How NOT to make a character for ANY RP game

[mackdaddie]

Search multiple forums for the most powerful, broken build possible. Make character. Make background and story for RP purposes.

HOW TO MAKE A CHARACTER FOR AN RP GAME.

Come up with a character concept that pleases you, including story and background.

Roll dice.

Make character. Allow the character development to shape the character as it levels.

The first method seems to be very popular among gamers. The second method is sort of the ancient traditional method with emphasis on character. I've been running and playing for over forty years, and after having players in my game try both methods, I can say that the second method seems to create a more vibrant, enjoyable game for everyone without question. THis is my first post here in years, and I wish you all well.

[Venger]

Stormwind fallacy.

[heavyfuel]

While I like the idea of picking a concept and working within that concept instead of playing "the most powerful, broken build possible", it's completely unfair to say that knowing what levels and abilities you want to take before even starting play is badwrongfun.

If a person likes to create character, who are you to say they're doing it wrong?

[Deophaun]

Make character. Allow the character development to shape the character as it levels.
Hi. You're in the wrong forum. This is the 3.5 section, where you often need to pour five or nine levels of development into taking a PrC or feat.

[ericgrau]

Stormwind fallacy.

You usually can't have it all perfectly. And conversely to the "fallacy" you can focus on a character's RP aspects first and still build it pretty decently on effectiveness. Maybe not the greatest, but pretty well.

If I disagree with anything it would be that going straight to a forum build is popular among gamers. It happens, but actually it seems pretty popular here to take a concept first and then ask how to build it. It's only some of the replies that are bad and say "You should play something else". Or this might be unfair because the player got the help of 50 other posters whereas the others in his group might not. But they only tend to go overboard a small portion of the time.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The mechanics must fit the flavor, otherwise your character is delusional. You can't RP a character as The Amazing __________ without having a build that's capable of doing that, unless you're role playing a fraud or conman.

Most people don't just pick a build they found, more often they'll come up with a concept, including a story and background, then find or create an optimized build that fits the concept.

Character classes, feats, and skill selections are like choosing what courses you take to get your degree. If you just dive in face first without planning anything, you'll be a barista with a master's in art, and PCs can fail just as badly. There's not much point in developing a character over several years just to have them incapable of pulling their weight in the higher levels.

[daremetoidareyo]

My method.

Find weird ability. Like epic skills.

Pair it with another weird ability. Like changes to how a skill works.

Deep dive to optimize the heck out of it.

Wedge all the bits together with a half efforted backstory.

Role play it genuinely.

Have fun.

[Wraith]

Ignore the GM's setting notes and recommendations, pick a gimmick and stick with it, come hell or high water. Your character does one thing, and one thing only; exceptionally well, albeit, but God help you if you need to do something else.

Thus I ended up playing as a technophobic Native American Witch Doctor with magic powers to summon, control and disperse spirits in a Savage Worlds game that was basically "Murder on the Orient Express". Turns out that the murderer was NOT the troublesome Jackal Spirit that I insisted it ought to have been, and that stone-headed hand axes don't really fly so well when your opponent is packing Tommy guns. :smalltongue:

[denthor]

Your 2nd way is also my favorite. It assumes a 1st level start as well.

[Goaty14]

Hi. You're in the wrong forum. This is the 3.5 section, where you often need to pour five or nine levels of development into taking a PrC or feat.

I second this. Oh, and once you reach that benchmark, you're also not likely to change for *another* 5 or so levels.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

The entire premise of this thread is a gigantic straw man (https://www.google.com/search?q=straw+man&oq=straw+man&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.1343j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8).

"Everyone does it X way, but they're all doing it wrong because my way is better!"

However, most people don't even do it X way in the first place. They do it Y way, which is often better than his way.

I'm pretty sure he's either trolling, or he's frustrated with one player and trying to vent.

[Venger]

The entire premise of this thread is a gigantic straw man (https://www.google.com/search?q=straw+man&oq=straw+man&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.1343j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8).

"Everyone does it X way, but they're all doing it wrong because my way is better!"

However, most people don't even do it X way in the first place. They do it Y way, which is often better than his way.

I'm pretty sure he's either trolling, or he's frustrated with one player and trying to vent.

Yes, yes it is.

I mean, he nakedly admits he's just whining and isn't interested in actually learning why he's wrong, or in starting any kind of discussion, so yeah, he's just vaguebooking on the wrong site.

[Bavarian itP]

Roll dice.



Randomized chargen is so second millenium.

[Karl Aegis]

Story and background? Son, you don't even got a name until level 6. You just get a handful of traits until then. Like "Always walks through open doors" or "Does not understand the concept of table manners".

[King of Nowhere]

I am also under the impression that most people come up with a character concept, then they try to optimize it, more or less organically. The main difference will maybe be some small mechanical sacrifices that won't impact the game so much to better fit the character. For example, "my wizard is good with people, unlike most of his peers. Instead of dumping charisma, I gave it the second best roll". Such a wizard is slightly less powerful, he probably has 1hp/level less and -1 to AC and touch ranged attacks, but the chance it will impact the encounter is very small, so a roleplayer may make that sacrifice in the name of roleplaying. Still, mechanically his wizard will be just the same as the more optimized wizard, just with a -1 to a few rolls.


Stormwind fallacy.
Neat, there is already a name for it!

[Manyasone]

Stormwind fallacy had been around for a while now, mate.
I agree with the fact that you can't just roleplay an amazing swordsman when you dumped str/dex in favor of charisma (because reasons most of the time) and took skill focus diplomacy while being a fighter... I know someone like that. We don't see eye to eye on some things. If I would want to play an amazing swordsman it would be in the lines of the nightmare or dreamblade. Don't much like uber chargers

[Venger]

Stormwind fallacy had been around for a while now, mate.
I agree with the fact that you can't just roleplay an amazing swordsman when you dumped str/dex in favor of charisma (because reasons most of the time) and took skill focus diplomacy while being a fighter... I know someone like that. We don't see eye to eye on some things. If I would want to play an amazing swordsman it would be in the lines of the nightmare or dreamblade. Don't much like uber chargers

I think it was just his first exposure to the name for the fallacy. I wasn't claiming to have invented it.

I see what you mean, but class competence doesn't have to scan with what the character thinks of himself. Maybe he could be a Quixote-like figure who thinks he's a good swordsman despite that he empirically sucks for comedic purposes, or perhaps while he deals poor damage with his weapon, he's a good fencing coach or something. Fluff should be mutable as long as it has no mechanical consequence, like Miko being a samurai in the story even though she only has mechanical class levels in paladin

[Manyasone]

I think it was just his first exposure to the name for the fallacy. I wasn't claiming to have invented it
I know. Wasn't claiming that 😘


I see what you mean, but class competence doesn't have to scan with what the character thinks of himself. Maybe he could be a Quixote-like figure who thinks he's a good swordsman despite that he empirically sucks for comedic purposes, or perhaps while he deals poor damage with his weapon, he's a good fencing coach or something. Fluff should be mutable as long as it has no mechanical consequence, like Miko being a samurai in the story even though she only has mechanical class levels in paladin
Well yes, but for instance cyrano de bergerac could also be called a comical character from a certain viewpoint. Doesn't mean I would want to fight him. The golden rule is, in my point of view, don't let your character be wholly inefficient because other party members will have to pick up the slack

[Venger]

Well yes, but for instance cyrano de bergerac could also be called a comical character from a certain viewpoint. Doesn't mean I would want to fight him. The golden rule is, in my point of view, don't let your character be wholly inefficient because other party members will have to pick up the slack

Fair enough.

[Zanos]

Weird, guess I've been having fun wrong for ten years with my mechanically effective and well roleplayed characters.

[Deophaun]

You know, I actually find this whole "Do steps A, B, and C in order" to be strange, because I do them all at the same time. Mechanics speak to character which speaks to mechanics which speak to character. Sure, I start at A, or B, or C, but I never really leave where I start even when I'm on the other steps.

[Blu]

... like Miko being a samurai in the story even though she only has mechanical class levels in paladin

I see people try too much to constantly tie mechanics to roleplay at every point, I feel the "you need ninja levels to be a ninja, even tough ninja sucks" logic detracts from the game, mechanics and roleplay do have some correlations but that doesn't mean they should be glued together. Does it really matter that you don't have levels of X class to call yourself X professions? Does it matter your build is kind of a salad if you got the awesomesauce you are going for?

[Venger]

I see people try too much to constantly tie mechanics to roleplay at every point, I feel the "you need ninja levels to be a ninja, even tough ninja sucks" logic detracts from the game, mechanics and roleplay do have some correlations but that doesn't mean they should be glued together. Does it really matter that you don't have levels of X class to call yourself X professions? Does it matter your build is kind of a salad if you got the awesomesauce you are going for?

Right, I agree with that. That's the point I was making.

[Rynjin]

You usually can't have it all perfectly. And conversely to the "fallacy" you can focus on a character's RP aspects first and still build it pretty decently on effectiveness. Maybe not the greatest, but pretty well.

All the Fallacy states is that it's a myth that the two are mutually exclusive, and they're not. RP value does not necessarily reduce mechanical effectiveness. Mechanical effectiveness does not necessarily reduce RP value of a character.

The starting point here is irrelevant. You can start with a mechanical or RP concept first and end at the same place regardless. I make a lot of characters. Some start with one, some start with the other. One of my favorite longest running characters started with the starting point of "I want a sword and board Slayer" and evolved in personality from there over the course of years of play, and continues to do so. Another started with the idea that I wanted an amoral information broker, and the mechanics sprung from that starting point.

Both resulted in fun, mechanically effective (to an extent...I needed to respec from Slayer to Warder on the first guy once the whole "Mundanes can't have nice things" effect came close to killing him in nearly every combat at around level 11...though I do still miss some of the Horizon Walker benefits) characters I enjoyed playing.

[Bad Wolf]

Honestly, the most fun I've had making a character's backstory was with a level 22 gish with level 9 spells.

Power does not mean -roleplaying. In higher power campaigns, i find you rely more on your fluff than actual mechanics, because you can't get away with simply being Bob the Fighter, from the village of Swordsville, as you might have at earlier levels.

[eggynack]

Make character. Allow the character development to shape the character as it levels.
The SRD lists 15 basic prestige classes (note that I'm focusing only on obvious entry paths, particularly because non-obvious entry paths are even harder to do spontaneously). Arcane archer requires you to have arcane casting alongside three feats that are awful with arcane casting. Arcane trickster requires five levels of arcane casting and three in rogue. Archmage takes one feat that no one would take and two that are pretty mediocre. Assassin is fine. Basically anyone can get in anytime they want to. Blackguard requires three separate feats, one which is pretty awful. Dragon disciple is trivial. Duelist takes three terrible feats. Same with dwarven defender, plus ya gotta be a dwarf. Eldritch knight you could plausibly do off the cuff by adding a melee level to a standard casting build. Hierophant is pretty trivial. Horizon walker takes an idiotic feat. Loremaster takes four separate feats. Mystic theurge requires three levels of investment on a straightforward casting build. Shadowdancer takes one good feat and two terrible ones. And, finally, thaumaturgist is relatively easy, with just one okay feat.

So, in summary, out of those 15 prestige classes, your approach would let a player make use of like six of them. This sounds like a pretty awful approach to me.

[ericgrau]

All the Fallacy states is that it's a myth that the two are mutually exclusive, and they're not. RP value does not necessarily reduce mechanical effectiveness. Mechanical effectiveness does not necessarily reduce RP value of a character.

The starting point here is irrelevant. You can start with a mechanical or RP concept first and end at the same place regardless. I make a lot of characters. Some start with one, some start with the other. One of my favorite longest running characters started with the starting point of "I want a sword and board Slayer" and evolved in personality from there over the course of years of play, and continues to do so. Another started with the idea that I wanted an amoral information broker, and the mechanics sprung from that starting point.

Both resulted in fun, mechanically effective (to an extent...I needed to respec from Slayer to Warder on the first guy once the whole "Mundanes can't have nice things" effect came close to killing him in nearly every combat at around level 11...though I do still miss some of the Horizon Walker benefits) characters I enjoyed playing.

Those are both good ways to go, mostly because the starting points were general enough. The fallacy of the fallacy is when it's used to make every mage a conjurer or some such and pretend like it isn't limiting your fun from variations and personality. It works to a point. But giving as a 2 word response to everything as it too often is, even unlimited optimization, is way overdone. At best you could say even Stormwind didn't mean for it to go that far and it only applies when someone says any small amount of optimization interferes with roleplay.

[RoboEmperor]

1. Some players have a specific unconventional gimmick in mind and builds a character around that gimmick and optimizes that gimmick/character.
2. Some DMs want the stereotypical archetypes ONLY and hates everyone who does things differently.

Making the story determine what PrCs you take is for 2s not 1s. For 1s doing this is deal breaker.

The OP is clearly a 2 and hates 1s so he made this thread to say hes a 2 that hates 1s.

[Darth Ultron]

How NOT to make a character for ANY RP game

The Optimizing Roll Player does not ''need'' to look anything up: they know all the tricks and exploits.

And by 'background' they are luck if they can scribble down a 'my family was killed by orcs' note. And they avoid that 's' word Story like a plague.

Bonus, try to get your DM to approve Homebrew from D&D Wiki or GinP. Or at least from some obscure d20 books.

Super bonus if you can get the DM to agree with something vague like ''anything approved by Wizards'' or ''official'' so you can sneak in broken Dragonlance D20 stuff.

Super Duper Bonus: interpret the rules however you want to your advantage.




HOW TO MAKE A CHARACTER FOR AN RP GAME.

This is good enough: spend a lot of time making a fully rounded role playing character and then take a couple minutes to write up the needed game mechanics.

[icefractal]

Part of a concept is the backstory, yes, but IMO how the character acts on-screen is 10x more important than their backstory. I've seen characters with a great backstory but played with no personality, and the result was - everyone thought of that character as bland, and the backstory was largely forgotten.

Part of "how they act on screen" is down to mannerisms and roleplaying, and another part is what actions they take and the result of those actions. And that's where I don't even think you can properly represent most character concepts if you ignore the mechanics.

Say, for example, that a given character is supposed to be very good at sneaking around. From an in-character perspective, what would cause others to regard them as stealthy?
* Having the Stealthy feat? Nope. People in-game can't read your character sheet.
* Having a high bonus in Hide and Move Silently? Closer, but still no. Again, the character sheet doesn't exist IC.
* Succeeding often at attempts to be stealthy, particularly in situations where most people would have failed. Yes. This is what matters IC.

So if a character is supposed to be notable at X, they need to succeed at X on-screen. And for that the mechanics need to be correctly aligned with the concept, which usually means crafted intentionally with a plan.

[Feantar]

Search multiple forums for the most powerful, broken build possible. Make character. Make background and story for RP purposes.

HOW TO MAKE A CHARACTER FOR AN RP GAME.

Come up with a character concept that pleases you, including story and background.

Roll dice.

Make character. Allow the character development to shape the character as it levels.

The first method seems to be very popular among gamers. The second method is sort of the ancient traditional method with emphasis on character. I've been running and playing for over forty years, and after having players in my game try both methods, I can say that the second method seems to create a more vibrant, enjoyable game for everyone without question. THis is my first post here in years, and I wish you all well.

You take an extreme approach on one side, and a reasonable one on the other, and seem to be implying that those are the only options (unless you're not, in which case, I apologise). They are not. Let me propose a better option that, admittedly, requires infinite time.


Inform yourself on the setting (Swords and Sorcery, Dark Fantasy, Cyberpunk, etc), approach(Battle Heavy, Free Form, Sandbox etc), and theme(Espionage, Political, Deck of Encounters etc) of the game and the specific story you will play. Write down character ideas, look online for artwork, listen to music, anything that allows your trireme to utilise buoyancy.
Study the game's system to the point that you understand it. Maybe play a session or two of a thinly veiled avatar of you with superpowers(if applicable) to grasp how it works.
Build a character that fits the theme, sparks your creative side, and is capable of actively being their character concept while ingame.

Example: You are playing in a 3.5 Swords and Sorcery themed campaign situated in an oppressive magocracy divided in racial lines. You imagine a rebel warrior that fights for the downtrodden and has the capacity to take the fight to the mages. You don't stat this warrior as a single classed fighter, because that doesn't serve your character concept. You make him a Karsite Warlock with a fey patron with reaving dispel. See? Now your mechanics serve your concept. You started roleplaying, you ended up roleplaying, you just did your homework to see how to make it work.

Skipping step 1 risks making your character extremely boring and thus rendering the game unplayable. Skipping step 2 risks making your chatacter extremely incapable and thus rendering the game unplayable. Skipping step 3 means you don't have a character, so I assume the game is unplayable by default. :P

Finally, and this is something that I abhor so feel free to ignore me because I might be unreasonable... I hate, hate, hate Peter Pan randomness in character creation (rolling for stats for example). It results in weird, non-fitting, disposable characters; which was it's objective in the begining, and that's why it fit a Gygaxian type of game.

[Mordaedil]

I do find it kinda ironic that he looked up a forum online to complain about how people look up forums online to help them do a thing they want to do.

It'd be a fair bit easier if the game wasn't beset by things like feat taxes or skill requirements, I suppose.

[Cosi]

There's no reason that it's wrong to view a game as a mechanical exercise. The game has mechanics, and you can view those as the most important part, just as OP clearly views the flavor as the most important part. People play games for all kinds of reasons. Stop telling people they have to play them for your reasons for their reasons to be legitimate.

[137beth]

HOW TO MAKE A CHARACTER FOR AN RP GAME.




That's a fairly bold claim, considering that the process for creating a character will be wildly different in different RPGs. It's also not the right board, since this is the forum for D&D 3.5, not "any RP Game." But let's give your proposal a chance, shall we?

Come up with a character concept that pleases you, including story and background.
Nope, not appropriate to every RPG. For example, Word Mill's Mythic Variations (http://drivethrurpg.com/product/25601/Mythic-Variations?term=mythic+var&test_epoch=0&it=1) presents a subsystem in which character backstory is procedural generated. So, the very first step in your process that you claim works for "any RP Game" does not, in fact, work for any RPG.

I wonder if any subsequent steps in your character creation process will be system-dependent and fail in some RPGs?




Roll dice.



And here we have another task which won't work in every RPG. For example, Lords of Gossamer and Shadows (http://drivethrurpg.com/product/119779/Lords-of-Gossamer--Shadow-Diceless?term=lords+of+go&test_epoch=0) does not use dice in character creation, or in gameplay.

Make character. Allow the character development to shape the character as it levels.
And here you have yet another thing that won't work in every RPG, because not all RPGs use levels.

[Calthropstu]

The mechanics must fit the flavor, otherwise your character is delusional. You can't RP a character as The Amazing __________ without having a build that's capable of doing that, unless you're role playing a fraud or conman.

Most people don't just pick a build they found, more often they'll come up with a concept, including a story and background, then find or create an optimized build that fits the concept.

Character classes, feats, and skill selections are like choosing what courses you take to get your degree. If you just dive in face first without planning anything, you'll be a barista with a master's in art, and PCs can fail just as badly. There's not much point in developing a character over several years just to have them incapable of pulling their weight in the higher levels.

Playing a con man is actually kind of fun. I made a "wizard" once who was just a rogue with a bunch of wands and scrolls and umd. Kind of amusing really.

[MeimuHakurei]

Playing a con man is actually kind of fun. I made a "wizard" once who was just a rogue with a bunch of wands and scrolls and umd. Kind of amusing really.

I'd say that's not mechanically supporting your concept, it's just that being a con man who pretends to be a wizard was your concept.

[tiercel]

Stormwind fallacy.

"My playstyle is right and yours is wrong" always bugs me.

On the one hand, the Stormwind Fallacy addresses this when someone is being all smug about "roleplay > rollplay you munchkin LOL" and asserting that optimization always takes away from the "feel" of the game.

On the other hand, the Stormwind Fallacy is also often invoked fallaciously; this is the opposite form of smugness, where someone lays "Stormwind Fallacy" down on the table as if it's a trump card, implicitly asserting something like "lol newb optimization NEVER comes at the expense of roleplay" (which is not what Stormwind says).

Fluff and crunch CAN be made to work together, but an excessive concentration on either CAN result in a deficit of the other.

The difference is that there is "Stormwind Fallacy" to encapsulate "optimization doesn't have to harm RP, it can even enhance it" but there is... seemingly nothing so glibly named to encapsulate "while mechanics can serve story, that doesn't mean they automatically do."

And, of course, the amount of optimization or RP-intensiveness is (or should be) a table decision in any case, and the real problems arise when you have different expectations. (If your party includes OneShot the Fully Optimized DMM Persist ClericZilla, Bob the Beer & Pretzels Fighter, and Harquirion Van'Dersmithizain Ta'Drel'Thorianous IV the Dramatic Who Doesn't Want to Pick a "Class," you might have a little work to do to all enjoy the same game - or you maybe want to just be at different tables.)

[chaos_redefined]

Recent character concept:

Psion used time hop. Kinda went wrong. Now it's 1000 years later, and he's a racist old 20-year-old. (The other races emerged about 500 years ago in this setting, so they are all foreign entities to him).

Prerequisites of character creation: 5 levels in psion. Time hop power.

Rest of what's there: A combination of effects that will be versatile to cover most situations, as well as some powerful situational spells that will be goddamn memorable when I practically solo an encounter on my own. (e.g. Ego whip vs the guy with low will saves and low charisma. Two rounds later, the rest of the party understood why I wasn't panicking when they all were.)

Edit: The result is a memorable backstory, which heavily influences how I interact with the world, and memorable powers, which defined a fight on their own every now and then. Not every fight is solved with ego whip, and in fact, some fights are solved purely by the tanks of the party with the rest of the party playing support.

[Calthropstu]

I take exception to anyone claiming these idiotic psuedo-fallacies.
Some wanna-be psuedo-ntellectuals who made up their own "fallacies," and those who use them as a defense, deserve the heaviest of ridicule.

That being said, I agree with what many are saying here. The op, while not flat wrong, is not exactly right either. Different tables require different tactics and different levels of optimization. Many here have seen both extremes and neither is conducive to a good experience... extremism is almost never a good thing in any circumstance.

[Blue Jay]

I take exception to anyone claiming these idiotic psuedo-fallacies.
Some wanna-be psuedo-ntellectuals who made up their own "fallacies," and those who use them as a defense, deserve the heaviest of ridicule.

That being said, I agree with what many are saying here. The op, while not flat wrong, is not exactly right either. Different tables require different tactics and different levels of optimization. Many here have seen both extremes and neither is conducive to a good experience... extremism is almost never a good thing in any circumstance.

Let me echo this. The Stormwind Fallacy does make a very good point. But it is a hypothetical point: it's hypothetically possible to be good at both the "fluff" and the "crunch" aspects of the game. But, that doesn't support the argument that it's common to be good at both. I'm reasonably confident that it's not common, so those of you who are good at both aspects shouldn't take it so personally when somebody comes in whining about a "roleplay vs roll-play" dichotomy in the community.

Also, the fluff component of the game is, by its very nature, impossible to quantify in any objective way. So, it's a lot easier to get away with declaring yourself a "good roleplayer" than it is to get away with declaring yourself a "good character builder." And, there's a stigma associated with extreme mechanical focus ("munchkins"), so everybody has a motive to want to distance ourselves from that side of the spectrum. As a consequence, it's probably really common for people to overstate/overestimate how good they are at the roleplay aspect of the game; and a lot of people who think they're good, balanced "Stormwinder" types are probably further towards the "munchkin" side of the spectrum than they realize or are willing to admit.

[Deophaun]

Let me echo this. The Stormwind Fallacy does make a very good point. But it is a hypothetical point: it's hypothetically possible to be good at both the "fluff" and the "crunch" aspects of the game. But, that doesn't support the argument that it's common to be good at both. I'm reasonably confident that it's not common, so those of you who are good at both aspects shouldn't take it so personally when somebody comes in whining about a "roleplay vs roll-play" dichotomy in the community.
A roll-player is going to roll-play regardless of his skill level. It's not about being good or bad at it. The thing is, if you're good at the mechanics and take the effort to squeeze every ounce of performance out of your character possible, that at least shows you have interest and investment in the game to go through all that effort. Those people can actually be converted into passable roleplayers much more easily than the roll-player who never bothered, but you don't do that by hitting them over the head and telling them that the part of the game they love is badwrongfun.

Meanwhile, there are lots of terrible roleplayers who think they are the reincarnation of Tolkien or Shakespeare. Short of drowning, I haven't figured out how to fix that.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Let me echo this. The Stormwind Fallacy does make a very good point. But it is a hypothetical point: it's hypothetically possible to be good at both the "fluff" and the "crunch" aspects of the game. But, that doesn't support the argument that it's common to be good at both. I'm reasonably confident that it's not common, so those of you who are good at both aspects shouldn't take it so personally when somebody comes in whining about a "roleplay vs roll-play" dichotomy in the community.

All invoking the stormwind fallacy says about the fluff-crunch dichotomy is that it is a false dichotomy, which is true. That being good at one, and putting effort into it does -not- come at the expense of the other. How much effort goes into each is an independent variable for any given player.

"Stormwind" is just a narrowly applied version of the false dichotomy fallacy, if you want to get formal about it.


Also, the fluff component of the game is, by its very nature, impossible to quantify in any objective way. So, it's a lot easier to get away with declaring yourself a "good roleplayer" than it is to get away with declaring yourself a "good character builder." And, there's a stigma associated with extreme mechanical focus ("munchkins"), so everybody has a motive to want to distance ourselves from that side of the spectrum. As a consequence, it's probably really common for people to overstate/overestimate how good they are at the roleplay aspect of the game; and a lot of people who think they're good, balanced "Stormwinder" types are probably further towards the "munchkin" side of the spectrum than they realize or are willing to admit.

So far as I've been able to tell, people who insist the fluff-crunch dichotomy is real just use it as an excuse to be lazy in their character building. I've got no problem with somebody wanting to single-class all the way through, been known to do it myself on occasion, but you can't expect to be even passably effective if you put no, or very little, thought into your feat choices and which items you keep/buy/sell. Just flat forget about half-assing spell selection. That crap might fly in an e6 game but a lack of base-line competence really starts to show in the mid-levels and I've heard the excuse "I'm just picking stuff based on roleplaying" one too many times to buy it anymore.

Worst of it's got to be the nonsensical multi-classing choices though; here's three classes from different archetypes with no synergy between them and I'm not looking at any PrCs (you can tell by how my feat and skill selections are all over the place.)"

I can work with people that are bad at crunch. I get real tired of people who won't even try real quick.

[Zanos]

I take exception to anyone claiming these idiotic psuedo-fallacies.
Some wanna-be psuedo-ntellectuals who made up their own "fallacies," and those who use them as a defense, deserve the heaviest of ridicule.
The "fallacy" was originally coined because people on the WotC forums were having this argument constantly. And here we are, over 10 years later, still arguing about it. So while it's just a narrow version of a false dichotomy, it also contains a bit of "we have had this argument for over 500 pages of forum posts."

[TiaC]

Let me echo this. The Stormwind Fallacy does make a very good point. But it is a hypothetical point: it's hypothetically possible to be good at both the "fluff" and the "crunch" aspects of the game. But, that doesn't support the argument that it's common to be good at both. I'm reasonably confident that it's not common, so those of you who are good at both aspects shouldn't take it so personally when somebody comes in whining about a "roleplay vs roll-play" dichotomy in the community.
However, that's not quite what the argument is. It's not that it is possible to be good at both fluff and crunch, it's that a player's skill at one of those says nothing about their skill at the other. Thus, it is wrong to act like a well-roleplayed character must have been made with little mechanical skill, or to assume that an optimized character must be a shallow one. In fact, it also includes recognizing that there are people who are bad at both.

[Calthropstu]

However, that's not quite what the argument is. It's not that it is possible to be good at both fluff and crunch, it's that a player's skill at one of those says nothing about their skill at the other. Thus, it is wrong to act like a well-roleplayed character must have been made with little mechanical skill, or to assume that an optimized character must be a shallow one. In fact, it also includes recognizing that there are people who are bad at both.

Thing is, we all have experiences with roll players wrecking the game with munchkin tactics. Numerous times I have seen, and experienced myself, GMs put massive effort into building scenarios and fleshing out encoungers only to have a character make the whole thing trivial.

Conversely, a person can't be "too good" at role play in a manner that breaks the game. In fact, the more character you develop for your character, the more fun is generally had by all. The only time I have seen people complain about role play is in official games such as pfs where there is a physical time limit to complete the scenario.

[Deophaun]

Thing is, we all have experiences with roll players wrecking the game with munchkin tactics. Numerous times I have seen, and experienced myself, GMs put massive effort into building scenarios and fleshing out encoungers only to have a character make the whole thing trivial.

Conversely, a person can't be "too good" at role play in a manner that breaks the game.
You're actually wrong there. The more elaborate the scenario, the more moving parts there are, the more opportunities for something to go wrong and the more likely the roleplayer--the one who is interested in what's going on in the world and not what's on their sheet--is going to find the one thing that trivializes the whole thing. Certainly no idiot plot will survive unless the DM just says "no" to roleplay, much like he would say "no" to a mundane doing something interesting.

[BassoonHero]

Conversely, a person can't be "too good" at role play in a manner that breaks the game.
You can't break a game because you're "too good" at character optimization, either.

A skilled optimizer can create the character they want at the power level they want. If such a player creates a character that breaks the game, that's a choice. A novice player can break a 3.5 game accidentally, but a skilled optimizer with good intentions never will.

On the other hand, a skilled roleplayer with bad intentions can make a character far more obnoxious and fun-killing than could any RP newbie. (I'm a longtime V:tM LARPer; trust me on this.)

Having a skill doesn't mean that you'll abuse it.

[Calthropstu]

You can't break a game because you're "too good" at character optimization, either.

A skilled optimizer can create the character they want at the power level they want. If such a player creates a character that breaks the game, that's a choice. A novice player can break a 3.5 game accidentally, but a skilled optimizer with good intentions never will.

On the other hand, a skilled roleplayer with bad intentions can make a character far more obnoxious and fun-killing than could any RP newbie. (I'm a longtime V:tM LARPer; trust me on this.)

Having a skill doesn't mean that you'll abuse it.

V:tm larp isn't roleplaying. Tried it for a while and it was the lamest thing ever. Seriously, rock paper scissors to determine outcomes? Wtf? And we were playing in public areas too. The looks we got from the general public was mortifying.

That aside, accidentally breaking a game can be fixed easily. And maliciousness is maliciousness and should be dealt with accordingly.

But my experience is that munchkin players will do whatever they think they can get away with rather than build to an "ideal power level." It's more like "Ideal power level +2 - +5." Not exactly trivializing every encounter, but definitely trying to outshine everyone else.
It's not malicious, but it's definitely noticable and often disruptive.
Now, it CAN be said that roleplayers can do similar... namely trying to hog the spotlight. But normally when that starts becoming an issue, the gm can nip it in the bud fairly easily by simply switching focus.

[Cosi]

The problem with the Storwind Fallacy is that it yields too much ground. As I said, there's nothing wrong with being primarily invested in the mechanical parts of the game. There are lots of ways of making characters. You can make a character based on an intricately crafted backstory. You can make a character that is mechanically optimized into oblivion. You can make a character that is based on a character from a book or a movie you like. You can make a character based on a particular mechanical element. None of those are wrong, and most people combine one or more of them (or other goals) when making a character. What is wrong is doing things that make the game less fun for other players. It's not wrong to say "I want to build a character that matches with my twenty page backstory". But if that leads to a character who is mechanically ineffectual and drags down the rest of the party, that's a problem. It's not wrong to say "I want build the best possible Wizard." But if that leads to a character who breaks your groups power standards, that's a problem. And so on and so for for "character like Artanis from Starcraft" or "character based on the Eye of Grummsh PrC".

It is possible to have fun making characters starting with the mechanics. People who do that are not doing it wrong any more than you are for starting with flavor. Saying they are makes you a bad person. It is a game, the point is to have fun. If they are having fun, they are not doing it wrong.

[AnimeTheCat]

You're actually wrong there. The more elaborate the scenario, the more moving parts there are, the more opportunities for something to go wrong and the more likely the roleplayer--the one who is interested in what's going on in the world and not what's on their sheet--is going to find the one thing that trivializes the whole thing. Certainly no idiot plot will survive unless the DM just says "no" to roleplay, much like he would say "no" to a mundane doing something interesting.

I'm slightly confused by your post. It seems like your saying that a well roleplayed character can easily break the game, which I personally disagree with because of a few reasons*, and does so by finding the plot mechanic that trivialized the plot. The last sentence about the DM saying no to role-playing and no to a martial doing interesting things is what I really don't understand so, could I get some clarification?

*when I have a player who is super interested in role-playing, I make sure they know where their characters background meets the mechanics of the game. For instance if the character wants to play a "Hero of the People" they can do that practically exclusively through roleplay and it won't break a thing. If they want to roleplay a certain specific servant of a certain Lord, like a spymaster of a duke, they would be expected to be competent at the mechanical functions of a spymaster, I would say move silently, hide, forgery, bluff, sense motive, and diplomacy at a minimum. The way the player goes about using their skills is the roleplay. It's possible to use role-playing to create a better scenario for yourself, for instance if you don't have a good sense motive skill, good role-playing and intelligent questioning can lead to similar effects as the skill. Either way, if the character has never learned anything about nobility, no amount of role-playing is going to tell them what regiment owns the banner with a golden eagle atop a blue sigil stone.

[Calthropstu]

The problem with the Storwind Fallacy is that it yields too much ground. As I said, there's nothing wrong with being primarily invested in the mechanical parts of the game. There are lots of ways of making characters. You can make a character based on an intricately crafted backstory. You can make a character that is mechanically optimized into oblivion. You can make a character that is based on a character from a book or a movie you like. You can make a character based on a particular mechanical element. None of those are wrong, and most people combine one or more of them (or other goals) when making a character. What is wrong is doing things that make the game less fun for other players. It's not wrong to say "I want to build a character that matches with my twenty page backstory". But if that leads to a character who is mechanically ineffectual and drags down the rest of the party, that's a problem. It's not wrong to say "I want build the best possible Wizard." But if that leads to a character who breaks your groups power standards, that's a problem. And so on and so for for "character like Artanis from Starcraft" or "character based on the Eye of Grummsh PrC".

It is possible to have fun making characters starting with the mechanics. People who do that are not doing it wrong any more than you are for starting with flavor. Saying they are makes you a bad person. It is a game, the point is to have fun. If they are having fun, they are not doing it wrong.

See, this I agree with. Every table will have different requirements. Tailoring the campaign and characters to each other is important, and is honestly a nontrivial task.

[ExLibrisMortis]

But my experience is that munchkin players
My experience is that you are so prejudiced against optimization, that any player who brought a moderately optimized character would immediately be viewed in the worst light, regardless of what they actually did. So excuse me if I take your sweeping claims about what we've "all" experienced with a grain of salt.

In my experience, under-optimization has resulted in more bland, boring, and useless characters than over-optimization ever resulted in broken characters. I've had to help multiple people find 'obscure' feats (Shape Soulmeld, for example) to help their characters come together.


@All the people trying to knock the Stormwind fallacy: You're all misrepresenting the original argument, which is a very small statement, somewhere between "quality of role-play and optimization are not mutually exclusive" and "quality of role-play and optimization are unrelated", and used to identify/dismiss fallacious arguments that rely on the assumption that they are related or mutually exclusive.

In this specific case, the OP has not explicitly invoked the fallacy, but it is strongly implied by the claim that the One True Path to a good character cannot start with forum optimization. Venger has been around the block a few times, and doesn't have the patience to spend more than two words on a pointless rant.

[daremetoidareyo]

My experience is that you are so prejudiced against optimization, that any player who brought a moderately optimized character would immediately be viewed in the worst light, regardless of what they actually did. So excuse me if I take your sweeping claims about what we've "all" experienced with a grain of salt.

In my experience, under-optimization has resulted in more bland, boring, and useless characters than over-optimization ever resulted in broken characters. I've had to help multiple people find 'obscure' feats (Shape Soulmeld, for example) to help their characters come together.


@All the people trying to knock the Stormwind fallacy: You're all misrepresenting the original argument, which is a very small statement, somewhere between "quality of role-play and optimization are not mutually exclusive" and "quality of role-play and optimization are unrelated", and used to identify/dismiss fallacious arguments that rely on the assumption that they are related or mutually exclusive.

In this specific case, the OP has not explicitly invoked the fallacy, but it is strongly implied by the claim that the One True Path to a good character cannot start with forum optimization.

Forum optimization is hilarious, tho. I just don't get how a modular game with 100s of splats isn't supposed to be remixed towards ridiculous everything. Sometimes it's 300 hp damage on a charge by level 9, or 16 charisma damage per bow shot, or a psychic sandwich. This is an internet-exclusive means of extracting value from a version of dnd cast into the dustbin of obsolescence after being sacrificed on the altar of capitalistic "innovation."

It's like buying the starwars lego set and refusing to mix it with the racecar set to make super rad stuff. Yeah it's got six axles and wings, because it's awesome like that.

It's not wrong to want to play your wingtank in a race.

[ExLibrisMortis]

It's not wrong to want to play your wingtank in a race.
Absolutely.

[Calthropstu]

My experience is that you are so prejudiced against optimization, that any player who brought a moderately optimized character would immediately be viewed in the worst light, regardless of what they actually did. So excuse me if I take your sweeping claims about what we've "all" experienced with a grain of salt.

In my experience, under-optimization has resulted in more bland, boring, and useless characters than over-optimization ever resulted in broken characters. I've had to help multiple people find 'obscure' feats (Shape Soulmeld, for example) to help their characters come together.


@All the people trying to knock the Stormwind fallacy: You're all misrepresenting the original argument, which is a very small statement, somewhere between "quality of role-play and optimization are not mutually exclusive" and "quality of role-play and optimization are unrelated", and used to identify/dismiss fallacious arguments that rely on the assumption that they are related or mutually exclusive.

In this specific case, the OP has not explicitly invoked the fallacy, but it is strongly implied by the claim that the One True Path to a good character cannot start with forum optimization. Venger has been around the block a few times, and doesn't have the patience to spend more than two words on a pointless rant.

I knock the stormwind fallacy and its companion the oberon fallacy because they are bad and poorly made, and wholly fellacious. They make bad assumptions... in the case of the stormwind fallacy it is proclaiming a false dichotomy... but a dichotomy DOES in fact exist. The oberon fallacy.. "just because it can be fixed doesn't mean it's not broken" is also ridiculous. When something can be fixed with minimal effort (rule zero for example) it means that while there may be flaws, those flaws are not exactly problematic and does not render the product unusable. You see such fixes in factories all the time. Same with software and even machinery production. I counter the so called oberoni fallacy with "just because its flawed doesn't mean we need to throw out the product."

These "fallacies" are people trying to sound intellectual and failing miserably.

[Cosi]

I knock the stormwind fallacy and its companion the oberon fallacy because they are bad and poorly made, and wholly fellacious.
{scrubbed}

[Deophaun]

I'm slightly confused by your post. It seems like your saying that a well roleplayed character can easily break the game, which I personally disagree with because of a few reasons*, and does so by finding the plot mechanic that trivialized the plot. The last sentence about the DM saying no to role-playing and no to a martial doing interesting things is what I really don't understand so, could I get some clarification?
I'm just going to draw a few examples from Puffin Forest, but you actually get a lot of examples of this in any "bad DM" story, and there are plenty of incidents regarding "just OK DMs" as well:

Party goes into a town (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjLXuKHkKxE) where the nobles are rabidly anti-human and enjoy murdering them. The party, which has a few humans, sensibly decides that, instead of taking on the nobility in a desperate fight for survival as the DM intended, they should just leave. "In the GM's benevolence he let us leave town and faff about for three sessions before he realized we had to head back to town and resolve the plot."

Another town, party tries to shop for magic items (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYExETbLL1E), only to discover magic is outlawed. If they want to buy anything, they must go to the black market, which is not just a term for the illegal trade of goods, but an actual place that everyone knows about. Everyone. Except the party. The Paladin in the group eventually goes murderhobo (not the roleplaying in this example). This causes the black market to be abandoned, much to the dismay of the town leaders who relied on the physical black market for trade. These are the same town leaders who also outlawed the sale of magic. Party wizard tries to explain that they could just get rid of the ban and trade things like normal people and gets tortured for his efforts.

Getting the bright idea to call the town guards (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVNO6I47G3g) to actually do their job and guard the town from the obvious mimic posing as a house on the top of a hill. Silly adventurer: there's no such thing as monsters or magic shapeshifters.

All of these are approaching a problem through roleplay where the DM eventually says "no."

Now, you can say that the solution is obvious and the DM should just get better at making campaigns, and that's true. But the same can be said on the mechanics side for over-optimized players

[Calthropstu]

{scrubbed}

[AnimeTheCat]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

You should probably check yourself and take some time to cool off... You do realize that you're talking to another real person right?

[Calthropstu]

You should probably check yourself and take some time to cool off... You do realize that you're talking to another real person right?

Certainly. His comment was uncalled for, and so I dismissed his comment with the disdain it was due. Obviously the proposed act is impossible to perform. But my disdain and outrage for the comment is clearly defined with my statement making further escalation impossible without getting silly.

[Zanos]

I don't have a problem with the mechanics at all. Well, few problems anyways. Anything I dislike, I can handwave away.
You complain about mechanics quite a lot for someone with no mechanics issues in his games.


{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
Bad is subjective, but considering how you've responded to criticism and disagreement in this and other threads, I don't think it's a stretch to say that neither I or anyone in my gaming group(or most people on this board) would have much fun with you as a DM. But hey, maybe your players are different.

[Cosi]

{Scrubbed}

[AnimeTheCat]

I'm just going to draw a few examples from Puffin Forest, but you actually get a lot of examples of this in any "bad DM" story, and there are plenty of incidents regarding "just OK DMs" as well:

Party goes into a town (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjLXuKHkKxE) where the nobles are rabidly anti-human and enjoy murdering them. The party, which has a few humans, sensibly decides that, instead of taking on the nobility in a desperate fight for survival as the DM intended, they should just leave. "In the GM's benevolence he let us leave town and faff about for three sessions before he realized we had to head back to town and resolve the plot."

This has less to do with role-playing and more to do with simply intelligent decision making. Why would a human willingly venture into anti-human lands? What's more, if they were really needed there, then they should be given a motivation (in character) and a reason other than "because plot".


Another town, party tries to shop for magic items (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYExETbLL1E), only to discover magic is outlawed. If they want to buy anything, they must go to the black market, which is not just a term for the illegal trade of goods, but an actual place that everyone knows about. Everyone. Except the party. The Paladin in the group eventually goes murderhobo (not the roleplaying in this example). This causes the black market to be abandoned, much to the dismay of the town leaders who relied on the physical black market for trade. These are the same town leaders who also outlawed the sale of magic. Party wizard tries to explain that they could just get rid of the ban and trade things like normal people and gets tortured for his efforts.

Towns that have outlawed magic and it's trade are highly unlikely to just say "you know what, you're right. Magic for everyone!" And are more likely to take out whoever is affecting their bottom line.


Getting the bright idea to call the town guards (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVNO6I47G3g) to actually do their job and guard the town from the obvious mimic posing as a house on the top of a hill. Silly adventurer: there's no such thing as monsters or magic shapeshifters.

unless the guard have seen or had experience with mimics, they have no way of actually knowing their existance. It seems like the guards were roleplayed well. Had the party gone to the temple for divination and support that way in conjunction with the guards, the outcome would have likely been different.


All of these are approaching a problem through roleplay where the DM eventually says "no."

Now, you can say that the solution is obvious and the DM should just get better at making campaigns, and that's true. But the same can be said on the mechanics side for over-optimized players

While the means that the outcomes came to be were lackluster, i dont see the DM ever saying "no" to roleplaying, simply roleplaying the NPCs that ended other than expected.

[Deadline]

V:tm larp isn't roleplaying. Tried it for a while and it was the lamest thing ever. Seriously, rock paper scissors to determine outcomes? Wtf? And we were playing in public areas too. The looks we got from the general public was mortifying.

I'm confused. You claim that a game (which is predominantly free-form roleplaying) isn't roleplaying because of it's mechanics. That seems like you are conflating mechanics with roleplay. Was this a mistake on your part, or have I missed something important in your argument? If I've missed something, please help me understand. With as vicious as the old roleplay vs. rollplay debates get on the internet, a better understanding of various viewpoints is invaluable.

Edit - Nevermind, I missed the rest of the discussion after the quoted post, and it's clear the discussion has gone nowhere productive. I am no longer interested in the requested clarification, please ignore.

[Deophaun]

This has less to do with role-playing and more to do with simply intelligent decision making. Why would a human willingly venture into anti-human lands?
That question is one born of roleplay. It's not intelligent decision making because, in a game, intelligent decisions are ones which bring the most fun to the players, not the ones that are sensible for the characters.

Towns that have outlawed magic and it's trade are highly unlikely to just say "you know what, you're right. Magic for everyone!" And are more likely to take out whoever is affecting their bottom line.
I think you've failed to grasp the situation there. The town leaders weren't running the black market. They let the black market continue because it was the town's primary source of trade because they had outlawed the sale of magic.

unless the guard have seen or had experience with mimics, they have no way of actually knowing their existance. It seems like the guards were roleplayed well. Had the party gone to the temple for divination and support that way in conjunction with the guards, the outcome would have likely been different.
Divinations? You adventurers and your crazy fantasies.

I don't think you actually checked out the video.

While the means that the outcomes came to be were lackluster, i dont see the DM ever saying "no" to roleplaying, simply roleplaying the NPCs that ended other than expected.
And this attitude leads people to forego roleplay and stick to mechanics, because what you call unexpected I call caprice, which goes by the common name "railroading."

[Calthropstu]

You complain about mechanics quite a lot for someone with no mechanics issues in his games.


Bad is subjective, but considering how you've responded to criticism and disagreement in this and other threads, I don't think it's a stretch to say that neither I or anyone in my gaming group(or most people on this board) would have much fun with you as a DM. But hey, maybe your players are different.

See, this is criticism. Not very accurate, but criticism nontheless. I can work with criticism.
Cosi was insulting. Surprise, people respond negatively to insults. Imagine that. I actually work with my players on most things and am fairly reasonable.
The extremes that present themselves in these threads are just that: extremes.

Extremes provoke extreme reactions. When I encounter extremes of a sort in real life, I respond appropriately: application of banhammers, booting problem players etc. I won't tolerate deliberate attempts to subvert or destroy my campaigns as a gm, and I doubt many will.

That being said, those who enjoy having their games derailed or subverted by severe munchkinry are not having "bad wrong fun." As long as everyone at the table is enjoying the game, I see no problem with how things go... but keep in mind the gm is a person at the table too. The players and the gm should all enjoy it else what's the point?

[Calthropstu]

I'm confused. You claim that a game (which is predominantly free-form roleplaying) isn't roleplaying because of it's mechanics. That seems like you are conflating mechanics with roleplay. Was this a mistake on your part, or have I missed something important in your argument? If I've missed something, please help me understand. With as vicious as the old roleplay vs. rollplay debates get on the internet, a better understanding of various viewpoints is invaluable.

Edit - Nevermind, I missed the rest of the discussion after the quoted post, and it's clear the discussion has gone nowhere productive. I am no longer interested in the requested clarification, please ignore.

Let's make it productive again. See, role playing games are just that: games. They are an outlet that combines the "let's pretend" aspect of make believe with the mechanical aspect of the game.

Good roleplay experience requires you to enjoy both the role play aspect of the game as well as the mechanical outlet that allows the role play to take form.

I may have exaggerated that v:tm larp wasn't "roleplaying." It is. I am guilty in this instance of insulting the game. It is more accurate to say I strongly dislike its mechanics and role play outlets. It requires far too much effort to organize, and having to have actual people as volunteer npcs severely limits any form of cohesive story telling. It also encourages cliques within the game and relies on out of game established heirarchy.

V:tM larp basically is a flawed premise in that the role play is virtually inseperable from real life and precludes any serious attempt at immersive story telling.

[Segev]

The main issue I tend to see is when people define "severe munchkinry" as "anything that derails my expected solutions/trivializes my challenges." Conversely, the biggest secondary issue is when people try to justify builds or decisions that only make sense if you have a legalistic understanding of the rules, and tried to sneak it in without clearly spelling out what you were doing for the GM before you built it.

Communication is key in all levels of character design. If you have a cool trick you intend to use, it honestly doesn't matter whether it's straightforward or twistier than a hydra sculpted out of twist-ties, you should make sure the DM is aware you intend to use it. If it will cause problems, the DM can either plan around it or forbid it.

Meanwhile, DMs need to be aware of their players' characters' capabilities, and plan accordingly. Or, at least, not plan on any one thing being "insurmountable" but simply having a living, breathing world that adapts to reality as presented by the capabilities of NPCs, creatures, and PCs.

If your hard-designed scenario is trivialized, so be it. Consider what to do in the next one to account for this.

[Calthropstu]

The main issue I tend to see is when people define "severe munchkinry" as "anything that derails my expected solutions/trivializes my challenges." Conversely, the biggest secondary issue is when people try to justify builds or decisions that only make sense if you have a legalistic understanding of the rules, and tried to sneak it in without clearly spelling out what you were doing for the GM before you built it.

Communication is key in all levels of character design. If you have a cool trick you intend to use, it honestly doesn't matter whether it's straightforward or twistier than a hydra sculpted out of twist-ties, you should make sure the DM is aware you intend to use it. If it will cause problems, the DM can either plan around it or forbid it.

Meanwhile, DMs need to be aware of their players' characters' capabilities, and plan accordingly. Or, at least, not plan on any one thing being "insurmountable" but simply having a living, breathing world that adapts to reality as presented by the capabilities of NPCs, creatures, and PCs.

If your hard-designed scenario is trivialized, so be it. Consider what to do in the next one to account for this.

Finally we're back on track. Yes, as a gm you have to accept sometimes there are out of the box solutions you didn't think of. It comes with the territory.
Some are overpowered combos you didn't notice. Some are merely creative ways out of your scenario. Flexibility and adaptability are key traits a gm needs to possess. The gm has a wide array of tools at his disposal, and no two circumstances will be exactly alike. Ban hammers, rule zero hand waves, mid combat adjustments, strategy alterations, ret-cons (hell you can take a tpk and say "and you all wake up unnerved and anxious"), and literally dozens of other story telling and game control mechanisms are all at the gm's disposal. Use what you need to make a good story.

That said, it is also the gm's responsibility to curb game destructive tendencies of other players. In this case, overoptimization of one player to outshine the rest of the party. It can definitely be problematic, but as has been stated there are many tools to curtail this. The dichotomy of "roll play vs roleplay" becomes a question of whether it's destructive or constructive. Since no two situations will be the same, it is up to the gm how to handle it.

Do you up the optimization of other party members to compete? Do you downgrade the op character? Do yoj ban specific combos as they cause problems? Bar access to spells? Ban tiers or specific classes? It's on the gm to decide.

But though the gm has ultimate say, that isn't to say the players don't have a say or shouldn't be involved in the process. Like anyone with authority, input from others is valuable. I am lucky with my group in that all of us have extensive gm and player experience. Easily a combined total of a century of experience between us, we're generally able to come to a good consensus.

[eggynack]

I knock the stormwind fallacy and its companion the oberon fallacy because they are bad and poorly made, and wholly fellacious. They make bad assumptions... in the case of the stormwind fallacy it is proclaiming a false dichotomy... but a dichotomy DOES in fact exist.
So, you're saying that being good at the mechanics and being good at the roleplaying are 100% mutually exclusive? Being both is more or less impossible? Cause that claim is what the stormwind fallacy is disputing.



The oberon fallacy.. "just because it can be fixed doesn't mean it's not broken" is also ridiculous. When something can be fixed with minimal effort (rule zero for example) it means that while there may be flaws, those flaws are not exactly problematic and does not render the product unusable. You see such fixes in factories all the time. Same with software and even machinery production. I counter the so called oberoni fallacy with "just because its flawed doesn't mean we need to throw out the product."
The oberoni fallacy does not state that the broken product is unusable. What it states is that statements like, "The druid isn't too powerful. You can just cut them off at 1st level spells and remove all their class features, and they're weak," are ludicrous. When people say the wizard is too powerful, they're talking about the object within the game, not some arbitrary house ruled creation. The discussion of a house ruled version of the game is thus a non sequitur, and therefore fallacious.

Does the fact that my statement that druids are strong is incorrect in these house ruled contexts render the statement invalid? I'd say no. That you need to apply all these fixes strongly implies that the original product was broken, not that the original product was fine.

[Calthropstu]

So, you're saying that being good at the mechanics and being good at the roleplaying are 100% mutually exclusive? Being both is more or less impossible? Cause that claim is what the stormwind fallacy is disputing.


The oberoni fallacy does not state that the broken product is unusable. What it states is that statements like, "The druid isn't too powerful. You can just cut them off at 1st level spells and remove all their class features, and they're weak," are ludicrous. When people say the wizard is too powerful, they're talking about the object within the game, not some arbitrary house ruled creation. The discussion of a house ruled version of the game is thus a non sequitur, and therefore fallacious.

Does the fact that my statement that druids are strong is incorrect in these house ruled contexts render the statement invalid? I'd say no. That you need to apply all these fixes strongly implies that the original product was broken, not that the original product was fine.

Let's take an example from elsewhere.

Microsoft windows requires numerous patches and fixes. Yet it is one of the most influential and useful programs to date. Is it riddled with problems? Sure. But to call it "broken" is unfair.

Similar here. The actual term that should be used isn't broken. Obviously the fact that 3.5 is still widely used 20 years after its creation is proof it's not broken. Broken means unusable after all. Likewise damaged doesn't really apply either.

The correct term we should be using is flawed. The Oberoni fallacy is a false premise in that the assumption is the game is "broken." It's not. It's flawed. Just as windows patches help shore up the flaws in its core programming, so too does the gm have options to patch flaws in the core system of d&d 3.5.

If you call microsoft support and say "I am experiencing x issue," and they say "please download update x.x and it should be fine," to respond "well I shouldn't have to download this patch because you should have had this fixed in the initial release" is just petulance.

Same applies to the so called oberoni fallacy.

As for the "stormwind fallacy," one or both can exist simultaneously. However, it is often one or the other when it presents as a problem. More often it is the "roll play" that causes the issue. But as I stated earlier, one or the other is fine so long as the whole table can agree.

[Cosi]

Let's take an example from elsewhere.

Microsoft windows requires numerous patches and fixes. Yet it is one of the most influential and useful programs to date. Is it riddled with problems? Sure. But to call it "broken" is unfair.

Similar here. The actual term that should be used isn't broken. Obviously the fact that 3.5 is still widely used 20 years after its creation is proof it's not broken. Broken means unusable after all. Likewise damaged doesn't really apply either.

The correct term we should be using is flawed. The Oberoni fallacy is a false premise in that the assumption is the game is "broken." It's not. It's flawed. Just as windows patches help shore up the flaws in its core programming, so too does the gm have options to patch flaws in the core system of d&d 3.5.

If you call microsoft support and say "I am experiencing x issue," and they say "please download update x.x and it should be fine," to respond "well I shouldn't have to download this patch because you should have had this fixed in the initial release" is just petulance.

Same applies to the so called oberoni fallacy.

As for the "stormwind fallacy," one or both can exist simultaneously. However, it is often one or the other when it presents as a problem. More often it is the "roll play" that causes the issue. But as I stated earlier, one or the other is fine so long as the whole table can agree.

So to be clear, you objection to Oberoni is not that it is logically flawed, but that you think that "broken" has the wrong semantics? Because that seems like a way smaller disagreement then what you've been trying to sell to us.

[eggynack]

Let's take an example from elsewhere.

Microsoft windows requires numerous patches and fixes. Yet it is one of the most influential and useful programs to date. Is it riddled with problems? Sure. But to call it "broken" is unfair.
Those patches and fixes are generally in-system, I think. I don't recall making use of much in the way of external patches/fixes. 3.5 fixes, meanwhile, are necessarily something that random people are putting together. More importantly, no 3.5 fix is anywhere near universally accepted, and most don't even go beyond a single table. Even if every Microsoft fix were done by randos, they would still be relatively broad in acceptance by anyone that has to deal with the issue and knows of the solution.


Similar here. The actual term that should be used isn't broken. Obviously the fact that 3.5 is still widely used 20 years after its creation is proof it's not broken. Broken means unusable after all. Likewise damaged doesn't really apply either.
That's not really what broken means as applies to gaming. "Broken" often just means "Significantly above the power level of the rest of the game," or, when applied to a system, "Imbalanced".


The correct term we should be using is flawed. The Oberoni fallacy is a false premise in that the assumption is the game is "broken." It's not. It's flawed. Just as windows patches help shore up the flaws in its core programming, so too does the gm have options to patch flaws in the core system of d&d 3.5.
Yeah, you're just kinda ignoring the generally accepted meaning of the term.


If you call microsoft support and say "I am experiencing x issue," and they say "please download update x.x and it should be fine," to respond "well I shouldn't have to download this patch because you should have had this fixed in the initial release" is just petulance.
If you call up Wizards and say, "The druid is way too strong," they'll say, "Man, that sucks, I guess." There is no update or patch. There is only some random dude saying, "My house rules are so sweet that they make the game work perfectly." And, y'know, that random dude is generally going to be wrong. What you're talking about is something like errata, and, for the problems errata fixes, I'd say the original problems are un-broken to my satisfaction. But there's only so much errata, and what errata does exist barely even touches on the game's balance issues.

The Oberoni fallacy is meant to address crap like this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?310471-VoP-doesn-t-suck). That's a guy calling people stupid for thinking that VoP sucks, because the DM can just homebrew BoED style relics. The reasoning in that thread is outright fallacious.

As for the "stormwind fallacy," one or both can exist simultaneously. However, it is often one or the other when it presents as a problem. More often it is the "roll play" that causes the issue. But as I stated earlier, one or the other is fine so long as the whole table can agree.
If both can exist simultaneously, then we're working with a false dichotomy. That's literally what a false dichotomy is. Thus, you agree with the stormwind fallacy. Simple as that. You can stop calling people that cite it mistaken now.

[Cosi]

If you call microsoft support and say "I am experiencing x issue," and they say "please download update x.x and it should be fine," to respond "well I shouldn't have to download this patch because you should have had this fixed in the initial release" is just petulance.

Please explain how Mircosoft writing a patch is the same as you writing a houserule. They produced the initial release. They fixed the bug. Because it was their job to deliver a functioning product, not yours. And you better damn believe if I get hit with a 0 day hack I'm going to blame Microsoft for not catching it.


Those patches and fixes are generally in-system, I think. I don't recall making use of much in the way of external patches/fixes. 3.5 fixes, meanwhile, are necessarily something that random people are putting together. More importantly, no 3.5 fix is anywhere near universally accepted, and most don't even go beyond a single table. Even if every Microsoft fix were done by randos, they would still be relatively broad in acceptance by anyone that has to deal with the issue and knows of the solution.

Yeah. The correct analogy here would be to (early) Linux, where fixes are very much distributed ad hoc, and "do it yourself" is (or was) a common reaction. And while I use Linux, I wouldn't blame anyone for saying that the system is broken (for certain purposes, e.g. gaming).

[Calthropstu]

Those patches and fixes are generally in-system, I think. I don't recall making use of much in the way of external patches/fixes. 3.5 fixes, meanwhile, are necessarily something that random people are putting together. More importantly, no 3.5 fix is anywhere near universally accepted, and most don't even go beyond a single table. Even if every Microsoft fix were done by randos, they would still be relatively broad in acceptance by anyone that has to deal with the issue and knows of the solution.


That's not really what broken means as applies to gaming. "Broken" often just means "Significantly above the power level of the rest of the game," or, when applied to a system, "Imbalanced".


Yeah, you're just kinda ignoring the generally accepted meaning of the term.


If you call up Wizards and say, "The druid is way too strong," they'll say, "Man, that sucks, I guess." There is no update or patch. There is only some random dude saying, "My house rules are so sweet that they make the game work perfectly." And, y'know, that random dude is generally going to be wrong. What you're talking about is something like errata, and, for the problems errata fixes, I'd say the original problems are un-broken to my satisfaction. But there's only so much errata, and what errata does exist barely even touches on the game's balance issues.

The Oberoni fallacy is meant to address crap like this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?310471-VoP-doesn-t-suck). That's a guy calling people stupid for thinking that VoP sucks, because the DM can just homebrew BoED style relics. The reasoning in that thread is outright fallacious.

If both can exist simultaneously, then we're working with a false dichotomy. That's literally what a false dichotomy is. Thus, you agree with the stormwind fallacy. Simple as that. You can stop calling people that cite it mistaken now.

Stormwind:
They can exist simultaneously, but usually don't when they present a problem. The issue is there are some gamers that take one or the other to a disruptive level. It is at that disruptive level that you find a dichotomy. The issue is some players at a table want less of one or the other and an outlier wants more. It causes a fracture in the game.

That's where you find the dichotomy: in the problem players.

Oberoni:
The patch provided is known as rule zero. It's a catch all that allows the gm to fix whatever they want however they want. Personally, I find it to be the best fix since every single table will have different needs and expectations.

[eggynack]

Stormwind:
They can exist simultaneously, but usually don't when they present a problem. The issue is there are some gamers that take one or the other to a disruptive level. It is at that disruptive level that you find a dichotomy. The issue is some players at a table want less of one or the other and an outlier wants more. It causes a fracture in the game.

That's where you find the dichotomy: in the problem players.
That's not what a false dichotomy is. I'll just quote literally the first thing you find when you google it: "A false dichotomy is a dichotomy that is not jointly exhaustive (there are other alternatives), or that is not mutually exclusive (the alternatives overlap), or that is possibly neither." The dichotomy between people skilled at roleplaying at people skilled at optimization is not mutually exclusive, because someone can be both. That some people can be only good at one or the other is not remotely what the fallacy takes issue with. The false dichotomy, which this 100% definitionally is, is a fallacious thing.


Oberoni:
The patch provided is known as rule zero. It's a catch all that allows the gm to fix whatever they want however they want. Personally, I find it to be the best fix since every single table will have different needs and expectations.
That's an utterly meaningless "patch". GM's are not game designers. By this metric, that people can just make their own game, we might as well say that even the worst designed game in the entire world is unbroken, cause I can just replace it with a really good game. No game is bad cause I can totally make my own. It's fine that I sold you a lemon, cause you can just replace every part of it using your expert mechanical skills. The car isn't "broken". I'm allowing you to fix your own car, so it's fine.

[Quertus]

Randomized chargen is so second millenium.

Where one starts - concept or mechanics - seems irrelevant to whether one produces a character that integrates concept and mechanics.

Starting with random stats / random chargen merely makes the end product less predictable (for better or worse).


Fluff and crunch CAN be made to work together, but an excessive concentration on either CAN result in a deficit of the other.

True. Attention is finite. If you give 100%, you don't have anything left.


The difference is that there is "Stormwind Fallacy" to encapsulate "optimization doesn't have to harm RP, it can even enhance it" but there is... seemingly nothing so glibly named to encapsulate "while mechanics can serve story, that doesn't mean they automatically do."

Optimization doesn't have to harm RP, RP doesn't have to harm optimization.

Do we need a spiffy name for "mechanic concerns can harm RP, RP concerns can harm mechanics"?


And, of course, the amount of optimization or RP-intensiveness is (or should be) a table decision in any case, and the real problems arise when you have different expectations. (If your party includes OneShot the Fully Optimized DMM Persist ClericZilla, Bob the Beer & Pretzels Fighter, and Harquirion Van'Dersmithizain Ta'Drel'Thorianous IV the Dramatic Who Doesn't Want to Pick a "Class," you might have a little work to do to all enjoy the same game - or you maybe want to just be at different tables.)

Having played in a game with Thor and a sentient potted plant (I was the potted plant), I'll just clarify that it's fine so long as everyone's expectations are the same regarding everyone's character being different.


in the case of the stormwind fallacy it is proclaiming a false dichotomy... but a dichotomy DOES in fact exist.

Um, care to explain exactly what dichotomy you believe exists?

[BassoonHero]

V:tm larp isn't roleplaying. Tried it for a while and it was the lamest thing ever. Seriously, rock paper scissors to determine outcomes? Wtf? And we were playing in public areas too. The looks we got from the general public was mortifying.
Were you going somewhere with this?


That aside, accidentally breaking a game can be fixed easily.
Deliberately breaking a game can be fixed easily.


And maliciousness is maliciousness and should be dealt with accordingly.
Here we agree.


But my experience is that munchkin players will do whatever they think they can get away with... It's not malicious
Here we disagree. I can't see this middle ground where a player is "definitely trying to outshine everyone else", and "it's definitely noticable and often disruptive", and the group agrees that this is not acceptable behavior (or what's the problem?), but "[i]t's not malicious". Is there some fundamental breakdown in communication where the players do not share common expectations? Later, you say that "[t]ailoring the campaign and characters to each other is important", a principle with which I agree wholeheartedly. But how do you reconcile these positions?

It seems to me that if this situation comes about -- one "munchkin" is ruining the other players' fun with an overpowered character, and the situation cannot be easily resolved between the group members, and yet there is no malice -- then the group in question is deeply dysfunctional, and the situation with the "munchkin" is a symptom of that dysfunction and not its cause.

[Calthropstu]

That's not what a false dichotomy is. I'll just quote literally the first thing you find when you google it: "A false dichotomy is a dichotomy that is not jointly exhaustive (there are other alternatives), or that is not mutually exclusive (the alternatives overlap), or that is possibly neither." The dichotomy between people skilled at roleplaying at people skilled at optimization is not mutually exclusive, because someone can be both. That some people can be only good at one or the other is not remotely what the fallacy takes issue with. The false dichotomy, which this 100% definitionally is, is a fallacious thing.


That's an utterly meaningless "patch". GM's are not game designers. By this metric, that people can just make their own game, we might as well say that even the worst designed game in the entire world is unbroken, cause I can just replace it with a really good game. No game is bad cause I can totally make my own. It's fine that I sold you a lemon, cause you can just replace every part of it using your expert mechanical skills. The car isn't "broken". I'm allowing you to fix your own car, so it's fine.

So legos are broken because they don't come pre assembled?
D&D gave you the tools to make a game. Building blocks if you will. Even at its core it's not clear cut "here's the rules, here's how to play."
It's a "here's some rules, here's guidelines on how to make characters, here's a combat system, here's some spells, here's a mechanic for using skills, here's some other guidelines. Feel free to use any or all of these to build characters and a xampaign world of your own design."

You are being given legos to build something and are complaining that they form something you don't like. My response is "so use this lego piece instead" and yours is "but it should have built THIS..." without exactly defining what "THIS" is.
D&D is a bunch of legos to build a story around fantasy stories. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not broken just because it doesn't fit your exact ideal. Hell, the fact yhat it's been used so long proves it wasn't broken at all.

It has flaws, sure. Just rearrange the legos a bit.

[ExLibrisMortis]

So legos are broken because they don't come pre assembled?
You keep moving the goalposts, but the fact is, you don't understand the Stormwind and Oberoni fallacies, and that's why you think they're bad. First, you don't know what a dichotomy is, and now you evoke the Oberoni fallacy to demonstrate that the Oberoni fallacy is bad.

You commit the Oberoni fallacy when you say that "the game provides tools", specifically: "The patch provided is known as rule zero". Rule zero is not a tool that D&D provides to make the game, nor does it make bad stuff go away, nor does it do any work for you. It is just a confirmation (or a reminder) that you don't have to play the game as-is; more broadly, you could say that ultimately games are up to the players, not the designers. No D&D developer created that rule; it is implied in every game.

To use your analogy: If my box of legos--models bulldozer, digger, truck--come with an extra booklet that says "you can build things besides bulldozer, digger, truck", then that box of legos is not providing a fourth model. When I assert that there are problems with building cranes, that booklet is not a fix.

[eggynack]

So legos are broken because they don't come pre assembled?
D&D gave you the tools to make a game. Building blocks if you will. Even at its core it's not clear cut "here's the rules, here's how to play."
It's a "here's some rules, here's guidelines on how to make characters, here's a combat system, here's some spells, here's a mechanic for using skills, here's some other guidelines. Feel free to use any or all of these to build characters and a xampaign world of your own design."

You are being given legos to build something and are complaining that they form something you don't like. My response is "so use this lego piece instead" and yours is "but it should have built THIS..." without exactly defining what "THIS" is.
D&D is a bunch of legos to build a story around fantasy stories. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not broken just because it doesn't fit your exact ideal. Hell, the fact yhat it's been used so long proves it wasn't broken at all.

It has flaws, sure. Just rearrange the legos a bit.
The game of legos is in the rearranging of provided materials. The game of D&D is, arguably, the same. When half of the legos come misshapen, such that they don't fit in with any other legos, and you have to sand those pieces down to get a good product, then the legos are broken. The rules of the game are the pieces you're handed, which you can arrange in any shape you want. You shouldn't have to make your own pieces, or substantially change the pieces you are handed. Those rules are what you're paying for, and if those rules are broken without modification, then what you're paying for is broken.

Is the system 100% totally broken such that it's totally unusable? No, of course not, and, conveniently for my position, that is not at all what the fallacy was asserting. What the fallacy is stating is, simply, that the system has problems. Problems with balance, and problems with how certain rules are written, and so on. Telling someone that they're wrong for claiming there's a balance problem because they could always just essentially write up a new game is silly. Did you actually look at that thread I linked to? Do you think Visigani wasn't being ridiculous, not only because his rules were wrong, but also because he thought that the ability of DM's to hand out free abilities renders everyone claiming VoP is bad mistaken? If you think he was wrong on this basis, then you, again, agree with the fallacy.

[TiaC]

The roleplaying equivalent to the player who optimizes with a myopic focus on power and a disregard for the other players is the person saying "but it's what my character would do!" as they attack/steal from another player. In both cases, a narrow view of what it means to do something well leads to disruptive behavior.

[Calthropstu]

You keep moving the goalposts, but the fact is, you don't understand the Stormwind and Oberoni fallacies, and that's why you think they're bad. First, you don't know what a dichotomy is, and now you evoke the Oberoni fallacy to demonstrate that the Oberoni fallacy is bad.

You commit the Oberoni fallacy when you say that "the game provides tools", specifically: "The patch provided is known as rule zero". Rule zero is not a tool that D&D provides to make the game, nor does it make bad stuff go away, nor does it do any work for you. It is just a confirmation (or a reminder) that you don't have to play the game as-is; more broadly, you could say that ultimately games are up to the players, not the designers. No D&D developer created that rule; it is implied in every game.

To use your analogy: If my box of legos--models bulldozer, digger, truck--come with an extra booklet that says "you can build things besides bulldozer, digger, truck", then that box of legos is not providing a fourth model. When I assert that there are problems with building cranes, that booklet is not a fix.

The game of legos is in the rearranging of provided materials. The game of D&D is, arguably, the same. When half of the legos come misshapen, such that they don't fit in with any other legos, and you have to sand those pieces down to get a good product, then the legos are broken. The rules of the game are the pieces you're handed, which you can arrange in any shape you want. You shouldn't have to make your own pieces, or substantially change the pieces you are handed. Those rules are what you're paying for, and if those rules are broken without modification, then what you're paying for is broken.

Is the system 100% totally broken such that it's totally unusable? No, of course not, and, conveniently for my position, that is not at all what the fallacy was asserting. What the fallacy is stating is, simply, that the system has problems. Problems with balance, and problems with how certain rules are written, and so on. Telling someone that they're wrong for claiming there's a balance problem because they could always just essentially write up a new game is silly. Did you actually look at that thread I linked to? Do you think Visigani wasn't being ridiculous, not only because his rules were wrong, but also because he thought that the ability of DM's to hand out free abilities renders everyone claiming VoP is bad mistaken? If you think he was wrong on this basis, then you, again, agree with the fallacy.

I understand the fake fallacies quite well.
The oberoni fallacy is "just because something can be fixed, doesn't mean it's not broken." My response is D&D is not broken. Not even close. The pieces in the anology fit fine together. I can create a fighter. It can fight. I can create a druid. It can druid. That the druid can also fight doesn't mean the fighter can't. The game works reasonably fine as written.

The problems arise when you use all the pieces together in ways not originally intended or anticipated. When one of the (optional pieces) is added in a particular way, it causes some of the pieces to not move right. But if you work it in a different way, it now works better.
How is it wrong to say "if you don't like it this way, do it this way because it might fit better."

Yeah, there are people who say stupid things like that vop guy, but I take exception to people saying my favorite game is "broken" when it isn't. Not by a long shot.

[Zanos]

I understand the fake fallacies quite well.
The oberoni fallacy is "just because something can be fixed, doesn't mean it's not broken."
You don't understand it then. The Oberoni fallacy says that asserting something can be fixed means that it was broken to begin with. Otherwise you wouldn't need to fix it.

"Shocktrooper isn't broken because I used rule 0 to ban the feat as a fix".

Clearly something was broken if you needed to fix it. Saying something isn't broken because it can be fixed is the non-argument it takes issue with.

[Kelb_Panthera]

As long as we're analogizing oberoni, I'll take a shot.

If you turn the handle on your toilet and water shoots out of the bowl into your face, the fact you have a box of plumbing tools in your garage and know how to use them doesn't mean your toilet isn't broken.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I understand the fake fallacies quite well.
The oberoni fallacy is "just because something can be fixed, doesn't mean it's not broken." My response is D&D is not broken. Not even close.
There's your mistake. Something =/= D&D. Something, in the context of the Oberoni fallacy, is a part of D&D. You're not just misunderstanding the fallacy, you're projecting a pet peeve onto it.

[AnimeTheCat]

I think there may be something to the concept that d&d, as presented, is more akin to building blocks. After all, a party of fighters and barbarians won’t see the same issues that a party of druids, clerics, and wizards, or a mixture of the 5 are. In that light, the game becomes to tool box and the campaign is the toilet.

I could see that line of reasoning, and it’s not a terrible one. I think though, that because you have the fighter and the Druid in the same book presented at the same time, that logic begins to fall apart fairly rapidly.

Now, not to nitpick but I don’t feel as though d&d is a toilet shooting water in your face. It is more like a toilet that has its reservoir stopper that gets stuck up. Usually all you need to do is open the lid and flip it down. But it’s still not functioning as intended and thus “Broken”

[ExLibrisMortis]

Now, not to nitpick but I don’t feel as though d&d is a toilet shooting water in your face. It is more like a toilet that has its reservoir stopper that gets stuck up. Usually all you need to do is open the lid and flip it down. But it’s still not functioning as intended and thus “Broken”
The Oberoni fallacy is not about D&D as a whole. It's saying that in a game of all unoptimized fighters, a high-OP druid is like a broken toilet.

[Cosi]

So legos are broken because they don't come pre assembled?

Finding something that is supposed to work differently from D&D isn't evidence that D&D working the same way as that thing is D&D working correctly. My swimming pool is supposed to be full of water. My car is not.


The oberoni fallacy is "just because something can be fixed, doesn't mean it's not broken." My response is D&D is not broken. Not even close.

Well then you wouldn't be disagreeing with the Oberoni Fallacy. If I say "men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal", you say that my point is invalid because it's an Appeal to Authority, my pointing out that I didn't appeal to authority isn't arguing that Appeal to Authority is a "false fallacy", it's arguing that the fallacy doesn't apply. So really, it seems like you disagree with a bunch of things that are related to the Oberoni fallacy (to be clear: this disagreement is still dumb), which you have confused with the fallacy itself.


The Oberoni fallacy is not about D&D as a whole. It's saying that in a game of all unoptimized fighters, a high-OP druid is like a broken toilet.

Or, you know, the inverse. Someone being horribly underpowered is also bad for the game.

[Blue Jay]

Oh, geez! So much has happened since I posted last night, I'm almost hesitant to try to post again today. But, I'll give it a go anyway.


All invoking the stormwind fallacy says about the fluff-crunch dichotomy is that it is a false dichotomy, which is true. That being good at one, and putting effort into it does -not- come at the expense of the other. How much effort goes into each is an independent variable for any given player.

"Stormwind" is just a narrowly applied version of the false dichotomy fallacy, if you want to get formal about it.

The trouble is that the Stormwind Fallacy hinges on a particular claim whose truth value has not been demonstrated. What I mean by that is that nobody has meaningfully quantified players' "skill" at either the mechanical aspect or the roleplay aspect of RPGs, let alone provided a meaningful way to evaluate how the two "skills" relate to one another. So, the claim that they're not correlated is completely vacuous.

Sure, we have plenty of anecdotes that support the claim, but those anecdotes are tainted by the vested interest we all have in distancing ourselves from the "munchkin" stigma. So, there are probably major systematic biases in that data set, which probably make it completely uninformative.


However, that's not quite what the argument is. It's not that it is possible to be good at both fluff and crunch, it's that a player's skill at one of those says nothing about their skill at the other. Thus, it is wrong to act like a well-roleplayed character must have been made with little mechanical skill, or to assume that an optimized character must be a shallow one. In fact, it also includes recognizing that there are people who are bad at both.

My contention here is that generalizations don't have to be universally accurate to be informative. In fact, they don't even have to be mostly accurate to be informative. All they have to do is give you better predictive value than random guessing. And that's not a particularly high bar to meet.

For example, if I were to pick up a stack of character sheets, and randomly guess which ones were made by "good roleplayers" without taking any other information into consideration, my accuracy would probably be pretty low. Theoretically, if I sample a large enough population, my accuracy would approximate the proportional abundance of "good roleplayers" in the population. So, if 7% of roleplayers are "good roleplayers," then this random guessing method would likely yield roughly 7% accuracy. 93% of my guesses would be wrong.

But, then, let's say I go back through the same set of character sheets, and use the criterion "good roleplayers are lousy optimizers." I'll try to select who's a "good roleplayer" based on how poorly optimized each character sheet is. And let's say that 18% of the sheets I selected actually were "good roleplayers."

In this example, my "good roleplayers are lousy optimizers" criterion is not very accurate: I'm wrong 82% of the time. But, it's still more accurate than random guessing, so it clearly does have some informational value for me. It basically tells me that "good roleplayers" are more often bad optimizers than other cohorts of the gamer population (this is, of course, just a hypothetical example for illustrative purposes, not a claim about the actual makeup of the real gamer community).

When a guy comes to the forum claiming that there's a "roleplay vs roll-play" dichotomy in our community, he doesn't have to be 100% correct to have a good point. His argument could still be a good argument, even if it doesn't apply to the majority of roleplayers (I suspect that it applies to a larger proportion of us than we want to admit). But, the usual response is to dismiss him by invoking the "Stormwind Fallacy" as a sound byte, which really doesn't accomplish anything except avoid meaningful self-evaluation.

[eggynack]

I understand the fake fallacies quite well.
The oberoni fallacy is "just because something can be fixed, doesn't mean it's not broken." My response is D&D is not broken. Not even close. The pieces in the anology fit fine together. I can create a fighter. It can fight. I can create a druid. It can druid. That the druid can also fight doesn't mean the fighter can't. The game works reasonably fine as written.
It's fitting that you've used fallacious logic to oppose the notion of fallacies. The Oberoni fallacy does not say, "D&D is broken." That is not an essential aspect to what the fallacy is. What it says that the following statement is fallacious: "If D&D can be fixed, then it was not broken." Proving that D&D is not broken in no way disproves that that logic is fallacious. Let's consider an equivalent sort of statement. "If I clap my hands five times in a row, then that dog over there is a German Shepherd." The conclusion can sometimes be a true one, but the antecedent is utterly irrelevant to the conclusion. I can easily clap five times in the presence of a dog that isn't a German Shepherd, and it is similarly quite possible to create new and workable rules to a game that is totally broken.

Totally separate to the accuracy of the fallacy itself, I've gotta point out that you've thus far proved absolutely incapable of proving druids aren't absolutely broken. You can say this class isn't borked as hell all you want, but that claim is thus far completely unsupported.


Yeah, there are people who say stupid things like that vop guy, but I take exception to people saying my favorite game is "broken" when it isn't. Not by a long shot.
So, yeah, you've just 100% misunderstood what the fallacy is saying. The game could be totally fine and the fallacy could still be an accurate one, and the game could be utterly broken and some dude's random fallacy related to that brokenness could be utterly invalid. Fallacies are about the reasoning, not the results. Do you think that every statement that is claimed to follow from an attack on the opponent's character is, by the laws of the universe, false? Of course not,

[Deophaun]

The trouble is that the Stormwind Fallacy hinges on a particular claim whose truth value has not been demonstrated. What I mean by that is that nobody has meaningfully quantified players' "skill" at either the mechanical aspect or the roleplay aspect of RPGs, let alone provided a meaningful way to evaluate how the two "skills" relate to one another. So, the claim that they're not correlated is completely vacuous.
It's a good thing that the Stormwind Fallacy makes no claim as to whether optimization levels and roleplaying are correlated, then.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Keep it civil in here.

[Segev]

So, you're saying that being good at the mechanics and being good at the roleplaying are 100% mutually exclusive? Being both is more or less impossible? Cause that claim is what the stormwind fallacy is disputing.


The oberoni fallacy does not state that the broken product is unusable. What it states is that statements like, "The druid isn't too powerful. You can just cut them off at 1st level spells and remove all their class features, and they're weak," are ludicrous. When people say the wizard is too powerful, they're talking about the object within the game, not some arbitrary house ruled creation. The discussion of a house ruled version of the game is thus a non sequitur, and therefore fallacious.

Does the fact that my statement that druids are strong is incorrect in these house ruled contexts render the statement invalid? I'd say no. That you need to apply all these fixes strongly implies that the original product was broken, not that the original product was fine.If Stormwind is a narrow/specific case of a false dichotomy fallacy, Oberoni is a narrow/specific case of a straw man fallacy. Specifically, Alice comes into a conversation to discuss the problems she has with the way the latest splat book gives the Fighter the ability to cast wish at will as a spell-like-ability at first level, and brings up how this is problematic because it makes a level 1 Fighter dip practically required on all builds. Bob says, "Nah, just house-rule it so that Fighters who take that feat are not able to use it without the stars being in alignment and paying the DM $1000 per use; it's totally not a problem!"

Bob is no longer discussing the Fighter with the feat that Alice brought up; Bob is discussing a creation of his own, and insisting that it's what Alice is talking about. A straw man.


Oberoni:
The patch provided is known as rule zero. It's a catch all that allows the gm to fix whatever they want however they want. Personally, I find it to be the best fix since every single table will have different needs and expectations.
Oh, well, then, my game system that says "rule 0: whatever the DM says, goes," and has no other rules is obviously exactly as complete and perfectly balanced as literally every other system out there! Why do we bother buying game systems, again?

And before you accuse me of making a straw man, this is actually, at worst, reductio ad absurdum. The point I'm making is that Rule 0 allows for at-the-table rulings and even fixes, but it doesn't change the fact that the RAW needed fixing. The more Rule 0 has to be applied, the less complete and more broken the RAW are. What Oberoni was pointing out is that dismissing complaints about the system as written having flaws by saying that Rule 0 lets you fix those flaws is no better than claiming the car that requires you to stop and refill the radiator every 10 miles of continuous driving is perfectly fine because you CAN refill the radiator, or you could buy a new radiator and install it so it doesn't have that problem anymore, or you can drive at 5 mph to make sure that it never needs the refill.

Yes, there are work-arounds, and you can spend time and money and effort fixing it so it isn't a problem anymore, but that doesn't mean it's unreasonable to gripe about the car having a crappy radiator standard.

[Blue Jay]

It's a good thing that the Stormwind Fallacy makes no claim as to whether optimization levels and roleplaying are correlated, then.

Yes it does. It very specifically claims that they're not correlated with one another.

[Cosi]

Even if the ability to make new rules is RAW, whatever particular rules you make are clearly not. If Fighter/Wizard imbalance is not a problem in 3e, there must be some particular solution to it. Rule 0 is not a solution. It is a set of solutions. Is the solution to drop rocks on anyone who builds a character you think is overpowered? Is the solution to give DM pity items to characters you think are underpowered? Is the solution to not play underpowered classes? To say that Rule 0 is the solution is to say that all of those are the solution, despite none of them being anywhere in evidence in the product for which I have paid actual money.


Yes it does. It very specifically claims that they're not correlated with one another.

Yes, that's the null hypothesis. You know, the thing you have to disprove before making a claim. If there is no evidence about the correlation, we should assume there is no correlation. That's what Stormwind says, and its the standard of evidence we should use.

[Resileaf]

My method of making a character for the first time is to look at the classes and decide which one I would like to play the most today.

Then it devolves into "I want to make a character of every single class and specialization and archetype and...".

I have an alt-character problem.

[Telonius]

My usual method of character-building:

- Find an obscure pun or reference that nobody but me will get, typically focused on name derivation or the lyrics of a classic rock and/or folk song, and build a concept out of it. (Example: Cassandra: prophet who knows what they're talking about but nobody listens to until it's too late. Chalceus, "copper," "brazen." English brazen can refer to either literally made of brass, or a personality. Draconic human, bronze lineage. Supplies the booze. Brewer).
- Take that concept and personality, and make a build that the concept will support, as strong as I can make it within the confines of not overpowering the rest of the party. (Gods-related. Cleric. Dragon, greedy. Cleric of Olidammara. Massive bluff checks. Nobody believes her = not actually a thief. Making deals, rogue-ish, sneaky tricks. Doesn't want to wade into melee combat. Warlock. Eldritch Disciple).

[Deophaun]

Yes it does. It very specifically claims that they're not correlated with one another.
No, it doesn't. It very specifically claims that optimization does not prevent roleplay. It does not very specifically claim that optimization is not correlated to lack of roleplay.

To illustrate, I present to you the just made-up Beach Diet Fallacy. This describes a fallacy that states that if you are on a diet, you cannot go to the beach. Why? Well, every time a lot of people go to the beach, ice cream sales spike. Since ice cream is bad for diets, you must avoid the beach if you wish to lose weight.

Now, we take this as silly: you do not have to eat ice cream when you go to the beach. There's nothing about going to the beach that requires you to do so, and in fact at most beaches you won't even have the opportunity to eat ice cream unless you hauled it out there yourself.

Does this mean that the Beach Diet Fallacy claims there is no correlation between beach attendance and ice cream consumption? No. In fact, it would be wrong if it did that, because there is actually a correlation between the two. But that has to do with the weather; eating ice cream and going to the beach are things that happen more when it's hot out. But there's little to no causal relationship between going to the beach and eating ice cream.

So no, just as the Beach Diet fallacy doesn't say there's no correlation, the Stormwind Fallacy doesn't say it either. And the reason for this is simple: logical arguments are not statistical analyses.

[martixy]

Stormwind fallacy.

</thread>

Cue 4 more pages of random banter.

My personal problem is that I tend to wanna fiddle with the entire system when I start making characters. Like, I'll find a concept, and start building and reach a point where things don't fit just barely and decide this isn't right and start making changes to the rules to make it fit.

[Arbane]

I have an alt-character problem.

There's no such thing as an 'alt-character problem', just a 'not enough games problem'. :smallbiggrin:

[AvatarVecna]

As far as the game being "broken" goes, at least on the character side, there's two ways to decide the relative balance of a class:

1) How does it compare to other classes at the same jobs? Essentially, how does ECL compare to ECL?

2) How does it compare to objective challenges within the system (ie fighting monsters)? Essentially, how does ECL compare to CR?

For the former, let us assume there are 10 distinct roles with minimal crossover in the game, and each class is scored 1-10 in each of those roles (the system I've seen do this puts those at 17 roles scored 1-4, but this is just a hypothetical :smallwink:). The expectation of a balanced system would be that all the classes have more or less the same number of high scores, more or less the same number of low scores, and more or less the same number of medium scores; such a set-up would allow for niche protection, because no one class would be good at everything unless all classes were good at everything, so even though one class might have 9/9/9/6/6/6/3/3/3 and another class has 2/2/2/5/5/5/8/8/8, making the first one just very generally better across the board, they still aren't competing in their specialties, so it's fine. The Warrior fights, the Healer heals, the Bard schmoozes, the Wizard blasts...it's all good, everybody's doing their thing, no toe-stepping.

The problem is, the system as it's set up currently...doesn't work that way. If one class is 7/7/7/7/7/7/7/7/7 and another class is 8/8/8/5/5/5/2/2/2, the latter is completely outclassed and useless outside of its specialty compared the other one that's reasonable good at everything...and more often, this kind of comparison is closer to 8/8/8/8/8/8/8/8/8 and 7/7/7/4/4/4/1/1/1, making it so that the latter class is worse than the former even at the latter's specialty, which is a balance problem for the purposes of this question.

But that's only one way to talk about how balanced classes are, and it doesn't take into account how they compare to what they'll actually be competing with. Sure, they might be losing the race to their friends, but if the whole party is ahead of (or behind) the enemy, it's less problematic. Ignoring for the moment that PCs and NPCs are built largely using the same rules, and a humanoid of ECL {X} is probably gonna be CR {X} if that's PC class level (which means that two PCs of class level {X} are theoretically supposed to be equal even comparing ECL to CR), and ignoring that a quick glance through the various monster statblocks indicates that monsters of the same CR can vary more than just a little bit in terms of how difficult they are to fight (which would make this a bad metric in general), it's worth noting that a non-insignificant number of monsters more or less require magical intervention to either engage them at all, or to survive combat with them long-term.

Non-magical healing even with the aid of a trained medic is agonizingly slow, particularly for ability damage, curses and diseases are rarely super-pleasant, and a bad save roll against throwing off a negative level (or a nat 1 if you're a beefy boi) means there's a week of your life you're not getting back as you effectively lose a giant chunk of XP; while none of these are super-common, when you combine them all with various persistent conditions that can be inflicted upon a hapless adventurer, it makes people happy to have a cleric along who can deal with it all with a touch.

But that's just passive, after-the-fact dealing with the long-term consequences of fighting monsters. More problematic is dealing with monsters that straight-up can't be dealt with unless there's a mage or priest on hand, and I don't mean "hey give me a buff so I'm actually good enough at my supposed job to contribute", I mean "my sword can't kill this thing unless you use the spell that makes them vulnerable". The three most common "I can't fight this thing unless you use your magic to allow me to" problems adventurers run into that aren't some result of charop gone wild are incorporeality (requires at least minor enchanting or spell support for weapons to work at all, and requires more significant enchanting/spell support to affect fully), regeneration (there's usually ways of temporarily halting regeneration mundanely, but there's generally not an acid flask/alchemist fire/holy water salesman in the middle of the dungeon so I hope you brought that **** with you), and flight (although this one specifically doesn't cause nearly as many problems for ranged characters, it renders melee-focused characters just as ineffective as they'd be fighting a ghost with a nonmagic stick). A teamwork game this may be, but when one X and one Y working together is less effective than two Ys, and two Xs literally can't succeed, there is a serious balance problem between X and Y, particularly if situations where the reverse happens are much less common.

(This also ends up tying closely to the non-combat version, "utility spells that trivialize challenges unless countered". This is things like "we have to travel a long way to get {thing} to {place}" being trivialized by long-distance mobility spells, from Mount to Wind Walk to Teleport; this is things like "oh no Mr Boddy has been murdered I wonder who's responsible" being solved not by skill challenges and RP, but by spells like Detect Thoughts, Commune, Zone Of Truth, Speak With Dead, or even just frickin' Resurrection. Story ideas, conflicts, challenges that work in a number of genres and settings require more effort in D&D, because the toolbox for solving them becomes exponentially more expansive as you level - at least, for some characters.)

[Blue Jay]

Yes, that's the null hypothesis. You know, the thing you have to disprove before making a claim. If there is no evidence about the correlation, we should assume there is no correlation. That's what Stormwind says, and its the standard of evidence we should use.

I don't believe that Stormwind actually adheres to the language you're using here: it pretty clearly makes the definitive claim that there is no correlation, not the null claim that there is no evidence of a correlation.

But, you're certainly right to invoke that notion as the null hypothesis. However, a proper way to argue this point is not to declare "roleplay vs roll-play dichotomy" a fallacy, but to call for the claimant to present evidence. Most of the time, these people do claim to have evidence in support of their position, so you can't just whack them in the head with a null hypothesis: you actually have to engage the evidence at that point.

[Derjuin]

How NOT to make a character for ANY RP game:

Take a character sheet. Don't do anything with it. Just sit there. Make sure, whatever game you're playing, it's not the same as the one on your sheet.

Voila, you have not made a character for any RP game.

============

Seriously, though, optimization doesn't particularly matter if you and all of your players are having fun. Optimization of a character's mechanics also does not lead to a character having little to no fleshing out as a person. Likewise, calling organic growth better than planned growth is silly, because characters have goals too, y'know. If Bob's wizard wants to be a great Archmage, he isn't likely to take up a level of Rogue because suddenly he had a brain aneurysm and now thinks rogs r kool. It's all part of the character's narrative within the greater narrative of the game, and that can be organic or planned. For the record, I have had far more fun with planned growth, and it also sped the game up as I knew what I wanted to do at level-up.

As far as balance goes 3.5 is way out of whack, but there are plenty of ways to fix it, from homebrew to bannings and houserules to gentlepeoples' agreements if it becomes a problem.

[PhantasyPen]

Lots and lots of arguing back and forth which by this point has very little to do with the original post.

Why are we still arguing about anything in this thread when it's clear the OP just wanted to rant about something and go "if you don't play the way I like your fun is wrong!" and has not engaged with the thread since?

[eggynack]

Why are we still arguing about anything in this thread when it's clear the OP just wanted to rant about something and go "if you don't play the way I like your fun is wrong!" and has not engaged with the thread since?
Because I'm not arguing with the OP to any extent at this point. Why does everything have to be about the one person that happened to make the thread?

[Blue Jay]

No, it doesn't. It very specifically claims that optimization does not prevent roleplay. It does not very specifically claim that optimization is not correlated to lack of roleplay.

Hm, it seems you're right about this. I was going off popular restatements and not the original text. Still I think this creates a bit of a quandary, because the majority of the times it's invoked, nobody is making a fallacious claim like "you must suck at roleplay because your character is too optimized."

[Deophaun]

Hm, it seems you're right about this. I was going off popular restatements and not the original text. Still I think this creates a bit of a quandary, because the majority of the times it's invoked, nobody is making a fallacious claim like "you must suck at roleplay because your character is too optimized."
It does get invoked a lot where it is not appropriate. But it's appropriate here, as the OP sets up the false dichotomy right in the beginning: there are two methods to generate a character, the first is a strawman, and the second is his preferred way that puts characterization front and center with the mechanics in a supporting role. If he was just coming on to vent about people who copy paste builds from forums without regard to the campaign, it would have been fine. I've been there (although I generally get amused when the planar shepherd druid has chosen all the strongest options, thinks he is an unstoppable badass, but doesn't actually know how to use any of it and gets slaughtered in the first round of combat). It's the additional "my way or wrong" that tripped Stormwind.

[eggynack]

It does get invoked a lot where it is not appropriate.
Yeah, it's just an inevitability when dealing with fallacies. The reason is that fallacies are perceptually easy to use, but actually pretty difficult. On the perceptually easy side, there's a feeling with fallacies that you can, with only a couple of words, win an argument. Maybe not totally, but if the claim you're going up against bears any similarity to some fallacy that you've heard of a few times, then it's trivial to just say that this thing is that fallacy. It puts a lot of the arguing burden onto your opponent, because now they have to identify what the fallacy is, where it's supposed to be showing up, whether it actually applies, and, if it doesn't, the exact specific way it does not apply.

On the actually pretty difficult side, we're just down to the basic fact that arguments and logic are complicated. Even if you have a good idea that someone is using, say, circular logic, it can be quite difficult to build the circle of argumentative reliance from the ground up and prove that it operates this way at every step. By all rights, unless the applicability is obvious (and I think it was here), all that stuff I said the fallacy target has to do is stuff the person claiming the fallacy should be doing.

So, what you get is a bunch of fallacies being tossed around in ways that are, at best, not explicitly proved, and, at worst, not remotely accurate. But, regardless, fallacies can be pretty useful sometimes. They're a nice shorthand for what would otherwise be lengthier arguments. They're sometimes super applicable, and they can give an argument some extra heft.

[Svata]

I mean, having a character concept and ideas for what to do going in makes things way easier. If you don't have any idea of who your character is, how on earth are you supposed to play them? How are you supposed to get in their head if you don't already know who they are and what they want? Also, feats and prestige classes in 3.x have prerequisites. How are you ever supposed to take/get into any of them if you don't have a direction for where you want to go? Also, this is the first time I've ever heard of someone saying that having a character background is a bad thing.

[Segev]

I mean, having a character concept and ideas for what to do going in makes things way easier. If you don't have any idea of who your character is, how on earth are you supposed to play them? How are you supposed to get in their head if you don't already know who they are and what they want? Also, feats and prestige classes in 3.x have prerequisites. How are you ever supposed to take/get into any of them if you don't have a direction for where you want to go? Also, this is the first time I've ever heard of someone saying that having a character background is a bad thing.

Taking it too far the other direction. Typically, those who develop characters inspired by mechanics come up with characters who would have those mechanics as that character's background. One issue I had recently was that I have this cool idea, mechanically, for a gnome illusionist, but coming up with the person behind it was stymying me. So I didn't build it.

Meanwhile (to borrow a 3.5 concept), I wanted to build a Beholder Mage (never going to get to play it, for obvious reasons), and found a mechanical trick to pull it off. It required being an Elan with 19 Int getting polymorph any object cast on him to turn into a Beholder to pull off. And certain psionic feats to gain limited uses of a Beholder's eye stalks and anti-magic eye. Not going to argue the legalities of the build here; please just accept that I consider it legal, if only technically, and would argue it if this were the thread for it.

The reason I bring it up is that I came up with a character to build it around. He was a reasonably powerful human wizard with a lengthy adventuring career, and had encountered a beholder fairly early and become fascinated by them. To the point he drove his party's quests in directions that would enable further encounters and further chances to study beholders. Having learned about beholder magi, he developed a repository of lore on them, and sought a means of attaining their power.

He later learned of the Elan race, and how humans can become it. So he pursued the ritual, and got himself changed. He woke as a level 1 Elan Psion, with a plan to push towards a very specific set of abilities and to purchase a casting of polymorph any object once he was ready (roughly at level 5). He'd then put out his central eye of his new Beholder-state, and enter Beholder Mage at level 6.

The character is driven and a little loony, given his willingness to forsake his humanity to indulge this fascination. But he's not wicked, just obsessed.

[tiercel]

Yeah, it's just an inevitability when dealing with fallacies. The reason is that fallacies are perceptually easy to use, but actually pretty difficult. On the perceptually easy side, there's a feeling with fallacies that you can, with only a couple of words, win an argument. Maybe not totally, but if the claim you're going up against bears any similarity to some fallacy that you've heard of a few times, then it's trivial to just say that this thing is that fallacy. It puts a lot of the arguing burden onto your opponent, because now they have to identify what the fallacy is, where it's supposed to be showing up, whether it actually applies, and, if it doesn't, the exact specific way it does not apply.

+1 THIS!!

This is a superb explanation of the problem - not that, say, Stormwind Fallacy (especially as stated) is a problem, but its use can be.

It's a major reason I'm frustrated that there is a Stormwind Fallacy but no countervailing Officially Accepted Fallacy (along the lines of "Just because someone used the word 'munchkin' doesn't mean you can say 'Stormwind Fallacy' and just win." or even just "Just because 'roleplaying' and 'rollplaying' aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, doesn't mean they are necessarily mutually inclusive either.")

...partly because - just as eggynack was saying - I wind up finding myself treading down the "of course it all depends on the table" and "this can go both ways" paths and all the standard caveats and terms and conditions EVERY TIME this comes up because there's no comparable shorthand to "Stormwind Fallacy."

For that matter, how often something along those lines is the real answer to "OMG what should I do about my player/DM/munchkin/lame weak drama hog???!?" type questions just, "you know, talk to the other human beings in your group like they are human beings who have joined you in a mutual quest for fun via this game you all presumably like, sort of thing."

[Lord Raziere]

Simple:
call the reverse, Optimizer Fallacy: The existence of people who can both roleplay and optimize doesn't mean everyone can do both, nor does it mean that just because you like both that other people will like both as well, or that having both is the best way to play the game.

[eggynack]

It's a major reason I'm frustrated that there is a Stormwind Fallacy but no countervailing Officially Accepted Fallacy (along the lines of "Just because someone used the word 'munchkin' doesn't mean you can say 'Stormwind Fallacy' and just win." or even just "Just because 'roleplaying' and 'rollplaying' aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, doesn't mean they are necessarily mutually inclusive either.")
Well, the former sounds like it fits a pseudo-formal fallacy, the fallacy fallacy. That one basically states that identifying a fallacy in an argument is not tantamount to proving your conclusion. Oddly enough, Cal seems like he fell into the contrapositive of the fallacy fallacy, which I think means he was falling into the fallacy itself. The fallacy, after all, can be written as, "If your argument is fallacious, then your conclusion is wrong." Cal's argument was, "If the conclusion is right, then the fallacy is fallacious."

The second strikes me as broadly fitting into just a straightforward error in logic. That being, when you negate a for all, the version without a negation is going to have a for some out front. So, someone says, "All optimizers are not roleplayers," and the response is, "Nope," but what that counter properly means is, "Some optimizers are roleplayers." Is that a formally named fallacy? Too lazy to check. Another fallacy these kindsa things can fall into is false premises, by which I mean that the claim has the false premise that a fallacy is defined in a way that it isn't.

Broadly speaking though, a lot of people are just gonna be wrong normal style. If I say, "2+2=5," then I'm not using a fallacy. I'm just being a dummy. As a result, if someone says, "That right there is a strawman argument," there really isn't a counter-fallacy every time. Sometimes the answer is just, "Nope." Which is fine. As I was pointing out, if you're doing it right, using fallacies isn't going to be all that much easier than doing it the long way. Might take more words, and might not be trivially parsed by the portion of the population that knows your fallacy shorthand, but the meaning should stay the same.


...partly because - just as eggynack was saying - I wind up finding myself treading down the "of course it all depends on the table" and "this can go both ways" paths and all the standard caveats and terms and conditions EVERY TIME this comes up because there's no comparable shorthand to "Stormwind Fallacy."

So, yeah, there're a couple of fallacies that might be applicable. Might not be as perfectly suited as the stormwind fallacy sometimes is (cause stormwind is exactly tailored to an exact argument that happens way too often, while the ones I'm talking about are broader fallacies, but a lot of bad arguments have names. The issue isn't necessarily that we lack counter-names though. It's just that doing an argument up right takes time and effort, and, if someone makes a bad argument, then arguing against it is usually going to be one of those arguments that takes time and effort. If they say, "Stormwind fallacy," and I respond, "Fallacy fallacy," then I'm not really being any better than they are, y'know?

[RoboEmperor]

What would you call a person who is incredibly into one mechanic and solely that mechanic, to the point where he or she optimizes that one mechanic to the extreme which could be incredibly powerful or ridiculously weak and builds his or her character's backstory and personality around that mechanic?

Is he or she a roleplayer, roll player, munchkin, etc?

The mechanic could be summoner, shapeshifter, teleporter, etc.

[MeimuHakurei]

What would you call a person who is incredibly into one mechanic and solely that mechanic, to the point where he or she optimizes that one mechanic to the extreme which could be incredibly powerful or ridiculously weak and builds his or her character's backstory and personality around that mechanic?

Is he or she a roleplayer, roll player, munchkin, etc?

The mechanic could be summoner, shapeshifter, teleporter, etc.

This touches on another misconception I see very often - just because you want to make a powerful, optimized characters doesn't mean you're good at it.

[Zombulian]

I'm pretty sure OP knew exactly what he was doing when he made this thread.
That, or he was clearly strawmanning.

@OP: Your description of "finding the most broken build possible" being bad for roleplaying can be answered with a simple, "Yeah. Duh."
Your second assertion is more dubious. Not because it's wrong, but because you mapped two distinct paths of play as though they were the only ways to go. I appreciate that you're an old head and things were different back in your day, but that doesn't make it the only way.

[MeimuHakurei]

I'm pretty sure OP knew exactly what he was doing when he made this thread.
That, or he was clearly strawmanning.

@OP: Your description of "finding the most broken build possible" being bad for roleplaying can be answered with a simple, "Yeah. Duh."
Your second assertion is more dubious. Not because it's wrong, but because you mapped two distinct paths of play as though they were the only ways to go. I appreciate that you're an old head and things were different back in your day, but that doesn't make it the only way.

I don't know, a module writer would be thankful for me to trivialize the first draft of a book with a broken build; that's what playtesters are for.

[Zombulian]

I don't know, a module writer would be thankful for me to trivialize the first draft of a book with a broken build; that's what playtesters are for.

I'm not sure I see the point of your post. I was referring to the OP, because this thread is about heavy RP games. Your point seems to be that broken builds are useful for roleplaying games in general because it points out holes in design.
If that is indeed your point... ok.

[Calthropstu]

+1 THIS!!

This is a superb explanation of the problem - not that, say, Stormwind Fallacy (especially as stated) is a problem, but its use can be.

It's a major reason I'm frustrated that there is a Stormwind Fallacy but no countervailing Officially Accepted Fallacy (along the lines of "Just because someone used the word 'munchkin' doesn't mean you can say 'Stormwind Fallacy' and just win." or even just "Just because 'roleplaying' and 'rollplaying' aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, doesn't mean they are necessarily mutually inclusive either.")

...partly because - just as eggynack was saying - I wind up finding myself treading down the "of course it all depends on the table" and "this can go both ways" paths and all the standard caveats and terms and conditions EVERY TIME this comes up because there's no comparable shorthand to "Stormwind Fallacy."

For that matter, how often something along those lines is the real answer to "OMG what should I do about my player/DM/munchkin/lame weak drama hog???!?" type questions just, "you know, talk to the other human beings in your group like they are human beings who have joined you in a mutual quest for fun via this game you all presumably like, sort of thing."

Which is why I was saying that while the "roleplay/rollplay" can coexist and usually does, it is when the problems arise that the dichotomy exists. When both exist at healthy levels, there's never a problem and no one complains. But how often has someone complained and those were both at healthy levels?

When someone complains about roleplay vs rollplay, it is generally because someone at his table has blatantly used system mastery to dominate the campaign with little regard to the roleplay aspect of the game or has no system mastery and has built a virtually useless character.

Thus a dichotomy DOES exist in the problems themselves. Hence why the stormwind fallacy is wrong.

Edit: Maybe saying the stormwind fallacy is wrong isn't exactly accurate, but that it requires addendums. There is, obviously, an issue in the community with disruptive levels of system mastery whether that be high or exceedingly low. That high or low cannot exist concurrently. Similarly, there is an issue with ability play out scenarios outside of combat being too low. While this is mechanically independant of the former, it OFTEN comes concurrent with high system mastery which compounds the system mastery issue.
There is a level of power abuse that gets disruptive and turns the game upside down that is inherent in the community, particularly those grabbing builds off the forums and utilizing them for maximum firepower.
There's a maximum level of cheese a given campaign can accomodate. A rod of maximize on a sorcerer with disintigrate? Cheese, but fixable. A wizard with 1001 contingencies, private demiplane and an army of 100,000 crafting skeletons and simulacrums? Campaign over.

When problems arise, it is because of an extreme. An extreme that is disruptive to the table. You will almost never see these extremes coexisting.

[Cosi]

When someone complains about roleplay vs rollplay, it is generally because someone at his table has blatantly used system mastery to dominate the campaign with little regard to the roleplay aspect of the game or has no system mastery and has built a virtually useless character.

Since both of those things are problematic regardless of how much of the other you do, that's still not a problem with Stormwind. Someone using system mastery to dominate the campaign would still be a problem even if they were roleplaying well.

[Calthropstu]

Since both of those things are problematic regardless of how much of the other you do, that's still not a problem with Stormwind. Someone using system mastery to dominate the campaign would still be a problem even if they were roleplaying well.

Except that's not what we see in practice, is it? In fact, I am almost certain that the mentality that lends itself to system domination being a good thing is not conducive to a healthy roleplay play style.
Of course, I have no proof of it, but I doubt someone with the thought process lending to solo domination being good is truly conducive to a mentality that roleplaying requires.

[Cosi]

Except that's not what we see in practice, is it? In fact, I am almost certain that the mentality that lends itself to system domination being a good thing is not conducive to a healthy roleplay play style.
Of course, I have no proof of it, but I doubt someone with the thought process lending to solo domination being good is truly conducive to a mentality that roleplaying requires.

But is the problem there that they aren't roleplaying, or that they are optimizing too much? Would their character not be a problem if they were a god-tier roleplayer?

[Calthropstu]

But is the problem there that they aren't roleplaying, or that they are optimizing too much? Would their character not be a problem if they were a god-tier roleplayer?

I doubt you CAN optimize too much and be a "god tier role-player." And most of these complaints, do they not have the two coming hand in hand? Over optimization simply doesn't seem to lend itself to roleplaying very well.

[upho]

Which is why I was saying that while the "roleplay/rollplay" can coexist and usually does, it is when the problems arise that the dichotomy exists.

snip

When someone complains about roleplay vs rollplay, it is generally because someone at his table has blatantly used system mastery to dominate the campaign with little regard to the roleplay aspect of the game or has no system mastery and has built a virtually useless character.

Thus a dichotomy DOES exist in the problems themselves. Hence why the stormwind fallacy is wrong.

snip

When problems arise, it is because of an extreme. An extreme that is disruptive to the table. You will almost never see these extremes coexisting.Eh... Well, I have to confess I've managed to be a problematic player in terms of both extremes, simultaneously. :smallredface:

My only excuse is that the particular group and GM wasn't particularly good at communicating what was expected, and their "standards" were frankly very modest in both regards IMO. Thankfully they said they had very much enjoyed my participation nevertheless. I still felt embarrassed...

[Segev]

The reason people get testy is precisely because of the conflation of "good RPer" with "not well-optimized" and "bad RPer" with "well-optimized." And the reason this is bad can be seen in all the arguments being made, here, that, yeah, sometimes there are people who are bad at RP but good at optimization.

Of course that's true.

But the problem isn't that they're good at optimization. It's that they're bad at RP.

Being bad at RP is the problem; it doesn't matter how well-optimized the PC is. A poorly-optimized PC played by a bad RPer will still be poorly RP'd and potentially disruptive, even if he isn't able to trivialize encounters in the process. He still can ruin them with poor decisions and weird behaviors.

[Blu]

The real point of this discussion is not actually Roleplay VS Rollplay, it is Good player VS Bad player. People get so defensive and the discussion get's heated because the sides are trying to associate the other to the Bad player espectrum, the op's initial post can be well summarized to "if you focus on RP you are a good player".
The thing is a Bad player will always be a bad player no matter the side he is, he will be disruptive, toxic, dominative or any other behaviour that detracts from the fun.
A good RP'er but Bad player will try to hog the scenes and focus the table on his character, being a pain to play with since he takes so much time from the table for himself.
A good rollplayer or optimizer or whathever you feel like calling it, but Bad player will trivialize the combats or steal the spotlight from other players.

Good players will communicate, cooperate, share the spotlight and the scene with others. Even if their characters numbers or RP are subpar, you will feel better to play with them since their behaviour is what improves games.

The problem in most of the examples given in this discussion are actually cases of bad players, and they should be dealth so as bad players. Blaming the mechanics or the RP for this cases is like blaming the knife, not the killer, for the murder.

[JNAProductions]

Simple:
call the reverse, Optimizer Fallacy: The existence of people who can both roleplay and optimize doesn't mean everyone can do both, nor does it mean that just because you like both that other people will like both as well, or that having both is the best way to play the game.

Call it the Roleplayer Fallacy. The existence of people who can both roleplay and optimize doesn't mean everyone can do both, nor does it mean that just because you like both that other people will like both as well, or that having both is the best way to play the game.

Makes just as much sense as calling it the Optimizer Fallacy.

[Deophaun]

What would you call a person who is incredibly into one mechanic and solely that mechanic, to the point where he or she optimizes that one mechanic to the extreme which could be incredibly powerful or ridiculously weak and builds his or her character's backstory and personality around that mechanic?

Is he or she a roleplayer, roll player, munchkin, etc?
One Dimensional Pony.

[Lord Raziere]

Call it the Roleplayer Fallacy. The existence of people who can both roleplay and optimize doesn't mean everyone can do both, nor does it mean that just because you like both that other people will like both as well, or that having both is the best way to play the game.

Makes just as much sense as calling it the Optimizer Fallacy.

Ok.

Whats your point? would you rather me be egotistical and name it after myself? no thanks.

[Blue Jay]

It does get invoked a lot where it is not appropriate. But it's appropriate here, as the OP sets up the false dichotomy right in the beginning: there are two methods to generate a character, the first is a strawman, and the second is his preferred way that puts characterization front and center with the mechanics in a supporting role. If he was just coming on to vent about people who copy paste builds from forums without regard to the campaign, it would have been fine. I've been there (although I generally get amused when the planar shepherd druid has chosen all the strongest options, thinks he is an unstoppable badass, but doesn't actually know how to use any of it and gets slaughtered in the first round of combat). It's the additional "my way or wrong" that tripped Stormwind.

Be careful here, though. Notice that he didn't actually set up the dichotomy. There's nothing in his post that makes a claim like "all gamers are either munchkins or drama queens."

He said, "here's a bad way to make characters" and then "here's a good way." Then he made some claims about how his preferred way is better and more fulfilling and whatnot than the other.

But, if we assume that there are actually not just two different ways to build characters, but many, would that render his argument invalid? No, because even when there are multiple choices, you can still legitimately compare two of them to one another.

[eggynack]

Which is why I was saying that while the "roleplay/rollplay" can coexist and usually does, it is when the problems arise that the dichotomy exists. When both exist at healthy levels, there's never a problem and no one complains. But how often has someone complained and those were both at healthy levels?
A dichotomy is, "Division into two mutually exclusive, opposed, or contradictory groups." If the two can coexist, then there is no dichotomy. Thus, false dichotomy. It's really weird that you keep saying, "I agree with exactly what the Stormwind fallacy says, but the Stormwind fallacy is wrong."

[Deophaun]

Be careful here, though. Notice that he didn't actually set up the dichotomy. There's nothing in his post that makes a claim like "all gamers are either munchkins or drama queens."

He said, "here's a bad way to make characters" and then "here's a good way."
Bolded the parts that were missing, which is why your analysis of the OP is incorrect and why he did actually set up the dichotomy.

[JNAProductions]

Ok.

Whats your point? would you rather me be egotistical and name it after myself? no thanks.

Just that the name you chose isn't very reflective of what it is.

Since it's related to the Stormwind Fallacy, perhaps it can just be a corollary to it. Or it can just be cleared up that the Stormwind Fallacy only states that roleplaying and optimization are not opposites, not mutually exclusive. They're mostly unrelated.

[Lord Raziere]

Just that the name you chose isn't very reflective of what it is.

Since it's related to the Stormwind Fallacy, perhaps it can just be a corollary to it. Or it can just be cleared up that the Stormwind Fallacy only states that roleplaying and optimization are not opposites, not mutually exclusive. They're mostly unrelated.

Ok, I dunno, Raziere Corollary: The existence of people who can both roleplay and optimize doesn't mean everyone can do both, nor does it mean that just because you like both that other people will like both as well, or that having both is the best way to play the game. The two are unrelated.

[Deophaun]

Ok, I dunno, Raziere Corollary: The existence of people who can both roleplay and optimize doesn't mean everyone can do both, nor does it mean that just because you like both that other people will like both as well, or that having both is the best way to play the game. The two are unrelated.
Now, a question: has anyone actually ever made those arguments? 'Cause otherwise it seems to me you're just setting this up for the situation Blue Jay brought up where people invoke the fallacy where it doesn't apply.

[Lord Raziere]

Now, a question: has anyone actually ever made those arguments? 'Cause otherwise it seems to me you're just setting this up for the situation Blue Jay brought up where people invoke the fallacy where it doesn't apply.

they will if the unspoken attitude where people imply that those who can optimize are somehow better than those who can't continues. I'm making sure optimizers don't someday screw it all up with their elitism by reminding them they are not better. that their "optimization" is just a playstyle that doesn't them superior. and of course you'll say you never see it, but such things are always invisible to the people within the in group.

[Deophaun]

they will if the unspoken attitude where people imply that those who can optimize are somehow better than those who can't continues. I'm making sure optimizers don't someday screw it all up with their elitism by reminding them they are not better. that their "optimization" is just a playstyle that doesn't them superior. and of course you'll say you never see it, but such things are always invisible to the people within the in group.
OK, so the question of why the opposite fallacy has never been defined is that no one has made that fallacy for it to justify such a naming. And defining a fallacy in a thread on a forum that will be forgotten in a week is going to somehow prevent anyone in the future from doing so. Do I have that right?

[Blue Jay]

Bolded the parts that were missing, which is why your analysis of the OP is incorrect and why he did actually set up the dichotomy.

Nonsense. You're reading into it stuff that isn't there.

The salient point is that, even if the guy didn't think there was a strict dichotomy between those two character-building strategies, he could still make the exact same argument. His argument is not contingent on there being a strict dichotomy. For example, he could be saying "10% of people do it this way, and that's bad" and "another 10% of people do it that way, and that's good." Presumably the other 80% would either be irrelevant to his argument or use a strategy that he thinks is neither good nor bad.

[Deophaun]

Nonsense. You're reading into it stuff that isn't there.
I'm not the one that added words that weren't there.

[Cosi]

they will if the unspoken attitude where people imply that those who can optimize are somehow better than those who can't continues. I'm making sure optimizers don't someday screw it all up with their elitism by reminding them they are not better. that their "optimization" is just a playstyle that doesn't them superior. and of course you'll say you never see it, but such things are always invisible to the people within the in group.

The literal first post of this thread is someone trash talking optimizers. Yes, people can be elitist about optimization. They can also be elitist about every other gaming style. If optimization really is just another gaming style, don't single it out when describing problematic ways of playing. Can you disrupt a game by optimizing too much? Absolutely. You can also disrupt a game by optimizing too little, or by roleplaying poorly, or by trying to force in a character concept that doesn't fit the game.

[EldritchWeaver]

I doubt you CAN optimize too much and be a "god tier role-player." And most of these complaints, do they not have the two coming hand in hand? Over optimization simply doesn't seem to lend itself to roleplaying very well.

That's sidestepping the question. Could you please actually answer it? I really want to know, even if the person accomplishing such a feat is only hypothetical.

[Zanos]

they will if the unspoken attitude where people imply that those who can optimize are somehow better than those who can't continues. I'm making sure optimizers don't someday screw it all up with their elitism by reminding them they are not better. that their "optimization" is just a playstyle that doesn't them superior. and of course you'll say you never see it, but such things are always invisible to the people within the in group.
Optimizing is a skill. Not a very useful real world skill, but a skill regardless. People who can optimize are "better" than people that can't, because it doesn't really take any learning to build a bad character. A good optimizer always has the option of playing something worse than the best thing he can make, and such people often decide to do so because the most optimized builds break 95% of real games. But that doesn't make them better people, better "fun havers", or better friends than being an expert on soccer rules does. But are they "better" at the mechanical rules of D&D 3.5? I think you'd have a tough time arguing that ignorance is better than knowledge.

Playing anything poorly isn't a "playstyle" unless you are choosing to play down.

[AnimeTheCat]

But is the problem there that they aren't roleplaying, or that they are optimizing too much? Would their character not be a problem if they were a god-tier roleplayer?

I think this can only be answered relative to the game and situation. For instance, high optimization in a low optimization game is problematic regardless of role-playing. Lackluster role-playing in a role-playing focused game is going to be problematic.

Optimization and Role-playing are not two sides of the same coin which can only land on one or the other, they are two seperate coins which can either both land heads up (good optimization and Role-playing), both heads down (bad optimization/roleplaying), or one of each.

In and of itself, that means very little. The outcome of the coin toss is relevant when it's being applied to a logical test, that is, the scope and intent of the game. If either coin lands differently from the predefined logical test, you end up with pass/fail, or even fail/fail, and it is at that point when there is a problem.

EDIT: Cosi, that was less a response to you and more using your question as a springboard for my opinion.

[ExLibrisMortis]

For instance, high optimization in a low optimization game is problematic regardless of role-playing.
That's not completely right. You're conflating power and optimization. If you start with something low-power (such as a straight fighter), then high-optimizing it can result in a character playable amongst ToB classes.

You don't need to roleplay at all to play D&D (kick-in-the-door dungeoncrawling), and you don't need to optimize at all (play sample NPCs with an elite array slapped on--you'll suck, but no more than anyone else). Anything else is just extra, but that "just extra" happens to be what makes it a hobby you can invest into.

[AnimeTheCat]

That's not completely right. You're conflating power and optimization. If you start with something low-power (such as a straight fighter), then high-optimizing it can result in a character playable amongst ToB classes.

You don't need to roleplay at all to play D&D (kick-in-the-door dungeoncrawling), and you don't need to optimize at all (play sample NPCs with an elite array slapped on--you'll suck, but no more than anyone else). Anything else is just extra, but that "just extra" happens to be what makes it a hobby you can invest into.

But in a high optimization game, there won't be a straight fighter. There will be a gish because it is able to do practically all fighter AND ToB stuff and then some. I'm not confusing power and optimization. I'm using a different application of optimization. You can optimize a class, sure, but is further optimized (for nearly every reason) to optimize a role, which is what is most commonly done with optimization.

I see plenty of threads that start as "optimize this Swashbuckler" that end up going "what do you want with swashbuckler? Do you want X? Try class A , it does X, but also does Y and Z too."

It's just optimizing. The same can be applied to a character concept. "I want to play a swordsman that doesn't two hand or use a shield. How does Fighter fare for that?" Then someone goes "hmm... fighter is trash garbage. Play an Initiator." To which another person goes "Initiators are overrated, play a fish. Class A 3/Class B 4/Class C X gets you 15 BAB and 9th lvl spells. It's just better than everything." Again, optimization.

[Quertus]

Except that's not what we see in practice, is it? In fact, I am almost certain that the mentality that lends itself to system domination being a good thing is not conducive to a healthy roleplay play style.
Of course, I have no proof of it, but I doubt someone with the thought process lending to solo domination being good is truly conducive to a mentality that roleplaying requires.


I doubt you CAN optimize too much and be a "god tier role-player." And most of these complaints, do they not have the two coming hand in hand? Over optimization simply doesn't seem to lend itself to roleplaying very well.

Well, IME, both skill at optimizing and skill at role-playing tend to show strong positive correlation to, say, "intellect" and "cares about gaming". IME, the set of people with good optimization skill does tend to overlap greatly with the set of people with good role-playing skills. Just as the people who are just phoning it in, who are just they're to hang out with friends, tend to be bad at both. And the people who aren't clever enough to do one are usually not clever enough to do the other.

Yes, there are exceptions - plenty of them. This obviously includes people who care about one, but not the other.

But, as a rule, if I had to guess at random, with no other knowledge to go on, I'd pick my "good at X" from the "good at Y" pool, rather than the "bad at Y" pool.

[ExLibrisMortis]

But in a high optimization game, there won't be a straight fighter.
Of course, but that's not relevant to the point. High-optimization games don't come into it. You were talking about a low-optimization game, and how highly optimized characters are "problematic regardless" in such a game. The 'optimized fighter' example shows that it's not necessarily true; you can use increased optimization to compensate for a lack of power (or the other way around), resulting in a character that is appropriate for a low-optimization game, despite being highly optimized.


Forum help threads aren't about straight optimization; they are also about providing interesting alternatives, and often about figuring out what the OP actually wants (power- and concept-wise). The forum recommends initiators/gishes to replace straight fighters not because it's "better optimization", but because it's much easier (much less cheesy) to meet power level goals with an initiator or spellcaster. If someone wants a t3 swashbuckler, you can start pulling polymorph any object or fusion + astral seed shenanigans, but it's a lot more straightforward to simply plug in a swordsage.

[Karl Aegis]

I think the point was if your character's optimization is too many standard deviations away from optimal your character isn't optimized. What is optimal really depends on the table.

[upho]

Well, IME, both skill at optimizing and skill at role-playing tend to show strong positive correlation to, say, "intellect" and "cares about gaming". IME, the set of people with good optimization skill does tend to overlap greatly with the set of people with good role-playing skills.This is precisely my experience as well, though I'd probably add "available prep time" to "intellect" and "cares about gaming".


Just as the people who are just phoning it in, who are just they're to hang out with friends, tend to be bad at both. And the people who aren't clever enough to do one are usually not clever enough to do the other.Yeah. And even if they actually are clever enough, seems to me these kinds of players don't care enough to put in the required effort anyways.


But, as a rule, if I had to guess at random, with no other knowledge to go on, I'd pick my "good at X" from the "good at Y" pool, rather than the "bad at Y" pool.This. Well put.

[Zanos]

Except that's not what we see in practice, is it? In fact, I am almost certain that the mentality that lends itself to system domination being a good thing is not conducive to a healthy roleplay play style.
Of course, I have no proof of it, but I doubt someone with the thought process lending to solo domination being good is truly conducive to a mentality that roleplaying requires.
My in practice experience is that optimizer like to role-play but tend not to like railroad tracks. If you have cool powers, you generally want to use them to make what your characters wants happen, and it's difficult for DMs to make their tracks feel authentic the more powerful the PCs are.