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Once again your experience is functionally the opposite of just about everyone else's--and you are conflating "spotlight hog" with "optimizer," when they're not inherently the same. If people say their experience of optimizers is that they A) don't necessarily hog the spotlight and B) thrive on...

I've left tables when everyone else was clearly enjoying the play but it was driving me kinda nuts (in a bad way). I have persistently said, I think, that I was the problem at those tables, not everyone else.

Yeah, ideally you can enjoy the game, whether you win or lose. I didn't understand the OP or the conversation to be about enjoyment, as such. I think whatever enjoyment people get from games might as well in most cases be called "fun," though I agree it's not exclusive to games and it's probably...

I think the last sentence is the important thing, though there is a large middle space between your two options, and there's nothing inherent to optimization and/or roleplaying that makes them mutually exclusive. Not a major disagreement, just a bit of a pet peeve of mine.

I run open-ended games, myself, though I don't self-describe them as "sandboxes," and the players explicitly set goals, and at least some of them explicitly talk about "winning" and "losing," and some of the TRPGers I know definitely play not to lose (I've seen this called "turtling"). In the...

Of course, narrative and game aren't mutually exclusive. The PCs' goals may well be narrative in origin and/or nature, they might in fact be derived from the story and background and world-building. The players might well use--probably have reason to expect to use--the rules of the game to make...

My experience is that I end up adapting to the parties I'm running for; having an optimizer or three in the party isn't any different from having more players, as far as the mustering opposition part of GMing, anyway. But then, I make up stuff specifically for the parties I'm running for, based...

No worries, that wasn't intended to say you should have seen it, much more in the way of apologizing for repeating myself. Sorry if it came across badly.

As I said, in the post immediately before yours, I think the players being able to decide on their goals is one of the primary attributes of good TRPG play, and I think not achieving those goals must be possible for achieving those goals to have any meaning, and I think achieving those goals or...

I think the idea that the players can decide what their goals are is one of the primary attributes of good TRPG play. Upthread @Pedantic called it something like "the players setting their own victory conditions," and I think there's a strong implication that if there are "victory conditions"...

The idea of winning/losing at TRPGs lines up pretty well with my experience of co-op board games--which are the only ones we play at my house, these days. The interactions at the TRPG table don't have to be antagonistic for success and failure (winning and losing) to both be possibilities--at...

Indeed. There's nothing about "winning" or "losing" at TRPGs that inherently means "play ends." That seems to be one of the areas of misunderstanding.

Yeah, definitely. Crome's the 900-pound gorilla, right? Someone using Microsoft's current browser is probably an Edge-case. (heh)

This is the crux of where people are seeing things differently. To the extent that the player playing well (and yes, "the player playing well" will mean different things to different people/tables) matters to the character succeeding or failing, the outcome will correlate (for some players at...

Given those are both Webkit, I wouldn't expect a site broken in one to work in the other. That might be your point.

I think either will feel pointless, but I don't feel they'll feel like the same kind of pointless.

That's not unreasonable, really. Having your character achieve their goal/s feels a lot like winning, and having your character fail to do so feels a lot like losing, at least in my experience. But, of course, different experiences and preferences are possible.

You almost got there. You win, as a player, by having your character achieve their goal/s--this can be kinda fractal, goals can be nested or nearly so. You lose, as a player, by having your character fail to achieve their goals--again, this can be fractal and goals can be nested. It doesn't have...

Maybe. I can see an argument that either you're thinking about it or you aren't, though it might not be your top priority and/or you might not be all that good at it. I certainly wouldn't want to play with someone who can't/won't stop quarterbacking, or with someone who can't/won't stop...

The only quibble I'd have, here--and it's a minor quibble, I'm not looking for an argument--is that I think the distinction is the extent/frequency to which "optimal tactical decision" is a criterion: Someone who intentionally never makes the optimal tactical decision is probably optimizing for...