D&D 5E A simple questions for Power Gamers, Optimizers, and Min-Maxers.

[dave2008]

As a role-player who primarily plays competent character, which may come off as power-gaming to some, I would welcome a game with a lot of meaningful options that were of equal power. It's actually really hard to do that with a game.

The danger that most such games run into is that they don't include meaningful options.

i agree, and I don't know that it is even possible. I am just curious if such a game would inherently turn off people who enjoy building "better" characters.

 

[guachi]

I play an RPG to win. I win by having fun. The options you provide would enhance my ability to have fun and, therefore, win.

 

[nswanson27]

Would you enjoy playing a version of D&D where you had a lot of character creation and customization options; however, these options do not add up to any additional benefit. That is to say, all options are equally good from a mechanical, optimizing, power gaming point of view.

Basically, would the game be fun for you if you could only build a different character, but not a "better" character?

For me that would break the realism/immersion, and would encourage others to not really take the game very seriously - at least in the customization aspect. In one moment, a player could decide (in spite of their customizations) to be the scout. Then at the drop of the hat they could be the tank, then they could the smoth-talking bard, and so on... Who wants to be what? Who cares, because it really doesn't matter... no thanks.

 

[dave2008]

I don't consider myself an optimizer or power gamer, but I think it would be pretty boring if every character had essentially the same capabilities. Would it be fun for you?

That is not the intent of the question. Everyone would have different capabilities but similar effectiveness. The ranger might be a great at archery and the fighter great a sword and board, but not vice versa. They are ultimately equally as effective.

You might be trying to get at the question: would you still have fun if you weren't allowed to optimize? If so, i think a better lever might be: "Could you still have fun playing if you had to use a pregen character?" To which I would say, "Yes."

No, I want to understand is the "fun" in building a character out of many options or is it only "fun" if that character is actually better than everyone else (or at least the assumptions of the game).

 

[dave2008]

For me that would break the realism/immersion, and would encourage others to not really take the game very seriously - at least in the customization aspect. In one moment, a player could decide (in spite of their customizations) to be the scout. Then at the drop of the hat they could be the tank, then they could the smoth-talking bard, and so on... Who wants to be what? Who cares, because it really doesn't matter... no thanks.

To clarify that is not what I am talking about. In this hypothetical game your choice could make you a better scout, defender, or striker than another player, but ultimately it does not make any particular character better at the overall game. The question is can you accept difference / customization without better overall performance.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

All of which is to say that if the game is perfectly balanced (as posited), all the choices would be meaningless​ options from the power-gaming perspective, wouldn't they? Because no choices you made would affect the efficacy of your character. Or am I missing something?

That is, roughly speaking, the conundrum at hand. Perfect balance would require uniformity in all things. Practically speaking, there are two paths to meaningful customization, which don't (severely) affect power balance.

The first path is to have several options that are each comparable, from a power standpoint. Damage types are an example of this type of customization. Bludgeoning damage isn't better or worse than slashing damage, but it's different, and you may wish to choose one or the other depending on various circumstances. In earlier editions, you also had the choice between high crit-damage and high crit-range (or both, but less base damage, or other features); weapons in both 3E and 4E were designed around the idea of these trade-offs, where everything was close enough that none was clearly better (at least in a vacuum). But then, once you factored in feats and abilities and whatnot, it usually turned out that there was one or two clear winners (again), and the meaningful choice was gone. (It's not impossible to maintain that level of balance, and keep the choice meaningful, but you need to be super careful to not then include feats or powers that push one out ahead of the others).

The other path to customization is apples-and-oranges. If you have the choice between learning a damage spell, a healing spell, or a charm spell, then none is better than either of its alternatives (from a balance perspective). Even if the damage is more or less than the healing, whether the charm lasts a minute or a week, the effects are simply not comparable. A potion of flight is not comparable to a potion of fire resistance. There's a lot that you could do with this sort of customization, but the interdependence of stats in most games means that it's usually inefficient to multi-task.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

To clarify that is not what I am talking about. In this hypothetical game your choice could make you a better scout, defender, or striker than another player, but ultimately it does not make any particular character better at the overall game. The question is can you accept difference / customization without better overall performance.

Unicorns are also hypotetical, but probably more likely to really exist than an RPG that provides genuinely different characters that are still perfectly balanced.

 

[nswanson27]

To clarify that is not what I am talking about. In this hypothetical game your choice could make you a better scout, defender, or striker than another player, but ultimately it does not make any particular character better at the overall game. The question is can you accept difference / customization without better overall performance.

Ok fair enough. This might be a devils in the details kind of thing. Which kinds of customizations were you thinking of? I mean, would the base stats (assuming point buying) for a character be exactly this? Also, I think things get tricky once you have more than one dimension of customization to consider (ie. stats + race choice). I think it's the players choosing a bad mix of these more fundamental mechanics that makes them a "suboptimal" character, not because of any one of these mechanics in isolation.

 

[dave2008]

Unicorns are also hypotetical, but probably more likely to really exist than an RPG that provides genuinely different characters that are still perfectly balanced.

To clarify this tread is not about if such a game is possible, but what do people want. Do optimizers, power gamers, etec. need to be "better" or could the accept being as effective as everyone else. That is the question.