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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreyICE" data-source="post: 6030016" data-attributes="member: 6684526">[MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION]: Your posts are very hard to read.  That's not meant to be offensive, it's a simple fact.  I think if you took some time to organize your thoughts and write something clear and coherent, you'd find yourself saying what you want to say in half the words, with twice the effect.  "I apologize for the length of this letter, I had not the time to write a shorter one" and all that.  Anyway, what I think you are saying is that the 5/1/1 character is still capable of roleplaying.  But... how?  Even the concept you came up with (born in a gladiator pit, trained all his life to be a gladiator, cares only about fighting) sounds more like an abused, amoral psychopath than a real character.  In real life we'd diagnose someone like that with severe, trauma-induced social and psychological problems, and they'd be nearly incapable of functioning in society.And again, players like that drag the campaign in a certain direction.  That's where they become problems.  If the game is naturally tending towards an extended social/exploration pillar play (perhaps leading a revolution or something) then the combat character fades into uselessness.  The DM and the players are forced to add combat scenes, or allow the character to fade into irrelevance.  The same with the sage.  He's not quite the psychological mess our abused gladiator is, but he's still got strong suicidal tendencies.  I mean what would you think about an old, arthritic, partially blind librarian who insisted that he should wander around in warzones in Afghanistan escorting the soldiers as they engage in a commando raid?  You'd think he was a complete lunatic!  And... so he basically is. The MinMax "roleplaying" breaks down when you stare at it too hard, because the characters who come out of such an exercise are completely inorganic.  They are the result of writing a character sheet then trying to come up with a backstory to plausibly fit this ridiculous character sheet you have written.  Moreover, it doesn't foster healthy interaction within the group.  If everyone can take part in an activity in different ways, the group is healthy.  If one person dominates an activity while everyone sits back and watches, it's like 3 or 4 group members are watching a cutscene in a video game.  Completely non-interactive.  All characters should be set to 3/3/3.  There should be no option for one character to completely dominate all aspects of their narrow specialization while giving up everything else.  As for what it costs me, it costs me growth.  It costs me getting to watch people learn to roleplay.  It costs me a game where character sheets encourage new players to grow from "combat monster" or "face of the party" into well rounded, fleshed out characters who can contribute.  It costs me a system that makes games that are fun for me to play.  It costs me a system that will bring new players into the hobby and show them what roleplaying is about.  It costs me D&D Next.I think it's awfully hypocritical of you to write "play what you like" while arguing that the system should fight against what I like, what makes roleplaying fun and entertaining, what makes things work, as hard as you possibly can.I have offered you a clear and obvious way you can play what you like - build a character using WotC's classes, and then simply don't use aspects on your character sheet that you feel that your character shouldn't have.  You insisted that everyone who picked up your character sheet should play your character exactly the same as you.   Uh... what?  That's not "play what you like," that's "Let me build a character who can only be played one way."  That's... that should be impossible.  You should never be able to build a character who can only be played one way, because that implies the character has no choices in play (or all choices except for one choice are clearly and obviously suboptimal).  Such a thing is not realistic, no matter how specialized you get (and adventurers are not super-specialists).  Play what you like.  Just don't insist that I have to pick up your character sheet, having been told nothing about the character, and realize I have only ONE OPTION in all circumstances.  That's... that's really bad MinMaxing.  And yes, MinMaxing is a dirty word.</blockquote>

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