Optimization and optimizers...

[Neonchameleon]

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 know. But you and numerous others seem to be mounting a massive defence here of the bad behaviour of insulting people with a different playstyle to yourself. What does it say about you and those who use optimisation as an insult?

And when people who don't know each other meet the single easiest benchmark for getting on the same page is light to medium "naive" optimisation. The actual people committing anti-social behaviour are those asking normal people to read their minds as to what arbitrary level of optimisation that isn't written in any rulebook that they consider acceptable.

Also "Roll-playing not roleplaying" was White Wolf making excuses for poor game design; part of the skill of game design is to have a game that's robust enough to be pushed And "rules lawyers" are also something that comes up as a consequence of poor game design. Good game design makes social problems appearing less not more likely and I haven't seen anyone try to rules lawyer since the 3.X days, largely because the games aren't collapsing under their own weight and are generally better written.

 

[SteveC]

In my experience, if everyone at the table is on the same page where optimisation is concerned, then it's all good. It's when one or more overtakes and then you have a problem.

That's exactly it. I have always thought out optimizers as a social/table problem and not a game problem. It's a team game and we're playing to have fun together, so if you're not doing that and it makes everyone else's experience worse, that's what needs to be assessed.

And I say that, including the GM: if players are making it not fun for the GM to run the game, that should also be addressed.

 

[Seramus]

This. I’m a big advocate of optimisation = efficiency in achieving X, where X does not have to be MOAR POWA!

I've always loved the phrase "Optimizing your fun." Minimizing the things that are not fun, and maximizing the things that are!

 

[bloodtide]

I mean, that's not true.

Every game has poorly written or edited stuff, and this does not even count typos and mistakes.

Also, what do you mean by "super over powered"? Power exists in a context, it's relative - you seem to be saying the "average" 5E D&D character is "super over powered", but that's obviously nonsensical - if everyone is "super over powered", then no-one is "super over powered".

I find 5E in general to be very weak, but I'm a 2E power gamer.

You're apparently deciding to play RPGs that have tones and power levels you don't like, then you're apparently getting angry that other people aren't willing to house-rule those games to the power level you want, even though none of them signed up for that. I get that you may regard 5E D&D and the like as "super over powered" - presumably meaning that the PCs are "superheroes" in your view. Well - there's an easy fix for that - don't play those games. Go play something actually gritty like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or Call of Cthulhu or DCC something! This is 100% on you. You cannot go around joining games you know don't like the rules/tone of, and then saying "Omg these awful jerks won't house-rule the game to my tastes!!!".

It is not a problem in my games. I love to humble and break optimizers.

If you can't find a game locally that suits your more niche tastes, you can either run one, or you have to go online. Maybe that's not ideal but it's the way of the world for social games like TTRPGs - you need other people, so you need to find people who like the same things as you. You can't just get mad at people and make them change games to suit you.

It is a big reason I run games.

You're literally asking people to change the rules ("most fixes are very easy"), so you can't really complain about this lol. Yeah, house rules do often mess things up - but you're apparently literally advocating for them - no, sorry, apparently demanding people house-rule RPGs to make them not be about PCs who are "super over powered", so...?

There is a big difference between a "common sense fix" and "I did something stupid to make everyone feel better".

 

[Bill Zebub]

I do wonder to what extent the issue people have with hard core optimizers is really about the power differential itself, versus being about the aggressive playstyle and obnoxious personality that often seems to be part of the package. Would it be so offensive if that overpowered character were played by somebody who tried to stay low-key and always encouraged other characters into the spotlight?

For example, imagine an extremely optimized Wizard focused on buffing/support magic, who on their turn quietly cast spells on other players that made them more effective, but never took any credit for it, or pointed out how it was their spell that won the combat? (Like in the Treantmonk guide, but without the self-aggrandizing preface...)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There is a big difference between a "common sense fix" and "I did something stupid to make everyone feel better".

My personal experience is that for an awful lot of people see the latter as the former, but YMMV.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I do wonder to what extent the issue people have with hard core optimizers is really about the power differential itself, versus being about the aggressive playstyle and obnoxious personality that often seems to be part of the package. Would it be so offensive if that overpowered character were played by somebody who tried to stay low-key and always encouraged other characters into the spotlight?

For example, imagine an extremely optimized Wizard focused on buffing/support magic, who on their turn quietly cast spells on other players that made them more effective, but never took any credit for it, or pointed out how it was their spell that won the combat? (Like in the Treantmonk guide, but without the self-aggrandizing preface...)

From the responses and way people talk it seems to me like the real problem is easily 90% personality and social issues, and like 10% actual balance issues (though I would include knowingly getting "broken" builds off the internet as a "personality and social" issue, because who even does that?).

I've often played pretty optimized support characters and it is interesting that it's very rare that anyone notices how extremely effective/solid they might be. In 4E the Cleric player built her character almost entirely around making the other PCs stronger and more survivable and some crowd control to make things easier for the group, and frankly her highly optimized and extremely well-played PC was the only reason they won some fights that the rest of the party absolutely ran face-first into (to be fair the Fighter was also nigh-indestructible and well-played), and I don't think they ever really realized how carefully chosen and synergized a lot of her powers were (the Fighter's player might have). This particularly allowed the Rogue and Warlock (later Assassin), Sha'ir and bizarrely-configured (though very fun) Shaman to do kind of whatever the hell they wanted and have a good time. The number of times the Rogue did something like dash into the center of a room full of enemies, get absolutely surrounded, and only survive because the Cleric was able to pull his ass out of the fire (sometimes literally, the Cleric had spells the move people around IIRC) was amazing (he did eventually realize he was getting an awful lot of healing at least).

 

[aco175]

I tend to find that the designers make the game one way and the optimizer players find the loopholes to use or exploit depending on your interpretation. Each class is designed to compete with the other classes and not some weird multiclassed (MC) hybrid. Some of it is more cheesy than trying to skirt things to dominate, but they are just levels of optimization.

Some level is more expected such as placing the 16 in my DEX for a rogue or INT for a mage, but then it advances such as every rogue needing a rapier since it is the only d8 weapon. Each DM and table might have a level they are cool with. On a 1-10 scale I think most tables are in the 4-6 range of play.

Getting rid of MCing would bring things down in my thoughts. I find the designer levels of play vs using MCing to find the cheese might be the easiest if people want to limit things. My table tends to not multiclass, but my son did take a level of druid to add to the life cleric in order to cheese goodberry in healing 5 HP instead of just 1 HP. I'm generally fine with this level, but I see other threads online that talk about the character not being good unless it can deal 50 damage at 1st level or something.

 

[Maxperson]

@overgeeked Your definition of "optimizer" from the previous thread is both ridiculous and insulting, frankly. You're straight-up confusing "munchkin" and "optimizer". Here's what you said:



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.

There's no bad faith at all in doing that, either. RPGs are games, and you look at the rules and see what actually works - especially as a lot of RPGs are quite questionably designed games (albeit this is far less true in 2025 than 2005 or 1995) is completely a good-faith and sensible behaviour.

There's a big difference between making a PC that's well-constructed, intentionally avoids taking any trap or weak or poorly-designed options, and is, functionally, definitionally, "well-optimized" and seeking out a "broken" build. These are different things. One is not the other. Broken builds tend to rely either on exploits/rules loopholes, avoiding obvious RAI in favour of obviously-wrong RAW, which are not mere optimization - they're exploiting, in general, and quite reliant on DMs to basically go along with them. They're likely to be also optimized (though not in all cases, oddly enough - sometimes one broken thing means you can ignore normal optimization), but saying they're same thing as mere optimization without exploits/ignoring RAI is laughable.

I basically haven't made an "un-optimized" PC outside of some horror or PtbA/FitD TTRPGs since the 1990s. The idea that I'm thus the same as some munchkin who intentionally breaking them game is frankly beyond the pale. It's not a reasonable position to hold. Nor is it reasonable to suggest I don't "optimize" merely because I don't break the game! That's like saying someone who jogs regularly "isn't a jogger" merely because they're not also abusing steroids!

I think the distinction you need to learn to make is simply between bad faith and good faith. You're assuming it's not optimization unless there is bad faith. That's obviously not what those words mean or imply in English. It's not reasonable, in English, to try and claim only people who are out to break the game are "optimizers". It's just abusing the language and causing confusion and dismay - use a more specific term, like munchkin, if you mean someone actively out to break the game! English has huge numbers of words for a reason!

Otherwise it's like It's exactly like saying/assuming anyone who is "hungry" is in fact a cannibal lusting for human flesh, not a guy who is about to go make a green smoothie or eat a biscuit!

Even more than that, we all optimize. Optimization isn't limited to mechanically better/best. If someone is focused on character and roleplay over combat, and they choose feats that aren't great mechanically, but which meet/enhance their vision of that character, they've optimized for their goal.

I doubt that there are very many of us who have a goal for our play(character, combat, exploration, etc,) that don't optimize for that goal. We want that goal to happen, so we select stuff to get us there.

 

[bloodtide]

I do wonder to what extent the issue people have with hard core optimizers is really about the power differential itself, versus being about the aggressive playstyle and obnoxious personality that often seems to be part of the package. Would it be so offensive if that overpowered character were played by somebody who tried to stay low-key and always encouraged other characters into the spotlight?

The obnoxious personality and optimization go hand in hand for nearly all players.

For example, imagine an extremely optimized Wizard focused on buffing/support magic, who on their turn quietly cast spells on other players that made them more effective, but never took any credit for it, or pointed out how it was their spell that won the combat? (Like in the Treantmonk guide, but without the self-aggrandizing preface...)

This is possible for mature, intelligent players. Most people won't notice this type of optimization at all.

From the responses and way people talk it seems to me like the real problem is easily 90% personality and social issues, and like 10% actual balance issues (though I would include knowingly getting "broken" builds off the internet as a "personality and social" issue, because who even does that?).

Maybe 50% personality problems, 20% houserules/gentleman agreement/Happy Fun rule changes, 20% weak DMs, 10% Balance.

The rule changes is a big one. So many tables do things like "max hp for all PCS!", and worse have the "no PCs will randomly die or be killed ever". Optimizer Jerks can thrive in such a game

And the weak DM is even worse. It is already bad when the weak DM can't say "I don't care what page 11 says" and do whatever they want. But it gets much worse when you have the DM that just sort of has foes sort of attack for a fun combat romp where the PCs will always win with zero chance of PC death ever.