Have more fun with powergaming

[IceFractal]

One of the things I like about powergaming is that it lets you successfully pull of character types that would otherwise be totally impractical.

For instance, take the afformentioned clumsy oaf. Often, you have the character who's basically pretty useless, and doesn't even know why they're on this quest, until one crucial moment where they're in the right place at the right time, and they manage to turn the whole tide by sheer luck and possibly a heroic act.

Now sometimes, people make the character to fit the first part of that (clumsy and useless), and figure the second part will "just happen". If it doesn't that's bad for them and their party.


But with a little creative optimization, you can make that character complete. Here's what I'd do:
1) Focus on action-point based abilties, on being able to use as many at once as possible at once, and for the maximum effect. Stock up on other feats and abilities that work in a similar way.
2) For other class features/feats, try to get things that normally have little effect, but synergize with your short-term boosts.
3) For items, get a bunch of single use or low-charge items to maximize momentary effectiveness.

Now, you'll generally be fairly useless with most of your abilties and equipment tied up this way, but when the going gets tough, you can burn through a ton of boosts at once, and pretty much turn any situation around.

And it's scalable - you don't have to be completely useless, you could also use this base idea for someone whose primary power is luck and suceeding under impossible odds.

 

[boredgremlin]

in my games as DM powergaming is a waste of the players time.

I dont follow encounters per level or any of that silly crap. We have one or two fights in a 6 to 8 hour game. The vast majority of our games is spent talking and roleplaying. So if someone wants to make a combat monster thats fine. He had just better be happy watching everyone else RP for 6 or so hours every week until they mess up enough to get into a fight.

Patient power gamers are great. Give hem a pizza and beer while everyone else plays the game. Then when everyone is done with the good RP and a fight comes up they can turn off the TV, put down the pizza and roll some dice.


All powergamers are is dice rollers anyway. Just an NPC that the DM doesnt have to roll for. I love them. They make my life as DM easy. I just need to focus on the other players for most of the game. As soon as the fun RP stuff is done we'll summon the power gamers to roll the dice with the rest of the group and drop the playstation.

they really arent part of the group. they have no use outside of rolling dice in combat and really dont need to even show up to the game ( i can easily make optimized monsters and NPC's to take thier place) but hey... thier friends.

So all the real gamers ignore them and play our game. Then when we need an NPC to come roll dice and add numbers we call you over. You roll a few dice, add a few numbers and then go away while the gamers RP.

Its an easy system. The Powergamers just dont need to have a life or friends.

 

[FireLance]

I'd say it's powergaming in service of concept, which is another way of saying pick a concept and back it up.

So, like fire and money, powergaming is a good servant, but a bad master?

 

[FireLance]

in my games as DM powergaming is a waste of the players time.

I dont follow encounters per level or any of that silly crap. We have one or two fights in a 6 to 8 hour game. The vast majority of our games is spent talking and roleplaying. So if someone wants to make a combat monster thats fine. He had just better be happy watching everyone else RP for 6 or so hours every week until they mess up enough to get into a fight.

Patient power gamers are great. Give hem a pizza and beer while everyone else plays the game. Then when everyone is done with the good RP and a fight comes up they can turn off the TV, put down the pizza and roll some dice.

All powergamers are is dice rollers anyway. Just an NPC that the DM doesnt have to roll for. I love them. They make my life as DM easy. I just need to focus on the other players for most of the game. As soon as the fun RP stuff is done we'll summon the power gamers to roll the dice with the rest of the group and drop the playstation.

they really arent part of the group. they have no use outside of rolling dice in combat and really dont need to even show up to the game ( i can easily make optimized monsters and NPC's to take thier place) but hey... thier friends.

So all the real gamers ignore them and play our game. Then when we need an NPC to come roll dice and add numbers we call you over. You roll a few dice, add a few numbers and then go away while the gamers RP.

Its an easy system. The Powergamers just dont need to have a life or friends.

In my group, all role-players must come with a remote control so that we can hit "Mute" or "Stop" when it's time to roll the dice. After the fight is over, they can continue role-playing while the rest of us take a bathroom break.

 

[Blackrat]

Powergaming is good in moderation. As long as you don't over do it, it's fine.

However, the monsters in the Monster Manuals are not optimized. If your players are good optimizers, the monsters may not be a match for them.

Exactly. That is why DM:s should always do a little powergaming themselves.
It is just natural for experienced players to use rules smartly. A little powergaming is a good thing and adds to the fun, as long as DM is experienced enough to modify monster so that they are still a challenge.

 

[Nifft]

So, like fire and money, powergaming is a good servant, but a bad master?

I'd say the same for any one element of an RPG -- concept & personality = "drama queen", plot = "railroad", rewards = "munchkin", system mastery = "powergamer", etc.

-- N

 

[Donovan Morningfire]

One person's "optimization of concept" is another person's "powergamer."

I suppose I could lumped into the "powergamer" category, in that I like to have characters that are good at what they do.

If I'm playing a daring swashbuckler, then I want to be able do the sort of stuff you see Zorro and Errol Flynn pull off. If I have to wait a few levels to get really good at, then so be it. But I'm going to build my character and make various skill, feat, and class choices with an eye towards being the best swashbuckler my character can be.

Right now, I'm playing a Warblade in a friend's D&D game. Concept = traveling swordsman looking to become the greatest swordsman ever. Party function = beatstick; compared to all the other characters my damage output is frightening. And my character is built to fulfill that role in the party (other front-line combatant is a Paladin that literally is the party tank due to high AC and the best Fort and Will saves in the group). Everyone in the group has made choices to best suit their chosen niche and concept.

Would that automatically make us all powergamers?

 

[megamania]

Powergaming is good in moderation. As long as you don't over do it, it's fine.

However, the monsters in the Monster Manuals are not optimized. If your players are good optimizers, the monsters may not be a match for them.

and this is important.

In my game CREATION SCHEMA, I have two players that powergame and two players that don't.

What has happened is I must use creatures that are 2-4 CR levels higher than group average to challenge the power gamers which means the non-power gamers either must sit back and watch or die.

As a DM I have a great deal of frustration dealing with this. SO power gaming has taken some fun away from me.

 

[Elephant]

Really? You're typing a great many words pointing out what you personally consider bad about non-optimized characters. If you want to talk about what's good about powergaming do that, but so far the crux of your posts is that powergmaing is good only because you think that the other end of the spectrum is ignorant or clumsy (both words that you've used to describe non-optimized gaming and/or characters).



In your very first post you condemned immersive gaming (or, non-optimized roleplay, as you've chosen to label it) as being a deliberate ignorance of feat/skill combinations and suggsted that a non-optimized character is a clumsy oaf by default. This tells me nothing of why powergmaing is fun, only that you intensely dislike the other end of the spectrum. Which is what I allude to earlier.

For a thread that is supposedly about doting on the positive aspects of powergaming, you're not personally doing a lot of that -- you're singling out what you consider to be the weakpoints of the opposing playstyle and harping on them. Again, if you want to talk about why powergaming is grand, do that. Saying things like. . .



. . . isn't addressing the positive aspects of powergaming, but characterizing the negative aspects of immersive roleplay. I'd love to see you actually talk about the positive aspects of powergaming. And to be clear, this is not the same thing as talking mad smack on opposing styles of play.



I suspect that you'd make more headway there if you quit going to great lengths to characterize said other elements as ignorant and/or clumsy, then.



Make no mistake, you've absolutely established a topic here, but your intial post set the tone for the thread. The negative characterizations of non-optimized roleplay therein have nothing to do with the strengths of powergaming. I'd love to talk about why powergaming rocks, but that's not what this thread is about, as you make very clear in your first post.

This thread is about, per your own condemnations of non-optimized play and unusual silence about what makes optimized play fun in and of itself, why powergaming is a superior style of play. That is, your initial post is only an evaluation of powergaming's own high points in that it suggests immersive roleplay doesn't measure up by comparison.

Maybe that wasn't your intent, but there it is. Don't feel bad, though. As I said earlier, every single thread on the subject seems to be framed in the same context (i.e., why one playstyle is inherently superior to the other).

jdrakeh, please stop trying to derail this thread. As I've said, I'm trying to encourage discussion of what people enjoy about powergaming, and if you believe that the writing in my own posts strays from that aim, so be it...but I'd rather not see this thread devolve into an argument based on your interpretation of my posts.

 

[pawsplay]

I like pitched fights with nasty boss monsters. If they players don't make some attempt at optimization and strategic thinking, either they will die, or they will succeed through my generosity alone. Therefore, powergaming, to a non-excessive level, is encouraged. That's not necessarily as true in a non D&D context, but for D&D, I definitely expect people not to, for instance, make a bard/loremaster, or make characters who are conceived as useless cowards.