How to design a game where players don't seek to min-max

celebrim's hit the high points of the issue.

from a generic RPG standpoint, part of the problem is the tendency to design the game with "adventuring" skills and "life" skills yet use the same point pool for buying them. The result is, since the character mostly does adventuring, most or all of the points are spent on adventuring skills (by adventuring, I mean combat, spell casting, whatever applies to that character's core adventuring focus).



Take D&D for a more specific example. Imagine if your basic skill point pool were spent on "the good stuff" for an adventurer, and then you had another pool for Knowledge skills. Now your PC can budget to know a little about each category, or hyper focus on Ancient History.

In the current paradigm, the PC doesn't spend any points on Knowledge skills because those scarce points are needed on other stuff.

I doubt my idea will cure min/maxing, but it may at least set up some diversity and skillfulness outside of the standard class needs.
 

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The first question you have to ask is why you wish to do this? Is the game going to be better if your players don't min/max?

Off hand, I think you are fighting a problem that can't be solved entirely via rules. Regardless of the rule set, a character's success depends on having reliable choices. A smart player never trusts his success to a coin flip. If a character's powers don't succeed the overwhelming majority of the time, they aren't really worth having. It's far better to be reliably good in one area and reliably fail in every other area, than it is to fail half the time in every area.

The reasons for which I think the game would be better if min-maxed characters were not used are the following:

1. The "ideal" campaign, in my view, would not involve combat and combat alone, but rather it would be more of an "adventuring party simulator," and I'm already trying to develop rules to reflect that. To keep the game fun, there would still be a significant amount of combat; however, being big-time heroes who defeated the evil so-and-so of whatever won't make you exempt from having to eat, pay taxes, and otherwise manage your life. So far, I haven't seen any game like that.

2. The way I've designed the game so far, investing in a stat (or ignoring it) causes HUGE differences in your character's capabilities, even to a degree which I did not intend (though I'm not at the point where I'd say that I regret it). For example, like I said in the original post, the stat you would use primarily to determine damage would not increase any static values like in DnD, but instead it would allow you to roll more damage dice. This also makes weapon choice more important; the difference between wielding a dagger that has a d3 damage die and a giant hammer that has a d10 damage die will be much greater than in DnD. Given all that, a min-maxed character would quickly and easily get to the point of extreme overkill in the one area that they're good at, and that would take away from the game's overall "fun" value.

None of the rules you describe really get around that. In fact, you almost seem to have gone out of your way to make a system that encourages min/maxing and system mastery. Sight unseen, it sounds like a number fiddlers paradise on par with GURPS. In particular, your estimation that being classless supports the viability of well-rounded characters is exactly backwards. Classes support well-rounded characters. Removing the stricture of having to adhere to a class structure allows for maximum min/maxing.

To be clear, I'm talking about min-maxing as a specific form of number fiddling. That is, min-maxing, as I understand it, is when you invest in a narrow aspect of your character at the expense of everything else. As far as the classless system goes, I was thinking more in terms of how classes, as they're usually implemented, tend to narrowly limit what your character's function is, and how trying to go outside of that limit usually punishes your character more than anything else.

However, the real issue here in my opinion is less of a rules problem than a encounter design problem. As long as the group can depend on another member of the group to solve a problem in their area of specialization, there is no need to build a well balanced character. A well balanced party will tend to be far superior because everyone's problem solving will collectively be more reliable. To mitigate against that, you have to force everyone into situations where they are reliant on their own resources.

I'm not saying that characters shouldn't have focuses; in fact, I agree with what you're saying here. The problem is that, in my game, not only are there plenty of things which can be invested in to help a character with his/her focus, but in fact, to invest in only one or a small amount of those things will be less effective than paying some attention to them all. Like I said earlier, there's the example of Morale, which is boosted primarily by Resolve, an attribute that a warrior-type wouldn't even consider a tertiary attribute. Without a decent Morale defense, however, all your warrior's points in Strength would be rendered useless every time an enemy said "BOO!"

For example what genre is the game, and what tech level?

It's actually pretty anachronistic. Most of the technology in the core setting is somewhere in the range of 0-1400 AD, but in my game's universe, magic is based on scientific principles, and any adequately-capable wizard would have knowledge beyond even our own. Depending on the culture, a wizard's knowledge could be spread to others and applied beyond the spells he/she casts, such that, for example, even relatively uneducated peasants would know that being clean is important, even if they don't understand exactly why.

On the other hand, there's a nation which exists in an area where there's very little ambient ether (energy in its purest form, made into other forms of energy by the activities around it), and thus magic is less useful, since there's less energy to power it. Without magic, they've had to develop advanced technology such as guns, internal combustion engines, computers, and the like, all with a steampunk aesthetic.

And on another hand entirely, there's a nation of barbarians, where success is equal to physical prowess and most knowledge is seen as being ways for the weak to succeed without honor. Despite having little in the way of magic or technology, they have successfully maintained and defended their nation due to the fact that, in my game's setting, the limits of what can be biologically achieved are much less restricting than our own; in other words, with sufficient exercise, a warrior could eventually be able to survive a direct hit from a tank shell, then destroy the tank with his/her own fists.
 
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-There are 5 "defenses"...
-Every check to determine success/failure in my game combines the values of two primary attributes or skills...
-Damage in my game is primarily determined by...
-Many "edges" require as prerequisites some investment in attributes or skills that are tertiary...

Apparently, all of that isn't enough...

Here is a alternate system: When you announce an action anyone at the table can declare that it has a chance of failure. If anyone does, flip a coin - heads you fail and the DM narrates your failure. Tails you succeed.

Contrast with your system. Nine primary attributes and layers of derived secondary and tertiary attributes and skill lists and feat chains with prerequisites screams 'OPTIMISE ME!' where as a coin toss does not. There is nothing to optimise in a coin toss.

Every defence, every attribute, every 'edge', every skill, every damage source - you can think of these as char-op currency. Your final comment ("Apparently, all of that is not enough...") suggests to me that you think you will discourage or 'defeat' char-op through complexity. But you won't, in my opinion - all your complexity is creating is the breeding ground for hardcore optimisation.

If reducing char-op in your game is one of your goals you would do well, imo, to look for a design which meets your other goals while preserving the greatest possible simplicity.
 


Here is a alternate system: When you announce an action anyone at the table can declare that it has a chance of failure. If anyone does, flip a coin - heads you fail and the DM narrates your failure. Tails you succeed.

If I do that, then there's no way for the character's stats to influence the outcome of anything. Everyone is literally equally good at everything as everyone else. In fact, I highly suspect you're giving me this alternate system as an extreme to compare my system to, rather than as a serious suggestion.

Contrast with your system. Nine primary attributes and layers of derived secondary and tertiary attributes and skill lists and feat chains with prerequisites screams 'OPTIMISE ME!' where as a coin toss does not. There is nothing to optimise in a coin toss.

First of all, I admit I should have been more clear and careful in my choice of words. I should have chosen two different sets of labels, one for contrasting "attributes," "skills," and "other stats," and one for contrasting which stats are more important to any given character. I apologize for any confusion this may have created.

Second of all, if you read my previous post, you'll notice that I'm not saying that I'm trying to cut down on optimization of all kinds, but rather, I'm trying to cut down on specifically the sort of optimization where players will create characters that have invested in only an extremely narrow set of stats.

Give out XP for things other than killing monsters. Reduce how much dead monsters are worth XP wise. Then give out XP for convincing people to do things. For making allies, or getting the treasure without fighting.

For instance tenkar has thoughts about giving out XP for exploring. http://www.tenkarstavern.com/2014/12/are-you-experienced-awarding-expo.html

I'm already doing this, but thanks for the suggestion.
 

-Every check to determine success/failure in my game combines the values of two primary attributes or skills (plus other values, if applicable) to determine the character's chances of success in accomplishing what they set out to accomplish.
As intuitive as it might be to design, I've found that this sort of mechanic increases the degree of variance between characters to an unwelcome degree. When anything you want to do is gated behind two stats, it encourages anyone who wants to do that thing to invest in both of those at the expense of anything else. If swinging a sword takes Strength+Dexterity, for example, then being a good swordsman means you'll have high Strength and high Dexterity, and you probably won't have enough points left to be good at anything that isn't based on those two stats (though you should be about average at a task which uses one of the two - if archery is Dexterity+Wisdom, then you should be okay at that since you have great Dex, even though your Wisdom will be terrible).

There are a few ways to go about making a system less "optimize-able", though:

1) Reduce any check down to a single stat, or a single stat and a constant that can't be purchased (+1 per two levels, for example). If you have a high stat then you'll be good, and if you have a low stat then you'll be bad, but there's no room for double-dipping to be twice as good or twice as bad.

2) Roll randomly for stats, and don't let them be assigned. Not a lot of fun, perhaps, but it works. Less choices means less synergy means greater balance,

3) Use absolute checks - like a flat percentage roll, or static DC - instead of opposed checks or degrees of success. In an opposed check, you need to be better than someone else to win, so you need to throw everything you have into a check if you want to beat someone else who is doing the same. With degrees of success, you are rewarded for overkill on the check. With an absolute check, specialists are punished in the opportunity costs; if I can get an 80% success chance by spending a few points, then spending many more points to increase that to 90% may not be worth it.

4) Diminishing returns for balance. Let characters specialize, but charge them out the nose for it. Make each stat cost the square of its value to improve - 1, 4, 9, 16, 25 - and you'll see a lot of people paying a few points to shore up their weaknesses rather than continue to specialize in something where they're already unbeatable. This method can be risky, and is prone to backfire.

I'm sure there's more. That's just what I had off the top of my head.
 

Want to eliminate min/maxxing? You have to eliminate mechanics, or set up the game so that outcomes don't depend on mechanics. Otherwise, if there's a correlation between statistics or mechanics and how a character performs in game, and your players want to perform better, then some set of players will try to game the system to try to "win".

That's the nature of games.
 

As intuitive as it might be to design, I've found that this sort of mechanic increases the degree of variance between characters to an unwelcome degree. When anything you want to do is gated behind two stats, it encourages anyone who wants to do that thing to invest in both of those at the expense of anything else. If swinging a sword takes Strength+Dexterity, for example, then being a good swordsman means you'll have high Strength and high Dexterity, and you probably won't have enough points left to be good at anything that isn't based on those two stats (though you should be about average at a task which uses one of the two - if archery is Dexterity+Wisdom, then you should be okay at that since you have great Dex, even though your Wisdom will be terrible).

The way things are designed right now, players can spend 5 XP (most things cost 1 or 2) to increase an attribute by 5 (the system is percentile), and they can do so up to four times per level, for a total of 20 XP (in case it matters, each level is separated by 40 XP). At first, I thought that this was going to result in players increasing a single attribute either once or twice per level, and dividing the rest between secondary and tertiary attributes (possibly even saving 5 of the 20 XP for other things), which should be enough to get one's Talent (the number they have to roll beneath, as per most percentile systems; there's also a "Difficulty," which players must roll above to succeed, which can be lowered by certain means to prevent diminishing returns) for their primary abilities at 100 by level 6 or so (there's theoretically an infinite number of levels one can gain, but I'm right now designing the game to accommodate character up to level 20).

Instead, players are spending all of their 20 XP for attribute increases on two attributes, which is what I'm trying to discourage.

There are a few ways to go about making a system less "optimize-able", though:

1) Reduce any check down to a single stat, or a single stat and a constant that can't be purchased (+1 per two levels, for example). If you have a high stat then you'll be good, and if you have a low stat then you'll be bad, but there's no room for double-dipping to be twice as good or twice as bad.

2) Roll randomly for stats, and don't let them be assigned. Not a lot of fun, perhaps, but it works. Less choices means less synergy means greater balance,

3) Use absolute checks - like a flat percentage roll, or static DC - instead of opposed checks or degrees of success. In an opposed check, you need to be better than someone else to win, so you need to throw everything you have into a check if you want to beat someone else who is doing the same. With degrees of success, you are rewarded for overkill on the check. With an absolute check, specialists are punished in the opportunity costs; if I can get an 80% success chance by spending a few points, then spending many more points to increase that to 90% may not be worth it.

4) Diminishing returns for balance. Let characters specialize, but charge them out the nose for it. Make each stat cost the square of its value to improve - 1, 4, 9, 16, 25 - and you'll see a lot of people paying a few points to shore up their weaknesses rather than continue to specialize in something where they're already unbeatable. This method can be risky, and is prone to backfire.

I'm sure there's more. That's just what I had off the top of my head.

I'm already *sort of* doing 3; success and degrees of success are determined in separate checks. I think I'll still do that, to preserve realism; getting hit with a giant hammer is going to hurt more than getting poked with a dagger, after all.

Early on in development, I was trying to apply 4. Back then, there was a lot more XP per level (things would cost more, too), and attributes and skills were purchased point-by-point, rather than in 5-point increments; the sheer quantity of point purchasing made it difficult to track how much points were spent on what, and it was decided that the way things were going, it was too complex. I suppose I could try it again, now that the attributes are purchased in 5-point increments...
 

1. The "ideal" campaign, in my view, would not involve combat and combat alone, but rather it would be more of an "adventuring party simulator," and I'm already trying to develop rules to reflect that.

I think that the ideal campaign (as opposed to the ideal game) is whatever the group enjoys. Not that a game can't push a specific type of campaign (Cthulhu is very specific, as is Dread; D&D is less specific but not as broad as Savage Worlds or Fate).

If you're trying to push adventure/campaign styles, you could do that in the adventures/campaigns. Characters in a political intrigue campaign will look very different to those in a dungeon crawl. That still lets GMs run the combat munchkin campaign if they want to.
 

Sorry if this is a repeat, but I haven't seen it yet:

Classes are how you prevent min/maxing, because classes tell the players, to some extent, "you must take these features."

And if you want to discourage combat focus, do the same thing 'Merica does: deploy lots of armed police, institute heavy penalties for killing people, and make sure the gods say "If you kill, you're *******."
 

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