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<blockquote data-quote="chobin foot" data-source="post: 3505217" data-attributes="member: 51927">Of course, as a GM, you then either have to play into or against a strength... either highly &quot;optimizing&quot; your encounters, or just assuming that the player wants no challenge to his optimization strategy &amp; going forward.When you optimize against a certain character, are you cheating him out of his fun? Are you railroading and cheap-shotting your player for trying to be clever? If a player has a hammer, and all you feed him are MS Word documents in key situations, is it really fair?When you don't optimize, are you boring your player? Are you boring all of your players because the 100% optimized guy for your encounter decides to steal the show?Not every GM is going to like walking that line... which is where the &quot;fun&quot; might have disappeared for one of the previous posters. It becomes more of a mechanical balancing act, and certain GMs might be more into the storytelling at certain points in the game.Of course, player-GM communication is vital... but not always effective at resolving something like unwanted optimization. The player and the GM might have reasons for optimizing a certain way that they can't vocalize, and that metagame of <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />-for-tat optimization then becomes a full-scale Cold War...</blockquote>

[QUOTE="chobin foot, post: 3505217, member: 51927"] Of course, as a GM, you then either have to play into or against a strength... either highly "optimizing" your encounters, or just assuming that the player wants no challenge to his optimization strategy & going forward. When you optimize against a certain character, are you cheating him out of his fun? Are you railroading and cheap-shotting your player for trying to be clever? If a player has a hammer, and all you feed him are MS Word documents in key situations, is it really fair? When you don't optimize, are you boring your player? Are you boring all of your players because the 100% optimized guy for your encounter decides to steal the show? Not every GM is going to like walking that line... which is where the "fun" might have disappeared for one of the previous posters. It becomes more of a mechanical balancing act, and certain GMs might be more into the storytelling at certain points in the game. Of course, player-GM communication is vital... but not always effective at resolving something like unwanted optimization. The player and the GM might have reasons for optimizing a certain way that they can't vocalize, and that metagame of :):):)-for-tat optimization then becomes a full-scale Cold War... [/QUOTE]

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