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Message: <blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 8453069" data-attributes="member: 86653">Not really. The divine casters pray for spells and are rewarded them by their deity (DM fiat) and the arcane casters either learn their spells from books (DM fiat) or their blood is magic (DM fiat). Any spells you find during the game, and want to keep...there you go.No one needs any game system. You've got enough with some dice and imagination.Not really, no.Some people like to. But you don't need to.Well, they'd be just as wrong about this now as they were about 4E then. It was still D&D with three classes, all hit points were 1d6, all weapons did 1d6 damage, and you could make attack rolls using 2d6. It'll still be D&D without the silly bloat we have now.I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it. But if you build some massively optimized beast you shouldn't have any expectation that you'll get to play it at a table. That's where the trouble comes in. Expecting your solo play to be allowed into an actual game. Or some elaborate hyper-detailed backstory for a 1st-level character with exactly zero XP. Sure, your character saved several kingdoms, married all the prettiest princes and princesses and fought and killed every monster in the MM...but you still mysteriously have zero XP and are 1st level. Just because you put in the time and effort and energy to create that thing doesn't mean some random DM is obligated to let it into their game. So yeah, solo play the hell out of character creation. Knock yourself out. No one should have a problem with that. But that doesn't mean you're going to actually get to play the thing in any game. At that point you might as well just write fiction and not bother with all the oddities of the game's restrictions.The problem arises when that solo play is expected to be allowed in a real game with other people. It's not. Then players get bent out of shape about it. "I spent all this time on it. I read all the optimization boards. I built the perfect character. Spent hours writing the perfect power fantasy backstory. You have to let me play this character exactly as I created it." It's great that you're that invested, but nope. It's also a problem because the mindset of optimization and ridiculous backstories permeates the culture and becomes expected. This creeping thing of "unless you're perfect, you suck". People read charop threads and somehow think that max DPS is somehow now the bare minimum and talk crap about anything less than perfect. Trash talking non-optimized builds. Or odd character choices. Or anything that's less than perfect. There's also this weird smugness to it. Like congrats, you solved a 3rd grade math problem. Here's your gold star. Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back about it. It's an elfgame. Relax. It's about playing pretend with dice and friends. Go have actual adventures with some other people. Throw some dice. Cheer. Laugh. Get frustrated. Play the game. That's what all this is for.</blockquote>

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