D&D 5E Where does optimizing end and min-maxing begin? And is min-maxing a bad thing?

[smbakeresq]

First off the problem of min maxing came in with the point buy system, it encourages those things. We use the old method, 4d6 drop lowest. You can get some good scores and some bad ones also, but you are sort of stuck with what you get unless the rolls are so off the DM won't approve it. Point buy does nothing for the game but encourage min/max of scores line you have done.

Second, after that, optimizing you character to be good at what he does is fine. So is branching off into something for character development. Your PC is a fictional person, not a unit with numbers on it like a wargame. Play your PC as a person and no DM will complain.

Third, if you want to hear complaints about optimization and min/maxing try doing it to the players as a DM. Those same optimizers will cry foul when the storm giant uses great weapon mastery feat against them, or the four-armed, dual large-sized long bow wielding demon using sharpshooter feat. Or how about a trap, where green slime popes through little holes in the ceiling, showing them with green slime, then runs out through holes in the floor, leaving nothing to be resurrected? Or even something as simple as the giant options in SKT?

 

[Caliban]

Point buy does nothing for the game but encourage min/max of scores line you have done.

And rolling for ability scores (especially with 4d6 drop the lowest) just encourages rampant cheating with ability scores.

See? I too can make completely biased and unsubstantiated claims about stuff I don't like.

Point buy puts everyone on a level playing field - you get to decide how competent you want your character to be, not the dice. You can decide if you want to play the clumsy wizard, the dumb fighter, or the foolish rogue. Or go for something interesting and unique - the choice is yours. Saying it does "nothing but encourage mi/max of ability scores" is pure foolishness.

Second, after that, optimizing you character to be good at what he does is fine. So is branching off into something for character development. Your PC is a fictional person, not a unit with numbers on it like a wargame. Play your PC as a person and no DM will complain.

Actually, it's both. Strange how some people have trouble grasping this simple concept.

Third, if you want to hear complaints about optimization and min/maxing try doing it to the players as a DM. Those same optimizers will cry foul when the storm giant uses great weapon mastery feat against them, or the four-armed, dual large-sized long bow wielding demon using sharpshooter feat. Or how about a trap, where green slime popes through little holes in the ceiling, showing them with green slime, then runs out through holes in the floor, leaving nothing to be resurrected? Or even something as simple as the giant options in SKT?

And this is just flat out false. Maybe your players cry about stuff like this, but it has nothing to with whether they min/max or not. Some players are going to complain anytime the DM pulls out something weird that almost gets them killed. Some just enjoy the challenge. It has to do with player expectations about the game, not their characters.

Personally, I've noticed that a table of players with optimized characters tend to enjoy it when the DM ramps up the challenge with the monsters.

If your players are complaining about the shenanigans you pull with your monsters, you may have to ask yourself - were you "optimizing the monsters" or just being a jerk? There's a fine line between challenging the players with something new and being petty because they curb stomped the main villain in your last session.

 

[smbakeresq]

How does rolling for ability scores encourage "rampant cheating?" That's stupid, and no one would play with a cheater. Besides, you roll for ability scores right in front of everyone else, how do you rampantly cheat? I have never seen rampant cheating in a D&D game, I don't think that word means what you think it means. We have been using an online dice roller, our DM just sends them out now since its easier.

What does point buy add? Level playing field? I didn't know that D&D had a level playing field problem that needed to be addressed, I haven't seen it in 40 years of playing. What is encourages is dump stats to be dumped and one-dimensional, specialized characters.

I play with good, honest people who don't try to "game" the system... Maybe I have just been fortunate.

The extreme min/max types I have played with in stores complain when a PC feat is used against them. Most of them "know" the monster doesn't normally have that ability, some will just blurt it out. The "normal" players go with it, but the min/max types feel like they have been screwed because they have optimized their character using their knowledge of the rulebooks as opposed to PC knowledge. If their PC dies they blame the DM and want to quit.

As you agreed with, they don't play their PC as a person, they play it like its counter on the board in a military board game.

These conversations always remind me a player we have who is GREAT because he is a min/maxer like the OP but hilarious about it. He had a fighter with the standard dump scores (DEX, INT and CHR) so in game his PC would blunder around in heavy armor continually trying things that required DEX checks (and failing at it) and try to shoehorn himself into social encounters using that bad CHR score on the theory that his PC was to dumb to know that he was really bad at those things. After failing the PC would then bluster about how great he was. Same guy played a non-violent, healer cleric of Asmodeus on the theory if he kept you alive long enough eventually you would fall into evil acts and he could then offer up your soul. Really kind of made the group.

 

[Caliban]

How does rolling for ability scores encourage "rampant cheating?" That's stupid, and no one would play with a cheater. Besides, you roll for ability scores right in front of everyone else, how do you rampantly cheat? I have never seen rampant cheating in a D&D game, I don't think that word means what you think it means. We have been using an online dice roller, our DM just sends them out now since its easier.

What does point buy add? Level playing field? I didn't know that D&D had a level playing field problem that needed to be addressed, I haven't seen it in 40 years of playing. What is encourages is dump stats to be dumped and one-dimensional, specialized characters.

I play with good, honest people who don't try to "game" the system... Maybe I have just been fortunate.

The extreme min/max types I have played with in stores complain when a PC feat is used against them. Most of them "know" the monster doesn't normally have that ability, some will just blurt it out. The "normal" players go with it, but the min/max types feel like they have been screwed because they have optimized their character using their knowledge of the rulebooks as opposed to PC knowledge. If their PC dies they blame the DM and want to quit.

As you agreed with, they don't play their PC as a person, they play it like its counter on the board in a military board game.

These conversations always remind me a player we have who is GREAT because he is a min/maxer like the OP but hilarious about it. He had a fighter with the standard dump scores (DEX, INT and CHR) so in game his PC would blunder around in heavy armor continually trying things that required DEX checks (and failing at it) and try to shoehorn himself into social encounters using that bad CHR score on the theory that his PC was to dumb to know that he was really bad at those things. After failing the PC would then bluster about how great he was. Same guy played a non-violent, healer cleric of Asmodeus on the theory if he kept you alive long enough eventually you would fall into evil acts and he could then offer up your soul. Really kind of made the group.

Translation: "If it's a problem for me, it's a problem for everyone and it should be stopped immediately! If I don't have a problem with it, it's great and anyone who disagrees is doing it wrong! Only my personal experiences matter! Get off my lawn!"

 

[smbakeresq]

Translation: "If it's a problem for me, it's a problem for everyone and it should be stopped immediately! If I don't have a problem with it, it's great and anyone who disagrees is doing it wrong! Only my personal experiences matter! Get off my lawn!"

Well with a response like that its quite clear you have logical argument to support your position. Good luck with trolling, its all you are capable of.

 

[Caliban]

Well with a response like that its quite clear you have logical argument to support your position. Good luck with trolling, its all you are capable of.

Hey, you put words in my mouth and ignored my arguments. I thought this is what you wanted.

 

[Gradine]

See, right there. That's precisely what I'm talking about. A misalignment of expectations. You're presuming bad faith when the simple truth is, it's just a difference in play styles. Now, you don't like that play style and that's groovy. No worries. Me? I'm not about to start policing other people's play styles and I take a rather more relaxed approach to it. But, hey, this apparently bothers you, so, yup, a Session 0 is exactly what's needed to make everything clear.

IOW, it's not that he's wrong or you're wrong, it's simply that he shouldn't be playing at your table.

Basically, this. Everyone takes a different approach to enjoying the game. Every approach is valid. Some approaches may prevent others from enjoying the game, which is why "Session 0" is actually a pretty good idea for the DM to establish the tone and aesthetic of the game they plan to run, as well as gauge the tone and aesthetic the players are looking for. Ultimately, not every table is going to be able to support the preferred play style of every player. That's okay too.

I talk a lot about aesthetics, which comes from the Eight Aesthetics of Play, which comes from a document wherein a group of people, a little over a decade ago, attempted to academically articulate the principles of game design (in their case, they were looking specifically at video game design). To this day the best attempt to explain how those aesthetics show up in tabletop RPGs comes from the Angry DM, in an article here. On the one hand, it's the Angry DM. But on the other hand, this article is by far the Angry DM at his least... Angry-DM-like. It's easily readable regardless of your tolerance for his rhetorical style, and I consider it required reading for anyone looking to start DMing. Or really, anyone attempting to have conversations like this thread about varied play styles.

It's an important article because it not only articulates all of the varied play styles one might take to RPGs, but also explains why people might tend towards specific play styles. It's a breakdown of the underlying reasons why someone might focus more on optimizing or more on role-playing. It also breaks down that this is not a dichotomy at all but rather two out of a wide range of styles and approaches and that most players encompass several styles at once, to a varied range of degrees. Think of the eight aesthetics as eight sliders on each player's character sheet; every player will their slider set to some degree or another for each of the aesthetics; for most players, one or two will be maxed, one to three will be at zero, and the rest may fall somewhere in between.

Every approach is valid, but not every aesthetic may fit in well with every table. But I think if people assume good faith on behalf of most players with differing play styles, I think you'll find there's broader compatibility than you might originally think.

 

[iserith]

I think some objections to optimization may be rooted in fairness which could explain why some people get so riled up over it. Even lower-order mammals have a concept of fairness, so I can imagine this may be where some of the fierce reactions we see to, say, other people intelligently playing a low-Intelligence character comes from. It strikes some as unfair. But when pressed as to how exactly that player "should" be playing to make it "fair," you get a ton of different answers. For those who don't see such play as unfair, the inconsistent answers about how they "should" be playing their own character is a complete non-starter.

So the question, to me, becomes "Why is this seen as unfair in the first place?" I'm of the camp that says it is not unfair to optimize then choose not to make poor decisions with a low ability score as a basis for doing so. There is nothing in the rules of the game that state one way or another how one must make decisions for the character except to say it is up to the player. When I make solid decisions for my dump-Int fighter, I'm not breaking any rules. When I try to do things like recall lore, then I'm at a disadvantage compared to a character with a better Int score. This seems just fine to me. I see nothing unfair about it.

If there's anyone out there that does object to optimization on these grounds, I'd be interested to hear your take on why it's seen as unfair to dump a stat and not make decisions in accordance with what that ability score could mean fictionally.

 

[76512390ag12]

I don't think that dichotomy even exists, at all.

Nearly every gamer is both of those, on some manner of overlapping double spectrum.

Ie, not 30 percent one and 70 percent the other, as in a singular spectrum.

The idea that numbers players, as you call them, don't appreciate the game "holistically", is entirely false.

You are so right, and indeed if you think about it, we are all on spectrums, which is why the human tendency to create divides is contra to what it is to be human. So, let's run with the idea that it's a spectrum, and we all sit on that spectrum but differ through time, between games, between systems, and so on. It's still a useful concept to throw around, which of those two statements are you leaning towards in the game you are playing, and does that help you understand how or why someone else is playing or talking about playing in a different way?

I also liked the quote about

I talk a lot about aesthetics, which comes from the Eight Aesthetics of Play, which comes from a document wherein a group of people, a little over a decade ago, attempted to academically articulate the principles of game design (in their case, they were looking specifically at video game design). To this day the best attempt to explain how those aesthetics show up in tabletop RPGs comes from the Angry DM, in an article here. On the one hand, it's the Angry DM. But on the other hand, this article is by far the Angry DM at his least... Angry-DM-like. It's easily readable regardless of your tolerance for his rhetorical style, and I consider it required reading for anyone looking to start DMing. Or really, anyone attempting to have conversations like this thread about varied play styles.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...s-min-maxing-a-bad-thing/page22#ixzz4cdc6dQJ5

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*