D&D in-and-of itself does not pressure players into playing strong vs. fun. I do see a lot of groups in Adventurer's League who tend to play strong and chastise someone who makes a character which isn't "optimized" though. So, I think players tend to pressure other players into playing strong vs. fun.
D&D 5E (2014) Do you feel 5e pressures you to build strong over fun?
- Thread starter Corwin
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transtemporal
Explorer
I play with two groups and only two people build optimised and those are the same peeps who built optimised for 3e, 4e and 5e. All the rest build whatever they think would be fun to play. So in answer to your question, I don't think the edition matters. Optimisers are optimisers no matter what game system you play.
Gardens & Goblins
First Post
Nope, not for years. There was certainly a time when strong/effective/'can we beat the system' was the vogue and this was long before 5E and not restricted to D&D or even pen & paper rpgs. Over the years, I have pushed for each of us to really consider, to break down, what was fun each session/campaign and why. Students of fun and all that. And I do think that without some serious structured personal introspection, a player can spend years doing the same thing without learning why - or how they can do it better.
So far, for us at least, fun has been messing around trying to get things done with a grab-bag collection of characters. So working as a group, we develop a table environment that makes this possible.
Of course, I can imagine that if play is being derived from published adventures or content then certain trends of play could develop - requirements, as it were, for participation, be they unspoken or direct. Likewise, its not news that social groups can and do influence other social groups and their members.
Peer Group Pressure as they were fond of calling it. But hey, screw those guys. We're here to have our fun, not theirs!
So far, for us at least, fun has been messing around trying to get things done with a grab-bag collection of characters. So working as a group, we develop a table environment that makes this possible.
Of course, I can imagine that if play is being derived from published adventures or content then certain trends of play could develop - requirements, as it were, for participation, be they unspoken or direct. Likewise, its not news that social groups can and do influence other social groups and their members.
Peer Group Pressure as they were fond of calling it. But hey, screw those guys. We're here to have our fun, not theirs!
Aenghus
Explorer
I often find comedic foil PCs and NPCs annoying. Whether they're tolerable or not is a chancy thing indeed.
And as regards attitudes to them, referees who don't make allowances for comedic sidekicks do exist, and players who value success are understandably annoyed by other players (in their eyes) trying to sabotage them. IMO comedy sidekicks don't work in a game unless the participants find them actually entertaining and the referee employs copious dm fiat to make their antics a net asset rather than a massive TPK-threatening liability. Comedy is a highly subjective thing, what one finds hilarious may have no effect on another, or even irritate them.
In most editions my group reserved the right to fire PCs who were demonstrably incompetent or annoying, in the hope that the next PC generated would be tolerable with respect to group dynamics.(In practice this seldom happened as the PCs involved often got killed while adventuring due to their incompetence, or the player negotiated with the group and toned down the stupid sufficient to be tolerable).
As much as edition, it's adversarial games and players trained in them, or in game styles inherited from such games, that encourage min-maxing and discourage suboptimal or incompetent PCs.
And as regards attitudes to them, referees who don't make allowances for comedic sidekicks do exist, and players who value success are understandably annoyed by other players (in their eyes) trying to sabotage them. IMO comedy sidekicks don't work in a game unless the participants find them actually entertaining and the referee employs copious dm fiat to make their antics a net asset rather than a massive TPK-threatening liability. Comedy is a highly subjective thing, what one finds hilarious may have no effect on another, or even irritate them.
In most editions my group reserved the right to fire PCs who were demonstrably incompetent or annoying, in the hope that the next PC generated would be tolerable with respect to group dynamics.(In practice this seldom happened as the PCs involved often got killed while adventuring due to their incompetence, or the player negotiated with the group and toned down the stupid sufficient to be tolerable).
As much as edition, it's adversarial games and players trained in them, or in game styles inherited from such games, that encourage min-maxing and discourage suboptimal or incompetent PCs.
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Alexemplar
First Post
I think the only edition of DnD where you could get away with that would be 4e with a Warlord. More specifically a "lazylord" build. Or a Rogue that ignores many key class features, but that was pretty unoptimized.
But plenty of d20 games that were otherwise very much like DnD made it work. The D20 modern game had the cha, int, and wisdom based heroes. Star Wars d20and saga edition had the Noble. Conan d20 had a Noble and a Temptress class. Fantasycraft has an Explorer, Sage, Keeper, and more. Some contribute more in a fight than others, but all do a good job of letting you play a character less focused on stabbing stuff in a fight.
Alexemplar
First Post
Maybe "career" would be a better choice for an expansion of backgrounds.
As is backgrounds largely exist to help players that have difficulty coming up with a character concept and define g character traits or those who actively avoid them because they don't want to feel that their character is constrained by previously held beliefs, values, or social obligations.
As is backgrounds largely exist to help players that have difficulty coming up with a character concept and define g character traits or those who actively avoid them because they don't want to feel that their character is constrained by previously held beliefs, values, or social obligations.
Kabouter Games
Explorer
That's addressed by Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws.
If you need crunch to encourage you to play to your Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws, you're missing the point of Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws.
Oh, I'm sure - for those who don't understand the concept of Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws.
People who understand it and buy into it are already doing all of that, exactly BTB RAW.It ain't broke.
This right here encapsulates why discussions about optimization are so annoying: Optimization is invariably focused solely on in-combat mechanics. As though a CHA-focused intrigue character can't possibly be of any use.
I had a table like that once. They gave one player endless grief because he wanted to play well-rounded characters, not just damage-dealing murderhobos. He was about to quit the game over it. That made me think about my approach as DM, as well as their behavior and focus. Turns out I was rewarding that by making the game an endless stream of wilderness and dungeon combat experiences. So I threw them into a major settlement where the excellent killers were certainly not optimized; in fact, they were virtually useless.
They burned that city down and went back into the wilderness.
So I did it again. And again.
I learned that combat-focused optimization is fine in its place. There should also be room in the game for those who don't optimize, or who choose to optimize in different ways.
Cheers,
Bob
www.r-p-davis.com
Waterbizkit
Explorer
Editions don't pressure anyone to build a character one way or another, people do. It's about having shared goals and expectations with the people you sit down with at the table. It's a social game, it always has been... no matter how much pop culture likes to portray it as the hobby for socially awkward shut-ins. 
People need to simply remember to communicate with those they're playing with and everything should go rather well, or at the very least it'll mean some might better be able to reach the conclusion "Maybe this group/campaign/etc. isn't for me." I don't know, does this make sense to the rest of you?
So in short, no 5e does not force players to optimize any more or less than any other edition. If you're sitting down with a group of like-minded friends it shouldn't matter.
Hmmm. I thought that would be my closing statement, but you know as someone who's never played a "pick up" game at a local hobby shop I often forget about seeing things from that perspective. I suppose in that situation... my answer doesn't change, though the reasoning does. The disparity between a well optimized character and one that isn't is far narrower this edition, so I feel even in an instance where you might barely know the people you're sitting down with there's less pressure to optimize than there has been in the past.
The end, I swear this time.
People need to simply remember to communicate with those they're playing with and everything should go rather well, or at the very least it'll mean some might better be able to reach the conclusion "Maybe this group/campaign/etc. isn't for me." I don't know, does this make sense to the rest of you?
So in short, no 5e does not force players to optimize any more or less than any other edition. If you're sitting down with a group of like-minded friends it shouldn't matter.
Hmmm. I thought that would be my closing statement, but you know as someone who's never played a "pick up" game at a local hobby shop I often forget about seeing things from that perspective. I suppose in that situation... my answer doesn't change, though the reasoning does. The disparity between a well optimized character and one that isn't is far narrower this edition, so I feel even in an instance where you might barely know the people you're sitting down with there's less pressure to optimize than there has been in the past.
The end, I swear this time.
5e itself does not do that. It should not drive you towards optimization. It should, at best, require effort to be less that effective. No one likes trap choices. 5e has done a relatively solid job of making most of the options very good. Lots of very analytical optimizer sat my table, including myself, and you can tell there isn't much that needs to be done.
But there is a group agreement that has to be met at the table. It is a real pain for GMs to balance a game across wide ranges of optimization. It is pretty easy to mess up and cause a problem. I've seen it quite a few times - you have to give their characters all their moment to shine, and if you have a really suboptimal character, that moment can be very hard to find. If you are all,soboptimal, then your angle for moment to shine changes quite a bit.
If you like playing suboptimal characters and enjoy the challenge, and still feel fun in the face of your buddy who's very optimized, then go for it. My guess is, though, those people are relatively rare. It should be well communicated at the table, especially to the GM.
But there is a group agreement that has to be met at the table. It is a real pain for GMs to balance a game across wide ranges of optimization. It is pretty easy to mess up and cause a problem. I've seen it quite a few times - you have to give their characters all their moment to shine, and if you have a really suboptimal character, that moment can be very hard to find. If you are all,soboptimal, then your angle for moment to shine changes quite a bit.
If you like playing suboptimal characters and enjoy the challenge, and still feel fun in the face of your buddy who's very optimized, then go for it. My guess is, though, those people are relatively rare. It should be well communicated at the table, especially to the GM.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Amusingly this is about the only argument I find valid about the mechanics of multiclassing - it's about the only route to building a sub-optimal character by accident.
(There are plenty of non-mechanical reasons that people may not want multiclassing, that's a different story about what's right for your table.)
