The times, are they a-changin?

[RFisher]

I'm not going to take the time to look up citations, but if you read Dragon issues around the release of 2e you can certainly find min/maxing used in a derogatory fashion. Likewise, if you read Dragon issues around the release of 3e you can find just the opposite: Power gaming tips proudly displayed as such.

I like the categorizations: rollplaying, roleplaying, & ruleplaying. I enjoy a compromise between rollplaying & roleplaying. Min/maxing--as long as it doesn't drift into ruleplaying--is just smart playing.

Ruleplaying is (for me) exploiting a hole in the rules to get a result that most people at the table can agree is a result that shouldn't arise from the given situation. A good DM (IMHO) should exercise his role as living rulebook to prevent such things.

(&, in the interest of full disclosure, I actually do enjoy ruleplaying. I've just come to realize that--in the long run--it leads to a less enjoyable total experience for me.)

I've encountered systems in which every decision (in character generation) is a tradeoff...usually some kind of point based system, like GURPS or HERO.

If you min-max too much, your PC won't be vaiable.

Heh. One of the reasons I stopped playing GURPS was that it had opened up whole new avenues for min/maxing. With all those disads stated out, it just took a little time to find those that were priced too low for their effect in the current campaign.

So far, I've been impressed by Lejendary Adventure in this area. It takes a slightly different tact. It makes sure that a min/maxed PC (oops...I mean "avatar") can't help but be well-rounded as well! But, I haven't had a chance to play it yet. I've just made up lots of...avatars.

 

[Psion]

Yeah, CoC.

So, you've never seen characters with skills conveniently positioned in the high-80's to take advantage of that sanity point boost they get first time they go over 90?

 

[Thotas]

"D&D's philosophy seems to be that those who get enjoyment from heavy character involvement don't NEED the rules as much. So the rules exist for those who get enjoyment out of knowing how good at hitting a charging troll at 20 paces Gwyfayri is. I don't need any sort of manual to tell me motive, and I would, in fact, be slightly irked at one which would"

Bingo, Midget. When I really started to play this game, it was with some guys who were old-time wargamers, Squad Leader and such. You know those individual commander counters in the SL game? They role-played those guys. Gave them individual personalities, acted out the giving of orders to their troops. The people who criticized 3e for not having any roleplaying rules missed the fact that RP is done outside of what we generally think of as the rules. And then, when the Bluff, Diplomacy and Intimidate skills were pointed out to them, it would inspire a rant about how you're replaceing role-playing with roll-playing ... missing that one still had to act out the scene, because the details of The Deal, The Lie or The Threat were too important for the play of the story as it proceeds from there, as well as modifiying the roll. (And the roll gives those who aren't trained/gifted actor a chance to succeed with the tasks.)

Granted, there are a large number of new-to-the-hobby folks who don't know about the joys of character involvement. Some of that comes just with time, some comes with exposure to those of us wh do. Some will never get it at all. What can be done about it? Probably not much. You can write a 20 page chapter in the 4e PHB, and the munchkins will yawn and turn to the next chapter. I recommend patience if they show promise, reorganizing the group if they don't.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Heh. One of the reasons I stopped playing GURPS was that it had opened up whole new avenues for min/maxing. With all those disads stated out, it just took a little time to find those that were priced too low for their effect in the current campaign.

I guess our experiences differed. With most GURPS and HERO GMs of my acquaintance, any PC loaded down with disads had AT LEAST one if not 2 or 3 pop up every gaming session. Heaven help you if you were hunted by more than one powerful organization, or had multiple berzerk triggers.

Your PC was powerful, but he always busy; his life, chaotic.

 

[RFisher]

I guess our experiences differed.

No matter how good your GM is at matching a disads trouble to its point cost (without going overboard) it doesn't change the fact that the same disad affects different characters differently. A disad that is minor to a mage can be major to a fighter. A single point cost can't really reflect that. That's not to say the game is broken. Just that there's a lot of min/maxing to do in GURPS.

As a min/maxer myself, I can tell you that games like HERO & GURPS are much more attractive to a min/maxer because they give the player more control over the character. Min/maxing in classic Traveller is a much more limited field than min/maxing in D&D which is more limited than min/maxing in HERO. (Although, stuff from supplements tends to be better balanced with GURPS & HERO than in D&D, IMHO. Add enough supplements, & D&D probably takes the prize.)

While I only cited disads, its much more than just that. Even when I told players in a GURPS campaign that they would not get any points for disads--though they could still take them for roleplaying purposes--there was still plenty of min/maxing. Getting the right IQ/DX to minimize CP & maximize skill levels, &c. (All with the caveat that I haven't played GURPS 4/e yet.)

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

If you look at computer games as well, there are very few good roleplaying games with good story arcs that aren't massively multiplayer.

And absolutely none that are.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I min/max, but only within the context of what made sense for the particular PC, and I played a lot more HERO than GURPS.

I only played GURPS because I was gaming with a group of playtesters...and I could STILL out-tweek a GURPS character compared to them. I never really saw anyone but me push the system.

But HERO...HERO was different. HERO disadsvantages have externalities- consequences that often go beyond the PC. The wrong mix of disads could get ugly. You get a 2 guys with 4+ high-value Hunteds and 2-3 high-value Berserks and you could virtually assure yourself of the adventure going haywire. You'd be going through the Island of Dr. Destroyer (an early adventure that typically took 1-2 sessions) and you'd get bogged down in repeated attacks by Eurostar and Terror, Inc....taking casualties from your own headcases. You might take 3 sessions to complete the adventure- and you might even fail the mission.

As the system went through revisions, multiple selections of the same disads had diminishing returns in points, and they spelled out that disadvantages that weren't a hinderance to PCs were not disadvantages. In other words, your GM was to consider the value of the disad in the context of the PC. While blindness might be a huge disadvantage to one character (20+ points), another PC who has a huge suite of sensory powers might get only 5 points. A PC who only had superpowers in full sunlight or its equivalent could get his powers very cheaply...unless he was partnered with Captain Sunstorm 75% of the time, in which case he wouldn't get a discount at all.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

D&D's philosophy seems to be that those who get enjoyment from heavy character involvement don't NEED the rules as much. So the rules exist for those who get enjoyment out of knowing how good at hitting a charging troll at 20 paces Gwyfayri is. I don't need any sort of manual to tell me motive, and I would, in fact, be slightly irked at one which would (I'm looking at a lot of 2e for forced rules that were there just because). I need a guide, a handbook, a manual to tell me how to work the nuts and bolts.

But my point is that there is a growing lack of acknowledgement that there is something to the game OTHER than the rules. The rules of the game by definition (since this is a ROLEPLAYING game) are not the be-all end-all of D&D but you certainly wouldn't know it to look at the WotC website for example.

WotC made a conscious decision to produce fewer adventures and more rulebooks because there was no money in adventures. I don't have a problem with that as such, and it means you certainly aren't going to see RULES about how to actually roleplay. but it has most definitely led them to stop looking at the game from any but a purely rules-dominated, rules-oriented perspective.

It is not a good trend IMO. It leads to an "official" DE-emphasis on actual exercise of imagination. When was the last time you saw a "Sage Advice" response that actually simply said, "The rules simply don't address this. Make up something. Roleplay your way through it. USE your imagination rather than pedantically insist on official interpretation." I don't recall anything like that. And yes, it may well be the purpose of Sage Advice to simply explain and interpret RULES rather than roleplaying, but in a genuine roleplaying game RULES FAIL.

If all somebody wanted or cared about was rules they ought to be playing the D&D miniatures game, not the D&D roleplaying game. People are free to incorporate the two axes of the game in the proportions they wish, but it's a disservice for WotC to fail to regularly acknowledge the importance and advantages of OVERRULING the rules. That's really all I'm trying to assert here.

 

[Dryfus]

But my point is that there is a growing lack of acknowledgement that there is something to the game OTHER than the rules. The rules of the game by definition (since this is a ROLEPLAYING game) are not the be-all end-all of D&D but you certainly wouldn't know it to look at the WotC website for example.

WotC made a conscious decision to produce fewer adventures and more rulebooks because there was no money in adventures. I don't have a problem with that as such, and it means you certainly aren't going to see RULES about how to actually roleplay. but it has most definitely led them to stop looking at the game from any but a purely rules-dominated, rules-oriented perspective.

It is not a good trend IMO. It leads to an "official" DE-emphasis on actual exercise of imagination. When was the last time you saw a "Sage Advice" response that actually simply said, "The rules simply don't address this. Make up something. Roleplay your way through it. USE your imagination rather than pedantically insist on official interpretation." I don't recall anything like that. And yes, it may well be the purpose of Sage Advice to simply explain and interpret RULES rather than roleplaying, but in a genuine roleplaying game RULES FAIL.

If all somebody wanted or cared about was rules they ought to be playing the D&D miniatures game, not the D&D roleplaying game. People are free to incorporate the two axes of the game in the proportions they wish, but it's a disservice for WotC to fail to regularly acknowledge the importance and advantages of OVERRULING the rules. That's really all I'm trying to assert here.

Well, I am currently reading the DMG2, and they give some very good ideas there to actually get people to role-play. although there are some added "rules", they still give the topic of role-playing a very large part of the book. and they say that you need to look at the makeup of the group, in order to keep everyone happy, the min/maxers and the Role-players. So far it's a good read, and I am going to use some of the stuff I've read to better my games.

 

[diaglo]

There has been a bit more honest admission by some that tactical game play is a major mode of game play.

some of us have always been honest.

diaglo "a long time tactical wargamer before he ever played D&D" Ooi