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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6934636" data-attributes="member: 42582">But at many tables, what your STR stat is makes a difference to the likelihood of success if you declare, as your action "I vault over the coffins to kick the magic MacGuffin out of the hands of the bad guy!"If mechanical resolution matters to anything that is important, then the inputs into that resolution - eg PC stats - aren't of no relevance at all.Some people are fun to have along to a card night even if they're not very good game players, because they're fun people to hang out with.RPGing puts a distinctive twist on that, because part of the game involves (or, at least, can involve) creating a fun person for others to hang out with.Now if you're the person at the card night who is really serious about the game, then you might get irritated by the nice guy who keeps missing tricks when you're partnered with him. If you're the person at the D&D session who is really serious about beating the dungeon, then you might get irritated by the player whose PC is fun and memorable, but who keeps triggering all the traps.I don't think there's anything wrong with being that serious person - though you might want to tone it down in more light-hearted company. But it's certainly not the only way to approach playing a game - and in D&D it's complicated by the fact that for some players the fun personality is a higher priority for the game than beating the dungeon. (Some people seem to go so far as to say that aiming to beat the dungeon is actually a wrong way to approach D&D. I don't agree with that either.)EDIT: I saw this reply:I think I've already answered this above, but will say a bit more.If I joined your soccer game, having told you that I can play soccer, I can almost guarantee that you would be irritated by me - because my soccer is terrible. (I can do the running bit, but not any of the ball control bits.) The fact that I told funny jokes all through the game might somewhat mitigate the irritation, but - at least for many sports players - actually playing the game is part of the point.In D&D it's more complicated because not everyone agrees on what the point is. Not everyone agrees that "beating the dungeon" is the point. But clearly for some players it is, and they're not obviously wrong.And as I posted in post 77 a little bit further along in the thread, a further factor in D&D is that overcoming challenges is a definite thing. Whereas there are other FRPGs (eg BW) which are superficially similar to D&D, but in which confronting challenges rather than necessarily overcoming them is the core of play.As I say in that post, I think it tells us something about D&D that someone who is criticising optimisation nevertheless identifies Rufus the 6 STR fighter with no armour, who wields a club one-handed, and who hates fighting, as a non-viable character.</blockquote>

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