D&D General DM Says No Powergaming?

[Warpiglet-7]

As I stated much further up thread, powergamers are not necessarily a problem. It depends on the group and what they enjoy, I used to DM a public game that had a group we called "The Cheese Weasels". This was in 3.5, and they had all worked together to create the most broken PC group possible. I didn't really understand the appeal but they had fun. More power to them.

To me the real issue is the glory hog, which has an overlap with powergamer. The glory hog wants to be the driving force of the game, whether in combat or out. They seem to view the game as a competition not just with foiling anything the DM does but also being more important than the rest of the PCs.

An example of a glory hog powergamer was Jo. Jo ran a cleric that took the noble class and decided they had two retainers. Those retainers were supposed be just commoners that don't do much of anything. But ... Jo talked the DM into letting the retainers gain levels of cleric and they became sort-of-henchmen sidekicks. Nobody else had sidekicks, but when it came to Jo's turn they were running 3 characters. Then Jo talked the DM into letting them take a custom class that basically gave them all the benefits of a warlock in addition to being a cleric.

The group eventually had an intervention with the DM and said that all this was not cool, and the retainers were written out of the game. But Jo was that kind of person that would always push the boundaries, always wanting more. For example when the group was telling everyone what they had done during a downtime break for the PCs, they declared that they had hopped up to Valhalla and had tea and crumpets with Odin over the weekend. This in a campaign where the gods were distant and unreachable. The PC was level 10 at the time. Then they would say that they could find any McGuffin or creature anywhere in the world because "Odin saw all" and they could just chat with his god buddy who would look for him.

In some ways they were a great addition to the game because he was invested in the game and their PC. But they always wanted to be the star of the show, always one-upping everyone else. No matter how many times we tried to explain it, no matter how often the DM said "No, it doesn't work that way" it just never sunk in what the issues were. They were not just a powergamer, it wasn't that they were not a roleplayer. It was that they were a glory hog who wanted to dominate the game.

This is my experience as well.

I noted upthread the only time I did not have fun playing in the past few years was when a party member pushed ahead of the line—-always the spokesperson, always at front of marching order in a narrow dungeon, talking up and cultivating his background while the rest of us just wanted a turn…

I don’t know why the DM did not manage it but honestly a few of us were probably too passive being relatively nice guys.

My character might have been more tricked out than his actually. Omg! I am the power gamer! The power gamer is me!

I kid, I kid. Sort of.

 

[overgeeked]

Agreed. So the concept that "all powergamers are bad at roleplaying" is disproven,

Not really, no. It’s proven that people on the internet will yell at you for saying it. People on the internet say it’s possible to do both. But people are incredibly bad at judging their own abilities, see the Dunning-Krueger effect. And people on the internet will say any kind of nonsense, see the flat earthers, NFT bros, and Elon Musk fans among so, so many examples.

Personally, I have yet to meet a single power gamer in real life who’s even halfway decent at RP. Most seem to think that a single line of in-character dialog once every third session is the height of good RP. I had one say that the best role-playing of the night was when they attacked an ooze with an axe. Their definition of good RP was simply not metagaming.

So, no, it’s not in any way disproven. I have yet to meet this particular breed of unicorn in the flesh, but people on the internet keep insisting they exist. So I won’t assume they don’t.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

People have different ideas of what they want to play. I am in no way ashamed of saying my group loves combat. A lot. We skipp haggling with merchants over rope and rations. Not our bag.

I just have given up the dichotomy of power gamer vs. non power gamer.

Many things are just for power. You telling me polearm master is really leaning into your history as a soldier? Or ASIs? “I am sir Beefcake! I love to work out and joust on my off days! It’s why I have advanced to a 20 str! Let my personality and love of muscle be known!”

Choosing better armor…not a personality defining feature most of the time. So many choices are about accomplishing the goal.

Maybe this is optimizing and not powergaming?

If powergaming is about dominance in the absence of all else my rule of no asshats is a parsimonious way of having fun across the continuum of different preferences.

 

[Maxperson]

Mostly because combat is the only thing that actually stands a decent chance of taking away your ability to continue participating.

This is 5e. It's literally impossible to take away a person's ability to continue participating in combat. A bunch of commoners can kill a dragon.

Even a group consisting entirely of the worst classes/subclasses can easily beat an encounter at their CR. This is because the game is balanced around 6-8 encounters over the adventuring day. It's not until the last fight or two that the group is being seriously challenged. All optimizing does is guarantee 8 or even 9 or 10 encounters before they hit that point, rather than 6.

Optimizing doesn't actually help with combat. All it does is make the combat slog take longer until your group is challenged.

 

[Mort]

Personally, I have yet to meet a single power gamer in real life who’s even halfway decent at RP. Most seem to think that a single line of in-character dialog once every third session is the height of good RP. I had one say that the best role-playing of the night was when they attacked an ooze with an axe. Their definition of good RP was simply not metagaming.

Interesting, many of the powergamers I know/ have known are also excellent roleplayers.

Good powergaming requires system mastery, and that comes with a lot of practice. Lots of practice ALSO helps with roleplaying. In many instances I've seen the two go hand in hand. As someone becomes a better roleplayer they also become a better optimizer and vice versa.

 

[Greg Benage]

I've been in home games with powergamers who are excellent roleplayers (and otherwise engaged with the game and the group in a positive way, not just the backstory and talky stuff). But also, home games tend to be self-selecting of a certain kind of person, regardless of in-game preferences. If my experience were limited to AL events, or influenced by the "give me a backstory for my hexblade" posts that always adorn the first page on Reddit, I'd be solidly on Team Stormwind.

 

[soviet]

The entire structure of D&D is 'choose from this large catalogue of powers with specific mechanical effects to build your character' meets 'try to beat similarly defined monsters in encounters you can either win (gain XP and treasure) or lose (character dies)', with some amount of exploration and roleplay stitching it all together.

If you're playing D&D but you don't want mechanics-driven character builds and challenge based play then you are using the wrong game.

 

[Redwizard007]

This is 5e. It's literally impossible to take away a person's ability to continue participating in combat. A bunch of commoners can kill a dragon.

Even a group consisting entirely of the worst classes/subclasses can easily beat an encounter at their CR. This is because the game is balanced around 6-8 encounters over the adventuring day. It's not until the last fight or two that the group is being seriously challenged. All optimizing does is guarantee 8 or even 9 or 10 encounters before they hit that point, rather than 6.

Optimizing doesn't actually help with combat. All it does is make the combat slog take longer until your group is challenged.

Where ya at, Max? I'll make the trip just to show you how wrong this is, but I am tired of correcting "iTs hArD 2 kIlL pCs" online.

 

[iserith]

This is 5e. It's literally impossible to take away a person's ability to continue participating in combat. A bunch of commoners can kill a dragon.

They really can't though. One breath weapon will do for them, and succeeding at the saving throw (also very hard for them) won't matter.

 

[Greg Benage]

Where ya at, Max? I'll make the trip just to show you how wrong this is, but I am tired of correcting "iTs hArD 2 kIlL pCs" online.

I mean, it's harder than it used to be, right? We used to have to house-rule the game to keep PCs alive...we really don't have to do that anymore.