D&D 5E Are powergamers a problem and do you allow them to play in your games?

[WarpedAcorn]

While power gaming is often detached from roleplaying, it does drive characters to pick fights. Optimising for combat means you're really good at that one thing: you have a toolbox full of hammers. So every problem looks like a nail. The player is pushed to start fights or look for aggressive solutions so they can try out their newest combat trick or show off their abilities.

This is really no different than dealing with a group who has gotten to be mid or high level and has severely "out-leveled" standard NPC's and Guards. It just starts a little earlier with a "powergamed combat build". But the solutions remain the same. A smart powergamer knows when to keep his sword in its sheath lest he end up with a bounty on his head and the campaign takes a very different turn.

 

[Jester David]

This is really no different than dealing with a group who has gotten to be mid or high level and has severely "out-leveled" standard NPC's and Guards. It just starts a little earlier with a "powergamed combat build". But the solutions remain the same. A smart powergamer knows when to keep his sword in its sheath lest he end up with a bounty on his head and the campaign takes a very different turn.

It's more than that.
The above tends to come up in cities, when there's a fear of consequences and retribution. Yes, removing that fear of losing to guards (or a posse) does make combat more of an option, but it's still not ideal: picking a fight with the State is only not a problem in murderhobo games, campaigns where the party doesn't have anything to lose but their lives and the gold on their person.

Cities with a local authority are also only one play RPing happens. You can often negotiate outside of cities, partnering with humanoids to turn them against other enemies or talking through a random encounter. There's lots of times in the game where there's a consequence free option to talk or fight. Sure, you can kill the guy taking a toll on the bridge and no one will know. Or you can pay and steal back the money. Or you can talk him down through diplomacy or threats. Someone who optimised their character for one action is of course going to opt for a path that lets them take that action. It's not just combat: the thief who is built for maximum for stealth and thievery will happily pay for everyone to cross the bridge and then take back their money, the toll takers money, and the toll taker's pants. But combat does tend to be the most common focus.

This can be disruptive. I've seen many instances where the first sign of something in the underbrush is met with a warcry and sudden strike from the combat monkey character. "Omigod, I just hit fifth level and can now attack twice. And if I Action Surge I can get four attacks. I can't wait to nova the eff out of something. Did that bush just move?" Or the player who decides that a negotiation isn't going well and just attacks, ending the roleplaying/ diplomatic scene of another character. Or the player gets impatient and annoyed because they can't participate in a diplomatic scene, as they laser focused their character on kicking ass and can't do anything else.

That's the problem with power gaming/ optimising. It labours under the false impressions that:
a) You can "win" D&D
b) The best way to "win" D&D is by winning fights
It focused on just one of the three aspects of the game, and thus makes the other two less fun. This discouraging the DM from using them for fear of boring one player, while also ironically making it harder to balance combat encounters.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

...
That's the problem with power gaming/ optimising. It labours under the false impressions that:
a) You can "win" D&D
b) The best way to "win" D&D is by winning fights
...

I'd argue that's not a false impression, combat-junky optimization aside. One way you 'win' D&D is to not have your PC killed, because, rez magic aside, your PC dying is pretty much 'losing' D&D unless you're cool with it due to story/RP, etc. And one way to not die is to win fights, when you get into them.

Now another element of survival means you pick your battles and risks with care, too, and use all sorts of methods to do so beyond pure combat ability. Stealth, persuasion, careful planning and preparation, etc. Hence it helps to be well rounded if you want to survive because no matter how combat-optimized your PC is being in the wrong place at the wrong time in a fight is the most common way to die ('lose').

 

[Jester David]

I'd argue that's not a false impression, combat-junky optimization aside. One way you 'win' D&D is to not have your PC killed, because, rez magic aside, your PC dying is pretty much 'losing' D&D unless you're cool with it due to story/RP, etc. And one way to not die is to win fights, when you get into them.

Now another element of survival means you pick your battles and risks with care, too, and use all sorts of methods to do so beyond pure combat ability. Stealth, persuasion, careful planning and preparation, etc. Hence it helps to be well rounded if you want to survive because no matter how combat-optimized your PC is being in the wrong place at the wrong time in a fight is the most common way to die ('lose').

Right. In this argument you "win" by surviving . However, not everything you survive will be a fight. There are traps and exploration and natural hazards and puzzles.
And even if just talking combat encounters, killing the enemy is just one path to victory, with the others overlooked by overspecialisation.

The problem comes when there are multiple ways to win and the easiest way is not known. The optimised character will always go for the one that lets them use their speciality. Which may not be the easiest or the most advantageous in the long term.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Right. In this argument you "win" by surviving . However, not everything you survive will be a fight. There are traps and exploration and natural hazards and puzzles.
And even if just talking combat encounters, killing the enemy is just one path to victory, with the others overlooked by overspecialisation.

The problem comes when there are multiple ways to win and the easiest way is not known. The optimised character will always go for the one that lets them use their speciality. Which may not be the easiest or the most advantageous in the long term.

Exactly. And players who always choose the 'combat' solution where presented with a combat-optimized character will learn a valuable lesson when, lo and behold, provoking a fight was indeed NOT the correct choice for survival.

 

[5ekyu]

Cities with a local authority are also only one play RPing happens. You can often negotiate outside of cities, partnering with humanoids to turn them against other enemies or talking through a random encounter. There's lots of times in the game where there's a consequence free option to talk or fight. Sure, you can kill the guy taking a toll on the bridge and no one will know. Or you can pay and steal back the money. Or you can talk him down through diplomacy or threats. Someone who optimised their character for one action is of course going to opt for a path that lets them take that action. It's not just combat: the thief who is built for maximum for stealth and thievery will happily pay for everyone to cross the bridge and then take back their money, the toll takers money, and the toll taker's pants. But combat does tend to be the most common focus.


...SNIPPED...

That's the problem with power gaming/ optimising. It labours under the false impressions that:
a) You can "win" D&D
b) The best way to "win" D&D is by winning fights
It focused on just one of the three aspects of the game, and thus makes the other two less fun. This discouraging the DM from using them for fear of boring one player, while also ironically making it harder to balance combat encounters.

For the bolded part - the toll bridge - if the toll bridge guy has a name, is friendly sort and so on another option is not only paying for the crossing but also for information or to keep their passage secret. Any strange happenings, odd travellers, seen any folks with these robes?

That is part of the key to dealing with the PCs and the world - have they been shown these NPCs are anything to value and not just for their roleplaying indulgences but as perhaps profitable or useful contacts. The amount of "return on investment" for just paying the cross plus tip and talking can be shown to be much greater than the value of killing or scamming the NPC.

I'd argue that's not a false impression, combat-junky optimization aside. One way you 'win' D&D is to not have your PC killed, because, rez magic aside, your PC dying is pretty much 'losing' D&D unless you're cool with it due to story/RP, etc. And one way to not die is to win fights, when you get into them.

Now another element of survival means you pick your battles and risks with care, too, and use all sorts of methods to do so beyond pure combat ability. Stealth, persuasion, careful planning and preparation, etc. Hence it helps to be well rounded if you want to survive because no matter how combat-optimized your PC is being in the wrong place at the wrong time in a fight is the most common way to die ('lose').

In my experience, once "does my PC survive" becomes not at all the primary focus of the game things tend to play better in terms of interaction and a whole host of things. this is not to say you have careless or reckless PCs who just do crazy stuff, but when their goals and objectives and the events around them are what is on their mind more than say "am i gonna get killed today?" the campaign seem to thrive.

Obviously the after-death game setting and table rules elements play a huge role in that point - not an aside.

What are the new character standards? First level cold start or new guy at current levels/gear or somewhere in between.

What are the post-dead return of that character options and are they available to the PCs yet directly, indirectly through NPCs or not at all?

Are there other aspects that can play a role even after the return from dead? Cults who view the Returned as Holy, Seers or Abominations, special abilities that unlock after a brush with the afterlife, permanent consequences such as lost death saves, lost CON or other. and even vision quests while in the beyond can all make for additional considerations when it comes to how the players approach and value the death of their PC.

But to me just as important (even more in fact) to the after-death elements are the getting dead elements - though the after-death gets most of the discussion focus it seems.

How possible or likely is a one-shot dead result?
How possible or likely is it that your character dies just by bad dice without chances beyond making the roll and how common is that?
How possible or likely is it that losing a combat creates a captured result rather than a slaughtered as a matter of course?

A game might see players treat "my character's survival" quite differently if up-front the Gm says "You wont die by dice. You might die by neglect/drama - if the PCs do not choose to get to you before death saves expire. You might die by choice or egregious stupidity - after numerous warnings you try a suicidal act with full knowledge of the consequences say. But some stray crit or failed save won't kill you - just setup the death save sequences with possible additional consequences."

I mean, to me, Disintigrate or PWK where we replace "poof/dead" with "You are at zero hp and the usual death saves kick in. However,.. Each successful death save, healing or stabilize type effect stalls the end. The process will only be stopped by healing, remove curse and restoration magic spells spent equal to the level of the original attack. AND..."
DISINTEGRATE "With each failed death save gear is lost (including one item of note."
PWK: "Each failed death save becomes permanent, forever counting against your death save totals."

These still leave those spells with serious consequences that demand more effort at the point of occurrence which seems much more drama invoking than poof dead. (one could do the same sort of thing for the massive damage rule if it were even in play.)

But to me a **lot** of the impetus and drive for players to see "survival is winning" is created by the campaign setting decisions on death (before, during and after) the group decides to use for their game.

 

[Jester David]

Exactly. And players who always choose the 'combat' solution where presented with a combat-optimized character will learn a valuable lesson when, lo and behold, provoking a fight was indeed NOT the correct choice for survival.

Which works if the offending player is the one punished. Typically, the character who dies is one less optimized to handle combat.
From my experiences, it's the rest of the table who suffers the consequences. They're the ones irritated when their diplomatic overtures cut short when the bored power gamer says "screw this, I draw my sword."

For the bolded part - the toll bridge - if the toll bridge guy has a name, is friendly sort and so on another option is not only paying for the crossing but also for information or to keep their passage secret. Any strange happenings, odd travellers, seen any folks with these robes?

That is part of the key to dealing with the PCs and the world - have they been shown these NPCs are anything to value and not just for their roleplaying indulgences but as perhaps profitable or useful contacts. The amount of "return on investment" for just paying the cross plus tip and talking can be shown to be much greater than the value of killing or scamming the NPC.

Meeting that NPC is a scene. It's a moment or random roleplaying, like interacting with a merchant or traveller on the road. It doesn't advance the plot, but it's a shot in the montage denoting the passage of time.
That fight where you kill the NPC with your well executed and optimized attack is boring. It's boring and forgettable. (Like most fights that go exactly like plan.) That moment where the rogue sneaks back to the toll bridge and pickpockets their money back replacing the purse with a pouch of live scorpions… that's a moment that will be retold and laughed at for years.

In my experience, once "does my PC survive" becomes not at all the primary focus of the game things tend to play better in terms of interaction and a whole host of things. this is not to say you have careless or reckless PCs who just do crazy stuff, but when their goals and objectives and the events around them are what is on their mind more than say "am i gonna get killed today?" the campaign seem to thrive.

The catch being, the power gamer who just wants to win and thinks beating combat is the way to do so isn't going to care about the other aspects of the game. They're going to make that primary, whether the DM wants to or not.
But even if the power gamer IS one of the few that is also a solid roleplaying and cares about more than survival, there's still the disruptive influence of them owning combat.
It's not fun for the other people at the table if everything is dead before they get a turn. It's not fun to be the sidekick.
And from a DM perspective, an optimizer makes it hard to balance encounters. The difficulty needs to be increased to accommodate that one player, which can be unfair on the rest of the table as well, making it even harder for them to contribute or vulnerable to being squished.
After all, if the DM was giving just one player super cool magic items that made them better than everyone else, we'd be tripping over ourselves to call that unfair behaviour. But when someone does it themselves through careful reading the the rulebooks, that's okay?

 

[iserith]

That's the problem with power gaming/ optimising. It labours under the false impressions that:
a) You can "win" D&D
b) The best way to "win" D&D is by winning fights
It focused on just one of the three aspects of the game, and thus makes the other two less fun. This discouraging the DM from using them for fear of boring one player, while also ironically making it harder to balance combat encounters.

I would say, yes, you can "win" D&D. It tells us how to do so in the Basic Rules: "...if everyone had a good time and created a memorable story, they all win."

Whether or not that means, in a given game, winning all the fights can be true. But isn't necessarily true. Each group is going to have to work that out for themselves. Pointing out to a disruptive optimizer that he or she is causing the group to "lose" at D&D, to the extent that the player wants to "win" by the standards the game sets forth, can be an effective means of realigning the player's expectations so that everyone is aiming toward the same goal.

 

[nswanson27]

It's more than that.
The above tends to come up in cities, when there's a fear of consequences and retribution. Yes, removing that fear of losing to guards (or a posse) does make combat more of an option, but it's still not ideal: picking a fight with the State is only not a problem in murderhobo games, campaigns where the party doesn't have anything to lose but their lives and the gold on their person.

Cities with a local authority are also only one play RPing happens. You can often negotiate outside of cities, partnering with humanoids to turn them against other enemies or talking through a random encounter. There's lots of times in the game where there's a consequence free option to talk or fight. Sure, you can kill the guy taking a toll on the bridge and no one will know. Or you can pay and steal back the money. Or you can talk him down through diplomacy or threats. Someone who optimised their character for one action is of course going to opt for a path that lets them take that action. It's not just combat: the thief who is built for maximum for stealth and thievery will happily pay for everyone to cross the bridge and then take back their money, the toll takers money, and the toll taker's pants. But combat does tend to be the most common focus.

This can be disruptive. I've seen many instances where the first sign of something in the underbrush is met with a warcry and sudden strike from the combat monkey character. "Omigod, I just hit fifth level and can now attack twice. And if I Action Surge I can get four attacks. I can't wait to nova the eff out of something. Did that bush just move?" Or the player who decides that a negotiation isn't going well and just attacks, ending the roleplaying/ diplomatic scene of another character. Or the player gets impatient and annoyed because they can't participate in a diplomatic scene, as they laser focused their character on kicking ass and can't do anything else.

That's the problem with power gaming/ optimising. It labours under the false impressions that:
a) You can "win" D&D
b) The best way to "win" D&D is by winning fights
It focused on just one of the three aspects of the game, and thus makes the other two less fun. This discouraging the DM from using them for fear of boring one player, while also ironically making it harder to balance combat encounters.

I don't know... I've seen a lot of similar behavior with non-optimized characters as well, where clearly they pick a fight that's way over their head. "But that's what my character does!!!".. and then the party gets drawn in due to being associated with the aggressor.
I've also seen a lot of optimizers able to hold their tongue and keep their cool.
At lot of the time I think a lot of it can be avoided by banning choatic/netural evil behaviors. Also clarify to the players that personality defects are not mental disorders.

 

[5ekyu]

Which works if the offending player is the one punished. Typically, the character who dies is one less optimized to handle combat.
From my experiences, it's the rest of the table who suffers the consequences. They're the ones irritated when their diplomatic overtures cut short when the bored power gamer says "screw this, I draw my sword."

Meeting that NPC is a scene. It's a moment or random roleplaying, like interacting with a merchant or traveller on the road. It doesn't advance the plot, but it's a shot in the montage denoting the passage of time.
That fight where you kill the NPC with your well executed and optimized attack is boring. It's boring and forgettable. (Like most fights that go exactly like plan.) That moment where the rogue sneaks back to the toll bridge and pickpockets their money back replacing the purse with a pouch of live scorpions… that's a moment that will be retold and laughed at for years.


The catch being, the power gamer who just wants to win and thinks beating combat is the way to do so isn't going to care about the other aspects of the game. They're going to make that primary, whether the DM wants to or not.
But even if the power gamer IS one of the few that is also a solid roleplaying and cares about more than survival, there's still the disruptive influence of them owning combat.
It's not fun for the other people at the table if everything is dead before they get a turn. It's not fun to be the sidekick.
And from a DM perspective, an optimizer makes it hard to balance encounters. The difficulty needs to be increased to accommodate that one player, which can be unfair on the rest of the table as well, making it even harder for them to contribute or vulnerable to being squished.
After all, if the DM was giving just one player super cool magic items that made them better than everyone else, we'd be tripping over ourselves to call that unfair behaviour. But when someone does it themselves through careful reading the the rulebooks, that's okay?

Hmmm... ok so let me give you my perspectives here...

the bold part... Where is it said that the NPC does not advance the plot? matter of fact, the PCs decision to interact may well not only advance the plot but create a plot. Suppose a PC decides to support this crossing? What if they partner with this guy, getting better facilities for safer crossing, building up repair, rest stops etc? there is a lot of plot and story that can be **created** by the interaction with this PC or another PC that can last a lot longer than another time the thief snuck back and stole something and poisoned someone. (The story of the scorpion would not be so much a great campaign story if the rogue did these things all the time after all - it would just be "last tuesday.")

the key thing i was trying to get across is that the more the Gm lets interactions grow and the more they let interactions play a role, the less likely the "kill npc on sight" or whatever you want to call it approach is seen as a "winning one." it is "winning" only in the absence of something better.

As for the italicized...

first - once you apply presumption of an almost mindless blind obsession to a player type - the argument loses any significance at all. What about the roleplayer who only ever thinks of the romance angles and never even tries to take up any combat skills? What about the rogue who only ever wants to steal and never fights and so does not adventure with the... etc etc etc boring boring boring extremist dichotomies.

if one assumes a player who has the ability to act rationally and make rational decisions, then you get to more interesting fodder for discussion.

"It's not fun for the other people at the table if everything is dead before they get a turn. " that is a sign of a GM problem, not a player problem. the Gm creates and devises the adversaries and challenges and if he puts "fights" that are over that quickly often enough in play to be a problem for the enjoyment of others he needs to rethink his design and approach. i won't say i have never seen a one shot kill, because obviously it has happened but it was not as much a case of awesome powergamer fu as a lucky hit and a very weak adversary that was not intended to be a challenge anyway.

Again that seems to be taking the subject to some extreme well beyond what is seen in most play. 905 of the game is played between the upper 5% extreme and the lower 5% extreme.

As for having one or more optimizers making it harder for the Gm to balance encounters - not in my experience. I have never found it to be that case that i did not have to put some work into balancing encounters and challenges - again - i see balance in play as the intersection of capability and need (key and lock) and so i factor in the character's capabilities most all the time. it is not harder when one does better at this and another better at that even if "that" is not at play, not highlighted" in a given scene. last session a character's ability to do radiant attacks and resist necrotic damage was one of the YUGE things of the fight and as they figured it out the PCs adjusted their tactics to take advantage of that. . The fight a few weeks ago, that character did not fare so well at all.

Increasing the challenge can easily be done in ways that give characters more opportunities, not just squish them. As a matter of fact, the more complicated an encounter is the more likely it is that no one character can dominate it. An encounter with opportunities for sneak, support, slash, snipe and spell (not to mention speak, save or snuggle) is unlikely to have it be possible for just one character to take over and shut the others out if the others want to contribute.

As for your linkage of player performance vs GM favoritism... a GM intentionally and consistently giving one player more/better/cooler rewards than the others to the detriment of the game experience for the others that would be unfair **regardless** of whether or not it made them better in combat. its not that the rewards made them better but that the Gm was not treating each player as equally as they expect. it wouldn't be Ok if the "supper cool more than you" was all cash and titles and interactions.

That has nothing at all to do with what the players themselves choose to do with their options as given and the benefits they reap. there is no promise of "equal outcomes" implied anywhere by a GM - though there is a strong goal of equality of opportunities. Again that notion of balance being capability-meet-challenge applies just as well to capability-meets-opportunity. Gm hopefully runs a game where the choices and capabilities the PCs have get "equal enough" opportunities and challenges so that everyone feels engaged and useful. its not particularly hard if the Gm pays attention at chargen and backstory and just simply keeps at it.

on the other hand, if a Gm runs a game where any one aspect if really over-emphasized then balance can be more of a problem if some of the characters are well suited to that and others are not. A campaign which features lots and lots and lots of undead will likely shift the perceived balance" between cleric and druid quite a bit **unless* the Gm is paying attention.

lots of factors play into balance and its not hard for a Gm to keep it going well enough, but they will need to do it.