D&D General DM Says No Powergaming?

[Charlaquin]

I wouldn’t be comfortable with a blanket rule against “powergaming” because that’s too nebulous of a term. I would want to know specifically what was being disallowed.

You see this kind of thing a lot playing Commander in MTG; groups will have some sort of general agreement that “unfair decks” aren’t allowed, but no consensus on what counts as “unfair.” If there are certain cards or combos you want to ban, just ban them!

 

[Umbran]

Clear warning sign that they're going to go spare on you for actually using your character's capabilities to their advantage. Avoid at all costs.

Banning "powergaming" is some nebulous finger-wiggling voodoo bollocks

Folks, before laying the badwrong on these people - remember that not everyone is good at framing a point or discussion well. This is not a "warning" sign. Yeah, it is nebulous, but then almost everyone is nebulous from time to time.

Such a statement is a cue for a conversation, not labelling.

 

[Charlaquin]

Personally I don't allow rolled stats and and am not keen on multiclassing, but allow it on a case-by-case basis. The secret behind the case-by-case is "Is this player bad at minmaxing" if so I allow it, if they're good at minmaxing I don't allow it lol.

What about a player who is good at minmaxing but consciously makes a poorly-optimized multiclass character?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Folks, before laying the badwrong on these people - remember that not everyone is good at framing a point or discussion well. This is not a "warning" sign. Yeah, it is nebulous, but then almost everyone is nebulous from time to time.

Such a statement is a cue for a conversation, not labelling.

I can only speak to my personal experience, but my experience is that DMs/Storytellers/etc. who say they want to "ban powergaming" or something similarly nebulous and indicating a fear of powerful PCs or players who minmax, aren't typically interested in a constructive conversation, but rather a set of diktats directly from them (or worse, directly from some awful website or youtuber they follow), which are often extremely nebulous and inconsistent, and typically based in very serious misunderstandings/misapprehensions re: the rules of the relevant game system.

This is because they are motivated by fear of the people they're playing with. It is difficult to have constructive conversations with people motivated by fear to start with. To have conversations when they're afraid of you? Not impossible but very hard. Particularly where the fear is irrational bordering on paranoid, as often the case here.

This is why it actually is a warning sign/red flag and that's not just mean "labelling" or whatever.

Now, if a DM I knew well said something like "I'm concerned about too-powerful PCs" or something, that's the start of a conversation, so that can probably be steered to sanity and an understanding of the actual goal. But opening with "I want to ban powergaming" is a red flag, especially from a new DM.

It's a particularly red flag with 5E as 5E is not a game where powergaming is a serious issue. Especially if you just ban multiclassing. As has been discussed many times, if the most powerful single-class PC is a 10/10, the weakest is probably a 7/10. Which is good work by WotC for sure. But some DMs live like it's 2003 and as if their players are all trying to create Pun-Pun. What they need is therapy and a nice cup of tea and maybe to be a player for a while, not to be crudely attempting to ban "powergaming".

What about a player who is good at minmaxing but consciously makes a poorly-optimized multiclass character?

I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, honestly. I doubt I'll ever come to that bridge.

 

[Oofta]

Powergaming is only an issue if only 1 or 2 people in the group do it and the other players care. If I have a group of powergamers then I'll just raise the threat level to compensate. That's not my preference since I don't want to be an adversarial DM, but I've never met a group I couldn't challenge at least now and then.

I do ban or modify a couple of save-or-suck (and a couple of no save and suck like heat metal on enemies with metal armor) spells but that's personal preference. I also let people know that I'll probably say no if you try to take advantage of some edge case exploit. I'll work with PCs to on achieving goals and style, but I always let people know that there will be limits even if those are pretty broad.

 

[Minigiant]

"No powergaining" by itself is a red flag for me. Some of the most powerful stuff in D&D have been base traditional stuff: wizards, clerics,dwarves, elves, HUMANS.

But "You don't need to optimize. X/Y or A/B combos are not needed to survive/succeed and are banned" is reasonable.

 

[iserith]

I think the way to approach this is to ask the DM what sorts of outcomes they are trying to achieve or avoid with this stance.

• Do they want the party to lose encounters sometimes? For characters to die? If so, how many or at what frequency, generally speaking?
• Do they want to make sure that one character doesn't overshadow others or encroach upon their niches?
• Do they want certain non-combat challenges to be difficult in particular ways that could otherwise be overcome with features, spells, or the like?

And so on. Get specific with the DM to try to zero in on the actual objection that underlies the "no powergaming" rule, but don't try to convince them they are wrong. Just listen and decide if the game is for you or not.

 

[Krachek]

« Low » and « No » don’t make any appeal and don’t show where the DM want to go with his campaign. But it show that the DM want to restraint players so I will pass.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Folks, before laying the badwrong on these people - remember that not everyone is good at framing a point or discussion well. This is not a "warning" sign. Yeah, it is nebulous, but then almost everyone is nebulous from time to time.

Such a statement is a cue for a conversation, not labelling.

Except that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid with someone who just blanket rails against 'powergaming'. I'm not going to play with them.

'Powergaming' IS labeling (and so frankly is badwrongfun).

 

[Warpiglet-7]

as dm I am pretty ok with most things that don’t trivialize the threats and fun for others. Hell, what are you going to do? Ban wizards in the hands of strategic players?

Actually that is a thought…

As a player I make suboptimal choices better. I have a dwarf warlock blade pact and I took GWM. The demonic blade has preyed on his sanity—-so took two levels of barbarian.

He has a 16 str and 14 chr. He can lay down some decent damage especially with smites and reckless attack. But he is strength based has point but stats…

I might worry if someone comes with kick ass stats and weird synergistic level dips here and there for moar power! But aren’t single classes usually better anyway?