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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lyxen" data-source="post: 8498163" data-attributes="member: 7032025">You did, <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/playstyle-enjoyment-build-optimization-or-play-optimization.684938/post-8497659" target="_blank">here</a>, and wrongly (as demonstrated in the class examples): "Obvious Intent: If you want to play a class, you should look at the associated stat, pick a race that gets a bonus to that stat, and max it out by putting your highest number in that stat."And for me, it's really the very bad form of optimisation, the one that restricts the possibility of playing the game, in this case to specific race/class combinations, invalidating 90% of the possibilities of the game.You are the one continuously misquoting me (where I, see above, provide exact quotes and references). Please stop.You are wrong, again. Gnomes get +2 to int, and that's it. The example does not precise which type of gnome, and the deep gnome is not even in the PH. But how about the elf paladin ? The Halfling Sorcerer ? This is getting ridiculous.Once more: "To play D&D, and to play it well, you don’t need to read all the rules, memorize every detail of the game, or master the fine art of rolling funny looking dice. None of those things have any bearing on what’s best about the game." Or "Playing D&D is an exercise in collaborative creation. You and your friends create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama.", it's not a game where you spend hours in your mother's basement optimising characters. You can, but it's not the intent of the game, the intent is playing it. How about "The Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game is about storytelling in worlds of swords and sorcery." It's literally the first sentence in the actual introduction to the PH. The intent is storytelling, amongst friends. Or how about "There’s no winning and losing in the Dungeons & Dragons game—at least, not the way those terms are usually understood. Together, the DM and the players create an exciting story of bold adventurers who confront deadly perils."How about "We expect DMs to depart from the rules when running a particular campaign or when seeking the greatest happiness for a certain group of players."Rules, and the optimising upon these rules are not what the game is about, at its core. Nothing prevents you from playing that way, and all power to you if it's what you want to do, it's a recognised playstyle, but nothing more than that. In general, it's about collaborative storytelling, not about optimising characters."you don’t need to read all the rules, memorize every detail of the game ... None of those things have any bearing on what’s best about the game."The intention is clear: collaborative storytelling. It's said many ways and in many forms.Because it creates a power gap, for one (although 5e is careful, in particular in its extensions, to limit that as much as possible), but also because of the attitude that it engenders, in particular relying more on the technicalities on the game than on the story, and influencing the situations so that the specific technical power of the character shows, and in particular starting fights when advantageous for that character despite what all other characters are doing. But also looking down on other characters as being poorly designed, criticising them for being inefficient, giving orders to other players so that they can be more efficient, etc. All effects that we have seen at our tables, including in recent years, and all started by optimisers who thought that the game is only about winning fights.As for the effect on other tables, there are all these new players who now only believe that some character types are valid, because otherwise their character will be inefficient and not fun to play, or even ridiculous if they speak about it. I want optimisers to stop shaming other players for not creating non-optimised characters. It's not a requirement, just as selecting a race that gives a bonus is not a requirement or even an advice of the game.In particular YOU are the one wanting to dictate how people play the game, including forcing them to choose only specific class/race combinations when there is no reason for it in the game. The half-orc bard follower of Selune that we had was absolutely brilliant as a character. Stop trying to force people to optimise to play the game.So after all that blustering with having dump stats, not even one character to show how you have below average stats overall ? Tss tsss. I think I don't need to say anything anymore on that subject.Just to show you how you deform my sentences, here is what I wrote: "If that kind of optimisation prevents you from actually enjoying the game when you play it, I find it really really sad." Do I say that optimising mandatorily prevents you from enjoying the game ? No, once more you are lying and putting words in my mouth.But yes, there have been cases of people optimising preventing other people from enjoying the game. How about shouting at other people for having non-optimised characters putting the party in danger  ? How about ordering other players to do specific things because it benefitted the optimiser ?You are absolutely incredible about the way you put words in my mouth.Oh my my my... Aren't we going off track there ? First, there is nothing about DM vs. PC, since PC are imaginary. But yes, as a DM, I am adversarial to people who disrupt play at the table, like the examples just above, so sue me. And yes, the only person that was ever banned from our table was an optimiser. We actually banned him twice, because, being nice people we relented and let him back in, where he once more, after a few months, again shouted at other players for being inefficient.So yes, when people are disruptive (and we only have cases like these in terms of disruption), we take action. Sue us or even tell us we are wrong. But stop inventing things about our playstyle that you obviously know extremely little about.WHERE DID I SAY THAT ? You are reading implications here, putting words in my mouth and making a fool of yourself, again. While, and it's funny, just showing that there is indeed an intent.Again, a lie, since I also said: "Does it prevent the game from being played any other way ? Certainly not. Do I tell anyone that it's bad to play it another way ? Certainly not." Will you ever stop lying and misquoting me ?I have given you plenty of examples above. And I'm not saying that YOU have done it, although you have come very close by saying that you have to play certain race/classes combinations (otherwise what ? It's probably bad).This is the most biased reading that I've seen in a long time. How about "Sometimes playing against type can be fun, too" ? How about the fact that they CAN be unusual, does this mean that they are always unusual ? How about "memorable" ? So no, there is absolutely ZERO intent here. Not only is playing against type mentioned as fun when fun is the intent of the game above everything else, but nowhere does it say that you have to do it. It does not even say that it's a good thing. It says ". These traits sometimes dovetail with the capabilities of certain classes". By the way, I'm not a native english speaker, but I very much suggest that you re-read that sentence about the "sometimes", you clearly get it wrong if you think that it refers to unusual characters. ON THE CONTRARY, it means that SOMETIMES, the race and class combine, as in the examples given just after "For example, the racial traits of lightfoot halflings make them exceptional rogues, and high elves tend to be powerful wizards".So actually, that paragraph says EXACTLY the reverse of what you want it to say. SOMETIMES you have a lightfoot halfling rogue or a high elf wizard, because SOMETIMES the traits dovetail. SOMETIMES, they don't and you are playing against type. There is no intent one way or another.Q.E.D. you are wrong again.First, even in AD&D, we played against type because the restrictions were stupid. Were we wrong ? Are you going to sue me for playing an elf magic-use bard, or a troll paladin ? Second, while 3e had some favored things for optimisers, was there an intent to restrict this ? Are you going to sue those of use who took non-favoured classes ? Are you going to call us bad players, against the intent of the game ?Lastly, and rightly, 4e and then 5e dropped all of that, but we still have people like you trying to tell us that it's bad to play anything else than the "dovetailing" race/class combinations because you (totally wrongly, as demonstrated above) try and tell us that this is against the intent of the game, that we are bad players...See what I mean about people like you and how they look at non-optimisers ?NOOOO. You are drawing incredible conclusions there. WHERE DOES IT SAY THAT A CHARACTER HAS TO BE EFFECTIVE ? Once more, you are showing the really, really bad attitude of the optimiser saying "if you are not effective, you are a bad player". This is discrimination of the highest order.So you can only play tieflings as devil worshippers ? My fun-loving revolutionary Tiefling bard who wants nothing to do with devils would like to have a word with your discriminating person.So, once more, please learn to read (and to use a search engine, as a secondary skill <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />). Really. PH, page 4. Go and read the PH. Really, please, and stop discriminating, stop lying and misquoting me:[ATTACH=full]149115[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

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