People don't optimize

[triqui]

I was arguing that it *could* be - and that if one were doing so, one might choose a less-than-optimal build.

You can choose a less-than-optimal build without representing a "real person" either. You can perfectly build, and roleplay, a gnome barbarian with only one eye. It's far from optimal build, but it might be fun as hell. My point, though, is that you shouldn't roleplay him as if he were an Ohio Plumber, you "should" try to play the role of a one-eyed barbarian gnome. You should build *his* personality, and try to act as *him* (some characters will be harder than others, for sure.)

Let me be clear - If you are arguing with me because you think I'm trying to knock optimized characters, stop.

I wasn't arguing with you, nor I was advocating for (or against) optimization. I was quoting other poster (Ahnehnois) about his definition of roleplay, based on acting like "real people", because I feel you should play the role of your character, not "real people". If you pretend to be an elf, or a gnome, or an alien cyborg from outer space, you should (imho and all that stuff) try to act like one of them, not like a plumber from Ohio. It's just something that irks me, I've a player in my group that always act out the same, whatever his character is. He plays as what *he* would do, instead of what *his character* would do. No matter if he is playing a Paladin or a Necromancer. I find this not to be *role-playing*. He is playing, and if he has fun, more power for him, but that's not to play "a role".

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, but Morrus, you didn't ask us why *you* do it. You asked it as a general question - why would anyone do this?

Hmmm? I didn't ask anyone anything. I just answered the "... because real life people aren't like that part of the OP." You're disagreeing with a position that I do not hold.

I think we're basically talking past each other about two different subjects.

 

[Janx]

Roleplaying isn't to approach the game like real people, it's to approach the game as a role. You pretend to act like the character would do, not like real people do. Real people run scared when a dragon appears. We pretend to be elves with magical powers, not plumbers from Ohio.

I think you're arguing semantics.

When he said 'like real people" he likely meant as you do, to behave as if your one eyed barbarian gnome was a real person who is a one eyed barbarian gnome in a world where magic and dungeons exist.

He's not saying to play your elf as if he were an Ohio Plumber. that'd be stupid.

I do agree there is a difference of play preference to "act as your character was real" versus "act as if your character is a game piece" or what would I do. Generally, I call the former "role playing" when used in the broader context of role playing game.

 

[marli]

Man you crappy character always get the best storylines
that's because your perfectly stated character isn't optimised...

When you said optimised is that what you meant?

 

[Neonchameleon]

i agree with OP 100%. Another thing that goes along with this is when I say, " it helps to have bad stats, it helps roleplaying opportunity",people inevitably come back with the argument of ... " WHY DO I NEED A CRAPPY CHARACTER TO ROLEPLAY" or some variation. What these people don't understand is if you have a min maxed character, and little to no drawbacks who succeeds at everything you are going to be playing a REALLY crappy 1 dimensional character. A person requires flaws to be an interesting charater, this is a fact. I dont know about the rest of you , but I play RPGs to experience a very deep story used to flesh out my character's persona . I know some people like to just hack and slash and dungeon crawl and loot but I can do that with video games, I play RPGs to have this unique story/character escapism experience.

And this is a complete apples to chairs comparison. In a class and level based game (or even in one bounded by the laws of physics), you are going to be outclassed by a lot of things - anyone of significantly higher level than you are. If bounded by the laws of physics, I don't care who you are. You aren't going to be able to outrun a train (let alone a bullet) or outpull an ox except under very limited circumstances. Which means you are not going to always win. Not even close. So your entire argument is based on a very large strawman.

On the other hand, if my in character choices aren't optimised to at least a degree then it's because I don't care enough in character to do so. Now there are legitimate reasons to not give a crap about some things in character. But I emphatically reject the idea that it is an actively superior roleplaying choice to play a character who doesn't give a crap. And I don't see any benefit in blaming me for caring almost as much when I create my character as I do in character. (I'll never care as much because it's not my personal life on the line).

As long as your decision to play Superman doesn't render my decision to play Jimmy Olsen pointless (because I will never be able to contribute effectively in a game that ostensibly supports both character types), I'm fine with that.

As long as you are happy with your decision to play Jimmy Olsen in a PL-15 game, I'm happy with that. Sure we're going to be going into the situation effectively a man down because you've chosen to play someone who barely contributes. But whatever floats your boat. I'm not playing an untransformable Billy Batson in a PL-15 game just because you want to play Jimmy Olsen.

Now if it was pitched as a PL-5 game and I've used an explot to play Superman anyway that's a different story.

Or you can play Jimmy Olsen and have the ability to spend fate points like water. This can work.

Mechanical superiority is fine with me, in other words, as long as the possible range of effectiveness in fairly narrow.

And this is why we have things like levels or power levels. To keep that range low. But if you are intentionally behind the expected effectiveness (and it's impossible to create a system with choice where people can't choose intentionally badly) then that's your issue. If you've picked what looks like good choices and are far behind then that's a game design issue.

 

[ComradeGnull]

As long as you are happy with your decision to play Jimmy Olsen in a PL-15 game, I'm happy with that. Sure we're going to be going into the situation effectively a man down because you've chosen to play someone who barely contributes. But whatever floats your boat. I'm not playing an untransformable Billy Batson in a PL-15 game just because you want to play Jimmy Olsen.

Now if it was pitched as a PL-5 game and I've used an explot to play Superman anyway that's a different story.

Or you can play Jimmy Olsen and have the ability to spend fate points like water. This can work.

What I'm thinking of is: pick class A and you are PL-15. Pick class B and you are PL-5. Pick an Ice Wizard and you are PL-15. Pick a Necromancer and you are PL-7. Or, as you say, it is a PL-5 game and a specific chain of feats makes your character PL-15. If you want to play a Jedi, you can be Luke Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, or the Emperor. If I want to play a droid, I can only be C-3PO- while you fight the bad guys and blow up Death Stars, I get to hide in a control room and wait for everything to settle down a little.

So it's two things: multiple power bands within a single game, with character concept being tied to which power band you are stuck in (I can't play a Battle Droid that is as good in combat as your Jedi) or specializations that move the power level up or down significantly within the same game (If I play a Rogue, specializing as anything other than a Whip-Wielding Shadow Assassin means I am consistently below the power level of the rest of the players, even if what I really want to play is a Dagger-Wielding Trickster, but it is uniformly worse mechanically than the other options)

 

[Neonchameleon]

What I'm thinking of is: pick class A and you are PL-15. Pick class B and you are PL-5. Pick an Ice Wizard and you are PL-15. Pick a Necromancer and you are PL-7. Or, as you say, it is a PL-5 game and a specific chain of feats makes your character PL-15. If you want to play a Jedi, you can be Luke Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, or the Emperor. If I want to play a droid, I can only be C-3PO- while you fight the bad guys and blow up Death Stars, I get to hide in a control room and wait for everything to settle down a little.

So it's two things: multiple power bands within a single game, with character concept being tied to which power band you are stuck in (I can't play a Battle Droid that is as good in combat as your Jedi) or specializations that move the power level up or down significantly within the same game (If I play a Rogue, specializing as anything other than a Whip-Wielding Shadow Assassin means I am consistently below the power level of the rest of the players, even if what I really want to play is a Dagger-Wielding Trickster, but it is uniformly worse mechanically than the other options)

I'm now going to re-emphasise a corollary. "If the game presents options as approximately equally powerful and they aren't then the game designers have ed up. Badly. It is objectively a badly designed game. If they want classes of that different a level in power then they shouldn't pretend that they are the same level." That a dagger wielding trickster is pointed out by the system but is simply a bad option means that the game designers have ed up.

The question is how to fix the problems caused by shoddy game design. And that is an issue.

A Battle Droid should absolutely be as good in combat as a Jedi of the same level. HK-93 was strong enough. And you mention C3P0 as the only droid. What of R2D2? He's not a battle-droid. He's a hacker and infiltration unit who can fly X-wings and stealth - and he may be hiding in the control room, but who's opening the doors for everyone and sorting out where they go? I don't see any objection to R2 being the same power level as the rest of the party.

And that Vader or the Emperor are extremely powerful doesn't mean droids can't be. Although the battledroids are mostly from The Prequels.

 

[Felon]

There seems to be an assumption that character flaws are a requisite to make a character interesting. I don't know what signature flaws I would ascribe to Doc Savage, Captain Kirk, Steve Rogers, or No. 6 from "The Prisoner", to name a few off the top of my head, but whatever.

There's a more egregious assumption that character flaws need to be reflected through the avoideance of optimal design. I can play a character that lacks any bad ability scores or other sub-optimal design choices and still suffers from any number of negative traits. Batman's pretty much a perfect, optimal human in terms of combat ability and overall effectivenss, yet he has some deeply-rooted character quirks, and it goes without saying that many people find those quirks interesting.

 

[Celebrim]

A common statement made y peoe who make optimized characters is "why don't you take the best X, people always would try there best" but that isn't true


Real life is interesting, people do dumb things all the time, but in games people seldom think like "real people"


I wonder how many perfect designed characters are played by collage grads with great jobs athletic healthy bodies and a gift for perssiasion..

Most people aren't heroes either. Heroic people, tend to be optimized in some way.

And I'd imagine that they don't have time for RPGs.

Unless of course, they are 'heroic' RPG designers, writers, or even dare I say, players.

 

[Janx]

Most people aren't heroes either. Heroic people, tend to be optimized in some way.

And I'd imagine that they don't have time for RPGs.

Unless of course, they are 'heroic' RPG designers, writers, or even dare I say, players.

Are they optimized, or just coincidentally well suited for the task?

Obviously, a fireman gets some training before he goes out on the truck so he can handle the job.

But he also has some innate traits that draw him to that profession rather than some other job, like garbage man.

Additionally, being a fireman and saving a kid from a burning building is one type of heroism. It's his job. he's trained for it and he has some basic equipment to help him do the job.

Cory Booker, mayor of some city and former football player, while posessing some guts and muscle, lacked the extras a fireman had, yet he still ran into a burning building to save somebody.

Drilling down further, there's countless tales of really normal people rushing into a building to save others. The lacked training, equipment and, tough-guy experience. Yet they too are recognized as heroes.

so, I'm not sure optimization counts as a qualifying trait of a hero. i think it's a nullified argument by virtue of examples on both extremes (folks very suited to being heroes, and folks who are ill-equipped, yet perform heroic acts).