And, once again, we are mixing the terms "optimizated" and "combat optimizated".
I am not doing that. Nor, in my view, is Johnny3D3D. In the post that you quote I referred to two possible features of game play that preclude optimisation: (i) absence of a unique "solution" that can be specified independently of the way the players (via their PCs) tackle a situation; and (ii) a variety of approaches available to players (via their PCs) which, via feedbacks and synergies, make the identification and implementation of a single optimal strategy practically, and perhaps theoretically, impossible.
Sure, researching is part of the game, and acquiring aditional info might be as important, or even more, than combat prowess. But you can optimize that too. Maybe in a given RPG system, building a Half elf bard-ranger hybrid, multiclassed inquisitor, with detective background and spy theme, high int and charisma, skill mastery in perception and focus on gather info allow him to automatically sucess the game maximum DC in a given investigation, while a half orc barbarian-necromancer with weightlifter background and archer theme isn't as good at it.
When you say "in a given RPG system", I feel you mean "In 3E or one of its d20 derivatives". Other games, with different PC build rules and different action resolution rules, don't exhibit the same features of design. Even 4e differs from 3E in this respect, because complex non-combat endeavours play out via skill challenges, which aren't resolved as a single check against a single DC, and which exhibit both the complexity-engendering features I described above and in my earlier post upthread.
And once you get to more overtly "modern" RPG engines, like Burning Wheel, or HeroWars/Quest, this becomes even more evident. BW exhibits a high degree of both (i) and (ii); and HeroWars/Quest exhibits (i) to a very high degree.
I gave a link a couple post ago with a minmaxed build that allow to roll high enough to make a hostile creature frindly, needing 2+ in a d20, being able to reroll. That char sucks at combat, but is optimized for social stuff.
That PC build is designed for a particular game which is notorious for exhibiting the very features that I and Johnny3D3D are saying are not essential features of an RPG. It's social rules, in particular, are terrible.
the difference, ussually, is that DM tend to trump non combat more than combat with the "because I say so" rule.
<snip>
Non combat minmaxing is waaaay much more campaign breaking.
Again, I feel that what you are describing here is bad GMing, made "necessary" only by bad rules. Your comments have no application, for example, to Burning Wheel or HeroWars/Quest, and in my view no application to 4e either.
Unfortunately, my experience with the current iteration of D&D has been that the PCs are so powerful compared to everything around them that players start to not care about things like diplomacy and research.
<snip>
The monsters, npcs, and other things of the world weren't taken seriously enough by the players to really bother putting resources into non-combat things.
I can see that this could be a serious issue, and a frustrating one. Happily for me I haven't encountered it, I suspect in part because of the preconceptions and habits of my players, developed playing other games, and in part because of some of the GMing techniques that I use.
The player of the warrior/craft PC that I mentioned above plays the wizard/invoker in my current 4e game. That PC has the minimum mandatory combat ability of a 17th level PC, but also has multiple skill training feats, a book imp familiar, uses a lot of rituals, is a Divine Philosopher, and is planning, at epic, to be a Sage of Ages. I think the sort of PC he like to play tends to push towards the limits of what the 4e system can support, but (at least to date!) hasn't broken the game yet.
a game with more aspects that are put on even footing promotes characters who have skill in more than one area of the game. There is less often one way of building a character which trumps the other ways in effectiveness.
<snip>
I believe that is a good thing not only because it allows for a wider variety of characters to be viable, but also -and more importantly- because it allows a wider variety of player types to engage the game in a manner which evokes fun for them without feeling subpar to the rest of the table.
I agree with this, although for me the variety of characters has probably, over the course of my playing experience, been more important than the variety of player types - because building a non-combat specialist in RM or 4e still requires the same technical number-crunching skills that building a combat PC does.
I think your comment about promoting characters with skill in more than one are is especially apposite. In my early years of GMing Rolemaster I feel I really got the hang of running a game that created room for, and encouraged, non-single-focused PCs. And had a system that permitted it. (I imagine that GURPS is similar to Rolemaster in this respect). In my games, the main areas of expertise for PCs are combat, social and lore (with athletics/stealth/wilderness exploration a fourth but almost always less important area, just because I have less interest in, and less skill at, setting up that sort of challenge). And my players tend to build PCs that can operate effectively in at least two of these areas.
They also develop play techniques for shifting situations into the sort of area they are good at (as a trivial example, the paladin in my 4e game, who is weak at athletics/social, will try prayers and rituals to the Raven Queen to find his way through the wilderness - thus turning the situation into one with a lore/religion aspect). Which, in my experience, helps permit the players to express their PCs' characters, and shape the game in interesting and unexpected directions (eg if you pray to the Raven Queen to lead you out of the wilderness, and she doesn't hear you, but Orcus or Vecna does, what happens?).
Anyway, even though we have had different play experiences with 4e, I feel that we are on a similar page on these broader issues about PC build, action resolution, scenario design etc.
Non combat minmaxing is waaaay much more campaign breaking.
