Quote Originally Posted by Vahnavoi View Post
This sort of loops back to the start of this thread.

Choosing a bad strategy and then trying to play a game avoiding the pitfalls of that strategy makes sense, if you're doing it for extra challenge. For example, while attempting to never fight is a bad strategy in D&D, there still is a huge space of possible D&D scenarios which are vincible without ever fighting. So if there's a possibility a scenario you're about to play is in that design space, you could give it a shot, just to see if you can pull it off. This requires accepting the possibility of the player being stuck in an unwinnable challenge, though.
There's a big difference (in my mind) between single player games, where this sort of "self-imposed challenge" is totally fine, and cooperative games, where it requires enthusiastic, up front buy in (not just avoiding confrontation but being annoyed by it, but actually liking the idea) from everyone else, DM intended.

I'm much more willing to create scenarios that avoid combat if everyone says "let's run a combat-light game" (whether that's one where combat just doesn't come up much or one where the presumption is that there's almost always a way to defuse combat scenarios). Same with social-lite or exploration-lite games. If one person, acting on their own, decides to put the party through hard mode for their own fun...that's not something I'm comfortable with. Character building is a conversation with compromise IMO, both with the group and with the DM. It's not a matter of right, where everyone gets to make their own decisions, the rest of the party notwithstanding. Everyone has to agree on what kind of game you'll be playing. And yes, this includes the DM not unilaterally deciding "hey, you signed up for a heavy combat game (or vice versa), but now it's going to be all social manipulation/all combat." That's not fair play IMO.