The various 4e adventure modules I've seen/read/run don't exactly support this claim
Most of 'em don't. Most of 'em don't for any other edition, too.
The system provided a mechanism to integrate non-combat challenges into the game with the same weight as combat challenges, and in a way that kept everyone involved. (One of the over-looked reasons combat seems to dominate in D&D is that combat, thanks to initiative, thanks to every class having some solid combat abilities, involves every player, while non-combat often involves only single caster & a single spell or a single expert and a roll or two - the DM can neither string out such things to fill a substantial proportion of the game, nor afford to do so, and leave the rest of the group out of it for so long, cf, Netrunner Problem.)
My concern was that some of the skill challenges (even in published modules) were in some cases just a way of skating around actually roleplaying, much like the various "social" skills (bluff, diplomacy, intimidate, etc.) were used in 3e.
It's been a pet peeve of mine ever since Mearls articulated the Pillars, but:
the whole game is roleplaying, combat, interaction, exploration, it's all roleplaying.
What you mean is that 3e 'social skills' tended to obviate social interaction scenes. "I diplomacize him" :rattle: "68. He's Helpful now." Yeah, it's a point.
Skill Challenges were a reaction to that. Instead of one character making one roll, they involved the whole party. They were mechanically effed at first, but banged into workable shape quickly. They could have developed into a system to rival the depth/interest the combat system had achieved, but they only evolved for about 2 years or so, rather than for 3 decades...
But, the deeper issue goes back further than the edition war. There's always been an odd juxtaposition, in D&D, between resolving actions based on the abilities of the character vs based on the abilities of the player. In the earliest game, it seems, there was a strong streak of 'puzzle game' to the experience. Players learned to recognize monsters, to quiz the DM for environmental details to find traps & secret doors, and so forth. Spells were push-buttons and attacks were based almost wholly on the character, but most everything else - the whole 'exploration' and 'social' pillars of those early days, were based on the interaction of player & DM.
I know a lot of us look back fondly on that aspect of play. And some of us arguably 'abused' it (What do I need CHA for? The party'll use the Pally's CHA modifier for reaction checks, after that all that matters is what we have to say) - I know I did.
But the games been moving away from it for virtually its entire history. As soon as Greyhawk introduced the Thief, things just everyone had been doing by 'player skill,' became percentile rolls (rolls so bad, a lot of players /tried/ to keep doing everything by player skill!). It was an inauspicious beginning, but ever so slowly we got secondary skills, non-weapon proficiencies, Skills & Powers, d20 skill ranks, and, finally Proficiency.
If you let it, the system has increasingly allowed players to play characters different from themselves in way other than physical strength & magical ability. That's all to the good, IMHO.
So tie it back on-topic: What I meant was that the particular subject of this thread and OP, that of the over-eagerness of optimizers to dominate conversations about how to "properly" play the game, has absolutely nothing to do with edition wars, as the overall issue, as has been pointed out several times now, predates the very notion of editions. So when people jump in and blame 4e, they do so baselessly and are way off-track. I mean, as has been said, we were already seeing this 3.X, and it predated that system by quite a bit too.
The only point I can think of against optimization going all the way back ("let's all use iron spikes, they're cheap, and do a d6 like every other weapon!") is that there was a definite shift with the release of the 2e 'Complete' books, towards more player-chosen options to define their characters and what those characters could do.
Prior to that, you chose race, class and from then on, you *were* the spells you were able to add to your book, and the magic items you found. Everything else was prettymuch locked in.
Come the Complete ______ Handbook, and you could at least add a Kit...
It really depends on the player; I find reverse correlation about as common as correlation, which means as likely as not that there's not actually any correlation between the two at all.
Nod. A better way to look at it is that optimization or system mastery are skillsets or tools, even though it seems like 'optimizing' is a goal. It's not, you choose something to optimize /for/, that's the goal.
Concept is a goal.
You can optimize for that. You can ignore it and optimize for DPR (or Diplomancy or whatever else). You can optimize for a balance or synergy among several goals. (And, it's synergistic more often than people might realize.)
There are differing ideas about so-called "trap" options, and how worthwhile they are regardless of how well they match a "concept". Once on the RPG SE someone asked about some ways to build a wrestling character in 3.5, and the question wasn't explicitly about an optimization (I mean, they wanted to focus on grappling after all), so I talked about the time my friend played a Reaping Mauler and choked an Owlbear to death, and I'm sure as soon as you read the words "Reaping Mauler" you could imagine the response I got to that. Soured me on the concept of optimization for a long time.
Yep, understandable. In essence, a Reaping Mauler was a PrC, specific to a marginal concept, that was strictly inferior to less obvious builds. The very definition of a 'Trap.' Better-balanced systems avoid such 'Timmeh Card' artifacts, 3e built them in on purpose - Cook, I think it was, came right out and said so. The advantage of avoiding introducing trap options in the first place is that you can fairly easily create the character you want, by taking the obvious choices, and not be severely disadvantaged for it.
For instance, ironically, in 3.x I decided I wanted to play what I called a 'canny fighter' who was a damaged-goods veteran sort of personality (I'd been reading a lot of military SF at the time). Those were concepts, but they immediately suggested certain feats. Expertise, because of the INT requirement, and Combat Reflexes because it felt to me like the 'twitchy' combat-veteran who reacts as if he were in a fight, even in peace-time, but whose reflexes save his life in battle. I then applied my nascent system mastery and came up with something not entirely unlike one of the notorious optimal fighter builds - the chain-gun-tripper. Except I disarmed, because I was nostalgic for the Ransuer.
It was a pretty fair build, in spite of the 'sacrifices' for concept, and I did have a lot of both RP and tactical-combat fun with it over the years, but ultimately he was barely staying relevant much of the time because he was along-side full casters, even though there builds were decidedly non-optimal.
That campaign wrapped in 3.5, at 14th level, and we segued into 4e. In the meantime I'd briefly played a Paladin 'combat diplomancer' - he was a very low-grade optimized-diplomat, and a modest combatant who tried to help & organize his party. It was optimizing up-hill, to say the least, but it was intriguing, and one or two instances where it really worked were kinda awesome. An interview with a playtester talking about a warlord reminded me of one of the incidents where that build actually worked well. So, I partially combined the two concepts I'd been struggling to bring to life in 3e, and created a Tactical Warlord - a brash (low WIS), brilliant (18 int) young officer, this time, not a twitchy veteran. He had modest (14) STR & CHA, too, and that was about the limit of what I could squeeze out of point-buy. But, wow, did it work. Every round of every fight I was doing something to help my allies fight better.
Y'know what didn't work in 4e? The chain-gun-tripper...
Over time I started to understand and recognize the value of such analysis, but less so to the tune of "you shouldn't ever play that character/choose that option because it sucks" and more so "if this option really is so mechanically subpar, what can we do to fix it so you can play the character you want to play and not feel like you're getting left behind".
Much more constructive. The optimizers back then should have been pointing to the build options that did work for the concept. But, part of the optimizer personality very often is a certain - *ahem* impolite - elitism.
What 3e favoured, as I learned by trial and error and sheer luck, was a character build tactic of focusing on one specific useful thing within your class (whatever it may be) almost to the exclusion of all others; followed by a consistent in-play tactic of bending things around such that your one really good focus area could be brought to bear on whatever the situation happened to be.
That's applied system mastery - sure. Optimize the character for something, make sure that you can /make/ that something happen.
What 3e didn't favour was any kind of generalist or jack-of-all-trades character; and I don't mean multiclass.
The Utility-Belt Wizard was pretty generalist in a lot of ways.
Even a simple Fighter, for example, who didn't pour every possible feat into one or two specific weapons or fighting styles (and instead tried to spread his abilities around) would most of the time end up far inferior to one who did.
Especially the Fighter. But, then, it had long been the case. Every since 1e UA introduced (OK, a dragon mag article introduced it first, IIRC), Weapon Specialization, the Fighter has been obliged to be very, well, specialized. Even before that, once he acquired a good magical weapon (or other magic item), he'd use it as much as possible, often 'warping the character around it.'
