Optimization and optimizers...

[Umbran]

Optimizing is optimizing. Words have meaning. Optimizing means choosing the right stats, weapons, looking at your abilities and picking ones that actually make sense mechanically and so on. If you do that consistently, and I know most of us are, you are, in fact, optimizing, and you are thus "an optimizer". Period. Fact of the English language. Fact of TTRPGs. Not really up for debate.

Please do not present the English language, or all things, as a black-and-white arbiter of any discussion. It will fail you.

In this case, it failed you when you used the phrase, "...choosing the right stats...". Define "right". Until you do, there's a lot of wiggle-room in there to debate.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

In this case, it failed you when you used the phrase, "...choosing the right stats...". Define "right". Until you do, there's a lot of wiggle-room in there to debate.

Do you need me to define them for every class in 5E? In every RPG? In D&D most classes have one "correct" primary stat that only weird builds (usually of the precise type this thread is decrying!) involving Feats or multiclassing might change - a few have a choice of two. I think this is an uncontroversial assertion. Like, Fighter, the "right" stats will generally mean STR or DEX primary (unless you're going for some kind of multiclass or Feat-supported gish), and probably CON secondary. With Warlock, it's definitely going to be CHA primary. And so on. Its not rocket science. You could probably design a flow-chart for it.

And words still do have meaning - if we intentionally misuse common words like "optimizer" (which has a very relevant and common usage in D&D) to mean specifically and solely "person who is intentionally trying to break the game", we are at best communicating incompetently. Again at worst we're intentionally trolling (I don't think anyone here is yet). That is the reason this thread exists - one poster wanted to redefine optimizer like that. He's hardly the only poster in history or on this board who has tried to redefine a common word or phrase in an unhelpfully specific and narrow jargon-y way (he's not even the only one I've seen today!), but it doesn't make it a good thing.

(I'm responding because I presume your text is intentionally not red)

 

[Seramus]

I'm less interested in specific terminology than I am just making it clear that MOST optimizers are decent people who share the spotlight and usually keep their friends enjoyment at the table in mind. We've all been burned by people who have been both optimizers AND jerks, but I've been burned a hundred times more often by people who insist "That's what my character would do". And even then I never conclude that the majority of heavy roleplayers will always sacrifice the good of the table on the altar of their personal adventure.

No, we're all just folks. Sometimes you get jerks in ANY area of the game: DMs, heavy roleplayers, disinterested roleplayers, optimizers, or any other avenue where jerks can naturally manifest. But most people are not jerks.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

We've all been burned by people who have been both optimizers AND jerks, but I've been burned a hundred times more often by people who insist "That's what my character would do".

This reflects my experience as well.

As a kid, I certainly had issues with people building ridiculous overpowered characters and wrecking the game that way, but for every one of those cause absolute chaos (rather than being somewhat annoying), I saw adventures and even a couple of entire campaigns derailed by "It's what my character would do!"-type play, mostly CN Thief/Rogue-types or Lawful Stupid Paladins and Clerics.

I must defend "That's what my character would do!" slightly though! It does have a place! That's in one-shots, especially horror one-shots (i.e. CoC or Mothership). I've genuinely seen those be improved by people sticking to character personalities, even when it was extremely inconvenient to the group - particularly towards the end of adventures. But yeah that wouldn't be viable in more long-term play.

 

[Desdichado]

This is nice and all but words still have meaning, and optimizing means optimizing and optimizers means people who optimize their characters, not just people at the very most extreme edge of rules-exploits. So it's not really okay to decry "optimization" per se, I'm sorry, but it's not.

I'm sorry, but of course it is. If I don't like optimizers because they mess up the game (vs my expectations and hopes for the game, anyway) then of course I'm going to decry them. Why wouldn't I? I don't like the way they play, I don't prioritize the things that they enjoy, or even enjoy those things at all myself, and they mess up the game for me if they can't keep their instincts in check. There isn't any real difference from the perspective of someone who doesn't value character optimization between an optimizer and a munchkin. From our point of view that's pedantic nitpicking, so that you can avoid a label that you see as pejorative. Especially, as seems to often be the case for whatever reason, that optimizers assume that the way that they like to play is the only correct way to play and anyone who doesn't optimize is "wrong." There's enough shades of that already even in a skim reading of this thread.

Look, I recognize that different people enjoy different things, but the whole point of a group activity is that everyone has to get enough of what they want out of the experience, or they don't want to do it anymore. With the exception of creeps and weirdos, who I don't play with anyway, optimizers are the most likely to make my gaming experience worse. If they're socially well-adjusted, it's not a problem, because we can work together to make the game successful for both of us. But if they're not, they're like one of the plagues Moses called down on Egypt. Either optimizers need to only play with other optimizers, or they need to tone down their rhetoric about gamers who don't care about the same things that they care about in the game.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

No, we're all just folks. Sometimes you get jerks in ANY area of the game: DMs, heavy roleplayers, disinterested roleplayers, optimizers, or any other avenue where jerks can naturally manifest. But most people are not jerks.

Uh huh. Here's the thing, though. If we used the term "jerks," to describe certain behavior, you can be certain that there would be a subset of people who would then argue against it, saying that:
1. Hey, you should use some other word. #letsargueaboutdefinitions
2. You shouldn't use that word, because even if it is accurate, I've seen a person call another person a jerk, and since that person wasn't actually a jerk, that means that using that word is just people trying to keep non-jerky behavior down. #notalljerks

I kid, but not really. Look, there's certain archetypes of behavior in the TTRPG field that we've all been familiar with and have seen. And it's not new- it's been described and catalogued in D&D since the game started. Of course it's a banal point to say that archetypes cannot capture the complexity of human experience, but it's also a truism that the archetypes formed because of observations.

Here's my rule of thumb (you can use it if you want). If you think that certain bad behavior requires you to mount a massive defense, ask yourself ... why? Why do I need to defend it? What is that saying about me?

Because there are terms people use commonly to refer to a specific subset of jerky behavior that crosses the line (social compact, etc.). If you aren't engaging in it, why do you care? I know the rules. And I make good choices when I make characters.

But I'd like to think I'm playing a group game that is fun for everyone, and as they say ... if it's not for everyone, it's not fun for anyone.

 

[Desdichado]

The classic "Real Men, Real Roleplayers, Loonies, and Munchkins" categorization quiz apocryphally dates back to Pacificon in San Mateo around 1983, and is helpful in understanding how gamers of the time thought about munchkinism. I'm sure the term has had plenty of regional drift.

Real Men, Real Rôle-Players, Loonies and Munchkins

And that classic meme doesn't have optimizers as a separate category. Sure, sure... if you want to be... again, pedantic and nitpicky, then you can say that optimizer doesn't have the same stigma as munchkin, and that maybe there's a line somewhere on the spectrum between the two where you stop being one and start being the other. And of course, degree matters. Someone on the far munchkin end of the axis is going to be quite a bit more obnoxious than someone far to the other side. But no matter how you try to split those hairs, it's still the same activity.

 

[Desdichado]

But I'd like to think I'm playing a group game that is fun for everyone, and as they say ... if it's not for everyone, it's not fun for anyone.

What they says that? Some they who likes being wrong! I've long ago realized that one of the key elements of having a really great (as opposed to merely adequate) gaming experience is being more or less on the same page with your group about what the game is like. Playstyle really matters. Most people play with existing friends, I'd bet, so sometimes you tolerate differences in priority around what the game is to be like, because they're you're friends. These are adequate or at best good games. Sometimes, however, you're really on the same page with everyone in the group on how the game is supposed to be and what the priorities are. This is when gaming is great.

I've more and more come to the realization over the years that it's totally OK (as long as you're not a d*** about it) to decide that a gaming group isn't for you, not because you don't like the people, but because they just don't really want to play the same game you do. Sometimes you're happy to take any game you can get, but sometimes it's OK to reach for something better.

 

[Umbran]

Do you need me to define them for every class in 5E?

It is not what I need. It is what is necessary for your "fact of the English language" assertion to have truth.

Trying to claim there is clarity, by invoking a thing you have not actually defined, is... sub-optimal argument design.

If you really want to know what I need?

Well, I think that if we probe beyond the linguistic trap you built around yourself, we'd probably find that what you really mean is that you feel "optimization" isn't really producing what others would call "optimized" characters - that basically you're swimming upstream. I don't "need", but would find it really constructive to, note and admit that sooner, rather than later or never. It might avoid a ton of acrimony if we reframed this as you feeling your definition of "optimization" is better and more useful, and why, rather than framing it as "linguistically correct", which it actually isn't.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There isn't any real difference from the perspective of someone who doesn't value character optimization between an optimizer and a munchkin.

What?

So there's no difference between someone who makes a completely rules-legal and non-broken character, and someone who is intentionally trying to break the game and make the entire game about them?

Seriously?

If they're socially well-adjusted, it's not a problem, because we can work together to make the game successful for both of us.

This directly contradicts your previous point. And also, more to the point, almost no-one who isn't "socially well-adjusted" is fun to play with, are they? Roleplayers who aren't "socially well-adjusted" can be hellish to play with. Optimization has nothing to do with that.

I think your real issue is "no-one wants to play with people who constantly talk smack about other people's characters" whether that's coming from an RP place, or optimization place, or somewhere else entirely, which yeah, I agree!

Here's my rule of thumb (you can use it if you want). If you think that certain bad behavior requires you to mount a massive defense, ask yourself ... why? Why do I need to defend it? What is that saying about me?

I don't think anyone where is defending "certain bad behaviour" though, that's entire issue isn't it?

On the precise contrary, people are annoyed that normal, common, non-bad behaviour (arguably beneficial behaviour, even) is being labelled as "bad". I'll always fight back against that when I see it, whether it's something like people engaging in homophobia (often via occluded/masked ways like "omg kids can't see drag queens!") or something pettier like people trying to make out building characters in a competent way and understanding mechanics wrong.