D&D 5E (2014) Where does optimizing end and min-maxing begin? And is min-maxing a bad thing?

[Hussar]

I dunno. I run a lot of modules, so even when I make my own adventures they're not really tailored to specific pc's. I present the scenario. To me it's the players job to find the solution to that scenario. It's not my job to present the solutions.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Also Saelorn clearly doesn't understand what "meta-gaming" or "role-playing" actually mean and so his OneTrueWayism doesn't even make much sense in its own context..

I've gone into it with him, it's all his own definitions, but they add up to some uncompromising internal consistency, indeed, that's kinda the core of the ethos - the imagined world must be /real/.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Not sure they will see this if they have you Ignored.

I'm not so much still arguing against his point (because I don't see his posts), but responding to people who have quoted him. Speaking of ignore lists, I'm still trying to figure how since I've had Tony on mine for a long time, he keeps quoting me.

 

[Lanliss]

I'm not so much still arguing against his point (because I don't see his posts), but responding to people who have quoted him. Speaking of ignore lists, I'm still trying to figure how since I've had Tony on mine for a long time, he keeps quoting me.

I don't know the mechanics of the quote system, so I have no idea. Perhaps there is some trick to quoting people through other peoples quotes?

 

[Ilbranteloth]

It may be because I tend to DM for new players, but being extremely conscious of the abilities of the characters (and the players!) is absolutely vital to a successful adventure design. Of course, this includes options for teaching moments, situations designed to stretch their thinking and imagination to resolve challenging encounters. And I of course always leave room for them to surprise me, because new players are still players and players surprise DMs, that's sort of their shtick.

I seem to frequently have new players in my campaigns and I love it. I also approach things the AD&D way - which is that I help them with a basic character concept, and throw them in the deep end. The less of the rules they know, the better. We can help them along the way. They don't censor their ideas and thoughts through a filter of how they think the rules work. More importantly, by not knowing as much about the rules, or what the options are later on, they focus their efforts on the character, and how they interact with the world, which provides some stimulus for the direction the character goes in the future.

And really, that's where the difference between min-maxing, munchkinizing, etc. lies in my eyes.

All of the "optimization" approaches are focused on the ruleset. When I see somebody talking about their character "build" then I know they are probably starting with the rules, the abilities, the future options when working on their character. They are looking for combinations and paths that grant them abilities or synergies among abilities. The focus is leaning toward the game, rather than the characters and the world around them.

We prefer to focus on the character, that is, the personality of the character and how they are grounded in the world. The decisions they make based on what the world has given them, and where the adventures lead them. The focus is a bit on the past, and the now of the character, and letting the future present itself, instead of focusing on the future of the character during character creation. They probably have goals, but the goals are based on in world things and almost never about class-based abilities. Sure, a wizard will be looking for new spells, magic items, etc. But they are still based on something in the world, instead of "I want to get this feat, then a dip into this class to get this ability, then..."

Our campaign also has a number of limiting factors built in, that make character building a mix of random chance and player choice. For example, we still have class level limits based on the prime requisite score, as well as minimum abilities required for certain races. We usually roll for stats in order as well. Every player has at least three characters, but a given set of stats may not qualify for every race or class. Since we do character creation at the table, the group can help as well. Of course, some people (like the real world) may choose classes for which the stats aren't "optimal." That's a lot of fun, because it provides some challenges to practice their chosen profession.

By having people start with multiple characters, who come in and out of the campaign, and forcing them to make choices based on "what they were born with" creates quite a different mind-set to building a character. Level advancement is very slow as well, so folks have a chance to build the character, and come up with personalities and approaches that aren't dependent upon gaining new abilities, etc.

On the other hand, I don't design adventures, or the world, with any consideration of the characters and their abilities. If it's a group of all human wizards that decide they want to wander around Undermountain at 1st-level - go for it. The challenge for anybody who is an explorer is to find ways to use their strengths and overcome their weaknesses to overcome obstacles. They know that retreating is a viable (and probably frequent) option. Scouting out and learning about the challenges ahead, to retreat and plan ahead is a common approach. Hiring guides, sellswords, and other help is another option. Sometimes it's just a matter of more characters going out on a particular adventure. They also tend to follow the old-school approach of having a home-base and heading out for a day or two at most, before returning to rest and recuperate.

That doesn't mean that the adventures don't take the characters (or the players) as inspiration for what's going on. To begin with, they are the ones writing the story. And I listen to what they are saying and watch what they are doing, to weave their personal stories into the world. But that doesn't mean I design for their abilities, or lack of.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] I think tha answer to that depends on whether the other player's have magic weapons or not. It's one thing to be at a disadvantage, it's another thing to be at a disadvantage when no one else is.

I don't consider it my job as a DM to design the world around their advantages or disadvantages. Whether we're talking about an individual or a group.

One thing that I've found over the years is that the groups that tend to be more into optimizing their characters, also tend to be less concerned about working as a group. Sure, they will often focus on trying not to overlap with other folks abilities and stuff, but it's often about carving their niche into the game.

The problem with that approach is that it assumes that the DM will cater to each niche for each character. I don't. I design the world the way I think the world works. If you've created too narrow a niche for yourself, you might find that you don't get as many chances to shine.

On the other hand, if your focus is on building an interesting character (personality) and working with your party to succeed at the goals that you set collectively, you'll never run out of things to do. In AD&D, if you were a wizard, until you reached, oh, 5th level or so, you were of limited use most of the time. Particularly when it came to combat where you were often a flat-out liability. Except when the group worked to protect the wizard so they could be used to the best of their ability in a really tough combat, and come out with their magic missile or sleep spell that would likely turn the battle in their favor.

Of course, once they did reach 5th level, it let the entire group consider options that they couldn't earlier. So protecting them early on lets you go for bigger rewards later on. I present the world, and I have a lot of schemes, stories, and other things going on and it's up to the players to determine how the characters interact with the world around them. And it's up to them to determine how they work together as a team.

 

[Caliban]

I would never run a pre-written module. Without having created the world or its NPCs for myself, I would not have confidence in my ability to adjudicate uncertainty whenever the players deviate from the script.

Hmm...not the answer I was expecting. Carry on.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't know the mechanics of the quote system, so I have no idea. Perhaps there is some trick to quoting people through other peoples quotes?

You can view any post if you open the thread in a private window, and then you can copy+paste back into a public window. It's kind of a pain, but sometimes people have too much time on their hands. Or you could just manually enter the [Quote= format, I guess.

Also, sometimes you can block someone and they'll still be able to see your posts. That part of the forum code is kind of buggy. And if you can see a post, there's no real way to know whether or not they have you blocked.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yeah, and I personally think that 5e does a good job of that, for the most part. Every class that isn't primarily a spell caster still needs a decent subclass or variant feature or whatever that presents the player with manuevers of some kind, or some other interesting "moving parts" mechanic that isn't magical. Or at least isn't spells.

Sounds like the least part is still pretty substantial.

The way it looks to me, 5e's re-building support for 'styles' prettymuch in edition order. The basic pdf covered the older stuff. The standard PH game covers AD&D, with feats & MCing turned on it gets into 3.x, though obviously can't cover everything. The mystic is hard to pin down, it's certainly not the 2e psionicist nor the 4e role-based approach w/psionic Monk, so I suppose it's 3.5 ish, a bit. Soul Knife and Ardentvatar were both 3.5, afterall. 4e, obviously, comes after 3.5 ;P

Actually, I think what the game could use, in that vein, is a large suite of maneuvers, talents, whatever, that are balanced in comparison to spells, but not design to mimic spells. Ie, balanced like 4e martial powers. Perhaps a looser organization than spells, and a system of limitation more similar to Ki than to spell points.

However the exact design looks, it would be a system which can replace, in one swell foop, the spellcasting of a class or subclass. It would have stuff appropriate to the ranger, fighter, rogue, and even monk and paladin. Some would be good for any weapon user, some would be specific to a class. BM fighters would be able to choose them instead of it's existing system, and they would cover all the actions provided therein.

Can't imagine that every happening, nor the rest of your post, but I've been wrong before, and it's a positive vision, not just bitching at the current ed that it's wrongbadfun and burning books, so good on you.

(Yeah, my bar for good behavior is that low, the edition war really lowered my standards....)

You might ask, "Paladins? What is the point of a spell-less Paladin?"

You can have faith in things other than a deity?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Hmm...not the answer I was expecting. Carry on.

What answer were you expecting? I thought all of my positions were transparently consistent, so if I said something unexpected, then I might need to re-evaluate something.