Optimizers, oh my!

[Ahnehnois]

This is even worse - that the wizard has more meaningful options than the fighter at the area the fighter is meant to specialise in.

I tend to agree; the general lack of effort put into fighting maneuvers has been a problem for D&D.

I simply don't see length of time as a meaningful metric. The metric that's meaningful to the story is not so much the in game length of time as the stakes involved. I have no problem spending an hour on a minute's worth of nailbiting combat where there is an at least apparently significant chance of death or failure.

While I agree that the impactfulness of events is relevant to how much real-world time I spend on something, I also find that this only goes so far. Tension dissipates.

And "filler combats" are just irritating.

Agreed on that point.

And that's almost the opposite of what I want. I want choice at the point of impact to be meaningful. Which makes the numbers already generated only one factor rather than something that almost predetermines the outcome.

A legitimate philosophical difference. I don't generally want the character to have to make a great number of meaningful choices during a session; I tend to try to emphasize a relatively small number of decision points and make their outcomes really divergent.

Can I ask on which points you consider my perspective to be unusual and idiosyncratic?

On a broad level, I would categorize your perspective as old-school and gamist. There's a lot of that on ENW because this site generally swings old, but less of that outside of ENW. I see discussions of dungeons, forge-ism, and quotes of Gygax as being anachronistic. Not necessarily wrong or invalid, but things that the D&D players I know likely wouldn't understand.

In my group, I consider myself the old-timer, as I am a year or two older than the others and I actually played 2e and played a few games in classic WotC settings (Dragonlance, FR) and played dungeon crawls and used battlemaps. My players and our D&D-playing acquaintances really started with 3e and 100% homebrew and an open-ended, theater of the mind storytelling style, and would consider anything else to be pretty dated. Given how long ago 3e was released, I consider their perspective to be the norm at this point.

I've yet to see the term "old-school" actually defined, but my general feeling when I read these posts is that they represent my perspective relative to the other people I know, only taken to such extremes that I actually find myself arguing against it more often than not. Unusual.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Just wanted to chime in to say that if a player of mine ever wanted to wield dual flails... part of my joy as the DM is to say "Screw it!" and re-write / house rule / automatically grant whatever abilities are necessary so that dual-wielding flails can be relatively on par WITH the greatsword wielder. Screw worrying about the number of feats, and how useful/unuseful Disarm is, or any of that other junk.

If someone wants to play a concept that in the course of play we all find to be underpowered compared to most of the rest of the party... I just up their power to compensate. And all my players are happy for it-- even if one player *is* getting "extra feats" out of the deal, just so that those extra feats can bring that PC up to a respectable level.

(And I've done the same thing in 4E too... for instance granting my Warlock player the "higher Curse die" feat at like 6th level (which I believe normally has like a level 11 pre-req), just so that his damage didn't get outpaced by the Rogue and Ranger who both had taken the "higher Sneak Attack die" and "higher Quarry die" feats already themselves.)

If two characters can be built within the scope of the rules and one of them greatly outpaces the other... I'll either up the power of the lower PC, or (less often) ask the higher powered one to tone his PC down.

 

[Neonchameleon]

A legitimate philosophical difference. I don't generally want the character to have to make a great number of meaningful choices during a session; I tend to try to emphasize a relatively small number of decision points and make their outcomes really divergent.

And to me the how matters at least as much as the what

On a broad level, I would categorize your perspective as old-school and gamist.

I see how you get there but it's a miss. My perspective on D&D is old-school and gamist because that's what I believe D&D has always been, and it's what D&D does better than most other games. I'm currently running a MHRP campaign that doesn't even vaguely resemble either 'old school' or 'gamist'.

My basic approach starts with the idea that system matters and that any system will encourage certain modes of behaviour - play to them and using that system will make things a more pleasant experience, play against them and you'll be fighting it every step of the way. I think this puts me closer to 'light Indygamer' (and indeed I do play Indygames) than to 'old school'. But by the same token it means I approach games that appear to want gamism with a gamist perspective.

There's a lot of that on ENW because this site generally swings old, but less of that outside of ENW. I see discussions of dungeons, forge-ism, and quotes of Gygax as being anachronistic.

And that's the second major reason. When writing on ENWorld I appear a lot more old-school than I think I do on rpg.net because the two sites have very different perspectives (I'm a better fit for rpg.net for what it's worth). Use the terminology of the group you are discussing things with if you want to be understood, and try to approach their mindset.

In my group, I consider myself the old-timer, as I am a year or two older than the others and I actually played 2e and played a few games in classic WotC settings (Dragonlance, FR) and played dungeon crawls and used battlemaps.

In my group for a while I had four players who've been playing since before I could walk.

My players and our D&D-playing acquaintances really started with 3e and 100% homebrew and an open-ended, theater of the mind storytelling style, and would consider anything else to be pretty dated. Given how long ago 3e was released, I consider their perspective to be the norm at this point.

3.X players have little room to consider forgeisms dated - Ron Edwards was writing them at about the same time 3.0 came out. And I consider open ended theatre of the mind using 3.X rules to show how dated the 3.X engine really is - something FATE 3 based (Spirit of the Century/Legends of Anglerre/Dresden Files/Fate Core (currently under Kickstarter)) or one of the newer Cortex+ games (Smallville/Leverage/MHRP - they had a huge rethink after Serenity and Supernatural and it shows), or Savage Worlds are mass market RPGs that do theatre of the mind far better than 3.X ever did and make it look badly dated.

It's not that I believe that any given way is wrong. It's that I believe that you should use a system to its strengths. D&D's strengths against comparable are centered around the old school gamism.

 

[Ahnehnois]

And I consider open ended theatre of the mind using 3.X rules to show how dated the 3.X engine really is - something FATE 3 based (Spirit of the Century/Legends of Anglerre/Dresden Files/Fate Core (currently under Kickstarter)) or one of the newer Cortex+ games (Smallville/Leverage/MHRP - they had a huge rethink after Serenity and Supernatural and it shows), or Savage Worlds are mass market RPGs that do theatre of the mind far better than 3.X ever did and make it look badly dated.

I tend to agree.

It's not that I believe that any given way is wrong. It's that I believe that you should use a system to its strengths. D&D's strengths against comparable are centered around the old school gamism.

I guess I don't really believe in using the system to its strengths. I believe in running a game built to my strengths and bending the system to my will (which is why I have a rather more liberal perspective on houseruling). I don't use a system because I like its style; if I did I certainly wouldn't be playing D&D (nor would most people, if they were aware of the variety out there). I don't look at D&D as a style of gaming, I look at it as a set of books people buy at a bookstore, which in my mind should be reflect the style of the time.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Just wanted to chime in to say that if a player of mine ever wanted to wield dual flails... part of my joy as the DM is to say "Screw it!" and re-write / house rule / automatically grant whatever abilities are necessary so that dual-wielding flails can be relatively on par WITH the greatsword wielder. Screw worrying about the number of feats, and how useful/unuseful Disarm is, or any of that other junk.

So would I. I'd consider it a black mark agaisnt the system that I had to do so - but I'm struggling to think of a system other than 3.X or arguably GURPS where concepts like the dual flaim wielder are a problem and wielding two flails wouldn't be out of genre.

I guess I don't really believe in using the system to its strengths. I believe in running a game built to my strengths and bending the system to my will (which is why I have a rather more liberal perspective on houseruling). I don't use a system because I like its style; if I did I certainly wouldn't be playing D&D (nor would most people, if they were aware of the variety out there). I don't look at D&D as a style of gaming, I look at it as a set of books people buy at a bookstore, which in my mind should be reflect the style of the time.

For me, design and support that will assist me running the game and evoking the mood I want is part of the point of having rules - and I'd far rather be flexible about systems than try to hammer a square peg into a round hole. And if it won't go into the hole it's meant to I wonder why I paid money for it.

 

[pemerton]

PC building

I think there is a difference between intricacy and complexity.

Rolemaster PC building is intricate - depending on edition and options in play, there are between 50 and 100 points to be assigned to a range of skills that typically cost between 1 and 6+ points each.

But RM PC building is, in one sense, simple: what you think you're getting is what you are getting. If you put points into your sword skill, your PC will be better at sword-fighting. If you put points into your social skills, your PC will be better at interacting with NPCs and monsters. Etc.

I think it is a bad thing for an RPG to have such complex PC build rules that you can't tell what you're getting from the choices that you make. Mechanical optimisation - in whatever dimensio of gameplay - should be as transparent as possible, not depenent on making subtle or even counter-intuitive feat and power choices that you need to go to a netbook to get advice on.

 

[Orius]

I don't really mind when players make character choices that are generally conisered to be optimal, or at least good ideas for a character. It's when you've got extreme min-maxing that produces stuff like this when things become a problem.

It's also annoying when players start bashing each other over picking less than optimal character choices. If you're playing a video game, and there are chices that are definitely sub-par, that's one thing. But in a tabletop game, it's shouldn't matter as much, since there's a GM that isn't enslaved to the dice as a program is to a RNG. The GM can adjust things on the fly if necessary.

 

[Sunseeker]

PC building

I think there is a difference between intricacy and complexity.

Rolemaster PC building is intricate - depending on edition and options in play, there are between 50 and 100 points to be assigned to a range of skills that typically cost between 1 and 6+ points each.

But RM PC building is, in one sense, simple: what you think you're getting is what you are getting. If you put points into your sword skill, your PC will be better at sword-fighting. If you put points into your social skills, your PC will be better at interacting with NPCs and monsters. Etc.

I think it is a bad thing for an RPG to have such complex PC build rules that you can't tell what you're getting from the choices that you make. Mechanical optimisation - in whatever dimensio of gameplay - should be as transparent as possible, not depenent on making subtle or even counter-intuitive feat and power choices that you need to go to a netbook to get advice on.

I agree completely. There's nothing wrong with having character creation be a fun, creative, and involved process, but it should be straight-forward and contain as few potholes and traps as possible. However, I think that's one benefit to a point-based system vs an abstract "feat" based one. It's easy to say "oh well this feat gives you +X/+y, so that's 2 points" and once you establish that baseline, it's easy to carry on, and a lot easier to fine-tune. A point-based feat could be 12 points if it's just a little more powerful than a 10 point one, but not quite a 15. A straight abstract "feat" system makes no distinction between a feat that's worth 30 points and one that's worth 5. They're both equally "feats", even if their power is radically different.

I personally would love to see D&D use a point-based feat system.

 

[Grogg of the North]

I figured I'd just share a story within this thread. In the last game I ran there was a spiked chain user. He didn't have the int for combat expertise and his strength, while giving a positive mod, wasn't that high. He used weapon finesse, took a couple levels in Exotic Weapon Master, and then worked his way into justicar. His build probably would have been laughed at on optimization boards but everyone at the table enjoyed his character ... except one player. Who thought his character was weak and only "half a build" and felt that he was playing D&D wrong.

I think that summarizes the issue people have with optimizers in D&D. It's when they come off as elitist and snobby and look down on what another is doing because they find it fun.

 

[pemerton]

But isn't that a failure of game design? Why should one PC, with the same number of XP as another PC, be mechanically less effective?