D&D 5E Dealing with optimizers at the table

[overgeeked]

All of those is correct, but

Do you have problem with spotlight hoggers or with optimizers?

Optimizers are spotlight hogs. They hog the spotlight in combat.

Or how is an optimized character for combat(if he is not a jerk towards other players or trying to talk in every scene) ruining fun for other players?

We recognize that a player who insists on being the center of attention to the detriment of the other players is bad. Optimizers insist on being the center of attention to the detriment of the other players.

I hear you ask: how?

If you are having fun playing your character and dealing 1d8+4 damage per round, why do you care if GWM/PAM barbarian deal 1d10+18 and 1d4+18 per round?

That’s how. That’s round after round of the optimizer dunking on and naughty word talking the non-optimizers. Nearly every round. Every combat. That becomes very much not fun very, very quickly.

The constant comments of “well, get good at the game” in threads like this proves the point. The game isn’t big numbers. That so many people think it is shows the insurmountable split in play style.

It’s kinda awesome that at least in RPGs the professional gamers are the actors and storytellers rather than the big number crowd.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That’s round after round of the optimizer dunking on and naughty word talking the non-optimizers. Nearly every round. Every combat. That become very much not fun very, very quickly.

You have a naughty word-talking problem not an optimization problem. You're making a category error about the nature of the problem.

I DM for groups where the real-terms DPS disparity is that large. There's no naughty word-talking. On the contrary, the higher-optimization guys cheer on the other PCs and often downplay their own awesomeness. I DM'd in 2nd edition where if someone was playing a Fighter and someone was playing a Thief, no matter how optimized the Thief was, the DPS disparity was larger than that. There was no naughty word-talking, or if there was, that's what I shut the down, not the optimizing.

Now, I did play Cyberpunk 2020 and we did have naughty word-talking there. And I was part of the problem for while at 16-17. Then I grew up just a little bit and saw what I was doing, and stopped, reversed even. I didn't stop optimizing, but I did stop being a jerk about it.

So throw out the naughty word-talkers! For god's sake. That's the problem here. Even if these guys weren't as good at optimizing (and given they're naughty word-talkers, they're probably lazily taking builds from the internet), they'd still be naughty word-talking. They'd still be finding ways to dunk on and be unpleasant to other players.

Throw them out! naughty word-talking is your problem.

(As an aside, most of the professional game groups I'm aware of have pretty well-optimized characters. In some cases they have broken characters, often using custom classes, incredibly powerful magic items and so on. But they're not being horrible to other players at the table. That's the problem, not the optimization.)

 

[Horwath]

Optimizers are spotlight hogs. They hog the spotlight in combat.

We recognize that a player who insists on being the center of attention to the detriment of the other players is bad. Optimizers insist on being the center of attention to the detriment of the other players.

I hear you ask: how?

That’s how. That’s round after round of the optimizer dunking on and naughty word talking the non-optimizers. Nearly every round. Every combat. That becomes very much not fun very, very quickly.

The constant comments of “well, get good at the game” in threads like this proves the point. The game isn’t big numbers. That so many people think it is shows the insurmountable split in play style.

It’s kinda awesome that at least in RPGs the professional gamers are the actors and storytellers rather than the big number crowd.

Finally some truth, you have a problem with a jerk player, not an optimizer.

 

[TwoSix]

That’s how. That’s round after round of the optimizer dunking on and naughty word talking the non-optimizers. Nearly every round. Every combat. That becomes very much not fun very, very quickly.

S**t-talking your fellow players is obviously a negative in most groups. If you know your character is using the big stick, you should be a good enough teammate to not make a big deal of it.

The constant comments of “well, get good at the game” in threads like this proves the point. The game isn’t big numbers. That so many people think it is shows the insurmountable split in play style.

It’s kinda awesome that at least in RPGs the professional gamers are the actors and storytellers rather than the big number crowd.

And this feels like a bit of "onetruewayism" creeping in. D&D is a game, and a lot of the game rules are devoted to combat. There's nothing wrong with enjoying combat and wanting your character to be good at it.

And liking big numbers is mostly orthogonal to enjoying the performative aspects of the game. I'm equally adept (I feel) at both, and I play with several other players who are the same. I know several players who are strong performatively but rules-inept, and I feel that's roughly as much a drag on the game as the (admittedly rare) players I know who are rules-savvy but not great at in-character play.

 

[overgeeked]

You have a naughty word-talking problem not an optimization problem. You're making a category error about the nature of the problem.

I DM for groups where the real-terms DPS disparity is that large. There's no naughty word-talking. On the contrary, the higher-optimization guys cheer on the other PCs and often downplay their own awesomeness. I DM'd in 2nd edition where if someone was playing a Fighter and someone was playing a Thief, no matter how optimized the Thief was, the DPS disparity was larger than that. There was no naughty word-talking, or if there was, that's what I shut the down, not the optimizing.

Now, I did play Cyberpunk 2020 and we did have naughty word-talking there. And I was part of the problem for while at 16-17. Then I grew up just a little bit and saw what I was doing, and stopped, reversed even. I didn't stop optimizing, but I did stop being a jerk about it.

So throw out the naughty word-talkers! For god's sake. That's the problem here. Even if these guys weren't as good at optimizing (and given they're naughty word-talkers, they're probably lazily taking builds from the internet), they'd still be naughty word-talking. They'd still be finding ways to dunk on and be unpleasant to other players.

Throw them out! naughty word-talking is your problem.

(As an aside, most of the professional game groups I'm aware of have pretty well-optimized characters. In some cases they have broken characters, often using custom classes, incredibly powerful magic items and so on. But they're not being horrible to other players at the table. That's the problem, not the optimization.)

Their optimization is the naughty word-talking. They don’t open-mouth naughty word-talk. If they had I’d have already thrown them out on their ass.

Finally some truth, you have a problem with a jerk player, not an optimizer.

The jerk player is a jerk because of the optimization. The optimization is the problem.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Their optimization is the naughty word-talking. They don’t open-mouth naughty word-talk. If they had I’d have already thrown them out on their ass.

The jerk player is a jerk because of the optimization. The optimization is the problem.

Oh for god's sake. Are you remotely serious?

Have other players complained about them? Are the other players looking sad-as-hell during combat? Or is this entirely in your head?

Again, I've seen DMs who had an attitude like you seem to be saying. The problem, in those cases, was them. For example, my exact group. Two players don't really optimize, two players are moderate optimizers, two are usually serious-ass optimizers. If I DM, or my brother DMs, or the other experienced DM DMs, or my wife DMs for that matter, there's no problem at all. If one of the players who is also one of the moderate optimizers DMs, he can't handle it, he can't handle that some of us are much more effective than others. We can handle it. We don't care. We've been playing like this for ages. If a character is really weak, yeah a player might want to change it, but it's usually only the optimizers who even notice their PC isn't effective. But that one guy, he's literally ended campaigns because of this.

Hence we don't have him DM anymore. But this is DM problem in his case, not a player problem. Unless you're getting actual complaints, or can both see that players are visibly unhappy and have confirmed this by asking them, you're the problem.

Alternatively, if you can't accept you are the problem, 5E is the problem. It is inherently, using only the classes, spells, and abilities in the PHB, a game where two DPS characters could very easily end up not just 20% apart on DPR, but 100% apart, if one person takes, say, a Warlock with Agonizing Blast and Hex (as any sane Warlock should!), and keeps using ASIs on their CHA (again, reasonable by your own definition in the original post), and then the other player takes say a Warlock but goes Pact of the Blade, but does NOT pick the Hexblade as his patron, and thus has induced MAD in his build, and maybe he's spread his stats around in a slightly dubious way, and spreads his ASIs around, or buys Feats instead, maybe ones that don't buff his build, and doesn't use Hex, but instead picks other spells, there could easily be a 100% difference in DPR.

But you seem to think the guy playing perfectly reasonably but doing 100% more DPR is being unreasonable. He is not.

 

[TwoSix]

Their optimization is the naughty word-talking. They don’t open-mouth naughty word-talk. If they had I’d have already thrown them out on their ass.

The jerk player is a jerk because of the optimization. The optimization is the problem.

I'm going to disengage from this conversation. Your dislike of optimized play feels too much like zealotry masquerading as a discussion point.

I wish you good luck in finding a solution to your table issues.

 

[overgeeked]

And this feels like a bit of "onetruewayism" creeping in. D&D is a game, and a lot of the game rules are devoted to combat. There's nothing wrong with enjoying combat and wanting your character to be good at it.

Sure. But there’s a difference between being okay with being good at combat and needing to always be the best.

No badwrongfun or onetruewayism. As I said in the OP, unless it actively detracts from others’ enjoyment, it’s fine. Going all out to break the game does detract from everyone’s fun. Having the attitude of needing to always win the numbers game does detract from everyone else’s fun. Not recognizing that’s a problem is also part of the problem.

 

[overgeeked]

Oh for god's sake. Are you remotely serious?

Have other players complained about them? Are the other players looking sad-as-hell during combat. Or is this entirely in your head?

Again, I've seen DMs who had an attitude like you seem to be saying. The problem, in those cases, was them. For example, my exact group. We don't really vary in optimization level. Two players don't really optimize, two players are moderate optimizers, two are usually serious-ass optimizers. If I DM, or my brother DMs, or the other experienced DM DMs, or my wife DMs for that matter, there's no problem at all. If one of the players who is also one of the moderate optimizers DMs, he can't handle it, he can't handle that some of us are much more effective than others. We can handle it. We don't care. We've been playing like this for ages. If a character is really weak, yeah a player might want to change it, but it's usually only the optimizers who even notice their PC isn't effective. But that one guy, he's literally ended campaigns because of this.

Hence we don't have him DM anymore. But this is DM problem in his case, not a player problem. Unless you're getting actual complaints, or can both see that players are visibly unhappy and have confirmed this by asking them, you're the problem.

Sounds like you bullied a DM into not DMing.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Sounds like you bullied a DM into not DMing.

ROFL wow.

Bullied? You have to be kidding. You're way out of line here. He's part of the group, he himself plays a character more optimized than he can handle when other people play it. He's got some kind of weird issue where he can't stand disparity in capability between PCs and/or couldn't handle badly-designed encounters getting run over. Even though when he's the one doing the running over he doesn't see anything wrong with it.

You still haven't answered the key questions:

1) Have any players actually complained?

2) If not, have they been visibly unhappy, and you've confirmed with them that they feel the other players are causing a problem?

These questions won't "out" your players, and you need to answer them.