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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Shaman" data-source="post: 2895336" data-attributes="member: 26473">1. Min/maxing does not preclude roleplaying.I am something of a min/maxer, and always have been. Lots of rules, or only a few, and I will usually find some way to maximize my character so that he's really good at something - I'm less focused on minimizing my character's weaknesses, instead looking for a niche to fill in the party and allowing other adventurers to take up my character's slack.The things I choose to maximize, however, tend to be as much about roleplaying as about working the system for advantages. Some examples -Character 1: 1e AD&D human fighter. The character was a former pit-fighter, a low-rent gladiator. He wore leather armor and carried a buckler and short sword - Dex rather than Str was his high stat. I used the tactical combat rules to make flank and rear attacks as often as possible and took advantage of weapon speed mods every chance I got, and relied on foot speed and his Dex-enhanced armor class rather than heavy armor to avoid damage.My choices about weapons and armor and stats were driven by the character's brutal origins - in many ways the choices were suboptimal for a frontline fighter. He did less damage and tended to be hit more often, particularly when there was no room to maneuver and he was forced to slug it out toe-to-toe. I maxed the character along the lines dictated by his past experiences, and accepted the penalties that came with those choices.Character 2: 3.0e D&D human barbarian/bard. The character came from a steppeland dominated by tribes of horsemen - his goal was to become a chief of his tribe by proving his worth. To that I end I multiclassed into bard for the skill points and social class skills, and focused on selecting feats related to riding and mounted combat. He was a superb mounted warrior, a credit to his tribe, in a game where our characters rarely fought from horseback. My choices drove the min/maxing elf evoker player nuts, since I was missing all the 'obvious' feats that a barbarian 'should have.'Character 3: Sidewinder: Recoiled wrangler. The character was the quintessential cowhand, more at home in the saddle than on two feet. Once again I maxed riding skills, to the point where the character could take 10 at any time and achieve a check somewhere in the mid-30s - he was also a good hand with a lariat. I had no idea at the time the character was created whether or not the adventure would call for extensive riding and roping skills.All three of these characters were good at what they did, and I worked the three rules systems to make them so. However, none of the characters was likely to end up on anyone's "best build" lists. The chargen choices were guided by roleplaying considerations, by character background and goals, rather than whether or not the character was the best at filling a party niche.Working the mechanical side of the character doesn't have to be about doing the most damage, or casting the the most metamagicked fireball. That min/maxing devolves into this kind of decision-making says more about the players than the game.2. Rules-lite systems often require on-the-fly rules creation.I was playing classic Traveller one night a month or so ago, and one of the players wanted to fight with two weapons, specifically a pistol in one hand and a cutlass in the other. I ruled that his Str and Dex were effectively halved for determining if his character met the minimums required for wielding each weapon without a penalty, and threw an extra -2  modifier in there to boot.The fact that there was no rule covering two-weapon fighting didn't mean that I just waved my hands and said okay, go ahead - it meant than I needed to apply what rules existed in the game and create a new one during play. The absence of rules did not streamline play in this instance - effective improvisation on the spot did.Now, having said that, I agree that complex rules sets may not lend themselves to role-playing as well as less complex rules sets, if for no other reason than more complex rules sets may attract players for whom developing rules mastery is more important that characterization.I also prefer rules-light systems because I am comfortable with my ability to interpolate missing values when I need to, and because my players apparently trust me not to hose their characters unreasonably when I do so.</blockquote>

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