PDA

View Full Version : What ruins the spirit of a game?



Pages : [1] 2

MonkeySage
2014-08-08, 09:40 AM
So following a conversation much like this:
GM: What kind of character are you going to play?
Player: I was thinking of playing a wizard.
GM: What race?
Player: I would like to play a sylph if that's ok.
GM: I'll allow it, sure.
Player: Point buy?
GM: Go ahead.
Player: 25 point buy then?
GM: Yes.
Player(sets up his abilities): Here's what I came up with.
GM: 20 intelligence? That's too high.
Player: Uh, ok... I'll do a 15 point buy then.
GM: No really, that's superhuman.
Player: Technically not against the rules.
GM: It's not against the rules, but it's minmaxing.
Player: I've respected your wishes and lowered my intelligence. Now, with racials, I have an 18. This is on a 15 point buy.
GM: This is ok.


GM believes that minmaxing in all circumstances ruins the spirit of the game.
Player believes that, permitted a point buy, it's only smart to put an 18 in at least one ability score.
They disagree on what actually ruins the spirit of the game.

What are your thoughts on the above scenario? What are your opinions? What do you believe ruins it in general?

Segev
2014-08-08, 10:27 AM
The real question that is going unasked is this: What is the spirit of the game? This will be different to different people, and is at the core of what you should be discussing with this hypothetical GM. Once you and he agree on what the spirit of his game is, you can play towards it.

It is worth noting that "min/maxing" and "optimization" happen no matter what, unless you literally randomly determine everything about your character. All these terms mean is that you're choosing what your character's good and bad at, and spending character-building resources to achieve this goal.

MonkeySage
2014-08-08, 10:46 AM
My own view has always been that as long as a player can rationalize the way that their character is set up, spin a good story, etc, they can create any type of character, with any range of abilities permitted by the rules of the game. I feel that players who spend too much time trying to minmax(and I have actually met a guy who did this) are just as bad as gms who spend too much time worrying about if their players are minmaxing. If a gm feels the pcs are too powerful, he can always increase the difficulty of his encounters, etc. Trying to prevent players from optimizing their characters is, as you've suggested, pretty much a futile effort. The player in the above scenario could have achieved int 20 even with a 10 point buy. With 15 points, let alone 25, he has to actively hold back.

Point buy, I guess, has it's strengths and weaknesses... Rolling all of your abilities sets the stage for mediocre primary ability scores. The player could re-roll her abilities, if she's unsatisfied, but I feel like point buys keep players honest, while giving them the ability scores they actually want. It also makes the gm's job a ton easier.

Airk
2014-08-08, 11:45 AM
I don't get it. It's point buy. By definition, you put your points where you want to put them, and presumably higher scores cost more points.

It's D&D3+ (or Pathfinder, or whatever); It's to be EXPECTED that a character in Class X has a very high ability score in Stat Y, where Stat Y is the important Stat for Class X. This is how the game WORKS. No one says "I'm making a Wizard, so I'm gonna give myself an int of 14."

If you want to play a game where people assign stats based more on who they think their character is rather than what they want their character to do, then you shouldn't be playing D&DFinder, because the spirit of the game, there, says "You max out your 'primary stat' and then arrange the rest for best benefits." - I mean, a lot of stats are barely useful for a lot of characters. That's just how the game IS.

So yeah. I dunno. I think the GM is in the wrong there - at least, when it comes to believing that "minmaxing ruins the spirit of the game."; He's within his rights to say "No stats above 18" or whatever, but he should also have said that BEFORE the player went through point buy. Anything else makes him look like he's being petty and chastising the player for breaking some weird unspoken rule that clearly only the GM knows about.

Sartharina
2014-08-08, 11:57 AM
It's D&D3+ (or Pathfinder, or whatever); It's to be EXPECTED that a character in Class X has a very high ability score in Stat Y, where Stat Y is the important Stat for Class X. This is how the game WORKS. No one says "I'm making a Wizard, so I'm gonna give myself an int of 14."Actually, D&D is balanced around the idea of starting with a 15 (Highest stat in Elite Array) in the primary stat, but sometimes able to handle up to an 18.


If you want to play a game where people assign stats based more on who they think their character is rather than what they want their character to do, then you shouldn't be playing D&DFinder, because the spirit of the game, there, says "You max out your 'primary stat' and then arrange the rest for best benefits." - I mean, a lot of stats are barely useful for a lot of characters. That's just how the game IS.No, it's not. Otherwise, the Elite Array would be 18, etc, etc, etc.

MonkeySage
2014-08-08, 12:25 PM
I've always been placed in high powered campaigns, so a low powered one like the above GM's game is new to me. Even before i started using point buys, most of my dms went by 7:4d6b3... drop the lowest from each roll, drop the lowest total. The gm would then design encounter based on the the assumption that we were not weak. One gm rationalized this even: there's a fundamental difference between NPC's and PC's. The PC's are above the norm, they're heroic characters, and so are expected to be extraordinary.

I've run a game, Journey to the West, where I told my players they would need at least two ability scores 15 and above if they wanted to survive. I'd let them reroll their 6:4d6b3 until they accomplished this, which would have honestly been easier with a point buy anyway. In the novel I based my campaign on, most of the characters were, in d&d terms, post-epic. The main character, my namesake here in this forum, was pretty much a demigod. The PCs were destined to be demigods, and I wanted them to have abilities which would reflect that destiny.

draken50
2014-08-08, 12:46 PM
Really seems to depend on the DM and the level of optimization of the group I'd suppose.

Especially considering the racial adjustment. Dwarfs have more con and are "tougher"

You have a 20 in Con, that's super human. Yeah, no crap, I'm tough for a Dwarf.

The argument that the game assumes around 15 seems like a valid point, but it seems silly to me that if something has an ability adjustment that it's not considered. If you were a human would that 18 be fine? ( I am assuming Sylph has a +2 to int.)

I tend to request that my players not go over an 18 before adjustment, but I haven't had a problem with that yet.

MonkeySage
2014-08-08, 12:57 PM
Yeah, most point buys don't let you go over 18 anyway. Really, unless it's a solid 4d6 ability roll or higher(which i don't think is appropriate anyway), it's mathematically impossible. So you can only get an ability score 19 or higher with the help of racials.

And yep, pathfinder Sylphs get +2 dex, +2 int, -2 con.

Kalmageddon
2014-08-08, 12:59 PM
The problem here is that some people keep playing D&D when what they are looking for in a system obviously isn't there.
If you have concerns for "superhuman" ability scores, don't play D&D. If you have problems with minmaxing, don't play D&D. And so on. There are plenty of systems better suited for these kinds of things.
Hell, there are better systems than D&D for running a D&D-style game!

MonkeySage
2014-08-08, 04:50 PM
On the one hand I am very grateful that he's decided to run a game: I've been dming for over a year now but in that time I havent actually played any d&d or pathfinder at all. Really been wanting to as well. Another friend offered to run a dresdon files flavored fate game after I asked if he could do pathfinder -_-.
This friend, the gm I had the above conversation with, knows next to nothing about pathfinder specifically, and tends to be very rigid in his style: no evil characters, no antiheroes, keep to the lighter shades of gray. And despite his claims to go by the book, he doesn't feel comfortable taking RAW to it's logical conclusions. Telling him that sylphs can have 20 int is not going to sway his opinion that such is too high.

All this leading to why I still hope to find a more flexible and laid back gm over in the player recruitment forum(see thread in sig).

I think if anything does go against the spirit of the game, it is being too rigid. maybe some time spent gming will be as educational for him as it was for me. :)

Tengu_temp
2014-08-08, 08:17 PM
I'm tired of this "18 is the peak of human potential, everything above 18 is superhuman" attitude, especially in Pathfinder where humans start with +2 to a single ability score of your choice.

I don't think buying a single very high ability score with only 25 points counts as powergaming. Even on 30-32 PB, it's generally unadvisable to buy up a stat to a natural 18! It's simply too expensive.

NichG
2014-08-08, 09:03 PM
At the point where he said '20 is too high, its superhuman' that's an indication that you need to ask for him to provide explicit limits for you, rather than trying to guess what he means. Its clear that the single peak stat was what was bothering him rather than the amount of point buy, so there was almost certainly no need to restrict yourself to a 15 point buy in order to satisfy the actual limits he had in mind. Of course, at this point saying 'okay, I'm going back to the 25 point buy' is likely to make him upset.

Everyone has subconscious limits where they feel they are in control of where the game is going, and a DM is actually expected to maintain a degree of control (this isn't the same as railroading - its things like not throwing encounters at the party that will cause a TPK through no fault of the players, or not making everything a cakewalk, or making sure NPCs respond to the situation in ways that don't seem like they're always holding the idiot ball, or whatever). For him, for whatever reason, super-human intelligence is a worrisome idea - either it conflicts with something he wants to do with the game later, or he feels like he's going to be asked to give you solutions to every puzzle/mystery that comes your way, or who knows what. The easiest response is to just consider these things to be house rules that come with each DM and work within them. This will cause the least conflict, and for most games and most quirks its probably the right way to proceed (e.g. some DM predilection towards nerfing monks because they think they're OP usually doesn't really matter since you can just play something other than a monk)

The much harder response is to try to get at why he thinks the way, and then try to slowly change his way of thinking. This takes a long time and its easy to screw up by making it aggressive or overly assertive. This can create the feeling that you're trying to push the DM around, which will make them defensive and will increase the degree to which they throw around unreasonable restrictions/nerfs, because at that point they're acting in suspicion against what they think you might be trying to pull, and not for any reason. So you absolutely have to avoid that outcome if you try to take this road. IMO, the best way to do something like this is to run a game for him and a few other players where you intentionally relax the restrictions he uses, while at the same time maintaining a game with the kind of feel that he seems to want. That way you can show him how things can be without him feeling like you're trying to take advantage of him in his game. Of course, if he thinks that the feel of your game 'has ruined the spirit' then this will backfire (and at some point, it may simply be the case that he has a certain 'feel' he likes in his gaming which is different than the 'feel' you like in your games)

Tvtyrant
2014-08-08, 09:06 PM
Seems weird to me. I have been heavily considering just having my players write down what they think their characters should have...

Vitruviansquid
2014-08-08, 09:24 PM
The GM and player should learn to communicate their vision of the game and compromise.

valadil
2014-08-08, 09:27 PM
Seems weird to me. I have been heavily considering just having my players write down what they think their characters should have...

I played in one of those once. Nobody deliberately took advantage of it, but we also approached it from different ideas of what a normal character would look like. I think I did a point buy because I was more comfortable that way and could get an 18, but the cleric only gave himself a 15 wisdom.

I probably wouldn't run that for a brand new group, like the one I played in, but if you're doing it for a group that's played together before it should be fine.

Tvtyrant
2014-08-08, 09:30 PM
I played in one of those once. Nobody deliberately took advantage of it, but we also approached it from different ideas of what a normal character would look like. I think I did a point buy because I was more comfortable that way and could get an 18, but the cleric only gave himself a 15 wisdom.

I probably wouldn't run that for a brand new group, like the one I played in, but if you're doing it for a group that's played together before it should be fine.

I run the same group pretty consistently, and I do see your point.

Coidzor
2014-08-08, 09:35 PM
So following a conversation much like this:
GM: What kind of character are you going to play?
Player: I was thinking of playing a wizard.
GM: What race?
Player: I would like to play a sylph if that's ok.
GM: I'll allow it, sure.
Player: Point buy?
GM: Go ahead.
Player: 25 point buy then?
GM: Yes.
Player(sets up his abilities): Here's what I came up with.
GM: 20 intelligence? That's too high.
Player: Uh, ok... I'll do a 15 point buy then.
GM: No really, that's superhuman.
Player: Technically not against the rules.
GM: It's not against the rules, but it's minmaxing.
Player: I've respected your wishes and lowered my intelligence. Now, with racials, I have an 18. This is on a 15 point buy.
GM: This is ok.


GM believes that minmaxing in all circumstances ruins the spirit of the game.
Player believes that, permitted a point buy, it's only smart to put an 18 in at least one ability score.
They disagree on what actually ruins the spirit of the game.

What are your thoughts on the above scenario? What are your opinions? What do you believe ruins it in general?

Err... Putting an 18 into a primary stat isn't even minmaxing. You'd have to do something else like tank Charisma and maybe Strength and Wisdom, and then boost your primary, secondary, and tertiary ability scores.

Interpersonal drama, bickering, or even arguing regularly over the rules and playstyle tends to kill things for me, I suppose. Or at least it kills my RPG boner for a good while.

jedipotter
2014-08-08, 10:09 PM
GM believes that minmaxing in all circumstances ruins the spirit of the game.



A wise DM I agree with. Lets call it: The Superhuman Fallacy. Players mistakenly think that if they make a super human character that they will have a ''better'' character, have more ''options'' and have more ''fun''.




Player believes that, permitted a point buy, it's only smart to put an 18 in at least one ability score.

The player believes wrongly. The player only thinks they are being ''smart'', but in reality they are pushing things too far. You don't need to have a superhuman character to have fun. One more plus will not suddenly make the game great or make your fun beyond great.

You don't need to drive a golf ball 200 yards to play put-put.




They disagree on what actually ruins the spirit of the game..

Clearly.

The DM is quite simple: You can role play and have fun with any character, it's all up to you to role-play and how much fun you have. The DM understands that having a limited, combat focused view of a character is limiting.

The player thinks they must be superhuman to have fun. They feel that the whole game is about combat and numbers. And that everything the character does must be the best of the best, and they fall for the lie that they are ''just trying to make a character that is able to to the basic job.''




What are your thoughts on the above scenario? What are your opinions? What do you believe ruins it in general?


Optimazation ruins the spirit of the game, and sucks the fun out of it.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-08, 10:33 PM
The player believes wrongly. The player only thinks they are being ''smart'', but in reality they are pushing things too far. You don't need to have a superhuman character to have fun. One more plus will not suddenly make the game great or make your fun beyond great.

You don't need to drive a golf ball 200 yards to play put-put.


and thats when you surprise them with a golf club made out of Orcus right?

that joke is just too funny....heheh.

but hey look: I may not like optimization myself, but there are clearly people who do. and trying to punish them for doing it, only invites them to start using the big guns of optimization, and try to break the game even worse.

I'd rather just talk to the players before game and just say "hey guys, I don't like optimization all that much, so please, try to keep it low-op ok? I'm not in it for that kind of style, and prefer the fluff side of things."

the players are not enemies planning a conspiracy to ruin my game, they're seeking to play it their own way, and I have no right to stop them from having their kind of fun, even if I don't exactly understand it. I may not understand why they want the biggest numbers and such, but I have no right to spoil it for them, just find a way to negotiate a way for us all to have fun without stepping on each others toes.

but while I don't really agree with what you think, neither do I agree with the other guys who made fun of you. their plans were to intentionally make characters to sabotage and behave badly in the game you were going to run. and thus prove your way of thinking of right, that all players are out to sabotage the "DM's" game. and thus just as bad as an overly controlling DM.

what ruins the spirit of the game is bad communication and not coming to state that everyone can live, agree and have fun with. something which in my opinion, I don't think you or the "R" people if you get my drift- I refuse to say that stupid word- understand.

Prince Raven
2014-08-08, 11:16 PM
1st level adventurers with minmaxed superhuman stats is the spirit of D&D.

Angelalex242
2014-08-08, 11:33 PM
What ruins the spirit of the game?

Not having fun. The GM shouldn't ruin the player's fun. The Player shouldn't ruin the GM's fun. If someone's not having fun, they eventually take their ball and go home.

I, for example, prefer higher power games. I'm the guy who takes his characters to level 99 in video RPGs when the game is easily beatable at level 40. Thus, if the GM proposes a low power 'gritty' type of game, I simply bow out, say 'not my style, bro' and leave.

I often bow out of 'evil' games too...mostly because I fear my own latent capacity for freaks people out evil.

jedipotter
2014-08-08, 11:36 PM
but hey look: I may not like optimization myself, but there are clearly people who do.

You start with ''everyone wants to have a fun game''. Almost everyone agrees to this.

The DM is on the side of ''you can play any character and have fun''.

The Optimizer is caught in the trap of they ''must'' optimize to have fun. But why do they optimize? They will say things like ''to get more options'' or to ''be more effective'', but it is all smoke and mirrors. While there is fun in making every roll and overcoming every numberical obstical....it can and does get hollow. Once you know you will ''always make it'', it does come a bit pointless to try and care. It just sucks the fun right out of the game for the player to need at make a DC of like 30 and roll a 5 and still make it.

And to 'optimize the game back at the players', does not work out well. The optimizer expects to make any roll ''most, if not all the time''. So if they suddenly can't make all the rolls, they will be un happy and feel cheated. When the optimized player encounters that optimized DC 40 problem, and they 'only' have +25(so they need to roll a 15), they are going to be up set. Though they will say it's ''ok'' to have ''hard things'' ''once in a while'', they have the idea that ''once in a while'' is like every couple of weeks, not two or three out of five things encountered, every encounter.

So in the end ''being smart'' and optimizing, does not give them as much fun as they thought....

MonkeySage
2014-08-09, 12:03 AM
I don't see the harm in having an ability score at capacity for one's race, particularly in pathfinder where even humans can have a 20 at level 1... I wouldn't equate that to minmaxing, because the player is simply taking an option which is available to him. Sometimes a character's concept simply calls for that level of ability. Again as long as it can be rationalized, I don't see a problem. It's not like the player is trying to ruin the game.
I don't minmax... i still take the opportunity for an 18 if I can afford it. Again, the way I see it, the character is likely to be remarkable in at least one way. Not "superhuman", but exemplary. People like that exist in real life(case in point, my boyfriend is a certified math genius with photographic memory), why not in fantasy?

Lord Raziere
2014-08-09, 12:04 AM
Look, I won't claim to know why an optimizer does what they do. I have no idea, but I do know they have fun because of it. It doesn't make sense to me, I admit it. But something about your attitude towards it is just....negative and unproductive. What if one of my best friends was an optimizer? would I reject the person, say that they are no longer my friend just because of such a small thing? I think not. that is just a preference I do not share and never will. That does not give me the right to outright deny them that fun if that is what they truly seek out of a game however. As in many things, acceptance and understanding is key. An optimizer and munchkin are not the same thing, and it is with wisdom one must discern the difference between them. To try and control the game too much as a DM is to become just as bad as the munchkin, because both an over-controlling DM and a munchkin are trying to control everything about the game, trying to master rather than cooperate, just with different methods.

the spirit of a game you could say is also those who play it, and their relationship with each other- the spirit of the game is trust. to not trust is to ruin the spirit of the game- whether it be the player not trusting the DM to not abuse their power, or the DM not trusting the player to not abuse the system to break the game. both are at fault, and often give rise to one another, for the player will break the game if he thinks the DM is lording their power, and the DM will become tyrannical if the player is trying to break the game. neither of them is the hero of such tales. only two people who resorted to controlling the game instead of trying to cooperate.

Angelalex242
2014-08-09, 12:16 AM
You start with ''everyone wants to have a fun game''. Almost everyone agrees to this.

The DM is on the side of ''you can play any character and have fun''.

The Optimizer is caught in the trap of they ''must'' optimize to have fun. But why do they optimize? They will say things like ''to get more options'' or to ''be more effective'', but it is all smoke and mirrors. While there is fun in making every roll and overcoming every numberical obstical....it can and does get hollow. Once you know you will ''always make it'', it does come a bit pointless to try and care. It just sucks the fun right out of the game for the player to need at make a DC of like 30 and roll a 5 and still make it.

And to 'optimize the game back at the players', does not work out well. The optimizer expects to make any roll ''most, if not all the time''. So if they suddenly can't make all the rolls, they will be un happy and feel cheated. When the optimized player encounters that optimized DC 40 problem, and they 'only' have +25(so they need to roll a 15), they are going to be up set. Though they will say it's ''ok'' to have ''hard things'' ''once in a while'', they have the idea that ''once in a while'' is like every couple of weeks, not two or three out of five things encountered, every encounter.

So in the end ''being smart'' and optimizing, does not give them as much fun as they thought....

Not necessarily. On behalf of everyone who ever leveled up to 99 just because they want to humiliate that superboss in a video game, I tell you there is fun in being OP.

It's the same kind of fun one might when playing Superman. Superman's story, to quote Screw Attack, is not about the drive to be the best (He already is), but about an alien immigrant trying to fit in. His story isn't about who's going to win. Unless somebody's got kryptonite, the battle is decided before it begins. It's about getting the world to like him, trust him, and otherwise believe in his benevolent spirit and the hope he represents. It's about inspiring others to take up his cause.

When I play my OP characters, the greatest joy I have is in seeing some NPCs saying they were inspired by my exploits and now wish to go and do likewise.

DeadMech
2014-08-09, 12:20 AM
I've never had a game ruined by someone succeeding at something that their character is supposedly good at. If the players kill something faster and with less hassle than you thought it would be, then there are other encounters. The game goes on.

But EVERY SINGLE GAME that has been ruined, in my experience, is because someone couldn't be bothered to even play. Someone gets bored. Someone gets busy. Everything grinds to a halt. More people get bored. Game over.

Hiro Protagonest
2014-08-09, 12:29 AM
Yes, perhaps the player doesn't like to explore the roleplaying of being too weak, that is a valid reason to optimize.

Now, you should optimize for the table, not yourself, and if you do bring that 20 int wizard to a lower op group, maybe change him to an Evocation specialist and make his only Conjuration spells tye Summon Monster line. But some people simply find more fun in having their power level high enough that they can focus on how their character acts, just like how other people spend as little time as possible on stats for the same reason. The low op guy is just as capable of making a typical good guy paladin as the high op guy is capable of making Tony Stark.

MonkeySage
2014-08-09, 12:38 AM
First off, Hiro, Love your name. I've been wanting to read Snow Crash since Comp. ^_^


My first successfully played character was a sun elf wizard with 20 int... I won't even lie, his personality was directly inspired by The Doctor, in various incarnations. I'd even watch doctor who before game night just to help me get into character. The intelligence played in well with it, and he was soooo much fun to play. I'd go so far as to say he's been my favorite character to play so far, and I look forward to a chance to play him again... the higher intelligence made him a lot easier to play to concept, but the more important aspect was his personality. The DM also seemed to really appreciate this character. :)

Angel: If you havent checked out Disgaea... Shame on you! :P One of the better strategy rpgs out there... you'd love it, I'm sure.

jedipotter
2014-08-09, 12:42 AM
But something about your attitude towards it is just....negative and unproductive.

Well...this is welll documented....

Zanos
2014-08-09, 12:49 AM
Adventurers are supposed to be superhuman anyway. A fighter being extremely strong or a wizard being extremely smart or a rogue being extremely agile seems totally fine to me.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-09, 12:56 AM
Well...this is well documented....

Yes. Yes it is well documented that your attitude about this is not handling the situation well. Glad to see your agreeing with me. :smallsmile: Admitting your mistake is always a good first step.

jedipotter
2014-08-09, 01:10 AM
Yes. Yes it is well documented that your attitude about this is not handling the situation well. Glad to see your agreeing with me. :smallsmile: Admitting your mistake is always a good first step.

What is this 'mistake' word, I have not heard of it.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-09, 01:26 AM
What is this 'mistake' word, I have not heard of it.

Oh well, you see its this helpful little word that is like a friend that tells us when we messed up. I am very thankful for this word! :smallsmile: Mistake is always honest with me, telling me what I did wrong, how I can do better, always helpfully showing me a better way to do things by telling me the way I just did them didn't turn out so well. Every person at one point or another gets help from Mistake at some point, real helpful that little word. You never met him? :smallconfused: I'm sure Mistake could help you a lot, real friendly that word is. Always likes helping people, Mistake. I'm sure that if you met him, you'd be real good friends!

Jay R
2014-08-09, 09:36 AM
The biggest thing that ruins the spirit of the game is lack of agreement about what the spirit of the game is, and what the rules to create that spirit are. Games with straight point-buy are fine. Games with limits to starting character abilities are fine. Games where the DM has some rules for character design that are not given to the players during character design are not fine.

If I were the player in the OP's scenario, I would ask the DM for a written set of character creation rules that I can depend on. I don't want to screw up the DM's spirit accidentally any more than I want to do so on purpose.


Adventurers are supposed to be superhuman anyway. A fighter being extremely strong or a wizard being extremely smart or a rogue being extremely agile seems totally fine to me.

Some games are about developing into heroes. In such a game, the issue in character design is not what a hero is, but how a future hero starts. If the DM is trying to run such a game, and the player doesn't know it, then each is opposing the "spirit of the game" as the other envisions it.

Sidmen
2014-08-09, 10:09 AM
GM believes that minmaxing in all circumstances ruins the spirit of the game.
Player believes that, permitted a point buy, it's only smart to put an 18 in at least one ability score.
They disagree on what actually ruins the spirit of the game.

What are your thoughts on the above scenario? What are your opinions? What do you believe ruins it in general?

Meh, the GM should've said "no, we're using the standard array of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8" if that's what he had in mind anyway.

If the player had reduced Charisma and Dexterity to 6, and then picked up a feat that lets him replace Dex with Int for AC calcs, then I'd squint at him for min-maxing, but otherwise it should be expected that a player wanting an exceptionally intelligent wizard is going to go for the 20. An average wizard has a 15 Int, so he wants to be better than average - the DM clearly didn't want that and should've been clearer right away.

Sartharina
2014-08-09, 10:21 AM
Err... Putting an 18 into a primary stat isn't even minmaxing. You'd have to do something else like tank Charisma and maybe Strength and Wisdom, and then boost your primary, secondary, and tertiary ability scores.That's the definition of minmaxing, considering that CHA, STR, and WIS are absolutely worthless to a wizard.

The Insanity
2014-08-09, 10:46 AM
GM: It's not against the rules, but it's minmaxing.
Player: ...and?


Actually, D&D is balanced around the idea of starting with a 15 (Highest stat in Elite Array) in the primary stat, but sometimes able to handle up to an 18.

No, it's not. Otherwise, the Elite Array would be 18, etc, etc, etc.
Elite array is for NPC.


Seems weird to me. I have been heavily considering just having my players write down what they think their characters should have...
I'm actually going to be doing this, starting with my very next game.

Sartharina
2014-08-09, 10:49 AM
Elite array is for NPC.

That are supposed to be on the same page as PCs, and suggested for PCs as well.

MonkeySage
2014-08-09, 11:06 AM
I have to wonder if gm would made as much of a fuss if player rolled the d6s and scored an 18 that way. The only difference here is he's relying on chance to get an 18 vs just buying the 18.

jedipotter
2014-08-09, 01:54 PM
I have to wonder if gm would made as much of a fuss if player rolled the d6s and scored an 18 that way. The only difference here is he's relying on chance to get an 18 vs just buying the 18.

He would not, speaking for that kind of DM.

If a player is willing to 100% accept the chance of getting random abilities, then they are a good player and the DM would say nothing.

Rolling, but using the ''I did not roll good, re-roll'' stupid rule is a yellow flag: This player might be a problem player and now must be watched.

Point buys are just a tiny bit shy of cheating. Your ''stacking the deck''. This is a problem player.

Tengu_temp
2014-08-09, 02:00 PM
Point buys are just a tiny bit shy of cheating. Your ''stacking the deck''. This is a problem player.

Translation: "people who are not playing RPGs the way I do are playing them wrong!"

And that's a funny redefinition of a problem player. Just buying a single high stat means you will automatically cause problems at the table? What?

Finally, do note that pretty much every RPG that's not DND uses point buy these days, and most of them don't even have the option to roll a random character because it makes no sense with their system.

TheIronGolem
2014-08-09, 02:07 PM
Point buys are just a tiny bit shy of cheating. Your ''stacking the deck''. This is a problem player.

If point buy is in use, it's because the DM allowed or even insisted upon it. It is therefore impossible for it to be cheating, or even anywhere close to cheating. And you know it.

Kalmageddon
2014-08-09, 02:11 PM
If a player is willing to 100% accept the chance of getting random abilities, then they are a good player and the DM would say nothing.
No, they are a player that likes or accepts random abilities.
You can't know if they are a good or bad player just from that.

Rolling, but using the ''I did not roll good, re-roll'' stupid rule is a yellow flag: This player might be a problem player and now must be watched.
No, they are a player that likes rolling but not if it screws them completly.
You can't know if they are a good or bad player just from that.

Point buys are just a tiny bit shy of cheating. Your ''stacking the deck''. This is a problem player.
Point buy has to be approved by the GM. If the GM has approved it, it's not cheating. That word doesn't mean what you think it means. Stop using it.

jedipotter
2014-08-09, 02:19 PM
And that's a funny redefinition of a problem player. Just buying a single high stat means you will automatically cause problems at the table? What?



It's a red flag. When a player ''must'' have a high score in an ability to ''have fun'' or even ''play the game'', they are typing their hand and showing they are a problem player. A ''must have'' is the way to spot a problem player.

Angelalex242
2014-08-09, 02:33 PM
Note to self: Never play in Jedipotter's game.

Because I like having high scores and won't play without them. Full stop.

That does not mean my fun is bad and wrong. I am the same guy who levels parties in video RPGs to level 99, recall, whether it's the least bit necessary or not.

Tengu_temp
2014-08-09, 02:33 PM
It's a red flag. When a player ''must'' have a high score in an ability to ''have fun'' or even ''play the game'', they are typing their hand and showing they are a problem player. A ''must have'' is the way to spot a problem player.

No, this merely shows the player likes to play a powerful character, and has a different approach than your oldschool "you will take what the dice give you and you will like it" one. But of course people playing the game differently than you and problem players are the same thing, amirite.

MonkeySage
2014-08-09, 02:35 PM
Jedi, you are the only one insisting player "must have" a high ability score to have fun. Player is being an opportunist, not an optimizer. He had the opportunity for a high ability score, and he saw no reason to run from it. He knew it would cost him 17 points just to do that, he was willing to accept the cost, knowing that it'll probably screw him in other areas. He still had 8 points to spend, after spending the 17. This is without having to tank his other scores. He felt this loss was worth it, because it reflected his written character concept well. In the end, player respected the dm's wishes that he take a lower ability score for his primary, because he wanted to take the path of least resistance, even if he still disagrees with the dm.

jedipotter
2014-08-09, 02:51 PM
Jedi, you are the only one insisting player "must have" a high ability score to have fun. Player is being an opportunist, not an optimizer.

Ask anyone who uses a point buy: would you ever take less then you could in your primary ability(s)? What do you think the answer would be? Would anyone using a point buy, and playing a wizard pick to have an intelligence of 13? Why or why not? Would anyone using a point buy set their constitution below 12 for any character? Why or why not? What is the minimum a point buy player would take in any primary ability(s)? 16? As much as they can?

And if a player is not picking high ability scores to have fun, then why are they doing it?

Lord Raziere
2014-08-09, 03:07 PM
He would not, speaking for that kind of DM.

If a player is willing to 100% accept the chance of getting random abilities, then they are a good player and the DM would say nothing.

Rolling, but using the ''I did not roll good, re-roll'' stupid rule is a yellow flag: This player might be a problem player and now must be watched.

Point buys are just a tiny bit shy of cheating. Your ''stacking the deck''. This is a problem player.

Ok then what ability scores should I have for "swordmaster who feels lonely because he is too good at killing for any to not fear and distrust him"?

or say, "former master assassin who became an adventurer because he could not protect the woman he loved from another assassin, and is now perfectionist in his attempts to make sure no innocent person is ever killed again"?

or how about "arrogant monk who does not believe that he can make a mistake and sets out to prove that"?

or "the youngest most talented wizard held to incredibly high expectations by all the wizards around him who fears not meeting those expectations, and thus tries his best no matter what"?

or "a normally brilliant captain who made a single tactical mistake during a crucial battle and will now never live it down, and thus tries to make sure such a thing never happens again"?

having awesome abilities beyond human ability can suck.

Werephilosopher
2014-08-09, 03:09 PM
Would anyone using a point buy, and playing a wizard pick to have an intelligence of 13? Why or why not?

They wouldn't, because wizards should be more intelligent than that, and choosing to be underpowered like that is stupid.


And if a player is not picking high ability scores to have fun, then why are they doing it?

Playing someone who can't use their own class abilities well because they don't have good scores is not fun.

Esprit15
2014-08-09, 04:18 PM
I don't see what the problem is with playing effectively. You can play an effective character without minmaxing. For one, there're more important things than your starting ability scores. I'd be a lot more wary of the guy who is pulling out several dozen books for feat selection and playing a race that needs a pronunciation guide for its name than the guy playing an 18 INT Wizard (but on the other hand, the guy is playing a Wizard :smallwink: ).

On the other hand, that is some people's definition of fun. Some people like the mental exercise of optimization. If the other players and GM are okay with that kind of game, then that's great.

A problem player is one who doesn't consider what or why the other players have a problem with something. If a GM says that he doesn't want the player to play Pun-Pun because that level of optimization is cheesy and he would like to run an actual game here, respect that. If a player is a newer player, don't send beholders at his level 10 Sorcerer because "Sorcerer is Tier 2, they should have handled it without even having to wake the party." (I am not saying that avoiding player death is bad, I am saying that players, especially new players, should have a fair shot at survival).

Everything else is personal preference and opinion.

PersonMan
2014-08-09, 05:05 PM
Ask anyone who uses a point buy:

Hi, I'm someone who uses point buys.


would you ever take less then you could in your primary ability(s)?

Yes. I often have, actually. In a lot of cases I'll cut something like an 18 to a 17 or 16 to free up points for secondary stats (which often give me little to no benefit) because of the character concept.


Would anyone using a point buy, and playing a wizard pick to have an intelligence of 13? Why or why not?

Probably not, because they don't want that. If they do, then they would because they want to. If it's a low-op enough game and they have an idea, maybe something like 'he isn't actually a very talented Wizard, but he's always been tough and rather strong for someone of his vocation'.


Would anyone using a point buy set their constitution below 12 for any character? Why or why not? What is the minimum a point buy player would take in any primary ability(s)? 16? As much as they can?

1. To fit a concept. A sickly character would have a low Constitution.
2. Because it fits the concept / doesn't fit it.
3. Minimum? Enough to function with the concept. Maximum? Same.


And if a player is not picking high ability scores to have fun, then why are they doing it?

To fit their concept; which in turn makes the game more fun for them. It's indirect, and I think it's important to differentiate between 'high stats = fun' and 'being able to play my smart but also oddly strong Wizard concept = fun'.

DeadMech
2014-08-09, 05:32 PM
The last rogue I made with point buy didn't have above 16 even after racial modifiers.

I probably would try to stay at 12 con. There is way too much potential for one hit kills in DnD. When I spend the better part of a days worth of my own free time working on my character sheet tinkering with stats, writing backstory, I want to use it for more one encounter.

Esprit15
2014-08-09, 05:43 PM
When I spend the better part of a days worth of my own free time working on my character sheet tinkering with stats, writing backstory, I want to use it for more one encounter.
This. Not dying at low level is preferred by nearly everyone.

jedipotter
2014-08-09, 06:30 PM
Ok then what ability scores should I have for "swordmaster who feels lonely because he is too good at killing for any to not fear and distrust him"?

Well, I'd see a 'swordmaster' as a guy good with a sword. An average good with a sword. There would still be like 1,000 some people in the world that were greater swordmasters, like 5,000 that were of equal to the character and like 10,000 that were close. So the swordmaster character would not stand out at all. My swordmaster can have lots of builds, but is at least 10th level. My mastersword person can have ANY ability scores, though they will be above 12 for like strength. I see a great swordsman of being either quick (high Dex), strong(high Str) or clever (high wisdom)....but not all of them above 20.

My problem player would see a swordmaster as ''the greatest swordssperson in the world''....with, maybe, two greater then them. And everyone else is a foll that can't even hold a sword. They see the swordmaster as a superstar. This build is, naturally, is a pure damage build. As to the problem player damage equals power. They 'must have' like a strength of like 20 and a dexterity of 20 and everything else of like 16 +.



or say, "former master assassin who became an adventurer because he could not protect the woman he loved from another assassin, and is now perfectionist in his attempts to make sure no innocent person is ever killed again"?

Again my ''master assassian'' would be one of a hundred, not like the top three in the world. And again, he could have ANY abilities.



or how about "arrogant monk who does not believe that he can make a mistake and sets out to prove that"?

He'd have a low Wisdom for sure, like under 9 and maybe a lower Intelligence too.



or "the youngest most talented wizard held to incredibly high expectations by all the wizards around him who fears not meeting those expectations, and thus tries his best no matter what"?

Any abilities.



or "a normally brilliant captain who made a single tactical mistake during a crucial battle and will now never live it down, and thus tries to make sure such a thing never happens again"?



Again, any.

MonkeySage
2014-08-09, 06:51 PM
What in the above discussion, Jedi, has led you to believe that just because someone playing a wizard has given themselves an 18 in their intelligence, this automatically makes them a problem player that "must have" the best of everything? You are using those words again, setting up a strawman instead of addressing the actual issue at hand. I'm sure just about anyone would agree that the player you're describing is problem player.
Personally, however, I think you're seeing a problem player when there is none. In the above scenario, the player has access to a high ability score and takes it because he sees it as fitting his concept. Not because he "must have" the best stats always. And as i've pointed out, he was more than willing to respect his gm's wishes by lowering his ability score deliberately. Because being the best isn't what he cares about, he simply saw the high ability score as one way to achieve the character he had in mind.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-09, 06:52 PM
Well, I'd see a 'swordmaster' as a guy good with a sword. An average good with a sword. There would still be like 1,000 some people in the world that were greater swordmasters, like 5,000 that were of equal to the character and like 10,000 that were close. So the swordmaster character would not stand out at all. My swordmaster can have lots of builds, but is at least 10th level. My mastersword person can have ANY ability scores, though they will be above 12 for like strength. I see a great swordsman of being either quick (high Dex), strong(high Str) or clever (high wisdom)....but not all of them above 20.

My problem player would see a swordmaster as ''the greatest swordssperson in the world''....with, maybe, two greater then them. And everyone else is a foll that can't even hold a sword. They see the swordmaster as a superstar. This build is, naturally, is a pure damage build. As to the problem player damage equals power. They 'must have' like a strength of like 20 and a dexterity of 20 and everything else of like 16 +.



Again my ''master assassian'' would be one of a hundred, not like the top three in the world. And again, he could have ANY abilities.



He'd have a low Wisdom for sure, like under 9 and maybe a lower Intelligence too.



Any abilities.



Again, any.

1. ok, then what is the difference between "Swordmaster" "Swordsman" and "peasant who just picked up a sword and has no expertise with it"?

2. so then how does the assassin kill people without all the stats that are used for killing? being wise, intelligent and charismatic is good, but none of them are lethal, and constitution is purely defensive.

3. How fitting. I was thinking the same for someone in real life. Hit the nail right on the head. :smallbiggrin: By the way, nice monk avatar.

4. so how is a wizard an intelligence of 8 and therefore unable to cast any spells whatsoever, and therefore has no potential to ever be a good wizard at all.....a talented wizard who has high expectations from the wizards around him?

5. so how is a captain if he has not the charisma to inspire his men so that he can lead, or the intelligence to figure out the battleplan that will make sure all his men live, or the wisdom to recognize when his plans are going wrong and needs to adjust them, good at his job? a captain with strength, dexterity and constitution means he can fight yes, but his real job is to command others to fight, not himself.

Pex
2014-08-09, 07:06 PM
Jedipotter is the personification of why the Stormwind Fallacy exists. His opinion isn't anything new. Way back when in my 2E days on Ye Olde rec.games.frp.dnd newsgroup I fought against his philosophy. I ended all my posts with "High Stats != Bad Roleplaying". Some DMs just get all bent out of shape a PC has an 18. They despise it. They are incapable of accepting a player character is permitted to be good at something, an expert even. They feel it's an affront to their supreme power of being the DM.

jedipotter
2014-08-09, 07:45 PM
1. ok, then what is the difference between "Swordmaster" "Swordsman" and "peasant who just picked up a sword and has no expertise with it"?

Skill, training and experience.




2. so then how does the assassin kill people without all the stats that are used for killing? being wise, intelligent and charismatic is good, but none of them are lethal, and constitution is purely defensive.

There are tons of ways to kill. The problem player just kills with damage. The good player can kill any number of ways.

Take an assassin with 10's in everything, except a charisma of 15. How does he kill? He gets close to the target socially, and then poisons them or sets up an accident. The problem player is just killing like a brute with lots of damage...and cheating(oh, oh, DM I like look at everyone for three rounds so I can death kill everyone all the time).




3. How fitting. I was thinking the same for someone in real life. Hit the nail right on the head. :smallbiggrin: By the way, nice monk avatar.

One of the worst things about optimizers is that most won't accept anything less then an ultra super human character. An arrogant monk would have low wisdom, but the optimizer will still have like 18, you know for the wisdom biased abilities, but still say ''oh i have low wis, but not really''.




4. so how is a wizard an intelligence of 8 and therefore unable to cast any spells whatsoever, and therefore has no potential to ever be a good wizard at all.....a talented wizard who has high expectations from the wizards around him?

See get this.....We have Dumbledoor the poor 8 Int Wizard. Now the optimizer just tosses the character out and makes an new Int 18 wizard. But the good role player stays with the character with quest #1 to find an item to raise his intelligence. And he finds all sorts of mundane ways to fake spells or uses wands. Eventually the character will have an intelligence high enough to use spells, but he will always have the handicap. He might even get elected Lord High Mage, but only be able to cast 3rd level spells and 'fakes' the rest.

So, see look at the interesting character. And at the other table optimizer player rolls 100d10 for the 10th time to obliterate another army...yawn.





5. so how is a captain if he has not the charisma to inspire his men so that he can lead, or the intelligence to figure out the battleplan that will make sure all his men live, or the wisdom to recognize when his plans are going wrong and needs to adjust them, good at his job? a captain with strength, dexterity and constitution means he can fight yes, but his real job is to command others to fight, not himself.



Not every captain has charisma. Lots don't. Lots of leaders don't. Goggle Captain Bligh. Battle plans are not pure intelligence, or pure wisdom.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-09, 08:31 PM
Skill, training and experience.




There are tons of ways to kill. The problem player just kills with damage. The good player can kill any number of ways.

Take an assassin with 10's in everything, except a charisma of 15. How does he kill? He gets close to the target socially, and then poisons them or sets up an accident. The problem player is just killing like a brute with lots of damage...and cheating(oh, oh, DM I like look at everyone for three rounds so I can death kill everyone all the time).




One of the worst things about optimizers is that most won't accept anything less then an ultra super human character. An arrogant monk would have low wisdom, but the optimizer will still have like 18, you know for the wisdom biased abilities, but still say ''oh i have low wis, but not really''.




See get this.....We have Dumbledoor the poor 8 Int Wizard. Now the optimizer just tosses the character out and makes an new Int 18 wizard. But the good role player stays with the character with quest #1 to find an item to raise his intelligence. And he finds all sorts of mundane ways to fake spells or uses wands. Eventually the character will have an intelligence high enough to use spells, but he will always have the handicap. He might even get elected Lord High Mage, but only be able to cast 3rd level spells and 'fakes' the rest.

So, see look at the interesting character. And at the other table optimizer player rolls 100d10 for the 10th time to obliterate another army...yawn.




Not every captain has charisma. Lots don't. Lots of leaders don't. Goggle Captain Bligh. Battle plans are not pure intelligence, or pure wisdom.

1. ok

2. but what if I don't WANT to do that, and want to kill the person in another way, what if my character concept INCLUDES being able to kill things a certain way, rather than the way you say for me to kill them? and isn't your own example min-maxing just in a different way?

3. No, they'd just take a bunch of different classes and options that recreates everything they want out of a monk mechanically without wisdom, then fluff the whole thing as an ordinary monk. and probably do the concept better than the actual monk.

4. but what if I don't want to fake my magic at all? what if I want all my magic to be genuine? thats my not my character concept, and is not what I want to play, if I want to fake all my magic, I'd go with a Rogue, 18 charisma them, then invest in a lot of abilities to make them great at faking my magic, from Perform (Stage Magician) to Escape Artist, to Bluff, to Use Magic Device and so on, and pull off the same concept you just told me about, but without wasting all the actual wizard class features that I wouldn't make use of, while having a lot more skill points to spend on the skills that would make me good at faking the magic.

5. So? I want that stuff for my captain, its a part of his concept. I want to roleplay a guy that does this kind of stuff. its a part of his concept, and nothing to do with trying to break the game, just being who the character IS. its not about whether or not he is more competent than others, its about 16 Charisma and Intelligence is just BEING WHO HE IS. I'm not trying to be a problem at all, its just what my character is about.

but I have another question for you:

a guy makes a character, with all 8's in his stats. all he does is follow other people around and does whatever they tell him to do. he never takes a second level in any class and only constantly multiclasses. he has no motivation and no desire to do anything. he is likely to fail at most of everything he does. what do you think of this character?

MonkeySage
2014-08-09, 08:38 PM
Given 25 point buy, you can have 18 intelligence at first level... depending on your racials, this might mean you have 16 or 20 intelligence(pathfinder offers loads of races that get intelligence boosting racials). You still have 8 points left, you don't have to drop anything to still get decent con/dex/whatever. Say a player actually did this: is he a minmaxer just because he took that opportunity? Is he necessarily a bad player?

Jedi, you're looking at 2 extremes, and everyone who takes that opportunity, according to you, is a cheater, a bad role player, a problem player, a "must have the best stats" player. Automatically, according to you.

After character creation, lets say we have two characters in two different games, one gm asked his player to roll their abilities: 13,11,9,11,18,14
The other used a point buy, lets say... 20 points, a high fantasy game: 10,12,12,18,10,9

What is the difference between these characters? What automatically makes the second character "optimized"?

How bout the players: What makes the player who used point buy a problem player?

The whole point of using point buys is that you are able to buy the stats you want, while your gm makes sure that it's not abused by setting a limit to how many points you can spend. If anything has the potential for abuse, it's dice rolling. In many of the games I've been in, the dm wasn't paying attention to every character sheet when the abilities were being rolled. I'd say that the real problem player is the one who rerolls before the dm even gets a chance to see his first results, and lies about it. There's your red flag. Point buys are very nearly impervius to that kind of abuse, because no matter what abilities you have... it should add up to the limit the dm set. If it doesn't, the dm himself can verify that. So what if the second player bought his 18, he bought it honestly with the 20 points that his dm gave him.

NichG
2014-08-09, 09:32 PM
I can understand the point that jedi is trying to get at (although he's approaching that point in an extremely hostile fashion). But putting aside the anti-player rhetoric, I think there's actually something interesting here in the abstract.

Let me try to put it another way: In older editions, because of rolled stats, the actual range of stat values was much more diverse than it is in systems with point buy, even if the explicit bounds are the same. That is to say, you are unlikely to ever see a 14 Int wizard in play in a game with point-buy, even if that is possible given the rules. So in effect, the ability for players to assign stats collapses the stat-space onto a lower-dimensional space. The degree to which this happens depends on game-design decisions that are in general outside of the hands of the DM.

So, if you want a game in which there is a very rich space of attribute assignments which is generally fully explored, point-buy is largely a negative influence towards that end, especially when coupled with game design that punishes anything other than specialization or very particular point-buy assignments.

Rather than complaining about players using the things the game system gives them or deciding to just go play 2ed D&D with rolled stats, we should actually be able to design a system that satisfies both this desire to have a rich and fully-explored range of possible attributes, and that also has some or all of the benefits of point buy (level playing field between players, players have some degree of control over their character's concept/abilities, etc).

I think the necessary elements are:

1. Bigger should not always be better. Rather than stats which are 'how good am I at X', you can have stats which say 'do I favor X (high stat) or Y (low stat)?'
2. Neither the extremes nor the middle should have a clear advantage. This is harder, but basically you want there to exist ways to benefit from specializing, but strong pushes in the system that may force you to want to generalize as well. Some degree of diminishing numerical returns combined with 'prerequisites' that are scattered around the range should help accomplish this.
3. When stats drive things numerically, they should generally be incomparables and orthogonal to the main focus on each character archetype. E.g. its fine to have a stat drive movement, but if a stat drives melee damage then the melee archetype will obviously want to raise that stat.

My guess is that if you do this carefully, the result would be something where people would pick all sorts of different arrays of stats for their characters given the choice. If however there are obvious optimizations (like 'max out your primary stat, but leave enough for a 14 in Con') then it collapses to a low-dimensional space and you get the sort of 'everyone has the same array' effect that sometimes crops up in later editions of D&D.

Tengu_temp
2014-08-09, 10:12 PM
I think we found the answer to the question of "what ruins the spirit of a game". Overly inflexible and hostile DMs who see everything they don't like as cheating do!


Jedipotter is the personification of why the Stormwind Fallacy exists. His opinion isn't anything new. Way back when in my 2E days on Ye Olde rec.games.frp.dnd newsgroup I fought against his philosophy.

You mean people with the same point of view, or him specifically? Because if it's the latter than hoo boy, that's impressive.

Pex
2014-08-09, 10:37 PM
You mean people with the same point of view, or him specifically? Because if it's the latter than hoo boy, that's impressive.

People of the same point of view. It was common during 2E. Tempest Stormwind just happened to popularize the counter thought in 3E before I could. :smallbiggrin:

Coidzor
2014-08-09, 10:42 PM
That's the definition of minmaxing, considering that CHA, STR, and WIS are absolutely worthless to a wizard.

Just putting an 18 in one's primary stat is not minmaxing. You have to have the min part too, which is why I mentioned it.

jaydubs
2014-08-09, 11:34 PM
Rather than complaining about players using the things the game system gives them or deciding to just go play 2ed D&D with rolled stats, we should actually be able to design a system that satisfies both this desire to have a rich and fully-explored range of possible attributes, and that also has some or all of the benefits of point buy (level playing field between players, players have some degree of control over their character's concept/abilities, etc).

I think the necessary elements are:

1. Bigger should not always be better. Rather than stats which are 'how good am I at X', you can have stats which say 'do I favor X (high stat) or Y (low stat)?'
2. Neither the extremes nor the middle should have a clear advantage. This is harder, but basically you want there to exist ways to benefit from specializing, but strong pushes in the system that may force you to want to generalize as well. Some degree of diminishing numerical returns combined with 'prerequisites' that are scattered around the range should help accomplish this.
3. When stats drive things numerically, they should generally be incomparables and orthogonal to the main focus on each character archetype. E.g. its fine to have a stat drive movement, but if a stat drives melee damage then the melee archetype will obviously want to raise that stat.

My guess is that if you do this carefully, the result would be something where people would pick all sorts of different arrays of stats for their characters given the choice. If however there are obvious optimizations (like 'max out your primary stat, but leave enough for a 14 in Con') then it collapses to a low-dimensional space and you get the sort of 'everyone has the same array' effect that sometimes crops up in later editions of D&D.

One alternative that is at least partially being explored is decoupling certain types of characters from specific stats. For instance, arcane casters based on charisma, wisdom, or even constitution instead of intelligence. We have melee characters based around dexterity and wisdom. Now, that can bring up its own issues since some of those stats have varying mechanical usefulness outside of "this is my primary stat," but it does increase character variety.

There are also systems that just completely get rid of the idea of character stats. That is, you have a measure of how good you are at X, and that ability isn't dependent on particular character traits. Since you don't have a measure of str/dex/con/int/wis/con (or a similar measurement of another system), you can RP the character however you like without incurring penalties for it. For instance, consider a master swordsman. The character might be effective because he's strong. But he could also be fast. Or maybe he's smart enough to calculate the probabilities of enemy attack angles. Perhaps he's blind, and can feel the air currents to predict his enemies. Or maybe he's just an incredibly lucky bumbling idiot.

Hiro Protagonest
2014-08-10, 12:59 AM
I will admit, I'm the kind of guy who will make a powerful character before thinking of why they're that way. But that doesn't mean I won't. If I just wanted to see what I could do with the mechanics, there are already video games and board games for that. And when I think up fluff, it's not just some excuse for why my character has low dexterity because none of her abilities use dexterity (not a D&D character btw), it is the story I built to house the mechanics, which is only partially based on them (anything that doesn't have to do with her training and fighting is pretty much irrelevant to the mechanics).

huttj509
2014-08-10, 01:29 AM
Hmmm, I think if the GM in the OP had said "Huh, that character's a bit too strong statwise for what I'd like for this campaign," responses would be rather different.

Marlowe
2014-08-10, 01:40 AM
I'm really trying to figure out what the problem is. If you don't want characters to have superhuman stats then you shouldn't allow them to play races that literally are superhuman.:smallconfused:

NichG
2014-08-10, 01:49 AM
Well, what I was getting at more is that with random stat generation, often you had people with characters who were kind of crappy in certain ways, but this provided a specific set of challenges in the form of overcoming those particular handicaps. It also natively guaranteed some degree of variation in innate ability, so you explored the whole range of stories - 'I'm just a farm boy in a difficult situation' to 'I'm Merlin and Conan rolled into one'. Because stats were random, there wasn't a sense of needing to make them ideal - any given character would not be perfectly suited to its class in an abstract sense, because of factors you couldn't control.

In point-buy systems, you can now control those factors. So what happens is that a specific subset of characters ends up dominating the distribution - and of course this makes sense, because given control over parameters and being told by the system that picking those well is part of the game, of course you don't intentionally make awful choices. If someone ends up with a bad stat distribution in a point-buy system, its self-inflicted. Which could provide interesting challenges, but then you also get the impression that they're also making life difficult for the other players (e.g. forcing them to have a harder time so the one player can play their weak character). Because the player had to intentionally choose to cripple their character, its now their 'fault' rather than just 'the dice went that way'. But of course, most players like to play competent characters, so its only a subset of players who want or need a handicap who are affected strongly by this.

So the way to fix that is to make it so that the stats don't inform you about matters of degree of competency, but instead inform you about matters of style. For example, what about something like this for something vaguely D&D-like:


Stats are spectrums between two different characteristics (A/B), and can range naturally from -3 to +3 (greater extremes are supernatural in nature or come from anomalous circumstance). A -3 means that tasks involving the left-hand characteristic gain +3 and tasks involving the right-hand characteristic suffer a -3, and vice-versa for a +3 in a stat. Furthermore, these stats provide prerequisites for abilities, which can require all sorts of combinations: high stat, low stat, or a centered stat. In general, most things will have prerequisites such as > -2 or < +2, to encourage characters in the middle range.

Measured/Spontaneous: A highly measured character tends to think before acting, but when they act they do so very efficiently. On the other hand, a spontaneous character has faster reaction times and can adapt more rapidly to when a situation changes. This stat is added to Initiative checks and Reflex saves, but is subtracted from Will saves. Furthermore, characters on the Spontaneous side of the spectrum gain an extra Move action at +2, an extra 5ft step at +3, and an extra Swift action at +4. Characters on the Measured side of the spectrum have a 15% chance per point of retaining a consumable resource when used, to a maximum of 50% (potion, spell slot, maneuver, etc).

Sturdy/Swift: A Sturdy character is slow to move, but can survive more. A Swift character is fast, but fragile. Subtract this stat from Fort saves, and add it to Reflex saves. For points in the Swift direction, each point grants +10ft base movement rate. At +4 Swift, a character can cross horizontal and vertical gaps of up to 10ft during their move as if flying, and this increases by 10ft per extra point of Swift beyond this. For points in the Sturdy direction, each point grants 1 point of universal DR/energy resistance in all types. At -4 (e.g. 4 points in the Sturdy direction), characters gain 1 point of Fast Healing.

Grounded/Abstract: A Grounded character puts most of their emphasis on things in the corporeal world, whereas an Abstract character concentrates more on philosophy, ideals, and imagination. Add this stat to Will saves but subtract it from Fort saves. Abstract characters gain this stat as a bonus to Mental skills, whereas Grounded characters gain (the negative of) this stat as a bonus to Physical skills.

Technique/Force: This is the dichotomy between having very intensive but simple uses of abilities, or having more complex abilities that may not be as intensely powerful. If this stat falls on the Force side, increase the numerical parameters of their abilities by 20% per point. If it falls on the Technique side, add it to their effective caster level/initiator level for the purpose of determining what level of spells/techniques they are eligible to learn and use (if the stat changes, it can temporarily deny them access to these abilities) - to the extent of giving them early access to higher-level spell slots if needed. Aside from that, a significant component of the function of this stat is in its interaction with prerequisites - for example, martial maneuvers which apply status conditions will require high Technique, whereas martial maneuvers that simply hit harder will require high Force. Pure Technique however will limit one to things that are complex but very weak, so often abilities will be bounded to certain ranges (e.g. -2 <= x <= 1).

Focused/Alert: A Focused character can tune out the outside world to do one thing with all of their attention, whereas an Alert character notices everything around them even if that may distract them from what they're doing. Add this stat to skill checks that involve perception (Search, Spot, Listen, Gather Information) and subtract it from any form of extended skill check that is not a perception-based check (Craft, Lockpicking, Disable Device, etc). A character that is Focused can delay the onset of certain negative status conditions other than death by one round based on their Focus score (Focus 1: numerical debuffs, poisons; Focus 2: short-term action denial such as Stun, Daze; Focus 3: long-term action denial such as Dominate, Petrify, etc) whereas a character that is at least Alert 1 is not flat-footed during a surprise round, at Alert 2 they are not flatfooted against an opponent they can't perceive, and at Alert 3 they can act during surprise rounds as if they were not surprised.


Clearly there are still some things which are better in one direction than others, but I imagine a system like this would see characters all over the spectrum.

Hand_of_Vecna
2014-08-10, 01:53 AM
In my opinion high stats rarely have much to do with the spirit of a game. For example in a typical Call of Cthulhu game; neither a High Intelligence/Education Doctor/Professor, a High (was it Quicknes/Deftness?) Soldier or the high Size/Strengh local tough go against the spirit of the game. It's the character that burns books and makes a point of not looking at things and kicks down doors and fires a double barrel shotgun before opening their eyes. I used Call of Cthulhu in my example because, I think most if not all of us can agree on what a Call of Cthulhu game is, while we'll probably have different ideas of what's "classic D&D", a mystery, epic fantast, low fantasy, etc.

edited for spelling/grammar

Prince Raven
2014-08-10, 02:03 AM
Hmmm, I think if the GM in the OP had said "Huh, that character's a bit too strong statwise for what I'd like for this campaign," responses would be rather different.

Yeah, I would have also thought that the GM is an idiot who doesn't understand how point buy works.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-10, 02:25 AM
In my opinion high stats rarely have much to do with the spirit of a game. Neither a High Intelligence/Education Doctor/Professo, a High (was it Quicknes/Deftness?) Soldier or the high Size/Strengh local tough went against the spirit of the game. It was the character that burned books and made a point of not looking at things and kicked down doors and fired a double barrel shotgun before opening their eyes. I used Call of Cthulhu in my example because, I think most if not all of us can agree on what a Call of Cthulhu game is, while we'll probably have different ideas of what's "classic D&D", a mystery, epic fantast, low fantasy, etc.

yea, a disruptive player can be a guy using an all-8's idiot character designed to do nothing but fail and cause trouble for everyone else by being incompetent at everything. or a kender bard with nothing but 12' or 13's in their stats constantly singing annoying songs while obeying their instinctual kleptomania, or an uptight paladin who pointedly always tries to hold everyone to his own code regardless of stats, or a barbarian who kills the first thing he sees no matter what and then claims "I'm just roleplaying my character".

or say, a wizard who has a Int of 8, and chooses to play that as an insufferable know-it-all, who does not actually help with anything but tells everyone that they could've done it better, and makes up knowledge that isn't actually true, and gives advice based on the false knowledge while proclaiming they won't cast any spells "because the time is not right yet", and generally just complains about everything and be an annoying pedantic when people try to talk about magic, and generally is just a pain in the behind.

or any "chaotic neutral" (actually CHAOTIC STUPID) player who just LETS the DM have his "no point buy! use rolls!" rule, uses the rolls to get past suspicion, then just do whatever the heck they like regardless of what stats they have in the name of causing random chaos and silliness while claiming "I'm roleplaying my alignment" and would actually use the bad stats to enhance his disruptiveness, being so stupid that he uses tools and terms wrong, or so unwise that he doesn't notice the obvious, or so clumsy he causes more trouble just by failing delicate work than succeeding, or the uncharismatic guy who tries to be a playboy to all the ladies at the tavern no matter how through floor his score is, using that to only cause more disruptions. oh and he steals anything and everything too, just because.

you don't need high stats to disrupt the game, you just need the willingness to twist everything and anything into a weapon that you can use to ruin the game.

name anything, I bet I can use that to disrupt the game, disrupting the game is not a tool, its a state of mind.

huttj509
2014-08-10, 03:33 AM
Yeah, I would have also thought that the GM is an idiot who doesn't understand how point buy works.

It's not about point buy. It's about having an intended power level/style for the campaign, and communicating it effectively, which involves setting limits for a particular campaign, as opposed to trying to set them on the DnD system as a whole.

I've been in games that are straightforward kick in the door dungeon crawls. I've been in games with a strong focus on social maneuvering and politics. I don't build the same character for those games.

I've been in games where "slightly above average" is as good as it gets (to begin with, at least). I've been in games where we were literally recreating superheroes and anime characters to run around with (my Peter Parker came out decently, it was fun, and Vash showed where Shadowrun broke down when you hyperoptimized accuracy, but it was still fun). I don't build the same character for those games.

I've been in games where all the players expected kick-in-the-door badass, while the GM expected heavy RP mood setting. It would've been nice if we had realized the different expectations before the 3rd session, when it finally clicked for me what the problem was.

The problem in that last one? Everyone thinking what they expected was "normal," and thus communication breaks down when people say things like "just make a normal character."

"This isn't what I had in mind for this campaign" goes over a LOT better than "you're a minmaxing munchkin who's playing DnD wrong." Regardless of what stat generation method is used.

PersonMan
2014-08-10, 04:03 AM
Ask anyone who uses a point buy

I guess you weren't actually interested in someone's answers to these questions, which makes sense since they don't support your 'point buy = high stats uber alles' argument.

Coidzor
2014-08-10, 09:30 AM
Hmmm, I think if the GM in the OP had said "Huh, that character's a bit too strong statwise for what I'd like for this campaign," responses would be rather different.

A 20 at character creation due to racial ability score modifiers allowing someone to have a "superhuman" (for first level) Intelligence is a rather poor line of reasoning. For one thing, the character obviously isn't human unless this is Pathfinder we're talking here, so of course they're going to have different baseline capabilities.

Saying something like your example would necessitate talking a bit more in order to explain all of that and what their actual parameters are and then you have the question of why not have those limitations made clear in the first place...

Hand_of_Vecna
2014-08-10, 11:48 AM
A 20 at character creation due to racial ability score modifiers allowing someone to have a "superhuman" (for first level) Intelligence is a rather poor line of reasoning. For one thing, the character obviously isn't human unless this is Pathfinder we're talking here, so of course they're going to have different baseline capabilities.

Saying something like your example would necessitate talking a bit more in order to explain all of that and what their actual parameters are and then you have the question of why not have those limitations made clear in the first place...

You're talking to someone who basically refuses to acknowledge that 3rd edition stats are built around different standards than 1st edition ones. I wanted to bring some lifting numbers in, but their made too unclear by the coin based weight system and I'd need to look up encumberance rules and make sure it's "encumbered" was a fair analogy for medium or heavy load. . .

Instead I'll just use this

http://www.ancientscrossroads.com/adnd_tools/str_table.htm

If anyone doesn't care to click the link, at the high end it says:

19 Hill Giant Strength
20 Stone Giant Strength
21 Frost Giant Strength
22 Fire Giant Strength
23 Cloud Giant Strength
24 Storm Giant Strengh
25 Titan Strengh

Nineteen was the Strengh of a hulking 16 foot tall humanoid that looked like this.

http://www.vanhiel.com/daniel/MC_images/hill_giant.jpg

An elite array half-orc in 3rd edition will have a non magical 19 Strength at level 8. He isn't stepping on Mr. Hill Giant's toes though because in 3rd edition he has a Strength of 25.

The standards have changed, and no it isn't the darn kids in the community turning on the greybeards, the actual numbers and assumptions at the core of the ame are different.

Zanos
2014-08-10, 11:52 AM
Some games are about developing into heroes. In such a game, the issue in character design is not what a hero is, but how a future hero starts. If the DM is trying to run such a game, and the player doesn't know it, then each is opposing the "spirit of the game" as the other envisions it.
Ability scores affect potential more than they affect your current power. Starting with high ability scores doesn't make your level 1 wizard that much less susceptible to getting a crossbow bolt in their d4.

If you're playing a game about developing heroes than starting at a low level is the best way to represent that.

Angelalex242
2014-08-10, 01:08 PM
That's why 2E Aasimar are so powerful. They have +1 Str, +1 Wis...and can have 19 in str and wis both. Legally. Celestial blood was a little more potent back in the day.

Silus
2014-08-10, 01:14 PM
On the thread-name-topic, what ruins the spirit of the game, at least for me?

Unwarranted, unwanted PvP.

Ettina
2014-08-10, 01:52 PM
So following a conversation much like this:
GM: What kind of character are you going to play?
Player: I was thinking of playing a wizard.
GM: What race?
Player: I would like to play a sylph if that's ok.
GM: I'll allow it, sure.
Player: Point buy?
GM: Go ahead.
Player: 25 point buy then?
GM: Yes.
Player(sets up his abilities): Here's what I came up with.
GM: 20 intelligence? That's too high.
Player: Uh, ok... I'll do a 15 point buy then.
GM: No really, that's superhuman.
Player: Technically not against the rules.
GM: It's not against the rules, but it's minmaxing.
Player: I've respected your wishes and lowered my intelligence. Now, with racials, I have an 18. This is on a 15 point buy.
GM: This is ok.

A Sylph is superhuman, though.

I'm DMing a run of Murder at Baldur's Gate where both of the PCs (there are only two players) are unusual races that have superhuman abilities. One of them is a homebrew, the other is a sireine with a homebrew class. Both have Ints in the 20s and a lot of other overly-high stats, and none of the fights have posed the slightest challenge to them, but they're staying in-character and enjoying the game, so I don't see a problem.

To me, the spirit of the game is to tell an entertaining story. The only problems I'd have with 20 Intelligence is if you can't roleplay a believable supersmart character or if it would mean other players getting upset because your character is just killing everything while they sit there being useless.

Heck, I was even willing to go for it when my brother jokingly suggested playing a Flesh Jelly in a solo campaign, as long as he accurately roleplayed as a mindless gargantuan monster who eats everything. It would be a very strange story, but still entertaining to watch all of Baldur's Gate panicking at the sudden unexpected appearance of this monstrosity.

Coidzor
2014-08-10, 02:13 PM
On the thread-name-topic, what ruins the spirit of the game, at least for me?

Unwarranted, unwanted PvP.

Aye, that's a game-killer, that is.

Socksy
2014-08-10, 02:19 PM
Nerf guns, which is what I call DMs who feel the need to nerf everything. POW! HiPS. POW! Insta-kills. POW! Wish/Miracle.

jedipotter
2014-08-10, 02:39 PM
Yes. I often have, actually. In a lot of cases I'll cut something like an 18 to a 17 or 16 to free up points for secondary stats (which often give me little to no benefit) because of the character concept.


All the way down to a 17 or 16? Wow, that is low....for a superhuman. And if your getting little or no benefits for an ability score, then you might be playing the wrong character. What kind of character are you making? Something like ''my character is a peaceful philosopher...except some times when I want he becomes a powerful killer''. So your character class is fighter, but you take a ''low'' strength of 17 so you can have a wisdom of 15?



Probably not, because they don't want that. If they do, then they would because they want to. If it's a low-op enough game and they have an idea, maybe something like 'he isn't actually a very talented Wizard, but he's always been tough and rather strong for someone of his vocation'.



Kind of a run on answer of ''they want to play super powerful characters so they do."



1. To fit a concept. A sickly character would have a low Constitution.
2. Because it fits the concept / doesn't fit it.
3. Minimum? Enough to function with the concept. Maximum? Same.


Guess it depends on the concept? Though the underling concept is always ''be beyond super human'', right?



To fit their concept; which in turn makes the game more fun for them. It's indirect, and I think it's important to differentiate between 'high stats = fun' and 'being able to play my smart but also oddly strong Wizard concept = fun'.

Maybe you can explain this more? Are you saying that if you just come up with a concept like ''my wizard is smart, and quick, and healthy and strong'' then it's ok in your view to have high ability scores...as you want to?

Silus
2014-08-10, 02:58 PM
Aye, that's a game-killer, that is.

One that has in the past instilled in me the urge (And just the urge, not the motivation) to dive across the table for some OOC PVP, usually in the form of busting up someone's jaw something good. I especially don't like (and won't tolerate) manipulation by another player or player actively working against me behind by back if the game doesn't call for it (So I expect it in WoD, Paranoia, maybe a little in CoC, you get the idea). That's the kinda mess that causes death glares, silent treatment and 'ol Silus retreating into an emulator on his laptop for the rest of the session while giving more glares and a couple fingers to those that try to talk to him.

Though future incidents of PvP will be met with me quietly packing up my things and leaving the game for the day, which I imagine would have a greater effect than caving someone's nose in with my bare fists.

Eonas
2014-08-10, 04:23 PM
It's a red flag. When a player ''must'' have a high score in an ability to ''have fun'' or even ''play the game'', they are typing their hand and showing they are a problem player. A ''must have'' is the way to spot a problem player.

This, I believe, is a straw man. I don't know of any semicompetent roleplayer who's ever said they Must Have amazing ability scores. The issue is that D&D 3.5 is primarily a gamist system - a DM that prevents the players from engaging in even mild amounts of gamism should probably be running a different system. I mean, yeah, a DM's perfectly in his right to ban hardcore optimization like Dungeoncrasher-Shocktrooper-Chargers, or CoDzillas, or Dragonwrought Loredrake Kobolds, or whatever, if he's concerned that newer players will be left in the dust (or if he's not sure of his own ability to create challenging encounters for the optimized party). But minor minmaxing? That's totally in the spirit of the game. It's why we have so many mechanics based on combat maneuvers, and feats, and races, [etc]. Remember that though D&D takes influences from improv theatre and collaborative storytelling and all that jazz, its real roots are in wargames.

Acutally, the people I find far more deeply concerning than hardcore minmaxers are those who are adamantly against minmaxing because they're all about the "roleplay, not the rollplay". The two are not mutually exclusive: in fact, crunch defines fluff (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1153831). Tellingly, the writer of that thread is one of the best roleplayers I've ever seen, as well as one of the least 'problematic' players I've ever played with.

There's also the thing that D&D characters are, by definition, superhuman: half the characters can bend reality by casting spells, a level 6 barbarian can take a 90' drop running, swordsages can engage in shenanigans which would make Zorro boggle, and so on. Again, if the DM doesn't want characters to be superhuman, he shouldn't be running D&D.

D&D's an insane, balls-stapled-to-the-wall system of unhinged badassery/munchkinry. Roll with the flow, baby.

Mr Beer
2014-08-10, 06:02 PM
There's also the thing that D&D characters are, by definition, superhuman: half the characters can bend reality by casting spells, a level 6 barbarian can take a 90' drop running, swordsages can engage in shenanigans which would make Zorro boggle, and so on. Again, if the DM doesn't want characters to be superhuman, he shouldn't be running D&D.

Pretty much this, if you find a starting stat of 20 intolerably objectionable, D&D might not be for you.

jedipotter
2014-08-10, 07:09 PM
Saying that an optimizer can role-play, is like saying you can roll a '20' on a 1d20. It's possible, but not automatic. But with a lot of numbers on the roll side, the role side is left behind.

I see three problems:

1. The high ability score optimizer: HASO will feel the need to use all them numbers and pluses they worked so hard to get. They won't care much about role playing, the story, or anything else, other then using that +10 they got to do something in the game. Worse is:

2. The HASO hack and slasher. They only care about combat. After all they built a combat character, so they simply don't play the game...unless there is combat. And the worst one:

3 HASO burnout. They push the game as far as it can go. If the DM does nothing they easily dominate every game session and get very board. Nothing is a challenge or interesting to them any more. If the DM does optimize back...they have to walk a fine line. The HASO expects to dominate the game. If asked directly, they might say they want a hard challenge ''sometimes'' and ''once in a while'', but on the whole they want to dominate the game. So, if the DM does optimize even close to the level of the player, they can easily knock the player down a couple pegs to having ''just'' a normal character. And the HASO won't be happy....

Coidzor
2014-08-10, 07:14 PM
Saying that an optimizerperson can roleplay, is like saying you can roll a '20' on a 1d20. It's possible, but not automatic.

Fixed that for you.

Also, if you already have a list, you don't need to have colons at the end of each item in it until you reach the last item.

Angelalex242
2014-08-10, 07:15 PM
Back to topic:

Ruining the spirit of the game is ruining someone else's fun. That includes thinking someone else is having 'bad wrong fun.'

Coidzor
2014-08-10, 07:19 PM
Back to topic:

Ruining the spirit of the game is ruining someone else's fun. That includes thinking someone else is having 'bad wrong fun.'

That reminds me. Thinking that rape is funny, or, worse, fun to inflict upon (other) PCs, and generally bringing it into the game in a very disrespectful and immature way that causes others to become concerned about that particular individual's likelihood to commit a serious crime.

Bringing one's sexual fetishes into the game, such that it causes the rest of the group to suspect that the person is surreptitiously putting their hands down their trousers.

jedipotter
2014-08-10, 07:36 PM
Saying that an optimizer can role-play, is like saying you can roll a '20' on a 1d20. It's possible, but not automatic. But with a lot of numbers on the roll side, the role side is left behind.

I see three problems:

1. The high ability score optimizer: HASO will feel the need to use all them numbers and pluses they worked so hard to get. They won't care much about role playing, the story, or anything else, other then using that +10 they got to do something in the game. Worse is:

2. The HASO hack and slasher. They only care about combat. After all they built a combat character, so they simply don't play the game...unless there is combat. And the worst one:

3 HASO burnout. They push the game as far as it can go. If the DM does nothing they easily dominate every game session and get very board. Nothing is a challenge or interesting to them any more. If the DM does optimize back...they have to walk a fine line. The HASO expects to dominate the game. If asked directly, they might say they want a hard challenge ''sometimes'' and ''once in a while'', but on the whole they want to dominate the game. So, if the DM does optimize even close to the level of the player, they can easily knock the player down a couple pegs to having ''just'' a normal character. And the HASO won't be happy....

Lord Raziere
2014-08-10, 08:07 PM
Saying that an optimizer can role-play, is like saying you can roll a '20' on a 1d20. It's possible, but not automatic. But with a lot of numbers on the roll side, the role side is left behind.

I see three problems:

1. The high ability score optimizer: HASO will feel the need to use all them numbers and pluses they worked so hard to get. They won't care much about role playing, the story, or anything else, other then using that +10 they got to do something in the game. Worse is:

2. The HASO hack and slasher. They only care about combat. After all they built a combat character, so they simply don't play the game...unless there is combat. And the worst one:

3 HASO burnout. They push the game as far as it can go. If the DM does nothing they easily dominate every game session and get very board. Nothing is a challenge or interesting to them any more. If the DM does optimize back...they have to walk a fine line. The HASO expects to dominate the game. If asked directly, they might say they want a hard challenge ''sometimes'' and ''once in a while'', but on the whole they want to dominate the game. So, if the DM does optimize even close to the level of the player, they can easily knock the player down a couple pegs to having ''just'' a normal character. And the HASO won't be happy....

Oh my god, I'm anti-optimization, and even I think your argument is stupid. Its out of touch with how optimizers actually do things, or why. This post is pure Stormwind Fallacy. it is made of nothing but Stormwind Fallacy. Your way of thinking....I cannot accept either. Ever. Why?

Lets check on an old thread, something that was once popular on these boards: The SUE Files (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?305986-The-SUE-Files-III-Basically-Exercising-Your-Cheese-Forging-Genes)

or better yet: Read the I Rolled a Zero blog in that thread (http://irolledazero.blogspot.com/2013/04/what-is-this.html) you should read it, particularly everything named "SUE Files" and "SUE System". It demonstrates how a DM can be far worse than any player. Read it well, because that DM might someday be you if you cling to what you think of "problem players"

Because if anything kills the spirit of a game, its Marty and his stupid cheese forge. Because we can't have PC's be competent, if competent PCs were meant to be the superior choice, our genes would be superior and therefore basically we would already be in a utopia where we would exercise our genes daily, as the Martyssiah intended.

Heed my warning jedipotter, for that is the insanity that awaits you on your path. I'm going to stop arguing with a brick wall, good luck digging deeper that hole you have there.

Hand_of_Vecna
2014-08-10, 08:31 PM
This post is pure Stormwind Fallacy. it is made of nothing but Stormwind Fallacy.

Citing sources and calling people out on their use of fallacies is Rudilsplorking at argumentation.

Marlowe
2014-08-10, 08:56 PM
I keep wanting to reply to JediPotter, but I keep getting a couple of sentences in and thinking; "No. I'm not falling for this. He has to be joking. Really. I mean, he implies that stats of below 18 aren't worth anything, then implies that having a balanced spread of stats is powergaming, and now he's saying it's bad roleplaying for a character to work to his strengths. He must, seriously, be having us on".

Please stop JediPotter. It's not funny and we're not Superhuman.

Esprit15
2014-08-10, 09:18 PM
Okay, let me try and diffuse things - Jedi, what do you consider good in building a character then? How far is too far in optimizing?

jedipotter
2014-08-10, 09:57 PM
Okay, let me try and diffuse things - Jedi, what do you consider good in building a character then? How far is too far in optimizing?

I don't really like point builds at all. They are at the heart of ruining the spirit of the game. I like rolling for abilities.

Too far? Having more then three abilities over 16 or so. The default idea ''If I'm class X I must have a high ability in X' idea. The type of person who 'can't' play a 1st level wizard with an intelligence of 14.


Failure is an important part of the game. But optimization tips the scales way toward never having failure. In a normal D&D game, you get three types of challenges:

1.Easy Ones. The type of challenge even an un-optimized character can handle, most of the time. A challenge that only has a small chance of causing loss or failure. For a first level character it's a DC of 14 or under. For the optimizer this type of challenge is pointless: they will pass it with no problem. With a DC of 14 or under and they having a +6 or higher, they won't fail.

2.Average Ones. This challenge is right in the middle. It has the average chance for failure. For first level it's DC's of 15-20. But again, for the optimizer with the +6 or more, this is pointless.

3.Hard Ones. A challenge right at the upper edge of what the characters can handle. For normal characters, this is where they must be clever and work together or otherwise do things to beat the challenge. At first level it's a DC of 20 or more. For the optimizer, though, this is just average.

An un-optimized character might fail at anyone of them, but the optimizer will only really face a slight chance of failure on number three. So, you might as well not even bother with easy or normal challenges when optimizers are around.

Eonas
2014-08-10, 10:11 PM
Saying that an optimizer can role-play, is like saying you can roll a '20' on a 1d20. It's possible, but not automatic. But with a lot of numbers on the roll side, the role side is left behind.

I see three problems:

1. The high ability score optimizer: HASO will feel the need to use all them numbers and pluses they worked so hard to get. They won't care much about role playing, the story, or anything else, other then using that +10 they got to do something in the game. Worse is:

2. The HASO hack and slasher. They only care about combat. After all they built a combat character, so they simply don't play the game...unless there is combat. And the worst one:

3 HASO burnout. They push the game as far as it can go. If the DM does nothing they easily dominate every game session and get very board. Nothing is a challenge or interesting to them any more. If the DM does optimize back...they have to walk a fine line. The HASO expects to dominate the game. If asked directly, they might say they want a hard challenge ''sometimes'' and ''once in a while'', but on the whole they want to dominate the game. So, if the DM does optimize even close to the level of the player, they can easily knock the player down a couple pegs to having ''just'' a normal character. And the HASO won't be happy....

No, of course it's not automatic. Being a good roleplayer is never automatic, regardless of how optimization-centric a player is. I have some experience roleplaying on freeform forums - and let me tell you, the average roleplaying skill on those boards is vastly inferior to that of most optimizers I know on here. Off the top of my head: JanusJones, Plerumque, Keledrath, NeoSeraphi, cameronspants, Emperor Ing, Piggy Knowles are all fantastic roleplayers I've played with who also happen to really know their way around D&D optimization.

While I empthize with your dismissal of HASO #3 (I've never had the misfortune of play with one of these, and I'm guessing they're a rare rotten egg, but I can imagine how unfun they must be), I do repudiate your apparent notion that D&D is all about roleplay - or even that roleplay is required in a D&D game. I've had perfectly fun games that consisted of nothing but brutal combat with a little roleplaying to tie everything together. This is a wargame-derived game, after all, and the designers have made the purpose of the game very clear by aiming most of the mechanics at combat. If everybody at the table sits down with the same agenda: a brutal session of hardcore Gamist rollplaying, then that can be tons of fun too (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12222.phtml). Remember how prevalent the dungeon crawl adventure format used to be? I wasn't around in the golden 80s, but I highly doubt anybody was complaining about roleplaying integrity back then...

Mr Beer
2014-08-10, 10:17 PM
I don't really like point builds at all. They are at the heart of ruining the spirit of the game. I like rolling for abilities.

It's fine to have a preference but it's silly to claim that either point builds or rolls are the One True Way. I log onto a GURPS forum, and while the quality of the posts are generally excellent, when the subject of random rolls comes up, there's always some fanboy who implies that random rolling is a childish substitute for real gaming i.e. point buys. It gives me a headache.

Coidzor
2014-08-10, 10:20 PM
or better yet: Read the I Rolled a Zero blog in that thread (http://irolledazero.blogspot.com/2013/04/what-is-this.html) you should read it, particularly everything named "SUE Files" and "SUE System". It demonstrates how a DM can be far worse than any player. Read it well, because that DM might someday be you if you cling to what you think of "problem players"

Whoa. I was looking for that for ages. Thank you! Also, agreed with the majority of the points you laid out in this post. :smallbiggrin:

eggynack
2014-08-10, 10:26 PM
An un-optimized character might fail at anyone of them, but the optimizer will only really face a slight chance of failure on number three. So, you might as well not even bother with easy or normal challenges when optimizers are around.
That doesn't really hold up logically. Balance is relative, so high optimization characters have their own easy, average, and hard challenges, each at a level of success commensurate with those the low optimization character experiences. It's just that maybe the low optimization character's hard challenge will be the high optimization character's medium challenge, and the high optimization character's hard challenge will be the low optimization character's super-hard or impossible challenge.

Of course, then you arrive at the obvious problem. What if the weak character and the strong character are in the same party? In that case, your weak character oriented medium challenge could be destroyed by Captain Amazing in an instant, and the strong character's hard challenge might just destroy Mr. Puny. The answer is that neither optimizers nor non-optimizers are the problem. The problem is balance. If everyone is optimized, or no one is, or if the optimal characters are of lower tiers, then things run a lot more smoothly, and you return to your diverse challenges.

This is a big reason why point buy, even point buy that creates what you might term a "superhuman", is superior to rolling. Rolling leaves you in situations where the party's swordsman, who you decided would be fine with low strength, or even low everything, is getting completely outshone by another character that just happened to roll well, even if they're not playing a class primarily designed for melee. Hell, stick a first level wizard with all 18's in with the all 6's fighter, and I'm putting my money on the wizard, not even touching magic. Dice rolling, not point buy, is far more likely to create the situation you've put forth.

As to the OP, I would say that the DM is the one ruining the spirit of the game, and it has little to do with statistical makeup. By my estimation, the spirit of the game has a lot more to do with open communication and friendliness than anything else, unless you're playing a game specifically designed around closed communication, and even then the stuff in the OP wouldn't be a part of that. If the DM wanted scores in a particular range, just frigging say that. It's a really simple process, taking up the space of a sentence or two at most. Playing weird games, where you say that this thing that was implicitly stated to be allowed is not allowed, is quite against the spirit of the game.

jaydubs
2014-08-10, 11:22 PM
Okay, math time. TLDR at bottom.


Failure is an important part of the game. But optimization tips the scales way toward never having failure. In a normal D&D game, you get three types of challenges:

1.Easy Ones. The type of challenge even an un-optimized character can handle, most of the time. A challenge that only has a small chance of causing loss or failure. For a first level character it's a DC of 14 or under. For the optimizer this type of challenge is pointless: they will pass it with no problem. With a DC of 14 or under and they having a +6 or higher, they won't fail.


Actually, DC 14 vs a d20 + 6, means failing on a 7 or lower. 7 out of 20 is a 35% chance of failing, or more than 1 in 3. 1 in 3 isn't "no problem, won't fail."


2.Average Ones. This challenge is right in the middle. It has the average chance for failure. For first level it's DC's of 15-20. But again, for the optimizer with the +6 or more, this is pointless.


Let's put this at DC 17, half way between 14 and 20. On a d20 + 6, you need an 11 or higher to pass. 10 or under, i.e. 10/20 = 50% chance of failure. So your optimizer in this case fails exactly half the time. How does this qualify as pointless?


3.Hard Ones. A challenge right at the upper edge of what the characters can handle. For normal characters, this is where they must be clever and work together or otherwise do things to beat the challenge. At first level it's a DC of 20 or more. For the optimizer, though, this is just average.

DC 20 vs d20 + 6 requires a 14 or higher. 13 or lower fails. 13/20 = 65%, indicating a roughly 2 out of 3 chance of failure.

To review, for an "optimized" +6 bonus character, they will fail 1 out of 3 "easy" challenges (DC 14), 1 out of 2 "average" challenges (DC 17), and 2 out of 3 "hard" challenges (DC 20). We can now see that the following statement simply isn't true, unless 1/3 and 1/2 chances of failure are "not even worth bothering over."


An un-optimized character might fail at anyone of them, but the optimizer will only really face a slight chance of failure on number three. So, you might as well not even bother with easy or normal challenges when optimizers are around.

Let's also do the math for a theoretical "unoptimized" character. Let's say they have a +3.

DC 14: d20 + 3 requires an 11 or higher. 50% chance of success, or exactly one half of attempts will fail.
DC 17: d20 + 3 requires a 14 or higher. 35% chance of success, or roughly 2 out of 3 attempts will fail.
DC 20: d20 + 3 requires a 17 or higher. 20% chance of success, so 4 out of 5 attempts will fail.

It looks to me like you've been balancing for "optimized" characters, unless it's really your belief that failing half the time qualifies as "easy."

TLDR Summary:

"Optimized" (+6) Character's Chance of Success
Easy (DC 14): Roughly two-thirds, 65%.
Average (DC 17): Half, 50%.
Hard (DC 20): Roughly one-third, 35%.

"Unoptimized" (+3) Character's Chance of Success
Easy (DC 14): Half, 50%.
Average (DC 17): Roughly one-third, 35%.
Hard (DC 20): One-fifth, 20%.

This does not suggest jedipotter's difficulty is actually balanced for unoptimized characters.

Eonas
2014-08-11, 12:54 AM
Okay, math time. TLDR at bottom.



Actually, DC 14 vs a d20 + 6, means failing on a 7 or lower. 7 out of 20 is a 35% chance of failing, or more than 1 in 3. 1 in 3 isn't "no problem, won't fail."



Let's put this at DC 17, half way between 14 and 20. On a d20 + 6, you need an 11 or higher to pass. 10 or under, i.e. 10/20 = 50% chance of failure. So your optimizer in this case fails exactly half the time. How does this qualify as pointless?



DC 20 vs d20 + 6 requires a 14 or higher. 13 or lower fails. 13/20 = 65%, indicating a roughly 2 out of 3 chance of failure.

To review, for an "optimized" +6 bonus character, they will fail 1 out of 3 "easy" challenges (DC 14), 1 out of 2 "average" challenges (DC 17), and 2 out of 3 "hard" challenges (DC 20). We can now see that the following statement simply isn't true, unless 1/3 and 1/2 chances of failure are "not even worth bothering over."



Let's also do the math for a theoretical "unoptimized" character. Let's say they have a +3.

DC 14: d20 + 3 requires an 11 or higher. 50% chance of success, or exactly one half of attempts will fail.
DC 17: d20 + 3 requires a 14 or higher. 35% chance of success, or roughly 2 out of 3 attempts will fail.
DC 20: d20 + 3 requires a 17 or higher. 20% chance of success, so 4 out of 5 attempts will fail.

It looks to me like you've been balancing for "optimized" characters, unless it's really your belief that failing half the time qualifies as "easy."

TLDR Summary:

"Optimized" (+6) Character's Chance of Success
Easy (DC 14): Roughly two-thirds, 65%.
Average (DC 17): Half, 50%.
Hard (DC 20): Roughly one-third, 35%.

"Unoptimized" (+3) Character's Chance of Success
Easy (DC 14): Half, 50%.
Average (DC 17): Roughly one-third, 35%.
Hard (DC 20): One-fifth, 20%.

This does not suggest jedipotter's difficulty is actually balanced for unoptimized characters.

Come on, now we're just quibbling and piling on top of jedipotter for the sake of piling on top of jedipotter. Who cares what the precise numbers are - Easy sounds more like DC 10 and Average like around DC 15 to me - what matters is his point and argumentation. Which, I think eggynack has already addressed nicely and insightfully.

Perhaps at this point we can all back down and give jedipotter (and whoever else feels like disagreeing with us) a chance to read and agree with/disagree with/comment on our posts? Otherwise, we're just yelling at him.

MonkeySage
2014-08-11, 01:18 AM
Oh my, what did I start here? XD I have to thank you all for your different angles, it was all very enlightening. I hope at this point that I haven't been the only one to benefit from this lively discussion...

jaydubs
2014-08-11, 01:24 AM
Come on, now we're just quibbling and piling on top of jedipotter for the sake of piling on top of jedipotter. Who cares what the precise numbers are - Easy sounds more like DC 10 and Average like around DC 15 to me - what matters is his point and argumentation. Which, I think eggynack has already addressed nicely and insightfully.

Perhaps at this point we can all back down and give jedipotter (and whoever else feels like disagreeing with us) a chance to read and agree with/disagree with/comment on our posts? Otherwise, we're just yelling at him.

1. Twasn't but a few weeks ago that that we had two whole crazy threads arguing with jedipotter. I'm trying a new approach. When approached with cold, hard numbers, you either have to accept them, or throw up your hands and start denying mathematics.

2. People who aren't actually doing the probability calculations frequently make poor estimations. It happens all the time. See the Monty Hall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem) problem and the Boy or Girl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_or_Girl_paradox) problem. Most people (even mathematicians) get those wrong without explanation. It's entirely possible he's been running those actual numbers in his games, without realizing the implications.

Honestly, I'd be pretty happy with as much progress as JP saying "I was wrong about these particular bonuses and DCs, but I still hold to my opinion."

Eonas
2014-08-11, 01:50 AM
1. Twasn't but a few weeks ago that that we had two whole crazy threads arguing with jedipotter. I'm trying a new approach. When approached with cold, hard numbers, you either have to accept them, or throw up your hands and start denying mathematics.

2. People who aren't actually doing the probability calculations frequently make poor estimations. It happens all the time. See the Monty Hall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem) problem and the Boy or Girl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_or_Girl_paradox) problem. Most people (even mathematicians) get those wrong without explanation. It's entirely possible he's been running those actual numbers in his games, without realizing the implications.

Honestly, I'd be pretty happy with as much progress as JP saying "I was wrong about these particular bonuses and DCs, but I still hold to my opinion."

Yeah, absolutely - the human mind just doesn't get probability. But the actual crunchy numbers weren't really central to JP's argument. Perhaps the actual numbers he gave were flawed (to me they seemed like ballparks passed off as Official Numbers), but then you could just switch them to 10/15/20 or whatever, without changing his argumentation and central point. Basically, yeah, you're quibbling.

It's also Very Bad Practice to go on tangents in internet arguments (or, for that matter, arguments in general), if you're actually trying to come to a resolution and mutual truth-finding. This is because people tend to start whole sub-arguments based off the tangents and the point of the actual argument gets lost in the dust. I've had more arguments like this than I can count, where we begin arguing about something like objective/subjective reality and end up arguing about religious abuse or something equally irrelevant. We humans have a tendency to get bogged down in details and go off on bunny trails. So don't make bunny trails - and if they do pop up, lop them off at the source and set the argument back on track.

And, of course, right now I'm feeling like a hypocrite, because I'm going on a tangent about not having tangents. Ego Quoque.

Esprit15
2014-08-11, 02:00 AM
I don't really like point builds at all. They are at the heart of ruining the spirit of the game. I like rolling for abilities.
That's well and good. This has not shown any reason why it is somehow evil or minmaxing simply to have the GM say "We're using point buys."

Too far? Having more then three abilities over 16 or so.
So what about rolling and being lucky enough to have several scores above 16, especially after racials? I would note that in many point buys, you would be hard pressed to have three 16's at all without tanking other stats. (EDIT: Specifically, a common 32 point buy permits three abilities at 16, one at 10, and two at 8. Many people play with less.)

In addition, this says nothing about having an 18 in any ability.

The default idea ''If I'm class X I must have a high ability in X' idea.

So a Wizard who is intelligent is bad. A rogue with generally good abilities, likely best at being nimble is bad. Strong barbarians are bad. Why is a character who is supposed to be good at something being good at that thing bad? What is wrong with the person who has poured over books and books of lore and magic for the majority of their self aware life up to this point to be a very, very smart guy? What is wrong with the guy who literally has such force of personality that the universe will bend to his will having the stats to back it up?

The type of person who 'can't' play a 1st level wizard with an intelligence of 14.
I can understand that to a degree. Certainly someone who won't play if they roll poorly is being childish. A the same time, would you say they were in the wrong to put the 18 that they rolled into intelligence? If I rolled five 10's and an 11 and I was dead set on playing a wizard, I would still put the 11 in my intelligence and find a way to make it work.

Why is playing effectively bad?

Failure is an important part of the game. But optimization tips the scales way toward never having failure.
Sure, failure is needed. At the same time, players don't like to die. In a lot of games, especially online ones, where RP is a much bigger part of the game, I will spend at the very least a day thinking about my character - what I want to play, what kind of person they will be. I'll likely spend several hours of the next few days writing and revising their backstory until it is at a point that I like. I generally like this investment of my time to not get squashed by the first raging orc barbarian that they run into.


In a normal D&D game, you get three types of challenges:
Gross oversimplification. What about combat, skill challenges, RP, diplomacy (a hybrid of skill and RP), tactics (RPing for future gains or losses)? You're describing difficulty levels, not types of challenges. Your strawman of an optimizer can handle two of these with their minmaxing, and only if it is for their areas of expertise (only so many skill points, after all). They cannot RP their way through politics with a high touch AC. They're not going to lead an army with a dozen attacks of opportunity per round. (I will grant that a wizard can lead them with insane application of spells, but that is playing their strengths). Not every problem can be solved by force or a simple skill check, and if you honestly think that, your players are not the problem.

1.Easy Ones. The type of challenge even an un-optimized character can handle, most of the time. A challenge that only has a small chance of causing loss or failure. For a first level character it's a DC of 14 or under. For the optimizer this type of challenge is pointless: they will pass it with no problem. With a DC of 14 or under and they having a +6 or higher, they won't fail.
DC 14 what? Jump check? AC roll? Stealth check? And I'd say reliably hitting DC 14 at level 1 is always hard unless you're really laying on the cheese. For reference, if the DC of a check is 10 plus their skill modifier, it's not easy, it's a 50% chance of failure. And even then, 50% chance of failing a skill check is different than 50% of missing the enemy with a swing/shot/spell.

2.Average Ones. This challenge is right in the middle. It has the average chance for failure. For first level it's DC's of 15-20. But again, for the optimizer with the +6 or more, this is pointless.
Actually, hard unless you're optimizing. I notice a trend - you are very black and white in your thinking. A player is either a good player, or this minmaxing, cheese grating optimizer. There is no middle ground of 'Trying to play to their strengths.' I'm starting to think you're only happy if your players randomly assign their skills and abilities, and pick classes out of a hat.

3.Hard Ones. A challenge right at the upper edge of what the characters can handle. For normal characters, this is where they must be clever and work together or otherwise do things to beat the challenge. At first level it's a DC of 20 or more. For the optimizer, though, this is just average.
Actually, hard even without a LOT of minmaxing. I seem to recall a friend of mine figuring out how to get +20 or so to diplomacy at level 2, but 1) That's diplomacy, one skill and 2) That is extreme minmaxing. A DC 20 at level 1 is hard even if you are playing well.

But as Eonas said, tangents are bad anywhere but mathematics classes.

An un-optimized character might fail at anyone of them, but the optimizer will only really face a slight chance of failure on number three. So, you might as well not even bother with easy or normal challenges when optimizers are around.
Okay, define optimizer. I think you're using the word to mean minmaxing munchkins, rather than player who tries to not die.

You are also making several assumptions about the type of game played. Some people like to play high op games. Some want medium levels. Some want low op, but try not to die. Some want totally random. Some want a total meat grinder of a game that will have many PC deaths. What you seem to say is that all but one of these is the wrong way to play the game.

I remember the final battle of one of my group's campaigns - An army of orcs were invading the civilized humanoid lands, and we were out looking for their war chief. We kill a few giants that would have massacred the army. We take their point, and then hear a cry as our DMPC cleric (since nobody wanted to play healbot) is slaughtered by the chief before he can react. The crusader charged the BBEG, packed every "make it dead" ability he had on the attack, but he tripped on the bullrush attempt, and got one shotted buy the guy (saber-tooth mounts are very scary). It sucked, but it made for a great story, and it gave other characters who were often secondary in a fight a chance to really shine. Up until that fight, he was the big, scary guy on our team that killed the big, scary monsters. Pretty decent optimizer, considering the amount of other bad things he one shotted or seriously carried the rest of the party against.

Why am I going on about this after just talking about tangents? That same optimizer also had some of the best RP scenes in the game, from leading a group of slaves in an escape from their drow captors to dealing with the nobility in the time leading up to the war, despite playing to win. Just in case you thought optimizing and good RP were mutually exclusive, they are not. They are two halves of the game, and you are getting very hung up on one half of the game.

jaydubs
2014-08-11, 02:07 AM
Eonas. It may seem petty, but I want an admittance from JP that he made a minor, perhaps not terribly important mistake. Not because it will create a resolution, but because it would be a bellwether. Being able to admit a small mistake when presented with strong evidence is an indication that there is an exchange of information, and communication is capable of changing opinions.

Now, if you're wondering why I would be concerned with such a minor thing, google "rudisplork." It will lead you to a pair of threads, 80+ pages long, that might explain why such a minor concession would be equivalent to a sea-change.

Esprit15
2014-08-11, 02:20 AM
Eonas. It may seem petty, but I want an admittance from JP that he made a minor, perhaps not terribly important mistake. Not because it will create a resolution, but because it would be a bellwether. Being able to admit a small mistake when presented with strong evidence is an indication that there is an exchange of information, and communication is capable of changing opinions.

Now, if you're wondering why I would be concerned with such a minor thing, google "rudisplork." It will lead you to a pair of threads, 80+ pages long, that might explain why such a minor concession would be equivalent to a sea-change.
...well crap, I feel like I wasted a good portion of time now. Thank you for showing me the error of my ways. *grabs popcorn for the rest of this thread*

Lord Raziere
2014-08-11, 02:24 AM
Eonas. It may seem petty, but I want an admittance from JP that he made a minor, perhaps not terribly important mistake. Not because it will create a resolution, but because it would be a bellwether. Being able to admit a small mistake when presented with strong evidence is an indication that there is an exchange of information, and communication is capable of changing opinions.

Now, if you're wondering why I would be concerned with such a minor thing, google "rudisplork." It will lead you to a pair of threads, 80+ pages long, that might explain why such a minor concession would be equivalent to a sea-change.

Let me present an argument for why you should give up:

What is this 'mistake' word, I have not heard of it.

He thinks he cannot make mistakes. He'd rather continue churning out his bad arguments in denial of the facts, clinging to the "everyone who doesn't agree with me is a problem player" philosophy like dogma. Let him crash and burn. if he won't give an edge after 80+ pages, he won't do so now, he will just post something else while not actually addressing anything that calls him out on his faulty thinking. its as if he somehow psychologically needs to keep spouting out this nonsense and keep believing in it, which raises the question: what is it that keeps him from letting go? we don't know. and its not probable we will be able to find out. let him dig his hole, either until he buries himself or digs himself out.

Socksy
2014-08-11, 03:10 AM
@JediPotter: Terrible arguments aside, can you at least stop presenting them with terrible spelling/grammar (http://www.grammar-monster.com/easily_confused/than_then.htm)?

Kalmageddon
2014-08-11, 04:17 AM
@JediPotter: Terrible arguments aside, can you at least stop presenting them with terrible spelling/grammar (http://www.grammar-monster.com/easily_confused/than_then.htm)?

LOL.
Funny story, one of his first posts I've read gave me "Full Life Consequences (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHxyZaZlaOs)" flashbacks. It was that bad. :smallbiggrin:

PersonMan
2014-08-11, 05:18 AM
All the way down to a 17 or 16? Wow, that is low....for a superhuman.

It's less than the maximum I could buy with point buy, which was your original question. It wasn't "do you make your main stat 12 or 13", just


would you ever take less then you could in your primary ability(s)?


And if your getting little or no benefits for an ability score, then you might be playing the wrong character. What kind of character are you making? Something like ''my character is a peaceful philosopher...except some times when I want he becomes a powerful killer''. So your character class is fighter, but you take a ''low'' strength of 17 so you can have a wisdom of 15?

Wait, so you're arguing that to be playing the right character I need to make sure I get big gains from all of my ability scores? I mean, I'm not sure how else you could be intending that first sentence to be received. "You must maximize the benefits of your ability scores, or you may not be playing the right character" doesn't sound like something you'd say - it sounds more like an argument you'd accuse others of making.

As for the concept, it's generally a melee or caster type who gains little benefit from Charisma but who doesn't fit the mold of a low-Charisma person. So I put a few more points into it to make then mid or high average in that regard.



Kind of a run on answer of ''they want to play super powerful characters so they do."

I guess, yeah. Although it's more "they don't want to play this specific concept".


Guess it depends on the concept? Though the underling concept is always ''be beyond super human'', right?

Not really. An 18 isn't superhuman because a human can have it. So a wizard with 18 Intelligence isn't "beyond super human", they're just a genius at the top of human ability.

I mean, if you look at DnD 3.5 then the edge of what one can reach before going into super human ranges, for the mental stats, is 26 (18 + 5 from levels + 3 from age). So calling a 19 Intelligence 'beyond super human' is like me saying that olympic athletes are also clearly beyond superhuman.


Maybe you can explain this more? Are you saying that if you just come up with a concept like ''my wizard is smart, and quick, and healthy and strong'' then it's ok in your view to have high ability scores...as you want to?

Well, that depends on the game. If the DM allows you to assign ability scores as you wish, then yes.

In other cases, your concept will require low ability scores to be mechanically accurate. If I want, say, someone with a low self-esteem and a horrendously stunted ability to communicate with others, then I don't want 18 Charisma on my sheet. Two examples of characters I've played myself:

-Aimari, a wizard whose two methods of communicating are barely-audible whispers at the ground and raging screaming. Built with point buy, ended up with 6 Charisma after I talked with the DM about lowering it beyond the normal limit.
-Alsai, a cleric whose casting was fueled by channeling supernaturally caused pain through her body (worked out that she took nonlethal damage after each spell with the DM). Built with point buy, ended up with 8 Constitution and 9 Strength due to her background; years of malnutrition and hard labor had more or less wrecked her body despite her young age, and gave her a tinted view of things that often kept her from fully utilizing her high Wisdom.

Some concepts are accurately represented with high scores, others with low ones. Sometimes too high stats make some concepts unworkable for me - I applied to one game with a wizard in mind, but after rolling amazing stats (18, 16, 16, 16, 15, 14) I realized that I couldn't play the character I'd planned. A lot of things would be off, she'd be too tough, too strong, too wise...I just went with another concept instead, one that was in large part based on the amazing stats I'd rolled.

I have a few other characters who don't work with too many levels or too high stats, and I have a few who don't work with too few levels or too low stats. The prodigious huntress whose excellence at everything she did in her tribe led to her being seen as favored by the gods and trained as a shaman, which eventually led to her leaving on a pilgrimage (which is what brings her to adventure) can't be accurately made with low stats, unless I specifically build her to be a jack of all trades. But the hedonist mercenary rogue-type whose character flaws outnumber her talents isn't going to feel right with a 14 in her worst stat.

Some of my characters are superhuman, or very close to it - they're larger than life, they slice monsters in half and leap across canyons. But others are a lot closer to the normal person. They generally have one or two things they're very good at, and a stat or two that's way higher than a normal person's, but they don't have those high stats everywhere. They don't have the levels to soak up dragonfire and respond with punch that hits harder than a cavalry charge.

Tengu_temp
2014-08-11, 08:34 AM
I don't really like point builds at all. They are at the heart of ruining the spirit of the game. I like rolling for abilities.

You do realize most RPGs that are not DND don't even let you roll for abilities? Are you saying that all of them are DOIN IT RONG?


That reminds me. Thinking that rape is funny, or, worse, fun to inflict upon (other) PCs, and generally bringing it into the game in a very disrespectful and immature way that causes others to become concerned about that particular individual's likelihood to commit a serious crime.

Bringing one's sexual fetishes into the game, such that it causes the rest of the group to suspect that the person is surreptitiously putting their hands down their trousers.

Sexual stuff can be okay if the other people at the table are okay with it. But if you're not absolutely sure they are, it's better to stay on the safe side.



Unwarranted, unwanted PvP.

Definitely. The level of pvp in a game should be discussed and agreed on beforehand, before it starts. And if there's no such discussion, then the default is no pvp.

---

Another thing that ruins the spirit of the game? If one or two players have such overpowered characters that they steal the spotlight from the rest of the party, and refuse to tone it down when asked about it "because their characters are rules-legal".

Also, DMs who are not open to discussion and refuse to admit that they might've made an error. A DM who says "it's my way or the high way" is not a good DM.

Segev
2014-08-11, 09:00 AM
Jedipotter, I just want to ask you what you say to the player who, having sat with you to make his character and done everything you asked so that his character is not "min/maxed," "optimized," or "cheating," by whatever definitions you use...and he finds himself failing so often that he, the player, just doesn't see the point of his character bothering to try anymore. It costs too much and rewards too little.


Alternatively, why WOULD a character who has 8 strength be a fighter? Or an 8 charisma be a sorcerer?

Why wouldn't they, as people who have strengths and talents that obviously lie elsewhere, pick a profession at which they are better? Sure, there's always the "but I wanted to do this despite my handicaps, so I tried really hard" story, but is EVERY character in your mind meant to be that? Is that what it takes to not be a "dirty optimizer?"

I generally play casters, usually arcane ones. I'm perfectly willing to start with as low as a 13 in my casting stat, if I know the game is not going to be balanced around expecting higher save DCs or I'm building something that doesn't rely on them. But I would never, ever start a character that is meant to be a primary caster with a 10 in his casting stat. When stats make it such taht you literally cannot use your class features, you're deliberately optimizing to SUCK, which is idiocy.


I used to believe in the stormwind fallacy. I believed that building characters who were fine-tuned and optimized to eke out every advantage in order to do precisely what I designed them to be good at was breaking the spirit of the game. That weaknesses created for the sake of "not being a min/maxer" made for better characters.

I found myself hating playing the characters I built under that philosophy. It doesn't matter how good the role-play; when I cannot succeed even half the time, I find the game unfun. I don't get to actually play the game, because no matter how awesome my role-play, my actions don't matter in the end. Or, if they do, it's because I found a way to not bother having a meaningful character sheet at all.

Is that what you want? IF so, why do you even have people make character sheets? Just free-form it.

If not, what DO you want? What do you tell the player who's tired of his characters always failing because he has not optimized them to be good at what they're supposedly good at?

Angelalex242
2014-08-11, 09:46 AM
Ahem. What ruins the spirit of a game?

Trolls, and continuing to feed them.

DontEatRawHagis
2014-08-11, 09:55 AM
What ruins games?

The players.

MonkeySage
2014-08-11, 10:13 AM
Not always... I've had two DMs in the time that I've gamed. First DM had us create level 5 characters, then railroaded us into contracts with a bunch of evil deities. Basically, we the players had no freedom. The leader of our group went along with it because the dm was giving him a lot of neat stuff that made him virtually invincible, and in the end both of my characters died... First one died by fusing with a wagon wheel... with dimension door. Second one got struck with Vengeful Gaze of God (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/spells/vengefulGazeOfGod.htm)... at level 11. I left the dm after that, joined another dm's game... a forgotten realms game, the dm took great care to make sure we were all enjoying the game, while still retaining a sense of danger.
Later I, against my better judgement, joined the old dm's game again, this time an All-dragon party. I made a silver dragon. That game lasted 1 session because the dm once again overestimated what we were capable of, and we tpk'd. He ran one more game: I died twice in that one, the first was a barbarian that died because the dm didn't want barbarians in the group. The second one was a paladin, which i thought would be fine because the party was good. Didn't go over well.... I'm never gaming with this guy again.

The Insanity
2014-08-11, 11:05 AM
What ruins games?

The players.
The DM is a player too.

Segev
2014-08-11, 11:08 AM
What ruins games?

The players.


The DM is a player too.

This does not invalidate the point.

That said, I think the biggest problem usually is communication. Followed by personality conflicts.

The Insanity
2014-08-11, 02:12 PM
This does not invalidate the point.
Did I say it does?

Segev
2014-08-11, 02:24 PM
The way you quoted and responded made it seem like it was intended as a rebuttal. If not, my apologies; I have failed to grasp your intended meaning.

DontEatRawHagis
2014-08-11, 02:46 PM
When the DM thinks that he's writing instead of acting.

Coidzor
2014-08-11, 03:12 PM
The way you quoted and responded made it seem like it was intended as a rebuttal. If not, my apologies; I have failed to grasp your intended meaning.

Well, I suppose this demonstrates the occasional difficulties with communication even just talking about the games rather than being in them?

eggynack
2014-08-11, 03:30 PM
The way you quoted and responded made it seem like it was intended as a rebuttal. If not, my apologies; I have failed to grasp your intended meaning.
I think it mostly depends on the original meaning of DontEatRawHagis' words. If he was being DM inclusive, then the post could be considered a clarification, and if he wasn't, then it was a correction. Either way, probably a good thing to mention, as it definitely wasn't clear from the post.

jedipotter
2014-08-11, 05:58 PM
So what about rolling and being lucky enough to have several scores above 16, especially after racials? I would note that in many point buys, you would be hard pressed to have three 16's at all without tanking other stats. (EDIT: Specifically, a common 32 point buy permits three abilities at 16, one at 10, and two at 8. Many people play with less.)

Rolling and randomly is not the same as picking a number. If a player rolls six 18's that is fine. The player that picks an ability of 20 is not fine.



So a Wizard who is intelligent is bad. A rogue with generally good abilities, likely best at being nimble is bad. Strong barbarians are bad. Why is a character who is supposed to be good at something being good at that thing bad? What is wrong with the person who has poured over books and books of lore and magic for the majority of their self aware life up to this point to be a very, very smart guy? What is wrong with the guy who literally has such force of personality that the universe will bend to his will having the stats to back it up?

A player that ''must have'' high abilities is bad. A player that needs ''just one more plus'' is bad.




Why is playing effectively bad?

But note your saying that to be ''effective'' that you have to be far, far, far beyond superhuman. 12 is average, 15 would be ''just'' effective, but 18-20 is just beyond insane.



Sure, failure is needed. At the same time, players don't like to die.

It's not like if you don't have 100 hp's and more then 18 in each ability that your character will automatically die.





DC 14 what? Jump check? AC roll? Stealth check? And I'd say reliably hitting DC 14 at level 1 is always hard unless you're really laying on the cheese. For reference, if the DC of a check is 10 plus their skill modifier, it's not easy, it's a 50% chance of failure. And even then, 50% chance of failing a skill check is different than 50% of missing the enemy with a swing/shot/spell.

At level one a normal player could have at least a +4, from ability scores, ranks, items and so forth. So to make a DC of 10 they only need roll a 10 or higher.



Okay, define optimizer. I think you're using the word to mean minmaxing munchkins, rather than player who tries to not die.

The problem is that you can't tell the good from the bad. No ''minmaxing munchkins'' will say that is what they are...they will just say they are an ''optimizer''.



. What you seem to say is that all but one of these is the wrong way to play the game.

Never said that.




Why am I going on about this after just talking about tangents? That same optimizer also had some of the best RP scenes in the game, from leading a group of slaves in an escape from their drow captors to dealing with the nobility in the time leading up to the war, despite playing to win. Just in case you thought optimizing and good RP were mutually exclusive, they are not. They are two halves of the game, and you are getting very hung up on one half of the game.

Yes, you can roll a 20 on a 1d20. But this does not mean that every single person rolls a 20 every single time they roll a 1d20.



Jedipotter, I just want to ask you what you say to the player who, having sat with you to make his character and done everything you asked so that his character is not "min/maxed," "optimized," or "cheating," by whatever definitions you use...and he finds himself failing so often that he, the player, just doesn't see the point of his character bothering to try anymore. It costs too much and rewards too little.

Well, if the player did not like the character we could always make a new one. But if the player really had the superhuman obsession, I'd let them play a some what superhuman character to make them happy. Or suggest they try another game.



Alternatively, why WOULD a character who has 8 strength be a fighter? Or an 8 charisma be a sorcerer?

Because they want too? Or their parents want them too? It's not like everyone in the world has the perfect ability scores for their class.



I found myself hating playing the characters I built under that philosophy. It doesn't matter how good the role-play; when I cannot succeed even half the time, I find the game unfun. I don't get to actually play the game, because no matter how awesome my role-play, my actions don't matter in the end. Or, if they do, it's because I found a way to not bother having a meaningful character sheet at all.

Well, at least I got one person to admit they like to succeed most of the time.




@JediPotter: Terrible arguments aside, can you at least stop presenting them with terrible spelling/grammar (http://www.grammar-monster.com/easily_confused/than_then.htm)?

No?

eggynack
2014-08-11, 06:32 PM
Rolling and randomly is not the same as picking a number. If a player rolls six 18's that is fine. The player that picks an ability of 20 is not fine.
It's the exact same as far as actual game states are concerned. If a challenge of yours is difficult because of a certain DC, and your player just arbitrarily has six 18's, then you're going to run into the problem you cited yourself, only it'll happen all the frigging time.


But note your saying that to be ''effective'' that you have to be far, far, far beyond superhuman. 12 is average, 15 would be ''just'' effective, but 18-20 is just beyond insane.
Not really. Those scores are at the peak of human capability, rather than beyond insane. However, at the same time, the thing you really have to contend with is the fact that D&D 3.5 is pretty strongly leaning towards high effectiveness, just in the way it's designed. Another thing you have to contend with is what's noted above, which is that your desired system naturally produces results that are beyond insane. Perhaps they don't produce them as consistently, but y'know, that just makes it even worse. Better four superhumans than one superhuman and three piles o' crap.


Never said that.
Not sure how else to take, "The player that picks an ability of 20 is not fine."

TheIronGolem
2014-08-11, 06:43 PM
But note your saying that to be ''effective'' that you have to be far, far, far beyond superhuman.

You are lying.

Coidzor
2014-08-11, 06:59 PM
You are lying.

Decidedly inaccurate in defining superhuman as being somewhere below a level 1 character with a 20 in an ability score at least.

eggynack
2014-08-11, 07:07 PM
Decidedly inaccurate in defining superhuman as being somewhere below a level 1 character with a 20 in an ability score at least.
Indeed. I tend to prefer "wrong" to "lying", under the general assumption that folks are being honest when they say they think the things they think. I've become a bit doubtful in this case though, owing to all of Jedipotter's internally contradictory claims, like, "Having an 18 and an 8 ruins the game because it narrows the number of applicable challenges, but all 18's is perfectly fine." It's a contradiction that can be partially reconciled, as the argument seems partially process driven rather than results driven for some reason, but that goes out the window somewhat when he talks about easy and difficult challenges.

Esprit15
2014-08-11, 07:26 PM
You are lying.

Indeed. 18 is athlete in their prime/good marksman/marathon runner/genius/highly attentive/charismatic politician.

All of those exist. All of those are well within the bounds of human ability. All of those are gifted, but at the same time, can still be better. Before even reaching Epic, a character gets 4 ability boosts, plus the effects of aging in the case of mental attributes. An ability of 25 is within the realm of human ability, but not without putting a good deal of work into it. I would peg several great scientists in history, living and dead, at having mental scores in the low 20's.

A score of 18 isn't nothing. At the same time, it is nowhere near superhuman. Actually, let's look at that. World clean and jerk record: 581lbs. by Hossein Rezazadeh. Let's call that maximum weight. Between STR 22 and STR 23, with max weights of 520lbs and 600lbs respectively. Hossein Rezazadeh is at the peak of human ability (or is a barbarian). He is not superhuman, as that would make him not a human.

18 isn't superhuman. It's just very, very good at what you do.

Zrak
2014-08-11, 07:26 PM
Take an assassin with 10's in everything, except a charisma of 15. How does he kill? He gets close to the target socially, and then poisons them or sets up an accident. The problem player is just killing like a brute with lots of damage...and cheating(oh, oh, DM I like look at everyone for three rounds so I can death kill everyone all the time).


How dare he use his class ability? The filthy cheater probably adds his BAB to his attack rolls, too.


All the way down to a 17 or 16? Wow, that is low....for a superhuman.

A character with a strength score of 17 can lift, in third edition, 260 pounds over his or her head. The current world record, for a human, is 579 pounds. Seventeen isn't just "low for a superhuman," it signifies being able to lift less than half of what a real life human athlete can lift.
EDIT: Huh, where'd you see 581? I thought his max was 263 kg?


A player that ''must have'' high abilities is bad. A player that needs ''just one more plus'' is bad.

What about somebody who wants to play a ranger or a paladin in AD&D? Both classes have several "must have" high abilities, not in the sense that the player wants high stats in order to be more powerful, but in the sense that you literally cannot be a Paladin without a charisma score of 17 and so on. A fighter, conversely, has no "must have" high stat, but is much easier to "min/max" because he can put his higher stats in more directly useful abilities with total impunity. The Paladin "must have" a very high charisma, but as a result is likely to have a lower strength/dex/con score even than a fighter who doesn't have a "must have" high ability.

TheIronGolem
2014-08-11, 07:28 PM
Indeed. I tend to prefer "wrong" to "lying", under the general assumption that folks are being honest when they say they think the things they think..

Believe me, I generally prefer to make that same assumption, too. However, jedipotter has - on multiple occasions in this thread and others- distorted what his opponents have said so overtly and to such an extreme degree, that he has lost any entitlement to the benefit of the doubt. He knows that nobody is taking the extreme positions he's assigning them, he just prefers to knock over strawmen because that's so much easier than refuting what they really say.

I don't like to be so blunt, but I really hate it when people insist on taking part in a debate yet refuse to do so on honest terms.

Esprit15
2014-08-11, 07:45 PM
Wikipedia (THE ULTIMATE SOURCE OF ALL) listed it as 581lb. It was 263kg and some decimals.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-11, 08:05 PM
Rolling and randomly is not the same as picking a number. If a player rolls six 18's that is fine. The player that picks an ability of 20 is not fine.


So......using point buy to get one 18 is bad, but being granted all 18's so that while one player does great at everything while another has all 8's from rolls and does badly at everything....is perfectly fine? when that person will proceed to overshadow the second no matter what happens?

what about most of the group rolling bad but one person rolling all 18's anyways? its still just as unequal, that person will still be superhuman above the rest anyways, so you might as well be facing the same situation.

and what about the guy who picks NEITHER rolls or point buy, and goes with the Standard Array of scores: 16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10? what if they all choose Standard Array? there is no way for them to be better than the other or choose the score, but neither is there any danger of them rolling absurdly high or low. the scores are fixed. and no you can't say "3.5 only" because this ain't the 3.5 forum. every rpg has its place here.

oh and what about RPG's like Mutants and Masterminds? where the ENTIRE RPG is point buy? as in character creation is nothing but you buying points? or say Fate, where your scores consist entirely of a pyramid of skills that you choose to be super-awesome at, slightly awesome at and only above average everyone else? and that is not even getting into Heroquest, which is pretty much just listing all the things your good at to solve problems, with no hard and fast list for how many skills you can have or what they can be. or Fate Accelerated Edition, which assumes that your awesome at things by default then asks HOW you are awesome.

and yes I know I myself warned against keeping up communication, but it just keeps pulling at me.

eggynack
2014-08-11, 08:12 PM
When that person will proceed to overshadow the second no matter what happens?

Well, unless you optimize a bunch, anyway, but that's presumably equally verboten. For instance, I'd likely pick a dragonborn anthropomorphic bat druid, with 14 wisdom, 10 constitution, 8 intelligence, 6 dexterity and charisma, and 4 strength, over the all 18's fighter or monk at most levels.

Oddman80
2014-08-11, 09:26 PM
Jedi - i'm still exhausted from the rudisplorking threads... how do you have the stamina to run these same arguments with everyone all over again... you must have an 18 CON, you superhuman freak :smalltongue:

In all seriousness, though Jedipotter - I think I have realized something over the course of this last thread...

I hope you don't take offense, because my dirt farming commoner is about to be at your mercy....

I think your opinions on D&D are like a veteran sommelier's oppinion on wines. you have been playing D&D for a long time. You have probably grown weary of the trite stereotypical class archetypes, much as the wine steward no longer enjoys the bottle of Macaroni Grill Chianti... despite it being a crowd favorite.

You find yourself asking the forum, or a player at one of your games "Why max out Intelligence on a wizard build, the RP experience one has with a low INT wizard is so much more rewarding"

This is like the sommelier asking "Why would you want a chilled chardonay on a hot summer evening? You should be drinking a Assyrtiko - its chalky minerality and lemon tonalities linger on the palate in a most refreshing way... "

Now, if you respond the sommelier with "Oh, that sounds... interesting - but I think i'm just in the mood for a Chardonay" you would expect the sommelier to accept that that is your preference and allow you to drink your wine. You probably wouldn't come back to the restaurant if the wine steward told you you were being a problem customer and cheating at wine drinking by going with a selection that is more popular and one you know you will enjoy, rather than taking his suggestion...

You may very well enjoy complex, and atypical characters. You may very well enjoy low power characters for the added struggle, or even the added danger they face. You are not wrong to have those preferences. You aren't even wrong to say that those are the only types of characters that will be welcome in a game you are DMing. Where the breakdown has always come - is when you don't preface your opinions with such qualifiers when posting on these forums. The problem is when you just point blank say that other people are wrong for having certain preferences; Or even worse, calling the forum members cheaters for following the RAW, or the rules of their respective tables.

You post on here that "you can enjoy any character with any stats". When you post it, you are stating that anyone and everyone reading your post can do that thing. But the only thing you can know is that you, Jedipotter can enjoy any character with any stats, and many people you have come across (ther than the problem players that sent up enough red flags that you never let them into your games to begin with) can do so as well.

But a seasoned sommelier might hold that same opinion of Hejie Jiu - a chinese wine made from the carcass of a lizard and rice whiskey. But there is nothing wrong with not wanting to drink liquid lizard carcass... regardless of whether the locales say its delicious, and even if they say it can cure both arthritis and ulcers! If you can accept that lizard carcass wine isn't for everyone, is it really that difficult to get that low ability score characters are also just not for everybody? That when it comes to preferences, so long as you aren't hurting others, your preferences are just that... YOURS.

Esprit15
2014-08-11, 11:07 PM
*bows before Oddman*

Zrak
2014-08-11, 11:28 PM
Wikipedia (THE ULTIMATE SOURCE OF ALL) listed it as 581lb. It was 263kg and some decimals.

Ah, there you go, decimals'll do it. I must've looked at a rounded number.

jedipotter
2014-08-12, 04:09 AM
That when it comes to preferences, so long as you aren't hurting others, your preferences are just that... YOURS.

It's a social game. You can't really just have a preference and sit in a corner. You will be at a table with other people. And I see optimization as a threat to the spirit of the game. Much like the OP example DM does.

It's bad enough that optimizers lean more towards role-playing then role-playing. After all, why go through all the time and effort to make an optimized build if your not going to use it?

It's worse when the optimization does not make them happy or have fun. They are always trying to get ''just one more plus''. Just one more thing, one more number or such and somehow it will make the game more fun.

But worst of all is the line the DM has to walk. The optimizer has the idea that as they made such a great character that they must over come any obstacle/challenge/road block with ease. And if the DM keeps the game at the ''by the book '' level, it's a cakewalk for the optimizer. But if the DM optimizes back, at even close to the same level as the player...that is where the fine line comes in. The DM can quite easily make things ''too much'' of a changeling for the optimizer. Then it can be like a ''normal game''. Except the player put a lot of time and effort into optimizing and they expect the pay off of an easy game. And when they don't get it, trouble starts.....

eggynack
2014-08-12, 04:26 AM
It's a social game. You can't really just have a preference and sit in a corner. You will be at a table with other people. And I see optimization as a threat to the spirit of the game. Much like the OP example DM does.
You can't just have a preference and sit in a corner at your own table, because your preferences have a direct impact on the state of the game, and even if they match those of others at the table, that fact is relevant in the positive way. However, you can absolutely have a preference and sit in a corner at the table of the internet. You can just say, "I prefer games of this variety, and you guys prefer games of that other variety," but instead, you openly disparage and insult other people's gaming style. And that right there is a problematic thing.

Kalmageddon
2014-08-12, 04:31 AM
Jedi - i'm still exhausted from the rudisplorking threads... how do you have the stamina to run these same arguments with everyone all over again... you must have an 18 CON, you superhuman freak :smalltongue:

In all seriousness, though Jedipotter - I think I have realized something over the course of this last thread...

I hope you don't take offense, because my dirt farming commoner is about to be at your mercy....

I think your opinions on D&D are like a veteran sommelier's oppinion on wines. you have been playing D&D for a long time. You have probably grown weary of the trite stereotypical class archetypes, much as the wine steward no longer enjoys the bottle of Macaroni Grill Chianti... despite it being a crowd favorite.

You find yourself asking the forum, or a player at one of your games "Why max out Intelligence on a wizard build, the RP experience one has with a low INT wizard is so much more rewarding"

This is like the sommelier asking "Why would you want a chilled chardonay on a hot summer evening? You should be drinking a Assyrtiko - its chalky minerality and lemon tonalities linger on the palate in a most refreshing way... "

Now, if you respond the sommelier with "Oh, that sounds... interesting - but I think i'm just in the mood for a Chardonay" you would expect the sommelier to accept that that is your preference and allow you to drink your wine. You probably wouldn't come back to the restaurant if the wine steward told you you were being a problem customer and cheating at wine drinking by going with a selection that is more popular and one you know you will enjoy, rather than taking his suggestion...

You may very well enjoy complex, and atypical characters. You may very well enjoy low power characters for the added struggle, or even the added danger they face. You are not wrong to have those preferences. You aren't even wrong to say that those are the only types of characters that will be welcome in a game you are DMing. Where the breakdown has always come - is when you don't preface your opinions with such qualifiers when posting on these forums. The problem is when you just point blank say that other people are wrong for having certain preferences; Or even worse, calling the forum members cheaters for following the RAW, or the rules of their respective tables.

You post on here that "you can enjoy any character with any stats". When you post it, you are stating that anyone and everyone reading your post can do that thing. But the only thing you can know is that you, Jedipotter can enjoy any character with any stats, and many people you have come across (ther than the problem players that sent up enough red flags that you never let them into your games to begin with) can do so as well.

But a seasoned sommelier might hold that same opinion of Hejie Jiu - a chinese wine made from the carcass of a lizard and rice whiskey. But there is nothing wrong with not wanting to drink liquid lizard carcass... regardless of whether the locales say its delicious, and even if they say it can cure both arthritis and ulcers! If you can accept that lizard carcass wine isn't for everyone, is it really that difficult to get that low ability score characters are also just not for everybody? That when it comes to preferences, so long as you aren't hurting others, your preferences are just that... YOURS.

I think you are giving this guy way too much credit.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-12, 05:56 AM
It's a social game. You can't really just have a preference and sit in a corner. You will be at a table with other people. And I see optimization as a threat to the spirit of the game. Much like the OP example DM does.

It's bad enough that optimizers lean more towards roll-playing then role-playing. After all, why go through all the time and effort to make an optimized build if your not going to use it?

It's worse when the optimization does not make them happy or have fun. They are always trying to get ''just one more plus''. Just one more thing, one more number or such and somehow it will make the game more fun.

But worst of all is the line the DM has to walk. The optimizer has the idea that as they made such a great character that they must over come any obstacle/challenge/road block with ease. And if the DM keeps the game at the ''by the book '' level, it's a cakewalk for the optimizer. But if the DM optimizes back, at even close to the same level as the player...that is where the fine line comes in. The DM can quite easily make things ''too much'' of a changeling for the optimizer. Then it can be like a ''normal game''. Except the player put a lot of time and effort into optimizing and they expect the pay off of an easy game. And when they don't get it, trouble starts.....

*snicker* *chuckle* *loud laughing*

oh my god this is wrong on so many levels, I can't even take you seriously anymore. where do I even begin? this is like a feast of incorrectness and wrong. :smallbiggrin: I'm gonna go full condescendingly smug here.

Ok first dude? its because that its a social game, that you have to acknowledge that this is all a preference. which you then -and I'm sure this is a radical idea- you then state to the group and try to work out a way that your preference can work with other peoples preferences. its called not forcing your way of viewing things down everyone's throats, its a thing we learn to do when we grow up and stop being a child who is appeased just so he can be quiet for a few minutes. or perhaps stop being some hard-headed person who won't listen to other people, same thing really.

And this is not even getting into how a munchkin is not the same as an optimizer, or how no sane optimizer will try to make Pun-Pun, or how all these high stats are pretty much vital to most of the character concepts out there in DnD, to most of the things people play, which are specialists who are good at their jobs, because of the quite basic fact that when the game sells you on say, oh being a powerful wizard that can shoot fireballs, or a clever rogue that whose silver tongue allows them to lie to anyone and get away with it, that you don't want to play a stupid false wizard who doesn't shoot or a fireball or a rogue that is bad at sneaking around, because thats not an interesting character concept, that is being a bad wizard or rogue, that sucks, that is not what anyone but you wants to play.

sure, in real life the 20 only comes once a while, sure. But, let me ask you something: what do you think this is? where do you think you are? do you think that a player, just walking in after dealing with all of life's bull, wants to sit down and play a game and deal with more real life bull? this is fantasy. we don't HAVE to be bound by those rules if we do not want to. not even the fighter. even the fighter can do things that no person in real life can. and the fighter, relatively speaking, sucks compared to all the reality bending stuff casters can pull off. you want to know what that spirit of the game is? its the superhuman capabilities your trying to suppress. the very thing your stomping down upon is, to me, to many the people, the spirit of the game, its the point in the first place: to not be bound by the limitations of the real world, at least for a while. Stop ruining it. Stop ruining the spirit of the game.

Oh, but we are just beginning. I may not have witnessed optimizers myself roleplay at all, but there people who have, and they say that they roleplay well, and not rollplay, that just because they're good at numbers doesn't mean they're bad at telling a story. and then there is the fact that Stormwind Fallacy basically says that your wrong, its a widely accepted fallacy in these kinds of circles, and lot of your posts are basically that, just different variations on the theme. in fact, I'd say that because they're good at optimizing that they can roleplay well- to write well, to create a character involves figuring out what makes them tick, putting them together from the inside out, motivation, fears, emotions, strategies, experiences, a character is made of a multitude of such things put together in a way that all functions believably as a person that you can relate to, that you can see in some ways, being real. To gather all those parts in those books, to figure out how all those mechanics, function together to make a functioning optimal character from all the options presented- is it really all that different?

Does not make them happy or have fun? Again, I'm not an optimizer. But these people, they have a passion for doing this. A passion that has driven them, made them do this for years and perfect what they're doing over time, to keep making more builds, to keep figuring out how stuff works, to keep trying them out in games to see how they work in play, to theorize what if this theoretical build happened and what not and so on, and while I do not share this passion, I as an artist, respect them for having something they can be passionate about and work on constantly and something that they can create new things through, something that with their creativity they can express something in their own way. An entire community of these people, enough to make sure 4e did not sell well because they did not like it- that sort of thing does not exist if people are not having fun with it, are not being passionate and sincere about what they have.

Just one more plus? You don't even realize what these people do with their builds do you? They're not just grabbing whatever +1 is in front of them, they take a look at the entire game first, they plan out the entire progression of their character mechanically, they make sure their character is optimal by their natural progression they have planned beforehand, these are not common video-game mmorpgers who just go "cool a new +1 sword" these are people who know which +1 to take for which build, to accomplish which goal, at the right time. They already have all the plusses, they just haven't gotten to the point where they can use them yet.

and then there is this piece of wrong. your concern is not with the rest of players being overshadowed, no, its about this one optimizing guy having it too easy or suddenly complaining having it normal to compensate. and guess what, these people? these optimizers? they don't think like that, at all. there are optimizers, who will optimize to support everyone around them to meet the challenges you throw at everyone. there are optimizers who when confronted with jerk DM's who rule with an iron fist, will go "bring it!" and optimize the heck out of their character to fight back, there are groups, DM and Player, who will all agree to optimize at a certain level so that everyone is playing on the same field, so that they all are using the appropriate strategies, including all Tier 1's doing ludicrous Tippyverse levels of silliness with the DM responding with more Tippyverse levels of silliness- and they have FUN doing it, no matter how much I don't understand it. These are people who share stories of Old Man Henderson and how he blew up Hastur using ice skating, a stadium full of explosives, and a backstory, and thus won Call of Cthulhu. To them, if it is statted, they can kill it. And they will. Just give them time.

What is the point of all this you ask? The point, is that to them, optimizing is a part of the spirit of the game, that the manipulation of the mechanics is half the fun to them. even if its not all that fun to me- I still have to respect that. I may play for the flavor, for the story, for the fluff rather than the crunch, but they do have a point: a mechanically sucky character is not a character I want to play at all. A character with bad scores in what I want high in is not being true to my character, its disrespecting my character, its not allowing the concept I want to play to do anything I want them to do. Einstein did not make great discoveries with strength. Hercules did not lift the world with wisdom. Alexander the Great did not lead with Constitution.

But I doubt any of this will go through to you. your wisdom score is like that of the arrogant monk example, and your Listen score is in the negatives. The point is, that all of this- all that you have stated- is not fact, its not shared by anyone here. You keep acting like it is, far past the point where its reasonable, far past the point where its apparent that your wrong and clinging to it without actually listening to anything we say. You act like you have the backing of fact, but here is the truth: you are alone in what you believe, what you prefer. At least in this community. This community is all about super-heroics and being awesome, and the other rpg communities I know of- they're not much different. Aside from the games of Dark Heresy or Paranoia, but you don't play those to be heroes anyways. You play them because its funny to watch a bunch of incompetent agents in an oppressive fascist dystopia screw up in spectacular ways, usually with explosives involved. Really, all this, all that we are saying here, all this is just an elaborate, well thought out way of saying these simple words, the words that you need to hear:

Thats just your opinion, man.

eggynack
2014-08-12, 06:17 AM
Damn, that was pretty awesome. I think that post is deserving of, like, at least five internet points. Is five a lot of internet points? I've never been sure.

Tengu_temp
2014-08-12, 07:57 AM
It's bad enough that optimizers lean more towards role-playing then role-playing.

Sounds logical to me!

Segev
2014-08-12, 08:33 AM
Well, at least I got one person to admit they like to succeed most of the time.

This is an admission? Show me somebody who claims they like failing 50% or more of the time, and I'll show you a liar. Or a madman.

Not getting to actually do anything but sit there and let the game happen to your character because nothing you do matters, or worse, trying to do something makes things reliably go worse is depressing.


Seriously, do you think it is better role-play if the fighter can't hit the monsters and can't avoid being hit, and has to be dragged off the battlefield and healed after 3 rounds, every fight? Or, if you run a more lethal game, if the player of the fighter has to get him Raised every session or replace his character every session because every fighter has an 8 in Str. and Con. in order to avoid being "a bad role-player?"


Heck, you even comment that a character can have enough to make your "easy" rolls 50% of the time at level 1. Do you honestly think that every time a character tries to do something, he should fail half the time if it is an easy task? Do you crash your car on the way home or to work every day, because you have a 50/50 shot of crashing each time you drive somewhere and that's two trips per day? Driving a car is an "easy" task.

Coidzor
2014-08-12, 10:32 AM
It's bad enough that optimizers lean more towards role-playing then role-playing.

Indeed, quite bad that people want to actually play the game. How dare they.


After all, why go through all the time and effort to make an optimized build if your not going to use it?

Yeah, unless you're playing in a game where you know you're going through character sheets like a person who just had mango-habanero hot wings goes through toilet paper and it's a system with quick character generation, just about everyone's going to be miffed if they don't actually get to use their character before it gets offed.

And if the character doesn't get offed but they still can't use it, that's even worse. At that point, why have players if they can't do anything, since one doesn't want a game, one wants a LiveJournal.


It's worse when the optimization does not make them happy or have fun.

Or, y'know, the game sucks. :smalltongue:


They are always trying to get ''just one more plus''. Just one more thing, one more number or such and somehow it will make the game more fun.

That is a terrible bugbear that's completely irrelevant to all but a vanishingly small number of people and not generally applicable, yes.


The optimizer has the idea that as they made such a great character that they must over come any obstacle/challenge/road block with ease.

You know that thing where you use a word and yet don't know how to use it? You're doing it again here.

jedipotter
2014-08-12, 02:34 PM
its called not forcing your way of viewing things down everyone's throats, its a thing we learn to do when we grow up and stop being a child who is appeased just so he can be quiet for a few minutes. or perhaps stop being some hard-headed person who won't listen to other people, same thing really.

Except that no DM should be forced to run a game they don't like. You want to be a first level uber awesome optimized character, you may do so in another game.







the very thing your stomping down upon is, to me, to many the people, the spirit of the game, its the point in the first place: to not be bound by the limitations of the real world, at least for a while. Stop ruining it. Stop ruining the spirit of the game.

Well sure it's the classic DM vs player thing #7. The player wants to start out as a demi god, and the DM wants the player to slowly grow into a demi god.






. and then there is the fact that Stormwind Fallacy basically says that your wrong, its a widely accepted fallacy in these kinds of circles,

Just because everyone that agrees with it thinks that it is true? And they think it is ''so'' true, that you can't even talk about it? Every optimizer is a spectacular role player...just because they say so? I can tell you the great role player and great optimizer are rare...like unicorn rare.










But I doubt any of this will go through to you. your wisdom score is like that of the arrogant monk example, and your Listen score is in the negatives. The point is, that all of this- all that you have stated- is not fact, its not shared by anyone here. You keep acting like it is, far past the point where its reasonable, far past the point where its apparent that your wrong and clinging to it without actually listening to anything we say. You act like you have the backing of fact, but here is the truth: you are alone in what you believe, what you prefer. At least in this community. This community is all about super-heroics and being awesome, and the other rpg communities I know of- they're not much different.

It's well established that nearly no one here shares my view. There are several threads to this fact. I have a different view. But just as I don't follow the group does not make me wrong.





Thats just your opinion, man.

But I'm not a man......

eggynack
2014-08-12, 02:51 PM
Except that no DM should be forced to run a game they don't like. You want to be a first level uber awesome optimized character, you may do so in another game.
Except you constantly say that folks who optimize, or even folks who use point buy, are somehow problem players. It's an objective statement of fact, rather than a subjective statement of preference.


Well sure it's the classic DM vs player thing #7. The player wants to start out as a demi god, and the DM wants the player to slowly grow into a demi god.
I don't think that really reflects anything I've seen, though that's true of lots of things you say. From everything I've looked at in game design, people love it when they have a continual power growth rather than just starting out amazing. Look to the popularity of... just so many video games. So many. Also tabletop RPG's, because the level system derives from that desire as well.


Just because everyone that agrees with it thinks that it is true? And they think it is ''so'' true, that you can't even talk about it? Every optimizer is a spectacular role player...just because they say so? I can tell you the great role player and great optimizer are rare...like unicorn rare.
Every optimizer is not a spectacular role player. Some are, to an extent reasonably in keeping with the rest of the population, which is the point. I've known people who were only good at role playing, people who were only good at optimization (I tend towards this category a bit), and people who were good at both. There's not much of a correlative factor between the two abilities, though as some have noted, the fact that optimization requires investment into the game means that any correlation is likely a positive one.


It's well established that nearly no one here shares my view. There are several threads to this fact. I have a different view. But just as I don't follow the group does not make me wrong.
No, that alone does not make you wrong. The fact that your views are internally inconsistent and contradictory makes them wrong. The fact that they're actually just wrong without the contradictory part also makes them wrong, but we're heading into tautology territory there.

Milodiah
2014-08-12, 02:51 PM
Ahhh, I love Internet posters who feel they have to defend their opinions no matter what, because stepping away from the keyboard when someone who disagrees with them's name is on the "last poster" column of the thread is a world-halting concession, even when it's obvious neither side is going to convince the other, and most readers already have expressed that they disagree with you as well (I disagree with you, to add my opinion).

All this even made me forget what I came here to originally say...

Segev
2014-08-12, 03:33 PM
Just because everyone that agrees with it thinks that it is true? And they think it is ''so'' true, that you can't even talk about it? Every optimizer is a spectacular role player...just because they say so? I can tell you the great role player and great optimizer are rare...like unicorn rare.You're wrong on several points, here. Objectively wrong, I mean.

1) The Stormwind Fallacy is a false belief that there is an inverse correlation between level of optimization skill and drive and level of RP skill and drive. The fallacy states that this correlation does not exist; one can be a good RPer and an optimizer, and one can be a poor RPer and not an optimizer.

2) The Stormwind Fallacy in no way states that the converse is true. That is, it does not state that there is a direct correlation between optimization skill and RP skill, nor the drive to do either. It in no way states that all optimizers are good RPers, nor that all poor optimizers are poor RPers.

3) Everybody believing it true doesn't make it true. It being true has a tendency to cause many people to believe it, as they can witness the evidence of their own eyes.

4) There are a lot of unicorns on this board if your assertion is true; this means they're not that rare.


To put it another way: you keep falling back on the defense of, "Then they don't have to play in my games," which is all well and good, except that you phrase your statements as if anybody who plays games differently than you is a dirty cheating problem player. It's not, "My game isn't for them," but rather, "They are unfit for any game, so they can go ruin somebody else's." Which is flat-out insulting.

I am, frankly, a good role player, and a decent optimizer. I have multiple friends who are better at both; some in only one of the two areas, some in both areas. I have other friends who are less good in one or the other, if not both. But generally speaking, the number of people I know who are good at both is sufficient to tell me that they can't be that rare.




But I'm not a man......Does this mean you're a woman, a boy, or a girl?

...

Or an elf?

(You don't have to answer that if you don't want to. This is just the first indication of your gender that's come up to my knowledge. Or age, if it's not a gender thing. And I do tend to default assume "grown man" on the internet until I have evidence to the contrary; it's the least likely to offend somebody, and the most likely to be accurate.)

Lord Raziere
2014-08-12, 04:06 PM
Except that no DM should be forced to run a game they don't like. You want to be a first level uber awesome optimized character, you may do so in another game.

Well sure it's the classic DM vs player thing #7. The player wants to start out as a demi god, and the DM wants the player to slowly grow into a demi god.

Just because everyone that agrees with it thinks that it is true? And they think it is ''so'' true, that you can't even talk about it? Every optimizer is a spectacular role player...just because they say so? I can tell you the great role player and great optimizer are rare...like unicorn rare.

It's well established that nearly no one here shares my view. There are several threads to this fact. I have a different view. But just as I don't follow the group does not make me wrong.

But I'm not a man......

It seems I was being too subtle for you. Lets fix that.

Karkat joined the thread:
1. A GOOD DM ADAPTS. A GOOD DM CAN MAKE THE MOST OF ANY PLAYER OR SITUATION. AN OPTIMIZER IS AN OPPORTUNITY, NOT A LIABILITY. IT MEANS THERE IS SOMEONE HERE WHO IS DEDICATED TO STAYING ON TASK, SOMEONE WHO IS FOCUSED ON THE BOTTOM LINE, SOMEONE WHO WILL FOCUS ON THE PLOT AND TRY TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SOLVE IT. IF THEY FIGURE OUT SOME WAY OF SOLVING A PROBLEM IN AN UNEXPECTED WAY, NO PROBLEM. THAT JUST MEANS YOU CAN USE THAT TO ENHANCE YOUR GAME. IT MEANS YOU CAN USE SIMILAR TACTICS TO COMPLICATE THE PLOT, IT MEANS YOU CAN GIVE THE OPTIMIZER CONTROL OF THINGS LIKE, LOGISTICS OR LEADERSHIP TO KEEP THEM FOCUSED ON THE GROUP'S SUCCESS RATHER THAN THEIR OWN, BECAUSE THEY WON'T BE ABLE TO RESIST MAKING THE BEST POSSIBLE USE OF THOSE THINGS. DM'S HAVE TO BE FLEXIBLE. THEY HAVE A DUTY TO THEIR PLAYERS TO BE. YOU DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH THIS? THEN DON'T BE A DM. OR Y'KNOW. ACTUALLY NEGOTIATE AND COMPROMISE WITH YOUR PLAYERS LIKE THE SOCIAL GAME THIS IS.

2. NO, THIS IS FACTUALLY WRONG. AT LEAST IN DND. IF WE'RE TALKING SAY EXALTED, THEN YES, THAT WOULD BE RIGHT, BECAUSE SOLAR EXALTED ARE LITERALLY DEMIGODS. IN DND WE WANT TO BE COMPETENT. YOUR FACTUALLY WRONG, THEY WANT TO BE COMPETENT NOT DEMIGODS, THERE IS MATH PROVING THAT YOUR WRONG, THERE IS NOT MUCH MORE TO SAY, BECAUSE WHAT THE SCORES SAY YOUR ABILITIES ARE IS NOT A MATTER OF OPINION, AND WHAT YOU THINK OF THEIR CAPABILITIES IS WRONG, UNLESS YOUR DEFINING EINSTEIN OR TESLA AS SUPERHUMAN. WHICH THEY WERE NOT. THEY WERE PURE HUMAN RIGHT THERE, THERE WAS NOTHING MERE ABOUT THOSE MORTALS.

3. YOU ARE EITHER THROWING OUT YOUR FACTUALLY INCORRECT OPINIONS WITHOUT THINKING, OR YOUR EXPERIENCES HAVE SHOWN YOU NOTHING BUT BAD PLAYERS. EITHER WAY WHAT YOUR SAYING I NOT RELIABLE IN THE SLIGHTEST, FORGET GRAIN OF SALT, I'M NOT TAKING WHAT YOU SAY WITH A PARTICLE OF SODIUM CHLORIDE. BECAUSE IF WHAT YOU SAY IS TRUE, THEN WELCOME TO THE LAND OF UNICORNS AND RAINBOWS. ALL THE UNICORNS ARE THE OLD MYTHOLOGICAL KIND THAT ARE SCARY AS ALL HELL AND KNOW EXACTLY HOW TO MURDER EVERYTHING IN DND. YOU WANT THE NICE FLUFFY KIND? SORRY, THATS THREE FORUMS UP, MEDIA DISCUSSIONS, PONY THREAD. AND SOMETIMES NOT EVEN THEN. THEY'RE GOOD NOT EVEN BECAUSE I SAY SO, ITS BECAUSE OF LOGICAL REASONS YOU CHOOSE TO OUTRIGHT IGNORE BECAUSE YOU KNOW YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY ADDRESS THEM, BECAUSE YOU YOURSELF KNOW THAT YOUR WRONG, BUT WON'T POSSIBLY ADMIT IT BECAUSE THAT WOULD RUIN YOUR "I AM A REBELLIOUS VIEWPOINT PERSON ALL ON MY LONESOME FIGHTING AGAINST THE COMMUNITY THAT IS TRYING TO OPPRESS ME" SCHTICK, WOULD REQUIRE YOU TO ACTUALLY ADMIT THAT YOUR WRONG FOR ONCE, THAT YOUR NOT HEADS AND SHOULDERS ABOVE EVERYONE ELSE, THAT YOUR IN FACT JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE: AN IMPERFECT PERSON WHO CAN MAKE MISTAKES, WHO CAN FAIL, WHO DID FAIL BY BEING A DM WHO COULD NOT DEAL WITH WHAT WAS HANDED TO YOU, SO YOU DECIDED TO SHUT DOWN ANY ATTEMPT AT THAT HAPPENING AGAIN, NO MATTER HOW UNREASONABLE, EXTREME OR UNFUN THOSE MEASURES WERE, AND NOT LETTING YOUR PLAYERS HAVE ROOM TO BREATH, TO GROW, TO IMPROVISE AND SUCCEED, AND TO ALLOW THEM TO ENHANCE YOUR GAME THROUGH THEIR VICTORIES. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE IS THAT YOU DON'T ADMIT THAT YOU HAVE MADE MISTAKES.

4. NO, ITS BECAUSE EVERYTHING YOU STATE IS FACTUALLY INCORRECT ABOUT HOW PEOPLE LIKE TO PLAY THE GAME THAT YOUR WRONG. ITS ABOUT HOW COLD HARD MATH, SHOWN IN THIS VERY THREAD, SHOWS HOW NO ONE WOULD HAVE FUN UNDER YOUR DMING STYLE UNLESS THEY WERE PLAYING PARANOIA. ITS ABOUT HOW TO ACTUALLY BE A HERO AND SUCCEED IN DND, YOU NEED TO HAVE HIGH SCORES, EVEN IF YOUR NOT OUT TO BREAK THE GAME AND BE BATMAN WIZARD AND HIS SIDEKICK ROBIN CODZILLA, ITS ABOUT HOW YOU STEREOTYPE ALL OPTIMIZERS UNFAIRLY TO JUSTIFY YOUR MEASURES, YOUR RULES, AND IGNORE EVERYONE TRYING TO CORRECT YOU ON THAT STEREOTYPE AND SHOW YOU WHY ITS WRONG, ITS ABOUT HOW ANYWHERE YOU GO IN THE ONLINE RPG COMMUNITY, PEOPLE WILL TELL YOU SAME THING: THAT YOUR COMMITTING STORMWIND FALLACY, THAT YOUR LOGIC IS INVALID. THAT YOU ARE NOT USING LOGIC THAT WORKS. ITS ABOUT HOW MECHANICAL PROFICIENCY AND STORYTELLING PROFICIENCY IS NOT A ZERO-SUM GAME, ITS ABOUT HOW PLAYERS ARE NOT SPECTATORS TO YOUR PLOT, THEY ARE ACTORS IN IT, WHO HAVE AN EFFECT ON IT, PARTICIPATE IN IT AND CAN MECHANICALLY OPTIMIZE THEMSELVES TO SUCCEED IF THEY SO PLEASE BECAUSE THAT IS JUST THEIR ROLEPLAYING STYLE THAT YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SUPPRESS OR PROCLAIM IS WRONG, ITS ABOUT HOW WHEN CONFRONTED WITH THE PROBLEM OF WHAT YOU CONSIDER DISRUPTIVE PLAYERS, YOU DON'T NEGOTIATE OR TRY TO ACTUALLY SOLVE THE SITUATION USING SOCIAL SKILLS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT, BUT USE THE BANHAMMER AS IF YOUR PLAYING WHACK-A-MOLE, HITTING WHATEVER PLAYER STICKS THEIR HEAD UP ENOUGH TO DO SOMETHING YOU DON'T LIKE, WHICH YOU THEN CALL CHEATING TO JUSTIFY TO YOURSELF THAT YOUR IN THE RIGHT SO THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO FEEL BAD ABOUT IT. ITS ABOUT HOW YOUR DMING STYLE IS INHERENTLY UNFUN AND HOSTILE TO NEWCOMERS, WHERE NO DIFFERENCE IS MADE BETWEEN THE NEWBIE WHO JUST SO HAPPENS TO CHOOSE POINT BUY WITHOUT KNOWING AT ALL WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH AN OPTIMIZED BUILD, AND AN OLD VET WHO CHOOSES ROLLS JUST FOR A CHALLENGE FOR ONCE THEN PROCEEDS TO DOMINATE THE GAME ANYWAYS BECAUSE THEY'RE SO GOOD THEY DON'T NEED POINT BUY TO OPTIMIZE TO THE POINT OF BEING AWESOME. YOUR METHODS ARE NOT JUST ONLY OVERLY CONTROLLING, THEY DON'T WORK FOR THE PURPOSE YOU THINK THEY WORK FOR, IT JUST STEREOTYPES EVERYONE WHO LIKES POINT BUY AS POTENTIAL GAME-WRECKERS, WHICH IS AT THIS POINT, EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T PLAY WARHAMMER RPGS. WORSE, IF THINGS LIKE OLD MAN HENDERSON OR THE SUE FILES ARE ANY INDICATION, YOUR NOT ACTUALLY PREVENTING ANYTHING, YOUR SETTING YOURSELF UP FOR SOMEONE, SOMEDAY PULLING SOME GAME-BREAKING STUNT IN RETALIATION TO YOUR METHODS.

YOU. FAIL. AT. LOGIC. FOREVER.

5. NO ONE CARES.

What will it take to get the message across? do you need 200 foot tall flaming letters placed on mountains? or Astronomical Unit-spanning stars out in space?

Eonas
2014-08-12, 04:16 PM
*snicker* *chuckle* *loud laughing*

oh my god this is wrong on so many levels, I can't even take you seriously anymore. where do I even begin? this is like a feast of incorrectness and wrong. :smallbiggrin: I'm gonna go full condescendingly smug here.

Ok first dude? its because that its a social game, that you have to acknowledge that this is all a preference. which you then -and I'm sure this is a radical idea- you then state to the group and try to work out a way that your preference can work with other peoples preferences. its called not forcing your way of viewing things down everyone's throats, its a thing we learn to do when we grow up and stop being a child who is appeased just so he can be quiet for a few minutes. or perhaps stop being some hard-headed person who won't listen to other people, same thing really.

And this is not even getting into how a munchkin is not the same as an optimizer, or how no sane optimizer will try to make Pun-Pun, or how all these high stats are pretty much vital to most of the character concepts out there in DnD, to most of the things people play, which are specialists who are good at their jobs, because of the quite basic fact that when the game sells you on say, oh being a powerful wizard that can shoot fireballs, or a clever rogue that whose silver tongue allows them to lie to anyone and get away with it, that you don't want to play a stupid false wizard who doesn't shoot or a fireball or a rogue that is bad at sneaking around, because thats not an interesting character concept, that is being a bad wizard or rogue, that sucks, that is not what anyone but you wants to play.

sure, in real life the 20 only comes once a while, sure. But, let me ask you something: what do you think this is? where do you think you are? do you think that a player, just walking in after dealing with all of life's bull, wants to sit down and play a game and deal with more real life bull? this is fantasy. we don't HAVE to be bound by those rules if we do not want to. not even the fighter. even the fighter can do things that no person in real life can. and the fighter, relatively speaking, sucks compared to all the reality bending stuff casters can pull off. you want to know what that spirit of the game is? its the superhuman capabilities your trying to suppress. the very thing your stomping down upon is, to me, to many the people, the spirit of the game, its the point in the first place: to not be bound by the limitations of the real world, at least for a while. Stop ruining it. Stop ruining the spirit of the game.

Oh, but we are just beginning. I may not have witnessed optimizers myself roleplay at all, but there people who have, and they say that they roleplay well, and not rollplay, that just because they're good at numbers doesn't mean they're bad at telling a story. and then there is the fact that Stormwind Fallacy basically says that your wrong, its a widely accepted fallacy in these kinds of circles, and lot of your posts are basically that, just different variations on the theme. in fact, I'd say that because they're good at optimizing that they can roleplay well- to write well, to create a character involves figuring out what makes them tick, putting them together from the inside out, motivation, fears, emotions, strategies, experiences, a character is made of a multitude of such things put together in a way that all functions believably as a person that you can relate to, that you can see in some ways, being real. To gather all those parts in those books, to figure out how all those mechanics, function together to make a functioning optimal character from all the options presented- is it really all that different?

Does not make them happy or have fun? Again, I'm not an optimizer. But these people, they have a passion for doing this. A passion that has driven them, made them do this for years and perfect what they're doing over time, to keep making more builds, to keep figuring out how stuff works, to keep trying them out in games to see how they work in play, to theorize what if this theoretical build happened and what not and so on, and while I do not share this passion, I as an artist, respect them for having something they can be passionate about and work on constantly and something that they can create new things through, something that with their creativity they can express something in their own way. An entire community of these people, enough to make sure 4e did not sell well because they did not like it- that sort of thing does not exist if people are not having fun with it, are not being passionate and sincere about what they have.

Just one more plus? You don't even realize what these people do with their builds do you? They're not just grabbing whatever +1 is in front of them, they take a look at the entire game first, they plan out the entire progression of their character mechanically, they make sure their character is optimal by their natural progression they have planned beforehand, these are not common video-game mmorpgers who just go "cool a new +1 sword" these are people who know which +1 to take for which build, to accomplish which goal, at the right time. They already have all the plusses, they just haven't gotten to the point where they can use them yet.

and then there is this piece of wrong. your concern is not with the rest of players being overshadowed, no, its about this one optimizing guy having it too easy or suddenly complaining having it normal to compensate. and guess what, these people? these optimizers? they don't think like that, at all. there are optimizers, who will optimize to support everyone around them to meet the challenges you throw at everyone. there are optimizers who when confronted with jerk DM's who rule with an iron fist, will go "bring it!" and optimize the heck out of their character to fight back, there are groups, DM and Player, who will all agree to optimize at a certain level so that everyone is playing on the same field, so that they all are using the appropriate strategies, including all Tier 1's doing ludicrous Tippyverse levels of silliness with the DM responding with more Tippyverse levels of silliness- and they have FUN doing it, no matter how much I don't understand it. These are people who share stories of Old Man Henderson and how he blew up Hastur using ice skating, a stadium full of explosives, and a backstory, and thus won Call of Cthulhu. To them, if it is statted, they can kill it. And they will. Just give them time.

What is the point of all this you ask? The point, is that to them, optimizing is a part of the spirit of the game, that the manipulation of the mechanics is half the fun to them. even if its not all that fun to me- I still have to respect that. I may play for the flavor, for the story, for the fluff rather than the crunch, but they do have a point: a mechanically sucky character is not a character I want to play at all. A character with bad scores in what I want high in is not being true to my character, its disrespecting my character, its not allowing the concept I want to play to do anything I want them to do. Einstein did not make great discoveries with strength. Hercules did not lift the world with wisdom. Alexander the Great did not lead with Constitution.

But I doubt any of this will go through to you. your wisdom score is like that of the arrogant monk example, and your Listen score is in the negatives. The point is, that all of this- all that you have stated- is not fact, its not shared by anyone here. You keep acting like it is, far past the point where its reasonable, far past the point where its apparent that your wrong and clinging to it without actually listening to anything we say. You act like you have the backing of fact, but here is the truth: you are alone in what you believe, what you prefer. At least in this community. This community is all about super-heroics and being awesome, and the other rpg communities I know of- they're not much different. Aside from the games of Dark Heresy or Paranoia, but you don't play those to be heroes anyways. You play them because its funny to watch a bunch of incompetent agents in an oppressive fascist dystopia screw up in spectacular ways, usually with explosives involved. Really, all this, all that we are saying here, all this is just an elaborate, well thought out way of saying these simple words, the words that you need to hear:

Thats just your opinion, man.

It seems I was being too subtle for you. Lets fix that.

Karkat joined the thread:
1. A GOOD DM ADAPTS. A GOOD DM CAN MAKE THE MOST OF ANY PLAYER OR SITUATION. AN OPTIMIZER IS AN OPPORTUNITY, NOT A LIABILITY. IT MEANS THERE IS SOMEONE HERE WHO IS DEDICATED TO STAYING ON TASK, SOMEONE WHO IS FOCUSED ON THE BOTTOM LINE, SOMEONE WHO WILL FOCUS ON THE PLOT AND TRY TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SOLVE IT. IF THEY FIGURE OUT SOME WAY OF SOLVING A PROBLEM IN AN UNEXPECTED WAY, NO PROBLEM. THAT JUST MEANS YOU CAN USE THAT TO ENHANCE YOUR GAME. IT MEANS YOU CAN USE SIMILAR TACTICS TO COMPLICATE THE PLOT, IT MEANS YOU CAN GIVE THE OPTIMIZER CONTROL OF THINGS LIKE, LOGISTICS OR LEADERSHIP TO KEEP THEM FOCUSED ON THE GROUP'S SUCCESS RATHER THAN THEIR OWN, BECAUSE THEY WON'T BE ABLE TO RESIST MAKING THE BEST POSSIBLE USE OF THOSE THINGS. DM'S HAVE TO BE FLEXIBLE. THEY HAVE A DUTY TO THEIR PLAYERS TO BE. YOU DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH THIS? THEN DON'T BE A DM. OR Y'KNOW. ACTUALLY NEGOTIATE AND COMPROMISE WITH YOUR PLAYERS LIKE THE SOCIAL GAME THIS IS.

2. NO, THIS IS FACTUALLY WRONG. AT LEAST IN DND. IF WE'RE TALKING SAY EXALTED, THEN YES, THAT WOULD BE RIGHT, BECAUSE SOLAR EXALTED ARE LITERALLY DEMIGODS. IN DND WE WANT TO BE COMPETENT. YOUR FACTUALLY WRONG, THEY WANT TO BE COMPETENT NOT DEMIGODS, THERE IS MATH PROVING THAT YOUR WRONG, THERE IS NOT MUCH MORE TO SAY, BECAUSE WHAT THE SCORES SAY YOUR ABILITIES ARE IS NOT A MATTER OF OPINION, AND WHAT YOU THINK OF THEIR CAPABILITIES IS WRONG, UNLESS YOUR DEFINING EINSTEIN OR TESLA AS SUPERHUMAN. WHICH THEY WERE NOT. THEY WERE PURE HUMAN RIGHT THERE, THERE WAS NOTHING MERE ABOUT THOSE MORTALS.

3. YOU ARE EITHER THROWING OUT YOUR FACTUALLY INCORRECT OPINIONS WITHOUT THINKING, OR YOUR EXPERIENCES HAVE SHOWN YOU NOTHING BUT BAD PLAYERS. EITHER WAY WHAT YOUR SAYING I NOT RELIABLE IN THE SLIGHTEST, FORGET GRAIN OF SALT, I'M NOT TAKING WHAT YOU SAY WITH A PARTICLE OF SODIUM CHLORIDE. BECAUSE IF WHAT YOU SAY IS TRUE, THEN WELCOME TO THE LAND OF UNICORNS AND RAINBOWS. ALL THE UNICORNS ARE THE OLD MYTHOLOGICAL KIND THAT ARE SCARY AS ALL HELL AND KNOW EXACTLY HOW TO MURDER EVERYTHING IN DND. YOU WANT THE NICE FLUFFY KIND? SORRY, THATS THREE FORUMS UP, MEDIA DISCUSSIONS, PONY THREAD. AND SOMETIMES NOT EVEN THEN. THEY'RE GOOD NOT EVEN BECAUSE I SAY SO, ITS BECAUSE OF LOGICAL REASONS YOU CHOOSE TO OUTRIGHT IGNORE BECAUSE YOU KNOW YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY ADDRESS THEM, BECAUSE YOU YOURSELF KNOW THAT YOUR WRONG, BUT WON'T POSSIBLY ADMIT IT BECAUSE THAT WOULD RUIN YOUR "I AM A REBELLIOUS VIEWPOINT PERSON ALL ON MY LONESOME FIGHTING AGAINST THE COMMUNITY THAT IS TRYING TO OPPRESS ME" SCHTICK, WOULD REQUIRE YOU TO ACTUALLY ADMIT THAT YOUR WRONG FOR ONCE, THAT YOUR NOT HEADS AND SHOULDERS ABOVE EVERYONE ELSE, THAT YOUR IN FACT JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE: AN IMPERFECT PERSON WHO CAN MAKE MISTAKES, WHO CAN FAIL, WHO DID FAIL BY BEING A DM WHO COULD NOT DEAL WITH WHAT WAS HANDED TO YOU, SO YOU DECIDED TO SHUT DOWN ANY ATTEMPT AT THAT HAPPENING AGAIN, NO MATTER HOW UNREASONABLE, EXTREME OR UNFUN THOSE MEASURES WERE, AND NOT LETTING YOUR PLAYERS HAVE ROOM TO BREATH, TO GROW, TO IMPROVISE AND SUCCEED, AND TO ALLOW THEM TO ENHANCE YOUR GAME THROUGH THEIR VICTORIES. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE IS THAT YOU DON'T ADMIT THAT YOU HAVE MADE MISTAKES.

4. NO, ITS BECAUSE EVERYTHING YOU STATE IS FACTUALLY INCORRECT ABOUT HOW PEOPLE LIKE TO PLAY THE GAME THAT YOUR WRONG. ITS ABOUT HOW COLD HARD MATH, SHOWN IN THIS VERY THREAD, SHOWS HOW NO ONE WOULD HAVE FUN UNDER YOUR DMING STYLE UNLESS THEY WERE PLAYING PARANOIA. ITS ABOUT HOW TO ACTUALLY BE A HERO AND SUCCEED IN DND, YOU NEED TO HAVE HIGH SCORES, EVEN IF YOUR NOT OUT TO BREAK THE GAME AND BE BATMAN WIZARD AND HIS SIDEKICK ROBIN CODZILLA, ITS ABOUT HOW YOU STEREOTYPE ALL OPTIMIZERS UNFAIRLY TO JUSTIFY YOUR MEASURES, YOUR RULES, AND IGNORE EVERYONE TRYING TO CORRECT YOU ON THAT STEREOTYPE AND SHOW YOU WHY ITS WRONG, ITS ABOUT HOW ANYWHERE YOU GO IN THE ONLINE RPG COMMUNITY, PEOPLE WILL TELL YOU SAME THING: THAT YOUR COMMITTING STORMWIND FALLACY, THAT YOUR LOGIC IS INVALID. THAT YOU ARE NOT USING LOGIC THAT WORKS. ITS ABOUT HOW MECHANICAL PROFICIENCY AND STORYTELLING PROFICIENCY IS NOT A ZERO-SUM GAME, ITS ABOUT HOW PLAYERS ARE NOT SPECTATORS TO YOUR PLOT, THEY ARE ACTORS IN IT, WHO HAVE AN EFFECT ON IT, PARTICIPATE IN IT AND CAN MECHANICALLY OPTIMIZE THEMSELVES TO SUCCEED IF THEY SO PLEASE BECAUSE THAT IS JUST THEIR ROLEPLAYING STYLE THAT YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SUPPRESS OR PROCLAIM IS WRONG, ITS ABOUT HOW WHEN CONFRONTED WITH THE PROBLEM OF WHAT YOU CONSIDER DISRUPTIVE PLAYERS, YOU DON'T NEGOTIATE OR TRY TO ACTUALLY SOLVE THE SITUATION USING SOCIAL SKILLS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT, BUT USE THE BANHAMMER AS IF YOUR PLAYING WHACK-A-MOLE, HITTING WHATEVER PLAYER STICKS THEIR HEAD UP ENOUGH TO DO SOMETHING YOU DON'T LIKE, WHICH YOU THEN CALL CHEATING TO JUSTIFY TO YOURSELF THAT YOUR IN THE RIGHT SO THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO FEEL BAD ABOUT IT. ITS ABOUT HOW YOUR DMING STYLE IS INHERENTLY UNFUN AND HOSTILE TO NEWCOMERS, WHERE NO DIFFERENCE IS MADE BETWEEN THE NEWBIE WHO JUST SO HAPPENS TO CHOOSE POINT BUY WITHOUT KNOWING AT ALL WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH AN OPTIMIZED BUILD, AND AN OLD VET WHO CHOOSES ROLLS JUST FOR A CHALLENGE FOR ONCE THEN PROCEEDS TO DOMINATE THE GAME ANYWAYS BECAUSE THEY'RE SO GOOD THEY DON'T NEED POINT BUY TO OPTIMIZE TO THE POINT OF BEING AWESOME. YOUR METHODS ARE NOT JUST ONLY OVERLY CONTROLLING, THEY DON'T WORK FOR THE PURPOSE YOU THINK THEY WORK FOR, IT JUST STEREOTYPES EVERYONE WHO LIKES POINT BUY AS POTENTIAL GAME-WRECKERS, WHICH IS AT THIS POINT, EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T PLAY WARHAMMER RPGS. WORSE, IF THINGS LIKE OLD MAN HENDERSON OR THE SUE FILES ARE ANY INDICATION, YOUR NOT ACTUALLY PREVENTING ANYTHING, YOUR SETTING YOURSELF UP FOR SOMEONE, SOMEDAY PULLING SOME GAME-BREAKING STUNT IN RETALIATION TO YOUR METHODS.

YOU. FAIL. AT. LOGIC. FOREVER.

5. NO ONE CARES.

What will it take to get the message across? do you need 200 foot tall flaming letters placed on mountains? or Astronomical Unit-spanning stars out in space?
Oh my god, Lord Raziere, you've finally cracked.

NichG
2014-08-12, 04:17 PM
You're wrong on several points, here. Objectively wrong, I mean.

1) The Stormwind Fallacy is a false belief that there is an inverse correlation between level of optimization skill and drive and level of RP skill and drive. The fallacy states that this correlation does not exist; one can be a good RPer and an optimizer, and one can be a poor RPer and not an optimizer.


That's not actually what it says, you know. It says that 'being a good optimizer does not exclude one from being a good RPer'. Part of the materials used to make this point actually uses an inverse correlation between optimization skill and RP skill encountered in the field even when the 'ground truth' has no such inverse correlation. This inverse correlation comes from the observation that people who are bad at RP and bad at optimization are less likely to continue playing RPGs since people in general are less drawn to things they're good at than things they're bad at.

The result is that you have three of four quadrants represented: good at RP and optimization, good at RP but not optimization, good at optimization but not RP. Since you've excluded the fourth quadrant, you induce an inverse correlation in the observed data that has no underlying cause in the ground truth of the distribution of ability in the population.

That is to say 'even if skill at RP and skill at optimization do not inherently interfere with one another, this is sufficient to explain the anecdotal evidence that many people seem to have of encountering many players who are good at one but are very bad at the other'. Or in other words 'just because you know a lot of power-gamers who suck at RP, that doesn't and can't prove anything about an underlying relationship between the two skill sets'.

eggynack
2014-08-12, 04:22 PM
That's not actually what it says, you know. It says that 'being a good optimizer does not exclude one from being a good RPer'. Part of the materials used to make this point actually uses an inverse correlation between optimization skill and RP skill encountered in the field even when the 'ground truth' has no such inverse correlation. This inverse correlation comes from the observation that people who are bad at RP and bad at optimization are less likely to continue playing RPGs since people in general are less drawn to things they're good at than things they're bad at.

The result is that you have three of four quadrants represented: good at RP and optimization, good at RP but not optimization, good at optimization but not RP. Since you've excluded the fourth quadrant, you induce an inverse correlation in the observed data that has no underlying cause in the ground truth of the distribution of ability in the population.

That is to say 'even if skill at RP and skill at optimization do not inherently interfere with one another, this is sufficient to explain the anecdotal evidence that many people seem to have of encountering many players who are good at one but are very bad at the other'. Or in other words 'just because you know a lot of power-gamers who suck at RP, that doesn't and can't prove anything about an underlying relationship between the two skill sets'.
Huh. I was not at all aware that stormwind worked like that. That's a pretty cool argument.

NichG
2014-08-12, 04:33 PM
Huh. I was not at all aware that stormwind worked like that. That's a pretty cool argument.

I wish I remember what poster originally made that calculation so I could give him credit for it, but my memory fails me there whereas the particular calculation stuck with me.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-12, 04:34 PM
Oh my god, Lord Raziere, you've finally cracked.

No, I just like ranting sometimes. and Karkat is my favorite alternian troll. I don't do much ranting anymore, so it was good to do some again directed at someone that needs it. feels cathartic. but really, I should stop before I get ahead of myself, if your not careful with how you rant, it can backfire on you. your post might be the first indication that it has.

Arbane
2014-08-12, 09:24 PM
It seems I was being too subtle for you. Lets fix that.

Karkat joined the thread:


D--> Well put, but I must take e%eption to your spelling
D--> You consistently mis-spell the contraction of 'you are' as 'your', it's properly 'you're'
D--> Aside from that, carry on with the well-deserved castigation of this f001

Tengu_temp
2014-08-13, 09:01 AM
And the Homestucks appeared. Look what you've done. Look what you've done.

Segev
2014-08-13, 09:59 AM
That's not actually what it says, you know. It says that 'being a good optimizer does not exclude one from being a good RPer'. Part of the materials used to make this point actually uses an inverse correlation between optimization skill and RP skill encountered in the field even when the 'ground truth' has no such inverse correlation. This inverse correlation comes from the observation that people who are bad at RP and bad at optimization are less likely to continue playing RPGs since people in general are less drawn to things they're good at than things they're bad at.

The result is that you have three of four quadrants represented: good at RP and optimization, good at RP but not optimization, good at optimization but not RP. Since you've excluded the fourth quadrant, you induce an inverse correlation in the observed data that has no underlying cause in the ground truth of the distribution of ability in the population.

That is to say 'even if skill at RP and skill at optimization do not inherently interfere with one another, this is sufficient to explain the anecdotal evidence that many people seem to have of encountering many players who are good at one but are very bad at the other'. Or in other words 'just because you know a lot of power-gamers who suck at RP, that doesn't and can't prove anything about an underlying relationship between the two skill sets'.
Fair enough. You are correct that I was leaving out the explanation for the illusion that the fallacy is true, based on observational pool.

The fallacy still persists as a false view: by treating RP skill/Optimization skill as inversely correlated, you ignore fully 1/3 of the effective sample pool, even if one wholly assumes that all bad-RP/bad-Optimization players are self-excluded.

The "you have to roll a nat 20 to get a good RPer who is good at optimizing" and the "rare as unicorns" claim is outright false.

...well, unless you're using MLP demographics, I suppose; then "rare as unicorns" is actually just about right at 1/3.

(That IS how MLP breaks down, right? 1/3 regular, 1/3 winged, 1/3 unicorn? And two super-special winged unicorns who serve as plot devices occasionally?)

The Insanity
2014-08-13, 01:46 PM
(That IS how MLP breaks down, right? 1/3 regular, 1/3 winged, 1/3 unicorn? And two super-special winged unicorns who serve as plot devices occasionally?)
Four, actually.

Zrak
2014-08-13, 05:34 PM
I'm curious on JediPotter's opinion about wanting certain ability scores to meet prerequisites. It seems hard to accuse an AD&D player of powergaming for merely wanting to play a Paladin, yet Paladins more than any other class will need that "one more plus."

Jay R
2014-08-13, 05:40 PM
The Stormwind Fallacy is the false belief that role-playing and optimization are in a straightforward inverse relationship. It comes from the fact that some (not all) people who do not role-play at all are clearly and obviously putting 100% of their character generation efforts into optimization.

The Stormwind Fallacy Fallacy is the equally false belief that there is never a discernible relationship, and that it is not possible to recognize some non-role-players by watching their attempts at optimization during character generation.

Milodiah
2014-08-13, 05:45 PM
One issue with that is it can be hard to discern between extensive optimization and special snowflake syndrome until you determine the intent of their oddly specific choices. Is that particular exotic race/class/gear/feat combo selected because they want to feel unique, or is it calculated because they want to do the most [X]? Of course, you can usually just hear them doing the math for the latter.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-13, 05:51 PM
I'm curious on JediPotter's opinion about wanting certain ability scores to meet prerequisites. It seems hard to accuse an AD&D player of powergaming for merely wanting to play a Paladin, yet Paladins more than any other class will need that "one more plus."

let me predict his response:
"no you see, it'll be more interesting to play a paladin that can't use his class features as well, as it gives him more challenge, as paladins are more about adhering to their code regardless of how strong they are, and it allows the paladin to actually face hardship rather than just be a optimizer-superhuman who doesn't actually face any challenge in sticking to his code, stop trying to weasel out of following the code right by cheating your way to victory. that and you get to play a paladin with 16 Intelligence! you can totally be a book-read paladin who solves things using their knowledge instead of fighting evil like all those other paladins! it'll be like one of those "inspirationally disadvantaged" stories where a guy in a wheel chair learns to play soccer-using only their skill at giving great speeches!"

Zrak
2014-08-13, 09:25 PM
I'm pretty sure jedipotter will not going to use that exact wording or that nearly illegible text color. On a scale of 1-Pythia, I'd give the prediction maybe a 2.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-13, 09:49 PM
sigh. I miss the SUE Files thread, if you read it, you would've gotten the joke.

Hiro Protagonest
2014-08-13, 10:06 PM
sigh. I miss the SUE Files thread, if you read it, you would've gotten the joke.

I read it. I still think you were basically strawmanning.

Marlowe
2014-08-13, 10:14 PM
Besides, you didn't say "basically", or "superior" even once.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-13, 10:40 PM
Besides, you didn't say "basically", or "superior" even once.

I was using jedipotter in the voice, rather than Marty.

@ Hiro:
......is that a joke on Marty's use of "basically" or not? also, I get the feeling that you don't like me. call it a pattern I'm seeing with you.

Titanium Dragon
2014-08-13, 11:40 PM
So following a conversation much like this:
GM: What kind of character are you going to play?
Player: I was thinking of playing a wizard.
GM: What race?
Player: I would like to play a sylph if that's ok.
GM: I'll allow it, sure.
Player: Point buy?
GM: Go ahead.
Player: 25 point buy then?
GM: Yes.
Player(sets up his abilities): Here's what I came up with.
GM: 20 intelligence? That's too high.
Player: Uh, ok... I'll do a 15 point buy then.
GM: No really, that's superhuman.
Player: Technically not against the rules.
GM: It's not against the rules, but it's minmaxing.
Player: I've respected your wishes and lowered my intelligence. Now, with racials, I have an 18. This is on a 15 point buy.
GM: This is ok.


GM believes that minmaxing in all circumstances ruins the spirit of the game.
Player believes that, permitted a point buy, it's only smart to put an 18 in at least one ability score.
They disagree on what actually ruins the spirit of the game.

What are your thoughts on the above scenario? What are your opinions? What do you believe ruins it in general?

Nonsense. Stats are just an abstraction. Anyone who complains about doesn't really understand the nature of a roleplaying game in the first place. In the end, what is important is how your character acts, not anything else. Also, really, let's face it - by definition, 20 isn't superhuman because humans can indeed have 20 intelligence.

Zrak
2014-08-14, 03:05 AM
sigh. I miss the SUE Files thread, if you read it, you would've gotten the joke.

Oh, well, if it's a cryptic prediction that relies on information I don't have, that changes everything. Those are automatically at least a seven on the 1-Pythia scale.

AMFV
2014-08-14, 10:11 AM
I'm curious on JediPotter's opinion about wanting certain ability scores to meet prerequisites. It seems hard to accuse an AD&D player of powergaming for merely wanting to play a Paladin, yet Paladins more than any other class will need that "one more plus."

Well in AD&D perspectives were a little bit different. If you wanted to play a Paladin and you didn't roll high enough, people shrugged and said: "Tough Cookies". That was just kind of how the system worked at that time. And if you wanted to reroll then you might actually get accused of powergaming. That's kind of a difference in the AD&D fundamental assumptions as compared to current editions.

Segev
2014-08-14, 12:43 PM
The first Paladin I ever saw played was in 1e AD&D. The player had rolled an 8 in his Cha (we were using roll-in-order), and the DM, because the player really wanted to play a paladin, coughed and asked why the player had forgotten to write the "1" in front of it.

The fact that Cha is pretty much a dump stat in standard kick-in-the-door 1e AD&D play meant that the only difference this made was that the player got to play the class he wanted.

kyoryu
2014-08-14, 01:06 PM
Well in AD&D perspectives were a little bit different. If you wanted to play a Paladin and you didn't roll high enough, people shrugged and said: "Tough Cookies". That was just kind of how the system worked at that time. And if you wanted to reroll then you might actually get accused of powergaming. That's kind of a difference in the AD&D fundamental assumptions as compared to current editions.

Yup. Entirely different styles of play.

AD&D had a huge emphasis on "play the hand you're dealt" that just isn't seen in most modern games. That and the common open-table structure meant that even if this character's not a paladin, maybe the next one will be.

The differences in play style are staggering, to the point where utterly valid statements for one are completely insane for the other. And what I see happening here mostly is these two styles conflicting, and neither party really realizing it (or, more accurately, judging the other through the lens of their preferred style without actually understanding *why* the other works).



The fact that Cha is pretty much a dump stat in standard kick-in-the-door 1e AD&D play meant that the only difference this made was that the player got to play the class he wanted.

This is only true if you're not using hirelings, henchmen, or reaction rolls. Which were all pretty important parts of the AD&D experience.

Tengu_temp
2014-08-14, 01:17 PM
The difference is that only one of these sides accused the other of cheating. Like, I personally couldn't care less about the oldschool playstyle and have many bad things to say about it (some of them matters of opinion, others pretty much facts), but I'm not going to tell people who like it that they're doing it wrong. They just like a different style.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-14, 03:36 PM
The difference is that only one of these sides accused the other of cheating. Like, I personally couldn't care less about the oldschool playstyle and have many bad things to say about it (some of them matters of opinion, others pretty much facts), but I'm not going to tell people who like it that they're doing it wrong. They just like a different style.

This would be correct, if it was about someone who wasn't jedipotter.

this is a guy who literally kicks people out instantly for not following his playstyle, and calls everyone who doesn't follow it a cheater no matter how legal or non-gamebreaking the optimization it is. while in his own words, pretty much saying that he doesn't believe he has ever made a mistake, and not once sitting down to actually talk to the players about it, his views upon optimization itself paint them all with a wide brush that unfairly stereotypes them, people have tried multiple times to try and get him to acknowledge any middle ground and he hasn't, and pretty much clings to his views like dogma without acknowledging any points that call him out on it.

don't act as if this is just a poor old-school DM getting beaten up by those new kids. he is a paranoid all-controlling DM who thinks he is in the right no matter what.

jedipotter
2014-08-14, 03:40 PM
I'm curious on JediPotter's opinion about wanting certain ability scores to meet prerequisites. It seems hard to accuse an AD&D player of powergaming for merely wanting to play a Paladin, yet Paladins more than any other class will need that "one more plus."

Well, wanting ability scores to play a class as per the rules is one thing; wanting to have a ultra super awesome character with very high ability scores to play out some power trip is another.

And I don't have any problem with Powergaming.



This would be correct, if it was about someone who wasn't jedipotter.

this is a guy who literally kicks people out instantly for not following his playstyle,

I'm not sure why this is bad? You come to may house with some uber optimized combat character, are incapable of role-playing and want to ''kill, loot, repeat'', then i'm going to tell you to leave.



and calls everyone who doesn't follow it a cheater no matter how legal or non-gamebreaking the optimization it is.

Never did that.



while in his own words, pretty much saying that he doesn't believe he has ever made a mistake,

I'll find time to Goggle this ''mistake'' word someday...maybe. I do like steak though...yum.



and not once sitting down to actually talk to the players about it

Talk to players about how they make mistakes? I do that all the time.....



his views upon optimization itself paint them all with a wide brush that unfairly stereotypes them,

Call a spade a spade....if the shoe fits.....



people have tried multiple times to try and get him to acknowledge any middle ground and he hasn't

I start walkin your way you start walkin mine
we meet in the middle neath that old Georgia pine
We gain a lot of ground cuz we both give a little
aint no road to long when we meet in the middle

I've never seen this middle place from over here on the Right.



and pretty much clings to his views like dogma without acknowledging any points that call him out on it.

I will admit it:

Dogma is one of my favorite movies.


Azrael: Get me a... Holy Bartender.

Bartender: Never heard of it.

Azrael: Ahh, he doesn't know how to make a Holy Bartender. You do, don't you, Muse?

Serendipity: Don't...

Azrael: Ahh, anybody? No?

[Jay and Silent Bob shake their heads]

Azrael: Well, I know how to make a Holy Bartender...

[Azrael pulls out an uzi, shoots the bartender repeatedly, then laughs hysterically]

Azrael: Get it?

Segev
2014-08-14, 04:08 PM
And I don't have any problem with Powergaming.

I have to ask, now: what do you think "powergaming" is, if it is not something that encompasses in some way "Just one more plus?"

Tengu_temp
2014-08-14, 04:25 PM
don't act as if this is just a poor old-school DM getting beaten up by those new kids. he is a paranoid all-controlling DM who thinks he is in the right no matter what.

I'm not. I'm saying he's the one who's accusing everyone who's not following his style of cheating and/or playing the game wrong. Re-read my post.



I'm not sure why this is bad? You come to may house with some uber optimized combat character, are incapable of role-playing and want to ''kill, loot, repeat'', then i'm going to tell you to leave.


I have to ask: haven't you never met a player who was a good roleplayer and a good optimizer at the same time? Does your definition of a good roleplayer literally end on "accepts the randomly generates character as it was rolled, tries to find ways to contribute despite having crappy stats"?

eggynack
2014-08-14, 04:52 PM
And I don't have any problem with Powergaming.
I believe that, once again, you have the wrong idea about what a term means. By my understanding, powergaming is vaguely akin to optimization, except driven by naught but increased power. In other words, it likely describes the position you hate more than optimization does.


Never did that.
You've said that bags of holding are cheating. In this thread, you said that optimal stat allocation is almost cheating. You very much have done this.

AMFV
2014-08-14, 04:54 PM
The difference is that only one of these sides accused the other of cheating. Like, I personally couldn't care less about the oldschool playstyle and have many bad things to say about it (some of them matters of opinion, others pretty much facts), but I'm not going to tell people who like it that they're doing it wrong. They just like a different style.

No...

He stated correctly in fact, that players who tend to optimize are cheating at his table (in this case violating their social agreement) are cheating in some respect and are problem players. Since optimization at a high level runs counter to the way JediPotter runs games that would mean that everybody who is an optimizer and continues to play at his table are likely to cause problems for him.

So in short the statement that an optimizer is a "problem player" is for him true, even if it might be less true at other tables. Furthermore since it's against the rules (unspoken as they may be) in some respects it's tantamount to cheating.


This would be correct, if it was about someone who wasn't jedipotter.

this is a guy who literally kicks people out instantly for not following his playstyle, and calls everyone who doesn't follow it a cheater no matter how legal or non-gamebreaking the optimization it is. while in his own words, pretty much saying that he doesn't believe he has ever made a mistake, and not once sitting down to actually talk to the players about it, his views upon optimization itself paint them all with a wide brush that unfairly stereotypes them, people have tried multiple times to try and get him to acknowledge any middle ground and he hasn't, and pretty much clings to his views like dogma without acknowledging any points that call him out on it.

don't act as if this is just a poor old-school DM getting beaten up by those new kids. he is a paranoid all-controlling DM who thinks he is in the right no matter what.

And people apparently play with and enjoy his games. So who cares? He's not kicking you out of a game, he's just defending his style of play on the internet, admittedly belligerently, but people get upset when others talk about their style or way of doing something as though it's a problem. And to be honest people here do that, I've seen people say things like "you should NEVER lose player agency" and "All effects should allow some kind of save" it's just a fundamental difference in playing style.



I have to ask: haven't you never met a player who was a good roleplayer and a good optimizer at the same time? Does your definition of a good roleplayer literally end on "accepts the randomly generates character as it was rolled, tries to find ways to contribute despite having crappy stats"?

In AD&D Campaigns that was seen as the way that the game should operate. That is part of roleplaying it's why you get characters like Raistlin and his fairly crappy stats and his brother, also with fairly crappy stats.

kyoryu
2014-08-14, 05:10 PM
No...

He stated correctly in fact, that players who tend to optimize are cheating at his table (in this case violating their social agreement) are cheating in some respect and are problem players. Since optimization at a high level runs counter to the way JediPotter runs games that would mean that everybody who is an optimizer and continues to play at his table are likely to cause problems for him.

I'll go one further.

One of the biggest player issues I see is people that can't stand not getting their way. They'll throw tantrums if they lose, if a GM call goes against them, whatever.

Getting pissed off at bad random stats is a pretty good early indicator of this as an issue.

That's not saying that random stats is a great mechanic for every game. I personally think for D&D it's a lot better in versions prior to 3, just because they were a bunch less stat-centric. Another thing I've used for early indicators of this is race/class restrictions in games. I co-GMed a game where only humans were allowed, and the overall player quality we got was amazing.

Keep in mind, I'm not saying that liking point buy means you're such a problem player. All I'm saying is that most of the problem players of this type will not like random chargen.

So in jedipotter's game, getting upset about bad character stat rolls probably *is* a pretty good indicator of being a problem player - because that's the accepted frame of the game, and healthy people will either accept random stats, or not play in their game.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-14, 05:12 PM
No...

He stated correctly in fact, that players who tend to optimize are cheating at his table (in this case violating their social agreement) are cheating in some respect and are problem players. Since optimization at a high level runs counter to the way JediPotter runs games that would mean that everybody who is an optimizer and continues to play at his table are likely to cause problems for him.

So in short the statement that an optimizer is a "problem player" is for him true, even if it might be less true at other tables. Furthermore since it's against the rules (unspoken as they may be) in some respects it's tantamount to cheating.



And people apparently play with and enjoy his games. So who cares? He's not kicking you out of a game, he's just defending his style of play on the internet, admittedly belligerently, but people get upset when others talk about their style or way of doing something as though it's a problem. And to be honest people here do that, I've seen people say things like "you should NEVER lose player agency" and "All effects should allow some kind of save" it's just a fundamental difference in playing style.


if by "optimization at the high level" you mean "not having bad stats", and a social agreement that most players don't even have with DM's nowadays, because they play to be heroes not expendable chumps, while DM's should never be that controlling of their table, they are not the games lord and master, that kind of thinking only leads to jedipotter's black and white view of the situation in the first place that lead to stereotyping everyone who he doesn't like as a cheater, and I simply can't accept that as a viable mode of thought, because thinking the DM as the Lord of the Table is a good way to get a power-tripping control freak.

a style of play that is unfair to his players as well as insulting to everyone here. I don't see why you should defend him. and those two sound pretty reasonable universal things to me.

eggynack
2014-08-14, 05:13 PM
He stated correctly in fact, that players who tend to optimize are cheating at his table (in this case violating their social agreement) are cheating in some respect and are problem players. Since optimization at a high level runs counter to the way JediPotter runs games that would mean that everybody who is an optimizer and continues to play at his table are likely to cause problems for him.
That is inaccurate. He never has the qualifier "At my table." Had he that qualifier, then things would be quite a bit better. Even in that construct, a good number of the things he calls cheating make very little sense as such (Like extradimensional space, because either it exists, and taking it is not cheating, or it doesn't exist, and taking it is impossible), but at least it would be less insulting.


So in short the statement that an optimizer is a "problem player" is for him true, even if it might be less true at other tables. Furthermore since it's against the rules (unspoken as they may be) in some respects it's tantamount to cheating.
Here too, things are stated by him as an objective fact of players of this variety, and not as a stance of the table at which he sits.


And people apparently play with and enjoy his games. So who cares? He's not kicking you out of a game, he's just defending his style of play on the internet, admittedly belligerently, but people get upset when others talk about their style or way of doing something as though it's a problem. And to be honest people here do that, I've seen people say things like "you should NEVER lose player agency" and "All effects should allow some kind of save" it's just a fundamental difference in playing style.

And when he does so in a non-belligerent manner, people tend to be quite a bit more accepting of the things he says. It's really that simple, especially when belligerence in this case is accusing a solid number of people of being problem players and cheaters. As is so often the case, the way you say something matters about as much, or maybe more than, what you want to say.

AMFV
2014-08-14, 05:14 PM
if by "optimization at the high level" you mean "not having bad stats", and a social agreement that most players don't even have with DM's nowadays, because they play to be heroes not expendable chumps, while DM's should never be that controlling of their table, they are not the games lord and master, that kind of thinking only leads to jedipotter's black and white view of the situation in the first place that lead to stereotyping everyone who he doesn't like as a cheater, and I simply can't accept that as a viable mode of thought, because thinking the DM as the Lord of the Table is a good way to get a power-tripping control freak.

a style of play that is unfair to his players as well as insulting to everyone here. I don't see why you should defend him. and those two sound pretty reasonable universal things to me.

But they don't sound like reasonable things to him or to Gygax, or to Hickman. In fact saying anything about a certain style of play being "universal" or sounds universal to you is meaning that you believe that anybody who is playing differently is doing it wrong and that's as black and white as you're accusing Jedipotter of being.




And when he does so in a non-belligerent manner, people tend to be quite a bit more accepting of the things he says. It's really that simple, especially when belligerence in this case is accusing a solid number of people of being problem players and cheaters. As is so often the case, the way you say something matters about as much, or maybe more than, what you want to say.

That is true, but however he seems to be the punching bag of choice on this forum. I wouldn't say that Jedipotter is good at communicating, but I would say that we can't assume that his tables are terrible hellholes everybody hates. Furthermore you can add the "at my table" qualifier to every single time somebody says something about an RPG, it's implied and would therefore be meaningless to include.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-14, 05:22 PM
But they don't sound like reasonable things to him or to Gygax, or to Hickman. In fact saying anything about a certain style of play being "universal" or sounds universal to you is meaning that you believe that anybody who is playing differently is doing it wrong and that's as black and white as you're accusing Jedipotter of being.

So? they're the guys who started the hobby, not perfected it. I wouldn't hire Benjaman Franklin to be my electrician either.

very well, I admit that I'm wrong and that is apparently a style thing, as you claim so. I am completely different from jedipotter. I admit my mistakes.

sidenote: I have finally found a way of thinking I dislike more than optimizers: old schoolers. optimizers are bad, but from what I'm hearing, old schoolers are even worse -in my opinion that has no basis in objective reality of course. :smallsmile:

nice to know I have two sides that I both dislike. I finally feel like I have found a place in the RPG community: the independent guy who dislikes both major schools of thought for their flaws. my favorite position.

Tengu_temp
2014-08-14, 05:27 PM
In AD&D Campaigns that was seen as the way that the game should operate. That is part of roleplaying it's why you get characters like Raistlin and his fairly crappy stats and his brother, also with fairly crappy stats.

That has nothing to do with roleplaying, though. See, this is exactly what I meant; if someone tells me that good roleplaying means that your character has bad stats, I'm starting to suspect they haven't actually played with good roleplayers in their life, because they have a weird definition of what roleplaying entails.

eggynack
2014-08-14, 05:30 PM
That is true, but however he seems to be the punching bag of choice on this forum. I wouldn't say that Jedipotter is good at communicating, but I would say that we can't assume that his tables are terrible hellholes everybody hates.
By my reckoning, every new thread that Jedipotter posts in is a new thread for her to not say something horrible. I'm not going to start following her around with criticisms from thread to thread (although I may use examples from other threads to justify my points, as I have), but if she keeps saying stuff along these lines, then I'm going to keep countering it.


Furthermore you can add the "at my table" qualifier to every single time somebody says something about an RPG, it's implied and would therefore be meaningless to include.
I can't really think of that many situations where people should add that qualifier, and don't, where it's not problematic. Generalizing your weird game situation to everyone in existence is a thing that leads to problems. Now, it might not be problematic to the extent that folks should be hyper-cautious about it, but when not using that qualifier means insulting massive piles of folks (like anyone who uses a bag of holding in a game), you should damn well put it in. It's not like this is just a simple mistake either, as Jedipotter has consistently used that universal language, and refused to alter it, or say that the specific version is correct, even after massive quantities of prodding on the issue. It doesn't help that a lot of her use of terms is just inaccurate, rather than correct in her games, and wrong elsewhere.

AMFV
2014-08-14, 05:32 PM
That has nothing to do with roleplaying, though. See, this is exactly what I meant; if someone tells me that good roleplaying means that your character has bad stats, I'm starting to suspect they haven't actually played with good roleplayers in their life, because they have a weird definition of what roleplaying entails.

In AD&D, it absolutely does. Good roleplaying means that you are able to play and produce a character even if they are incompetent at something. That's a fundamental of the style of roleplaying that was involved in that system.


By my reckoning, every new thread that Jedipotter posts in is a new thread for her to not say something horrible. I'm not going to start following her around with criticisms from thread to thread (although I may use examples from other threads to justify my points, as I have), but if she keeps saying stuff along these lines, then I'm going to keep countering it.

And that's fair, but there is a very large crowd that has been following her around criticizing, and it's worth noting that their criticisms have gotten farther and farther into left field as it's gone on. People have moved from criticizing specifics in her houserules to criticizing her entire style of play and that's where you go wrong. She could play a game where people are required to be lashed every time they fail a role, and if her players enjoy that, then it's whatever. And yes she does post things, that seem aberrant to us, but it's worth noting that those things are a product of an older style of gaming, and realizing that we can treat her opinions as a product of that, rather than as simply wrong.

Tengu_temp
2014-08-14, 05:35 PM
Then AD&D has a ridiculously outdated definition of roleplaying.

tensai_oni
2014-08-14, 05:35 PM
Stormwind Fallacy, HEYOOOOO!

AMFV
2014-08-14, 05:35 PM
Then AD&D has a ridiculously outdated definition of roleplaying.

Not outdated, just different.

Jormengand
2014-08-14, 05:38 PM
this is a guy who literally kicks people out instantly for not following his playstyle, and calls everyone who doesn't follow it a cheater no matter how legal or non-gamebreaking the optimization it is.

Hey, I'm playing an 18 int character who uses three different sourcebooks in one of his games and he hasn't kicked me out yet!

Zrak
2014-08-14, 05:51 PM
Well in AD&D perspectives were a little bit different. If you wanted to play a Paladin and you didn't roll high enough, people shrugged and said: "Tough Cookies". That was just kind of how the system worked at that time. And if you wanted to reroll then you might actually get accused of powergaming. That's kind of a difference in the AD&D fundamental assumptions as compared to current editions.

I admittedly came a little late to the AD&D party, but at least in my experience most DMs had a system in place to let people play the class they wanted, either through rerolling or by letting players move points from other abilities so long as it was purely to meet prerequisites. I think part of it was that most people had seen enough of the system to know that Paladin abilities didn't really make up for the significantly lower combat stats you were likely to have, so asking to reroll in order to play a paladin was generally regarded as an RP decision and given a little more leeway.

Esprit15
2014-08-14, 05:52 PM
When someone says that finding an optimizer who can RP is like rolling a natural 20, we are allowed to get offended.

Coidzor
2014-08-14, 05:59 PM
Not outdated, just different.

I'm pretty sure an ethos from the 1970s to 1980s is outdated in 2014 by at least a few metrics. Should still work for playing the games developed when that ethos was the Zeitgeist, and for games developed to try to recapture that feel with the benefit of nostalgia and more experience and developed sensibilities. Other places though?

Well, you wouldn't act like it was a 1974 punk show at a metal concert in 2001 and be expected to expect to get anywhere with that..

AMFV
2014-08-14, 06:04 PM
I'm pretty sure an ethos from the 1970s to 1980s is outdated in 2014 by at least a few metrics.

Well outdated implies that something is no longer useful, which in turn implies an inferiority. It's a term that's usually used by people who have adopted some newer way of thinking to reject out of hand an older way of thinking. My objection isn't to say that it isn't older, only that it may still have relevancy and value to date.

NichG
2014-08-14, 06:35 PM
One issue with that is it can be hard to discern between extensive optimization and special snowflake syndrome until you determine the intent of their oddly specific choices. Is that particular exotic race/class/gear/feat combo selected because they want to feel unique, or is it calculated because they want to do the most [X]? Of course, you can usually just hear them doing the math for the latter.

Well, the sorts of tell-tales during chargen that someone may not be very good at/interested in RP are more the places where the player ignores the implications of their choices beyond the mechanical effects. E.g. they want to play a Mineral Warrior Water Orc etc etc, and when its mentioned that this will freak people out and may cause the character to be ostracized (orc raiders being a major problem in the setting, or just because of the particular weirdness of appearance and general fear of the unknown in a world where the unknown really will kill you) and they don't understand why they should care or show signs of having not even considered the possibility, then that's a negative sign. Or for that matter, if they haven't even given consideration to the identity of the wizard who transformed them (and when asked, they give a throwaway answer - 'he's just some guy who cursed me').

If the player says 'yeah, I know, but I've been wanting to play an outcast' or 'well I'll have to wear heavy clothing and keep my face masked to try to keep it secret' or other things that suggest that they've actually thought about the non-mechanical implications of their choices as well as the mechanical implications (and that they take them seriously) then its a positive sign.

kyoryu
2014-08-14, 07:21 PM
Well, you wouldn't act like it was a 1974 punk show at a metal concert in 2001 and be expected to expect to get anywhere with that..

Clearly, One Direction is better than the Beatles or Led Zeppelin.

eggynack
2014-08-14, 07:35 PM
And that's fair, but there is a very large crowd that has been following her around criticizing, and it's worth noting that their criticisms have gotten farther and farther into left field as it's gone on. People have moved from criticizing specifics in her houserules to criticizing her entire style of play and that's where you go wrong. She could play a game where people are required to be lashed every time they fail a role, and if her players enjoy that, then it's whatever. And yes she does post things, that seem aberrant to us, but it's worth noting that those things are a product of an older style of gaming, and realizing that we can treat her opinions as a product of that, rather than as simply wrong.
Jedipotter has certainly earned a bit of a hatedom that's likely to persist for a chunk of time after the well of said hate stops flowing but there are definitely steps that can be taken to mitigate this stuff, and she's thus far gone in the exact opposite direction most of the time. It's also notable that she has several arguments that directly contradict several of her other arguments, which means that there's almost certainly something actually wrong, rather than just a difference of opinion. The whole misuse of words thing doesn't help either, and neither does the fact that she's yet to respond to most of my criticisms of the basic underlying logic of what she's said

AMFV
2014-08-14, 07:44 PM
Jedipotter has certainly earned a bit of a hatedom that's likely to persist for a chunk of time after the well of said hate stops flowing but there are definitely steps that can be taken to mitigate this stuff, and she's thus far gone in the exact opposite direction most of the time. It's also notable that she has several arguments that directly contradict several of her other arguments, which means that there's almost certainly something actually wrong, rather than just a difference of opinion. The whole misuse of words thing doesn't help either, and neither does the fact that she's yet to respond to most of my criticisms of the basic underlying logic of what she's said

She has no responsibility to respond to you with any underlying logic, furthermore you've at this point realized that the discussion isn't going anywhere. She apparently runs games that are enjoyable we have one of her players here at present, and he's participating, with notably a wizard with 18 intelligence. I don't believe that any of the vitriol that she is now receiving is proportionate to the fact that she's not good at communicating. Furthermore, after having watched the Rudisplork and Orcus saga unfold, it seems to me that there is a vested interest in taunting and belittling and very little interest (at this point) in educating or convincing, no wonder she's defensive, she continuously being attacked for having views that she believed were acceptable. And as I've pointed out her views aren't that far removed from many that were present at a certain period, including houseruling on the fly, complete DM control, a focus on randomness in characters, that sort of thing.

eggynack
2014-08-14, 07:56 PM
She has no responsibility to respond to you with any underlying logic.
She has no responsibility to do anything. That doesn't bestow upon me a responsibility to not be annoyed when she just ignores the fact that her arguments are internally contradictory and ridiculous.


Furthermore, after having watched the Rudisplork and Orcus saga unfold, it seems to me that there is a vested interest in taunting and belittling and very little interest (at this point) in educating or convincing, no wonder she's defensive, she continuously being attacked for having views that she believed were acceptable.
She's had plenty of people who acted in a manner lacking in taunts of any kind, and who merely sought information on how these games actually work. She consistently refuses to accept any out she's given, and has stated in the past that she's fine with being a punching bag, or words to that effect. I think that was back in the Rudisplork thread, though I'd rather not trawl through that one again. Not my favorite insanity thread, if I'm being honest.


And as I've pointed out her views aren't that far removed from many that were present at a certain period, including houseruling on the fly, complete DM control, a focus on randomness in characters, that sort of thing.
And that's just fine. She can have those opinions about her games if she wants. As I've stated, it's the generalization that's problematic. Beyond that, I don't see how I can be expected to not criticize the odder elements of these views when they're ostensibly being put out there to be agreed or disagreed with.

AMFV
2014-08-14, 08:01 PM
She's had plenty of people who acted in a manner lacking in taunts of any kind, and who merely sought information on how these games actually work. She consistently refuses to accept any out she's given, and has stated in the past that she's fine with being a punching bag, or words to that effect. I think that was back in the Rudisplork thread, though I'd rather not trawl through that one again. Not my favorite insanity thread, if I'm being honest.

Also it's important to note, I'm not accusing you of furthering that, I'm just stating that at this point further discussion is really not valuable or pertinent. Admittedly, I often have problems with that. But basically it winds up violently derailing many threads that have useful content and context and basically turns them into arguments with her, for example there was at least one thing brought up by NichG (in response to a statement by JediPotter no less), that was now lost three pages ago or so, because everybody has jumped on the clash of worldviews debate.



And that's just fine. She can have those opinions about her games if she wants. As I've stated, it's the generalization that's problematic. Beyond that, I don't see how I can be expected to not criticize the odder elements of these views when they're ostensibly being put out there to be agreed or disagreed with.

Well that's certainly true, but has it been productive?

Lord Raziere
2014-08-14, 08:01 PM
She has no responsibility to respond to you with any underlying logic, furthermore you've at this point realized that the discussion isn't going anywhere. She apparently runs games that are enjoyable we have one of her players here at present, and he's participating, with notably a wizard with 18 intelligence. I don't believe that any of the vitriol that she is now receiving is proportionate to the fact that she's not good at communicating. Furthermore, after having watched the Rudisplork and Orcus saga unfold, it seems to me that there is a vested interest in taunting and belittling and very little interest (at this point) in educating or convincing, no wonder she's defensive, she continuously being attacked for having views that she believed were acceptable. And as I've pointed out her views aren't that far removed from many that were present at a certain period, including houseruling on the fly, complete DM control, a focus on randomness in characters, that sort of thing.

by all means, keep defending the one who stereotyped an entire playstyle as cheaters, lump anyone who just wants to play a heroic character into that playstyle without any differentiation, will not admit to any mistakes, state all their views as fact, refuse to be educated or listen to anyone, and generally be the most control freak DM I've ever read about aside from the one in SUE Files, then proceed to whitewash it all as poor old school DM that we should accept automatically without thought because subjectivity. I'll be here, watching you dig yourself deeper. I am not buying it for a second.

One thing is for sure, I'm never playing in the same game as jedipotter- or you. I like my characters alive.

jedipotter
2014-08-14, 08:06 PM
I have to ask: haven't you never met a player who was a good roleplayer and a good optimizer at the same time?[QUOTE]

Sure, I've met myself....

[QUOTE=Esprit15;17942125]When someone says that finding an optimizer who can RP is like rolling a natural 20, we are allowed to get offended.

I never said that....

Angelalex242
2014-08-14, 08:07 PM
Then again, there's some modules (I'm looking at you, Tomb of Horrors) where even giving the players 18s across the board won't save them.

eggynack
2014-08-14, 08:11 PM
Also it's important to note, I'm not accusing you of furthering that, I'm just stating that at this point further discussion is really not valuable or pertinent. Admittedly, I often have problems with that. But basically it winds up violently derailing many threads that have useful content and context and basically turns them into arguments with her, for example there was at least one thing brought up by NichG (in response to a statement by JediPotter no less), that was now lost three pages ago or so, because everybody has jumped on the clash of worldviews debate.
I suppose derailing is an issue of some variety, though there are some derails that I enjoy. It's nice if the derail always has this weird and tenuous connection to the OP, as this one tended to do. I tend to have a pretty loose view about the degree to which something should remain on topic, under the premise that if people want to talk about the main topic, then they have every right to, though I can see how it could be a distraction on occasion.




Well that's certainly true, but has it been productive?
Well, it's been occasionally fun, which is nice, and there could be some theoretical impact on either Jedipotter, which I'm doubtful of, or some other reader who would otherwise be convinced by Jedipotter, which is at a likelihood level that I don't really know. Apart from that, I suppose I've gotten to flex some different types of arguing muscles, because it's nice to round out optimization and RAW arguments with gaming style arguments, even if it's not my favorite variety.

Edit:

I never said that....
...

Saying that an optimizer can role-play, is like saying you can roll a '20' on a 1d20. It's possible, but not automatic. But with a lot of numbers on the roll side, the role side is left behind.
yeah.

jedipotter
2014-08-14, 08:21 PM
Jedipotter said:

Saying that an optimizer can role-play, is like saying you can roll a '20' on a 1d20. It's possible, but not automatic. But with a lot of numbers on the roll side, the role side is left behind.


So I said: An optimizer can role play, but it's not automatic. Just as you optimize does not make you a great role player. It's just possible. A lot of optimizers are roll players, hack and slashers and casual gamers. Some are not.

Pex
2014-08-14, 08:33 PM
Well in AD&D perspectives were a little bit different. If you wanted to play a Paladin and you didn't roll high enough, people shrugged and said: "Tough Cookies". That was just kind of how the system worked at that time. And if you wanted to reroll then you might actually get accused of powergaming. That's kind of a difference in the AD&D fundamental assumptions as compared to current editions.

Right. Forcing a player who wanted to play a ranger to play a fighter who always wanted to be a ranger but is allergic to trees to inspire roleplaying because he didn't roll high enough and you won't allow even 2 for 1 trades to make a ranger can kiss my Stormwind ass. If there's one thing I love about 3E it was destroying that nonsense.

Oddman80
2014-08-14, 08:35 PM
actually you have two of Jedi's players here - Hello.

There were about 8 of us that came from the Rudisplork threads and are currently in two separate PbP's with Jedipotter. Mostly to see if the game play and DM tactics were as bad in actual play as were coming across in the threads... that said, one adventure is just now getting to the first plot hook presentation, while the other is in the middle of the 2nd round of the first encounter... so there isn't much that can be reported at this time. I fear for me - that all I will discover is that I don't care much for the PbP format. I may have had unrealistic hopes as to what the posting rate would be and the pace of progress one might see in a PbP game.

The only critique i have continued to share/reiterate - as it keeps coming up is this:

There are times when a forum user will post a question about RAW, or RAI. Often these are grumble posts by someone who disagrees with something that happened in game and has either not yet spoken tot he DM, or is looking to see if the DM's claims make sense (assuming the DM didn't flat out proclaim RULE ZERO). Most people tell the user to talk to the DM, or post their understanding of RAW. some will say something like "If I were the DM I would not allow that either, because I think....."

But Jedipotter has often come into such threads and posted his/her view of things without any qualifier - which is especially misleading when other posters are making such clarifications.

AMFV
2014-08-14, 09:12 PM
by all means, keep defending the one who stereotyped an entire playstyle as cheaters, lump anyone who just wants to play a heroic character into that playstyle without any differentiation, will not admit to any mistakes, state all their views as fact, refuse to be educated or listen to anyone, and generally be the most control freak DM I've ever read about aside from the one in SUE Files, then proceed to whitewash it all as poor old school DM that we should accept automatically without thought because subjectivity. I'll be here, watching you dig yourself deeper. I am not buying it for a second.

So why do you keep responding? She's already indicated that she doesn't want to be educated. Is it really that hard to just let it go? I'm so sick and tired of so many good threads turning into the same thread over and over and over and over again. We've seen this argument before and is never productive.

Also we don't know if Jedipotter is really that controlling in play, we know that she has very particular tastes and restrictions, but old school style DMs are likely to exaggerate themselves to be more strict rather than less so.



One thing is for sure, I'm never playing in the same game as jedipotter- or you. I like my characters alive.

Why not? I've never said that I preferred either style. I actually running both styles of games, both AD&D style where not being paranoid can kill you, no-save, and you'd be lucky to have a 15 in your main stat, and you'd be lucky to be a heroic player. And I enjoy playing games where all optimization is cool and characters have plot armor.


I suppose derailing is an issue of some variety, though there are some derails that I enjoy. It's nice if the derail always has this weird and tenuous connection to the OP, as this one tended to do. I tend to have a pretty loose view about the degree to which something should remain on topic, under the premise that if people want to talk about the main topic, then they have every right to, though I can see how it could be a distraction on occasion.


My issue is that what inevitably ends up happening is that the thread becomes an exact repeat of the last time this argument happened. We lose everything of merit in said thread as a result as it's buried on page 2 or 3 of a potentially 55 page thread which devolves into insults and name-calling as neither side refuses to budge.


Right. Forcing a player who wanted to play a ranger to play a fighter who always wanted to be a ranger but is allergic to trees to inspire roleplaying because he didn't roll high enough and you won't allow even 2 for 1 trades to make a ranger can kiss my Stormwind ass. If there's one thing I love about 3E it was destroying that nonsense.

Well it is a very different design decision to be fair, and that makes it inherently polarizing. For one thing 3.0 (and 3.5 and Pathfinder) had a lot more focus on perceived fairness, for example monsters now use the same rules as PCs, virtually all negative effects allow saves of one kind or another. You continue to gain HP throughout your career.

On the other hand it makes it very difficult to run something like Tomb of Horrors, when all the players are exceptional and when there is no mystery or paranoia, there is a certain degree of loss in that, loss in playing what you get stuck with. Now I'm not saying either is better, just that something was certainly lost in the translation, although other things were gained.

jedipotter
2014-08-14, 09:38 PM
But Jedipotter has often come into such threads and posted his/her view of things without any qualifier - which is especially misleading when other posters are making such clarifications.

So...if I don't post a qualifier....then, what I post is a rule and must be obeyed? Sounds good to me...lol

Eat more brussel sprouts. I have spoken.

And homebrew more spells and post them in the homebrew section.

Coidzor
2014-08-14, 09:43 PM
Then again, there's some modules (I'm looking at you, Tomb of Horrors) where even giving the players 18s across the board won't save them.

Well, yeah. You still have to play the freaking game.

eggynack
2014-08-14, 09:56 PM
So I said: An optimizer can role play, but it's not automatic. Just as you optimize does not make you a great role player. It's just possible. A lot of optimizers are roll players, hack and slashers and casual gamers. Some are not.
But the implication of what you specifically said is that the combination of the two features is somehow especially rare, such that optimizers are far less likely to be good at roleplaying. It also seems relevant that the thing you were accused of saying is a lot like the thing you said.


My issue is that what inevitably ends up happening is that the thread becomes an exact repeat of the last time this argument happened. We lose everything of merit in said thread as a result as it's buried on page 2 or 3 of a potentially 55 page thread which devolves into insults and name-calling as neither side refuses to budge.

It happens. As is, the base question of the original post seems to be mostly asked and answered, but if you seek out more discussion about a particular aspect of that post, or related topics, or if the OP himself wants to raise further follow-up questions, then that is entirely your and his prerogative. You might even be able to get more attention to those questions based on the relative popularity of this thread.

AMFV
2014-08-14, 10:44 PM
It happens. As is, the base question of the original post seems to be mostly asked and answered, but if you seek out more discussion about a particular aspect of that post, or related topics, or if the OP himself wants to raise further follow-up questions, then that is entirely your and his prerogative. You might even be able to get more attention to those questions based on the relative popularity of this thread.

It happens, however this thread is an example of this exact sort of problem. We've had several conversation threads that were lost to the argument which has happened five or six times on this forum this month between the same exact people. That seems counterproductive to any useful discussion.

eggynack
2014-08-14, 10:48 PM
It happens, however this thread is an example of this exact sort of problem. We've had several conversation threads that were lost to the argument which has happened five or six times on this forum this month between the same exact people. That seems counterproductive to any useful discussion.
I suppose the difference between us on this point, ultimately, is that I'm not quite bored of this stuff yet, whereas you presumably are. As for this being counterproductive to a useful discussion, I guess it's theoretically possible, but as I mentioned, I don't see what useful discussion it's being counterproductive to.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-14, 10:57 PM
It happens, however this thread is an example of this exact sort of problem. We've had several conversation threads that were lost to the argument which has happened five or six times on this forum this month between the same exact people. That seems counterproductive to any useful discussion.

Hm this is willful stubbornness and dogmatic clinging to ones own misconceptions on par with Masonicon. y'know, that guy on media discussions who posted that ani-toonspiracy thread? this is just like it: a person comes in and constantly clings to the same view of something no matter how much people sensibly tells them they have a very flawed view of things, ignores a vast majority of the posts in favor of only responding to little parts of them as if the rest do not exist, refuses to be educated on the topic or to listen to anyone to change their viewpoint, acting as if they are in their own little world, to the point where they don't change at all or very little. it even has the same weird posting style of one-line sentences or short paragraphs at a time and not really elaborating on anything they claim.

I'm not saying that Masonicon and jedipotter are the same person mind you, but its pretty weird, since they act similarly. maybe its some sort of behavioral/psychological thing, interacting with how forums work?

Esprit15
2014-08-14, 11:15 PM
Wait, Masonicon is here!? I remember that guy from back on the Sporum! He was hilarious. We just assumed he was joking/a troll. He was like a neighbor's pet puppy that all the kids play with when he comes by.

Difference was, he wasn't hostile and insulting, just crazy.

Dang, it's been years... Probably just under three, actually.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-14, 11:23 PM
Wait, Masonicon is here!? I remember that guy from back on the Sporum! He was hilarious. We just assumed he was joking/a troll. He was like a neighbor's pet puppy that all the kids play with when he comes by.

Difference was, he wasn't hostile and insulting, just crazy.

Dang, it's been years... Probably just under three, actually.

He WAS.

he hasn't posted for some time now, so hopefully he has forgotten about trying to post here.

there were two threads (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?310394-Ani-Toonspiracy(aka-the-Ultimate-Crossover-Movie)) about him and his ani-toonspiracy nonsense. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?321379-Maxios-and-jhunter_d-(now-Mystic-Muse)-Read-Ani-Toonspiracy!) one which is about him pitching the concept to the forum, and another is a lets read of the script, both of which break down how his idea for a film was completely unworkable for an entire army of reasons, good for a laugh no?

Zrak
2014-08-15, 03:35 AM
Like I said, I never met any of the super-duper hardline oldschool DMs you hear about. In general, my experience was that if you wanna be a ranger, you can do what you have to do to be a ranger; if you end up a ranger with 9 strength, though, you deal with it.


Then again, there's some modules (I'm looking at you, Tomb of Horrors) where even giving the players 18s across the board won't save them.

In my experience, it was also pretty standard to "Pool of Radiance it" (as one of my DMs put it) if the party as a whole had better stats. That 18 isn't there for you to coast on, it's there so you can kill even more giants. For all their optimization potential, 3.X games just don't seem to lend themselves to apocalyptic meatgrinder encounters the way AD&D used to.


But the implication of what you specifically said is that the combination of the two features is somehow especially rare, such that optimizers are far less likely to be good at roleplaying. It also seems relevant that the thing you were accused of saying is a lot like the thing you said.
I think people are just taking the analogy way too literally and directly. She said that because something can happen doesn't mean it's guaranteed or even necessarily likely. I don't think she was trying to claim it's exactly 1 in 20.

eggynack
2014-08-15, 03:57 AM
I think people are just taking the analogy way too literally and directly. She said that because something can happen doesn't mean it's guaranteed or even necessarily likely. I don't think she was trying to claim it's exactly 1 in 20.
Could be, though she's claimed stormwind as false enough times that it's reasonable to assume that that's what she was doing there. The weird thing with Jedipotter is that you read her stuff, and you're all like, "Oh man, this is just an absolutely ridiculous thing to say," and then after some explanation and thought you think, "Y'know, maybe she meant it as this other thing that's way less absurd, and I was just letting poor rhetorical skills blind me to cogent arguments," and then eventually you realize, "No, wait, she totally meant that first absurd thing." It is, as Dr. Horrible would say, like pie. Really, the main point here, after all that, is that she did say pretty much that exact thing, so claiming the opposite is inaccurate.

Edit: Also, @Lord Raziere, I'm reading the first of those Ani-Toonspiracy threads, and it's some pretty amazing stuff.

Frozen_Feet
2014-08-15, 08:56 AM
I'm pretty sure an ethos from the 1970s to 1980s is outdated in 2014 by at least a few metrics.

It can be, but won't necessarily be. Music was already brought up as an example, but we could just bring up other games. Chess and Go are centuries old and are still popular and highly-valued.

As far as RPGs go, at its core, the OSR movement is based on the saying "know the rules well, so you can break them effectively". The problem that OSR has with newer games is that their makes (and players) do not, or did not understand why some rules of old D&D were as they were, and as a result the changes they made broke something important and made the game worse, rather than better.

A great example is tracking of food and time and wandering monsters. Lots of players and GMs considered this too much of a bother or boring, causing them to ignore or remove those rules. Result? We get people complaining about a "15 minute workday" where characters rest after each encounter to always be at full power. Well duh, because three major factors preventing that were removed.

Does this mean you cannot have a good game without the boring resource management? No. But to device such a game, you have to take the lack of those into consideration. You can't just take the interesting bits of the old game and expect them work just right in isolation.

I suppose this round-aboutly answers the title question too. What ruins the spirit of the game are changes that are made in ignorance of what that spirit is, or made in ignorance of the spirit you're aiming for. As Sunzi said "know thyself and know thy enemy, and you will always win. If you only know one, your chance of victory is one-in-half. If you know neither, you will certainly lose."

Raimun
2014-08-15, 10:29 AM
I really don't get this obsession some people have with enforcing that all player characters should have poor to average abilities. I mean, what's the point of playing a game of heroic fantasy if you can't design a character who could give Aragorn or Conan a run for their money?

I mean, sure, a plucky everyman hero (with average stats) who fails more than he succeeds but still keeps fighting to make a difference is an actual heroic archetype (and a noble one at that) but it's just one archetype. While there are a few (other) heroic archetypes I enjoy playing more than anything else in RPGs, I grow tired of playing even those once in a while. I would eventually grow bored of any archetype I was forced to play ad infinitum, even the ones I generally enjoy.

Oh, and for the original example: 20 Int is not superhuman. It's a stat naturally achievable by humans at some point and in Pathfinder a 1st level human can achieve that. Perfectly okay, if you envisioned that your hero is an actual genius.

jaydubs
2014-08-15, 11:13 AM
See, I don't always mind playing Jimmy Everyman, as long as the DMs realize this is not the norm and adjust accordingly. For instance, by explaining it while recruiting for the campaign. "Hey guys, I'm going to be running a gritty, low-powered, old school adventure. Anyone interested?" Heck, I've had fun in NPC class only games with 15 point buy. It can work. But the important thing is I was able to make an informed decision about playing in that campaign. It wasn't a nasty surprise.

But if I show up to a game without any forewarning, and the DM starts nerfing stuff randomly, lecturing about how everything was better back in the day, etc., I'm going to be upset.

It's like if I order a pizza, and the place ends up delivering one with "this amazing dairy-free, tofu cultured cheese imitation." I'm going to be righteously pissed. Not because tofu based cheese is evil or inherently bad. But because the restaurant should have been aware that real cheese is the accepted norm, understood that customers could be unhappy if the norm wasn't delivered, and given the option to try it or not.

If someone wants to run an old-school game, with some combination of unexceptional characters, unfair monsters, and/or DM fiat, put it on the fracking box. Then you get players who are interested and less likely to be problem players. If you go on ignoring that times have changed, and the norm has shifted, of course you're going to have a bad time. And you deserve to get crap for trying to spring your unusual preferences on people who probably weren't looking for that type of game.

Coidzor
2014-08-15, 11:25 AM
I really don't get this obsession some people have with enforcing that all player characters should have poor to average abilities. I mean, what's the point of playing a game of heroic fantasy if you can't design a character who could give Aragorn or Conan a run for their money?

Do people really have that? I've encountered more a devotion to the idea of random generated stats, damned whatever silliness that creates, because at least the character can be suicided amusingly unless one were doing it as a challenge to see how long they could last with a character with suicidally low stats. And, hey, maybe that culture has Suicide by Adventuring as a thing. Either they die in a way that doesn't require anyone to spend money on burying them or they keep going and become gods through righting wrongs and such and don't wanna die anymore. Win-win for everybody.

I don't really swing that way myself, but much like men who enjoy having sex with men, I at least *think* I can see some of what appeals to them about it. I could see myself wanting to try it as an interlude if I didn't go off and play something like FATE or Mutants and Masterminds or Shadowrun or World of Darkness instead when High Fantasy started to wear on me.

Though, I must admit, doing a Joe Wood kind of game holds more appeal to me, as it feels like it would be more... self-honest(?) about what we're playing and why we're playing it as opposed to picking heroic classes with characters whose natural abilities would suggest they'd get turned away by my understanding of verisimiltude.

Raimun
2014-08-15, 01:56 PM
Do people really have that? I've encountered more a devotion to the idea of random generated stats, damned whatever silliness that creates, because at least the character can be suicided amusingly unless one were doing it as a challenge to see how long they could last with a character with suicidally low stats. And, hey, maybe that culture has Suicide by Adventuring as a thing. Either they die in a way that doesn't require anyone to spend money on burying them or they keep going and become gods through righting wrongs and such and don't wanna die anymore. Win-win for everybody.


Oldschool Suicide Adventures can get a bit silly at some point. People die all the time and send all the time new characters for the grinder. That means one of the two things have to happen:

1) You stop playing until you finish creating a new character. This will be rushed but still takes valuable time you could be actually playing a character.

2) You have a pile of back up-characters just waiting until the current one kicks the bucket. Just imagine all that paperwork.

In either case, such characters can't be as well developed as characters that don't die all the time. I mean, if you have to rush character making or make them by bulk, the quality will take a hit. Characters are supposed to be more than a collection of numbers and oldschool-attitude can get detrimental for that end.

At least with the people I play, character creation is such an arduous process that Suicide Adventures would just get on the nerves of everyone.

That said, I might be willing to give it a try but only if the game used Herolab, etc. program to streamline the character creation and everyone made several characters before the first session. While characterization would take a hit, it would give the opportunity to try out different concepts from a mechanical point of view.

Also, there should be a solid reason why the party keeps meeting strangers that join them every time some of them dies but not otherwise. It should also go without saying that such a campaign should be fairly tongue in cheek. Something like "Starship Troopers: The Movie: The Roleplaying game." :smalltongue:

"Join the men-at-arms and save the kingdom! Service guarantees citizenship. Would thee like to know more?"

Frozen_Feet
2014-08-15, 02:20 PM
I really don't get this obsession some people have with enforcing that all player characters should have poor to average abilities. I mean, what's the point of playing a game of heroic fantasy if you can't design a character who could give Aragorn or Conan a run for their money?

There are a lot of reasons. Some of them relate to common human cognitive biases, some relate to history of RPGS, and some relate to idol worship.

Firstly: cognitive biases. The most important here is probably Dunning-Kruger-effect. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect) Shortly: inept people tend to overestimate themselves, while highly skilled people underestimate themselves. Another way to formulate this is: everyone holds themselves as the benchmark for "average" unless experience show otherwise. Indeed, if asked majority of people will probably think of themselves as at least average, or mildly above average, even though by very definition half of them are below average.

It's easy to observe many common RPG scenarios fall outside the expertise of many players, and many characters have skills that their players don't have. Such players have no idea how their characters should perform, save for the fact that if they themselves are above average, their characters must be even more so. Hence they demand inflated stats to "feel useful".

Then there's the one guy who's actually competent on the area modeled by the game, and feels that the average person is actually well able to do a lot of things. Ergo, to be a hero, a character doesn't need high stats.

Which party is right isn't set in stone; it depends on what kind of a reality the game system used models.

And here is where get to point second: history of RPGs. In early versions of D&D, 1st characters were fairly weak, but this was intentional. So was starting with a weak character: it was there to increase appreciation for character growth and to reward player skill. Ergo, while player characters were protagonists, they didn't actually get to be heroes until the player knew how to do all those heroic things successfully within the game system. To understand this kind of thinking, you have to go back to D&D's wargame roots and tournament gaming. In such environments, beginning players are not given hugely complex armies because they won't know what to do with them, and they probably have to face players on their own tier first before being allowed to play against more experienced gamers. Similar systems exist in sports too. The reasoning is that play far out of your depth is not fun. The beginner will suffer from option paralysis or suffer a humiliating defeat instead.

Remember: back then, the hobby was new, and the default roleplayer was a new roleplayer. You didn't really have all that many players who'd already seen the 1st level thousand times over. All the boring, cliched stuff wasn't boring and cliched back then. But when the attitude that player characters should "earn their wings" meets someone who's already done that in a hundred other games and just wants to skip it all, there's obvious conflict.

Finally, there's idol worship. At its core, its really childish, but so are many players. Many players have those few, favorite characters whom they've placed on a mile-high pedestal, and some "mere player character" being better is downright travesty. Of course, the joke here is that the idol isn't necessarily all that great. This phenomenom isn't limited to RPGs, you see it crop up frequently in the form of X Versus Y threads over on the Media Discussions forum. These are the people who insist Conan is max level, across all game systems, even if he'd be nothing but a chump in many of them. This attitude of course limits player characters, because they just never can be allowed to be as cool.

Coidzor
2014-08-15, 04:29 PM
Characters are supposed to be more than a collection of numbers and oldschool-attitude can get detrimental for that end.

Are you sure about that? :smallconfused: Everything I've read about Gygaxian D&D and the first few iterations of D&D after that, before people started keeping characters around for a bit longer around AD&D 2e, suggests that characters were just vehicles that the player moved around with and used the numbers of in order to interact with the game world.

Hell, the original batch of characters were just named after their players. Such as the infamous Lord Robilar after they had several Robs, Bobs, Roberts, and Boberts running around of Gygax's... son? Nephew? :smallconfused:

Frozen_Feet
2014-08-15, 04:55 PM
Characters have always been meant to be more than numbers, that is the point of RPGs; but, they were primarily still intended to be playing pieces for the, you know, players.

The difference to more modern ideas is hard to explain... how would I put this? In old-school play, to have the character they want to have, a player needs to act it out by making correct decisions during the game. In newer games, the player states what kind of character they want to play, often largely before the game, during character creation.

An old-school character is pretty much a clean slate to start with: their personality, their history and such emerge from the game, largely from the events and ideas a player has while playing them through the first few levels. A newer school character has an extensive history and personality before the player has played a single game with them. One of the conflicts I see here is that a newer-school character is not suited for starting weak at 1st level. The longer it takes to craft a character, the harder they are to replace. So in an old-school game, a newer-school character should start at a higher level. But as noted, this is against the principle of having a player "earn their wings".

Raimun
2014-08-15, 05:01 PM
There are a lot of reasons. Some of them relate to common human cognitive biases, some relate to history of RPGS, and some relate to idol worship.

Firstly: cognitive biases. The most important here is probably Dunning-Kruger-effect. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect) Shortly: inept people tend to overestimate themselves, while highly skilled people underestimate themselves. Another way to formulate this is: everyone holds themselves as the benchmark for "average" unless experience show otherwise. Indeed, if asked majority of people will probably think of themselves as at least average, or mildly above average, even though by very definition half of them are below average.

It's easy to observe many common RPG scenarios fall outside the expertise of many players, and many characters have skills that their players don't have. Such players have no idea how their characters should perform, save for the fact that if they themselves are above average, their characters must be even more so. Hence they demand inflated stats to "feel useful".

Then there's the one guy who's actually competent on the area modeled by the game, and feels that the average person is actually well able to do a lot of things. Ergo, to be a hero, a character doesn't need high stats.

Which party is right isn't set in stone; it depends on what kind of a reality the game system used models.

And here is where get to point second: history of RPGs. In early versions of D&D, 1st characters were fairly weak, but this was intentional. So was starting with a weak character: it was there to increase appreciation for character growth and to reward player skill. Ergo, while player characters were protagonists, they didn't actually get to be heroes until the player knew how to do all those heroic things successfully within the game system. To understand this kind of thinking, you have to go back to D&D's wargame roots and tournament gaming. In such environments, beginning players are not given hugely complex armies because they won't know what to do with them, and they probably have to face players on their own tier first before being allowed to play against more experienced gamers. Similar systems exist in sports too. The reasoning is that play far out of your depth is not fun. The beginner will suffer from option paralysis or suffer a humiliating defeat instead.

Remember: back then, the hobby was new, and the default roleplayer was a new roleplayer. You didn't really have all that many players who'd already seen the 1st level thousand times over. All the boring, cliched stuff wasn't boring and cliched back then. But when the attitude that player characters should "earn their wings" meets someone who's already done that in a hundred other games and just wants to skip it all, there's obvious conflict.

Finally, there's idol worship. At its core, its really childish, but so are many players. Many players have those few, favorite characters whom they've placed on a mile-high pedestal, and some "mere player character" being better is downright travesty. Of course, the joke here is that the idol isn't necessarily all that great. This phenomenom isn't limited to RPGs, you see it crop up frequently in the form of X Versus Y threads over on the Media Discussions forum. These are the people who insist Conan is max level, across all game systems, even if he'd be nothing but a chump in many of them. This attitude of course limits player characters, because they just never can be allowed to be as cool.

Still doesn't make sense. Leveling is still required to unlock the power little by little and that holds true no matter how high the party's stats are. Even with all 18s no one is invincible. Which is all good, I might add.

Player skill is not really relevant here. Player of any skill level is affected by the increase or decrease of character competence. Even a skilled player can't do much with all 10s stat array and a first time player would do pretty well with all 18s stat array. On the other hand, first time player with all 10s is simply screwed and skilled player with all 18s will do better than first time player would with the same stats.

Good stats and interesting special ability combinations help in part to make a character feel truly distinct, along with backstory, attitude, motivations, etc. Stuff the character is good in help to imagine why he would adventure and also make it more beliavable. Of course someone with 18 Str and Con would decide to fight monsters for gold and someone with 20 Int would be drawn to wizardry. Joe The Average with 10s in all stats is just not in his element if he decides to become an adventurer, no matter what class he was.


Characters have always been meant to be more than numbers, that is the point of RPGs; but, they were primarily still intended to be playing pieces for the, you know, players.


Yeah, this is simply not true for me. While my mind influences what kind of character I make, what choices he makes and how he will turn out, a character is not merely a playing piece or extension of myself but a completely separate being. Kind of like Liam Neeson is not actually a jedi but plays one in a movie.



The difference to more modern ideas is hard to explain... how would I put this? In old-school play, to have the character they want to have, a player needs to act it out by making correct decisions during the game. In newer games, the player states what kind of character they want to play, often largely before the game, during character creation.

An old-school character is pretty much a clean slate to start with: their personality, their history and such emerge from the game, largely from the events and ideas a player has while playing them through the first few levels. A newer school character has an extensive history and personality before the player has played a single game with them. One of the conflicts I see here is that a newer-school character is not suited for starting weak at 1st level. The longer it takes to craft a character, the harder they are to replace. So in an old-school game, a newer-school character should start at a higher level. But as noted, this is against the principle of having a player "earn their wings".

But newer school lets you flesh out a character and then it's thrust in to a chaotic world that is the game. The slate has still room to write on but it will be all based on the first lines of the slate.

Besides, a newer school character can just as well stat at 1st level. There is a difference how I write the backstories of 1st level characters and 10+ level ones. 1st level character has notes about his childhood, formative years, training, etc. and perhaps a fight or two to flesh out the fact that he's so badass with swords, compared to a regular Joe. With higher level character there's that stuff as well but also mentions of past adventures, such as the time when my giant character stormed the castle with a few other player characters. Of course, if I spinned a backstory of how my character stormed a castle and demanded to play a 10+ level character when we agreed to start at 1st level, I would be just unreasonable.

Of course, I'm comfortable writing backstories for 1st level characters because I've played games for so long that I can survive low level play well enough.

The Insanity
2014-08-15, 05:18 PM
Are you sure about that? :smallconfused: Everything I've read about Gygaxian D&D and the first few iterations of D&D after that, before people started keeping characters around for a bit longer around AD&D 2e, suggests that characters were just vehicles that the player moved around with and used the numbers of in order to interact with the game world.

Hell, the original batch of characters were just named after their players. Such as the infamous Lord Robilar after they had several Robs, Bobs, Roberts, and Boberts running around of Gygax's... son? Nephew? :smallconfused:
Not to mention that D&D evolved from wargames.

Raimun
2014-08-15, 05:33 PM
Not to mention that D&D evolved from wargames.

I wrote fluff for my wargaming armies as well. :smallbiggrin:

Frozen_Feet
2014-08-15, 06:23 PM
Player skill is not really relevant here. Player of any skill level is affected by the increase or decrease of character competence. Even a skilled player can't do much with all 10s stat array and a first time player would do pretty well with all 18s stat array. On the other hand, first time player with all 10s is simply screwed and skilled player with all 18s will do better than first time player would with the same stats.

It's not the skill of playing RPGs that's relevant here. It's the player's skill in real-world situations comparable to those in the game, as it is those that drastically change what they expect their characters to be able to do.

An example: a rather slow-witted player with little academic knowledge is still likely to think they're at least of average intellect. So they're not going to buy a character with 10 INT outperforming them in areas of academic knowledge. From their perspective, the "average character" shouldn't be more competent than them, or a more competent character should have higher INT.

On the other side of the table, we have a very smart and educated player. He is well above average, but because he knows how much he's ignorant of, he feels like "nothing special". If an 10 INT character shows extensive knowledge or does math or strategy, they won't be bothered, because they think "average people" are well able to do "basic stuff" like that... even if the only person at the table to whom those are basic is him.

It's only after we consider these player expectations that it becomes meaningful to discuss what the stat actually model within the game, as opposed to what the players think they model. In Lamentations of the Flame Princess, for example, the mechanical difference between a 10 INT and an 18 INT is having a better chance to know a foreign language and taking three days less to research magic. A Specialist can overcome the higher INT character's advantage from 1st level and the latter is only useful to wealthy, higher-level Magic-User or Cleric. The mechanics don't say anything at all about ability to know things or make good decisions - those are explicitly left on the shoulders of player skill. The smart player is by and large able to do all the same things with their character as the dumb player.

So if the dumb player, at some point, says "your character has only 10 INT, he shouldn't know that" and the smart player says "What do you mean, this was common knowledge in the Middle-Ages?", who is right?

Sartharina
2014-08-15, 06:55 PM
I have my own issues with Strength scores, especially with "10" being Average Strength (And the huge disparity IRL in strength between men and women). Does opening a sealed pickle jar require a STR of 11, or STR of 9?

NichG
2014-08-15, 07:11 PM
Player skill is not really relevant here. Player of any skill level is affected by the increase or decrease of character competence. Even a skilled player can't do much with all 10s stat array and a first time player would do pretty well with all 18s stat array. On the other hand, first time player with all 10s is simply screwed and skilled player with all 18s will do better than first time player would with the same stats.

Player skill can count for a lot. If we take AD&D as an example, I would say that the skilled player with the all-10s character will generally be able to run rings around the new player with the all-18 array, especially in old-school games. The new player with the all-18 array is likely to do something foolish like 'I roll to detect traps on the chest!' - which for a first level thief with an 18 Dex only has a 35% chance of success and a 65% chance of setting off the trap and likely killing the character. The skilled player will recognize that the rules are not his friend in this particular situation, and that if a low level character wants to deal with traps they can - and must - do so via non-mechanical means ('I have a hireling go over and open the chest'; 'I use a 10ft pole with a hook on the end to open the chest at a distance'; 'I shoot the lock of the chest with a crossbow from 50ft away'; etc)

The original Tomb of Horrors module was suggested to be appropriate for a party of high level characters. As a lark, I ran it at a Halloween party for a group of 1st level characters, but with 'free replacement for lost characters'. It made almost no difference - the 1st level characters were able to get over halfway through the module before the night ended, with only a handful of deaths. Most of the things that killed them would have killed the high-level characters too.

This is very different than, say, D&D 3.5, where if you were playing a 1st level character in a module designed for 12th level characters, there's just no way to pull it off short of Pun-Pun. If you treat D&D 3.5 like it's AD&D, or treat AD&D like it's D&D 3.5, in both cases you're likely to get a nasty surprise. But there are still elements of player skill that can overcome a bad stat array even in 3.5. I'd say that a skilled optimizer would be able to make a much more powerful character using the all-10s array than a new player would be able to do with an all-18s array. There's still a strong element of player skill that dominates other factors, but it just lives in a different place within the game system.


I have my own issues with Strength scores, especially with "10" being Average Strength (And the huge disparity IRL in strength between men and women). Does opening a sealed pickle jar require a STR of 11, or STR of 9?

I'd say it requires STR 6, reasonable leverage, and a lack of sweaty palms.

Raimun
2014-08-15, 07:28 PM
It's not the skill of playing RPGs that's relevant here. It's the player's skill in real-world situations comparable to those in the game, as it is those that drastically change what they expect their characters to be able to do.

An example: a rather slow-witted player with little academic knowledge is still likely to think they're at least of average intellect. So they're not going to buy a character with 10 INT outperforming them in areas of academic knowledge. From their perspective, the "average character" shouldn't be more competent than them, or a more competent character should have higher INT.

On the other side of the table, we have a very smart and educated player. He is well above average, but because he knows how much he's ignorant of, he feels like "nothing special". If an 10 INT character shows extensive knowledge or does math or strategy, they won't be bothered, because they think "average people" are well able to do "basic stuff" like that... even if the only person at the table to whom those are basic is him.

It's only after we consider these player expectations that it becomes meaningful to discuss what the stat actually model within the game, as opposed to what the players think they model. In Lamentations of the Flame Princess, for example, the mechanical difference between a 10 INT and an 18 INT is having a better chance to know a foreign language and taking three days less to research magic. A Specialist can overcome the higher INT character's advantage from 1st level and the latter is only useful to wealthy, higher-level Magic-User or Cleric. The mechanics don't say anything at all about ability to know things or make good decisions - those are explicitly left on the shoulders of player skill. The smart player is by and large able to do all the same things with their character as the dumb player.

So if the dumb player, at some point, says "your character has only 10 INT, he shouldn't know that" and the smart player says "What do you mean, this was common knowledge in the Middle-Ages?", who is right?

Granted, people of any intellect can lack a frame of reference but surely most people have a pretty accurate estimate of how intelligent they are when compared to other people, even if they know they are ignorant.


Player skill can count for a lot. If we take AD&D as an example, I would say that the skilled player with the all-10s character will generally be able to run rings around the new player with the all-18 array, especially in old-school games. The new player with the all-18 array is likely to do something foolish like 'I roll to detect traps on the chest!' - which for a first level thief with an 18 Dex only has a 35% chance of success and a 65% chance of setting off the trap and likely killing the character. The skilled player will recognize that the rules are not his friend in this particular situation, and that if a low level character wants to deal with traps they can - and must - do so via non-mechanical means ('I have a hireling go over and open the chest'; 'I use a 10ft pole with a hook on the end to open the chest at a distance'; 'I shoot the lock of the chest with a crossbow from 50ft away'; etc)


Oh, c'mon. Most of the old school challenge is because GMs like Gygax made spiteful ad hoc decisions on the spot and then they got codified:
"Wait, what? You actually killed the monster? Well... as you walk towards the treasure, the treasure chest, the ceiling, the floor and all eight of the walls attack you! Roll a save against poison and then roll initiative!" :smalltongue:

How else you explain monsters such as Wolf-in-Sheep's-Clothing and co (http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article73.htm).



The original Tomb of Horrors module was suggested to be appropriate for a party of high level characters. As a lark, I ran it at a Halloween party for a group of 1st level characters, but with 'free replacement for lost characters'. It made almost no difference - the 1st level characters were able to get over halfway through the module before the night ended, with only a handful of deaths. Most of the things that killed them would have killed the high-level characters too.

This is very different than, say, D&D 3.5, where if you were playing a 1st level character in a module designed for 12th level characters, there's just no way to pull it off short of Pun-Pun. If you treat D&D 3.5 like it's AD&D, or treat AD&D like it's D&D 3.5, in both cases you're likely to get a nasty surprise. But there are still elements of player skill that can overcome a bad stat array even in 3.5. I'd say that a skilled optimizer would be able to make a much more powerful character using the all-10s array than a new player would be able to do with an all-18s array. There's still a strong element of player skill that dominates other factors, but it just lives in a different place within the game system.


Well, yeah. Things have generally made more sense since 3rd edition, even if we discount the more sensible book layout and more consistent rules. If you play 3rd edition (or later edition) and were to attempt a module designed for 12th level characters as a 1st level party, there's no way you can come through because the party will find things to be way over their heads. They can't fight the monsters or even sneak past them. Traps are also generally too advanced to disable, let alone perceive. But of course stuff like that doesn't matter when you play AD&D because there are no Skills and you can just waltz through stuff if you ask enough questions and employ "cleverly" the umpteen ten foot poles carried per PC.

As for the skilled player with 10s for all stats, yeah. The more skilled player can make a more effective character than a new player. However, even that player would not really shine in any way. Magic is all but impossible with all 10s and close combat will be pain. Archery might be slightly better option but even then the accuracy is just terrible. Rogue might work the best but even then you would operating with terrible accuracy, defense and even the skills would be lacking. Sure, in 3.5 you might roll a Warlock or in Pathfinder a Synthetist but even those would be rather unimpressive. You could also make an argument about player ingenuity but there's only so much ten foot poles can accomplish and only so many places with candeliers you can drop on people that there's not much to write home about. Of course, I'm assuming 1st level play with no +6 stat boost items and it should go without saying you can't be an anthropomorphic bat, a minotaur or something like that.

Sartharina
2014-08-15, 07:31 PM
Granted, people of any intellect can lack a frame of reference but surely most people have a pretty accurate estimate of how intelligent they are when compared to other people, even if they know they are ignorant.No, they don't. They think they're "Int 10-13), even if they're anywhere between INT 3-18 IRL. Aside from a few INT 4 who think they're INT 18.

Coidzor
2014-08-15, 07:39 PM
No, they don't. They think they're "Int 10-13), even if they're anywhere between INT 3-18 IRL. Aside from a few INT 4 who think they're INT 18.

Probably best to avoid getting into the subject of the profoundly mentally handicapped. :smalleek:

jedipotter
2014-08-15, 07:43 PM
the default roleplayer was a new roleplayer.

This is still true. How long has the average player been playing? Two years? Three? Five? Or do you count with the ''new'' math: If you played your first game ever in 2000 an played all that year, then did not play another game until 2014.....would you say you have been gaming for 14 years?

Frozen_Feet
2014-08-15, 07:50 PM
Granted, people of any intellect can lack a frame of reference but surely most people have a pretty accurate estimate of how intelligent they are when compared to other people, even if they know they are ignorant.

The Dunning-Kruger-effect practically guarantees the only people who have accurate estimate of such are those who regularly test or challenge themselves. You might as well claim "most people have accurate estimate of how long they can run in 12 minute running test". When was the last time you took the test? How about your friends? Just try it once. Pick any standardized test of performance and see how many people have taken anything like it, contra how they'd expect to thrive in them.

Frozen_Feet
2014-08-15, 07:56 PM
This is still true. How long has the average player been playing? Two years? Three? Five? Or do you count with the ''new'' math: If you played your first game ever in 2000 an played all that year, then did not play another game until 2014.....would you say you have been gaming for 14 years?

The average tabletop player is actually pretty old. Last I checked, the average age around here was 30, with most having started the hobby when they were teenagers. Seriously, the biggest RPG convention here saw fit to reserve space specifically for a nursery because increasing amount of its audience are coming in with kids between ages 0 and 4.

My players tend to be pretty young, but that's because I actively work to spread the hobby amongst young kids. In a typical convention game, the average age of players jumps up by 10 years easily, and it's easy to tell the older players are more experienced with the hobby.

jedipotter
2014-08-15, 08:01 PM
Granted, people of any intellect can lack a frame of reference but surely most people have a pretty accurate estimate of how intelligent they are when compared to other people, even if they know they are ignorant.

This is not true....to use an elven saying you can't see the forest through the trees.

Think what it would be like in a game: A (metagaming) player post a sign: ''Hring workers 10 gold and hour, must have INT of higher then 12'' How many people would show up with low INT scores? Dozens, at least.

I run a game every so often for ''bored players''. They have demi god characters in thier home game, and have found the game ''boring and pointless'' or they are ''so powerful'' he game is no fun. If asked, they will say they are ''master'' players and ''the best of the best''. And then they come to my game, with the challange of ''make it not boring, challanging, and fun''. And I do so. First off they get a shock from my house rules that take away a lot of the super safe and easy stuff in the game. And then they are in for the bigger shock of monsters acting intelligently and clever. And so forth. It's typical for such ''self proclaimed great'' players to not have a character live through my game. You'd think they would have seen it coming.....

(Un)Inspired
2014-08-15, 08:23 PM
I think OOC snootyness ruins games. For instance, I don't mind a character that's an elf going on and on about elven superiority if said character is supposed to be a tosser.

If, however, a PLAYER is telling me how great elves are and how much of a mistake I made playing a genasi instead of a noble and graceful elf then I'm gonna be annoyed.

It happens infrequently but when I experience it it makes me want to invite them to apply their lips to my exit port.

The worst is when it comes in the form of threats. A fews years ago I had a guy insinuate that if I ever crossed his ranger he would butcher my psion alive.

Oy. How sad are people's lives that they need to lord their make-believe power over others?*







*obviously in some cases the make- believe power is so imagined that it doesn't even exist in the confines of the fantasy game. I mean seriously, my psion could have vaporized that ranger before the initiative dice finished rolling.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-15, 08:35 PM
The average tabletop player is actually pretty old. Last I checked, the average age around here was 30, with most having started the hobby when they were teenagers. Seriously, the biggest RPG convention here saw fit to reserve space specifically for a nursery because increasing amount of its audience are coming in with kids between ages 0 and 4.

My players tend to be pretty young, but that's because I actively work to spread the hobby amongst young kids. In a typical convention game, the average age of players jumps up by 10 years easily, and it's easy to tell the older players are more experienced with the hobby.

Well that explains my thought difference, I'm 21, I have an entire decade of difference between me and most tabletop gamers, which can be a lot in the modern age. sigh. gamers my age, where art thou? aside from videogames apparently.

Pex
2014-08-15, 09:09 PM
Get off my 20 ft by 20 ft lawn you young whippersnappers!

Eonas
2014-08-15, 09:09 PM
So...if I don't post a qualifier....then, what I post is a rule and must be obeyed? Sounds good to me...lol

Eat more brussel sprouts. I have spoken.

And homebrew more spells and post them in the homebrew section.

No. When you don't post a qualifier, and say something like "Players shouldn't powergame" instead of "In my games, players are not allowed to powergame, and here's why I'd recommend instituting the same rule in your games" you are making an categorical statement about all players and all games instead of a personal recommendation upon what you've personally found more helpful. As such, it's perfectly reasonable to refute your statement and logically explain that what you have written and what you have explicitly been arguing for is Wrong.

(Incidentally, does anybody else get really, really annoyed when in an argument with you, somebody says something to the effect of "Back off dude, it's just my opinion"?)


I think OOC snootyness ruins games. For instance, I don't mind a character that's an elf going on and on about elven superiority if said character is supposed to be a tosser.

If, however, a PLAYER is telling me how great elves are and how much of a mistake I made playing a genasi instead of a noble and graceful elf then I'm gonna be annoyed.

It happens infrequently but when I experience it it makes me want to invite them to apply their lips to my exit port.

The worst is when it comes in the form of threats. A fews years ago I had a guy insinuate that if I ever crossed his ranger he would butcher my psion alive.

Oy. How sad are people's lives that they need to lord their make-believe power over others?*

I feel ya. It's why I make my players explain their character's personality before the game starts: so that when their characters start acting like a rooster, I don't have to guess whether or not it's the player being a rooster or the character.

Zrak
2014-08-15, 09:29 PM
Finally, there's idol worship. At its core, its really childish, but so are many players. Many players have those few, favorite characters whom they've placed on a mile-high pedestal, and some "mere player character" being better is downright travesty. Of course, the joke here is that the idol isn't necessarily all that great. This phenomenom isn't limited to RPGs, you see it crop up frequently in the form of X Versus Y threads over on the Media Discussions forum. These are the people who insist Conan is max level, across all game systems, even if he'd be nothing but a chump in many of them. This attitude of course limits player characters, because they just never can be allowed to be as cool.

This is exacerbated by people tying in how awesome and capable the character is too directly with any given system of game mechanics. This is especially true of classic "Swords and Sorcery" heroes like Conan, who tend to defeat foes who are explicitly much more powerful than them; the whole idea is that they're lowish level characters with relatively mundane "stats" who overcome everything from mighty sorcerer-kings to eldritch abominations through cleverness, determination, and guile.


Player skill is not really relevant here. Player of any skill level is affected by the increase or decrease of character competence. Even a skilled player can't do much with all 10s stat array and a first time player would do pretty well with all 18s stat array. On the other hand, first time player with all 10s is simply screwed and skilled player with all 18s will do better than first time player would with the same stats.

This wasn't really as true in older editions as it is in newer ones. Because of the way ability scores were generated, the rules assumed a lower baseline. For instance, an AD&D mage with 10 intelligence can cast up to fifth level spells just as effectively as one with an eighteen intelligence; the extra intelligence doesn't grant bonus spells or make spells any harder to save against. Moreover, spells and items in AD&D often set ability scores to a specific number, rather than raising them by a set amount, so initial scores mattered less in the long run.

Lord Raziere
2014-08-16, 12:22 AM
I run a game every so often for ''bored players''. They have demi god characters in thier home game, and have found the game ''boring and pointless'' or they are ''so powerful'' he game is no fun. If asked, they will say they are ''master'' players and ''the best of the best''. And then they come to my game, with the challange of ''make it not boring, challanging, and fun''. And I do so. First off they get a shock from my house rules that take away a lot of the super safe and easy stuff in the game. And then they are in for the bigger shock of monsters acting intelligently and clever. And so forth. It's typical for such ''self proclaimed great'' players to not have a character live through my game. You'd think they would have seen it coming.....

See what coming? their sword suddenly becoming Orcus? or the barmaid they're trying to seduce but be prepared for a succubus instead find that they're trying to get in bed with.... ORCUS? or how about the classic trick of revealing that their childhood has all along been....ORCUS!? or the trap they're trying to get around is Orcus? or people trying to run away from your dungeons running into Orcus? or the people intentionally not doing anything dangerous or exciting suddenly finding that they wake up to Orcus? Or the drink they're drinking actually being a mug of Orcus? or when the someones bends down to pet a harmless, quiet bunny in a wide open field where nobody could hide, they actually pet Orcus?


Hey, I'm playing an 18 int character who uses three different sourcebooks in one of his games and he hasn't kicked me out yet!

so she is a hypocrite then? got it!

Eonas
2014-08-16, 01:03 AM
Hang on, I just reread your post...


First off they get a shock from my house rules that take away a lot of the super safe and easy stuff in the game.

Huh, wait, what!? You just spring a houserule into play without any warning? What sort of houserules are we talking about here?