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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 7049212" data-attributes="member: 20564">I feel that in any RPG, there is pressure to be able to help overcome challenges.  In a combat-focused RPG like D&D*, that comes across at the mildest as not disappointing your teammates.  So if all of the characters are at teh same level of prowess (and the DM calibrates to it), it's all good.  That doesn't need to be optimized ... but it usually feels better to exceed to success then fail, so people build more optimized characters, which moves the bar up.Now, in reality the worst case is when the party is all over in terms of power level. Because D&D expects everyone to contribute in combat (unlike in the other pillars), the DM will need to create challenges that are either a cakewalk for some and right for the others, or deadly for some and right for the others.  Or a *much* worse sin - boring either because you can't contribute or because there is no risk.So there is social pressure as part of a collaborative game that expects everyone to be able to contribute in on of the most frequent activities (based on how much wall-clock time is spent).  That's not just D&D, it's really the whole slew of games.(* If you don't think D&D is combat focused mechanically, look through the classes section of the PHB and tell me how many pages have nothing about combat on them.  HPs, features for attacking, the vast majority of spells so most casting, etc.)</blockquote>