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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8231488" data-attributes="member: 18">Exactly right, and this is where I've seen the worst problems with optimization crop up.[USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] 's way of looking at optimization is interesting. I don't know if I agree 100% but for the purposes of this thread, I'll accept it. It does, interestingly, mean that RIFTS, a game much favoured by power gamers and optimizers, doesn't really have a whole lot of optimization going on, because about 90% of RIFTS optimizing is picking the right class and maybe a weapon or armour from a list for that class. Some have a bit more, like the Atlantean and their tattooes, but often not.On that basis, the most problematic optimization I've actually seen has been from four sources:1) Games that are transparent but then layer a much complex system on top of the transparent one.I'm looking at you Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun. Both of them have a pretty transparent/straightforward system wrt stats and skills. Cyberpunk 2020 then has extremely fiddle-able cyberware, armour and guns, which can transform a "makes sense" character into an OMGWTHBBQ full-on monstrosity. Shadowrun has Magic, Adept magic, and Cyberware at the very least. I've personally "broken the game" with Magic (I didn't really mean to, I mean I kind of wanted to see what would happen, but it was bad, and I was definitely "broken OP" in SR3E), and seen it done (or close to it) with Cyberware and particularly Adept magic.2) Games where you get multiple actions.Shadowrun is once again an offender here, and Champions/HERO and its many relatives are too. The ability to get extra actions, at least in the versions I've played, is drastically undercosted compared to other options. In almost every game I can think of where you can get extra actions at full effectiveness (i.e. not with a huge penalty), then the best thing to do is get extra actions, and if a player doesn't realize this, they're stuff, and literally none of these games are transparent about this, not even later editions of Shadowrun (which do at least sorta mention it being good).3) Games where you can get a discount on a points cost.GURPS Supers being the worst offender I've ever come across here - you could end up with like an 80% discount on power costs, which lead to one player, as happily admitted, basically building a "2000 point character" on 400 points (closer inspection suggested it was more like 1600 points because you couldn't get a discount on everything but sheesh). The disadvantage was that in theory his equipment could be stolen but due to the nature of his powers, good bloody luck with that!4) Games full of "newbie traps" intentional or otherwise.D&D 3.XE is one obvious example because it was intentional, but it also happens unintentionally, for example with Champions/HERO where, in the editions I played at least, the costings on powers were just tremendously off, with you being wildly overcharged for some stuff and undercharged for other bits and dodgy variable power rules and so on. A person who understands the system will do hugely better than one who falls for the pitfalls.To return to [USER=177]@Umbran[/USER]'s point re: setting goals, Cyberpunk 2020 was where this really was the worst I saw in a group, we were all 15-17, and one of the players basically set his own win condition as "kill everyone I can, don't get killed" or as perhaps a more modern audience might put it "assert dominance". Pre-cyberware/guns/armour, he was a pretty basic Solo, but once that was all layered on him (all sadly rules-legal, though his humanity score was pushing it), he was basically immune to small-arms fire (even in the head/eyes!) without looking too obvious, and carried two modified ridiculous pistols which hit harder than assault rifles and had clips so large he'd never need to reload, which the game claimed were concealable (so the DM went along with it...), and also had assorted annoying cyberware to negate potential issues. He then spent the entire campaign just shooting NPCs he had agreed not to shoot. But he wasn't even a lunatic - he carefully avoided shooting anyone who might bring the law down directly on us (and wouldn't kill cops, not because the player cared, but because he knew it might get MAX-TAC on his ass and that would likely be his end). He just ruined plan after plan, negotiation after negotiation. He was genuinely the dreaded "munchkin", a person with a grotesquely OP character who wanted to "win the game" and didn't care how that made the other players feel. He got put in a coma by a vampire from a third-party supplement (I think written by Dream Pod 9 or some early version of them) in the end, but I couldn't laugh because my PC got wrecked in the same encounter.Eventually the player grew out of it, thankfully. Also now don't tell him but he's just nowhere near as good at optimization as he used to be - plus we're playing more games where optimization isn't as much of an issue, or is a non-issue, like Dungeon World.</blockquote>

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