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Heliomance
2008-10-13, 02:11 PM
Don't worry; I'm not going to invoke Stormwind here. I know that RP and optimisation are not mutually exclusive, but they are different. Where do you stand on how much you like of each?

Personally, I think roleplay is more important. If there's no roleplaying going on then the game's not fun for me. I really don't like your average hack'n'slash. That being said, I also enjoy optimisation, and I have more fun if I'm playing a well-built character than one just thrown together, no matter how good the concept behind the mishmash one. I like my characters to feel powerful, and I'm really not sure I could run a character with a major weakness well.

Stupendous_Man
2008-10-13, 02:17 PM
Yes, please.

sonofzeal
2008-10-13, 02:23 PM
Roleplay: Medium. Sometimes I love total dialogue, sometimes I just want to bonk heads, usually I like a mix. I play both Pacifistic Diplomancer, and Orc Barbarians, depending on my mood and the campaign in question.

Optimization: High, but not powergaming. I don't WANT my characters to overshadow everyone, but I do like the challenge of eeking out every last point from a build. As a result, I often end up playing really weak classes or using artificial limitations.

Tempest Fennac
2008-10-13, 02:30 PM
I prefer RPing to combat, but I'm not very good at role playing, but I'm better at optimisation, which is odd.

Raz_Fox
2008-10-13, 02:43 PM
Roleplay: High and heavy. This is a roleplaying game, after all. Quirky characters with wild personalities? Yes please! The chance to interact with other characters and bit players in the saga? YES!!!

Optimization: Meh, not so much. I know enough that Blade Opportunist and Shield Push are good for my fighter, but not how to make ze cheezy uber-build of beardy doom!!! Really, the only optimizing I do is to make the characters I want.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-13, 02:50 PM
RPing as everyone's comfortable with. I'm not as picky about characterisation as about choices and decisions outside of combat.

Optimization... depends on the game. D&D and RuneQuest, all-out powergaming. If the system can stand it, I like nigh-invulnerable heroes deciding the fates of kingdoms and continents, defeating armies and wielding ineffable magic against nighted demons... Cyberpunk-genre games, minimal - Chase, Nell, Y.T., Marid, and noir detectives are my ideal cyberpunk characters, over Molly and Hiro.

Eldariel
2008-10-13, 02:53 PM
In D&D, I want to play my concept presented in a sufficiently potent form. To me, optimization (and homebrew and such) are means to an end. Being able to play exactly what I want and having the character able to do exactly what my concept dictates is where I want to stand. Neither half is complete without the other. Really though, I optimize to roleplay.

JaxGaret
2008-10-13, 02:56 PM
Roleplaying: I love to roleplay. That's why I love playing RPGs. So yes, please.

Optimization: Balanced. I prefer playing a strong character than a weaker one, but it's more important that my character be balanced to the rest of the party.

In other words, I'd rather play a weak character in a group of weak characters than a strong character in a group of weak characters, but I would prefer to play a strong character in a group of strong characters over either.

Saph
2008-10-13, 05:14 PM
The level of roleplay in the party's important; the level of optimisation isn't. As the DM, I can adjust the difficulty to match the optimisation level, but there's nothing I can do if the players aren't interested in RPing.

When evaluating a new player, I'm equally happy to take someone who's a CharOp expert or a complete newb, but I'm not willing to take a player who won't at least make an effort to roleplay.

- Saph

AstralFire
2008-10-13, 05:18 PM
I am a very heavy roleplayer (you have trouble getting me to shut up if everyone else is just being numbersy, and I always build from concept first, which can take me a month at times). I write my own bard songs, I do research on geographies and cultures, I spend skill points and take feats purely in the name of flavor oft-times. I'll write up the extended family tree of a character, do in-character journals, pick out common outfits. Nothing I do mechanically takes precedence over or does not closely correspond to part of my concept.

I am a medium optimizer; I'll trick out if everyone else is; I'll just do enough to be slightly better offensively/a lot stronger defensively than everyone else if I'm a bigger optimizer than the rest of the party.

Uin
2008-10-13, 05:19 PM
As much or as little of either whenever I feel like.

That being said, give me a ruleset and I will pull out the most useful, interesting and fun combinations out of it. Alas none of my games last long enough to really get into character, I would like to RP more than I do.

Rei_Jin
2008-10-13, 05:28 PM
Roleplay

Roleplay, for me and in the games that I DM, is king. It's all about immersion, about the persona of the little clump of numbers that is your character, and about how they interact with their world. Where they came from, where they are, and where they're going. Without roleplay, I wouldn't bother.

Optimisation

(Ah, such a loaded term. There's theoretical optimisation, and practical optimisation. Theoretical optimisation is fun if you want to play with numbers, and can be useful to understand the system better. Practical optimisation is a far finer balancing act, for it requires that you understand the gameworld you are playing in and its limitations, as well as your own style of play, the style of DMing that you are likely to play under, and the play styles of the other players around the table with you. Theoretical and Practical optimisation both have their place, but never mistake one for the other, as it causes flame wars.)

For me, I enjoy both forms of optimisation, but I like to build partially optimised characters. I want them to be able to survive in their world, and to be able to do their role well, but I don't want to overshadow the other characters in the group. I'm currently addressing that issue in a home game that I'm playing, where I have built a partially optimised character, but he is still overshadowing the other characters. A lot. So I'm going to have to play more within myself and do things that are less optimised in terms of action.

horseboy
2008-10-13, 05:39 PM
Well, to add a dimension I've not seen in these debates. I can optimize at home. Roleplaying is a group activity. How well you roleplay is affected by how interested the rest of the group wants to roleplay. Optimization I can employ irregardless to the group. Though how I employ it may change.

KevLar
2008-10-13, 06:09 PM
Roleplay
Almost all the way. I'm over 30 years old, and the "meet at the tavern, take the quest, kill the monster" pattern just doesn't do it for me any more. The "generic D&D world" also isn't enough. I need a world with context, and I build my character with that in mind. However, I say "almost all the way", because the prime objective here isn't to roleplay alone, it's to roleplay with other people. Stalling the game, annoying fellow-players or dooming the whole party to death because "that's what my character would do, OK?" is a no-no.

Optimization
That depends on the game, really. I've played "weak" characters because I liked the concept, but I knew that I wouldn't become a liability. And I've played "uber" characters because it would give us much better odds to survive, but I knew it wouldn't impede my roleplaying. I enjoy both approaches actually, I find them equally challenging in a different way, and I just avoid the extremes. When I can squeeze both, I do exactly that. When I can't, it depends on the game.

valadil
2008-10-13, 06:32 PM
Optimization is a math exercise. It's something I can do alone when I'm bored. Making broken D&D builds is my favorite way to kill time at work.

But I rarely feel the need to test that build in actual play. If I can see what the numbers are I've got a good enough idea of how the build will work.

If I'm playing a game with people, I want to interact with them as people not as numbers. I choose roleplay over video games because I want social interaction, not social multiple choice.

Lord Herman
2008-10-14, 04:06 AM
Roleplay: Medium-high. I do like to hack and slash, but I feel fighting and roleplaying don't need to be mutually exclusive. I also enjoy the occasional non-combat session, but too much and it stops feeling like D&D.

Optimisation: Low. I don't intentionally make useless characters, but I never look for the 'best' option either. I usually have some sort of character concept in my head, and I do my best to make the mechanics fit that concept best.

Tengu_temp
2008-10-14, 06:55 AM
Roleplaying
Playing an RPG is like creating a story where your PC is your favorite character to me (with the added bonus of rolling dice to kick ass), and in order to make a memorable story, the characters must be interesting and feeling alive - in other words, roleplayed well.

Optimization
I'm a natural powergamer and easily create characters that are able to kick ass in combat, and as long as everyone has fun, I see this as a bonus - it's cooler when your hero is good at what he's supposed to be doing, after all. Of course, I tend to play more balanced and harder to break systems than DND 3.x.

Mushroom Ninja
2008-10-14, 07:19 AM
Roleplaying
I love roleplaying. I've always found the more Hack-'n-slash campaigns that I've taken part in a bit boring.

Optimization
I love games with complex rules that can be combined in many different. That is one of the reasons MtG and D&D are so appeal to me so much. This being the case, I love to tinker with characters to make them as strong as possible. But, I try to never create a character so powerful that it'll completley overshadow the rest of the party. That would be boring

Telonius
2008-10-14, 07:24 AM
Roleplaying: High level. I love to get into character.

Optimization: take the levels of optimization the players are capable of, individually; then find the median. The precise level of optimization is unimportant to me, as long as everybody's on a reasonably even basis. There will always be people who feel like they're gimping themselves for the good of the group, and always people who make silly mechanical choices despite your best advice. But keeping it reasonable for everybody produces the best games.

Kol Korran
2008-10-14, 07:48 AM
i have been a player only a long, long time ago (1st or 2nd ed). but as i know myself, i'm probably a heavy roleplayer, and a fairly crap optimizer (i never realy worry about these, even as DM. it takes me a long time to optimize encounters so they'd be a real challange, such as a fight with a BBEG).
not much to add beyong this, but this is me...

only1doug
2008-10-14, 08:26 AM
Roleplaying:
Important, The best remembered characters are those that have a personality rather than just a neat set of tricks.

Optomisation:
I've been accused of being the rules lawyer and overoptomiser of our group, i find it hard to make a character that isn't focused into his character concept.
once i have a concept i make the character the best that i can at being that.

The most influential GM I ever gamed with enjoyed killing characters, after 3 weeks of (generate a character, watch it die) i made characters that were hard to kill, a habit that i have kept ever since.

I do make non uber characters though, My most recent shadowrun character is a mage who is soley focused on buffing and healing, he avoids combat if possible and his main role is in making the others more powerful.

(and a gun focused Phys Adept with a maintained invisibility spell is a very scary thing, 2 of them is terrifying) (yeah 2 people independantly decided to play gramaton clerics from equilebrium, its an intresting group)

The Rose Dragon
2008-10-14, 08:33 AM
I tend to play more balanced and harder to break systems than DND 3.x.

As I believe you play M&M, how do you call a game in which you can kill everyone on Earth in a day, tops, at PL 1 balanced?

Now, I love M&M much more than I love D&D, but balanced and hard to break it is not.

Tengu_temp
2008-10-14, 08:37 AM
As I believe you play M&M, how do you call a game in which you can kill everyone on Earth in a day, tops, at PL 1 balanced?


How? Note: if it will involve things that work only by very literal interpretation and omitting logical parts (in other words, RAW and not RAI), you better say "nevermind". Otherwise, I'm very curious.

Thanatos 51-50
2008-10-14, 08:50 AM
Roleplaying: Is Love. I Love Roleplaying. High. All the stuff everyone else has bee saying. When it gets to the point where I can sit down,a nd, no matter whats going on in my life, I can immediatly become "Pallex Pureblade, Holy Crusading Paladin of Nature" thats fun. Thats what the game is for. Compare this to videogames where I'm thinking "Left stick full tilt foward, Press A, Press A, pull back on left stick, twist right stick."

Optimization: I get my concept, and then I try to optimise that concept. If I want to play a sword-and-shield fighter, I try to optimise shieldwork and swordplay.
I'm not actually too much a fan of builds and buildnotes. If, by the time I get to level three I notice we're fighting alot more undead than orcs, I'm not exactly going to buy a feat which makes Sneak Attack Sneak Attackier.

On a personal Note: I find the Adventurer's Guild PbP is pretty good about the balance, too. Of course, the DM(s) are awesome, so it helps.

The Rose Dragon
2008-10-14, 08:53 AM
I'm not sure of the build, but it went something like this:

Strike 1 (Explosion (or Area (burst)), No Saving Throw, Alternate Save (Fortitude) (this is actually important), Indirect 2, Progression (as much as you can afford, but let's say 20)).

Add a couple Immunities there to make sure you can pull it off all day. At the end of the day, you'll have had 14400 rounds to do it and everyone at least takes a bruise or injury every time you use the power. By the end of the way, anyone not outright immune to damage from the attack's descriptors or immune to damage in general will die, even those with Impervious Fortitude (which is a rare combination to begin with) since No Saving Throw takes precedent over Impervious.

It is a cheesy build and not acceptable by any GM by any stretch of imagination, but it is possible.

In fact, if you want to exclude your friends from it, add Selective Attack for the low cost of 1 power point.

EDIT: I still love the game to death. It's just not balanced.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-10-14, 09:12 AM
EDIT: I still love the game to death. It's just not balanced.

The game is pretty explicit that you are supposed to play "nice". Many powers are specifically tagged with warnings about ways to abuse them.

AstralFire
2008-10-14, 09:20 AM
The game is pretty explicit that you are supposed to play "nice". Many powers are specifically tagged with warnings about ways to abuse them.

That doesn't make it any more balanced.

But in groups, there should always be gentlemens' agreements to you know, not horribly **** with the DM or the rest of the group anyway. I always find balance to be more important on the front of making sure everyone feels useful, since that is harder to do than reigning yourself in.

warmachine
2008-10-14, 09:23 AM
Roleplaying
High. All characters have a set of values and beliefs, defining their motivation and reasons for being on the adventure. I often have a backstory. I even had a Sorcerer approach an oddly unmolested, beautiful, female kidnap victim because he wasn't paranoid enough to switch his brain back on.

Optmization
High. To quote someone else on this board, because you can't roleplay when you're dead. I stay away from the broken cheese and I sometimes play weaker classes, such as Mystic Theurge, because they're fun. I still scour the Complete and PHB 2 books for the best feats though.

Kurald Galain
2008-10-14, 09:49 AM
Roleplaying: High. Because if I just wanted the mechanics, I'd play a boardgame instead (which I also do, on occasion). This means I prefer character-driven campaigns and sessions where we spend most of the time talking and barely touching any dice; and that I dislike railroading, as well as sessions where the problem is simply solved by finding the evil guys and kicking their asses (which, unfortunately, comes up slightly too often in printed modules). I am familiar with a wide variety of systems, including several rules-light ones, and it doesn't really matter to me which system is used for any particular campaign, because roleplaying doesn't need a system anyway.

Optimization. Well, as my sig attests, I'm a decent optimizer, and I enjoy analysis and discussion of game mechanics (incidentally, I'm also a game designer, that might explain a few things). On the other hand, I don't play optimized characters in actual campaigns. I generally play a character who's good at (something), while realizing that I could have made him better at (that thing) by doing so-and-so, except that I'm not gonna on account of it not making sense or not being fun.

There are surprisingly few true optimizers here. I've met a few people who deliberately make a poor build because they feel it improves their roleplaying, and there are a few who want to optimize but lack the skill to make it stick (e.g. take a good wizard/beguiler/ultimate magus build from the web, but miss the memo that for such a build, casting fireballs isn't all that great a strategy). Overall, the only place where I hear horror stories about players greatly overshadowing others, is on the internet.

Tengu_temp
2008-10-14, 10:21 AM
I'm not sure of the build, but it went something like this:

Strike 1 (Explosion (or Area (burst)), No Saving Throw, Alternate Save (Fortitude) (this is actually important), Indirect 2, Progression (as much as you can afford, but let's say 20)).


Where is No Saving Throw from? It's not in the core rulebook, or at least I couldn't find it, and without it deals piddly damage. Also, cover by default grants protection against Area attacks - this attack is good for attacking all the people in sight, but everyone else will have cover from it and won't even notice it. Useless against high PL characters, too.

Also, my point was that in M&M, all the characters with the same PL will be roughly equally powerful and able to contribute, unless one of the players purposely gimps himself or tries to break the game. In DND, you don't even have to try to be completely useless or overpowered if you choose some of the classes.

Roderick_BR
2008-10-14, 10:46 AM
I like a roleplaying heavy atmosphere (although not "immersion". I like to talk off-topic once in a while).
For optmization, I just pick a topic, and go with it. My fighter can be the most uber charger around, but he may suck at ranged, and I let the magic to the others, but mostly anything I can charge I can take down. I can be a ranger that shot 50 arrows per minute, and mow down a small group, but I'll leave the big boss to the heavy hitter. I can be a spellcaster doing lots of area effects and slowing down opponents, I'll just let my companions risk getting close to deal the finishing blows while I buff them/weaken the enemies. Very simple to do, actually.

Neon Knight
2008-10-14, 10:47 AM
Roleplaying: High, but I feel I need to make a distinction here; Most people are talking about characterization with this category, and I rate that pretty highly, but an equally important facet of roleplaying, for me, is narration and description. This may be a result of my gaming experience being exclusively PbP (not by my choice.)

Optimization: Medium/High. Most of the roleplaying concepts I seek to portray are fairly efficient, competent, and proficient at what they do. I avoid major traps, try to pull my weight, but don't try to blow everyone out of the water. I'll be troubled if the Cleric is better at fighting than my supposedly legendary soldier, but that doesn't mean I have to kill the opposition in a single round.

Weirdlet
2008-10-14, 10:54 AM
I'm an odd one- I like optimization to serve roleplay. I like having a character who is amazing at something, the best in the world at it, the one you come to for that sort of thing- it's effective, it looks cool, it's (one half) the reason you're out and about in the world and getting plothooks aimed your way. What they can do is not entirely who they are, but it is a part of it.

Jayabalard
2008-10-14, 10:57 AM
Roleplaying - high; optimization - none.

elliott20
2008-10-14, 11:01 AM
I honestly do not think that you can properly justify roleplaying WITHOUT some level of optimization. After all, you can't really justify playing your character as the badass lone swordsman if every other guy who picks up a sword can beat you into pulp. Thus, your RPing often needs to justified through your character's capabilities to some extent.

Having said that though, I do believe that any optimization needs to be driven by the RPing aspects of the character. (or more generally, the character concept) Without the character core concept driving it, the character will lack soul and will really become nothing more than a robotic collection of numbers.

Jayabalard
2008-10-14, 11:28 AM
I honestly do not think that you can properly justify roleplaying WITHOUT some level of optimization. After all, you can't really justify playing your character as the badass lone swordsman if every other guy who picks up a sword can beat you into pulp. Thus, your RPing often needs to justified through your character's capabilities to some extent. Not at all; the trivial counter-example would be to play the role that matches the mechanical abilities of the character; this requires no optimization.

sure, I'll agree, that if you want to play a badass lone swordsman you'll probably need to do some optimization, but that has nothing to do with roleplaying... it's the badassness that requires optimization, not the roleplaying.

elliott20
2008-10-14, 11:35 AM
Not at all; the trivial counter-example would be to play the role that matches the mechanical abilities of the character; this requires no optimization.

sure, I'll agree, that if you want to play a badass lone swordsman you'll probably need to do some optimization, but that has nothing to do with roleplaying... it's the badassness that requires optimization, not the roleplaying.

hey, stop making valid points and poking holes in my posts!

The Rose Dragon
2008-10-14, 11:57 AM
Where is No Saving Throw from? It's not in the core rulebook, or at least I couldn't find it, and without it deals piddly damage. Also, cover by default grants protection against Area attacks - this attack is good for attacking all the people in sight, but everyone else will have cover from it and won't even notice it. Useless against high PL characters, too.

No Saving Throw is originally from Mastermind's Manual but later republished in Ultimate Power.

Normally, Cover, yes. Concealment, no. And Indirect also takes care of any cover you might have. So, anything in range shall be blasted (since you don't need Perception to attack someone with a Non-Targeted attack power).

And even characters with Impervious Fortitude will gain one bruise which is stated to apply to all powers based on Strike and Blast in the Official Rules Forum by Steve Kenson. And no matter how high your PL is, 14400 uses of this power means, statistically, you will roll a natural one 720 times, which means at least 720 bruises. Per day And you can't have that many bruises without being knocked unconscious somewhere along the way.

The three ways to be safe from this attack is have Immunity to Fortitude, Immunity to Physical Damage (or Energy damage, depending on the descriptors, which does include Insubstantial 4) or have the Diehard feat. And the last one still doesn't protect you from being knocked Unconscious.

And if you really want cheese, you can create two Alternate Powers with Toughness and Will saves, so you can target even more people (which, admittedly, does go against RAI with the Will save a bit, but Toughness is totally justifiable).

And if you want to add to the cheese, have Heroic Duplicates with Survival. That will increase the number of saves required by another 14400 per Duplicate. And given the exponential Progression table, even having 10 points in Progression means you have 1000 duplicates. And what's even better, you only need to pay for your character sans Duplication when you buy Duplication in the first place.

Another similar build is the bathroom psychic, which uses ESP and a Perception range power rather than an Indirect Area. I'm sure you can find it on ATT with little trouble.

However, breaking M&M requires a bit more work than D&D (in which you can look at the Druid spell list just barely, naturally take Natural Spell and win - it is a bit harder to do it with Wizards and Clerics, in my opinion), and often, the book warns you about using certain options (like Heroic, Horde, Survival Duplication with high Progression or No Saving Throw and Perception (or Area) effects), unlike in D&D (I never saw any such disclaimer about druids or archivists). It is still doable even to a man of little intellect like me.

As a wise man once said: "Creating a D&D character is more like science. You need to get the most efficient and most potent character you can get with whatever materials you have. Creating an M&M character is more like art. It is very easy to be overpowered, but it is very hard to have just the right level of power without ruining the game."

KevLar
2008-10-14, 01:15 PM
I often hear that a super optimized character is a more "realistic" one, because if you were born in a world full of monsters you'd do whatever it takes to survive. I believe that this is a mistake, or rather a huge generalization.

Humans (please indulge me with my paradox here) are the most irrational species on earth. Every other animal strives, to the best of its ability, to ensure its survival and reproduction. Humans don't. Humans are unnecessarily destructive and often self-destructive and altruistic and hungry for power and self-sacrificing for the greater good and emotional and lethally curious. I am fully aware that just about any human action can be reduced to a hidden "pass your genes!" instinct, but most of the time it's so hidden and complicated that, for all practical intents and purposes, it doesn't matter: we are not optimizing ourselves. We do what strikes us as fancier at the moment.

And "moment" is the key word here. In D&D terms, it's the setting. For example, when the setting encourages you to play someone from a particular, distinct culture, optimization comes second if you're aiming for any kind of realism. My desert warrior will never wield a greatsword, no matter how better its average damage is when compared to the falchion.

(Of course, if the setting encourages you to make unoptimized choices for the sake of flavor and turns out as lethal as Tomb of Horrors, your DM is doing something wrong. )

Jerthanis
2008-10-14, 01:58 PM
I'm not sure of the build, but it went something like this:

Strike 1 (Explosion (or Area (burst)), No Saving Throw, Alternate Save (Fortitude) (this is actually important), Indirect 2, Progression (as much as you can afford, but let's say 20)).

Add a couple Immunities there to make sure you can pull it off all day. At the end of the day, you'll have had 14400 rounds to do it and everyone at least takes a bruise or injury every time you use the power. By the end of the way, anyone not outright immune to damage from the attack's descriptors or immune to damage in general will die, even those with Impervious Fortitude (which is a rare combination to begin with) since No Saving Throw takes precedent over Impervious.

It is a cheesy build and not acceptable by any GM by any stretch of imagination, but it is possible.

In fact, if you want to exclude your friends from it, add Selective Attack for the low cost of 1 power point.

EDIT: I still love the game to death. It's just not balanced.

This is nowhere near PL1, and Indirect does not work that way. Unless this is a 1st edition build, and the rules are significantly and profoundly different from 2nd edition, this is nowhere near even close to a legal build.

First, you're paying 1 point for each multiple of 5 feet of radius that your Burst power has along the Time and Value Progression table, so to affect the entire planet you'd need to apply that extra about thirty or forty times, when the table ends at 20. PL 1 has 15 points to play with, and that's already sitting at more than twice that. Admittedly you can still affect a large swath of earth at 20, and proving that a PL 5 character can blow up the world isn't that much less impressive than a PL 1, but still...

Secondly, Indirect doesn't automatically bypass Cover, it lets you choose an origin point for the power that is outside yourself, such as if you caused a blast to originate from behind a person who was facing you, and is useful mostly for surprise attacks. You'd still have to decide "This blast is coming from about 5 miles in the air directly overhead" and it would still not hurt people in underground bunkers, and certainly not on the other side of the planet, or even people who are just indoors until it eventually broke the roof, which would take some time.

Deepblue706
2008-10-14, 01:58 PM
When I really want to play a game of D&D, I think of the character and roleplay aspects first, with the mechanics never fully decided-upon much later. As I see it, D&D is about pretending to be someone else, with mechanics that happen to exist so that the game doesn't boil down into something you get from 5-year-olds playing in the sandbox. While the mechanics are necessary to make D&D an actual game, I see the active pursuit of mechanically superior characters to be missing the point.

That is not to say I look down upon making decisions that turn a flaw that resulted from game design into something more managable; wanting to play a Fighter in a group with a fully optimized Batman Wizard and Druidzilla may result in less fun for you, unless you've got things really planned out. In that case, I find it forgivable. I also don't mind going with a "theme" that just happens to turn out to be good. And, making sound decisions, in general, is certainly okay by me; but I would say that many people appear to give far more attention to say, their spell selection than their character's personality and mannerisms, judging by how uninteresting most PCs appear to be (most of the ones I've seen, anyway). Although, it might not be fair to only blame players for boring characters - there aren't too many good DMs out there to inspire others to make interesting stuff to begin with.

I would hazard a guess that most people are like me; willing to fully immerse themselves in a setting for an interesting campaign and skilled DM - only considering mechanics as far as they fit the concept of the character - and just playing something that's optimized in the case the campaign and DM are only "passable", because, at least the optimized character can do cool stuff (which the game is probably lacking). I mean, if we're playing to have fun, and the roleplaying aspect isn't good enough alone, it's only natural that we'll shore up on other aspects to compensate. I see nothing wrong with pursuing fun however you can, when you've given little to work with. But honestly, if players are actively trying to optimize their characters in one of my games, I see it as either A) They're shallow and uninteresting people, or the more likely B) I've failed to bring enough fun to the table.

valadil
2008-10-14, 02:06 PM
Not at all; the trivial counter-example would be to play the role that matches the mechanical abilities of the character; this requires no optimization.

sure, I'll agree, that if you want to play a badass lone swordsman you'll probably need to do some optimization, but that has nothing to do with roleplaying... it's the badassness that requires optimization, not the roleplaying.

I've heard of a player taking this a step farther and nt just roleplaying the stats on the character sheet but using the dice to influence roleplay as well. For social checks he'd roll a die and then roleplay the result. This somehow seems more correct to me, but I'm not sure I'd actually want to play that way.

Satyr
2008-10-15, 06:51 AM
I like to focus on the roleplaying aspect, but for me, the most important aspect is the versimilitude of the character and the game. The characterisation of the characters is important, but the interaction with the environment and the motivation is more important. I am also a bit impatient with too much gamebreaking talk or other players who are not willing or able to commit to the game or who take it too serious and can't keep a healthy distance to their alter egos.

I like optimising characters but mostly to a believable extend before the degree of optimation reaches an area where it breaks the game plausibility. The more powerful the characters are by default, the less I optimize them.

Tormsskull
2008-10-15, 07:24 AM
I like roleplaying, to me it is the entire purpose of playing a roleplaying game. If I didn't want to roleplay I'd play a game instead of a roleplaying game.

As far as optimization is concerned, I do as little or as much as makes sense for the character. I typically play core only and I refuse to dumpster dive through supplements to try to squeeze more power into a character.

As a DM I encourage roleplaying by rewarding those players that do so, and discourage overly-optimized characters by homebrewing new spells/skills/monsters/abilities that take advantage of a character's weakness.

I.E., if you build a character that has no weakness, I'll make one up for you.

Epinephrine
2008-10-15, 08:21 AM
Roleplay: High. I like playing a character. Sometimes they're similar to me in temperament, sometimes not, and that's what makes it fun.

Optimization: Medium. I like to be effective at what I do, but I don't tend to work overly hard at it. I'm known to take less effective spells because they suit the character, or to choose a combat style that isn't the most effective (Sunder? Spring Attack?) - but then I do try to make it work. It can be fun to play a character that is weak in some ways, provided the campaign allows it, and so long as you still have a niche of some sort.

Brauron
2008-10-15, 08:45 AM
Characterization: High. I try my best to make interesting, memorable characters and roleplay them to the best of my ability every time.

Optimization: Medium/Depends. Last year I played in a group in which the DM and half the players didn't see the point of a non-twinked out character, and so I learned very quickly to build to their level, or at least as close to it as I could come without wanting to apologize to my dice. Using twelve different splatbooks just doesn't feel right to me.

Both the DMs I play under now limit players to PHB plus one or two other books when building a character, so they don't need to reference eight different books. I really like this approach, because I can still build the character I want to build without difficulty, while being confident that the other characters in the group are going to be roughly the same power level.

I still twitch a little bit when I think of the sixth level monk who did quadruple the damage of my raging, power attacking barbarian...every turn...

Drascin
2008-10-15, 09:39 AM
Roleplay: high. Mostly because I find it fun to give a character characterization, therefore I do it - there really isn't any more to it. I'm not, however, any kind of puritan RPer, where I consider people talking and planning OOC at the table some kind of breach of manners (I have had to play with a couple of these people. Since I was the DM, they soon learned that it irritated me to no end and stopped, because they also knew I have little trouble in kicking pople out of my games if they're annoying the rest of players)

Optimization: High. There are few things I hate more than facing the enemy, delivering a badass and inspiring speech... and proceed to miss every single action because my numbers suck. It's horribly frustrating, and breaks the drama to pieces. So, if I know the system, I make sure to have a couple of aces down my sleeve in every situation - I'm usually the guy who normally is just a tad avobe average... and then pulls out the munchkin combo built into his character when the party is in serious trouble.

Either that, or I pick a horrible character concept, and then twink my way to hell and back to make it viable. I made a character that fought by throwing twin returning shields once :smalltongue:

7th lvl scrub
2008-10-15, 09:08 PM
To me (and most of the people in my campaign) role-playing is much more fun/better than just pure combat. We always try to come up with odd ways to role-play our characters. My past two characters I've had the most fun with, a 3.5 Barbarian that once horribly failed a spot check and "found" his weapons, and a Dragonborn Taclord who has an Australian accent...

The Australian accent worked especially well when we went up against a few crocodiles.:smallbiggrin:

THAC0
2008-10-15, 09:55 PM
Role-play: Medium to medium high, not immersion.

Optimization: High. But not broken. I don't twink, but my characters are always effective at what they do, and I will not make an ineffective character to match a party of ineffective characters. Especially in 4e, which we are currently playing.

Gralamin
2008-10-15, 10:11 PM
Depends. In Real life, I'm not too good with roleplaying. In say the IRC I can roleplay a lot easier.
I always try to Optimize to roughly the level of the party.

DragonBaneDM
2008-10-28, 10:22 AM
To me (and most of the people in my campaign) role-playing is much more fun/better than just pure combat. We always try to come up with odd ways to role-play our characters. My past two characters I've had the most fun with, a 3.5 Barbarian that once horribly failed a spot check and "found" his weapons, and a Dragonborn Taclord who has an Australian accent...

The Australian accent worked especially well when we went up against a few crocodiles.:smallbiggrin:

Ah, the Witchlight Fens. Can't believe I didn't give you more bonus gold for that... My deathroll was nice, though.

I gotta go with the kid on this one. Combat gets boring for a full game. The point of DND has never been purely tactical. The point is, for my games, at least, to romp around a town talking, looting, and causing interesting, fantastic situations to develop. Fighting's simply the means to an ends for most people.

Especially for DMs!!! If it wasn't for writing plots, I'd be playing WoW nonstop! Think about it, most of the time, the DMs lose in combat. If a character dies, the player gets depressed and might quit. Where's the fun if we can't pretend to be a dwarf with a drinking problem and an Asian accent sometimes?

We can always play a board game, we can't spend hours planning a sneak attack on a half-orc shopkeeper in order to steal his wyvern mount in real life.