Quote from: beejazz;587843Yep. With the Denners, I'm sure the outrage is predominantly over the fighter given the significance of the cost associated with class. I doubt any would actually bitch about my brewer if I brought him to the table.

As for the imagined personality of someone who invests in basket-weaving... *shrug* They're prone to hyperbole and ad-hominem. It's not actually worth addressing.

On the one hand I can sort of see the fighter argument, except that if they're min-maxed they won't have the attributes to power more skill points anyway.

Amen to the threadcrapping, but I suspect the term applies to anyone who would be willing to place even a single point in basket weaving or any other non-perfect skill selection.

Quote from: mcbobbo;587783I don't want to derail another thread, but I'm coming up short on the term 'basket weaver'.  It's being used as a derrogative, and seems directed at 'lesser gamers', but that's all I'm gaining from the context.

I found this, via Google, which may be a definition of it:



So, perhaps, 'basket weaver' means 'player who would place points into useless skills like basket weaving'?

It brings up a side curiousity - how would you deal with deliberately non-optimal choices in your games?  E.g. character comes from a long line of basket weavers?

I'd probably advise the player that I'm not planning on touching on this topic in my campaign, and I'd make them reiterate to me that it won't wind up being a good investment.  But once everyone was fully informed, I think this would be the end of it.

I'd also give XP any time the player found creative ways to work it back into the game.

OTOH, I may well give the characters each free skill points in whatever non-useful background skills they wanted.  Something like four would do the trick, I think.  And so long as it was offered to the group, even if they didn't all take it, I think maybe the group as a whole goes unharmed.

The best way to deal with this is at the design stage.Seriously there should be no reason that a player's basket weaving heritage should handicap the character for the rest of the game. In 3rd I'd solve this issue by just giving the player points in basket weaving at no cost. It is literally so useless of a "thing" that it can be given away.

Now if the player is deliberately making a weak character with the intention of being weak I would probably just allow them to do so. I don't really care. I would however make no adjustments to the difficulty of the campaign and if the other players are ready and willing to pick up the slack then there's no need for me to "do" anything. They will either not have fun and regret their decision (at which time I will allow them to change characters) or a good time will be had by all.

Quote from: Ben Rogers;587800We had one person complain that the character didn't have "any useful skills".  

Bingo.  To some players, that complaint seems natural.  To other players, that complaint seems mind-boggling.  Why the difference?

+++Incoming Wall of Text+++
When you are playing a RPG like a competitive sport, with Players V. World, or Players v. Other Tournament Teams, then when you have a party filled with the likes of Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas, and Gimli, someone showing up with Peregrin Took isn't going to garner much goodwill.

In a similar vein, if you are playing the "Heat Style" of Shadowrun/Cyberpunk, then someone showing up with a full "Pink Mohawk" character could be a problem.

It's simply a gaming culture difference.

If you consider your character first and foremost from the point of view of that character and how he grew in that world prior to "entering the campaign" then he probably is going to look quite a bit like a real person in our world as far as skill sets go, ie. be not too optimized.  This older style of play worked very well when most of the real game-effecting mechanics was hard-coded into your class choice with a relatively low level of optimization.

Place one of these non-optimizers into a game system with a high level of optimization and they tend to do what they always did, create interesting, realistic characters who will underperform compared to a character who had hard-coded abilities.

If, however, you consider your character first and foremost from the metagame point of view that you are playing a game with others and your job is to keep up your end of the team, then you are going to optimize for the adventuring experience.  If you're playing a campaign where your characters are supposed to be highly-skilled professionals from the get-go, then it's not even metagaming.

Where does the problem come from?  The problem comes from the mixture of the two gaming styles, which actually doesn't happen all that often at an actual gaming table (although it does happen), this controversy is mainly of internet manufacture.

Someone who is a heavy optimizer in a group of non-optimizers is a Munchkin etc, someone who is a non-optimizer in a group of optimizers is a Basketweaver etc.

Of course, since this is a controversy concerning a leisure activity of affluent first worlders we're talking about, it becomes vehement to the point of idiocy.

The thread where we nail down the definition of a word used in another thread is the least vitriolic of these threads.

Not sure what to make of this.

I'm not sure why everyone is so down on basket weaving, its pretty useful. When you get down to it, basket weaving isn't just about making baskets, its about taking natural materials like leaves rushes and reeds, sticks and branches, and shaping them into a useful form. Tell Ray Mears that's a useless skill.

As GM I'd give leeway when using it to encompass building fences, roofing, impromptu shelters, even canoes or wicker shields, and by god baskets when you need a basket.

This is part of where the creative imagination of the players comes into play. Stuck in a bamboo cage like the guys in Rambo? Use basket weaving to figure out the weak point and do your work under the cover of darkness. Rattan is made with basketweaving techniques, and that's like lightweight hardwood. Weave coded messages into squares of grass for the rest of the group to find, make a net of briars. Starving to death, clear a river of fish with a simple basket configuration trap.

All of these skills existed at the time for a reason, by understanding these skills and what is involved in using them a GM can help players to stretch them and make them useful in adventuring situations.

Accounting, completely useless right? Hey, your 75% artifact recovery tax is due, and you haven't got nearly the readies. Whip out the accountant and suddenly you're claiming everything from insurance expenses to danger money and possibly a de facto pensionable government position due to doing their jobs for them.

Imagination folks, that's what its all about. And a good understanding between the GM and group of course.

Quote from: The Traveller;587865Imagination folks, that's what its all about. And a good understanding between the GM and group of course.

That's it in a nutshell.

Recently played a game of The One Ring where the entire party's lives were saved by the cooking skills of the hobbit.

Quote from: mcbobbo;587783It brings up a side curiousity - how would you deal with deliberately non-optimal choices in your games?  E.g. character comes from a long line of basket weavers?

"That's fine. I'm not sure how much it will come up in the campaign, but you're the one playing the character. Have you taken anything else that might potentially come up more often?"

I've inadvertantly played a basket weaver character a few times, by not understanding the rule set before play, or creating a character that couldn't interact with the game (The one that springs to mind was a Shadowrun social mage, who was a bit of a coward. He once spent an evening's play hiding in a van, because there was literally nothing else he could do. It was a bit of a "My Guy" incident as well; I could have had him break character, but that would have felt equally wrong.). It's no fun. I think games should avoid including "build traps" like that, or explicitly state when you'd want to take a particular thing and when you wouldn't. See also Toughness in D&D3, or extra health charms in Exalted.

I've also deliberately taken useless skills. My SLA op, a frother psycho with a flick scythe and the desire to be a God of Death, can sew. Why? Because I was drunk, and it was funny. Now he sews the logos on team gear; I suspect he also makes plushies for SLA fankids when I'm not paying attention.

A player who purposefully makes a "useless" character, though, is being disruptive. This is a "you'll know it when you see it" line, though. Some players can make a success of a basket weaver, and some can't.

Quote from: The Traveller;587865I'm not sure why everyone is so down on basket weaving, its pretty useful.

You, sir. You're allowed to take basket weaving in any campaign I run.

Quote from: mcbobbo;587848On the one hand I can sort of see the fighter argument, except that if they're min-maxed they won't have the attributes to power more skill points anyway.

Amen to the threadcrapping, but I suspect the term applies to anyone who would be willing to place even a single point in basket weaving or any other non-perfect skill selection.

It has nothing to do with skill selection. It's moved well past that, particularly since there's only about 2 skills in total that have any significant effect and so there is nothing meaningful you can do with "skill points" anyways.

But leave it to the locals to take everything in an overly literal manner.

Quote from: The Traveller;587865I'm not sure why everyone is so down on basket weaving, its pretty useful. When you get down to it, basket weaving isn't just about making baskets, its about taking natural materials like leaves rushes and reeds, sticks and branches, and shaping them into a useful form. Tell Ray Mears that's a useless skill.

As GM I'd give leeway when using it to encompass building fences, roofing, impromptu shelters, even canoes or wicker shields, and by god baskets when you need a basket.

This is part of where the creative imagination of the players comes into play. Stuck in a bamboo cage like the guys in Rambo? Use basket weaving to figure out the weak point and do your work under the cover of darkness. Rattan is made with basketweaving techniques, and that's like lightweight hardwood. Weave coded messages into squares of grass for the rest of the group to find, make a net of briars. Starving to death, clear a river of fish with a simple basket configuration trap.

All of these skills existed at the time for a reason, by understanding these skills and what is involved in using them a GM can help players to stretch them and make them useful in adventuring situations.

Accounting, completely useless right? Hey, your 75% artifact recovery tax is due, and you haven't got nearly the readies. Whip out the accountant and suddenly you're claiming everything from insurance expenses to danger money and possibly a de facto pensionable government position due to doing their jobs for them.

Imagination folks, that's what its all about. And a good understanding between the GM and group of course.

Interesting because in real life Basket Weaving like Pottery is a critical skill for human development. Baskets and pots allow you to store excess and that allows for the development of wealth which leads to everything from capitalist exploitation of the working class to professional soldiers.

Quote from: Ladybird;587867I've inadvertantly played a basket weaver character a few times, by not understanding the rule set before play, or creating a character that couldn't interact with the game

If it was inadvertant I'd honestly say the blame lay with the GM.

Quote from: TristramEvans;587890If it was inadvertant I'd honestly say the blame lay with the GM.

That depends on the GM fully understanding the game mechanics as well, though, and the sort of analysis that shows why some options are actually crap is sometimes quite non-intuitive.

And my mage, well, I've got to take some of the blame for that.

Quote from: mcbobbo;587845Sounds like a hoot.  Did they know ahead of time that things would go zombie on them?

I did this with a d20 modern game, but mine was more of a bait-and-switch.  They made a scientific/military team, and thought they were going into space.  Through a mishap, though, they wound up in RIFTS.  At the end of the adventure, I gave them all two free levels, and we opened up the fantasy classes and other options.  I said time was passing and they could tailor their characters to the setting.  Worked pretty well, and made for some 'organically grown' characters.

They had no idea what was coming up. I had tried to hint that it might be terrorist related in some way.

The whole point, and the tenuous link to the OP, was that I did not want the PCs to play military types. I wanted them to be everymen put in a difficult situation. Its how we always played CoC as well as an aside.

Quote from: jibbajibba;587889Interesting because in real life Basket Weaving like Pottery is a critical skill for human development. Baskets and pots allow you to store excess and that allows for the development of wealth which leads to everything from capitalist exploitation of the working class to professional soldiers.

It was still being used by industrialised societies in world word one to shore up the sides of trenches, which has clear applications in mining, sieges, and dungeon crawling. You could build an entire fortress complex with the skill, as the Crannógs in Ireland and Scotland illustrate.



Of course I've spent too much time among people for whom basketweaving is an important primary skill not to fully appreciate it, but the same idea applies to any of these skills. Pottery could arguably be linked to rammed earth buildings for example, which are still in wide use today.

Quote from: jibbajibba;587840I hate optimisation becuase its highly unrealistic and becuase I love role playing.

Stormwind fallacy. Incredibly blatant Stromwind fallacy at that, what is this 2006.

Final grade F, See you in the fall semester.

Quote from: Lord Mistborn;587903Stormwind fallacy. Incredibly blatant Stromwind fallacy at that, what is this 2006.

Final grade F, See you in the fall semester.

Not sure what a stormwind falacy is to be honest but in RL optimistation is very very very uncommon. I also don't get the reference to 2006? Was that when you started gaming?

A very small % of real people spend all their time focusing on just one thing. Some do, the very best classical musicians, some nobel prize winners, top olympic athletes but most do not.
Most people do a lot of stuff and find something they either enjoy or do well enough to make a living at. I propose that the majority of RPG characters should be like real people.
I like playing people with weaknesses, people who are falable. Not to say I always play hopeless characters by any means. Though I would never discard a bad set of rolls in D&D nor would I mind playing Captain America in an Avengers game.

I stated at length in various recent threads that I totally understand and am sympathetic to the 'denners' position on the lack of balance in D&D for example and that in the design phase you should look at balance as a key element. However, if you provide options, and a player opts to build a sub-par character with those options then I find no problem with that. You can play whatever character you like.

Now my take on RPGs might not fit yours. That is fine. I am merely expressing an opinion.