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<blockquote data-quote="Gradine" data-source="post: 7057795" data-attributes="member: 57112">This is basically an &quot;8 kinds of fun&quot; issue. In terms of the Aesthetics of Gameplay, an optimizer will generally be a strong &quot;Challenge&quot;-seeker. Other players at the table may or may not have strong inclination towards seeking Challenge in a tabletop RPG; they may be a Narrative or Discovery seeker. As long as each player's aesthetics of play are being met in roughly equal proportion, it would be doubtful that even an unbalanced party would pose much of an issue (if I don't care about Challenge at all, as a player, it doesn't matter to me if my PC is being outclassed in battle as long as my need for a good Narrative and opportunities for Expression are being met). That's not to say a lack of PC balance can't be problematic; two Challenge-seekers with varying levels of system mastery might create issues if the second player becomes jealous of the spotlight-hogging of the first; just that it's likely to be less of a problem than one might expect.Considering all that, optimization is a &quot;problem&quot; only in the way any issue is &quot;problematic&quot;; when its proponents or detractors engage in one-true-way-ism. I theorize that it's a bigger issue than most because its most extreme proponents take their system mastery as an excuse to act as if they know the only right way to play the game (this is where you get into discussions of flavorful character options being dismissed as &quot;traps&quot;); and its most extreme detractors wear their &quot;I role-play, not roll-play&quot; point of view as a badge of honor that is besmirched by the mere presence filthy min-maxers.Here's the dirty secret: both play styles are not only valid ways to approach and play D&amp;D, but they're also less incompatible than one might expect. To the extent that D&amp;D is fairly combat-focused, as far as TTRPG's go, it probably slightly favors Challenge-seekers (optimizers) over other aesthetics, but not so much that a good DM with a well-designed adventure can't scratch most of those itches in a single session.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gradine, post: 7057795, member: 57112"] This is basically an "8 kinds of fun" issue. In terms of the Aesthetics of Gameplay, an optimizer will generally be a strong "Challenge"-seeker. Other players at the table may or may not have strong inclination towards seeking Challenge in a tabletop RPG; they may be a Narrative or Discovery seeker. As long as each player's aesthetics of play are being met in roughly equal proportion, it would be doubtful that even an unbalanced party would pose much of an issue (if I don't care about Challenge at all, as a player, it doesn't matter to me if my PC is being outclassed in battle as long as my need for a good Narrative and opportunities for Expression are being met). That's not to say a lack of PC balance can't be problematic; two Challenge-seekers with varying levels of system mastery might create issues if the second player becomes jealous of the spotlight-hogging of the first; just that it's likely to be less of a problem than one might expect. Considering all that, optimization is a "problem" only in the way any issue is "problematic"; when its proponents or detractors engage in one-true-way-ism. I theorize that it's a bigger issue than most because its most extreme proponents take their system mastery as an excuse to act as if they know the only right way to play the game (this is where you get into discussions of flavorful character options being dismissed as "traps"); and its most extreme detractors wear their "I [I]role[/I]-play, not [I]roll[/I]-play" point of view as a badge of honor that is besmirched by the mere presence filthy min-maxers. Here's the dirty secret: both play styles are not only valid ways to approach and play D&D, but they're also less incompatible than one might expect. To the extent that D&D is fairly combat-focused, as far as TTRPG's go, it probably slightly favors Challenge-seekers (optimizers) over other aesthetics, but not so much that a good DM with a well-designed adventure can't scratch most of those itches in a single session. [/QUOTE]

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