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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kobold Boots" data-source="post: 7267206" data-attributes="member: 92239">Hi Lanefan - So couple things here.  "Highly varying degrees" is relative.  I think the conversation gets more manageable when you talk about a particular group of people.  Yes, you're right, anyone who has gamed for a long time has seen maybe 100 gamers and inside that number you see the world and all of its colors but it comes down to who you have at the table for your particular game at the time.  My sweet spot is only having to deal with six personalities at a time, but I've had to deal with many more than that for specific events and game types.Back to D&D though, and to your question about min maxing a story.1. My definition of min/max isn't just dice roll manipulation, it's anything that gives a character a reasonable and significant advantage over other characters.2. I've got two examples of min/maxing a story: First, a player through excellent development of backstory, significant role-play enabled by that backstory and good thinking on her part, managed to politically neuter an enemy, making it exceptionally difficult for him to operate, then managed to negotiate a deal with his major backer (with the help of some judicious party combat).  When the time was right, she went evil and TPK'd the group leaving her apprentice alive to grow up and lead the next group to come after her.Granted the end of this example was metagamed some.  She knew she completely screwed the group, but because no one realized it until the last act, it made for a great follow up game.Second, again through some good backstory and good roleplaying, another player managed to put a Paladin player character in a hard spot.  He was framed for an assassination of a rival clergyman and either had to take his punishment or blame his own daughter for the crime.  Say what you want about your god making a decision about whether or not you fall as a pally, but when the entire kingdom thinks you're evil and you lose the faith of the populace, it causes problems.  This was made worse by the fact that the Paladin's player never saw this coming until about two game sessions before he got arrested.  So there's more than just mechanical min/maxing in D&D.  Good writing can trump a +2.  One is immediately gratifying, the other is a longer play.  That said, both of these players needed the mechanical min maxer at some point to get their agendas on table.  In the first case, she maxed out her political skill.  In the second case the paladin was the min maxer and the way the story played out he put himself in the noose.  Nuff said here.  KB</blockquote>

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