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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5845002" data-attributes="member: 42582">Agreed. The questions I asked were genuine, and not rhetorical, but the passive-aggressive possibility was one thought I had that motivated my questions.Whether its inadvertant mismatch or deliberate hostility, the situation sounds to me like one for which the solution may have to be at the social contract/"hey guys, should we keep playing this system?" level, rather than the more "fiddling with builds and GM techniques" level that some have suggested.On an only slightly related notes, one of the players in my group is notorious for his "ineffective" PCs. In our last Rolemaster campaign, a good chunk of his character building resources were spent on making his PC an expert smith, despite the fact that he crafted only a handful of weapons and suits of armour over a 27 level, 11-year campaign. His 4e wizard has, as 4 of his 8 feats, Skill Training (Dungeoneering), Deep Sage, and two Arcane Familar feats. His Arcane Implement training is in Tome of Readiness. And despite having a 20/14 INT/WIS split at 1st level he is a multi-classed invoker with an invoker paragon path (Divine Philosopher).Despite his ineffective builds, though, the player still contributes a lot to the game - in part because he tends to play his PCs in a very engaged way, in part because he doesn't stint in his playing those bits of the PCs that are effective (and he is quite tactically clever as a game player).I relate this anecdote just to show that I think the notion of self-gimping is a complicated one, and isn't of necessity a sign of a problematic or disengaged or incapable player. But I think it definitely can be such a sign.</blockquote>

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