Can the GM cheat?

[Blackbrrd]

This is why I don't DM for anyone that will build PCs that are noticeably overpowering when compared to the other PCs. It's too much hassle to deal with.

If you don't have anything against the player except for his overpowered character creation, why don't you just tell him to create something a bit less optimal to fit the power level of the other characters?

When I start a new campaign, I usually have a vision of how I want the campaign and what sort of characters will fit. I talk this over with the players and we agree on a set of guidelines* for the character creation. We run the occasional "overpowered" campaign, sometimes we run a campaign where it works out better if all the characters are more or less shady and sometimes I want to run a campaign for "good guys". Planning a little before the game starts stops a lot of problems occuring during the game.

*Not detailed, more like: don't make anything OP.

 

[vonhist]

Apologies if this ends up as a double post.
This is one of the issues with not placing restrictions on character creation. Some players
will power game if you let them.

 

[timASW]

Theres nothing wrong with powergaming. I dont restrict my players character creation in the slightest. Never have. I run a sandbox game, i create situations, its up to the players to decide how to deal with those situations and if that involves diplomancy or a combat monster chopping everything to bits then fine. Actions have consequences and the campaign is the story of the journey the players are on as they go from adventure to adventure.

Nothing about powergaming detracts from that in the slightest.

 

[pemerton]

Being able to physically interpose yourself between a squishy and an enemy is nothing at all like a ranger or something similar being able to magically take an instantaneous shot outside of his turn when an opponent attacks that can only be targeted at that opponents arrow.

As Gygax explained in his version of AD&D, the world of D&D is not a stop-motion world. The turn sequence is an abstraction.

Opportunity actions, swift actions, immediate actions, reactions etc are all mechanical devices intended to break down that sense of stop-motion action, and to foster verisimilitude. They're n more "magical" than a fighter's bonus attacks in AD&D (which certaintly don't represent the ability to strike multiple times per minute - as Gygax explains, everyone is already assumed to be striking multiple times per minute, and that's all abstracted into the roll to hit).

I'm sure you'll convince me with the next post how world of warcraft aggro is really a good thing in a table top game.

I don't play WoW, but as I understand it "aggro" is an AI targetting algorithm.

Marking is closer to an "unluck" token - the player of the marking PC has placed a token on the marked creature, which means that the GM suffers certain consequences (a penalty to hit, exposure to an additional attack from the marking PC, etc) if s/he has the marked creature undertake particular actions. What marking corresponds to in the game is highly variable - for paladins and swordmages it is often magic in the literal sense, but for fighters and warlords (who get some marking effects) it can be the sort of stuff that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] describes upthread, or even sometimes pure metagame, as an "unluck" token would be.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

If you don't have anything against the player except for his overpowered character creation, why don't you just tell him to create something a bit less optimal to fit the power level of the other characters?

I've had this suggestion given to me before and I've tried it. It depends on the system, of course, the more unbalanced the system the worse the problem. However, my experience has been that when you tell someone that their character is overpowered and they need to design something more in line with the group, they end up coming back with a character only slightly less powerful than they made last time....or exactly as powerful even though the player will insist that they REALLY tried to tone down their powergaming.

I once tried this with a player who I kept denying characters from, he went through 6 characters before we jointly agreed he had absolutely no idea how NOT to powergame. I basically had to say "You can't put anything more than a 16 into any of your stats. You can't multiclass, you can't take any Prestige Classes. You must be a race out of the players handbook." and with those restrictions he still ended up being the most powerful character in the group.

It's especially bad when you have a group that's fairly split between powergamers and non-powergamers. Either you have to convince 2 or 3 players to stop powergaming or you have to convince 2 or 3 players to START powergaming(which normally doesn't work either because handing a player who doesn't like to powergame a powergamed character ends with them not using their abilities effectively and therefore aren't really powergamed).

 

[S'mon]

It's especially bad when you have a group that's fairly split between powergamers and non-powergamers. Either you have to convince 2 or 3 players to stop powergaming or you have to convince 2 or 3 players to START powergaming(which normally doesn't work either because handing a player who doesn't like to powergame a powergamed character ends with them not using their abilities effectively and therefore aren't really powergamed).

I like it that 4e lets me play with powergamers and non-powergamers in the same group, and the powergamers' PCs are no more than about 50% more powerful than the least optimised PCs. Pre-1e D&D (B/X etc) is also mostly pretty good at minimising opportunities for huge power disparities, but with 3e it takes a lot of work if you want to avoid 'Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit'.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Theres nothing wrong with powergaming. I dont restrict my players character creation in the slightest. Never have. I run a sandbox game, i create situations, its up to the players to decide how to deal with those situations and if that involves diplomancy or a combat monster chopping everything to bits then fine. Actions have consequences and the campaign is the story of the journey the players are on as they go from adventure to adventure.

Nothing about powergaming detracts from that in the slightest.

It depends what you are going for. Most stories are designed to invoke emotion of some sort. As a DM, you are still a story teller. You create the situations your players encounter. Your decision to make the shopkeeper meek and shy vs overbearing and domineering invokes a very different story, very different reactions, and very different emotions.

Just like whether the players are powergamed or not can affect their reactions to situations just as much. Take the following situation:

The villagers come up to the PCs and beg them to free them from the tyrant wizard who lives in the tower on the hill.

Non powergamed characters may realize that they don't have the ability to defeat the wizard in combat so they start a rebellion and recruit an army to try to defeat the wizard. This process might take days or years to accomplish. They come up with a plan to lure the wizard out of the tower and face their army.

Slightly powergamed characters may realize that they don't need an army to defeat the wizard, they can do it themselves. So they go to the tower and fight their way through the traps and puzzles the wizard has set up over a couple of weeks of play before finally defeating the wizard in a difficult combat where they nearly die.

More powergamed character might just teleport directly to the wizard and skip his traps and puzzles before killing the wizard in the first round of combat before he gets an action.

Even more powergamed characters might simply disintegrate the entire tower and the wizard inside of it without getting close.

Each of those stories might be more or less satisfying for the players and the DM involved. And you want the DM to enjoy the game that is being played. A DM who becomes dissatisfied with the story his game is generating might simply decide to stop running the game because it doesn't bring him the joy he wanted.

Not every GM can dispassionately sit back and say "Well, whatever happens happens". Many GMs(me included), end up often saying "Well, that didn't go the way I wanted it to at all...it wasn't very satisfying or fun."

If I spent a week coming up with cool puzzles because I want the players to try to solve them and I get satisfaction from seeing their process as they come up with the solutions to them....then any storyline that sees them bypassing all of the puzzles is one that makes me unhappy.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I like it that 4e lets me play with powergamers and non-powergamers in the same group, and the powergamers' PCs are no more than about 50% more powerful than the least optimised PCs. Pre-1e D&D (B/X etc) is also mostly pretty good at minimising opportunities for huge power disparities, but with 3e it takes a lot of work if you want to avoid 'Angel Summoner and the BMX Bandit'.

I used to agree about 4e...but as time goes on, 4e is suffering from the same problem(though to a lesser degree). I can't run 4e anymore without getting just as frustrated. My last game of 4e went something like this:

Player 1: "I charge, when I charge I turn invisible giving me combat advantage. I get +1 from charging, +3 for having combat advantage with a light blade, and with the rest of my bonuses that gives me a +29 to hit. I do 75 damage."

Me: "Well, the enemy has a 27 AC...so I guess you hit on a -2. He has 98 hitpoints so that bloodies him in one attack...which is way too powerful. He attacks back. I roll a 15...with a bonus of +18, that makes 33. But since you are invisible, he gets -5. That's 28. You have an AC of 34...I guess that misses...even if you weren't invisible...and I rolled well. *sigh*"

Player 2: "My turn! I hit AC of 23! That misses I suppose"

Player 3: " I hit AC 26! I guess that misses too."

Player 4: "I hit AC 28. I hit. I do 23 damage."

Me: "So, let me get this straight....75% of your damage comes from a single PCs...this seems kind of dumb."

Each book that came out added more and more corner cases where the rules had weird interactions. Now I have one player who threatened to stop playing if he wasn't allowed to be a Hybrid or multiclass character because he felt that single class characters just weren't powerful enough.

 

[S'mon]

I used to agree about 4e...but as time goes on, 4e is suffering from the same problem(though to a lesser degree). I can't run 4e anymore without getting just as frustrated. My last game of 4e went something like this:

Player 1: "I charge, when I charge I turn invisible giving me combat advantage. I get +1 from charging, +3 for having combat advantage with a light blade, and with the rest of my bonuses that gives me a +29 to hit. I do 75 damage."

Me: "Well, the enemy has a 27 AC...so I guess you hit on a -2. He has 98 hitpoints so that bloodies him in one attack...which is way too powerful. He attacks back. I roll a 15...with a bonus of +18, that makes 33. But since you are invisible, he gets -5. That's 28. You have an AC of 34...I guess that misses...even if you weren't invisible...and I rolled well. *sigh*"

Player 2: "My turn! I hit AC of 23! That misses I suppose"

Player 3: " I hit AC 26! I guess that misses too."

Player 4: "I hit AC 28. I hit. I do 23 damage."

Me: "So, let me get this straight....75% of your damage comes from a single PCs...this seems kind of dumb."

Each book that came out added more and more corner cases where the rules had weird interactions. Now I have one player who threatened to stop playing if he wasn't allowed to be a Hybrid or multiclass character because he felt that single class characters just weren't powerful enough.

I do limit sources, of course, and I'll nerf individual overpowered elements. That made no difference in 3e since the imbalance existed in the PHB classes and across a wide range of stuff. With 4e I typically say "These books, no Dragon Magazine"; but I currently have an open-source 4e campaign that has had no major problems so far. One player is a bit of a powergamer, but he's also the one who keeps losing PCs. Never considered allowing Hybrids.

If a player threatened to quit on me I'd say "Bye bye", but I've never seen that.

 

[timASW]

It depends what you are going for. Most stories are designed to invoke emotion of some sort. As a DM, you are still a story teller. You create the situations your players encounter. Your decision to make the shopkeeper meek and shy vs overbearing and domineering invokes a very different story, very different reactions, and very different emotions.

Just like whether the players are powergamed or not can affect their reactions to situations just as much. Take the following situation:

The villagers come up to the PCs and beg them to free them from the tyrant wizard who lives in the tower on the hill.

Non powergamed characters may realize that they don't have the ability to defeat the wizard in combat so they start a rebellion and recruit an army to try to defeat the wizard. This process might take days or years to accomplish. They come up with a plan to lure the wizard out of the tower and face their army.

Slightly powergamed characters may realize that they don't need an army to defeat the wizard, they can do it themselves. So they go to the tower and fight their way through the traps and puzzles the wizard has set up over a couple of weeks of play before finally defeating the wizard in a difficult combat where they nearly die.

More powergamed character might just teleport directly to the wizard and skip his traps and puzzles before killing the wizard in the first round of combat before he gets an action.

Even more powergamed characters might simply disintegrate the entire tower and the wizard inside of it without getting close.

Each of those stories might be more or less satisfying for the players and the DM involved. And you want the DM to enjoy the game that is being played. A DM who becomes dissatisfied with the story his game is generating might simply decide to stop running the game because it doesn't bring him the joy he wanted.

Not every GM can dispassionately sit back and say "Well, whatever happens happens". Many GMs(me included), end up often saying "Well, that didn't go the way I wanted it to at all...it wasn't very satisfying or fun."

If I spent a week coming up with cool puzzles because I want the players to try to solve them and I get satisfaction from seeing their process as they come up with the solutions to them....then any storyline that sees them bypassing all of the puzzles is one that makes me unhappy.

What you just described is classic railroading. Theres a problem and rather then allowing the players to solve it however they deem best the only allowed course of action is on that the DM will find "satisfying". Thats not a good thing.

A DM should be able to powergame with the best of them, if you play with characters like that just optimize your bad guys some more.

And the most "satisfying" solution to the players will be the one they were able to decide upon themselves, control themselves, and use the abilities that they thought would be fun in character creation in the resolution of.