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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1552457" data-attributes="member: 5171">Woohoo! Man, if I were intelligent enough to modify my .sig...Quasquetron, you brought up the question of having a minmaxer make a character for a roleplayer.  This is actually kind of how my group does it.  Our group consists of:- One player who is a great numbers-cruncher but often needs help with character traits that are memorable and interesting- Two players who are good roleplayers, aren't bad with numbers, but don't have a deep enough knowledge of all the rules to really minmax a situation- One guy who doesn't roleplay very well and doesn't build terribly effective characters (sigh)- And one guy who is off the charts with roleplaying and number-crunching, and who now enjoys tricking out characters in obscure areasSo generally, when we build characters, here's what happens:The Number-Cruncher and the All-Around both have their characters built well before the first session.  I check with All-Around to see what he needs from the adventure, if anything ("Okay, you're maxed out in Handle Animal?  Right.  I'll make sure that the Dungeon of Shivering Terror has some, uh, scared wild animals for you to tame.").  Then I chat with the Number-Cruncher ("Wow, that's a pretty sweet combo, there.  So, what's this guy like?  Is he an aggressive and angry dude?  Is he like Legolas, or like Aragorn, or like Gimli?") to kind of get the character-seeds growing.  Both of these guys are, in my mind, done.When we get to the game (that was over e-mail), those guys take the two other guys in hand and start offering advice.  This usually works like this:Roleplayers: Okay, so this guy is supposed to be an acrobat who uses magic to make himself effectively untouchable in combat.  Lighthearted trickster, I'm thinking half-elven, not much of a killer, probably good with traps and such, aims for subdual damage.  How do I do that?Number Crunchers: Right, here we go.  How important is the magic aspect?  We can do Bard, or Rogue, or even Rogue/Bard.  Well, for subdual, a monk would work --Roleplayers: Nah, that's Lawful.  This guy's a free spirit.Number Crunchers: Okay, so Bard it is...The Number Crunchers are (in general) respectful of the Roleplayers' concept, and the Roleplayers generally appreciate having somebody help them make a person who is good at what they want their guy to be good at.(And the guy who doesn't do either very well shows up, makes his character, doesn't take advice, and builds a character who is suboptimal and doesn't tell me what that character is so that I can tailor the adventure to his character -- and then he doesn't roleplay and doesn't contribute much in a numerical sense fo the game.  But this ain't a fairy tale.  He's a nice guy.  Just seems wired a different way.)This works in a similar way in-game. The Number Cruncher has got his character fleshed out by now, so he's good, and sometimes the Roleplayer will, in the middle of combat, say something like, "Okay, Thrag makes an attack that's pretty much only there to impress people.  He wants to draw the attackers' fire and also be hard to hit.  How do I make that work?"  Then the Number Cruncher will pop in with "Power Attack +5 on a single attack, then move so that you get cover from this guy, and also turn Expertise on to +5 as well."The number crunchers could dominate the game, but the fact that everyone in the game has different strengths helps mitigate this, as does the fact that, with proper design, the GM can make different skills necessary.  In the d20 Modern campaign I'm running, I'm trying hard to make sure that everyone's strengths get a chance to shine.  The Face-Man gets to use Diplomacy and Gather Information and Bluff, the Detective gets to Investigate the crime scene, Search for clues, and then double-tap the living daylights out of the bad guys when they resist arrest, the Geek gets to bring up obscure trivia and hack computer systems to find other clues, and the Tough Medic gets to unflinchingly soak damage that would flat-out kill ordinary folks, Treat Injury to help people who are hurting, and use Spot or Sense Motive to notice details that his more cerebral partners might miss.The Tough Medic is the All-Around guy, by the way. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  He didn't want to outshine people, so he just built somebody who is pretty much impossible to kill (decent Defense, tons of hit points, remains conscious at negative hit points and will most likely automatically stabilize because of his +10 Fort save at 6th level) and can also trivially stabilize injured people (+14 to Treat Injury).  And his guy (High Wis, low Int) is a hoot to listen to:Detective/Gunman: (as evil bikers ride into the town the party has prepared against the assault) So, man, you think today is a good day to die?Tough Medic: Don't be a dumbass.  There's never a good day to die.Detective/Gunman: Okay, point taken.My game isn't perfect by any stretch, but I think that, after a bit of penduluming back and forth, we've gotten pretty good at making everyone happy, despite their different strengths and interests and gaming styles.  Except the guy who doesn't do much of anything.  But, eh, he still shows up.</blockquote>

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