Oryan77
Adventurer
I've played D&D 2e for 3 years and 3.5 for a little over a year. All of the players I've played with have been friends who all learned the game together. So we pretty much have the same gaming style.
I've recently brought a new player in my group who I met from posting a D&D classifieds ad. He's a great guy and we have alot in common. I've DMed him twice so far and it's been fun. We're both trying to adjust to each others gaming styles right now though. I'm realizing that he's pretty big into powergaming. I've talked with him about it and I don't think he's noticed himself just because that's the way he's used to playing with his old group. But I think he's seeing it now, and I don't think he means to powergame.
I'm wondering, how common is it for players to powergame in D&D? I'm used to running/playing "mellow" games where the players don't worry about trying to find the "coolest, craziest, & most powerful" game mechanics to beef up their PC. By game mechanics I mean; anything from bending rules in their favor to obtaining unique or powerful objects in the game.
I'm not saying powergaming is wrong; it's just not my preference. We've always just played D&D where we live out our characters lives and accept what we get when it's available to the characters. An example is; whenever a player wants a mount, they are reasonable about it...they'll go shopping for a horse or similiar "normal" mount for whatever region they're in. But right off the bat, this new player goes shopping for a mount and he's asking around for a flying mount already. I run Planescape so a flying mount isn't out of the ordinary, but for a PC's first mount in the game, it seems like a tall order to me.
Here's an example about rules: I'm asked if reading a book about metals could give him any type of skill bonus. I thought, "Cool, he wants to roleplay his character learning about metals by reading a book". So I told him, "Sure, I'll give you a +1 bonus to a Knowledge skill for that but it won't help if you read another book". He immediately replies with, "Oh, so if I practice picking locks for a year and I'm not a rogue, would I be able to raise my open lock skill since it's outside learning like reading the book?" I should have seen this coming but I'm not used to dealing with this. If it was one of my other players, and I told them they get a +1 for reading a book, they would have said, "That's cool, a +1...thanks" and that would've been the end of it. But it turned into a 10 minute debate with the new player about how he thinks it should be possible to raise a skill (by more than +1) by practicing without needing to gain XP to acquire the skill points for levelling.
I'm not really asking for advice on how to handle rule debates or anything....I'm pretty good at handling my game as a DM and keeping things in or out of the game as I see fit. I'm just wondering if it's common for DM's to deal with this type of stuff from players. Do most people usually play the game "level headed" and more like a character from a book, or do most people just play it as a video game and try to beef up their PC anyway they can no matter how unreasonable or realistic it may be?
I've recently brought a new player in my group who I met from posting a D&D classifieds ad. He's a great guy and we have alot in common. I've DMed him twice so far and it's been fun. We're both trying to adjust to each others gaming styles right now though. I'm realizing that he's pretty big into powergaming. I've talked with him about it and I don't think he's noticed himself just because that's the way he's used to playing with his old group. But I think he's seeing it now, and I don't think he means to powergame.
I'm wondering, how common is it for players to powergame in D&D? I'm used to running/playing "mellow" games where the players don't worry about trying to find the "coolest, craziest, & most powerful" game mechanics to beef up their PC. By game mechanics I mean; anything from bending rules in their favor to obtaining unique or powerful objects in the game.
I'm not saying powergaming is wrong; it's just not my preference. We've always just played D&D where we live out our characters lives and accept what we get when it's available to the characters. An example is; whenever a player wants a mount, they are reasonable about it...they'll go shopping for a horse or similiar "normal" mount for whatever region they're in. But right off the bat, this new player goes shopping for a mount and he's asking around for a flying mount already. I run Planescape so a flying mount isn't out of the ordinary, but for a PC's first mount in the game, it seems like a tall order to me.
Here's an example about rules: I'm asked if reading a book about metals could give him any type of skill bonus. I thought, "Cool, he wants to roleplay his character learning about metals by reading a book". So I told him, "Sure, I'll give you a +1 bonus to a Knowledge skill for that but it won't help if you read another book". He immediately replies with, "Oh, so if I practice picking locks for a year and I'm not a rogue, would I be able to raise my open lock skill since it's outside learning like reading the book?" I should have seen this coming but I'm not used to dealing with this. If it was one of my other players, and I told them they get a +1 for reading a book, they would have said, "That's cool, a +1...thanks" and that would've been the end of it. But it turned into a 10 minute debate with the new player about how he thinks it should be possible to raise a skill (by more than +1) by practicing without needing to gain XP to acquire the skill points for levelling.
I'm not really asking for advice on how to handle rule debates or anything....I'm pretty good at handling my game as a DM and keeping things in or out of the game as I see fit. I'm just wondering if it's common for DM's to deal with this type of stuff from players. Do most people usually play the game "level headed" and more like a character from a book, or do most people just play it as a video game and try to beef up their PC anyway they can no matter how unreasonable or realistic it may be?
For me powergaming is part of the fun, BUT I would never argue for ten minutes w/a DM about any rule, and I would never make a character who wasn't fun to play just b/c he was the more powerful option. Debating rules, or arguing over character creation is not my idea of a good time.:\ Blah.
