Optimization and optimizers...

[Ruin Explorer]

But no matter how you try to split those hairs, it's still the same activity.

You're just repeating what I've said upthread, but you don't see the irony. You're saying "Well a guy who goes jogging twice a week and drinks a protein shake before he does and Joe Rogan out of his mind of HGH and ayahuasca are basically engaging in the same activity!". It's pretty funny to me that you say this with a straight face. Like on a certain level it's true but only if you exaggerate things to a ludicrous degree.

The key issue you accidentally identified in passing and then discarded:

If they're socially well-adjusted, it's not a problem

That's the issue. The entire reason munchkins are a problem is that they're extremely socially maladjusted to the point where they think it's cool to break the game for everyone.

Optimizing your own character, so long as it doesn't break the game, is pretty much never a problem. Often it's not even detectable by people who don't understand optimization! But breaking games and making them about you, or starting to do a critique of everyone else's PC for being insufficiently optimized obviously is a problem.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

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.

I'll just point out two things, and exit.

1. If you think that it is appropriate to defend an approach to playing D&D by comparing it to bigotry in society, I will have to disagree with you. Strenuously. And leave it at that.

2. If you think that the discussion is, or ever has been, people arguing that no one should be allowed to "build{} characters in a competent way," then I will suggest one of two things is happening. You either are misunderstanding what the discussion is about, or you are choosing to characterize the discussion incorrectly.

But in the end, it doesn't matter, does it? People play the game to have fun. And people are either self-aware, or they aren't. My suggestion, as always- look inward to find your peace, and play with other people in groups in which everyone is having a good time.

I hope that this is what you're doing!

 

[billd91]

2. If you think that the discussion is, or ever has been, people arguing that no one should be allowed to "build{} characters in a competent way," then I will suggest one of two things is happening. You either are misunderstanding what the discussion is about, or you are choosing to characterize the discussion incorrectly.

Oh, I'm pretty sure he recognizes that the discussion here isn't about allowing people to build their characters in a competent or even highly-competent way. Nor do I think he's actually characterizing the discussion incorrectly.
This discussion, as I see it, is mainly about defining how a person behaves at the gaming table based on the extremes a minority of people take with the behavior and then wielding it like a cudgel. I think Ruin Explorer is pretty much on point with that. Any shilly-shallying around about the prescriptivism/descriptivism or continuums of behavior is pretty much missing that most important point.

 

[zottel]

What I want to point out is that nobody mentioned an actual problem at the table, but is only arguing semantics. I don't see any good coming from this for anyone.

 

[Seramus]

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.

I defend the general idea because I count myself among their number. I've certainly made my fair share of mistakes, such as being overly ernest sharing rules and build ideas, but I've also made quite a bit of effort to share the spotlight and cheer on my friends at the table when I'm not in the DM seat myself. Some of my favorite forms of optimization is effective support, where I buff the bajeezus out of my team members and watch them soar!

And with a keen eye towards my own behaviors, and those who share a similar love of mechanics, I'm better able to see just how many optimizers there are that are not causing any sort of trouble at tables. And sometimes we sit and talk, and share experiences about how we can't openly express our love of game mechanics without catching side eye. How we dare not mention a rule to a DM lest we be marked as "That Guy". How we use terms like "Voltron Sword" to represent some power or ability we COULD pull out, but don't until the very last moment because we're afraid we might be accused of hogging the spotlight.

Having to hide like that is uncomfortable, the same way it was uncomfortable to even mention that you loved D&D back in the day. I've had my books threatened with burning, had my books put in a toilet and flushed, been chased out of my friends house with his mother screaming at us, been knocked down stairs. And sure, things aren't as bad as they used to be by any stretch. I'm absolutely loving this renaissance of nerdery, but I'm still here on a forum trying to convince people there's a difference between loving the mechanics of a game and being a bad actor.

 

[MGibster]

Is this discussion about optimization and optimizers or did the board's focus change to etymology? I'm down either way.

I'm sure the one thing that has been on all your minds is, "What does mgibster think of optimizers and optimization?" Well have no fear, my friends, because I'm here to tell you what you should all think.

I love optimizers. If any of you ever has the misfortune to play a game I'm running, I want you to optimize. I will help you optimize your character if you'd like. If you create a detective I want to make sure you're character is good at detecting. I won't push you to squeeze everything out of the rules, but I want to make sure your character's core competencies are reflected on the character sheet. In my experience, optimizers are typically engaged players. i.e. They enthusiastically participate because they care about the game.

 

[Mannahnin]

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.

It's really not, except inasmuch that it's all "playing the game", and we're all on a continuum. Every one of us.

Somewhere down at one end of extreme optimization is the guy who wants to play Pun-Pun in an actual game. And somewhere at the extreme opposite end is the guy who for the lulz wants to play a Cleric with the lowest possible Wisdom, fail 20% of the time when casting his spells, and make bad tactical decisions with the justification that his character is foolish.

The form of basic optimization which most of us engage in is simply "put your highest score in your prime requisite" or the equivalent. Another one is choosing the weapon with the best stats, if one exists. In AD&D that's usually the longsword. I've sat at tables where folks sneered at someone choosing to specialize in longsword, but more commonly that was accepted as just standard play, and someone might be accorded respect and credit for choosing something else because we acknowledged they were choosing to play on hard mode.

The quiz doesn't have a separate category for optimizers, in context, probably because Real Men would be expected to be optimizers at a reasonable level. Real Roleplayers also, but more likely to compromise on power for a character concept ("I'm specializing in broadsword, because that's the signature weapon of Duke Goran's elite troops."). And Loonies would be more likely to do the 9 Int Magic User and shaft themselves with a 35% chance to Know Spells for the lulz.

Maybe the term optimizer is just like that George Carlin routine about how everyone who drives faster than you on the freeway is a maniac, and everyone who drives slower is a donkey cave. Everyone who puts more work into maximizing their characters than I do is a Try Hard Optimizer, and everyone who puts less effort in is a Filthy Casual.

 

[prabe]

I defend the general idea because I count myself among their number. I've certainly made my fair share of mistakes, such as being overly ernest sharing rules and build ideas, but I've also made quite a bit of effort to share the spotlight and cheer on my friends at the table when I'm not in the DM seat myself. Some of my favorite forms of optimization is effective support, where I buff the bajeezus out of my team members and watch them soar!

And with a keen eye towards my own behaviors, and those who share a similar love of mechanics, I'm better able to see just how many optimizers there are that are not causing any sort of trouble at tables. And sometimes we sit and talk, and share experiences about how we can't openly express our love of game mechanics without catching side eye. How we dare not mention a rule to a DM lest we be marked as "That Guy". How we use terms like "Voltron Sword" to represent some power or ability we COULD pull out, but don't until the very last moment because we're afraid we might be accused of hogging the spotlight.

Having to hide like that is uncomfortable, the same way it was uncomfortable to even mention that you loved D&D back in the day. I've had my books threatened with burning, had my books put in a toilet and flushed, been chased out of my friends house with his mother screaming at us, been knocked down stairs. And sure, things aren't as bad as they used to be by any stretch. I'm absolutely loving this renaissance of nerdery, but I'm still here on a forum trying to convince people there's a difference between loving the mechanics of a game and being a bad actor.

There are people who interact with--get to the fiction of--games through the mechanics. I have been and am still sometimes one. This seems like a different thing from optimizing, which is itself a thing that isn't always a problem (as I said upthread). I mean, I don't think getting to the fiction through the mechanics is inherently a problem, either, though it'll probably lead to different preferences as far as games/systems, and there might be the various sorts of table-matching problems I gestured at regarding optimizing.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Is this discussion about optimization and optimizers or did the board's focus change to etymology? I'm down either way.

I'm sure the one thing that has been on all your minds is, "What does mgibster think of optimizers and optimization?" Well have no fear, my friends, because I'm here to tell you what you should all think.

I love optimizers. If any of you ever has the misfortune to play a game I'm running, I want you to optimize. I will help you optimize your character if you'd like. If you create a detective I want to make sure you're character is good at detecting. I won't push you to squeeze everything out of the rules, but I want to make sure your character's core competencies are reflected on the character sheet. In my experience, optimizers are typically engaged players. i.e. They enthusiastically participate because they care about the game.

God bless you man, I mean that unsarcastically, it's just really nice to have an actually solidly positive take. I don't require people to optimize but it is definitely my experience that, with adults (i.e. not teenagers or kids), optimization is usually a sign of being an engaged player. I've always found it insane that people see this dichotomy between RP and optimization, because my experience is that very often the keenest RPer and the keenest optimizer (not munchkin, note) are the same person. That's certainly true in my main group. You do get people who are only good at one of the two - but even they often learn to get good at the other over time, because they're engaged with the game.

I totally agree re: characters being best when they're mechanically good at what they're fictionally good at. And detective is a perfect example - I've played in a game before where someone had a detective/investigator-type character who was woefully unoptimized to the point where they were routinely being outdone by random other PCs, and ended up looking more like Inspector Clouseau than the Poirot or Holmes they'd envisioned, and that's not fun! It's not even fun for the other players, because being decent people, they usually feel a little bad about it!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Having to hide like that is uncomfortable, the same way it was uncomfortable to even mention that you loved D&D back in the day. I've had my books threatened with burning, had my books put in a toilet and flushed, been chased out of my friends house with his mother screaming at us, been knocked down stairs. And sure, things aren't as bad as they used to be by any stretch. I'm absolutely loving this renaissance of nerdery, but I'm still here on a forum trying to convince people there's a difference between loving the mechanics of a game and being a bad actor.

...given the good-faith response, I will try and explain this one more time in kind. Look, I get the love of rules. Do you not believe me? Have you ever perused a single one of my threads about the 1e rules? I'm not even going to get into real life, but I think I have the bona fides of someone who loves understanding how rules work and how to make different rules interact. And yes, I will certainly geek out as much, if not more, than the next person, about the mechanics of a game.

But ... there is a difference ... in both games and life ... between the rules of a game and the social aspects of a game. Let me use an analogy to explain this to you- imagine you are really good at basketball. You have a friend who ... sucks. So you just school them, constantly, in one-on-one. It's cool, because you're just playing the game within the rules, right? Or playing a videogame ... I can use a real anecdote here. Back in the day, there was Mortal Kombat II. And someone had perfected an unstoppable combination, and just spammed it over and over again when the group got together to play PvP in MK2. He would always play that character, and would always spam that combination.

What do you think happens in those situations? Do you think everyone just shrugs their shoulders, and keeps playing together, because ... hey, it's legal, and the rules of the game? Do you think people will just want to git gud? Or do you think the other people stop playing? Yeah, I think you know what happens.

All of this other stuff, arguing about definitions, etc.? That's just noise. Munchkin, min-maxer, powergamer, optimizer? The term itself doesn't matter- it's the behavior. If you aren't being a jerk with what you're doing, no one cares. Heck, if you're playing with a bunch of people that are all into it and having fun with it, that's cool too! Play as you want. But don't tell me that there are people that prioritize their own fun over the social compact, and do it through a specific process (optimization/powergaming/whatever you feel is the best term). Good?

And rules lawyers? They can go to h-e-double hockey sticks.

D&D General Thread 'Rules Lawyers, Powergamers, and Munchkins: Thoughts on the Origins of Diverse Species'

Sep 19, 2023

My last Snarfticle (yes, Virginia, I am still trying to make fetch happen) was about the concept of fairness in D&D. Weirdly, it managed to get sidetracked into a conversation about rules lawyers, and optimizers, and min/maxers, and powergamers (OH MY!). Since that seemed to be of interest to some people (for a small value of "some"), I thought it would be worthwhile to delve a little more into the history of the terms, and why they are sometimes used interchangeably, but are certainly not the same.


A. The Origins of D&D, and Existence of the Barracks Lawyer.
I like Flo...

• Snarf Zagyg
• Replies: 64
• Forum: *Dungeons & Dragons

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Everyone should be having fun. If the people at your table are having fun, why care what other people are arguing about?