D&D 5E Char Ops forums: Something I wish hadn't come over.

[Sunseeker]

Three points-

1. Any person who feels the need to tell me that they are about to be honest, likely isn't. Just an observation.

Great, now I'm a liar. Oh yes I'm sure you'll defend your position with "well I said likely", but I'd honestly rather you just out and called me a liar if you think I'm lying.

2. The argument that styles of play might not mesh well is the exact same thing as JIM CROW SEGREGATION is neither helpful nor appropriate. It may be helpful to reflect on the idea that it is the person who demands that everyone else accommodate his style of play that is the problem. Or, as you put it- if a person kept designing evil characters whose purpose was to kill the other party members, thus making it less fun for the other people in the group, then it would be likely that the other people in the group wouldn't want to play with that person. That person would be better suited playing Paranoia, or a D&D game designed for what he wants. On the other hand, if that individual kept demanding that he should play because not allowing his evil player killers was just like PUTTING ROSA PARKS AT THE BACK OF THE BUS, people might not take his arguments very seriously.

I'm a political scientist. When people say "people who think different things should be kept apart" it's hard for me not to think of it in terms of segregation since it well, is.

3. I have repeatedly said that I have no problem with optimizers in general, but I have also noted (as have many others) that this style of play, with many people, does not always mesh well. That's been an observable phenomenon. For the groups that it works great at- that's awesome! More power, etc. Just like some groups really encourage a lot of roleplaying- and those people probably wouldn't do great in a beer & pizza & orc killing game. The only issue is that there are a decent group of optimizer who seem to believe that their way is the only way, and, quite literally, cannot understand ""Why [someone else] would make a less-than-perfect realization of [their] character?" I can totally understand why a person would optimize, and why a person wouldn't. Because the point of a game isn't efficiency, it's fun. And it's fun ... in a group.

So you're optimizing for group fun as opposed to personal fun or conceptual fun. All we're doing at this point is setting up the terms of victory. We're just adding more layers. If our initial goal is to maximize a concept, but temper that concept with mechanical limits and then further restrict that result with what would be fun in the group, then our end result is something that is optimized for conceptual fun within the limits of the rules and resulting in an overall fun play for the group. But we're still​ optimizing.

 

[Sunseeker]

There's a curious juxtaposition between this thread and the Cultural Appropriation thread in that both are talking about movements that started with a subculture asserting its right to exist but morphed into that same subculture coming to the conclusion "Not only are we not a problem... YOU'RE the problem!" Such it is with the Smug Gamist.

What's a Smug Gamist? Someone who says things like this:



And then he'll immediately contradict himself:



So he doesn't want to play with you, but if you don't want to play with him you're a segregationist.

In general, the black/white thinking here is pretty brutal.

Saying "I don't want to play with you." Is not the same as saying "I don't think Bob and Joe should be allowed to play together since they play differently." To use the MTG example from prior, it'd be like saying people with black decks shouldn't play people with white decks. It's silly.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Umbran]

Folks,

It seems that this exchange is starting to get a bit heated and snarky. Now is the time to walk away, tone down your rhetoric, and most importantly, stop making the discussion personal.

We expect you to show respect for each other, even when you disagree. If you cant' do that, we expect you to realize that continuing would not be constructive, and to leave be.

So, from this point on in the thread, folks should be polite to each other. And not in a "passive aggressive jabs clothed in pleasant language" way. I mean in a "Hey, these folks are fellow gamers, and real people, so I should treat them well" way.

Any questions about this, please take them to e-mail or PM with a moderator. Thanks.

 

[Saeviomagy]

If everyone min/maxes, then it's fine. Problems arise when you have just one or two guys who min/max (usually by simply searching or reading about broken combos), and the rest of the players built characters that are better rounded or maybe fit a concept more than focus on DPR. That kind of situation can easily lead people to feel like they aren't contributing too much when it comes to combat. At best, people just get bored at picking a "weak" class, but at worst you get people losing interest in a game that they aren't having any fun with. I've never met a min/maxer who focuses on RP, but there's plenty of non-min/maxers who love it.

If you love RP, why does it matter what your combat contribution is? If you wish to contribute to combat, why avoid building a character who is good at it? If your character is better rounded, why be upset when a focused character steals the limelight in scenarios he has focused in?

These all seem like the result of focusing on being upset at someone else's character, not in actually playing the game for fun.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I will try an analogy to see if this helps.

Imagine there is a group of friends that gets together to play pickup basketball and drink beer. One person crunches the math and realizes that the optimal strategy, each time, is for him to dribble the ball down and take a three point shot. On average, that will result in the most points per play. Always. So he tells his friends, "Every time we get the ball, I will dribble it down and shoot a three point shot." When the friends complain that the game is no longer fun for them, he replies, "Why are you focused on being upset to what I'm doing, and what I am contributing to our team's offense? You can't argue with my math. Don't be upset if I am stealing the limelight by focusing on what I do best- instead, why don't you enjoy getting rebounds, or something?" While that guy might be entirely right, he is not understanding either the group dynamic or basic human psychology.

How does this analogy change if instead of announcing his strategy, he simply executes it? Are the other guys going to say, "Hey, you're outplaying us and it's making us look bad. Why not change it up a bit and do something else?" How is he likely to feel when confronted that way? What if he changes it up and still gets told that he is outplaying them? Does he have to run every single play by them to get their approval that it's not "too good" before he executes it? At some point he is just going to leave the group in frustration. Teammates who can't keep up and​ who are jealous when you play naturally is a bad combination--it's a mismatch, pure and simple.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[ExploderWizard]

How does this analogy change if instead of announcing his strategy, he simply executes it? Are the other guys going to say, "Hey, you're outplaying us and it's making us look bad. Why not change it up a bit and do something else?" How is he likely to feel when confronted that way? What if he changes it up and still gets told that he is outplaying them? Does he have to run every single play by them to get their approval that it's not "too good" before he executes it? At some point he is just going to leave the group in frustration. Teammates who can't keep up and​ who are jealous when you play naturally is a bad combination--it's a mismatch, pure and simple.

As with any type of behavior, optimizing is only bad to the extent that it harms the fun of others in the group. If the whole gang is on board, and everyone is doing it, then its just game play as usual for that group. The optimizer is only being a jerk if others in the group tell him/her to knock it off and it continues.

 

[The Yellow Pill]

As with any type of behavior, optimizing is only bad to the extent that it harms the fun of others in the group. If the whole gang is on board, and everyone is doing it, then its just game play as usual for that group. The optimizer is only being a jerk if others in the group tell him/her to knock it off and it continues.

He's also a jerk if he insists his way is better and he can't even understand why the other people play the way they do, because why would you stat your character differently than what you want him to be like IC.

And I don't see the primary issue being that he can overshadow the other players. I see the problem being that, instead of creating a well rounded character that resembles a PERSON, it's simply a skill vehicle curiously inept at anything but a specialty or two. Again, no problem if that's how he wants to play, but when he gets frustrated with the other players for not doing the same and occasionally failing at things, you have a problem.

It may seem like a platitude, but it's really no different than any other clash of play styles. Either players can be a little more moderate or they can't. If they can't, then they need to only group with other extremists.