D&D 5E Can my table focus on making things fun instead of optimizing?

Malshotfirst

Explorer
I'm more for story vs optimization, but in my experience they're not mutually exclusive. That being said, I view adventurers/heroes as the SOF troops of fantasy land. And in my RW experience (20yrs+), special operators are optimized to hell.

"Stronger" people are harder to kill.
 

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Paraxis

Explorer
It seems people mostly have issues with combat optimization, but you know you can optimize for the other two pillars as well right?

Human druid with the observant feat is great in the exploration part of the game with a high wisdom, +5 bonus to passive checks, and another +5 bonus for passive checks dealing with hearing or smell from having advantage in wolf or direwolf form.

Bard that takes expertise in persuasion and deception, and before a social scene casts enhance ability charisma on himself for hour long advantage.

Just a couple things that show you can optimize and try to be the best you can be without it having anything to do with DPR or AC.
 

Malshotfirst

Explorer
I have to say, playing a Ranger as my first 5E character, that my non combat abilities have been vastly more useful than my DPR. Keeping the party alive in the Faerunian wilderness during HotDQ as well as being able to detect dragons here and there have kept us from being a mobile tpk.
 

KarinsDad

Adventurer
WARNING: Old Grognardis Curmudgeonae thought streams below...

...

First: I have to be a bit more narrative in terms of running the game. Basically, try and keep "numbers" out of it. I won't say, "OK, you can shoot him from where you are if you want; it will be at +2 to hit", and in stead I'll say "OK, you can shoot him from where you are if you want; it will be more accurate". I don't actually use/say a numerical bonus.

...

Second: Don't let the optimizer roll dice, if at all possible.

Being an old grognard myself, I find it a bit odd that one would be so wrapped around the axle on this topic as to take these drastic of steps.

It's a game. Meant to be fun. Not a politically correct police action. :lol:

There are so many people on these boards that attempt to monitor, control, admonish the behavior of their players. It's badwrongfun to play one way or another.

I get the entire style difference, but at our current game, we have several different styles of players (a couple of optimizers, one guy who often wants to use his environment and the objects around him in new and unique ways, a few who don't care what their PC can do as long as they are helpful, and one heavy roleplayer who almost always talks in character), and nobody gets bent out of shape if one player does things one way and another another way. This includes our new young DM who hasn't yet been taught by others that there are badwrongfun ways to play.

Although I have to admit that when my wife uses her female halfling high pitched squeaky voice, it does get old quickly if she does it too much. :-S
 


pemerton

Legend
how does your character know that he'll need to provide his own magic weapon? And going back a step, how does he know that he will even require one?
The character may not, but the player in D&D has generally expected to pay attention to the fact that s/he playing a game.

And magic items are part of that game. From Gygax's PHB, pp 22 and 32:

Fighters can empy many magical items . . .

The following strictures appy to paladins . . . They may neer retain more than ten magic items . . .

Monks, much like paladins (qv), may not retain more than a small fraction of whatever treasure they gain. A monk may posess no more than two magic weapons and three other magic items. . . . Magic items usable by monks include [a rather limited selection]. No other magic items of any sort may be employed by monks.​

I think it's pretty clear that Gygax expected players to think about access to magic items as part of buiding their PCs!

Why does your character know he is in a game, so he can make his life choices accordingly? Is it like the Matrix? Or trained in some Hunger Games style fashion? Or how do you explain it? What is the in-game explanation for your metagaming?
If it had an ingame explanation it woudn't be metagaming, would it! Which makes your question somewhat oxymoronic, I think.

"Optimization" is a pretty way of saying 'metagaming during character design'. Is it not?
PC building is, in general, a metagame process. Choosing to write "buttefly lover" on my PC sheet because I think it will be fun to play someone who loves butterflies is just as much metagaming as choosing to write "STR 18" on my PC sheet because I think it will be fun to add +4 to my attack and damage rolls.

There are PC generation systems which are mostly free of metagame - eg Classic Traveller - but D&D doesn't have them. For instance, you get to choose your race, which has mechanically significant consequences. What decision by the character do you suppose that corresponds too? None that I can see.

My Pathfinder character did not choose to be a kitsune or to be fey-blooded, or probably to some extent a sorcerer at all.
Right. Most PC building is not about playing a character. It's about deciding what character to play. This is generally connected to expectations of interest and enjoyment.

if the DM and the system wants me to be not mechanically optimized, it needs to reward me for that. Yay, you put points into Profession: Midwife! That might actually matter in the game! Not just make me feel like I choose poorly when bad things happen in the game because my character is not optimized enough and enemies get past him to the wizard or he can't deal enough damage to the BBEG.
I think this is the most important point for this thread.

If you want the players not to optimise, you have to create priorities for play other than mechanical success. For some player, immersion in the GM's narrative is a priority in itself, but it seems that your players want to play a more active role in the game. There are two main ways I know of (and probably ways that I don't know of) of helping active players prioritise things other than mechanical success. One is to fudge the dice to blunt the consequences of mechanical failure. However, this sort of fudging runs the risk of turning active players into passive ones.

Another approach is to change the way you narrate the consequences of mechanical failure. "Fail forward" can be a useful technique.

I don't mind optimization at the table and expect it, however it can suck what makes the games entertaining for me out of the game.

Usually it leads my players to want to speed through the levels because they want that next optimization point over just having fun playing the game - including failing and having things go sideways.

<snip>

I found it very unentertaining as a DM. <snippage> Find a good effective combo and repeat ad nauseum.
It sounds to me like you have three issues.

One is about the boring repetition of effective combos. I'd suggest trying to design situations that encourage your players to break out of those combos - eg in the context of combat, think about terrain and the mix of enemy forces; in the context of social conflict look for ways to engage the non-bard PC (eg a nemesis calls him/her out or starts taunting him/her). If in fact the maths is such that the players have no real prospect of success if they depart from the optimised combos, then you might need to revisit the maths of your encounters. (But 5e is meant to protect against this via bounded accuracy, I think.)

The second issue seems to be about player wilingness to have their PCs fail. Generally, D&D is unforgiving of failure because the default consequence for mechanical failure is PC death. You might want to look at techniques for ameliorating that, and also look at how you communicate to players that you have adopted such techniques.

The third issue seems to be that the players are more interested in the mechanical aspects of their PCs then in the ingame fiction that the game is meant to be focusing on. I guess one solution would be to make the mechanical aspects of their PCs more boring, but that might be a somewhat pyrrhic victory, especially if your players don't like the mechanical nerfing. (Unless you think that they are being distracted by the mechanics against their better judgement, and will thank you for taking away the distraction that is getting in the way of their enjoyment of the fiction.)

Another solution is to find out what would make the fiction more interesting for them and trying to introduce more of that into your game.
 

mcbobbo

Explorer
[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] - Can't go online right now, so I'll just hit the highlights.

Gygax didn't influence as much of 5e as you think he did. I think 3e exemplifies your point much better, but we have to agree that at least some of what 5e did was to get away from that idea.

Some metagaming is expected and necessary. My argument has never been against 'none' but against 'too much'. And just to be clear I have no objection to mechanically excellent characters. I just believe that plausible characters are the only ones that can qualify as best. A given PC could easily be both, if you hold the cheese, so to speak.

I again reject the notion that I am personally responsible for modifying the game of D&D as a counter to optimization. It's completely absurd.

I again assert that my table has a track record of accomodating suboptimal characters in fun ways.

So on both counts if 'you' means 'Bob' then you are simply wrong.

Aside from those I think your advice to the OP is spot on.
 

DMZ2112

Chaotic Looseleaf
I'm more for story vs optimization, but in my experience they're not mutually exclusive.

The concepts are not mutually exclusive. Players with the ability to engage meaningfully on both levels are rare.

"Stronger" people are harder to kill.

If only that were true.

It seems people mostly have issues with combat optimization, but you know you can optimize for the other two pillars as well right?

Just as broken, just as annoying.

Being an old grognard myself, I find it a bit odd that one would be so wrapped around the axle on this topic as to take these drastic of steps.

Would you call it... badwrongfun?

There are so many people on these boards that attempt to monitor, control, admonish the behavior of their players. It's badwrongfun to play one way or another.

I don't try to control my players -- I can't. They are living creatures with free will. If they do not like the way I run my game they are free to leave. What they are not free to do is ruin the game by being selfish. I am behind the screen for everyone's benefit including my own. Not to service any one player's power fantasies. When someone starts to outpace the group and the adventure because of sysetm mastery, I regulate. I change the system to negate their mastery. It's no different than what I would do if a major encounter proved too easy or too difficult for the entire group, or what I would do it a player insisted that all roleplaying focused on his character. If the player in question does not like that, everyone at the table would be better off if he found another table.

It sounds to me like you have three issues.

One is about the boring repetition of effective combos. I'd suggest trying to design situations that encourage your players to break out of those combos - eg in the context of combat, think about terrain and the mix of enemy forces; in the context of social conflict look for ways to engage the non-bard PC (eg a nemesis calls him/her out or starts taunting him/her). If in fact the maths is such that the players have no real prospect of success if they depart from the optimised combos, then you might need to revisit the maths of your encounters. (But 5e is meant to protect against this via bounded accuracy, I think.)

The second issue seems to be about player wilingness to have their PCs fail. Generally, D&D is unforgiving of failure because the default consequence for mechanical failure is PC death. You might want to look at techniques for ameliorating that, and also look at how you communicate to players that you have adopted such techniques.

The third issue seems to be that the players are more interested in the mechanical aspects of their PCs then in the ingame fiction that the game is meant to be focusing on. I guess one solution would be to make the mechanical aspects of their PCs more boring, but that might be a somewhat pyrrhic victory, especially if your players don't like the mechanical nerfing. (Unless you think that they are being distracted by the mechanics against their better judgement, and will thank you for taking away the distraction that is getting in the way of their enjoyment of the fiction.)

Another solution is to find out what would make the fiction more interesting for them and trying to introduce more of that into your game.

Jodyjohnson, Pemerton's advice is excellent. Take every opportunity you can to improve your campaign. But do it because you want to do it, in the way you want to do it. Don't do it to pacify players. Suffering for and adapting to bad groups makes us bad dungeon masters. If we can't even demand better from our players we certainly can't demand better from ourselves.
 

KarinsDad

Adventurer
Would you call it... badwrongfun?

Nope. Just unnecessarily excessive. Forcing the player to adapt by obscuring information or disallowing dice rolls.

I don't try to control my players -- I can't. They are living creatures with free will. If they do not like the way I run my game they are free to leave. What they are not free to do is ruin the game by being selfish. I am behind the screen for everyone's benefit including my own. Not to service any one player's power fantasies. When someone starts to outpace the group and the adventure because of sysetm mastery, I regulate. I change the system to negate their mastery. It's no different than what I would do if a major encounter proved too easy or too difficult for the entire group, or what I would do it a player insisted that all roleplaying focused on his character. If the player in question does not like that, everyone at the table would be better off if he found another table.

No doubt. Course, I tend to not use the word "selfish" or "ruin" about players. I also don't equate an advantage in system mastery with someone who insists on "all roleplaying focused on his character". Course, I've never met the latter type of player, so, this sounds like a bit of an exaggeration.

Badwrongfun players. Hmmmm.

Suffering for and adapting to bad groups makes us bad dungeon masters. If we can't even demand better from our players we certainly can't demand better from ourselves.

Some of us do not play the game to become better ourselves or to demand others to become better. We play the game to have fun. Even in a "bad groups".
 

Flexor the Mighty!

18/100 Strength!
I've got a mix of power gamers, people who always play a certain race, won't play a race over 5' tall, etc. In general they try to make the most effective PC's they can for what type of PC they are playing and I don't have a problem with that. 5e doesn't promote the mix maxing that I hate as much so its been cool so far. These are all close friends who I've been gaming with for near 30 years though. One I wouldn't mind booting since he rarely bothers to even learn the system, which on the other hand makes him the opposite of a munchkin.
 

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