Breaking the game. Why?

[Debbie_D]

Right off the bat, I have to say Im new to D&D, having been introduced to it by Mikela and this board. One of the things I see in recruitment threads and in games is an attempt to break the game, and for the life of me, I dont understand why someone would do that. I mean, its almost a non-verbal way of saying "I hate D&D and I'm not going to let you play either". Its completely rude to people who work at making playable PCs, and its rude to the DM who has worked hard to figure out an interesting story line, and you just want to trash it completely by making nothing able to challenge your character. It never ends up well, the game is doomed to end after 2-3 pages and it just makes for hard feelings all around. What is the attraction? Sure, you want to be strong, but you know damn well when you are crossing the line and still people do it?

[Righteous Doggy]

I have a friend who LOVES to break a game any chance he gets. He immidiately sells his soul for power, he throws any train of its tracks, and almost no DM can handle him well becuase he's probably insane. He does it becuase this is his entertainment, and this is the way he likes to do things. The only way to keep him from doing it is to shut him down the moment he tries anything. He does it... because we let him :/.

[Shadowknight12]

People are selfish and will only think of themselves unless moved by social pressure, manipulation or empathy for their fellows. Fail to procure any of these and you will end up with someone who breaks the game to feel superior to everyone else and "win" the game.

[SilverClawShift]

Games are like living creatures, just like people. And like people, sometimes breaking them shows you how much more fun they can be. And sometimes breaking them renders them a useless mess.

But the only way to find out which is which is to try it!

[Debbie_D]

People are selfish and will only think of themselves unless moved by social pressure, manipulation or empathy for their fellows. Fail to procure any of these and you will end up with someone who breaks the game to feel superior to everyone else and "win" the game.

But you cant "win" this game...and if the game ends, how can you consider it "won"?

[Vladislav]

Breaking the game is subjective. One player may think that, having a pumped up Diplomacy skill he's roleplaying well, resolving social encounters, etc. Another may think, damn, he's breaking the game making everyone like him with his goddamned Diplomacy.

[Shadowknight12]

But you cant "win" this game...and if the game ends, how can you consider it "won"?

The same way you win a fight: when your opponent's battered body is twitching in the ground under your boot. That doesn't make it moral or wholesome or good, but it is a winning criteria, albeit a twisted one.

[jindra34]

But you cant "win" this game...and if the game ends, how can you consider it "won"?

Most people who try to break the game have some personal concept of what 'winning' is. What it is, why they think its 'winning', and why they think they can 'win' boggles my mind.

[Knaight]

Most people who try to break the game have some personal concept of what 'winning' is. What it is, why they think its 'winning', and why they think they can 'win' boggles my mind.

I don't buy this. Most people break the game to better understand it, and because doing so is fun. The only time winning comes in is when people break the game when other people are trying to play the game, which is where it gets obnoxious. Generally speaking though, it's done with character building, with characters not meant to be played.

[Andreaz]

Generally "invitations to break games" are merely intellectual exercises. Attempting to see how far the rules let you go. These people usually indulge so they can tell what works, what doesn't work, and what shouldn't work. This is a good thing, as it allows you to judge better what works and what doesn't in your actual games.


Now, people who actively disrupt a game...These are just trolls. Set them on fire and carry on.

[nedz]

Because its there.

Working out how to break a game is an intellectual challange, like hacking.

It is also an essential skill to know if you are thinking about DMing, mainly so it doesn't happen accidentally.

Now to deliberately break a game, as a player, is another matter. There can be any number of reasons for this, mainly because it seems funny.

It is also possible for a player to break many games accidentally.

[JoshuaZ]

I'm not completely sure what constitutes breaking a game. Sometimes it means simply doing something that is in-character but utterly unexpected by the GM. Sometimes it is people being too "munchinkinny". This last is particularly unclear to me. If one is using some build that requires 10 splat books that you picked up on the internet and allows your to destroy armies of characters with twice as many levels as you, you are probably breaking the game. At the same time, it is a lot easier to roleplay a powerful wizard when one actually is a powerful wizard, and some people just have good instincts and thoughts about what sort of thing works well. The first time I was in a 3.5 campaign I made a battlefield control wizard without having ever heard the term before. It was just clear looking at the rules that that's what a smart wizard would do. I was probably a bit more effective than the DM expected. Is that breaking the game?

In order to ask this question one really needs a clear idea of what one means by breaking the game.

[Scowling Dragon]

Mostly because their jerks. There are excuses (That are all rubbish) but mostly its jerkish to ruin games for others.

[Suddo]

Breaking the game comes in many ways.
If the DM is asking for it he's more asking for a stress test of his module.
If a player does it it can be in a variety of ways:
1) Stupid all out cheese, see Pun-Pun.
2) Playing powerful characters powerfully. This isn't so much as cheesing as breaking the original design of things. If a Cleric makes the fighter obsolete until about the 6th encounter of the day the game is broken because the fighter doesn't have fun. If the wizard teleports to the top of the tower grabs the prize and teleports out before anything can happen this breaks the entire dungeon due to the fact the wizard was able to use his tools wisely. This isn't so much breaking the game but showing its huge flaws. This can be done without optimization and by someone with little to no system mastery.

[Elfinor]

Games are like living creatures, just like people. And like people, sometimes breaking them shows you how much more fun they can be. And sometimes breaking them renders them a useless mess.

But the only way to find out which is which is to try it!

I would imagine that if you break a person, you'd want to discuss it with them first; not just 'try it'!

I suppose you also should discuss things with the people involved before breaking a game, although it doesn't (usually) have the same potential for emotional damage

[Comet]

Roleplaying games attract math nerds. Math nerds like to explore the system and put it to imaginative use, perhaps "breaking" it in the progress. This is all right, so long as the math nerds and the story nerds can come to a solution around the table that allows everyone to have their fun.

Roleplaying games also often attract socially awkward nerds. If these socially awkward nerds also happen to be math nerds, the group might have a problem since these awkward math nerds don't know how to talk to the story nerds across the table and instead dive deeper into the mechanics and have their fun with it without considering how they might be ruining the fun for the story nerds.

Socially awkward story nerds have their own ways of breaking the game, for sure, but math nerds tend to have an easier time of it since they can just point to the rules as they are written and say they've done nothing wrong.

Breaking the game is not in itself a problem. Being unable to talk to the players around you and come to a consensus on what would be the most fun kind of game for everyone involved is a huge problem.

[Welknair]

Short Version: They take it as a challenge.

[Fatebreaker]

Right off the bat, I have to say Im new to D&D, having been introduced to it by Mikela and this board. One of the things I see in recruitment threads and in games is an attempt to break the game, and for the life of me, I dont understand why someone would do that. I mean, its almost a non-verbal way of saying "I hate D&D and I'm not going to let you play either". Its completely rude to people who work at making playable PCs, and its rude to the DM who has worked hard to figure out an interesting story line, and you just want to trash it completely by making nothing able to challenge your character. It never ends up well, the game is doomed to end after 2-3 pages and it just makes for hard feelings all around. What is the attraction? Sure, you want to be strong, but you know damn well when you are crossing the line and still people do it?

Well, there's no straight answer to your question, largely because what "breaks" a game is both subjective and relative.

As for why people do it? Here are few of the more common reasons I've seen in myself and others...

"I didn't mean to!"
Ah, the accidental breakage. So, you're flipping through your sourcebooks, when this really cool idea hits. Maybe you were inspired by something from the artwork or a neat little short story. Maybe you liked the idea of a class and decided to give it a whirl. So you take your cool idea and you run with it. You build your character, you're all excited, and at the next session, you bring out Coolguy McAwesomeson to great delight from your fellow players. The dice start rolling, and things go well. Too well. After an hour or two of showing up everyone else at the table, you retire Coolguy McAwesomeson and nobody ever speaks of it again.

This is actually kind of easy, depending on the system. You stumble onto a really effective combination and accidentally break the game. This can easily be a "no harm, no foul" moment in isolation, but if it happens too often, you may be moving towards...


"That's what the system encourages!"
So you've figured out what makes the system tick (...maybe). You see with eyes unclouded, and what you see is that the mechanics of the game encourage a certain playstyle to successfully overcome certain kinds of challenges. Whether consciously or unintentionally, you see how the pieces fit together and you see how to mechanically achieve your character concept and goals.

This is where a major part of relativity between players comes in. If your ideas of how the system works don't mesh with those of your fellow players, you're likely to run into conflict (even if you're right!). Expect for different expectations of mechanics and roleplaying to cloud the issue.

For example, imagine a game where killing people is always better than talking to them. You get 100 points for killing someone, and 50 points for talking to them (and you cannot get points from someone twice; so no talking to them twice to get 100 points, or talking and then killing to get 150, or any other combination -- just 100 points or 50 points!). Of course you become a mass-murderer. You get more points that way! And points are good! Therefore, murder is good!

So your friends talk to people, while you kill people, and you rapidly find yourself twice as powerful as they are. Did you "break" the system? Or did you just play the game the system encourages?

And if you keep going down that rabbit hole, you might someday end up as someone who...


"I will now poke this honey badger with a stick. For science."
For some players, there is a game outside of the game. All that sitting around a table and rolling dice is fun and all, but the real game for them is learning how the system works. What are the stress points? Where is the game balanced, and how? How do the mechanics interact with one another? What subsystems work, and which subsystems don't? Does the game function as it claims it does?

So you've asked yourself, "What can I do with the system?" and you're determined to find out. A lot of breakage comes from here, and here it's a good thing. You experiment and theorycraft, and you're happy when you get results, good or bad, because the point was to learn. Loopholes are exciting challenges. Exploits are possibilities. Maybe you'd never use them, but you do want to know how you could.

You try not to pull out your more powerful tricks with your friends, because they really don't like that sort of thing, but sometimes it just happens. And, sadly, not everyone can intentionally scale their game to match their teammates, and some folks don't even want to, which leads to...


"Screw you guys, I have the rules!"
You're just following the rules, is all. Why can't they see that? It's not cheating. It's clear as day. The rules say you can do it!

This is the problem personality. It says that everyone else at the table is secondary to your fun, and your fun depends on straining the rules to the breaking point and then applying just the right pressure...

--

Now, for the sake of a semi-narrative, I've ordered these in a structure which is entirely possible, but not inherent. Sure, I've seen players stumble into success, only to learn a little bit and outpace their friends, which encourages them to delve more and more into the system to understand how to play alongside rather than against their friends, only to wind up totally alienated with only the rules to comfort them as they (presumably) cry to sleep at night. But that's not a hard-and-fast narrative, and plenty of folks get to different points in that story without necessarily reaching the others.

There's also another point to consider, and that is how we all have different definitions of what "breaks" a game. You do. I do. He does. She does. Your friends disagree with my friends, and both of them disagree with that one dude and his friends. And different systems have different definitions of breakage, too. A style of play which is overpowered at your table might be underpowered at mine -- say, a god-king whose every word ensnares his audience would break your social intrigue game, but it's not very effective in my zombie apocalypse game, since the zombies can't understand him!

Breaking the system doesn't require you to be a jerk. Sometimes it's the personality of an explorer, a scientist, or a daredevil. The guy who wants to know what possibilities exist over the horizon, the guy who wants to combine different elements to see how the mix, and the guy who isn't afraid to try new things can all be positive personalities at your table. The player who understands the ins and outs of the system can be a great boon at helping less-experienced players mechanically realize their character concept. The player who knows the rules can help save time flipping through sourcebooks to double check how some obscure combination of conditions works out. So long as everyone communicates and understands the social rules by which you agree to play, you can work through the odd gamebreaker.

But the jerk? He's not a jerk because of how he uses the rules to get ahead. It's the other way 'round. He uses the rules to get ahead because he's a jerk!

The moral of the story is, don't play with jerks.

[Decatus]

I wish I had something to add, but Fatebreaker did an excellent job in his summation of the different ways a game can be broken. Just....read his post.

Personally, I find that most games break when the players don't all have the same sort of expectations. IMO, communication is key in avoiding this all too common pitfall.

[Partysan]

Adding one more to Fatebreaker's collection

"You made me do it!"
Do you remember when you were a teenager and had a fight with your parents and you talked back in a firm voice, eliciting a "DON'T YOU YELL AT ME/US!", when you didn't actually yell at them but they did at you? And at that point you felt the unimaginable urge to yell back for real and show them how it sounds when you actually yell?
This can also happen at the table, when a player is accused of powergaming with a characte rthat isn't actually that powerful, and sometimes there are other characters who are more powerful than his, yet he gets attacked and they are not. The player feels slighted, unjustly punished and innocently provoked and decides to retire the character (or maybe it was retired forcefully) and make a new one that shows which classes are actually broken and how powergaming really looks like.
Sometimes they are in the right, sometimes they just feel they are, but in any case their game was destroyed and they will take revenge by breaking the game for everyone else.

You see requests for those popping up at the boards every few weeks, happens all the time at the tables. Sometimes there's also advice to that direction ("Your DM thinks X is overpowered? Make a Druid/Wizard'/Cleric and show hom what that word really means!")

[Snowbluff]

I don't buy this. Most people break the game to better understand it, and because doing so is fun. The only time winning comes in is when people break the game when other people are trying to play the game, which is where it gets obnoxious. Generally speaking though, it's done with character building, with characters not meant to be played.

This. Further understanding of the game is something I constantly strive for. I have a natural need for competition in my life, and learning more about something so I can help others compete with me in game is something I end up doing more than I care to admit.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Sometimes there's also advice to that direction ("Your DM thinks X is overpowered? Make a Druid/Wizard'/Cleric and show hom what that word really means!")

I sometimes do that. Except I prefer a more subtle approach. AKA, team players. DM thinks monks are overpowered and bards are completely weaksauce? Say hello to my Song of the Heart/DFI/Words of Creation bard. As for the more general "DM thinks your monk is overpowered", I suggest a GOD wizard, where you can say "what? Me? I was just back here helping the others!".

[Fatebreaker]

Adding one more to Fatebreaker's collection

"You made me do it!"
-snip-

Ouch, that's a nasty one. I think the worst part about it is that it exposes how something has gone fundamentally wrong in the group dynamic.

[Averis Vol]

Adding one more to Fatebreaker's collection

"You made me do it!"
Do you remember when you were a teenager and had a fight with your parents and you talked back in a firm voice, eliciting a "DON'T YOU YELL AT ME/US!", when you didn't actually yell at them but they did at you? And at that point you felt the unimaginable urge to yell back for real and show them how it sounds when you actually yell?
This can also happen at the table, when a player is accused of powergaming with a characte rthat isn't actually that powerful, and sometimes there are other characters who are more powerful than his, yet he gets attacked and they are not. The player feels slighted, unjustly punished and innocently provoked and decides to retire the character (or maybe it was retired forcefully) and make a new one that shows which classes are actually broken and how powergaming really looks like.
Sometimes they are in the right, sometimes they just feel they are, but in any case their game was destroyed and they will take revenge by breaking the game for everyone else.

You see requests for those popping up at the boards every few weeks, happens all the time at the tables. Sometimes there's also advice to that direction ("Your DM thinks X is overpowered? Make a Druid/Wizard'/Cleric and show hom what that word really means!")

i'v actually done this one. i learned my lesson though, i felt like crap when i looked up from my sheet and i was the only one smiling.

basically it came down to my DM shutting down EVERYTHING i wanted to do and heavily favoring two characters (can anyone say +11 weapon at level 10?) so i said enough and built clericzilla and proceeded to destroy his CR 17 encounter we were supposed to run away from. and to really drive it home i literally broke his dungeon in two and sent it to the bottom of the ocean. so yea, i'v been on this side, and i can't find anything fun about breaking the game, its a sour feeling.

[Lord_Gareth]

Ouch, that's a nasty one. I think the worst part about it is that it exposes how something has gone fundamentally wrong in the group dynamic.

Sometimes, though, it can be the only way to resolve the argument. Mind you, the two times I actually did it the DM was literally, point-blank asking for it, so I may be biased, but a demonstration of your point can often work wonders.

[Fatebreaker]

Sometimes, though, it can be the only way to resolve the argument. Mind you, the two times I actually did it the DM was literally, point-blank asking for it, so I may be biased, but a demonstration of your point can often work wonders.

Oh, I'm not saying it can't be called for. Just that if you've reached the point of breaking the game out of spite, there are underlying problems which should be addressed. Clashes of perception, clashes of expectations, clashes of rules comprehension, clashes of personality, clashes of communication, all that sort of thing. Y'know, stuff that causes problems regardless of any game breakage.

Yours sounds like a special case, though. Was the DM trying to stress-test his game, or was he literally daring you to break it as some sort of social posturing?

[Lord_Gareth]

Oh, I'm not saying it can't be called for. Just that if you've reached the point of breaking the game out of spite, there are underlying problems which should be addressed. Clashes of perception, clashes of expectations, clashes of rules comprehension, clashes of personality, clashes of communication, all that sort of thing. Y'know, stuff that causes problems regardless of any game breakage.

Yours sounds like a special case, though. Was the DM trying to stress-test his game, or was he literally daring you to break it as some sort of social posturing?

"No way, monks are totally broken. Look at those saves! Tell you what, we'll do an arena, you build the wizard."

"There's no way a Cleric could stand up to primary melee, let's do an arena."

After that I was DMing and I was able to more gently introduce my players to the realities of 3.5.

[Lord_Gareth]

Incidentally, my group kinda has a thing for demonstrating points about class balance and/or power through arenas. In the spoiler below is the saga of The Martini Wizard, and how my players finally learned to believe me about the power levels of Wizards and their place on the Tier System:

Spoiler

Show

I had my player start at level 27 once, in an effort to visibly demonstrate the tier system to them. They fought a 17th level (20th level experience, crafted three levels away) wizard/initiate of the sevenfold veil. It was eight on one. The wizard spent every single standard action he had for the fight drinking martinis.

He killed them all.

The group was:

Monk 27 (The Inscrutable Master Girard): Built for kama use. Convinced that Monks were powerful caster-killers due to all-good saves and spell resistance. Smacked into a violet warding and failed his save, resulting in his transportation to Avernus.

Fighter 17/Kensai 10 (The Duke of Truth and Loss): TWF, convinced his sheer number of attacks > any enemy. Espoused that fighters are versatile due to their many feats. Killed by summoned balor.

Wizard 27 (Kratos): Evocation specialist, banned conjuration and abjuration. Didn't understand why blasting is sub-optimal. Killed by summoned balor.

Swordsage 20/Master of Nine 5/Rogue 2: Focused on Shadow Hand and Diamond Mind, fought with a greatsword. Fairly competent, was tragically killed by a summoned balor.

Bard 27: Tried being a buffamancer, got taken out by a warding that turned him to stone when he tried to charge the wizard.

Cleric 27: Priest of Elhonna, memorized healing spells and summons. Called several animals to the battlefield (that couldn't penetrate the wardings) before being taken out by the summoned balor.

Hexblade 27: "It's magic AND melee, man! You can't beat that!" Except the balor did, to the merry tune of the mage drinking martinis.

Compwar Ex-Samurai 17/Ronin 10: "Class flavor and mechanics aren't separate, man! If you wanna be a samurai you should just play one!" Sadly found that even the fighter did better. Killed by summoned balor.

Noticing a theme here?

Party opted for three rounds of 'buff time'. Wizard used a scroll of delayed Gate, a protection from evil and the spell to conjure his lawn chair into his bag of holding during this time. Spent the whole fight sitting in said lawn chair, drinking martinis and occasionally hitting his 'no' button until the balor showed up.

Note that these posts are missing some small amount of context from folks in the other thread asking me for clarifications.

[Fatebreaker]

*chuckle* Now that's a good read. I think that falls more under a teaching moment than a spiteful moment, which I believe was Partysan's point. It's a good example of yet another reason why folks break a game.

"You guys made me do it!" vs. "Don't believe me? Watch this!"

I'd pay good money to watch your party fall apart against the martini wizard.

[Gavinfoxx]

You HAVE to go into an extreme amount of detail about that Martini Wizard fight!! Wow. I TOTALLY want to read that...