The Min-Max Problem: Solved

DMMike said:

So, did we see more or less min-maxing in 4e?

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Personally, I saw less of it, but that's just because I got out of the game before any of the supplements landed. As I understand it, late 4E saw roughly the same degree of optimization as late 3E (i.e. the combination of alternate racial features and feats and magic items and class features from different supplements, to create powerful combos that could completely overwhelm anything a new player could hope to achieve). That is to say, the phenomenon of min-maxxing wasn't any less common, although the effects of it weren't quite as disruptive.

Two things that kept optimization in check were: 1) Abilities were much more tightly designed, with less of a focus on natural language and more of a focus on constraining the math; and 2) Enemies suffered extreme degrees of HP bloat, such that a fully optimized character still couldn't one-shot anything, although they could possibly two-shot a monster that would take seven hits from less-optimized characters of the same level.

It's also worth noting that 4E raised the baseline expectations for optimization across-the-board. It was entirely expected that everyone would start with an 18 in their one important stat, and pick a race that synergized well with their class. The math assumed it, so you weren't actually gaining anything by doing so; you were merely hindering yourself if you failed to do it.

DMMike said:

Or if you're a min-maxer, how did you feel about 4e's efforts to reduce your down time?

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Missing still felt like failure, and it took even longer before it came back around to my turn again.

On the other aspect of the question, where combat optimization is necessary to keep a character alive, there was no real fear of death in 4E. Because of the massive HP bloat, everyone could easily withstand several hits before falling. You didn't have the 3.X situation, where a single critical hit (or failed save) could instantly kill you. And while that might seem like optimization was less important, since you never made one single all-important die roll, it wasn't really the case. With everyone requiring several hits to drop, you needed to optimize your attack roll as much as ever, just so that you could kill the enemies in a reasonable amount of time. When it takes half an hour to play through one round of combat, you really don't want combat to go on for one more round.

DMMike said:

(Pssst what's "face?")

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I believe this is the origin of the term:

Mike R said:

regarding the waiting for turn problem, I just have everyone submit their actions simultaneously, and then resolve them all simultaneously along with all NPC actions; that way we don't suffer from the "always waiting for someone" that I get in a lot of games I've been in, in the past

declaration: After I declare the start of a round, players have as long as they want to discuss their options, in and out of character. However, any player who hasn’t posted after 48 hours is skipped. My players know this is the one rule I’m a hardass about, as posting delays lead to a self-reinforcing death of game interest. Any player who is skipped three consecutive times is removed from the game.

resolution: We simply use the system rules. For example, if a wizard gets hit in the same round she’s casting, the spell is successful if she makes her concentration check or appropriate save. If the rules are ambiguous, I typically favor the players unless it’s clear that the opponent’s action has precedence for whatever reason. Also, in some cases, the spell may be successful, but interfered with in unpredictable ways. Same goes for other actions.

reactions: In general, many reactions can be handled automatically: contingency for example. These are resolved in the normal resolution phase with other actions. For voluntary reactions like opp attacks, players have two options: they can declare “standing conditions” for their reactions, in which case they’re handled as above, or they can choose after the resolution phase. In this case, they take effect in the resolution phase of the following round.

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What I see here: active GMing to overcome or preempt problems that arise from the system or the table. Huz-zah!

Do you have any min-maxers in the group? If so, what problems are they looking to overcome by min-maxing?

DMMike said:

What I see here: active GMing to overcome or preempt problems that arise from the system or the table. Huz-zah!

Do you have any min-maxers in the group? If so, what problems are they looking to overcome by min-maxing?

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It's not really an issue in most of my groups; my players learn pretty quickly that big numbers don't really contribute much to solving problems.

A novel approach to reducing min-maxing for success is in the game Mouseguard. I will let my min-maxer persona describe how to do this.

When I min-max, the goal is always to build a solid base to expand on. I can live with a mediocre character at low levels (where the difference between different characters is usually minimal anyway). In Mouseguard, you earn experience for every roll, fail or success, and in order to succeed, you need a number of successes AND failures. More rolls generate more experience. If you fail, you have to roll again to negate the failure before you can succeed, resulting in more xp.

So the optimizing player identifies the situations where failure is not so bad, and fail at those, while succeeding at the crucial tasks. Since Mouseguard also has a fail-forward mechanism, its is actually quite easy to do.

Mouseguard is a procedural system (I think it is similar to Dungeon World in this, but I never tried Dungeon World). It uses a minigame that is a mix of paper-rock-scissors and dice to resolve situations. And this procedure can be gamed to no end.

The consequences of failures early in a task can be minimal (depending on the GMs mood in assigning failure penalties). By always defining "avoiding injury" as your major objective, the objective you normally achieve even on a minor failure, you can fail to your hearts content and still succeed at the entire task. Skill in the minigame trumphs character ability.

Not sure if this is a good way to handle min-maxing, but to me it was quite novel.

[MENTION=2303]Starfox[/MENTION], Mouseguard is a Burning Wheel variant, and the advancement system you describe is similar (not identical) to the BW system that I mentioned upthread.

And [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], if you want to play a system with a high degree of failure, you should try Burning Wheel. It is far more brutal than any version of D&D except perhaps 1st level in the classic game.

pemerton said:

And [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], if you want to play a system with a high degree of failure, you should try Burning Wheel. It is far more brutal than any version of D&D except perhaps 1st level in the classic game.

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I'll keep that in mind...

Starfox said:

A novel approach to reducing min-maxing for success is in the game Mouseguard.

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This is not how I read the text. Define "success".

order to succeed, you need a number of successes AND failures

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This is like saying that in order to succeed you need a certain number of X's and O's or a certain number of Red and Blue. Once you redefine failure as a component of success, it's not really failure anymore. Yet, we know what failure really is no matter how slippery we've made the language, because the min-maxer in you identifies it.

So the optimizing player identifies the situations where failure is not so bad, and fail at those, while succeeding at the crucial tasks. Since Mouseguard also has a fail-forward mechanism, its is actually quite easy to do.

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Again, if you are going forward, it's not failure.

By always defining "avoiding injury" as your major objective, the objective you normally achieve even on a minor failure, you can fail to your hearts content and still succeed at the entire task.

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I actually discussed this earlier in the thread. If the goal of play is to dominate it and get your way and never receive a significant setback, then games that are supposed to discourage that approach to play actually are often facilitating it. Failing forward isn't failure: calling it failing forward is a misnomer. A typical pass/fail system has something like "For fortune outcome X or greater, succeed. For X-1 or less, fail." But fail forward systems typically have, "For fortune outcome X or greater, get exactly what you want. For X-1 or less, succeed." The 'penalty' as such imposed on the gamer is that they don't get exactly what they want, but on the other hand they never fail - that is they never get exactly what they don't want. The character and therefore the play and therefore the player is always validated.

Not sure if this is a good way to handle min-maxing, but to me it was quite novel.

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I'm not sure it is intended to or even tries to handle min-maxing at all. I think it's an inherent assumption of the game that players don't have that as a motivation, and to the extent that they do go ahead and validate them for it. For example, there is no attempt what so ever at balancing chargen and ensuring equality of spotlight or equality of agency. On example of just how little the game cares about balance issues is that it sets up this elaborate combat minigame, something like rock-paper-scissors. But a close reading of the rules reveals that there is no objective reason not to choose 'rock' every time in the minigame - it loses to nothing. 'Rock' trumps every other choice and is trumped by nothing, while every other choice is trumped by at least one and sometimes two choice. Worse, an individual character can optimize for one choice, but gains no benefit for switching its play from its optimal choice equal to the loss it suffers by not doing the one thing it is good at. So there is no reason at all to play the mini-game, nor as far as I can tell does it offer any value to play.

I have a copy of the rules on my bookshelf. I read through them twice and found them very thought provoking. But it definitely struck me as one of those rule books that is vastly more read than played, nor did the game rules actually seem to describe the game the text wanted you to create.

Celebrim, if your definition of failure is to fail the overall task, not just to have some setbacks along the road, then it is very different from mine. As a storytelling GM, overall success is assumed - the only failure I as a GM push for are temporary setbacks/quirks. For example, death happens only at the player's option in my games.

Otherwise, I agree that Mouse Guard seems to fail at some of the objectives it sets itself. I have not dug sufficiently into the minigame to say if you are right - they key seemed to me to be to time your recovery actions, so that you can end the fight without having taken any of the demerits opponents score on you even when you win. But honestly I am not that interested, I played the game once.

Here's what I meant in the OP, in case we're derailing a bit:

Succeed/fail: rules that set up a dichotomy of A) get what you want or B) suffer pain or boredom. As in, "welp, I failed my Caster Level check, so my level 13 Invert Monster spell just did jack and squat to my opponent. And I'm not allowed to do anything else besides talk until my next turn." Or "I just failed my Detect Traps check on Lanefan's lawn, and now I have to take 18d6 damage. Why didn't I spend more time min/maxing?"

Min/max: creating a character that is embarrassingly unbalanced (to anyone but the character's player). This is not synonymous with optimizing.

Some points I picked up, wandering through the thread:

"Degrees of success encourage min-maxing." I'll buy that. Good point, actually. If watering down succeed/fail in one direction can reduce min/maxing, watering it down in the other direction can increase it. Which makes me think, well, maybe we just need to focus less on numbers. But...

"Less focus on natural language and more focus on math" kept min-maxing down in 4e. It sounds like the designers had to implement rule-based leashes to what, make characters more balanced?

What if I was diametrically wrong, and more succeed/fail can be a cure for min/maxing? In the sense that whenever a PC makes a Succeed decision for her character, a Failure, somewhere else, becomes required? This resembles Fate points and Numenera intrusions: when you succeed you lose a resource, and when you fail you gain one. It also echoes [MENTION=2303]Starfox[/MENTION]'s comments on failure being useful in Mousegard.