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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8383816" data-attributes="member: 7006">And this is exactly why my main trope as a poster here on EN World is always talking about why this focus on the miniatures board game that so many people have is inevitably resulting in a detriment to their own enjoyment.&nbsp; And if they could only come at the game much more focused on the narrative (with combat mechanics just being one smaller facet of their PC) they'd be much happier.&nbsp; But it requires them to literally change how they think.But the fact is that if people keep coming up with the same &quot;build&quot; for any one class... it's because they have decided that there's only one way the game mechanics should be run to have a &quot;good&quot; or &quot;standard&quot; character.&nbsp; As [USER=6807152]@Scribe[/USER] says, the game has been &quot;solved&quot; for a good many characters and classes.&nbsp; I mean heck... four years ago all the talk was about how it seemed every melee player was going Great Weapon Master and every ranged player went Sharpshooter all the time, because those feats were &quot;solved&quot; and made for the most DPR.&nbsp; And DMs were getting justifiably bored with all their players playing these mechanical characters.&nbsp; But I would of course then say that if these players felt like playing these &quot;solved&quot; mechanics was the only way to play... it said a lot about how those DMs were running their games and what THEIR focus was on.&nbsp; And that they might have needed to change how they ran their games to convince their players that these cookie-cutter builds weren't actually necessary.Which is why I think everyone would be a heck of a lot happier if they just stopped worrying about the board game and how well they can do &quot;in combat&quot; and instead just created the characters they wanted purely from a narrative perspective and then played into that narrative when combat started.&nbsp; Because then you could play your cool Monk concept that wasn't just focused on the end-all-and-be-all of white room DPR.&nbsp; Or you could play a Beastmaster Ranger and enjoy the roleplaying that comes with a favored pet, knowing that the DM wasn't going to intentionally gun straight for the animal because it was the &quot;optimal combat choice&quot; for them to make.&nbsp; Or you could play any one of the various subclasses in the game because their stories were really cool, even though they weren't &quot;as good&quot; in combat as another.Unfortunately, I know quite well I'm barking at the moon when I say all this though.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown&nbsp; &nbsp; :("&nbsp; data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 8383816, member: 7006"] And this is exactly why my main trope as a poster here on EN World is always talking about why this focus on the miniatures board game that so many people have is inevitably resulting in a detriment to their own enjoyment. And if they could only come at the game much more focused on the narrative (with combat mechanics just being one smaller facet of their PC) they'd be much happier. But it requires them to literally change how they think. But the fact is that if people keep coming up with the same "build" for any one class... it's because they have decided that there's only one way the game mechanics should be run to have a "good" or "standard" character. As [USER=6807152]@Scribe[/USER] says, the game has been "solved" for a good many characters and classes. I mean heck... four years ago all the talk was about how it seemed every melee player was going Great Weapon Master and every ranged player went Sharpshooter all the time, because those feats were "solved" and made for the most DPR. And DMs were getting justifiably bored with all their players playing these mechanical characters. But I would of course then say that if these players felt like playing these "solved" mechanics was the only way to play... it said a lot about how those DMs were running their games and what THEIR focus was on. And that they might have needed to change how they ran their games to convince their players that these cookie-cutter builds weren't actually necessary. Which is why I think everyone would be a heck of a lot happier if they just stopped worrying about the board game and how well they can do "in combat" and instead just created the characters they wanted purely from a narrative perspective and then [I]played into that narrative[/I] when combat started. Because then you could play your cool Monk concept that wasn't just focused on the end-all-and-be-all of white room DPR. Or you could play a Beastmaster Ranger and enjoy the roleplaying that comes with a favored pet, knowing that the DM wasn't going to intentionally gun straight for the animal because it was the "optimal combat choice" for them to make. Or you could play any one of the various subclasses in the game because their stories were really cool, even though they weren't "as good" in combat as another. Unfortunately, I know quite well I'm barking at the moon when I say all this though. :( [/QUOTE]

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