why cheese?

[With a box]

Why most roleplay forum people call super-optimized method as cheese?

Somthing about D&D: what's the fastest way to turn moon into a giant sphear of cheese?

[Darkweave31]

Don't know why cheese became the colloquial term for high power optimization, but I do know I'm a connoisseur of fine cheese.

The moon is a fun question... I'd say make a demiplane with NI rounds of time to 1 round on the material, open a gate within range of the moon using sonorous hum to concentrate for you and simply cast polymorph any object until it's cheese.

[RolandDeschain]

I don't think high powered optimization is 'cheese'.

I do think high powered optimization resulting from a deliberately obtuse application of RAW to character building is 'cheesy', similar to deliberately obtuse movies, television shows, and literature is 'cheesy'.

Just an opinion, I'm sure many will disagree with me.

[Karnith]

The term "cheesy" has been used in many gaming communities and its usage in these communities predates easy research (http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/21867/origins-of-the-gaming-term-cheese-strategy), but I had always assumed that it originated as a portmanteau of either "cheat" and "easy" or of "cheap" and "easy."

[Uncle Pine]

Maybe cheese is used in the same way it's used to describe movies: a cheesy film with hamming actors can be So Bad It's Good, so maybe a cheesy build is based on the fact that RAW is So Illogical It Makes Sense? :smallconfused:

As for the cheesy moon, Planar Bubble (Far Realm) (effectively a 1:0 ratio) followed by a lot of castings of Polymorph Any Object. Or Wish: "I want the moon to be made of cheese".

[Telonius]

This source (https://books.google.com/books?id=hc7x96jE5EcC&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq=when+did+cheesy+start+meaning+inauthentic&source=bl&ots=AjDRyfXyLL&sig=UiQMKr8MUmTcfxQ0m4-6-Zusgl8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=19thVdmeOsOCsAXTv4HQAg&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=when%20did%20cheesy%20start%20meaning%20inauthen tic&f=false) says the term goes back to 1863, though no reference is given. Personally I suspect it might have something to do with the fake smile you use when you "say cheese" for the camera.

[Hrugner]

I've always assumed it was related to cheesy movies as well. Generally the character is optimized to a point where the rules no longer cover their power, or in a genre breaking manner.

Commoner railgun, quickdraw throwing shield gattling gun, elephant gun and so on all use the rules up to a point then shift focus to real life situations created by those rules and extrapolate power from there. The simplest example would be determining force by comparing a hit from a weapon to falling damage and evaluating the newtons of force, and from there seeing how high your strength needs to be to fuse atoms. These methods break genre by mixing real world and game world mechanics.

Things like infinite loop tricks move outside the rules and have little to do with the simulation working and are really more explorations of how rules aught to be better clarified. Rules like constraining how many times a caster level can be counted toward total caster levels, or limiting how many of any type of minion a player can control are omitted for no clear reason.

honestly though, so long as the DM knows what he's getting into, and all the players are equally cheesy, you could probably play like that.

[atemu1234]

Though I do not know the origin of the term I think something should be clarified.

Cheese is not 'super-optimization'. It's using nonconcise rules and deliberately strange interpretations to produce a result.

[XionUnborn01]

I'm going to throw my vote in with the term coming from when you call a movie, show, or even just a statement or phrase as cheesy, meaning that it stinks of something. Like it's not quite right.



Though I do not know the origin of the term I think something should be clarified.

Cheese is not 'super-optimization'. It's using nonconcise rules and deliberately strange interpretations to produce a result.

Also, this. It's important to recognize that optimizing a sorcerer to mailman levels or making a god wizard or even an ubercharger isn't cheesy as long as it's within Practical Optimization levels. Theoretical Optimization can sometimes be cheesy if it requires a non-standard or stretched interpretation of the rules. But often cheese is something like drown healing where the rules aren't exactly...clear on what should happen. Especially when common sense and the rules disagree on what the outcome is.

[lsfreak]

Also, this. It's important to recognize that optimizing a sorcerer to mailman levels or making a god wizard or even an ubercharger isn't cheesy as long as it's within Practical Optimization levels. Theoretical Optimization can sometimes be cheesy if it requires a non-standard or stretched interpretation of the rules. But often cheese is something like drown healing where the rules aren't exactly...clear on what should happen. Especially when common sense and the rules disagree on what the outcome is.

And to add to this, PO is context-dependent... what's PO in one group isn't acceptable in others. That's the whole point of the "practical" in "practical optimization," it should match the overall level of the group. Tippy and several others on the forums play games with a far laxer threshold for where the boundary is compared ot most of the ofurm, and I do think it's fair to say a large section of the forumship has a higher threshold than what most groups probably have. But it's not appropriate to call anything that falls above your group's preferred boundaries "cheese."

[Crake]

Though I do not know the origin of the term I think something should be clarified.

Cheese is not 'super-optimization'. It's using nonconcise rules and deliberately strange interpretations to produce a result.

I'd like to add "obviously against intentions, despite being clearly rules legal" to this list.

This includes things like using sanctum spell, snowcasting, heighten spell, versatile spellcaster, and earth spell in various combinations and then grabbing extra slot to gain spell slots above what you should normally be able to cast. Perfectly legal, nothing inconcise or strange about the interpretation, but still definitely against the intent of the system.

[Psyren]

And to add to this, PO is context-dependent... what's PO in one group isn't acceptable in others. That's the whole point of the "practical" in "practical optimization," it should match the overall level of the group. Tippy and several others on the forums play games with a far laxer threshold for where the boundary is compared ot most of the ofurm, and I do think it's fair to say a large section of the forumship has a higher threshold than what most groups probably have. But it's not appropriate to call anything that falls above your group's preferred boundaries "cheese."

And conversely, if a given group or GM finds something to be over the top, yet that this forum wouldn't take as much issue with (like a mailman sorcerer) it's just as inappropriate to dismiss their concerns out of hand if the other members of the party are not optimized to that degree and/or the GM is ill-equipped to challenge that level of optimization. Such a GM might be using "cheesy" as shorthand, but it would certainly be true for him.

[Zordran]

A good definition for "cheese" is "trying too hard." That wannabe player with the silly hat and pickup lines? Cheesy. That singer who's practically shouting, "I WANT YOU TO FEEL A CERTAIN WAY?" Cheesy.

Me: "I lean on the wall of force"
GM: "Okay..."
Me: "So it's affecting me?"
GM: "Yes..."
Me: "I use Iron Heart Surge."
GM: "LOL, No."

The whole table laughed at me, and I deserved it.


Cheese is not 'super-optimization'. It's using nonconcise rules and deliberately strange interpretations to produce a result.

Exactly.