D&D 5E The "Powergamers (Min/maxer)" vs "Alpha Gamers" vs "Role Play Gamers" vs "GM" balance mismatch "problem(s)"

[Coroc]

[MENTION=6880599]ClaytonCross[/MENTION] reply w/o a quote for obvious reasons

Nah joking aside, you made a lot of good points and analysis but on some things I disagree:

Those players who do not min max, in a campaign which is not purely hack and slash (and even then sometimes) have other advantages you just forgot.

A minmaxer has 1 or more very weak stats that is the min side of the medal which is all to often forgotten.

The roleplayer with odd stat or not, might have some points in wisdom or charisma and is much more likely to resist a charm.
Just imagine your minmaxer in a campaign with lots of vampires. Those mobs are hard enough on there own, but if your minmaxer is dishing out the tpk alone,
just because he gets charmed every other time and the dm plays it closely by the book, guess who has the fun at the table: right, the dm if he has some slight sadistic ambition.

There should be some kind of social contract on these things. Most people are capable of doing both, balanced builds and minmax builds.
The campaign gets much better and is easier to design for the DM if all players build their character to the same guidelines:

Either everyone gets a decent chance to resist the charm because of good social skill stats or the one able to dispel the charm on the killer is very good at resisting said charm.

You got mundane combats a lot: DM just scale the whole thing down or up, depending whether the group is minmax or average. That is much easier than doing the split the challenge tactic all the time.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

A lesson I learned long ago is that you can't be afraid to kill the PCs. If they make a mistake, it's on them. When I ran games when I was younger there were two or three players who would, as I thought of it, dare me to kill them. They'd engage in outrageous risk taking without much planning to mitigate the danger and just wait and see what would happen. Now I like a good bit of daring do from my players but it really did seem like they were testing my resolve as a DM. And those games weren't all that fun when it became apparent that I didn't have the nerve to snap the trap shut on them.

Then one day I decided enough was enough and didn't flinch. Guess what? The world didn't end and the players still had a good time even when their PCs were bitten in two, in fact a better time because now the threats were more than just shadow monsters to them.

 

[DeathEatsCurry]

"Power Gamers vs Role Play Gamers"

They're not mutually exclusive, and the idea that they are is one of the biggest sources of conflict between players with different ideas.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[DeathEatsCurry]

I didn't name it this. Also how is the notion that minmaxers can't enjoy roleplay not a fallacy? Please explain this.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

I didn't name it this. Also how is the notion that minmaxers can't enjoy roleplay not a fallacy? Please explain this.

The acid test is:

Would the player take a sub-optimal option/make a sub-optimal build choice in favour of adding fluff/flavour to their character.

To my mind, if a player can do this then they're a role-player first and foremost. If the can't make that choice then I'd term them a power-gamer.

Not that I give a monkeys if folks are having fun and getting along, mind.

 

[iserith]

I think it takes a pretty twisted definition of "roleplaying" to say that those who optimize their character builds or tactics aren't roleplaying when they play.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Ovinomancer]

Because you presented something as true (with the link) which you also believe is true, which is not.

First, this isn't some "Stormwind Fallacy." This is just someone trying to argue that this is a false dichotomy (sometimes referred to as a false dilemma, but in this case, it's really a false dichotomy).

Let's try and make this simple-

Argument-

You have to be either a roleplayer, or an optimizer.
(You must be A, or B.)

The premise is false, because you it presents two opposite, when there are other avenues possible.

But that's never what these discussions are about. Assume a continuum from the following-

A. Person who only cares about their own character's optimization, DPR, combat.
B. Person who doesn't care about the rules at all, and just picks things that are cool and in keeping with the story.

Most people fall somewhere in between A and B. People don't say that the two are always mutually exclusive; that you cannot engage in any roleplaying if you optimize, or that you cannot care about the rules at all if roleplay; instead, it's a question of what emphasis you put on the game. Because an emphasis on optimization and rules will eventually come at the expense of roleplaying, and vice versa.

By creating that post, and the fallacious fallacy, the poster was engaged in some rhetorical slight of hand. Which is deeply annoying.

There isn't a right answer to how to play, but there are preferences.

All that said, these conversations are useless, because:

1. You can play any way you want.
2. IME, the only thing that matters is that you don't play with jerks.
3. I really dislike these conversations, because it always ends up with an individual, who is always a powergamer or min/maxer, explaining to me that the optimal way to play is their way. It's not that I don't see it coming; after all, they are playing (in their opinion) the optimal way. But I'm not the one that needs convincing, and it gets really old.

Well, the Stormwind Fallacy is actually referencing an actual informal fallacy, the informal* fallacy of the false dilemma, it's just specifically applied to the false dilemma of rollplaying vs roleplaying. So, no, it's not a fallacious fallacy (heh), it just doesn't recognize that its form already had a name and it isn't a new thing. As such, it's somewhat useful to refer to because is such a narrow application of the general fallacy.

*for full pedantry, informal fallacies are named as such because they represent logic that is faulty, but that doesn't necessarily mean the argument is therefore wrong. A formal fallacy is an error in logic that does render the conclusion wrong.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Because you presented something as true (with the link) which you also believe is true, which is not.

First, this isn't some "Stormwind Fallacy." This is just someone trying to argue that this is a false dichotomy (sometimes referred to as a false dilemma, but in this case, it's really a false dichotomy).

Let's try and make this simple-

Argument-

You have to be either a roleplayer, or an optimizer.
(You must be A, or B.)

The premise is false, because you it presents two opposite, when there are other avenues possible.

But that's never what these discussions are about. Assume a continuum from the following-

A. Person who only cares about their own character's optimization, DPR, combat.
B. Person who doesn't care about the rules at all, and just picks things that are cool and in keeping with the story.

Most people fall somewhere in between A and B. People don't say that the two are always mutually exclusive; that you cannot engage in any roleplaying if you optimize, or that you cannot care about the rules at all if roleplay; instead, it's a question of what emphasis you put on the game. Because an emphasis on optimization and rules will eventually come at the expense of roleplaying, and vice versa.

By creating that post, and the fallacious fallacy, the poster was engaged in some rhetorical slight of hand. Which is deeply annoying.

There isn't a right answer to how to play, but there are preferences.

All that said, these conversations are useless, because:

1. You can play any way you want.
2. IME, the only thing that matters is that you don't play with jerks.
3. I really dislike these conversations, because it always ends up with an individual, who is always a powergamer or min/maxer, explaining to me that the optimal way to play is their way. It's not that I don't see it coming; after all, they are playing (in their opinion) the optimal way. But I'm not the one that needs convincing, and it gets really old.

How is this disagreeing with DeathEatsCurry? Or are you just disagreeing that anybody is saying the thing that he says isn't true? In other words, are you accusing him of a fallacy or a strawman? Or just a strange username?