I think I know a major cause of power-gaming, level-grind, munchkinism, etc.
I think it's the arms race between players and DMs -- wherein the game companies are selling munitions to both sides.
If the rulebooks give crunchy bits to the DMs which can be used to awe the players, then the players can buy those same rulebooks to try to determine the opponents' strategy. The game companies smile at this, because it sells more books. (D&D 3.0 was brilliant in that it suggested monster templates -- which means that players can look through the monster manual all they like without knowing exactly what the monsters have hidden up their sleeves.)
Even if the game companies are very even-handed and sell books full of new powerful rules that can be used to enhance players or monsters -- the whole thing leads to rule bloat and a thousand special cases. A crunchy system where not all participants have complete access to the rules is an invitation to nasty, unfun, out-of-character arguments that stop play cold and sometimes break up the gaming group. If a DM won't allow player powers from the latest book of crunchy bits, players may leave and start new gaming groups.
So splatbook sales may prosper while weakening the in-person gaming that the hobby is supposed to center on. The self-appointed gaming pundits can bloviate about munchkinism, but I think it's a problem that's aggravated by the need for private gaming companies to show a profit.
IMHO the whole problem doesn't even arise until DM creativity has been tapped out. So highly creative, imaginative folks can run a game for years without boredom or an arms race. Most folks find that creative energy is limited, and when it's tapped out, they go for the easy solutions -- hack-and-slash, bigger powers, more explosions. That requires almost no imagination.
One possible solution is to release a rule system that is complete enough to be played every week for a few years. Depending on how detailed the artwork and descriptions are, this could require CD-ROMs and PDFs because paper might be too expensive. Then the rules could be frozen to avoid an "arms race." Meanwhile, the company would publish adventure modules with maps, player visual aids, and DM secrets. One hopes that the modules could be profitable without an arms race of crunchy power-ups.
MUDs used to rely heavily on imagination, since they used to have no background music, sound effects, visuals, or in-person interaction. MUDs have mostly vanished; even if they were resurgent, I don't think they would hold the secrets to avoiding level-grind. They were often disrupted by player/administrator squabbles.
Meanwhile, games like "World of Warcraft" continue to make inroads on the market. So far as I can tell, WoW requires nothing from the imagination. I haven't played it, so I don't really know what it's all about, but it appears to be all the entertainment of power-gaming, minus the real human interaction with the DM. The players still use text chat instead of table-talk, but from a player perspective, it's pure hack-and-slash. I suspect the worlds are not as truly detailed, I suspect the NPCs are less convincing, and the visuals that I've seen don't make me willing to spend money on finding out. But about five million folks with disposable income disagree with me.
The early role-playing visionaries were very good at using their imaginations and leading other gamers to imagine. I think games are doing well if they are stimulating all involved to imagine and create. I leave it to other observers of the hobby to figure out how much imagination and creativity are getting stimulated.
I think it's the arms race between players and DMs -- wherein the game companies are selling munitions to both sides.
If the rulebooks give crunchy bits to the DMs which can be used to awe the players, then the players can buy those same rulebooks to try to determine the opponents' strategy. The game companies smile at this, because it sells more books. (D&D 3.0 was brilliant in that it suggested monster templates -- which means that players can look through the monster manual all they like without knowing exactly what the monsters have hidden up their sleeves.)
Even if the game companies are very even-handed and sell books full of new powerful rules that can be used to enhance players or monsters -- the whole thing leads to rule bloat and a thousand special cases. A crunchy system where not all participants have complete access to the rules is an invitation to nasty, unfun, out-of-character arguments that stop play cold and sometimes break up the gaming group. If a DM won't allow player powers from the latest book of crunchy bits, players may leave and start new gaming groups.
So splatbook sales may prosper while weakening the in-person gaming that the hobby is supposed to center on. The self-appointed gaming pundits can bloviate about munchkinism, but I think it's a problem that's aggravated by the need for private gaming companies to show a profit.
IMHO the whole problem doesn't even arise until DM creativity has been tapped out. So highly creative, imaginative folks can run a game for years without boredom or an arms race. Most folks find that creative energy is limited, and when it's tapped out, they go for the easy solutions -- hack-and-slash, bigger powers, more explosions. That requires almost no imagination.
One possible solution is to release a rule system that is complete enough to be played every week for a few years. Depending on how detailed the artwork and descriptions are, this could require CD-ROMs and PDFs because paper might be too expensive. Then the rules could be frozen to avoid an "arms race." Meanwhile, the company would publish adventure modules with maps, player visual aids, and DM secrets. One hopes that the modules could be profitable without an arms race of crunchy power-ups.
MUDs used to rely heavily on imagination, since they used to have no background music, sound effects, visuals, or in-person interaction. MUDs have mostly vanished; even if they were resurgent, I don't think they would hold the secrets to avoiding level-grind. They were often disrupted by player/administrator squabbles.
Meanwhile, games like "World of Warcraft" continue to make inroads on the market. So far as I can tell, WoW requires nothing from the imagination. I haven't played it, so I don't really know what it's all about, but it appears to be all the entertainment of power-gaming, minus the real human interaction with the DM. The players still use text chat instead of table-talk, but from a player perspective, it's pure hack-and-slash. I suspect the worlds are not as truly detailed, I suspect the NPCs are less convincing, and the visuals that I've seen don't make me willing to spend money on finding out. But about five million folks with disposable income disagree with me.
The early role-playing visionaries were very good at using their imaginations and leading other gamers to imagine. I think games are doing well if they are stimulating all involved to imagine and create. I leave it to other observers of the hobby to figure out how much imagination and creativity are getting stimulated.
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