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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 6333641" data-attributes="member: 177">Stop right there.  Optimizers who break rules systems are not necessarily anti-social.  That connection, right there, is part of the problem that keeps us from understanding, such that we can better work with others.I have a friend, great guy, who now runs games professionally (for the military - he does wargame scenarios for the US Navy).  He's good at what he does, he loves his job, and he's a fine fellow, not anti-social in the least.  But, if you put him in a game, you can expect him to find the broken bits.Such people are simply good at what they do, and they enjoy it.  They get their fun from a particular place, and others need to recognize that.  For example - my new Shadowrun campaign has a player who really gets a major kick out of playing the rules and showing off.  We found a fine niche for him - decking, which nobody else in the party is really interested in.  He can be a super-decker, and not have that impact anyone else's game significantly.  His area of optimization is siloed away from most of the other PCs, but they get to take advantage of the results, and everyone is happy.This is only one strategy, and it isn't always available, but these guys talking about how rules are horrible don't address that there *are* strategies we can use to manage things - they lay it all at the feet of the rules, instead of table management.</blockquote>