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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9696179" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Eh. There may be varying levels of self-awareness and of subjective aesthetic preferences involved.  They may have built what they thought was a competent but not over the top character within what they saw as a minimal level of self-imposed limitations and not felt until 6 or 10 sessions in that another player's more competent character regularly outshined theirs in their own primary area of competence.  And by then they're invested in their character and their place in the narrative and it feels disruptive to change. I do agree with the overall sentiments that it's not normally a problem if players and GM communicate clearly and maturely and are flexible.  In a functional group it's more likely that such a situation could be easily addressed by a) the players of the "rival" characters being more on the same page about the fun level of optimization in the first place, thus avoiding the issue, or b) the  GM allowing the player with the outshined PC to make some retroactive adjustments to bring their character up to par.This morning I remembered this old essay on self-imposed limitations.  It's about competitive games, of course, but some of the same internal aesthetic limitations are often in play in situations like these.[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub[/URL]</blockquote>