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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arial Black" data-source="post: 7079930" data-attributes="member: 6799649">Really? No-one? Geekmanese does when he says:-"It's just the guy who brings the three dump stat character is usually (but not always) the guy on his iPhone distracted when it's not Combat. Or the guy who's bored during Social encounters and cracks jokes and makes irrelevant side comments during actually engaging improvisational in-character Social interactions.Or he's the guy who, during Exploration, has no useful skills and gets bored because the rogue and wizard is getting most of the spotlight finding traps or creatively using their skills/abilities to overcome challenges so he starts to do stupid things like intentionally and recklessly charging into rooms or whatnot. The three dump stat players typically (but not always ;p) are there to pwn! in fights as power gamers and check out in other situations.Or lastly, I get the three dump stat player who espouse of their role playing ability and then start rationalizing to me that they're Int 8 char is actually a genius but grew up in a bubble and wasn't properly schooled, who's Wis 8 is quick-witted and extremely intuitive but has ADHD and Cha 8 is extremely good-looking with incredible presence but due to low self-esteem doesn't realize it and is anti-social. Child, please...I'd rather have the players that are more interested in the narrative and being able to contribute to the evolution of the story meaningfully."You also say, later in your post:-"What I have found is that those who optimize are more likely to be disruptive"Whether you label it as 'Stormwind Fallacy' or 'False Dilemma', the point remains: there is nothing about being interested/skilled in optimising that makes you less able/willing to roleplay. Certainly the player problems like not paying attention, disruptive play, and all the others are not caused by interest in optimisation nor are they possessed by optimisers to a greater or lesser extent than those who eschew optimisation in favour of role-play.There was a cool example earlier in the thread about the driver who rates anyone driving slower than him as an 'idiot' and anyone driving faster than him as a 'maniac', because he is the one driving at the 'correct' speed. This is not limited to the idea of the 'correct' level of optimisation because it applies to life in general. We assume that what we do is 'normal' and therefore doing it differently is a bit weird, at least until we have the opportunity to re-examine the thing in question.Yesterday I learned that my tongue is weird. My dentist commented. I assumed everybody had a tongue like mine. Oh well, you live and learn.For me, there is no mutually exclusive pressure between optimisation and role-play (I think I'll borrow that shorthand I saw used, where optimisation = OP and role-play = RP). For me, I am interested in and (I think) am skilled at both. It matters to me that I have a well thought out PC both in terms of game mechanics and for characterisation. During character creation I don't do all the mechanics first then think of a personality after, nor do I have a complete personality thought out and start trying to represent that in game mechanics after (not really likely with point-buy anyway). For me it is a process where OP affects the RP and RP affects the OP, bouncing back and forth until I am finally happy with both.And I think this is...normal. The way it should be. I am constantly astonished by players who don't care about the game mechanics and create a PC who can't mechanically do what their concept says they do. I am also constantly astonished by those who create competent PCs in mechanical terms but don't bother with a background worth the name, and who is called 'Dwarf #6' or something.I sometimes hear such a PC's background story and think that I could eat a bowl of Alphabetti Spaghetti and excrete a better background story!And why does your monk have a Wisdom of 11? You've described your monk as being hard to hit like Jackie Chan. Have you not read the monk class description? What do you mean "You don't know what your attack modifier for your Unarmed Strike is"? You've been playing that monk for months! You have a character sheet with a space for that number, and that number is generated by adding your Dex mod to your Proficiency mod, both of which are known and don't change from moment to moment. How is it that you have to ask. Every. Single. Time?[/rant]....anyway....Whatever the assumed 'likelihood' of the stereotypical abilities and flaws of OP focussed gamers over RP focussed gamers, it is absolute tosh. You aren't dealing with a 'likelihood'. You are dealing with an individual. You have to find out what that individual is like, not make assumtions about his attention span based on the fact that he can make a mechanically competent PC.I saw a clip of a male presenter of a martial arts show, goading a female MMA champion into a bout by saying things about 'women aren't as strong as men' and other stuff guaranteed to push her buttons. I think he ended up with broken ribs. The point being that it may (or may not) be true about, say, the 'average' man is stronger/better at fighting than the 'average' woman, bot that information is useless! Even if it happens to be true, the only thing that matters is how strong/good at fighting (or role-playing or optimising) the individual person in front of you happens to be."Oh, this PC has three 16s and three 8s so the player must not be interested in role-play, and probably will be disruptive and be on his phone instead of paying attention and be bored outside of combat and probably cheats on his taxes too. Better kick him out before he even starts."</blockquote>

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