You care about the rules, or you care about the experience, either way they are not mutually exclusive. By wanting to place players (including the DM) in containers is the easy way out. The more interesting path is communication and collaboration. At the end everyone is a little wiser. Mind you there will always be those that don't want to cooperate, but to me that is a personality conflict and not a game issue.
D&D 5E The "Powergamers (Min/maxer)" vs "Alpha Gamers" vs "Role Play Gamers" vs "GM" balance mismatch "problem(s)"
OB1
Jedi Master
To be fair, it's been 120 years that cinema has wrestled with it's fundamental divide between Realist and Formalist filmmaking that was first seen in the very different styles of the Lumiere Brothers and George Melies. That fundamental divide informed criticism of the art form and IMHO led to its advancement over the decades.
While I agree that it is not helpful to put people in groups and leave it there, I think it's essential to the growth of the hobby as an art to understand differences between players to work towards better toolsets in expressing the language of TTRPGs (the rules) and it's execution (play between the GM and the Players). Ignoring that there are differences doesn't help further that conversation.
What I wish is that we could start formalizing the language around those differences so that when we talk about it, the conversation doesn't devolve into a question of taste and an inevitable shouting match that one side is trying to tell the other the best way to play the game.
ClaytonCross
Kinder reader Inflection wanted
So I posted this and went to sleep then woke up to this... I laughed, scratched my head at a few posts, read a few posts that I couldn't catch on one read, read some posts that said pretty much what I said they would say in the post and I am guessing they didn't read the it all (in their defense it was long winded, err... if you have my seen my posts in the past I do get that way trying to be clear so people often don't read the whole thing and miss my point...I have a problem), and I laughed some more.
A few points of reply:
1. The post is in no way intended to "justify power gaming", the biggest point is as many people said... is that your character build style doesn't really matter all that much and people blaming power gamers is misguided. If you have a problem with a player is not because they are a power gamer or a role player it is because they are acting like a jerk or you are acting like a jerk. As a number of people said. --- All those post of people saying that were actually agreeing with me a number of them seemed to thing they were refuting me. (long posts they likely didn't read it all, partly on me.)
2. I said GM are ALWAYS control TPK and that some people would say they don't its on the players when they make bad decisions because the possibility of player character death builds fun. They did. I then went on to say, that a GM makes decisions to make life or death encounters and to go with the role and provides the players the information to make those choices, so IT IS on the GM. I also said, that player death is not always bad, one or to players die as a result of ignoring warning signs and not taking the way out sure. My primary point in that topic was not about tension or telling people how to play their group. I am just suggesting that if the GM lets the kills a players character because the had ways out but decided to stand in a room full of poison gas, the GM still kills a player character but not because the character build or balance but because he felt it was a reasonable out come to player role playing choices. So again, I stand by not blaming character min/max builds, sub-optimal builds, or balance in general for player death or TPK. It is a result of the GM allowing consequences for character role playing decisions. That does mean the GM killed the player but that doesn't mean it was wrong to do so. Its just part of the GMs job which needs to be done in a reasonable way.
3.
[MENTION=88539]LowKey[/MENTION]
Wit due respect, I like a lot of your posts and topics and humor... That said, I did not "write that much" to justifying my choices, their are no choices here. I am talking about the perspective of the community in regards blaming players character builds for breaking balance and causing TPK. Its interesting that all your posts are 100% agreement with my intent but some how manage to degrade me by calling the post a pointless "debate" and that something is very wrong (with what? me?) to bring this topic up. Oddly enough you had quite a bit to say on a thread you found pointless, so it was at least a point people where interested in disusing. I did find several of your comments humorous as intended. I do write a lot, but its not a mater of over justification, it a mater of my writing style and my desire to be as clear as possible which result in me being so long winded people don't read it all and make snap and random decisions on my post based off what they think I was going to say and not what I actually said.
A few points of reply:
1. The post is in no way intended to "justify power gaming", the biggest point is as many people said... is that your character build style doesn't really matter all that much and people blaming power gamers is misguided. If you have a problem with a player is not because they are a power gamer or a role player it is because they are acting like a jerk or you are acting like a jerk. As a number of people said. --- All those post of people saying that were actually agreeing with me a number of them seemed to thing they were refuting me. (long posts they likely didn't read it all, partly on me.)
2. I said GM are ALWAYS control TPK and that some people would say they don't its on the players when they make bad decisions because the possibility of player character death builds fun. They did. I then went on to say, that a GM makes decisions to make life or death encounters and to go with the role and provides the players the information to make those choices, so IT IS on the GM. I also said, that player death is not always bad, one or to players die as a result of ignoring warning signs and not taking the way out sure. My primary point in that topic was not about tension or telling people how to play their group. I am just suggesting that if the GM lets the kills a players character because the had ways out but decided to stand in a room full of poison gas, the GM still kills a player character but not because the character build or balance but because he felt it was a reasonable out come to player role playing choices. So again, I stand by not blaming character min/max builds, sub-optimal builds, or balance in general for player death or TPK. It is a result of the GM allowing consequences for character role playing decisions. That does mean the GM killed the player but that doesn't mean it was wrong to do so. Its just part of the GMs job which needs to be done in a reasonable way.
3.
[MENTION=88539]LowKey[/MENTION]
Wit due respect, I like a lot of your posts and topics and humor... That said, I did not "write that much" to justifying my choices, their are no choices here. I am talking about the perspective of the community in regards blaming players character builds for breaking balance and causing TPK. Its interesting that all your posts are 100% agreement with my intent but some how manage to degrade me by calling the post a pointless "debate" and that something is very wrong (with what? me?) to bring this topic up. Oddly enough you had quite a bit to say on a thread you found pointless, so it was at least a point people where interested in disusing. I did find several of your comments humorous as intended. I do write a lot, but its not a mater of over justification, it a mater of my writing style and my desire to be as clear as possible which result in me being so long winded people don't read it all and make snap and random decisions on my post based off what they think I was going to say and not what I actually said.
Saeviomagy
Adventurer
Regardless of who causes the problem, having a big power differential makes it harder to involve everyone in the game. Insisting on being a lone wolf, being that guy who just has to pull all the levers or the guy who moons the king, or even just that guy who tries to have intimate tete-a-tetes with NPCs also makes it harder for the DM to involve everyone.
All of these things can happen by accident. The difference between a good player and a bad player is whether they're willing to change things to make the game play better.
All of these things can happen by accident. The difference between a good player and a bad player is whether they're willing to change things to make the game play better.
ClaytonCross
Kinder reader Inflection wanted
So a really good and the only healer/scout/crowd control caster/tank/face/skill junky in your party breaks the game?
... or am I correct in say you are talking about DPR?
Sure any player who steals the spot light all the time is being an jerk an that a problem but nothing you listed that I highlighted bold is about power difference it is role play.
But your ultimate complaint (if I am not mistaken) is the underlined part where your seem to be saying that DPR range makes is one of the things that makes it hard to put everyone the spot light. The problem I see with this is that the assumption is that every player needs to shine in combat. Their is no problem with a scout leading the party by 60ft so he can attempt to keep the party from falling into ambushes but that's not a power differential issue and if that character doesn't shine its because the GM never gives the party a reason to have a scout. Does having a reason for every party member to shine other than combat require more work by the GM defiantly!!! But the reward to the GM and players is generally related to the work the GM is willing to put in. To be clear that is not a "lazy GM = bad game" comment. Different GMs have different play styles and can get away with different abouts of work but if one player is shining in combat and the others are not, what did they spend their resources on? Obviously it was something important to them or they would not have cared to get it. If that is the case and the only gratification the GM is offering them is combat, then the GM has 2 choices, give them some of what they built for or let them re-roll into a more combat design. I personally think pushing players to a combat design is a bad idea heading to "Alpha DPR power gamer" wars invoked by the GMs decisions but as LowKey and other pointed out if they are all at the same level power becomes irrelevant because they GM just rescales encounters to the group.
I would also, being a lonewolf and breaking the cardinal sin of separating the group is not as big a problem if you divide the group up entirely and rotate through them all give each one their own challenge and then bringing them back together. I mean sure as a whole it is a group game but as a player I don't mind watching a couple of players do their own thing a bit particularly if I know I am going to get a turn and I can focus on enjoying their story more when I am not thinking of my next move so I don't slow down game play for everyone when it is my turn. After all we almost always do that on "down time". That of course is going to be different per each group of players and something the GM is going to have to test and determine. The GM may also not have time to come up with multiple stories between session but still want to play. That doesn't mean you have to do it all the time. Just when the GM has the time and desire to mix things up.
Tony Vargas
Legend
The difference could be couched in terms of technique rather than people. I doubt anyone really matches the extreme of the abject optimizer who can't put anything but mechanical choices into his builds, nor the abject thespian who speaks in character but can't decipher anything on his sheet.
Imagining a character, creating a character, speaking in character - these are things RPGers do, not things they are. And it's probably only a very hypothetical person who doesn't do all three.
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Harzel
Adventurer
I don't recall having ever seen anyone actually do that.
Speaking of things that are not mutually exclusive - pointlessness rarely if ever causes people to not post in a thread on ENWorld or other forums.
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ClaytonCross
Kinder reader Inflection wanted
Err.. look 3 post above you to :
Am a wrong in that "having a big power differential" is referring to min/max power gaming and the statement at the bottom is basically "bad player fix yourself"?
Now that's on this thread so maybe that doesn't hit your mark. I just pointed it out to show the opinion exists on the same page. Here is a -->link <-- to a thread I was just on where they were doing just that. Its the thread I was on that prompted me to thing on and write this post, however, it not nearly the first time I have heard it. It is often used as the reason GMs don't use feats in their games. I have see it a number of times or I would not have brought it up.
... touché ... but the point I was making was the whole post seemed to be verging on a personal attack because he added the line, "If you need to write that much to justify your choices, then something is very wrong." When I read the post the first time I just took it as a personal opinion and nothing personal but I re-read it after seeing that line and it seems to bear a harsher tone in that context and the state of mind the author infers with that statement. I could be wrong as I stated in the disclaimer at the start, but having re-read it a couple of times I can't see how that post is not with that statement as it is.
S
Sunseeker
Guest
Why?
If you mean to say, it makes it hard to throw random tables of random monsters with random loot at players based on an average of their party level, then yeah, but your problem isn't the one guy who's awesome and the one guy who sucks. Your problem is you're defining effort as "anything greater than rolling a 1d20 and picking from a chart". If that's your bar for when DMing becomes difficult well, that's a low bar, I mean so low that James Cameron might have to launch an expedition to go looking for it.
The problem I'm reading here is not that Jaque the Jock is super-powerful, or that Neville the Nerd is weak and wimpy, but that you're trying to get everyone to participate in the same event. D&D has long been about niche protection. Some people crush skulls, some people flirt with kings. Some people cast spells, some people swing swords. There should be events where Jaque gets to shine and events where Neville gets to shine. Places where only rogues can go and places where only Paladins may go.
Sure, some people might be able to do all of that, but you're talking about hypothetical level 20 builds that are almost never fully realized or enacted at the table.
Better is subjective. Are the other players having a bad time? I mean I optimize all the time and you know how my DM handles it? He presents me with things I can't do. Because I can only optimize in a limited number of areas of the game. Or he gives out hooks that are specifically for the other players.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
I'll admit to two quite connected things up front here:
1. I'm not quite sure what your first post is trying to say
2. I gave up reading about 2/3 of the way through.
Confession made, so onwards...
Poppycock.
Also, what about self-inflicted deaths where the PCs either intentionally or otherwise cause their own demise? Is that the DM's fault too?
Killing characters, on the other hand, is fair game.
'Character builds' breaking balance is not so much, particularly if the specific intent is to be "better" than the rest of the party and then backed up with a similar attitude in play. That said, character imbalance through sheer luck is just fine, 'cause life's like that.
I'm not at all interested in playing a game of who has the best system mastery.
Lan-"as soon as I hear or read the term 'character build' I know I'm talking to someone I'd think twice about playing with"-efan
1. I'm not quite sure what your first post is trying to say
2. I gave up reading about 2/3 of the way through.
Confession made, so onwards...
I may have missed it, but I didn't see anything in that opening post pointing at the difference between the player whose focus is on character build and the player whose focus is on character play. I generally find the build-focused ones far more annoying.
So it's the DM's fault for putting a poison-gas room in the dungeon in the first place?
Poppycock.
Also, what about self-inflicted deaths where the PCs either intentionally or otherwise cause their own demise? Is that the DM's fault too?
The local police might beg to differ. Killing players is a criminal offense in most parts of the world...
Killing characters, on the other hand, is fair game.
And most of the time that "reasonable way" means laying down the ground rules, defining the setting, narrating some background and story, and then acting as a neutral arbiter no matter what happens while otherwise staying out of the way.
Player characters causing a TPK is fine with me.
'Character builds' breaking balance is not so much, particularly if the specific intent is to be "better" than the rest of the party and then backed up with a similar attitude in play. That said, character imbalance through sheer luck is just fine, 'cause life's like that.
I'm not at all interested in playing a game of who has the best system mastery.
Maybe try a quick summary at the end...
Lan-"as soon as I hear or read the term 'character build' I know I'm talking to someone I'd think twice about playing with"-efan
