to play your character as aggressively judgmental and suspicious.

Above all, remember that it's a game where no one wins unless everyone wins, and no matter how much you want your character to shine, others feel the same way about theirs. Optimize your build in such a way that you do your thing without getting in the way of their glory, and all will be fine.

[Pex]

The opposite is also true. It doesn't matter how much of an Academy Award for best acting you provide or what a great novella you developed for your character's history. If he can't perform and contribute in a meaningful way to the play of the game because you'll cry "munchkin" at anything that's good game mechanics, you're actually useless to the game and detrimental to the fun. You're not a better player of the game just because you absolutely refuse to take Power Attack since it's wrong to weasel your away to extra damage and instead take Skill Focus (Profession: Farmer) because your character was a farm boy.

[Serafina]

I had so many instances where optimization gave me an idea for a fun, interesting character that i really don't get how anyone can say that optimizing can be detrimental to roleplaying.

Take this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?357961-Aasimar-Scion-of-Humanity-Racial-Heritage&p=17662603#post17662603) for example. It starts with a question for "practical applications for the following combination", that combination (combining the traits of three races) probably being something a lot of people will see as cheesy.
Well, off i go and look for strong mechanical combinations or even those that are just particularly weird.
But what i end up with is the child of a Draconal, a noble draconic servant of the divine. Which could alternatively represent a "cleric of draconic deity" or a variety of other such character concepts in a WAY more interesting/fun way than just taking cleric-levels and the dragon-domain.

In other words, optimizing can help matching a characters actual abilities to their theme - or it can help you find a theme and then build an interesting character around it. Succinctly, optimization as a source of inspiration for roleplaying.

[Hazzardevil]

Something lots of people seem to be forgetting is that most of the time, characters are not aware of classes. Something I believe OOTS is partially responsible for.
If I make a Wizard/Cleric/Mystic Theurge, the world may not see classes, they see someone who dabbles in different types of magic. You have an army of soldiers, but you do not know in-character they are all a combination of Warrior, Expert and the odd PC class like Fighter or Marshal. By that same token, dips are not necessarily being trained in another class. A ranger with a two level fighter dip may just have neglected his natural skills in favour of more martial pursuits for a time.

A character with 1 level in 5 classes has not been to Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue and Bard schools. They are a schizophrenic who cannot concentrate on one thing for long periods of time.9

[Forrestfire]

Or they're a jack of all trades, or someone with a bunch of natural talent but no training, or the like. Lots of possible backstories for such a character.

[NichG]

I think that's less OotS' fault, and more the result of WotC introducing prestige classes. Prestige classes are explicitly called out as being in-character constructs in many cases, corresponding to membership in particular organizations. So someone who is a Mage of the Arcane Order really did go and join a particular guild of mages, and the abilities of the PrC explicitly refer to their relationship with said guild. Someone who is a Green Star Adept underwent a very specific process that is spelled out in its mechanics and requires certain followup (namely playing meteorite hunter...)

Other PrCs are less stringently connected, but you also have things where in later books even base classes were given backstory and specific 'Knowledge check' results that would tell people generalities about the class. That points to an attempt at least to make classes an in-game thing, just one that was done very inconsistently across the breadth of D&D 3.5.

When done well I think it can be pretty cool, because it justifies using in-character reasoning to understand the abilities another character demonstrates - which can lead to a whole sort of cat-and-mouse game of figuring out strengths and weaknesses between characters that has the potential to be interesting gameplay (in a 7th Sea campaign, for example, figuring out that someone was trained in Montaigne or Castille lets you get some idea of what combat style they use, and that helps you figure out how to defeat them in a duel). In D&D campaigns though, since people have all sorts of different views about how in-character different things are, you're just as likely to clever yourself into a corner or be accused of metagaming or whatever.

[Flickerdart]

So someone who is a Mage of the Arcane Order really did go and join a particular guild of mages, and the abilities of the PrC explicitly refer to their relationship with said guild. Someone who is a Green Star Adept underwent a very specific process that is spelled out in its mechanics and requires certain followup (namely playing meteorite hunter...)
GSA doesn't require any followup whatsoever. You can drink your starmetal slushie and then never look at the stuff again, as long as you don't take any more levels in it.

As for the Mage of the Arcane Order being in a particular guild...it's not that difficult, in the real world, to be a part of multiple organizations. I have degrees from two different universities, and am a member of three professional and honour organizations. Each membership grants me particular privileges, and each one carried certain requirements for entry, some more strenuous than others. This is not at all unusual, and actually kind of low - an experienced academic might find himself to be a member of a ridiculous amount of different organizations in various positions of authority.

Given that adventurers tend to wander around a lot, it's very easy to imagine that one might achieve a certain level of familiarity with a particular guild or order's operations before moving on to somewhere else and learning stuff from there too.

[NichG]

GSA doesn't require any followup whatsoever. You can drink your starmetal slushie and then never look at the stuff again, as long as you don't take any more levels in it.

As for the Mage of the Arcane Order being in a particular guild...it's not that difficult, in the real world, to be a part of multiple organizations. I have degrees from two different universities, and am a member of three professional and honour organizations. Each membership grants me particular privileges, and each one carried certain requirements for entry, some more strenuous than others. This is not at all unusual, and actually kind of low - an experienced academic might find himself to be a member of a ridiculous amount of different organizations in various positions of authority.

Given that adventurers tend to wander around a lot, it's very easy to imagine that one might achieve a certain level of familiarity with a particular guild or order's operations before moving on to somewhere else and learning stuff from there too.

What I was trying to point out is that D&D 3.5 itself is very mixed on the whole 'classes are in-game things' versus 'classes are metagame constructs' issue. PrCs in particular, as well as base classes that were published later in the product cycle (ToB stuff for example) send a strong message 'classes are tied to organizations/specific kinds of training/etc'.

As far as the 'can you have lots of them and still be a reasonable character' point that you're debating, I'm not trying to address that one way or another.

[Kazudo]

I think that class based organizations are a small sticking point. For example, it is entirely possible to be a knight eithout being a Knight. One can be a particularly pious swordfighter with a code of conduct and not be a Paladin. You can be an archer who prefers to stick to the trees and loves animals without being a Ranger. Likewise, you can be interested in abjuration and prismatic barriers, belonging to a secret organization of wizards called the Arcane Order of the Sevenfold Veil, an initiate at that (new, not much experience really, more of an intern, but initiate looks nicer on a resume) without being an Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil.

[Hecuba]

Fair enough.

3.5 works best when when you treat classes as metagame constructs. Other games with more specific themes and settings might work differently.

Whether or not classes mean something in-universe is less a function of system than setting. You can certainly tie level into the structure of the setting for 3.5 if you wish: it just takes some world-building.