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Message: <blockquote data-quote="raleel" data-source="post: 6424201" data-attributes="member: 21664">So, I DM a lot and have run into this. It is a common thing for the characters to be optimized and for players to feel that need - after all, D&D on it's surface is a game of numbers, and lots of number-gifted people play it. 4e enhanced that a lot by making things very mechanical. I have one player who is extremely good at this. His characters are very hard to put down, his dice luck is exceptional, and he covers all his bases. He's arguably much more tactical than I am, despite similar intelligence levels, etc. It frustrated me to no end because I couldn't compete without blasting the rest of the party out of the water.I expressed my frustration to my wife (totally not a gamer) and she said "don't. If he wants to do that and that's the fun he gets out of it, let him win." This line of logic actually made me think long and hard about it. I decided to stop competing, and actually toned down my combats, made things easier. Occasionally I would throw in a real doozy, but the average one I was sure they would sail through pretty cleanly, maybe not even using 10% of their resources.This did a few things<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It made it so that the hard combats felt very special</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It allowed them to have enough resources that I could make the hard combats MUCH harder, and their optimizations felt really important</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It made the time for most combats much shorter, because they could handle it without effort, and sort of became "filler"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">which in turn freed up a lot of time for roleplaying</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">which I encouraged by making open ended problems where i would present a situation and no clear solution.</li> </ul>Often it worked best when I presented multiple options (I started calling them quest question marks, like you get in most video games), and largely let them write the solution. If they said "hey, is there a <thing that is going to help put this plan into motion>", I almost always said "yes, but <some obstacle that must be overcome>"some of this I pulled from more story-focused RPGs, like Fate and the Cortex Plus system stuff. Particularly the Cortex Hacker's guide and Leverage good about making me think a bit. We even tried a few of these, but the truth of the matter is, my guys DO like numbers and tactical stuff somewhat. I do to!  Running a fairly long 13th age campaign made me think more about how willing I was to house rule things and get away from RAW. Being open with what I was going to house rule and having a discussion with my players about how it was fun or not, and pretty much constantly asking them "was that fun?" helped some with that too. It's also important to understand your players as much as anything. Push down your ego and listen to what they mean, even if it is not what they are saying. I have 1 player who won't spend much time out of game doing anything - I always recommend a mechanically simple class with few research points to him. No wizards ever. He's also a murderhobo-person, so barbarians and assassin-rogues suit him really well. I've got another guy who has massive character ADD and wants to do all the things. So, I give him the bards and the wizards.The perhaps ironic thing about it was that Mr. Lucky Optimizer up there was one of my most valuable tools in making all this happen.</blockquote>

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