Optimization and optimizers...

[prabe]

Yeah but HOW is it a problem?

People here are clutching their pearls over "the problem of Optimization" but no one can explain HOW it's a problem.

How is discrepancy in optimization a problem, outside of jerk behavior?

There's the en passant steamrollering of someone else's niche-toes, which will bother some people more than others, and be more of a problem in some rulesets than others, but it's real.

There's the old "what challenges the one character might wipe everyone else" thing--the people talking about Scion were very clearly talking about this.

It's hard to keep all the players engaged and involved when one of them brought Superman and another brought Aquaman ...

I've seen all of those, in one form or another, over the years. I've been on both sides--sometimes I really knew a system, sometimes I really didn't. No pearl-clutching, here, just real-life experiences I can point to.

 

[Mannahnin]

People here are clutching their pearls over "the problem of Optimization" but no one can explain HOW it's a problem.

The typical way over-optimization is a problem is when a given character outshines other characters, and makes the players of those characters feel relatively ineffective by comparison. This impinges on their fantasy. When a given character is substantially more powerful than others in the same group it can also create encounter scaling difficulties for the DM, where if they scale opposition to be able to hit/hurt the toughest character reliably, they hit/hurt the weaker characters constantly. Or if the foes are scaled to the weaker characters, the tougher character is never challenged.

I agree that 5E has this issue less than other editions (especially 3.x) because the delta between characters isn't typically as big. But there can still be exceptions, as soviet mentioned with the Circle of Moon druid, which can just be pretty absurd even without real optimizing.

 

[prabe]

I get what you're saying but ultimately, if the game only works when people don't think about it too much, then the game doesn't really work. This is similar to the 3e thing where the designers thought everyone would just build and play clerics like they had in 2e, rather than players engaging afresh with the rules text that was actually in front of them.

Obviously we have different experiences and opinions and preferences, here, and I'm not going to try to argue you out of yours (and you don't seem to be trying to argue me out of mine, sincerely thank you). I will say I think the players at the tables I'm GMing are thinking about the game a good deal, and the game does seem to be working for everyone.

 

[Distracted DM]

Not really. You still have an action economy, race abilities, class abilities, backgrounds, paths, ASIs.

2e had race abilities, class abilities.. it even had backgrounds, kits, and there was even movement and action possibilities. ASIs didn't increase by PC choice, though, you're correct. I did note that 5e had more built-in features, but once you choose your kit path, you're set.

 

[Distracted DM]

How is discrepancy in optimization a problem, outside of jerk behavior?

There's the en passant steamrollering of someone else's niche-toes, which will bother some people more than others, and be more of a problem in some rulesets than others, but it's real.

There's the old "what challenges the one character might wipe everyone else" thing--the people talking about Scion were very clearly talking about this.

It's hard to keep all the players engaged and involved when one of them brought Superman and another brought Aquaman ...

I've seen all of those, in one form or another, over the years. I've been on both sides--sometimes I really knew a system, sometimes I really didn't. No pearl-clutching, here, just real-life experiences I can point to.

Yup. My big two issues are 1. challenging said mixed party, where some are "standard effectiveness" and others are Very Optimized.. and 2. breaking the verisimilitude/expectations of the setting when, for example, a single character becomes capable of soloing something they should have no business soloing at their level. The rest of the party quails at the sight of the dragon, but the optimized character tut tuts and goes on to completely neutralize the threat when they really should've required teamwork etc. to take it on. So I either need to throw a second Big Threat in, which can feel DM Fiat-ey, or just let it lie with the one character posing like Hercules on top of the corpse. Not to mention, OK, so how many ancient dragons does the setting have? This character can thrash them all... sort of screws the setting when dragons and demon lords are easily trounceable. #2 is more of a general 5e issue, with characters punching well about their weight class, whereas previous editions were a lot tighter with what was possible to take on over your head.

.. whoops. went on a tangent

 

[Gradine]

My take--and this is just my take, I'm not speaking for anyone else, here--is that having people who are optimized to different extents can be a problem, and it's more likely to be a problem than if everyone is optimized to the same extent. This is especially the case if someone is kinda en passant stepping on someone else's niche-toes, while still rawking out at their primary thing. If the person who's optimizing the hardest is also a spotlight hawg, it's almost certainly going to be a problem.

In other words, it's personalities that are more likely to make disparity in optimization a problem than the disparity itself.

None of that is intended as prescriptive.

I guess this is kind of my point. It's a personality problem, not a game design problem.

Well, its based on the fact that even people who aren't oriented toward optimization want to feel like they're contributing. If some people are clearly doing so too much more, that can feel like its not the case and, well, bad.

My own feeling is that the game has to have a bit too much of a gap and/or players who are either going out of their way to be jerks (at the optimizer end) or really sensitive to the differences (at the non-optimized end) for it to be a real problem, but various combinations of that can happen.

There's a lot of memes about "inventing a person to be mad at"... this feels a lot like inventing a person to be concerned about. A person who truly cares about how much they are contributing are much more likely to build a character that can contribute. If I make a character who isn't designed to contribute as much, then I'm not going to care as much.

The concepts of "game mastery" and "trap options", for instance, are far overblown. It's hard, especially in 5e, to make a non-functioning character on accident. I say that as someone who routinely DMs for new players, like dozens, and I've never seen this become an actual issue for anyone.

Part of it is that in a lot of games the combat elements takes up significantly more time (and is usually more survival-critical) than the other two. That means they aren't assessed the same.

Now this is a game design problem.

It comes from games from the 00s and earlier which were truly terribly balanced and which you could accidentally become overwhelmingly better than everyone. Scion 2e has already been mentioned on this thread, but D&D 3.5 was a noted problem; the druid was better than the fighter at almost everything out of combat - and a Bear druid who could turn into a bear, had a bear companion, and could summon bears might not be better at fighting individually than a fighter but two of the bears probably would be.

There has never been and will likely never be a D&D game that reaches above "poorly balanced". Even 4e, which is touted as being the game most designed with balancing characters in mind, was wildly unbalanced; forget D&D, it's the only RPG period I've played in ever that I've managed to unintentionally make an ineffective character. 3.5 is undoubtedly the worst contender here, and even in 3.5 the whole "don't mix the class tiers" thing has never remotely been an issue in any game I've ever been a part of. I say that as someone who regularly played non-spellcasters in 3.5. Hell, one time I played a Truenamer, a class that has been universally acknowledged as fundamentally, objectively broken (negative), and not only did I have a blast, but I also never really felt like I wasn't actually meaningfully contributing.

 

[Theory of Games]

How is discrepancy in optimization a problem, outside of jerk behavior?

There's the en passant steamrollering of someone else's niche-toes, which will bother some people more than others, and be more of a problem in some rulesets than others, but it's real.

There's the old "what challenges the one character might wipe everyone else" thing--the people talking about Scion were very clearly talking about this.

It's hard to keep all the players engaged and involved when one of them brought Superman and another brought Aquaman ...

I've seen all of those, in one form or another, over the years. I've been on both sides--sometimes I really knew a system, sometimes I really didn't. No pearl-clutching, here, just real-life experiences I can point to.

Okay but where in the core books of any TTRPG does it say all the players have to be the same? Sure, the same level, but is it required that all the PCs are "balanced"? If so, without mentioning level, define how the PCs must be "balanced"?

If one player chooses a more proficient collection of skills, feats, traits, powers, whatever than the other players - BUT ALL THE PLAYERS HAVE ACCESS TO THE SAME RULES - how is the optimizer crossing a line?

This just looks ... it looks like people who aren't "good at the game" want people who are to dumb-down their characters and that completely defeats the purpose of getting "good at the game". Look at other games: No one is telling Magnus Carlsen to stop studying and playing chess at a high level. No one tells Steph Curry to stop shooting so many 3s. No. Instead those great players are applauded and even worshipped because of their dedication to getting "good at the game".

Why can't we have that with tabletop RPGs? Because they're social? MOST if not ALL games are social in nature (at least the ones that require groups). What about Steve? Steve's the best player on his darts team. No one on the team told Steve "Hey mate: you need to stop being so good at darts". WHY? Because Steve being a darts-master means his team has a better chance of success.

But saying it's "one PC outshining others" isn't it because the players aren't competing, right? Saying optimization "imbalanced encounters" isn't it because most TTRPGs have specific rules for addressing PCs in the same party having different levels of capability (D&D does, GURPS does, a lot of superhero ttrpgs do), right? Saying it "defeats niche protection" isn't it because - again - most TTRPGs don't even mention the concept of "niche protection", right?

I mean if during Session 0 the group decides each player will play a specific role/class, IF one of them decides to make a character whose role overlaps into another character's, that is NOT an optimization problem: that is a PLAYER problem that should be addressed by the GM. Everyone that optimizes isn't a jerk, regardless of your limited experiences.

Could this be about jealousy? Because that's a possible explanation, right? I've been on a lot of teams and in a lot of groups where one or two people were just BETTER at what the group/team was doing than their teammates - and there was jealousy. Often.

 

[soviet]

2e had race abilities, class abilities.. it even had backgrounds, kits, and there was even movement and action possibilities. ASIs didn't increase by PC choice, though, you're correct. I did note that 5e had more built-in features, but once you choose your kit path, you're set.

2e had racial abilities like infravision and detect slopes in passageways that were universal and largely non-combat relevant. The stat modifiers were much smaller and stats in general were less important. There was much less of a sense that playing a non-typical race/class combination was being punished or discouraged.

2e classes had very few options and there was certainly nothing close to the modern notion of picking a new power every level, or mixing class levels (and abilities) as you went.

It did not have backgrounds, kits, or an action economy until the Complete Guide books and Skills and Powers, which I specifically excluded from my discussion of the subject.

 

[soviet]

Obviously we have different experiences and opinions and preferences, here, and I'm not going to try to argue you out of yours (and you don't seem to be trying to argue me out of mine, sincerely thank you). I will say I think the players at the tables I'm GMing are thinking about the game a good deal, and the game does seem to be working for everyone.

That's cool. I recognise that there are ways to make it work and have fun with it. Sometimes that's because of a deliberate approach and sometimes it's because the particular alchemy of a group or GM is a natural fit for how the game works anyway. I'm glad you're having a fun time with it!

 

[prabe]

Okay but where in the core books of any TTRPG does it say all the players have to be the same? Sure, the same level, but is it required that all the PCs are "balanced"? If so, without mentioning level, define how the PCs must be "balanced"?

If one player chooses a more proficient collection of skills, feats, traits, powers, whatever than the other players - BUT ALL THE PLAYERS HAVE ACCESS TO THE SAME RULES - how is the optimizer crossing a line?

This just looks ... it looks like people who aren't "good at the game" want people who are to dumb-down their characters and that completely defeats the purpose of getting "good at the game". Look at other games: No one is telling Magnus Carlsen to stop studying and playing chess at a high level. No one tells Steph Curry to stop shooting so many 3s. No. Instead those great players are applauded and even worshipped because of their dedication to getting "good at the game".

Why can't we have that with tabletop RPGs? Because they're social? MOST if not ALL games are social in nature (at least the ones that require groups). What about Steve? Steve's the best player on his darts team. No one on the team told Steve "Hey mate: you need to stop being so good at darts". WHY? Because Steve being a darts-master means his team has a better chance of success.

But saying it's "one PC outshining others" isn't it because the players aren't competing, right? Saying optimization "imbalanced encounters" isn't it because most TTRPGs have specific rules for addressing PCs in the same party having different levels of capability (D&D does, GURPS does, a lot of superhero ttrpgs do), right? Saying it "defeats niche protection" isn't it because - again - most TTRPGs don't even mention the concept of "niche protection", right?

I mean if during Session 0 the group decides each player will play a specific role/class, IF one of them decides to make a character whose role overlaps into another character's, that is NOT an optimization problem: that is a PLAYER problem that should be addressed by the GM. Everyone that optimizes isn't a jerk, regardless of your limited experiences.

Could this be about jealousy? Because that's a possible explanation, right? I've been on a lot of teams and in a lot of groups where one or two people were just BETTER at what the group/team was doing than their teammates - and there was jealousy. Often.

What the fresh hell? You asked for problems unequal optimization makes at the table, and I pointed at a few I've actually seen, and you needed to come back as though it was some sort of personal attack?

You did get that I'm not particularly opposed to players optimizing, yes? You did get that I see the issues that come up around it as more player-behavior problems than anything else, yes?

Different playstyles will handle things differently, of course; if the table's expectation is that the PCs will be more or less on equal footing, it's more likely to be a problem.

I was pointing at specific problems I've seen at tables, problems that in some instances I have been at tables. Some of those are obviously problems the GM needs to solve, or try to solve, or give up on solving. Some of the behavior stuff is--as someone has pointed out elsewhere--about someone at the table setting out to win the game-as-social-activity, more than anything else.

The problem/s I'm pointing at don't always need blame attached to them, there's not always a finger to be pointed at any given player.

My goal, these days, as a player, is to optimize about as much as everyone else at the table is, even if I leave efficiencies and synergies lying fallow. This obviously isn't the only way to go about things, but it feels like the way least likely to make problems at the table; and if that level of optimization is lower than I can stomach for long, I'm not a great fit for the table and I should probably see my way out.