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Fallacious Follies: Oberoni, Stormwind, and Fallacies OH MY!
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9177629" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>These posts seem to count it as <em>optimising</em> when a person builds a PC that is the sort of PC they want - a pilot, a soldier, a technician, a starship owner, etc.</p><p></p><p>That seems a very non-standard notion of <em>optimisation</em>, given that it is all about choosing <em>the character's field of endeavour</em>, whereas <em>optimisation</em> normally is understood to take a field of endeavour as given, and to be about the means to that.</p><p></p><p>By the definition in use in these posts, the best RPG for optimising is Cthulhu Dark, because the most important step in PC building is <em>writing down your character's occupation</em> - so if I want to play (say) a telegraph operator, I write down as my occupation <em>telegraph operator</em>. Bam! Optimisation done.</p><p></p><p>Or, in other words, this:</p><p></p><p></p><p>Returning to the standard meaning of <em>optimisation</em>, it relies upon there being competing and (typically) not-fully-transparent-to-superficial-inspection means of achieving the same goal, which for a PC in a RPG is a given field of endeavour in the game. In D&D the obvious site of optimisation is combat, because combat effectiveness is an intricate mathematical output of complexly interacting inputs - number of attacks per round, timing of attacks in a round, chances to hit, damage dice, etc; which are themselves shaped by various interacting factors like class, stats, proficiencies, etc. It is these interactions that create optimisation pathways like (in AD&D 2e) a specialised dart thrower, or (in Skills and Powers) building a cleric with fighter specs, or (in 3E) getting the right balance of feats and deploying them (eg Power Attack spreadsheets).</p><p></p><p>Champions/HERO and GURPS have (by reputation at least) a lot of complexity in this optimisation space.</p><p></p><p>The reason there is no <em>optimisation</em> in this sense in Traveller or Prince Valiant is because the way to be good at (say) shooting is simply to have a high shooting skill (be that Rifle in Traveller, or Archer in Prince Valiant). The way you get that in Prince Valiant is via build choice; the way you get that in Classic Traveller is via sensible choice of table plus lucky rolling.</p><p></p><p>HeroQuest revised has a whole section devoted to advice to the GM on how to balance (say) a Strong descriptor against a Breaks Rocks With Her Bare Hands descriptor, the precise point of which is to ensure there is no optimisation.</p><p></p><p>Torchbearer or Burning Wheel takes a different technical approach - as an illustration, when one of the PCs in my Torchbearer game took Explosives-wise, together with the Belief that <em>An explosive solution is a good solution</em>, that was my cue as GM to include explosives and opportunities to blow things up. But the upshot is similar.</p><p></p><p>But in any event, as per the preceding parts of this post, I don't think <em>building towards what I want to play, given the anticipated parameters of this campaign</em> is the same thing as <em>optimisation</em>. The former is predominantly about ends. Whereas the latter - <em>optimisation</em> - is predominantly about means, and the availability of complex interacting means (which underlie the non-contingent relationships that I mentioned upthread) is a feature of only some RPGs.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 9177629, member: 42582"] These posts seem to count it as [I]optimising[/I] when a person builds a PC that is the sort of PC they want - a pilot, a soldier, a technician, a starship owner, etc. That seems a very non-standard notion of [I]optimisation[/I], given that it is all about choosing [I]the character's field of endeavour[/I], whereas [I]optimisation[/I] normally is understood to take a field of endeavour as given, and to be about the means to that. By the definition in use in these posts, the best RPG for optimising is Cthulhu Dark, because the most important step in PC building is [I]writing down your character's occupation[/I] - so if I want to play (say) a telegraph operator, I write down as my occupation [I]telegraph operator[/I]. Bam! Optimisation done. Or, in other words, this: Returning to the standard meaning of [I]optimisation[/I], it relies upon there being competing and (typically) not-fully-transparent-to-superficial-inspection means of achieving the same goal, which for a PC in a RPG is a given field of endeavour in the game. In D&D the obvious site of optimisation is combat, because combat effectiveness is an intricate mathematical output of complexly interacting inputs - number of attacks per round, timing of attacks in a round, chances to hit, damage dice, etc; which are themselves shaped by various interacting factors like class, stats, proficiencies, etc. It is these interactions that create optimisation pathways like (in AD&D 2e) a specialised dart thrower, or (in Skills and Powers) building a cleric with fighter specs, or (in 3E) getting the right balance of feats and deploying them (eg Power Attack spreadsheets). Champions/HERO and GURPS have (by reputation at least) a lot of complexity in this optimisation space. The reason there is no [I]optimisation[/I] in this sense in Traveller or Prince Valiant is because the way to be good at (say) shooting is simply to have a high shooting skill (be that Rifle in Traveller, or Archer in Prince Valiant). The way you get that in Prince Valiant is via build choice; the way you get that in Classic Traveller is via sensible choice of table plus lucky rolling. HeroQuest revised has a whole section devoted to advice to the GM on how to balance (say) a Strong descriptor against a Breaks Rocks With Her Bare Hands descriptor, the precise point of which is to ensure there is no optimisation. Torchbearer or Burning Wheel takes a different technical approach - as an illustration, when one of the PCs in my Torchbearer game took Explosives-wise, together with the Belief that [I]An explosive solution is a good solution[/I], that was my cue as GM to include explosives and opportunities to blow things up. But the upshot is similar. But in any event, as per the preceding parts of this post, I don't think [I]building towards what I want to play, given the anticipated parameters of this campaign[/I] is the same thing as [I]optimisation[/I]. The former is predominantly about ends. Whereas the latter - [I]optimisation[/I] - is predominantly about means, and the availability of complex interacting means (which underlie the non-contingent relationships that I mentioned upthread) is a feature of only some RPGs. [/QUOTE]
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