have a nice day minmaxers, fricking homosexuals, no matter the system or the game, you're always here to ruin the fun for everyone.
I just want to create a fun story for everyone why you have to come and try to be the perfect being you motherfricker? Flaws are part of good character writting
 |
 Ape Out Shirt $21.68 |
|
Git gud gayet
"How do I solve X?" has always been a cornerstone of D&D and its close derivatives, whether that be killing a gimmick-monster, bypassing a trap, or solving a puzzle. Furthermore, (You) have no permission to demand the players' characters make poor decisions as the DM, which is what demanding they have obvious personality flaws amounts to.
Between these two factors, it is thus desirable to structure your campaign more like a detective novel or stakes-driven superhero comic arc, where the question is not the conventional storytelling "how do you react to X?" but the mechanically-incentivized "how do you solve X?" Because it is not pure collaborative storytelling driven by genre conventions, it's a game with rules driven by the results of systems.
Counter-argument: optimised characters played by driven, intelligent players with a single unified goal results in an extremely boring game. Further, it increases the DM's workload geometrically. Challenging, or even slowing, a peak-efficiency party is a very hard task with gruelling time requirements.
Frick no.
I completely disagree. It means that you can throw whatever the hell you want against the players and actually use proper tactics instead of having to throw one softball after another.
To be fair, if only one of the players is minmaxed and the rest aren’t, it can be very difficult to properly balance encounters, because you functionally have to balance the encounters around the one player instead of the party, making it difficult for the rest to meaningfully contribute.
If it didn't create enormous flaws it would be called maxmaxing
How fricking shit does a take have to be for a fricking namegay like to style on you? OP is a homosexual. As always.
Don't be disingenuous. Such characters only ever have "enormous flaws" in areas of the game mechanics the player wasn't interested in engaging with anyways, thus rendering them irrelevant as flaws.
So 1st level rogues should try to cast magic and mages should try to steal?
That’s obviously moronic. Of course I’m not going to try and do things my character isn’t good at. That’s for the other party members.
>So 1st level rogues should try to cast magic and mages should try to steal?
If they're some hybrid class that's meant to do both, yes. And if you rolled such a class but ignored one half of it, making you better with the other half than classes dedicated to that exact thing because the rules aren't fricking balanced, you can go frick yourself.
>Of course I’m not going to try and do things my character isn’t good at.
Yes, but your character should have some things right out of character creation that they are "merely" okay at, giving them room to improve and grow.
Yes, but people try to act like the "min" has any meaning. It doesn't. You don't sacrifice anything you want to minmax a character, you just make something stupidly powerful (usually forcing the rest of the group to limit themselves to whatever meta there is just to keep up or become irrelevant) with no real downside for you.
in the 90 part of a group/club world. The head GM let any GM make "cursed" magic items. How quickly the players trade them around so the bad part were things the player using it were bad at anyway
That's why minmaxing has a negative connotation to it. It's still called minmaxing though
The way to challenge Superman is to give him a problem he can't punch in the face. This is why his greatest foe is a smug, unpowered human billionaire genius.
You are one of the cancers destroying this hobby. And probably every other hobby you touch.
Also, is right. Learn what minmaxing actually means.
>come and try to be the perfect being you motherfricker?
>try
Why are you implying it takes effort on my behalf to be perfect?
>tfw i got shitted on for making flawed character but now everyone cries about how broken my characters are now.
I see you are also a player of non-optimized-but-still-good builds.
Pick a system and group that fits the notions of what you're expecting.
This is the correct answer.
Also this. I run GURPS, and it basically mandates you take flaws. Well, you don't have to but those who do will have more strengths along with their weaknesses.
I've had players say to me that it's their favourite part, they LIKE being able to represent how fricked up their characters are in head or body with the system.
Sorry for party rocking
>have a nice day minmaxers,
Can't.
Too optimized for survival
tG
traditional GAMES
I'm here to WIN
Have you tried not playing DnD?
Minmaxing is impossible in most versions of D&D, gamelet. Especially 5E, where the single most ~~*broken*~~ build is still only marginally better than a character where the only attempt to game the system is picking a class and race that synergize and making sure your highest score is the right one for your class.
So that's a no then
>Complains about a non-D&D problem.
>Sperges out about D&D.
Please, go outside.
The term minmax was popularised by d&d if not originated from it. As you said 5e has very little in the way of minmaxing, but even then you see polearm master fighters and paladin warlock, or paladin sorcerer.
Generally d&d and its derivatives (which form most of the market) suffer from minmaxing because some choices are straight up bad. Minmaxing in Call of Cthulhu will bite you in the ass eventually. Minmaxing in cyberpunk is expected since you SHOULD specialize in something.
Of course, a game like d&d is also a minmaxing game. There are choices you shouldnt make, or otherwise you will be useless, this is doubly important in 5e since one frick up means your character is gone (choosing one of the trap subclasses) of course that is bad design, but its dnd and you dont play dnd because its a good game. Therefor if you want to play a roleplay focused game, dont play dnd.
Have you tried not playing DnD?
>Videogames don't exist.
Stop being wrong and stop being a moron.
Just google it
Min maxing is a prevalent in d&d and essential. You're just a moron. Get good b***h.
Every RPG ever made is at its best when every player at the table has high levels of system mastery. You being an inferior character builder is your fault, nobody else's.
Protip: You're wrong.
>I just want to create a fun story for everyone
so go write a book. Games are about winning.
TOTAL WAACgay DEATH
read the books you mononeuronal 5e player
>perfect being
Aren't minmaxxer characters, by definition, autistically hypercompetent in a single field (often combat) to the detriment of all others? Hence why you hear terms like "dump stat" from them so often.
And where'd you get that pic of me?
>I just want to create a fun story
Write a book then.
Don't run ivory tower (or derivative) games Black. Sure, all games have a degree of powercreep but at least using games not designed with having that as a feature is a massive step in the right direction. To be safe run either something totally unbalanced and clunky with full random chargen (eg: ken st. andre stormbringer), something with full unified mechanics (eg: fate) or something with gm full control on curating player options (eg: gurps) although this last one relies on your foresight in understanding what combination could be abuseable.
Little Timmy options are a terrible terrible idea for a roleplaying game that constricts what kind of character you can play based on the feats and levels you take. Genuinely vida tier.
I don't think Ivory Tower Design and Timmy options are deliberately that bad, but rather that the philosophy was that when you find out something is bad you don't try to fix it. Toughness is legendarily worthless in 3.x, while Pathfinder, 4e and 5e have made the most obvious fix to make their versions of the feat at least worth considering: make them scale with level.
>I don't think Ivory Tower Design and Timmy options are deliberately that bad, but rather that the philosophy was that when you find out something is bad you don't try to fix it.
but thats fundemental to the design
rather than character building being about expression its about showcasing system "mastery" by not falling for noob traps. this makes people feel intelligent for overcoming the bare minimum hurdle, without scaring them away with actual depth/complexity
>muh ivory tower game design
myth. this is the "i was only pretending to be moronic" cop out excuse they gave once feral morons broke their rules and demanded and explanation for wtf they were thinking inn writing this shit...
Is it still minmaxing if the minmax character is shit?
OP just fricking target their mins, if your Barbarian has a 2 in int hit them with an int save.
Ahhh, the decker and mage spending all their edge to climb rocks and avoid devil rats.
Soooo... cathartic.
I wouldn't know, my group uses rolled stats
>Rolled stats
Literally subhuman
>Picking stats
Literal beast not even related to humanity
Only true weak pansy losers pick stata.
Are you scared of having to rp a stat under 8?
Are unable to run a game with a guy with sub 10s and another all over 15?
Pathetic slop hole of a player
Hi hello butthole GM who does not understand other peoples points of view. Allow me to show you a glimpse into player mindsets:
WE WOULD LIKE TO FRICKING HAVE A CHARACTER SURVIVE AN ADVENTURE FOR FRICKING ONCE, AND WE ALL KNOW YOUR BALANCING IS BULLSHIT. NO, WE FRICKING KNOW YOU AREN'T GONNA GO EASY ON US, NO, WE DO KNOW THAT EVEN IF WE MAKE WEAKER SHIT YOU'LL PUNISH US, AND NO AGAIN, WE KNOW VERY WELL THAT YOU WILL NOT MAKE THE FIGHTS ACTUALLY BALANED FOR OUR WEAKLING ASS AND YOU'LL MAKE A BIG SHOW BECAUSE BIG COOL
Poor you who doesn't fricking use alternative powerful options to impede process or can't beat the 28 AC warforged with shit stats in everything else. What a bother, have a nice day.
My flaws are hubris & a desire for physical & mental ascendancy. Thinking that the flaws you have can only exist on a character sheet is backwards thinking. Just because I have system mastery & make good out of character decisions for my stats & abilities doesn't mean that my character isn't gonna make dogshit choices on purpose for roleplaying reasons.
>not using 3d6 in order
KWAB
Frick you too homie. Armor rules are bullshit. Magical item limits are your fetish, no one likes it. We will keep shopping by the fountain to spite you. No amount of ‘random fountain goblins’ or village fires will change that. Stop being a gay.
have a nice day storyshitters, fricking homosexuals, no matter the system or the game, you're always here to ignore the fricking rules and start larping.
I just want to play a fricking game with everyone why you have to come and try to be a method actor you motherfricker? Gameplay leads to interesting stories
the 'min' part of minmaxers is the flaws, you stupid Hutt-adjacent lardbeast. If every problem you give your players looks like a nail, of course they're going to build the best fricking hammers they can. Diversify the challenges you give your players.
also, I'm here to optimize AND have a fun story. Git gud.
This.
Have some kids get lost during a festival in-between adventure or some shit and watch thunderwiener the barbarian think outside "me smash".
Optimisers and "minmaxers" tend to be highly invested in their characters and the world.
>build a stupidly OP character
>only use a fraction of your power, let the other players and GM have fun
>when the final battle comes, give a World of Cardboard Speech and stop holding back
This is how it's done.
>tfw accidently stumble your way into having minmaxed characters so you have to actively gimp yourself into not being a fricking wave of destruction.
It's not my fault I can find out ways to utilize rules that I can easily manipulate into my favor/the systems I play in I can easily make a strong as frick character.
Play a system that rewards the players for acting on flaws then.
I had such a miserable time with an unoptimized character in pathfinder when it first came out, now I only minmax so I can just roleplay and do well in combat when needed.
Kick them from the table and have their character choke to death while eating a winner. That's what I do with all the idiots that I don't want to invite anymore. Life's too short to waste it with people you don't like, especially when you have a say in that.
I think if the entire party are all maxed up and fricking ready to rumble then the DM knows they can throw three Bahamuts and that's the challenge if they want to try that shit, because the players know the game so well and know how to construct such powerful characters that the DM can also let loose.
It becomes a bigger issue when you have a group 4 players and 3 of the players make balanced characters, as the game intended, and then the 4th character is min/maxed to such a degree that the encounters have to be balanced around this one PC or else.
I'll use a personal example from Pathfinder 1e, I was the noob DM and we had a player who played a Fighter Archer. His famous lines included, "Give us a real challenge, DM," after killing an enemy by dealing 270+ damage in a single round of combat and, "I could always make this character stronger, I just want to make it fair for you!"
Without a single magical feat (I had to triple check this shit every time), the Archer PC could ignore/bypass almost every defensive spell (Wall of Wind for example), bypass magical damage immunities and resistances (could enchant his arrows to be anything from ice to holy on a whim) and used Multishot + Powershot to unload frickloads of damage.
Then we had a Wizard, best for AoE as always, and our second hardest single target hitter was a Barbarian, then a Monk then an Alchemist. They all dealt good damage, collectively 70+ dmg a round, but it was nothing compared to the one archer.
So when the party infiltrated a monastery, fought enemy monks who could catch arrows, the Archer PC's weakness was revealed: he had no backup other than to shoot arrows. No secondary weapon, no bombs or traps or anything, and he gave up immediately when the enemy caught his arrow because there was nothing he could do. And I felt like shit doing this, and I know I was wrong to do this but hey, noob DM mistakes, but also this is when I feel min/maxing is at its worst.
>So when the party infiltrated a monastery, fought enemy monks who could catch arrows,
You can only deflect arrows once per round and it gets shut down by flat-footing them.
You are correct, but therein lies the problem. The Archer combined Rapid Shot with Manyshot to get his DPS output. I just realized I fricked up the feat names .
Rapid Shot lets you get a bonus attack, so at his level he had 2 Atks a round + Rapid Shot, then the Manyshot feat allows you on your First Attack, and first attack only, to shoot 2 Arrows at the same time.
>Feat Description: "If the [first] attack hits, both arrows hit. Apply precision-based damage (such as sneak attack) and critical hit damage only once for this attack. Damage bonuses from using a composite bow with a high Strength bonus apply to each arrow, as do other damage bonuses, such as a ranger’s favored enemy bonus. Damage reduction and resistances apply separately to each arrow.">
So by catching that first arrow shot, his DPS was literally cut in half. And that alone, having his DPS cut from 200+ dmg to 100+ was enough for him to get salty and say he's rolling up a new character.
This is not how all min/maxed players play nor act, 100% agreed, but this is how a Munchkin acts, which I think is the core difference between someone who is optimized in a battle focused TTRPG system and someone who acts like you just twisted their grandmother's nipples.
This. You got it right on the nose. This is the kind of shit that gets to me and that I hate. You even involved him with what sounds like a fun plan and he was a salty ass motherfricker about it still.
>It becomes a bigger issue when you have a group 4 players and 3 of the players make balanced characters, as the game intended, and then the 4th character is min/maxed to such a degree that the encounters have to be balanced around this one PC or else.
I was in a Shadowrun game where one player had a pool of 17 dice with his semi-auto pistol, maxed sneaking and perception, put some points in palming and locksmithing and dumped almost everything else. Qualities also handpicked to play a hitman, including a code of honor he literally named Assassin's Creed.
Actual session was mostly social infiltration where we used him as a fashion model with me being the presenter. He didn't really get to use any of the shit he optimized his character for.
Next week he canceled shortly before the session and the week after he remembered he was invited to a family party that was more important. Him not feeling catered to was probably a factor. Group fell apart for good when another player went to Japan.
>pathfinder
found your problem, bro.
This is why most modern D&D sucks. The whole idea of builds and player power over the game completely breaks it. It only works when the DM reigns everything in, or the whole group is there in agreement that they won't break the game.
>story
>writing
You're the homosexual here and it's all your own fault.
Every min maxxer I have ever met was mentally ill and coping through power fantasy. If you want to get rid of min maxxers you could either
>kick them
>help them fix their lives
Mental illness is purely from bodily deficiencies, so putting them on a proper diet, getting them a gf, getting them a good job should fix them.
Also does anyone else notice that min maxxers struggle to stick to one character concept? My local min maxxer changes his character motivation and personality nearly every other session.
t. projecting schizoid
Anyone can go on a proper diet but getting a gf and a good job requires someone else to make the decision and you can't control what other people do.
>he doesn’t matchmakermax
> Mental illness is purely from bodily deficiencies, so putting them on a proper diet, getting them a gf, getting them a good job should fix them.
Why don’t you just drill holes in their skulls to release the evil spirits?
>minmax my character
>plenty of flaws with no mechanical benefit
>makes him fun and interesting
>roleplays better than OP (low bar when OP doesn't play)
>make him a kobold, not necessarily because I played a human last game, but because I know it would make nogames seethe
Sorry for party rocking.
>minmax my character
>plenty of flaws with no mechanical benefit
You're moronic.
>Flaws are part of good character writting
My flaw is that I'm massively arrogant due to being better than everyone else.
If I didn't min/max to actually be better than everyone else, I'd just be delusional.
Minmaxing is fine for two reasons. One is that the GM can always resolve it (though admittedly it's a bit of a faux pas). The other option is that by focusing on one thing, there are weaknesses in others.
For instance, I have a character in my ACKS game who has an AC of 20 when she fully buffs. For consideration, an adult dragon has an AC of 10. She also has good HP totals (40 as compared to an adult dragon's 50). She also has pretty decent saves. That said, if I need to kill her, I can do so easily - she doesn't have a very high to hit, so she'd be hard-pressed to deal with a group of high-armor baddies. She has no resistance to combat maneuvers. She will do poorly against spells, especially spells that don't require saves. And so on.
The real problem with minmaxers is when one character is minmaxing, but the others are not. Then it becomes an issue because it's particularly difficult to balance those encounters. So the trick is to have the baddies fight intelligently and deal with the weaknesses of the players. Alternatively, you go the ascended route and realize that TTRPGs aren't an adversarial game and let the broken player enjoy his build.
>The real problem with minmaxers is when one character is minmaxing, but the others are not.
Which is almost always, yeah.
>Then it becomes an issue because it's particularly difficult to balance those encounters.
Exactly. In any situation where minmaxing is noticeable, what usually ends up happening is that one player is either immune to anything enemies can throw at him (rendering any and all combats pointless and devoid of challenge) or the rest of the party can't contribute (meaning all combats are down to that character succeeding or it's a wipe). Neither situation is good.
> So the trick is to have the baddies fight intelligently and deal with the weaknesses of the players.
Minmaxed characters don't have weaknesses, at least not related to anything within their "sphere" (which is almost always combat). And as mentioned before, typically anything that can even scratch the minmaxer is usually enough to paste the rest of the party in one hit. Baddies "fighting intelligently" usually translates to "focus down the obviously disproportionate threat, then mop up" which, again, leads to an unfulfilling session.
>Alternatively, you go the ascended route and completely cater to one player while the rest get to watch his character get wanked off at every opportunity
I don't allow that, because TTRPG's aren't adversarial games, they're cooperative ones, which means the players need to be contributing on roughly an equal level.
I like to add where if that minmax'ed character does have some glaring weakness, and you exploit it, that also is a pretty shitty experience too. It's really a lose/lose situation.
Oh 100000% agreed. And it's not like Pathfinder 2e has gotten any better, there's a literal feat that allows a player to bypass any survival check to find enough food to feed the entire party in any plane in existence, with the strong implication including the Plane of Fricking Fire.
>Planar Survival: [...] For instance, you can forage for food even if the plane lacks food that could normally sustain you.>
I asked my players not to take this and they thankfully decided not to take it. But also I'll take it a step further- A lot of these DnD/Pathfinder games will also punish you for not going "Optimal".
In AD&D if you had exceptional stats then oh shit, that's awesome, do your best not to die like a fricking idiot. But you could go to stats as low as "7" and not be penalized. You didn't get crazy benefits, but you weren't shit to be tossed out.
In DnD 5e, how many "funny characters" have you rolled that didn't have 14+ in their prime requisite stat to function with that character? Making a "funny character" in 5e that has <10 in all stats might as well be a walking liability unless every player is a walking liability. If that singularly player is shit they won't have fun, no one else will have fun, and the only thing that is left is Thespian20 RPing threesomes stuff.
Try building a character in Pf2e like a Paladin/Champion who is agile instead of brute force, it literally doesn't work. Dexterity cannot give you damage, only Strength can. If you wear Full Platemail you get +6 AC but you cannot get any Dex Mods because the Armor system is based around "6 AC" as the maximum number. Leather Armor gives +1 AC and has a +5 Dex AC Mod. But also you can bypass most of the penalties of Heavy Armor if your Strength Score is >X.
This is why you don't play DnD.
> In AD&D if you had exceptional stats then oh shit, that's awesome, do your best not to die like a fricking idiot. But you could go to stats as low as "7" and not be penalized
You literally had bonus XP for having a high (16+) primary stat(s), and stats requirement to play some classes. Being "less than" for rolling poorly at character generation is the literal reason over 20 years later I seethe at the idea of rolling stats.
Not that it matters now since I don't GM D20 stuff anymore, but you get the gist.
Fair point. I got no counter argument to that, that is pretty shite.
Holy shit you're a dumb fricking Black person. If you read my post, which you clearly didn't because you're either ESL, a Black person, or just a fricking moron, you'll see that I enumerated the ways I could stomp my minmaxing player if I so choose, which would be hard countered by the counter-spelling Dark Elf Commando, or that the baddie wouldn't see the Serpentman Infiltrator coming in. Just because YOU are too stupid to realize this doesn't mean the rest of us have this problem. If you don't know your players and need to just throw numbers at them, then consider a different hobby, like wargaming, or video games.
>Flaws are part of good character writting
I find this statement generally comes with skewed perceptions of what a flaw is. Characters often have flaws that are overlooked by jealous dotards who want to complain about the character being better than theirs.
>complain about the character being better than theirs.
>in a cooperative game
This literally never happens
Unfortunately no, this does happen. I can cite examples and the players who do this kind of shit are usually pretty shit.
Back in the early days of 3.0, I would complain if, through no fault of my own, another character who had their own shtick would be better at what I do than me.
Higher base stats due to good rolls and the fickleness of the d20 used to do that. And through a friend insisting on playing Solasta, I get the relive that again...
Pass me the thieves' tools.
Talk to your player. If they won't budge, kick them out. No part of this process involves whining on Ganker.
What I do to foil power gamers and chronic optimizers is change the objectives and resolution mechanics at random intervals, without giving the group time to re-spec.
> I play a tabletop version of Calvinball
I am genuinely curious to know how it would look like in practice. Changing objectives (anything but a race to 0hp) is something I love, but resolution mechanics?
Please, elaborate.
NTA, but you can say "Okay, this wraith will hit on an odd number so long as it's above a 11."
> You can invalidate the player's choices and rely on the fickleness of the dice.
Oh, I thought it'd be more creative like pic related. Like:
> "To hit this wraith, you need to perform a Religion Skill check which unlock one of those cards like [pierce its heart], which, when consumed, allow any melee piercing attack to hit without penalty. Without them, you get a -15 to hit and a counterattack with +15 on a miss. 5 hits regardless of damage kills it. Every wraith is unique and has to be drawn cards like these separately. You may make a check to discard and draw again."
> [Pierce its heart]
> [Crush its ribcage]
> [Slash its chains]
> [Disperse its shadows (daylight / radiant damage)]
> [Burn its Robes (fire / acid damage)]
> [Expel its essence (necrotic / force damage)]
> [Mess the very air it occupies (shock / frost damage)]
Not what I meant, still useful. Gave me the previous idea.
I mean that was just an example. Yeah you can do that too.
So there's a 'game' that's really more of an art/improv comedy exercise called "1000 Blank White Cards" where you get a 'deck' of blank index cards and every player writes/draws shit on them, and if a card has a rule on it it changes the rules of the game. It's basically the most 'Calvinball' a tabletop game can get.
Quite honestly couldn't give a frick about minmaxxers I'll just play off their mins. BUT it becomes a problem is when that b***h with a Level 3 character starts telling everyone about the 'build' they're gonna make and bragging about how OP it is and making players feel inferior for their unoptimized RP builds.
Like many things, it really only becomes a major problem when the minmaxer is being a dick about it, but there’s also a lot of scenarios where minmaxers don’t want the “mins” to actually negatively affect them. So you end up with situations like described in
Where the minmaxer not being perfectly optimal at the thing they maxed in was enough to functionally make them quit the game.
Why don't you just ban them from your group instead of whining here?
>I want to create a story
Write a book Black person
This is why puzzle oriented campaigns are the best. Shit cant be bruteforced all the time or looked up in spells as the end all be all solutions.
Reward players for using spells and their builds during encounters or some choice stuff, but also reward them for their own merits and not rely on checks all the time.
Granted one criticism is sometimes solutions can be too obtuse or one dimensional. But when its nailed just right its fantastic
Gary Gygax ran tournament modules for D&D at conventions, there has always been an element of player skill and system mastery to roleplaying games. The first party to clear the Tomb of Horrors used a shitton of hirelings to trigger the traps for them