Why would you want to play *that*??

[ThirdWizard]

A DM who does not do this is just asking for Tiefling Ninjas and Ogre Barbarians.

Don't those combos make sense?

Ogres might not be for all campaigns, but Tieflings can fit in most right? Or have I been playing PS too long?

 

[GSHamster]

I think it is because we want our characters to be unique.

So when you start off as human, you kind of already have a strike against you. Human archetypes and counter-archetypes have all been done before, and it's a bit intimidating to try and carve out a unique human character in the face of thousands of years of storytelling.

It's definitely possible, and skilled players and writers do it all the time, but it is a hard task.

However, it's sort of easier to get uniqueness if the base is unique. There aren't that many half-dragon Kua Toa running around, so it seems like it would be easier to make a unique, memorable character from that base.

As an example, if you play a human barbarian, you have to make him different from Conan in personality somehow. However, Konan the Kobold is already unique, just by being a different race. Being a different race is your hook, the element by which you attain uniqueness.

 

[Psion]

By the by, Warlocks suck, so anyone taking them for the "Kewl powerz" isnt a powergamer, he's a conceptualist. Power gamers make things that actually kick ass in practice, not that sound Munchkinny on a messageboard.

Example: Human Cleric with divine metamagic. <---- Power gamer character

Example 2: Half-Dragon Half-Kobold Fighter <------- total wuss, but sounds cool.

Example 3: Human Wizard/Incantatrix/Arch-Mage <---- Power gamer character

Example 4: Thri-Kreen Psionic Warrior/Psion <---- Total wuss, but sounds cool

Example 5: Human Druid <----------- Power gamer character

Example 6: Succubus Thief <------ Total Wuss, but sounds cool

Example 7: Feral elf Rogue/Fighter <----- Power Gamer character

Example 8: Mind Flayer Paladin <---- Total wuss, but sounds cool

I believe this illustrates the point fully.

Everyone else is praising Andor... I think this post is pretty spot on myself...

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Everyone else is praising Andor... I think this post is pretty spot on myself...

Heck, I'll one-up you and praise them BOTH.

 

[The Shaman]

Play the setting, not the rules.

A DM should give clear guidelines to the players on the scope and theme of the campaign, explaining what race/class combos will be accepted.

Quoted (and emphasized) for truthiness.

 

[Squire James]

It's almost like die_kluge went to the High Temple of Heironeous to explain why Hextor isn't such a bad guy... creating a "weirdo" character has ZERO to do with roleplaying, bad or good. It's a matter of how much a player is willing to invest in WHAT he is rather than WHO he is, I guess. "What" and "who" are both part of role-playing, and the game can handle varying degrees of both.

That being said, I tend to lean toward characters who can reliably enter a large city without rolling initiative...

 

[I'm Cleo]

The OP's obvious original intent was not actually to criticize people for playing complicated character types, but for playing characters as little more than the numbers on the page. I see this as linked with the concerns that some "old-timers" have expressed on the other "do we have too many rules?" thread.

I think one could make a strong argument that the more restrictive rulesets of previous versions required "imagination" (I think was the rather inflammatory language from the other thread) and catered to a more "role-play" style. The new version with expanded character options and a wargamey combat system makes the game more appealing for people who want to play a number-crunching, min/maxing battle arena. It's not that role-playing has changed (my first thought upon reading the other thread was "Well, you can still play how you want, can't you?"), or even that the people who played D&D in the past have changed, but that the population that makes up D&D players now contains more people who want to play crunchy. Of course, those people quite possibly wouldn't have played the game before, so it's really just that there are more people playing, but not in ways that were encouraged by the previous rulesets. So it's not "in my time, players were more imaginative"; it's "in my time, the only people who played wanted to play in imaginative ways, and now the rules allow people to play the game in a number of different ways." There's a distinction there.

Oh, and there's another enormous distinction to be made. It's between saying "I like to play this game in a certain way, and I'm saddened by the fact that it is now more difficult for me to find a group of people who want to play the way I prefer," and "I play this game the way it was and is meant to be played, and I'm saddened by the fact that it is now more difficult for me to find a group of people who want to play in that correct way."

The ultimate answer to the original post is: So? To me, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with some people sitting around a table and trying to make the most powerful combinations of classes and feats, if that's what they want to do and they're having fun.

I'm Cleo!

 

[Odhanan]

Given the commonality of such things as half-dragon paragon dwarven clerics of whatever, fiendish tiefling rogue/rangers, stonechildren scouts or reticulated yellow-bellied water diggers, I have to ask WHY?

I HAVE to believe that people who play these things have no desire to come at them from a role-playing perspective. When I see something that is the cross between an earth elemental and a mortal, the roleplayer in me dies a little bit. "How would I even approach something like that as a role-playing concept?" "What is the motivation of such an individual?"

Because you think this is counter-productive to your role-playing doesn't mean it is for every player. Playing a strange and/or unusual character may present a huge interest for some players, just as playing an incredibly powerful character may represent an excellent RPing challenge in and by itself.

I play an unfettered devil lately with a great knack for combat. He is both violent, disobedient, and extremely effective mechanically, but that certainly doesn't make the RP any less interesting to me or anyone else around the table. On the contrary, I would say.

This whole idea that somehow mechanics reduce role-playing and, by extension, unusual and/or powerful character concepts wouldn't be of interest on a role-playing perspective is really wrong and deeply mistaken to me.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

The OP's obvious original intent was not actually to criticize people for playing complicated character types, but for playing characters as little more than the numbers on the page. I see this as linked with the concerns that some "old-timers" have expressed on the other "do we have too many rules?" thread.

This is a very, very generous interpretation of the OP's original intent. He identified a style of play (non-human, non-Tolkien-race characters) and then proceeded to criticize that style of play by linking it to another style of play (min/maxing, statistically-oriented play) which is more generally demonized. If he did have the (comparatively) benign intent you ascribe to him, he certainly didn't convey it obviously.

I think one could make a strong argument that the more restrictive rulesets of previous versions required "imagination" (I think was the rather inflammatory language from the other thread) and catered to a more "role-play" style. The new version with expanded character options and a wargamey combat system makes the game more appealing for people who want to play a number-crunching, min/maxing battle arena. It's not that role-playing has changed (my first thought upon reading the other thread was "Well, you can still play how you want, can't you?"), or even that the people who played D&D in the past have changed, but that the population that makes up D&D players now contains more people who want to play crunchy. Of course, those people quite possibly wouldn't have played the game before, so it's really just that there are more people playing, but not in ways that were encouraged by the previous rulesets. So it's not "in my time, players were more imaginative"; it's "in my time, the only people who played wanted to play in imaginative ways, and now the rules allow people to play the game in a number of different ways." There's a distinction there.

I don't actually agree that the percentages are different now than they were in the truly old school era. 1e AD&D, as written, was ALL ABOUT the min/max, munchkin, kick in the door and kill everything in sight style of play. A self-proclaimed "thinking man's module" was one in which you had more metagame puzzles than in-game combat encounters. :\

That's not to say many players didn't go above and beyond the simplistic beginnings. AD&D2e's modules and sourcebooks veer wildly in the opposite direction, which indicates at least a perceived dissatisfaction with the kick-in-the-door style.

What's more, the 2e (and later 1e) (and basic D&D) era, say, the mid '80s though the mid '90s, DID change the playerbase considerably - because other games that were better GAMES came out and got a fanbase.

People who cared first and foremost about the quality of the game left D&D for greener pastures as it aged and aged badly. 3.0 brought many of those people back because it is, mechanically, functional in a way that the prototype of D&D/AD&D was not. GURPS, HERO, BRP, Storyteller - all of those systems and many more learned from D&D and improved upon it, and 3e D&D learned from them and improved D&D even more.

People who cared primarily about the story and the roleplaying also drifted away from D&D, because of those early "hack-and-slay gatherings," but unlike those interested in the system, they never had a reason to come back. D&D is no worse, but also no better, for a rp-heavy game than it used to be.

This could mean a slightly lower percentage of dedicated roleplayers in D&D today than in 1990 or perhaps even 1980 (GURPS was already available in '80, IIRC) - because D&D is more attractive to players who like the rules than it used to be, and only as attractive to those who don't.

Oh, and there's another enormous distinction to be made. It's between saying "I like to play this game in a certain way, and I'm saddened by the fact that it is now more difficult for me to find a group of people who want to play the way I prefer," and "I play this game the way it was and is meant to be played, and I'm saddened by the fact that it is now more difficult for me to find a group of people who want to play in that correct way."

The ultimate answer to the original post is: So? To me, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with some people sitting around a table and trying to make the most powerful combinations of classes and feats, if that's what they want to do and they're having fun.

I'm Cleo!

This I agree with.

I'm just not sure which side of the fence the OP falls on.

PS - welcome to the board.

 

[I'm Cleo]

Moogle,

Thanks for the welcome.

On re-reading, I guess my post wasn't that clear. I meant to imply that the original poster was just dressing up the traditional, hackneyed, dead-as-a-doornail, and-fallacious-anyway "role-players are superior to roll-players" argument in "complicated character vs. non-complicated character" language. I guess I was came across as more "benign" than I meant.

Your statement here:

This could mean a slightly lower percentage of dedicated roleplayers in D&D today than in 1990 or perhaps even 1980 (GURPS was already available in '80, IIRC) - because D&D is more attractive to players who like the rules than it used to be, and only as attractive to those who don't.

is pretty much exactly what I meant in my second paragraph, but in far fewer words. The bolded part especially.

I'm Cleo!