Optimizers, oh my!

[billd91]

In a well designed system the difference between the power a character that someone comes up with with no knowledge of the game at all but picking what looks as if it fits a strong concept and a completely min/maxed character should be low. If the difference is too high, this is because the system is fundamentally broken somewhere.

I consider that a faulty assumption and pretty much all game systems with substantial customization options, particularly point-based systems, would qualify as poorly designed under that assumption. Frankly, I have too much respect born from experience for both Champions and Mutants and Masterminds and their ability to handle superhero (and other) genres to buy into that assumption.

 

[B.T.]

The issue is not optimizing. There is a certain amount of baseline optimization assumed by the system. The fighter is going to buy up his Strength score, use a +2 sword over a +1 sword, and he's going to get into melee combat and stab things. There's nothing wrong with that because if you fail to do that, the game falls apart.

The issue is min/maxing (which, in my lexicon, translates to "optimizing without regard to roleplaying"). This is not the same as optimizing well, but the best optimizers often do optimize without regard to roleplaying. The wizard is going to take Quicken Spell and the druid is going to take Natural Spell, and both of those are powerful choices, but they aren't min/maxing. Min/maxing is when you have someone playing an ur-priest / sublime chord to get 9th-level arcane and divine spells. Min/maxing is when someone gets early entry into the mystic theurge. Min/maxing is when someone tries to play an Ubercharger.

The reason that optimizers get a lot of negativity is that min/maxers are considered optimizers, and the entire WotC forum devoted to character optimization was a canker sore on the hobby. The prevailing attitudes therein reinforced the idea that D&D was a numbers game. (When one of your core optimization conceits involve clerics taping nightsticks to themselves, you may have a problem.)

 

[billd91]

That is clearly not what is being asked for. To use your analogy, the game of Tennis doesn't favour Roger Federer over Rafa Nadal when it comes to who wins. D&D should not be a game where someone who has a character concept like Beowulf can do the obvious things and be awesome, while someone who has the character concept Achilles has to jump through a huge number of hoops in optimising the character to get them up to the same level. It should not be desirable for someone to "Win" because they can spend lots of time searching out that last extra bonus. It should be desirable that someone sit down and play without having to do that, knowing that they won't be vastly far behind someone who has.

Whenever this happens, I have to ask "Where's the effing GM and why isn't he involved in harmonizing these characters?!?" That's one of his jobs, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[billd91]

It favors something, doesn't it? It favors whoever has more talent or puts more work into winning, among other things. If it didn't favor anything, it would be like Chutes and Ladders, and the outcomes would be completely random.

And, in tennis, investing the time and energy into certain styles of training will produce advantages in play. Witness Ivan Lendl's style, very effective for most Grand-Slam tournaments, but not Wimbledon.

 

[hamstertamer]

Then you're hanging out with the wrong ones.

I do have some questions, though; What is "organic tactics? Exactly what do these players want to happen in combat such that they dominate? I mean, wanting your abilities to work isn't a whole lot to ask, but I've heard some people indirectly claim it is.

I have to use the the term organic-tactics because the word "tactics" in reference to RPGs means something different to different people.

organic-tactics: Let's pretend to retreat but leave the thief hidden in the corner and hope to pull away as many guards as possible.

gamey-tactics: I tap my encounter power on my turn.

I encourage organic-tactics in my game a lot more than gamey-tactics, this can frustrate a power gamer who just wants to tackle a combat encounter in the typical way to utilize his power build. Usually in a campaign I run, power builds have very little effect in the game overall. Not saying that they never shine but they just don't work as well as a power-gamer thinks they should. This is also because the enemies use organic-tactics as well. I rarely ever just have a straight forward battle. PCs that pick just based on what they like instead of being optimized do just as well as the power-builders.

 

[Jester David]

I've noticed some people complain about "optimizers", as though they're some kind of sub-human who refuses to role-play. In my experience, the people who optimize the best are also really good role-players. The line of thought is generally something like; A character whome is not optimized is better for role-playing than a character who is optimized... and I just plain don't follow. Indeed, a certain degree of optimization is unavoidable if you like your character and try to improve his performance. I've played the oddly stated character here or there, and it is fun sometimes, but to proclaim that someone who doesn't do so is nothing more than a munchkin? I don't get it.

Optimizes are just as likely to be good role-players as any other player.

The problem is, optimizing is a potentially disruptive behavior. It can - and has - broken games.

It impacts the fun of the DM by trivializing their encounters. Then the DM has to step-up encounters to challenge that player. Which means the rest of the table struggles.
It impacts the fun of other players by making them feel less effective. Then, if the DM engages in an arms race, it makes them even less effective.

Any other behavior that impacts the fun of the rest of that much of the table could not be shouted down fast enough. But optimizing gets a pass. Heck, even the term "optimizing" is a rebranding to get away from earlier terms like "munchkin" and "power gamer".

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm not sure it's actually possible. WotC need to sell books, and they hit on "system mastery" as the way to do it - put out lots of options that interact in a myriad of ways, and people will buy into them in numbers in order to make the best characters possible.

Not really. The 3e approach is as you describe. The 4e approach isn't broken stuff. It's to expand the range of detailed playable options with every new splatbook that comes out. Brawler fighters aren't broken in any way - but they are really worth having and it's inspiring to see sword and fist done properly. You might have bought 3e splat books for broken stuff. You buy 4e ones for good balanced options (which might explain why fewer books were produced).

The problem is that merely putting out large numbers of options guarantees that you'll screw up somewhere and end up with broken options. The 4e solution to that was the ongoing stream of errata,

Honestly, most of that was that the PHB1 and DMG1 were seriously under-playtested.

I'm sure it would be possible to build a version of 3e (admittedly, heavily revised) in which the major discrepancies were eliminated. But the problem is that if I can slap together a character at random using just my PHB, and have it be close to as good as the best possible option, where's my motivation to spend another $1,500 on all the rest of the books to get that best possible option?

Because you can't slap a brawler fighter together with either the 3e or the 4e PHB and not have it be a bad joke. Neither edition's PHB will do Bravura (reckless) Warlords. Or self-harming invokers.

Sadly, there is no such edition. If the choices are "play on with a broken edition" or "don't play on at all" - given that there is no prospect of the edition ever being fixed - what do you choose?

I'd say that both oD&D and 4e are a whole lot less broken than 3e.

So I'm in the position where I have to reluctantly live with the problems. Despite its flaws, 3e remains the "best fit" system for me.

That's part of why the highlighting of flaws by people like the CharOp group (and also Edition Warriors on the other side) is so problematic - it's not that I can deny that those flaws exist, it's that they do exist and there's nothing I can do about them.

I'd say that's a lot less frustrating than the 4e situation where the "flaws" highlighted by edition warriors are normally things that are straight up misconceptions about the game - and few of the anti-4e lobby seem willing to be corrected when they have flat out said what happens is the opposite of what the rulebooks say.

I never understand this viewpoint. A well-intentioned amateur should be just as good at a game as a seasoned expert?

No. It's degrees and degrees. A well intentioned amateur should be able to sit down at the table with a seasoned expert and neither look nor feel like a supernumerary. D&D is largely cooperative and the difference shouldn't be at the level where the amateur's PC makes very little difference as to whether the amateur is there or not. I'm always going to be a strong player - I don't want to make others feel pointless because of it.

Where the game is actually broken is when it takes options that should be equally valid, and makes some of them better than others. For example, a fighter gains more benefit from Intelligence (skills) or Wisdom (saves) than Charisma, which defies the notion of what most of us think as a fighter; they should be able to be great leaders and confident heroes as well as seasoned tacticians, but the rules don't support it. So you see a bunch of uncharismatic fighters, because taking rational steps to optimize your character leads you down that path. Character optimization leads to the same (boring) results, where the game should be encouraging diversity and nuanced choices. That's the game being broken.

Once more I say you mean 3e character optimisation leads to the same (boring) results. With 4e the range is narrow enough and there are enough benefits given with most concepts that two 4e fighters can look almost as different as a 3e illusionist who's banned evocation and conjuration, and a 3e evoker who only casts direct damage spells. Probably more different given that both the wizards wear simmilar armour and cast from a spellbook while one of the fighters can be a rapier and dagger armed burglar with more skill proficiency than a 3e rogue and wearing studded leather armour - and the other a polearm wielder who sends the enemy flying while wearing scale. Given that the best way to optimise in 4e is to take any concept and turn it up to 11, it does not lead to the same (boring) results unless the concept is "highest dpr".

What is being asked for is that D&D, despite being a game should not do that.

Fallacy of the excluded middle. What is being asked for is that the edge achieved in character creation should be small. You'll always get a reward for system mastery if there are any choices to be made. Getting rid of it is impossible - and undesirable.

And in 4e the direct competative edge is fairly small. The reward for system mastery is the ability to easily make offbeat concepts that are competative. To take one trivial example, I believe Frank Trollman has been known to claim that you can't play a lightly armed spear and shield figher in the 4e PHB. This is entirely false - the options are there and very effective in the PHB, but you need system mastery to notice that powers such as Rain of Blows and Armour Piercing Thrust synergise with the spear and with high dexterity in such a way as to make up for the poor weapon and going for light armour. This is where 4e rewards system mastery. Beginners get decent characters using the options that are presented obviously (for a fighter that would be heavily armoured sword and board and two handed sword in the PHB), experts can either make their sword and board fighters about 10% stronger - or make less obvious builds such as polearm fighters or light armour, spear, and shield sing.

We haven't got rid of system mastery or even tried to. We've just made it so not having it doesn't reduce peoples' fun at the table.

Which makes the entire remainder of your criticism irrelevant.

 

[Salamandyr]

I have to use the the term organic-tactics because the word "tactics" in reference to RPGs means something different to different people.

organic-tactics: Let's pretend to retreat but leave the thief hidden in the corner and hope to pull away as many guards as possible.

gamey-tactics: I tap my encounter power on my turn.

I encourage organic-tactics in my game a lot more than gamey-tactics, this can frustrate a power gamer who just wants to tackle a combat encounter in the typical way to utilize his power build. Usually in a campaign I run, power builds have very little effect in the game overall. Not saying that they never shine but they just don't work as well as a power-gamer thinks they should. This is also because the enemies use organic-tactics as well. I rarely ever just have a straight forward battle. PCs that pick just based on what they like instead of being optimized do just as well as the power-builders.

This is very similar to something I came into the thread to say. My comment was going to be, I prefer it when in game optimization tracks reasonably well with what would be considered real world optimization. For instance, someone who is a combatant does well both in real life and in the game by increasing his physical strength. I like that. It increases verisimilitude. Contrariwise, in real life, a combatant is better off training with a variety of styles and weapons, the better to be able to deal with a variety of conflicts, rather than focusing only on one thing. In the game, at least the one most of us play, optimization demands that you focus all your character resources into a single style, perhaps weapon, or even maneuver, and then do everything in ones power to maneuver every conflict into something resolvable by that power. I don't particularly care for that kind of optimization. It breaks verisimilitude.

I like your desire for organic tactics. It's the kind of thing I prefer to reward in my games. That's why I choose to run B/X as my D&D system of choice.

 

[Grogg of the North]

Optimization isn't necessarily bad. We all do it to some degree. I have yet to see a fighter with 6 strength and 4 con*. Most of the complaints about optimization come from the following:

1) When one player is optimizing more than the rest of the group. It can lead to frustrating situations where you have one player running around with iddqd and everyone else feeling useless.

2) When a player insists that you optimize a certain way. I am playing a barbarian that took leap attack. But because I didn't go for headless charge, valorous weapons, and a bunch of other weird stuff I took a lot of flak from one of the other players because I was playing my character "wrong".

3) When the optimization is all that the player cares about. Like [MENTION=1861]Loonook[/MENTION] said, just because you're awesome at killing undead that doesn't give you the right to sulk or leave the session early if the you find yourself in a cave filled with orcs. If you've optimized to the point that your character's personalities are interchangeable that's another problem.

(I don't think I expressed my thoughts well on this point. Hopefully I'll be able to come back and edit it later!)

*I'm sure somewhere out there has one. And I'm not saying that playing one is bad. Just that I haven't seen it done personally.

 

[TerraDave]

I like it when players make effective characters. I can sort of be a bastard, maybe even a rat bastard, as a DM.

I don't like:

*Players trying to get an extra advantage through backgrounds or halfassed ploys;
*Players trying to get an extra advantage through rules or options I don't want to bring into the game;
*Players trying to get an extra advantage through magic items I won't bring into the game;
*Players trying to get an extra advantage by playing rules lawyers;
*Players looking to "beat" me getting beat in turn and being a sore loser about it;
*Players whose optimization leads to one trick pony behavior;
*Players whose optimization leads them to pick up odd options that really don't (otherwise) fit their character;
*Players whose optimization leads to a character that is, when you step back from the numbers, otherwise just sort of goofy;
*Rule sets that push characters to optimal builds that are neither archetypal nor interesting from a non-mechanical point of view.
*Rules sets that can't cut some slack for players who do want to try something different (though this can also be a real test of char-build).