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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 9351018" data-attributes="member: 87792">And if you want diverse I find anti-powergamers to be the actual problem cases ... because a very large proportion are fundamentally opposed to roleplaying.D&D is, when you get down to it about playing someone who goes into life threatening situations exploring dungeons and fighting dragons.A powergamer is someone who wants to play a character who, when they go into life threatening situations, has as good a chance of survival as reasonably possible. This is accepting the premise and responding in a fundamentally appropriate way.Powergamers are legion, and the details of how they do this varies a lot. It strongly correlates with an understanding of the details of the mechanics of the game, and there is a group of powergamers that to be blunt can't see the forest for the trees.Meanwhile anti-powergamers, to hold this position, need to reject one of the premises:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The game is about people in dangerous situations fighting for survival</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If you are fighting for survival an appropriate response for many people is to try hard not to die. And a good way to do that is by being strong and prepared - in other words power gaming.</li> </ul>The first is rejecting the premise of the game, and the second is rejecting roleplaying. (What normally happens in these cases IME is a whole lot of railroading GM fiat to keep people alive and the premise isn't true,; characters are in as much danger as actors on a set)Now none of this prevents local metagames and etiquette. Trying to play pun-pun in an actual game would be silly. And a big part of the point of game design is to try to make something that works for all players and doesn't lead to Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit situations.I've seen it happen. People get sneered at by bad game designers writing in thee rulebooks excusing their bad game design by calling it "rollplaying not roleplaying" to excuse their failure to design a robust system. And people do post in threads claiming that powergamers are a problem in and of themselves - as happened right here in this thread.</blockquote>

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