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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 6149503" data-attributes="member: 5143">I don't think that's how everyone views the game.  I believe it is semi-cooperative.  The group still has goals to accomplish.  Often those goals are defeating their enemies/challenges.  Whatever those enemies/challenges are and what they do/how they work is decided by the DM.So, even though the game is cooperative, there are antagonistic aspects of the game.  Jim doesn't believe that he is "winning" against the other players.  He believes he is winning against the enemies.  The other players are on his team and should be helping him in his ultimate goal to utterly devastate their enemies.  Since those enemies are controlled by the DM, beating the DM is sometimes required in order to defeat those enemies.  After all, if the enemies plans are decided by the DM and you can outsmart the DM, you can defeat the enemies plans.  Do something the DM doesn't expect and you'll find the enemies don't expect it either.He has a low opinion of others and their ability to help him win.  He's stated a couple of times that it isn't his fault for powergaming.  It's the other player's fault for not properly knowing the rules and how to use them to their fullest in order to beat the enemies.  Since so many of the other players won't even fully read the rules they have to have their characters created by other people and then don't even know how to use their abilities properly after their created.  He has to pick up the slack for having so many bad characters in the party.  After all, a "proper" party does the absolute most damage they can in a round.  If players are deciding to use less powerful attacks or not choosing to do simple things like maxing their Strength, then they are deciding to be bad on purpose.  He has to do extra damage to try to make up for that damage they've chosen not to do.No need to worry.  I don't have any illusions as to what kind of player Jim is.  He's fairly transparent about it.  Which is why in my current D&D Next playtest game I've reverted to rolling dice instead of point buy for stats and I do not allow custom backgrounds or specialties.  Remove his ability to choose powergaming options and he resigns himself to just powergaming within the framework of the rules we are using.  If those rules don't allow him to powergame much, then he doesn't end up much more powerful than anyone else.  Also, he doesn't complain nearly as much about other people's choices since the difference between a powergamed choice and a non-powergamed choice is so small it isn't worth worrying about.</blockquote>

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