Quote from: estar;989067Not true, it was done with magic items rather than formal character mechanics and skills.

Didn't 3E initiate feat trees?

I will never understand why it's considered terrible to create a character with an eye toward mechanics competence, or even optimization. I'll give you a specific example: I once decided to build an "ideal samurai," one who had all the skills a samurai was supposed to have, ideally. The combat skills were at 15, the non-combat were at 12, and I worked out the ideal values for DX and IQ. Result: 12 IQ, 13 DX, and enough points left to buy up ST and HT, plus a point in something else, I can't remember where I spent it. So character optimization led to reasonable stats, a broad range of skills, and an overall well-rounded character. I see nothing wrong in that. Or in D&D and similar, your character is a professional fighter, or bard, or sorceror, or whatever, in a  high risk business. Do you honestly think that the character isn't going to know anything about how to be effective in that profession? Or do you honestly believe that a modern day mercenary fighter doesn't put time into studying different situation,s different weapons, different load outs, to know what's most effective for a given situation?

Frankly, the idea that it's somehow morally wrong to create a character who can actually do something well is just incomprehensible to me.

Quote from: Whitewings;989071Frankly, the idea that it's somehow morally wrong to create a character who can actually do something well is just incomprehensible to me.

I don't think anyone is talking about that so you're either misunderstanding the topic or being disingenuous.

Well, considering that the OP states he finds it completely incomprehensible that anyone might ever make any character creation or development choice for any reason other than "it's my concept!" and that such concerns as actually being effective should be left to board games and war games...

Quote from: Bren;989055He sounds just right for a character in Boot Hill.

Western HERO, but yeah. It was an attempt to avoid the "fastest gun in the west" syndrome not uncommon in point buy systems. We had a Russian nobleman / big game hunter, a female gambler and the rest were basically gun fighters who spent a ton of points in fast draw from a resulting "bidding war" of trying to be the fastest draw in the party. Funny thing the only time we actually had the classic fast draw in the street it turned into a TPK since the GM set it up as an ambush and railroaded us into blindly walking into it. It was fun up to that point.

Quote from: estar;989067Not true, it was done with magic items rather than formal character mechanics and skills.

cough Long Sword cough

Quote from: Whitewings;989071I will never understand why it's considered terrible to create a character with an eye toward mechanics competence, or even optimization. I'll give you a specific example: I once decided to build an "ideal samurai," one who had all the skills a samurai was supposed to have, ideally. The combat skills were at 15, the non-combat were at 12, and I worked out the ideal values for DX and IQ. Result: 12 IQ, 13 DX, and enough points left to buy up ST and HT, plus a point in something else, I can't remember where I spent it. So character optimization led to reasonable stats, a broad range of skills, and an overall well-rounded character. I see nothing wrong in that. Or in D&D and similar, your character is a professional fighter, or bard, or sorceror, or whatever, in a  high risk business. Do you honestly think that the character isn't going to know anything about how to be effective in that profession? Or do you honestly believe that a modern day mercenary fighter doesn't put time into studying different situation,s different weapons, different load outs, to know what's most effective for a given situation?

Frankly, the idea that it's somehow morally wrong to create a character who can actually do something well is just incomprehensible to me.

It is the focus on best way to mechanically build vs what makes sense for the character concept that I think bugs most talking about it. I don't think anybody has an issue with an efficiently designed character if it fits the character description.

Quote from: Whitewings;989071I will never understand why it's considered terrible to create a character with an eye toward mechanics competence, or even optimization. I'll give you a specific example: I once decided to build an "ideal samurai," one who had all the skills a samurai was supposed to have, ideally. The combat skills were at 15, the non-combat were at 12, and I worked out the ideal values for DX and IQ. Result: 12 IQ, 13 DX, and enough points left to buy up ST and HT, plus a point in something else, I can't remember where I spent it. So character optimization led to reasonable stats, a broad range of skills, and an overall well-rounded character. I see nothing wrong in that. Or in D&D and similar, your character is a professional fighter, or bard, or sorceror, or whatever, in a  high risk business. Do you honestly think that the character isn't going to know anything about how to be effective in that profession? Or do you honestly believe that a modern day mercenary fighter doesn't put time into studying different situation,s different weapons, different load outs, to know what's most effective for a given situation?

Frankly, the idea that it's somehow morally wrong to create a character who can actually do something well is just incomprehensible to me.

I'm not sure that a well-rounded character would be considered "optimized?" And no one's arguing for self-gimping. But you shouldn't "have" to have some sort of "optimal" build to sit at the table. You shouldn't have to be a system master.

Speaking of, that term is the eternal crux of the argument. A system master, i.e., optimizer, assumes there's one "best" way to make a character. And the more widgets, bells & whistles there are in a chargen system, the greater chance this view will hold sway at that table. Take class X, dip into class Y, so you can take Feat Q to create the perfect "I win" button. That's what "optimization" too often looks like. Hence my main beef--nothing much is learned from perfection, save that perfection is a dead end. There's nothing heroic about storming Omaha beach inside an Atlas mech. But that is, evidently, how some optimizers want to feel, all the time.

In the end, it's just a control issue. Some handle lack of control with panache, others with whining, making chargen a true, character-revealing process, in more ways than one.

Quote from: Bren;989069Didn't 3E initiate feat trees?

Yes. The thing all the people espousing "it's always been thus" in the context of D&D are overlooking are two factors that were new with 3.x:
1) Officially-sanctioned non-random attribute generation, coupled with choice in assignment. In previous editions it was all-random rolls, and if you were lucky you might be able to choose how you assigned them. 3.x gave you official options to not roll at all, and make your stats the way you wanted to.
2) Significantly more options for customisation, and a generally more complex game. In earlier editions you had attributes, class/race (which might be the same thing), equipment. In 3.x it's attributes, class, race, Feats, assign skill points, equipment. Given you can choose what you get for the first, that means many more opportunities in the other bits given the greater complexity.

Quote from: Toadmaster;989076It is the focus on best way to mechanically build vs what makes sense for the character concept that I think bugs most talking about it. I don't think anybody has an issue with an efficiently designed character if it fits the character description.

Well, the whole field seems rather abstruse to those of us used to "Roll 3d6 in order six times and get on with it!"

Quote from: Kiero;989082Yes. The thing all the people espousing "it's always been thus" in the context of D&D are overlooking are two factors that were new with 3.x:

This is an out of game behavior, the fact that as far as D&D editions 3.X introduced novel (for D&D) mechanics didn't change the underlying fact that a good deal many hobbyists engage in character optimization irregardless of system. In OD&D/AD&D it was the optimal loadout, in 2E it was loadout and picking kits. Then came along 3e. Along the way you had Traveller grognards arguing over the relative merit of FGMP versus Gause rifle. Or what one should pack in a triple turrent. Or you had Runequest hobbyist plotting their way through the training rules figuring which cult offer the most bang for lunar spent.

What 3.X did is just snatch out all the hobbyists that were interested in character customization and combat system with some level of tactical detail. Before the trend was for these hobbyist to migrate to games like GURPS, Runequest, or any of the Storyteller games. It quite apparent after the initial explosion of interest in D&D that that many (not all or most) players prized being able to customize their characters and have more options during combat or other action resolution.

That the original sin, in my view, was catering to the convention tournaments in what was published. And with AD&D that the solution fix one's ills with tabletop roleplaying is more fucking rules.

For me I was forced to confront the issue of character optimization early on. Circa 1980 in my hometown in rural northwest PA, among the gamers younger than 1st year college, what many did was hop from campaign to campaign with their characters. It was a thing to say, "Hey Johnny is running a game over on Elm Street let's grab some characters and go." It was a rare referee that had was called a closed campaign among middle school and high school gamers. Optimal builds, in the form of magic item loadouts, was rampant. There was several players who were notorious for taking innocuous magic items and combining them into game breaking tactics.

I was the referee that was known for letting people trash my campaign. At first with a homebrew, then with Greyhawk, finally with the Wilderlands of High Fantasy which I stuck with to this day. I also was a gamer who liked to referee more than playing which meant I had people asking me to run stuff more often than not. The deal with my campaign that yes you could trash it but it would be a challenge. And while I would let players bring characters from outside, they are limited in the magic items they could bring and they had to keep a separate copy for my campaign afterwards.

Now I am a decent gamer and win more often than I lose. However there are many who are better than me. I am the person who more likely to place high rather than win a tournament. So I had to deal with friends and acquaintances that were one step ahead of me when it came to charops.

The typical response was become draconian in the rules and be miserly with what one hands out. Even in middle school I was self-aware enough to see widespread dislike of this style. So I opted to figure out how to make it a challenge to trash my setting even if the player or players are capable of killing any individual they encounter.

And for the most part I succeeded. How? The biggest one at first was the fact that the previous campaign became the background of the next campaign. Most referees then and now would make a new setting from scratch. In contrast the characters from the previous campaign became the NPCs of the next campaign. This included any of those who a product of extreme charops for the time. Later I became more adept at creation situation where being able to kill any single individual in the immediate environment wasn't a optimal solution for what the players wanted. I took advantage of the fact that  most players when they want to be king don't want to rule over a kingdom of graves.

Flash forward to today, I am a referee who has magic item shops and prices lists.  A referee that rolls with whatever whacked out scheme the players come up with. In fact right now I am running a OD&D campaign, the Majestic Wilderlands, two of the players never played before and one of them is a friend who is notorious for doing charops. Of course he zeroed in on the magic item price list.  But now a couple of months later some of his plan worked out but he worked at making those happen through his adventures.

The deal is this, I don't view it as an issue. You fix it by how you design your campaign. You play the campaign, and then the results go into the next. It that simple.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;989084Well, the whole field seems rather abstruse to those of us used to "Roll 3d6 in order six times and get on with it!"

I like point buy systems because I can design exactly what I want, but I certainly don't hate random character gen. Being able to as you say, "just roll your dice and get on with it" is definitely a perk of that method. I've had some really fun characters that were not at all what I had wanted to play.

Most fellow gamers are in the middle imo. Optimize to a certain extent yet not so much as to be a power gamer. I have seen players with gimped characters try and roleplay their way through everything. Sometimes one just can't. As well as one trick combat tanks who can't roleplay their way through a wet paper bag. The main problem I think beyond the players is the game mechanics. The system rewards someone with higher attributes while penalizing those with lower ones. Combat oriented characters in D&D can get by if a player runs them careful. Casters in later editions kind screw themselves imo because low primary attribute means that certain spell levels are unavlaiable and saving against those spells is fairly easy. The funny and sad thing about is that those who ignore that tend to be penalized later by the system. Casting a Charm Person spell with a int or cha of 12 the DC to save against it is 12 and expect it to be very effective.  Good luck with that. Some rpgs can work with low primary attributes mostly generic ones.

With Pathfinder which has so many trap options character builds while not a must do help imo. I don't think it's a bad thing either.

Quote from: Toadmaster;989118I like point buy systems because I can design exactly what I want, but I certainly don't hate random character gen. Being able to as you say, "just roll your dice and get on with it" is definitely a perk of that method. I've had some really fun characters that were not at all what I had wanted to play.

I've used both a great deal and my opinion on which is better keeps switching. I'm playing in one campaign and running another where all the player-characters are based on point-buy and they are both good campaigns. However, the next campaign I run is not only going to be random chargen but it's going to be full-on lifepath.

Quote from: Toadmaster;989076Western HERO, but yeah. It was an attempt to avoid the "fastest gun in the west" syndrome not uncommon in point buy systems. We had a Russian nobleman / big game hunter, a female gambler and the rest were basically gun fighters who spent a ton of points in fast draw from a resulting "bidding war" of trying to be the fastest draw in the party. Funny thing the only time we actually had the classic fast draw in the street it turned into a TPK since the GM set it up as an ambush and railroaded us into blindly walking into it. It was fun up to that point.



cough Long Sword cough



It is the focus on best way to mechanically build vs what makes sense for the character concept that I think bugs most talking about it. I don't think anybody has an issue with an efficiently designed character if it fits the character description.

This

Is this just a long winded " get off my lawn, amiright?" thread?