This may sound like a rant but I dont intend it as one. As I have mentioned many times on this site I have been gaming for decades but admittedly havent been exposed to the hobby at large for the most part until very recently. As a result I find myself discovering what is old news and clearly obvious to many of you. Forgive me if I sound completely uninformed and naive when I choose to comment on one of these discoveries.

Recently I have come across various discussions that seem to be centered around a ridiculous amount of effort in a characters stats, abilities, skills, feats or what have you. Players are comparing this skill with another one and complain they arent balanced or that this character type is disadvantage because of this ability v.s. another one. A tremendous amount of discussion surrounds why a character should be made this way v.s. another way, how it may limit their combat options or force them to be played in a given manner to take advantage of this or that trait.

I will admit Im reading these and thinking WTF? We are talking about a Roleplaying game right? The rules are there to emulate the character, they govern and regulate the actions of an imagined individual, not a block of mechanics. This isnt a boardgame or wargame afterall.

I cant remember a time where I, or anyone at my table, assigned a trait, skill, ability, stat or anything else to a character for any other reason than that is how how we envisioned the character! If I imagine my character as having a certain ability its seems crazy to drop that ability because by thumbing through the book I found one that will perform a bit better. Better, Worse, Good, Bad - these are all relative terms and I dont see how they should influence the building of an individual with a background, personality, habits etc.

If a choice of a skill or something was discovered to be a disadvantage to a character, thats simply what that person has to deal with in life. They can work around it, learn something else eventually or whatever but the very notion of spending a long periods, min-maxing over what abilities to choose and how they, mechanically, relate is so foreign to me I find it hard to grasp.

Am I a rarity in this?

No, not a rarity at all.

Character Generation is the start of the proicess for me. As soon as the PC is in play, it starts to change, so after 20 sessions it will be very different to that created in chargen

We choose skills etc based on how we see the PC, not on the best combination of skills/abilities.

I think you are. I think that is one of the reasons disadvantage systems became popular. I've run across enough players in my time who won't RP a characters negative traits to strongly favor systems that give me something for playing an imperfect character. I got tired of being penalized for having a PC with some flaws, but I like PCs who have some character.

Min / Maxing is also a thing, seeing as how there is an actual term for the behavior. I'm not fond of that either as I prefer to build a character as I see him, not necessarily the most efficient way to do so.

So yes, if you have avoided these things until recently, count yourself lucky.

I think to a certain extent everyone optimizes their characters to a certain degree imo. I have seen both sides of the issue. Characters that optimize too much and others that are so non-optimized as to be useless at the table. I tend to want to DM and play with the first more than the second. I can handle a optmizer. The second tends to involve more work as a DM. Build the low Str and Con Fighter in a game of D&D. Yet somehow wants to be as good as the other player who does the opposite. Then instead of blaming themselves for their choices at character development then it's everyone else. No one forced anyone to build a character who can't carry enough weight, does less damage, hit less and can take less damage. I will give advice as a DM and player during character creation. Feel free to ignore it. I DON"T want to hear whining and complaining later. Mind you depending on the rpg one can do the above. Gurps, Hero and Savage Worlds it can be done. With D&D not so much. Even then I see why some use, make and talk about character builds because their is so many trap and crap options in Pathfinder. A description that has great fluff yet the crunch sucks balls. Another issue with rpgs that are so dependent on attributes like D&D is that one has to have them high enough for certain abilites to be effective. One wants to play a character that uses many Enchantment/Charm style spells. Better have a decent Int or Cha otherwise good luck affecting anyone with those spells. Build your low Str Fighter don't expect me or the others at the table to automatically be your pack mules. Or expect me as a DM to throw in items that boost Str and Con. Especially don't whine and complain when all advice given is ignored. Build the character one wants assume the responsabilites of ones own chocies.

Quote from: rgrove0172;988844We are talking about a Roleplaying game right?

Most role-players don't role-play. See fat neckbeards parked at game tables, doing nothing.

Yes, we are rarities.

It's one of the reason I hate 3rd edition and later.  I can tolerate complicated character generation in a complex point buy game like CHAMPIONS, but modern D&Ds combination of levels, skill points, and feats is a hellish 17-sided clusterfuck of gaming fail.

Added to by the fact that the rules are garbage; rather than playtesting, the asswipe in charge at one point said that bad choices were left in the rules to "encourage system mastery," which is fancy language for "we don't know what we're doing."  In Star Wars d20, for example, there are rules that actually do the opposite of what the text says they do.

Stormwind called and it wants it's Fallacy back.

The bullshit that one is unable to roleplay if one has a slightly optimized character is just that pure 1000% prime bullshit. Every edition encouraged it imo. With 3E and later it's more obvious. With 2E their was actual penalties to dump stating so their was less of that. Yet people optimizing characters by taking certain proficiences and attributes it was still there. Then again it's the same in the hobby. Every edition of a rpg a gamer likes is above reproach. The ones they don't like of course inevitably encourage rollplaying. 2E had it's share of clusterfuck of gaming fail imo. Unclear rules, the crap about penalizing demi-humans. Uneven Kit design where some were better or some were worth ripping out the page and using it for toilet paper. Over the year and with many gaming groups 90% of the time we have been able to build optimized characters of various degrees and still roleplay. The other 10% it's the few who refuse to roleplay no matter the edition or simply want to game together kill some stuff and take their treasure.

No we are not rarities. We can think that we are but we are not. About as rare as oxygen in the air.

It's a lot harder to "optimize"* when you take out all the widgets. There's a difference between buying better armor and planning your "build" 10 levels in advance. Of course, I'm sure you can RP using any system, whether you munchkin it up or not. I'd just rather not wait two hours for you to roll your PC out the garage, when we could be 10 miles down the road already while you where constantly checking under your hood for that extra module to bolt on.

*euphemism for unabashed min-maxing.

Good point yet every rpg that has a significant release schedule suffers from that issue. Not just 3E D&D. Many sourcebooks is both a curse and a blessing. It's also part of gamer dna to want to find the best option or at the very least look at all options. Not to mention their is session zero where the group meets to make characters. Our rule of thumb is make characters first then game. It solves so many problems.

PC build culture did not begin with 3e, but the D20 explosion brought the concept into the mainstream of gaming. Pre-2000, PC build culture was mostly limited to Hero fans and other fans of point-buy games. It was an inherent part of Champions RPGing. AKA, you have 200 points, go forth and do what thou wilst as long as you only use 200 points. Thus, many players did everything possible to squeeze the maximum out of those 200 points. Not a big surprise. Of course, there was also Car Wars, where a similar PC build culture exists. AKA, you have $20,000 and you want to max out your ride for the arena.

Also no surprise that PC build culture players were / are often those players who prefer the mathematics of RPGing (and thus, the combat effectiveness of their PC) over the theatrics of RPGing. Not always, but often.

This gets exacerbated to the extreme online because it's easy to have a gazillion threads on "what's the best combat feat tree" vs. threads on "how do I play a dwarf more dwarfy to achieve maximum dwarfiness"?

Quote from: rgrove0172;988844Am I a rarity in this?

Yes.

Probably not as rare as the annoying white-room theory wonks who obsess about builds though.

Quote from: cranebump;988866It's a lot harder to "optimize"* when you take out all the widgets. There's a difference between buying better armor and planning your "build" 10 levels in advance.

Correct. I am always puzzled by the latter. It's like those parents sending their baby to baby pilates and assigning half-hour periods of the day for wooden toys, for music, for books and so on, and choosing which kindergarten to send their kid to so they have the best chance of going to Harvard.

Ambition is nice, but come on, seriously?

Quote from: sureshot;988853Build the low Str and Con Fighter in a game of D&D. Yet somehow wants to be as good as the other player who does the opposite. Then instead of blaming themselves for their choices at character development then it's everyone else. No one forced anyone to build a character who can't carry enough weight, does less damage, hit less and can take less damage. I will give advice as a DM and player during character creation. Feel free to ignore it. I DON"T want to hear whining and complaining later.

Some would call that character development. No a weak, sickly fighter shouldn't be as good in combat as a strong healthy one, but as a player there should be some aspect to reward a more interesting character, additional skills (with age comes wisdom), maybe he makes up for his weakness with dirty tricks. He has been around a long time and probably has many contacts or a positive reputation.

Playing an aging has been fighter should be an interesting option, a good GM / system will reward the player in some regard. Failure to do so leads to everybody playing boring Mr. 18/00 and where is the fun in that.

Quote from: Toadmaster;988902Some would call that character development. No a weak, sickly fighter shouldn't be as good in combat as a strong healthy one, but as a player there should be some aspect to reward a more interesting character, additional skills (with age comes wisdom), maybe he makes up for his weakness with dirty tricks. He has been around a long time and probably has many contacts or a positive reputation.

Character development is all good if the character playing the sickly weak fighter accepts his limitations. Not build that type of character then expect to do the same as the strong healthy high Str character. While claiming the high Str character is a munchkin optimizer. That type of bullshit happens to much. I have roleplayed weaker characters on occasion. I played a clumsy Thief in second edition and it was one of those groups where their was a second Thief and he had higher DEx. I was not trying to do same as the other character or claim he was a optimizer. Gamers want to build the character they want but they don't want to assume responsabilties for their choices during character creation

Quote from: Toadmaster;988902Playing an aging has been fighter should be an interesting option, a good GM / system will reward the player in some regard. Failure to do so leads to everybody playing boring Mr. 18/00 and where is the fun in that.

I'm not saying don't play the character. Build the aging Fighter yet know the limitation of the character. Playing the aging Fighter that charges like a idiot into battle and gets knocked out or killed. Or the younger stronger Fighter is better in combat then bitch about yeah I'm going to call you out on your bullshit at the table. Both as a player and as a DM.

I don't put up with that crap in games I ref, but most of the games have random generation so it's not really an issue. You get what you get and you play it. I have no patience for "optimizing" based on rules and percentages and what not. I remember playing Hero system aka Champions and discovering this world of "builds" and skimming/shaving points and following the letter of the law over the spirit...I quickly tired of dealing with  characters with a Con of 23 and an Int of 18 (or whatever the breakpoints were). I never really understood the object, it was like a contest between players to see who could cheat the best without actually cheating or something. I don't get it.