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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jacob Lewis" data-source="post: 9693776" data-attributes="member: 6667921">I used to push back hard against players who made choices purely for numerical advantage, especially when those choices ignored any narrative reflection. As a GM, I spent too much effort trying to “balance out” their behavior—usually by escalating threats, adjusting encounters, or trying to make their advantages feel less impactful. But in doing so, I ended up hurting the rest of the group more than helping.Eventually, I realized: players optimize when the system encourages them to. That’s not bad behavior. That’s rational play. If a game presents clear winners and losers among its options—some feats, classes, powers, or choices being objectively better—then players are going to take the better ones. And why shouldn’t they?The real problem is that the system often includes those imbalanced options without supporting them with context, trade-offs, or narrative framing. And designers rarely take responsibility for that. It gets offloaded onto GMs, who are expected to adjust things on the fly or ban legal options to protect the experience. That’s not game mastery—that’s compensating for poor system design.These days, I want players to win. I expect them to win. If they optimize, fine. If they cheat? I could cheat better. I sit behind the screen. What matters is that everyone’s engaged, the story moves forward, and the game does what it promised to do.But let’s not pretend optimization is the issue when it’s the system that made those choices necessary, desirable, or disproportionately impactful in the first place. If we want healthier tables, we need more honest conversations about design, not just player behavior.</blockquote>

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