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

[schnee]

I should have been clearer...My overall point though is that situation was one bad attitude away from being a counterpoint to the "it's all the optimizer's fault for ruining the fun".

Ah, that makes more sense then. And I get your point.

Anyone that 'blows the bell curve' of the mood/goals of the rest of the table can be a drag, absolutely.

 

[Satyrn]

... Except the "cookie cutter character" part. That's a different issue entirely to stat-gen.

I (and a vast many players) could easily make, for example, two human fighters with the exact same stats and have them not be "cookie cutter" - in that they would be very little alike as people.

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Aye. I was just figuring that he was referring to the stats, not personality.

. . . But then my gnome battlemaster has standard array stats that few other fighters would, since I wound up with a 14 Int and 13 Charisma after randomly placing my numbers.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

"it's all the optimizer's fault for ruining the fun".

I don't think anyone ever suggested that the only way to ruin fun is to optimize.

Also, I don't think anyone is suggesting that there's no middle ground between an optimized character and a gimped one. (The oposite, really).

In your scenario, is the player new, or bad at making characters, or purposefully making a subpar character?

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[schnee]

I'm surprised the optimizers didn't take that person under their wing and help.

It's a great way to show off system knowledge - 'take this class, multi class into this one next level, and choose this domain and Goodberry heals 40 points!'

 

[JonnyP71]

There is 'character creation and optimisation'. There is 'gameplay and role-playing'. An individual player may be more or less interested in both, one, or neither. There is no inverse corellation between the former and the latter. Wanting to optimise in no way interferes with wanting to role-play well, or vice-versa.

I've seen the 'stormwind fallacy' *thing* rattled out over and over again, on here, on reddit, etc, and each time someone says something akin to the above.

Sorry, but in my experience of playing with a variety of groups, those players who tend to focus heavily on the numbers/bonuses DO tend to be less invested in the RP, the backstories, and the plot in general. They DO tend to be the ones who just want to bash a lot of skulls and roll a lot of dice. The strong RPers at my tables might be decent number crunchers too, but they manage to hide it all behind the story and the flavour of their characters, and if they optimise it tends towards 'optimal flavour, suboptimal mechanics'.

 

[nswanson27]

I don't think anyone ever suggested that the only way to ruin fun is to optimize.

Also, I don't think anyone is suggesting that there's no middle ground between an optimized character and a gimped one. (The oposite, really).

In your scenario, is the player new, or bad at making characters, or purposefully making a subpar character?

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A mix of the first two categories most likely - and again, I'm saying what actually happened was bad. It was probably the best thing that could have happened given those circumstances. But even there, the end was kind of tense and awkward, as it became clear to everyone that the group as a whole was a bit mechanically inert. The optimizers did their best to try to carry the fight after the warlock and others went down quickly, but even they have their breaking point. As I mentioned before, the difference between optimized and normal isn't huge in 5e.

 

[Aenghus]

I've seen and been in groups where a band of carefully optimised PCs took apart adventure module after adventure module like a finely oiled machine, and everyone including the DM had fun because that's what that group was about.

I've also seen and been in groups where a disparate rabble of oddball PCs wandered randomly through the setting having lots of fun, where everyone also enjoyed themselves because that's what that group was about.

The former groups were super goal oriented and succeeded in most of their goals, getting rich, saving people, defeating enemies.

The latter groups had lots of fun, but had a lot less impressive achievement list, not that we cared.

I've also seen groups with wildly variable player motivations, that somehow work, because RPGs are also a social pursuit and friends can make stuff work out sometimes despite the odds.

Even so, an unoptimised PC would likely be quickly mulched in the former groups, while an optimised PC would likely be just as out of place in the latter groups, like a warbot at a wedding.

 

[Satyrn]

like a warbot at a wedding.

Extreme shotgun wedding!

 

[Aenghus]

Extreme shotgun wedding!

Obviously, the warbot would end up bemusedly inspecting the bouquet which ended up lodged in it's plasma cannon when it was thrown.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Sorry, but in my experience of playing with a variety of groups, those players who tend to focus heavily on the numbers/bonuses DO tend to be less invested in the RP, the backstories, and the plot in general. They DO tend to be the ones who just want to bash a lot of skulls and roll a lot of dice. The strong RPers at my tables might be decent number crunchers too, but they manage to hide it all behind the story and the flavour of their characters, and if they optimise it tends towards 'optimal flavour, suboptimal mechanics'.

Correlation is not the same thing as causality. Optimizing for combat efficiency doesn't make someone a bad role-player, and ignoring efficiency doesn't make someone a good role-player. (To contrast, ignoring efficiency does make someone a bad role-player if they're trying to role-play a character who should care about efficiency - a professional mercenary, for example.)

Some people don't care about role-playing, and only care about the numbers game. I don't know that anyone in here is trying to defend those people in particular, but the point is that the sub-set of optimizers who don't care about role-playing are just that: a sub-set, which is not representative of optimizers as a whole.