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

[Corwin]

I also pointed it out, a few sentences later:

"Usually this type of situation ends up with the other players complaining about the "prima donna" and wanting to leave them behind."

Usually? Usually not the way we do it. Again, your anecdote is unfortunate. Sorry to hear you've had such troubles. To put a finer point on it, your experiences are not universally "usually". Please stop acting like they are.

 

[Corwin]

I know I rarely played "athletic" characters, and routinely dump-statted Strength and Constitution for most of my 3.5 PCs. These characters fulfilled specific roles (both out of and in combat) that helped the team accomplish their goals. This type of character design is, once again, very much encouraged by D&D as a system (in any edition, though certainly the WotC era with its embarrassment of riches in character options).

I dunno. It can be said that your preferred character type as described might also be seen as an albatross around the group's neck. After all, your choice to have a lack of athleticism impacts the group's ability to function athletically. Because, just like your worry, that other characters would need to help drag along "reluctant heroes" (et al.), similarly your character is being dragged up a cliff or out of a pit.

 

[Caliban]

Usually? Usually not the way we do it. Again, your anecdote is unfortunate. Sorry to hear you've had such troubles. To put a finer point on it, your experiences are not universally "usually". Please stop acting like they are.

And yet you seem to assume yours are. Please stop yourself.

I said "usually" because I meant it - in my 25 years of playing D&D this has been the case more often than not.

Again, you may not like the answer but that doesn't mean it's wrong. In this case it is exactly, 100%, correct because I'm referring to my experiences, not yours. You may have had different experiences, but that doesn't change mine.

 

[Gradine]

I dunno. It can be said that your preferred character type as described might also be seen as an albatross around the group's neck. After all, your choice to have a lack of athleticism impacts the group's ability to function athletically. Because, just like your worry, that other characters would need to help drag along "reluctant heroes" (et al.), similarly your character is being dragged up a cliff or out of a pit.

This seems to me to be an enforcement of an "every individual PC must be minimally competent in areas A, B, C, etc." rule that doesn't seem to exist or even really seem to be encouraged by any system's core rules. I'm okay with that in a specific campaign (I've run a "You are all spies" campaign before, after all) but as an overall rule to follow every campaign, every game? I'm definitely not a huge fan of that.

In contrast, I see the huge wealth of character options as the rules being built to encourage specialization, which is great because specialization is what so many of the character tropes many players design their PCs around tends to do. And, as I mentioned, while there are such tropes that are very D&D-unfriendly, there are plenty of character archetypes that aren't. To name two off the topic of my head that I've played, the bookish lore seeker and the creepy child telepath. Both were a lot of fun to play, always had a ton of interesting ways to help the party, and never felt like or were treated like burdens. If they ever encountered an adventure with a "you must be able to succeed on a <DC> Climb check to continue" and didn't allow for any kind of creative problem solving to get around it; that would have been a terrible adventure.

DMing in that kind of style is kind senselessly limiting the range of uniqueness in character types. I won't go so far as to say I can understand the appeal to something like that, because I honestly can't. I understand that it does appeal to others, but that's a table I'd never personally want to play at.

I'd imagine the feeling would be mutual, of course.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Or just don't work in a "game" setting at all - they are meant for characters in a story and many story tropes simply don't work reliably in a game were dice rather than author fiat determines the outcome.

In general, treating a character in an RPG as though they were a character in a story is a recipe for disaster. The rules of the game represent the reality of the game world, and there are no terms in that reality for narrative causality.

 

[Corwin]

This seems to me to be an enforcement of an "every individual PC must be minimally competent in areas A, B, C, etc." rule that doesn't seem to exist or even really seem to be encouraged by any system's core rules. I'm okay with that in a specific campaign (I've run a "You are all spies" campaign before, after all) but as an overall rule to follow every campaign, every game? I'm definitely not a huge fan of that.

I have no idea how any of that applies to my point. You claimed outlier personality PCs (reluctant heroes, et al.) were a drag on the group. Because reasons. I pointed out your own preferences can be a sort of drag on a group. Because similar reasons. Again, AFAICT the system doesn't care one way of the other. Your personal biases do. As evident by your last sentence there.

Further evidence of my overall point:

To name two off the topic of my head that I've played, the bookish lore seeker and the creepy child telepath. Both were a lot of fun to play, always had a ton of interesting ways to help the party, and never felt like or were treated like burdens.

That's nice. Anecdotes are fun, of course. But do not a general rule make. Otherwise, I'd have long ago ended the conversation by saying the following:

"To name two off the topic of my head that I've played, the reluctant loner and the greedy mercenary. Both were a lot of fun to play, always had a ton of interesting ways to help the party, and never felt like or were treated like burdens."

But like you, my experiences are not to be considered universal truths. I'm asking people to stop acting like their anecdotes are more pertinent than others. And, more importantly, that D&D somehow approves of their preferences over others. That's all.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I see the huge wealth of character options as the rules being built to encourage specialization, which is great because specialization is what so many of the character tropes many players design their PCs around tends to do.

A tad circular, but sure, there are lots of options to build specialist characters, even those that can be 'utility' generalists able to do just about anything, will be limited in how often they can do any particular anything.

If they ever encountered an adventure with a "you must be able to succeed on a <DC> Climb check to continue" and didn't allow for any kind of creative problem solving to get around it; that would have been a terrible adventure.

'Getting around it' can just mean being carried (literally & figuratively) by the guy that specialized in STR & Athletics - that's the "specialist's" time to shine, too - and that's hardly creative or outside the box...

 

[Corwin]

'Getting around it' can just mean being carried (literally & figuratively) by the guy that specialized in STR & Athletics - that's the "specialist's" time to shine, too - and that's hardly creative or outside the box...

Yeah. I even said as much, myself. Kinda the whole basis of the point I was making. Thus why I'm still unsure if I was the intended quotee.

 

[Gradine]

I have no idea how any of that applies to my point. You claimed outlier personality PCs (reluctant heroes, et al.) were a drag on the group. Because reasons. I pointed out your own preferences can be a sort of drag on a group. Because similar reasons. Again, AFAICT the system doesn't care one way of the other. Your personal biases do. As evident by your last sentence there.

Further evidence of my overall point:

That's nice. Anecdotes are fun, of course. But do not a general rule make. Otherwise, I'd have long ago ended the conversation by saying the following:

"To name two off the topic of my head that I've played, the reluctant loner and the greedy mercenary. Both were a lot of fun to play, always had a ton of interesting ways to help the party, and never felt like or were treated like burdens."

But like you, my experiences are not to be considered universal truths. I'm asking people to stop acting like their anecdotes are more pertinent than others. And, more importantly, that D&D somehow approves of their preferences over others. That's all.

You seem to be misunderstanding my point; it's possible I haven't been clear enough, so allow me to try to elaborate.

D&D is, as was mentioned earlier, a game that is all about establishing and meeting goals through cooperation and teamwork. The "reluctant" hero has to be dragged along to meet goals. The "greedy mercenary" does not play well with others, thus undermining the very cooperation and teamwork at the core of the game experience. They are, by design, not going to be actively involved in "interesting ways to help the party", otherwise they'd be playing against type, and they wouldn't be those archetypes in the first place. D&D then, by default, does not really support these character archetypes.

Meanwhile, neither of the characters I described that I had played were explicitly against working directly towards goals or working well in concert to a party of adventurers. The lore seeker is in fact explicitly goal oriented. They are character archetypes that work just fine in the context of a goal-oriented, teamwork-centered RPG, which is what D&D is designed to be.

It's not a huge leap of logic to further define D&D's teamwork as based around specialized characters working in concert to overcome obstacles together. Look at how gated the ability to find and remove traps was prior to 5e, or the fact that there's an entire class whose job description is "Fighter". There's room for generalists too, and 5e certainly made that easier. Or at least divorced a few niche abilities from class, such that a character of any class could be proficient in Thieves' Tools, and generally a party doesn't benefit from having more than one such character. The expectation that every character should be able to minimally achieve certain tasks runs pretty contrary to that core concept of specialized teamwork. It's enforcing generalization on a system that encourages specialization.

I don't actually think there's anything wrong with that, particularly if that's how a group of players best enjoy the game. Note that includes the "let's all play backstabbing mercenaries" groups; I mean people enjoy Paranoia for a reason, and it's not that much of a stretch to turn D&D into that type of game either.

I'm also aware that my personal preferences are not universal, and several of them are in fact quite discouraged by 3.5's system. Playing a character that is deliberately combat-averse (the telepathic kid, in this instance) in a combat-light D&D campaign is a weird way to play D&D, I'll readily admit. But I also never felt useless, not even if and when combats did break out. But I think playing a character (or a campaign) that is deliberately designed to avoid teamwork is an equally weird way to play D&D. It's not even remotely the norm. It can work, with the right group and in the right campaign. But it's not D&D as it was designed. Likewise, the idea that PCs shouldn't have weaknesses or else they deserve to be punished for it doesn't fit in with the specialized teamwork spirit of D&D. It can be done, but again it needs the right players and the right table. I, personally, would not be considered the "right player" for such a game.

And that's the heart of the issue, right? D&D has this reputation as "all things to all people" but the reality is it is not a universal system that supports all possible RPG playstyles equally. It has a built-in framework (goals and teamwork) and from that framework springs a number of assumptions (such as combat as a universal obstacle, with other pillars typically handled by party specialists; or that characters will be motivated to achieve goals and be motivated to work together to accomplish them). That's D&D as designed. You can (and presumably have, as have we all) introduce tweaks to that framework to play the game differently, and D&D is usually adaptable enough as a system to support those styles of play as well. But to say that the system doesn't have its own personal preferences is a little disingenuous.

 

[Gradine]

'Getting around it' can just mean being carried (literally & figuratively) by the guy that specialized in STR & Athletics - that's the "specialist's" time to shine, too - and that's hardly creative or outside the box...

Exactly my point; that's the kind of problem solving and teamwork that D&D encourages. Which is why I think it's weird to think that a non-athletic character could be seen as a "burden" or a "drag" on the party or anything close to a source of friction, in the same way that an explicitly reluctant, loner or mercenary character by definition would be.

Yeah. I even said as much, myself. Kinda the whole basis of the point I was making. Thus why I'm still unsure if I was the intended quotee.

I might have been lumping your argument together with some of the nonsense up-thread about designing obstacles such that an overly-specialized (and thus possessing of glaring weaknesses) character would be unable to complete them. It was the first example I could think of as a way that an athletically-challenged character would be considered an "albatross around the group's neck". I apologize if I mischaracterized your argument.