All your theoretical positivism sounds good in forum posts but people come to D&D to play a
crunchy RPG. It's based on dice rolls, and probability curves, and a balance of successes and failures to create tension and fun. When your character's successes are taken away, a big dimension of the game as it was designed is nullified.
It's not theoretical. I've given specific examples. I've been DMing for more than 35 years. It has
never been a problem. For home campaigns, public campaigns, in groups as large as 30 players. Not
everybody plays D&D to play a crunchy RPG. If that's why you play, fair enough. But that doesn't mean that everybody does. We certainly don't.
From our perspective, it's always been based on a great narrative, with challenges to overcome. The dice rolls are a tool, to help with that process. But we don't sit down at the table to play a dice game. We prefer the rules to stay out of the way as much as possible. That's just not the way we learned to play the game. The majority of the dice rolls occur during combat, and combat is maybe 1/3 of our campaigns on average. And many of those end with negotiations, running away, surrenders, or other things as well that aren't the direct result of a die roll. Our general approach hasn't changed in decades (although the math sometimes has). We've had our heavy combat campaigns, and campaigns with literally almost no combat.
Likewise, the stats on the page are only a part of what makes a character a character. Those stats come into play more than dice rolls. They are all tools to help the players play the character. But that's still a portion of the character. A significant portion, but the rest is the player and how they role-play the character. So for us the "crunchiness" is probably 30 to 50%, depending. The rest is role-playing. For whatever reason, that has just always felt like the right mix for a
role-playing game.
It's also really not about one character, or one player (at least for us). Success and failure is a group thing, and within that group there are individuals. All of the players/characters have their individual successes, and they have their individual failures too. That's a natural part of the game. But there's not really any reason that a second monk can't have their own successes just like the first. Nor that the first won't have their own successes anymore. Anymore than having two wizards, bards, or whatever. I've run campaigns where everybody was the same class.
... The right player can hog the table via rules mastery, and min/maxing can make one character feature - say, 'doing HP damage' - so high that it takes over unless the DM metagames to counter it.
That sounds like the
wrong player to me.
If a player is hogging the table for any reason, then that's a problem in my book. I've had my share of players that do that, but it's not necessarily through rules mastery or munchkinizing. It's never prevented others from getting to do
anything at all, but it has certainly made the game less fun for those involved. But they've also been weeded out fairly quickly.
The game belongs to the table, and if the players at my table aren't having fun, then something is wrong and needs to be fixed. If it's a disruptive player that's the problem, then the behavior has to be fixed, or they have to go.
Let me be clear - I've also had munchkinizers that have made very optimized characters that have contributed greatly to the game. And no, I don't have to metagame to counter it. That's absolutely their prerogative. That's the point of the rules - if they want to spend the time planning and constructing what they think is the most optimized character they are welcome to do so (and they have). If I don't want something or some combination to be available, then we change it. The option wouldn't be there if I couldn't work with it.
That's been the case in AD&D, 2e, 3e, and 5e (I ran very little 4e). But it has never broken our game. If somebody is really good at a particular thing, then great, that's their thing. They usually have a fairly narrow focus. If two people are good at that thing, then that's awesome. Having 3 wizards able to blast their enemies with
fireballs? Fantastic. I can deal with it. That's my job as the DM.
The bottom line is that our focus, what makes the game fun for us, is the character. A person that feels like a real person, with their redeeming features, and their flaws. Strengths, and weaknesses. It starts with character generation. We roll for abilities, in order, and then decide where to go from there. From the very beginning, they almost can't be optimized. We're not spending hours studying the rules to find the best combinations to "beat" the game. We're developing interesting personalities over time, based on their lives and experiences, and the world around them. The numbers and dice are their to determine whether, with what we have to work with, we succeed or fail at a given task.
Most of the characters view combat as the least preferable option. Sure, against orcs, fiends, and other destructive creatures, there usually aren't better options. But against other creatures and other people, there usually are. But if the party feels that that's the best option, and one of the characters is a well-honed assassin that can take down the enemy with the least risk to the party, then that's what they do. If there are two of them, then they work together in case the first fails. Whoever the "first" is would depend on the circumstances and their plan.
Most of the time, though, even in combat, it's tough enough, and deadly enough, that their focus is survival, not "who got to do what."
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After thinking about it, I'm coming around to the problem being the other player built a monk without talking to the OP first. AND, the DM let it happen without making sure it was cool. That's a table etiquette thing of basic decency.
People don't play D&D to 'HTFU' and deal with interpersonal BS gracefully, they play to escape that stuff for a while and have some fun. The only drama instigated at a table should be between the characters, after both players have a good enough relationship to have fun with it.
It's a small thing, but personal relationships are build or broken on a collection of small things.
OP, I hope you can have a chat with the other player. It's probably unintentional, so my guess is it'll go well.
Agreed. Everybody needs to be on the same page, and if they aren't, it needs to be discussed and addressed. Players at my table understand that any player can be any allowed race/class combination, whether or not another one exists in the party. That expectation is set and understood right at the start.
