There are versions of RQ which give players control over PC build. Rolemaster players have almost total control over PC build. But these don't feature optimisation because there are no parameters to vary so as to generate synergy.
Optimisation in PC building
- Thread starter pemerton
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Ruin Explorer
Legend
I don't want to start that wild discussion again, but frankly most of these threads seem to be based on misapprehensions or not actually down to optimization at all, but other, often unrelated issues. Literally the only ones I've seen where optimization was the issue all involved low-ish level multiclass characters with Paladin and either Lock or Sorc in the mix, and even they weren't actually game-breaking and only questionably problem-causing.
I thought there were like race/class or background or something combos you could mix up in RM to optimize? But I agree by your definition it's not one of the worst for optimization (again though neither is RIFTS which is somewhat hilarious).
I'm not persuaded that all of this is optimisation: choosing a sword for melee or a bow for ranged attacks, for instance, doesn't seem like optimisation to me.
The same thing in respect of choosing thief if you roll high DEX or cleric if you roll high WIS.
But this also shows that D&D PC gen is significantly non-random.
Talking about RM is tricky because it has so many supplements/optional rules.
Some of those optional system include points-buy-ish "background options". These open up some of the same problems you point to in GURPS and Cyberpunk, though not always with the same degree of flexibility.
But core RM is choose a race, choose a profession, allocate points to the skills you want. If you want to be good at fighting, stick points in your weapon and your armour (or adrenal defence for warrior monks) and your body development. If you want to be good at casting, stick as much as you can into your spell list development. There's a fair bit of accounting, but everything basically does what it says on the tin.
RM does have a small number of broken spell lists, but I don't count finding those as optimisation. It's like the OA/AD&D 2nd ed katana which is just like a longsword but with d10 rather than d8 damage. Picking that isn't optimisation in any meaningful sense, it's just exploiting a broken element which can easily be excised. It's not trading on any system interactions.
You'll have effects on play if you've got mismatches of win conditions at the table.
TwoSix
Everyone's literal second-favorite poster
I dunno. I could say the same thing about 5e rapiers versus other one-handed weapons, or even archery versus other fighting styles. If not broken, they exist outside the normal power curve, and I would certainly say choosing those options counts as optimization.
I think beyond just min-max decision making, optimization implies a level of intent. If you're playing a Glitterboy in RIFTS, and you've done it knowing that it's one of the most effective classes, then you've made an optimized choice.
I do think asking what play priority is being violated by optimized characters in a standard adventure path type game is an interesting one, though. Everyone playing is aware that they're going to eventually win out (even if their character dies, you make a new one), so what does it really matter if the combat is easier and goes faster? I feel like it's probably the performative aspect being negated in combat by the stronger characters, but I'm still thinking about it.
So you're defining optimization as something along the lines of race/class combinations in 3.x or 5E? Or finding tricks in a point-buy system to get more our of your point budget? There aren't those sorts of efficiencies in RuneQuest or Rolemaster (I only played a very little bit of the latter and that I know of none of the former)?
Gorgon Zee
Hero
The purpose of a roleplaying game (or at least the ones we eternally talk about) is to have fun. So overall, people play to have fun, and that's why many people will say role-playing games have no win condition, and essentially I'd agree with them.
But how people have fun is quite different. Running Call of Cthulhu games at conventions makes it clear that if the players mechanically defeat all opposition without anyone going insane or dying, then many people will regard that as a failure; winning in-game resolution checks equates to losing the fun.
D&D is strongly built around a specific style of play that gives spotlight time and cool stuff to players whose characters succeed at resolution checks. So in D&D, it often is the case that winning in-character resolution checks is the same as fun. But this is not a universal statement -- it is pretty specific to D&D, and even then, only to the most common D&D style of play.
As an example, I played two games last week back-to-back. I played in a Kids on Bikes game where my character had exactly one success on a meaningless check and failed every other check that night. I failed to avoid notice by the cultists; I failed to run away from them; I failed to escape my bonds and I failed to stay unterrified by what they summoned. I was eventually rescued. That game was huge amounts of fun because the system does not equate success at character resolution with fun. I then played a Pathfinder 2 game where I was rolling very well and able to narrate clever combat moves, make friends and direct scenes, and get awarded in-game bonuses that allowed me to do more of the same (as a side note, Kids on Bikes rewards you with bonuses for future checks when you fail rolls)
When I play D&D I optimize enough to ensure that I can expect to win enough resolution checks that I will have a good time. When I play other systems I don't need to do that as much. I still make sure I have decent dodge in Call of Cthulhu, but overall D&D is very strong in equating a fun time with successful resolution techniques; it lacks rewards for failure, meta-currency, success-at-a-cost, and most other modern systems that make it an enjoyable experience for your character to fail at resolution.
But how people have fun is quite different. Running Call of Cthulhu games at conventions makes it clear that if the players mechanically defeat all opposition without anyone going insane or dying, then many people will regard that as a failure; winning in-game resolution checks equates to losing the fun.
D&D is strongly built around a specific style of play that gives spotlight time and cool stuff to players whose characters succeed at resolution checks. So in D&D, it often is the case that winning in-character resolution checks is the same as fun. But this is not a universal statement -- it is pretty specific to D&D, and even then, only to the most common D&D style of play.
As an example, I played two games last week back-to-back. I played in a Kids on Bikes game where my character had exactly one success on a meaningless check and failed every other check that night. I failed to avoid notice by the cultists; I failed to run away from them; I failed to escape my bonds and I failed to stay unterrified by what they summoned. I was eventually rescued. That game was huge amounts of fun because the system does not equate success at character resolution with fun. I then played a Pathfinder 2 game where I was rolling very well and able to narrate clever combat moves, make friends and direct scenes, and get awarded in-game bonuses that allowed me to do more of the same (as a side note, Kids on Bikes rewards you with bonuses for future checks when you fail rolls)
When I play D&D I optimize enough to ensure that I can expect to win enough resolution checks that I will have a good time. When I play other systems I don't need to do that as much. I still make sure I have decent dodge in Call of Cthulhu, but overall D&D is very strong in equating a fun time with successful resolution techniques; it lacks rewards for failure, meta-currency, success-at-a-cost, and most other modern systems that make it an enjoyable experience for your character to fail at resolution.
My view here is that if there are broken elements within the game (or ones that exist outside the normal power curve), then choosing them is reasonable: they're on the menu. If choosing them will break the game (or cause overshadowing issues, etc) then the answer is to change them. Which is easily done if they're discrete elements. For instance, the katana can just be changed to a 1d8 weapon.
In Prince Valiant starting as a knight is an option. So is starting as a squire or man-at-arms. A knight starts with 800 Fame, the latter options with 500. The former is therefore closer to getting the first skill improvement (which comes at 1000 Fame). Here is what p 57 of the rulebook says about this contrast:
The advantage of playing a squire or man-at-arms is the lack of entanglements. Knights must be concerned with loyalty to their liege lord, leadership of underlings, good manners, the code of chivalry, and other kinds of responsibilities, and those knights that ignore society’s rules are reviled. Squires are less harshly judged. If your Adventurer is a knight he is often the center of attention, while lesser-ranking warriors are not so carefully scrutinized, and can act less formally. So if you would like to have an Adventurer who is a warrior but is less concerned with proper behavior, take the occupation of squire or, better yet, man-at-arms. . . .
If your Adventurer starts with the occupation of squire or man-at-arms, he can be promoted by any knight to that rank in an exciting, dramatic ceremony. Of course, some great deed of leadership or courage must be achieved for knighthood to be conferred.
If your Adventurer starts with the occupation of squire or man-at-arms, he can be promoted by any knight to that rank in an exciting, dramatic ceremony. Of course, some great deed of leadership or courage must be achieved for knighthood to be conferred.
In our game, two PCs started as knights; a third player's first PC was a knight, but that character died in the first session (dragged down to Hell by the Wild Hunt) and he started his second PC as a man-at arms (who has since been knighted). Choosing to be a knight can hardly count as optimisation, can it, in any meaningful sense? There are two choices, the difference between them is crystal clear, and one chooses one's preference. Being 300 Fame behind is about one session behind in a system where PCs start with 9 skill ranks and get a new rank every 1000 Fame.
If a group doesn't want this difference to be part of the game, they can just insist that everyone (or no one) starts as a knight.
Burning Wheel has much more intricate PC building than Prince Valiant, but in some respects it is similar: there are ways of building characters who start with more gear, more reputation or more skills than others. It's assumed that players can see this, and - a bit like the passage I quoted from Prince Valiant - will have a reason for choosing to build a different sort of PC, if that's the choice they make.
This also closely relates to the issue of win conditions . . .
I think this bit of your post that I've quoted rests on an assumption that the successful play of the game involves moving through a series of combat encounters and that optimisation is about better controlling the outcomes of those combats and winning them more handily. As you flag, this has knock-on implications for pacing, for what other activity occurs at the table during the play of the game, etc.
If combat encounters are just another thing that might happen in play and are not connected in any particular fashion to progressing a PC's (or player's) goals, then the idea that combat performance is something that there might be special reason to enhance, or special reason to care about, evaporates.
In our Classic Traveller game, there are a large number of PCs, some "primary" and some "secondary" (comparable to retainers/henchmen in classic D&D). Of the four most primary PCs, one can shoot a laser carbine but has done that, I think, two or three times in 20 sessions of play. The rest of the time his contributions flow from his knowledge of xeno-archaeology and his expertise as a medic, administrator and starship navigator. A second is a playboy baron whose main contribution to the party is money and a starship. A third is a spy who can shoot a shotgun if he gets desperate but I think has never done that in play. And the fourth is really handy with a cutlass, and uses that maybe one in every three or four sessions. She is also a (currently rather weak) psion - if/when she maxes out she'll be able to do a bit of self-buffing and clairvoyance.
There's no real correlation in this game between areas of performance that one might try and enhance and win-conditions or anything in that neighbourhood. Of course anyone can look at the secondary PC with 17 skill ranks and stats DA3CD6 and see that she is (in that sense) stronger than the playboy with 5 skill ranks and stats 4A7A6C. But while these two characters are in the same player's position, it is the playboy and not the secondary that he chooses to focus on. Because that is the character whose "story" he is invested in, who he has goals for, and around whom I'm (therefore) framing fiction.
This is the same group I played 4e D&D with for six years. But the different system, which includes a very different mechanics-to-fiction dynamic, means that optimisation isn't really a thing. (Whereas I have no doubt that it is a thing in 4e D&D - though even there you can choose to optimise for combat, or for non-combat.)
Yes. The sort of thing you might plot on a graph: output relative to input.
