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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8303765" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Pun Pun in absolute isolation, perhaps not. But Pun Pun in context? Yeah, I kind of think it does demonstrate a (degenerate) instance of a big part of 3e-era skilled play for a variety of reasons:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Optimization in 3e, with few exceptions, is almost purely self-focused. Buffing one ally < buffing yourself; in-combat healing < dealing damage; teamwork with the potential for payoff < personal effort with direct payoff. I once lamented that 3e optimization was an exercise in each individual player maximizing their personal contribution to the exclusion of party play...and had several expert 3e optimizers chime in with agreement. Pun Pun demonstrates a (degenerate) side of this through personal nigh-infinite numbers loops that do nothing to benefit allies.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Expert knowledge of several highly disparate sections of the rules is, at least according to some of 3e's designers, an intentional expectation of "learning to properly play 3e." Pun Pun in particular requires a diverse array of things: Divine Minions, Savage Species options, prestige classes, and Monster Manual entries, just to name a few. This is a well-known aspect of 3e skilled play: the degree to which you have working knowledge of the numerous options available directly correlates to the power you can wield if you so choose.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The expectation, in 3e, that the rules will be followed more-or-less as written unless there's a good justification for doing so. Though I think people often play up how dramatic the difference is between prior editions and 3e, there is something to the notion that, when people played 3e, they expected that the rules as written (particularly the player-facing ones) were in some sense part of the social contract, and thus could not be changed without a reasonable rationale first.</li> </ul>Yes, Pun Pun is degenerate. But it is degenerate in order to highlight some of these characteristics that appear in 3e skilled play, much as the Tomb of Horrors is a degenerate demonstration of certain characteristics of older-school play (incredibly high lethality, "puzzle" monsters, difficult-to-foresee but very dangerous traps, the struggle between player-made SOPs and DMs wanting to induce difficult choices, etc.) By throwing these characteristics into sharp relief, without any of the typical mitigating elements present, both things communicate something about the context in which they appeared, even though neither truly represents its associated style.</blockquote>

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