>GM can't believe that a player would ever pick a non-maximun optimal build
Goddman it, I just want the aestethics.
>GM can't believe that a player would ever pick a non-maximun optimal build
>GM can't believe that a player would ever pick a non-maximun optimal build
Goddman it, I just want the aestethics.
I have never had a problem with a player building something non-optimal. I do however have issue with players building something that can't actively contribute then growing frustrated when they don't contribute.
Most DMs prefer non minmaxers, try playing some games first before vagueposting.
Not really vagueposting, is just how I felt 20 minutes ago.
I'm getting my little bro to play Pathfinder with my group, and he has his OC (pic related - a big guy in armor that uses his punches as his main weapon against enemies), but every.single.time. I bring up a possible build for the character that follows what my lil bro wanted they say that its not optimized as well as it could be.
Not in a dickish way mind you, but it's a bit frustrating that the expectation is all characters to follow those "Optimized Build Guides" all the time.
>pathfinder
Spotted your problem.
>pathfinder
You realize this is the system where you can make a PC really good or just suck, right
>pathfinder
Have you tried playing D&D?
>Pathfinder
Fundamentally a combat game and if you aren't combatting as hard as possible, you are playing wrong or should play a different system.
>pathfinder
I'm sorry anon but you're literally playing the most optimization powergamer moron game on the market.
Video game-y systems like DnD (yes, pathfinder is still DnD) are built around optimizated player characters. Some classes have to overtly min-max more than others, but it's not a system for making roleplay choices with character building.
My DM knows me well enough that my characters only come in two flavors. Both of which are a hassle to deal with.
Either I've found a cool gimmick I want to run that completely fricks the game balance or I've got a character I desperately want to play even at the cost of being nigh-unplayable.
There is no middle ground.
why don't you use a system that lets you play what you want without having to compromise or ruin the game?
Because the only systems which matter and which have any players are D&D and Pathfinder, so I'm stuck making characters in those systems forever. Don't like it? Go burn down WOTC and Paizo, and I am not being metaphorical.
If you already have a group you can play whatever you want. Branch out.
yikes and cringe
Incompetence will override any other aesthetic you might have thought you had.
Only to those with an autistic obsession with competence.
>an autistic obsession with competence.
Wanting characters in your RPG to be competent is hardly autistic, dude. If anything claiming that the competency is anti-RP is an autistic obsession.
> Wanting characters in your RPG to be competent is hardly autistic
I didn't claim otherwise, you barely literate bozo. You are autistic not because you want competence, but because you believe incompetence overwrites a character's aesthetic.
You can optimize anything without sacrificing aesthetics.
I reward flavor over function by just dropping them things that put them back on par.
I'll take a sub-optimal build that feels like an actual person going through a series of adventures, rather than a perfected stat block that will NOT deviate in the slightest from it's pre-destined path, established before game even started.
Back in the days of 3E, the look of anger I got when I told players I wasn't allowing prestige classes that didn't fit in with the game was wonderful. Why the frick do I care if you NEED those two levels in Shadow Master or whatever? It makes absolute no sense, since we're playing in a setting where they don't exist. Their organization doesn't exist here.
optimizing and roleplaying have nothing to do with each other.
If you think that, you are already lost. I bet you don't take flavorful skills that have no use in an optimal build, outside of making your character a bit more interesting. Why does the shaman have three points in Knowledge (Fine Dining)? Because the Rat Shaman enjoys watching vids, and has gotten real good at making his dumpster divings into something CLASSY.
You didn't understand what I wrote; you barely even read it. You just assumed what I think while waiting for your chance to reply.
They don't have anything to do with each other. You can roleplay well with an effective character, you can roleplay well with an ineffective character, you can roleplay poorly with an effective character, and you can roleplay poorly with an ineffective character.
Don't reply to me again if you're not going to actually read my posts.
While it's purely anecdotal evidence, I have never met an optimizer who roleplayed for shit. I've been in the hobby for 20 years, and been through enough games to know optimizers are just munchkins, and about as fun to play with. If you want to kill the everything and collect all the loot, go play Diablo 2.
And I've never met a "roleplayer" who was actually good at roleplaying.
I have. Ended up in a group with several professional actors and actresses. Fantastic RP. The only problem was that they were all leftists and I couldn't in good conscience keep gaming with them when they spoke ill of Trump and Republicans in general, like the fate of the country doesn't rest on our shoulders. It's too bad they were so mentally ill, because I really liked playing with them.
gr8 b8 m8 r8 8/
I've never met a /tg/ poster who played games
I did, back in 2015.
That because you don't actually play games. You just pretend to.
If they identify as or call themselves optimizers/powergamers, they're going to be shit roleplayers because that isn't their goal.
I find optimizers can be good roleplayers if they use it to make interesting character concepts that standard mechanics don't quite cover or make weaker options into something viable.
Stormwind fallacy is almost 20 years old now and you morons still keep doing it. Anecdotes are bad evidence, all the best roleplayers in my tables were powergamers/minmaxers, but you don't see me making wide claims that people who don't know how to build can't roleplay.
Tbh if someone knows how to optimize it shows they can learn and study a system's fundamentals, whereas someone who doesn't know how o do it is probably too stupid to be enjoyable RP-company, and will ens breaking versimillitude or worse, just shit on sessions because they don't understand how things work. It's a decent litmus test on rules understanding, and I'm never gonna run a game to people who refuse to learn the system's basics.
> Anecdotes are bad evidence
Dimwit take.
An anecdote isn't evidence of what is typical, but a collection of anecdotes is.
>An anecdote isn't evidence of what is typical, but a collection of anecdotes is.
That's the difference between anecdotes and data. However, there isn't any reliable data on whether power gamers are actually better or worse role-players.
>muh fake logical fallacy created by forum morons
Stormwind has always been lazy cope for minmaxers.
"Just because I minmax doesn't mean I can't roleplay!" doesn't change that the vast majority of minmaxers cannot, do not, and have no interest in roleplaying. It's a flimsy veneer, more often than not a complete after thought, to justify the power fantasy of being better at the nuts and bolts of the game. Which in itself isn't a bad thing, except this isn't a competitive wargame anymore, it's a cooperative game of pretend with rules and simulated challenges with friends. And turning that into an invitation to maximize your way to power is pure, antisocial autism.
The mandate of the DM is not to go balls to the wall and provide the most optimal way to defeat his players. His mandate is to provide a challenge commensurate with mechanical power and player skill of his players.
With that in mind, it isn't the mandate of the player to make the most powerful mechanical option to singlehandedly defeat whatever the DM could possibly throw at him. It's to make and maintain a character commensurate with the level of challenge provided by the DM.
>smarter = better roleplayer
Holy cope. 1) Good at groking rules does not a smart person make. 2) I wish this were true, and it were that simple, but it really isn't. The reality is like a normal distribution where the ends plummet off the face of the grid. People who are too smart are generally antisocial or poor at replicating, much less actuating, normal behaviors and emotions. People who are too dumb aren't capable of conceiving behavior which isn't like their own. The best roleplayers tend to fall in the happy medium, people who aren't terribly smart or dumb, but are sociable, genial and self-aware.
To be honest there are differences between minmaxers.
It's easier to justify or accept those that just try to minmax a single class, than those that dip into several classes and weird race combos.
there's also those who minmax objectively worthless classes or concepts, I'm perfectly ok with a dude minmaxing a monk but not someone minmaxing an arcanist, wizard, cleric, druid or pretty much all fullcasters
It's always been right on the money and you shitting out a dumbass wall of text will not change that.
Meanwhile, all of the good roleplayers I've met have been optimizers.
>Playing games where maximal optimal builds are even really a thing
Literally every game with mechanics above free form. No matter what you do and try there will be always an optimal approach to ANY game ever
>pick a ... build
Everyone involved needs to die.
Builds exist in every single game no matter how much you cry.
>*laughs in randomized character creation*
But even as you get a random character, isn't it true that you start doing things that are at least semi-viable with your setup? Builds do exist in a certain sense, whether you want it or not.
I am not a powergamer by any measure, but if I, for example, randomize myself a character that has insanely good Gunslinger-skill, I'll be sure to "stick to my guns".
I see your point and that's a fair assessment.
Had a moron pick a cleric once and then built his character entirely around social skills and Charisma.
Predictably, he was shit at everything and quit the game, albeit after a decent amount of time. I didn't even go that hard on him either, in fact I soft-balled him quite a lot and he still fricked things up. Like, I get that min-maxing is annoying, but the inverse of that is also fricking annoying.
Agreed. Minmaxers are annoying but the moron with 5 INT deciding to play a Wizard for the meme can just frick off.
At least the latter is fairly rare.
>Agreed. Minmaxers are annoying but the moron with 5 INT deciding to play a Wizard for the meme can just frick off.
This is why the restrictions of older editions sometimes were actually great. Up until 3E, you could not play any class if your score for the prime requisite wasn't at least 9 (average), to ensure you could at least fairly do the thing the class does without penalty.
>Up until 3E, you could not play any class if your score for the prime requisite wasn't at least 9 (average), to ensure you could at least fairly do the thing the class does without penalty.
It might be good idea to give the classes ability bonuses outright, instead of relying on morons to play wizard with 5 Int.
I usually DM, but I was invited to a group that was really into 5e.
The DM HATED me because I insisted on playing a monk. I fricking love monks. Yeah I'm not on-par with everyone else, I get that. But he could not wrap his walnut around a player choosing one of the lesser classes. To him, it was like I was playing PHB ranger. I was viable. I just wasn't likely to end up more powerful than god by level 10.
But I cast fist.
Anyway, I think my point is that min-maxers deserve the rope.
Technically anything but one build is suboptimal.
When my players want to live out a certain aesthetic or fantasy archetype that kinda bad in rules as written I just work with them to design special rules that make it work and not be shit. The most common is people wanting to play the classic Aragorn/Taran/Link style unarmoured swordsman.
I once (decades ago) played a D&D thief (I mean, the Basic, Expert, etc... age D&D) as a less-armored fighter, never bothering with lockpicking or pickpocketing, and entering lots of swordfights with guards, because I wanted a castle-wall-climbing, chandelier-swinging, sneak-past-guards-to-get-the-girl, Robin Hood clone.
Had this problem AND the oppossite, when the aestethics happened to BE a maximized numbers build for 1st edition Werewolf. I wanted a wolf-turning-human over a full moon that was actually a tree-hugging shaman with Native American feathers (so, a Stargazer). I didn't care it gave me maximized points in three things - I just wanted to play the T-shirt I was wearing at the moment.
>GM says no minmaxing
>GM gets mad you didn't minmax also still treats all party as minmaxers when introducing encounters way ahead our pay grade and we decide to flee
I feel your pain
If your DM is a power gamer it might be best to find a new group.
Optimizing characters is great. It makes your experience so much more fun because you can do more things and make more interesting character concepts. I've also never had people get upset at me for powergaming, because it's only a problem if you are actively detracting from others' experience.
There are a few key rules for powergaming without causing problems, but you'll be golden if you follow them:
>Present a character concept first, optimize second
A lot of the hatred for powergaming comes from the Stormwind fallacy and the fact that powergamers often focus on builds first, characters second. If you make a compelling character, people won't mind if they're strong.
>Don't hog the spotlight
Another core problem with powergaming is that one OP character can overshadow everyone else. Nobody likes that because they want to play the game too. If you ensure that everyone can contribute in a satisfying manner, you will be fine.
>Be cool, be creative
The final issue I see powergaming can have is that it produces a one-note strategy. Powergamers often rely solely on their builds to do well in combats, but that makes them boring. Nobody wants a PC who spams the same move every round efficiently. It's boring.
Be fun when you powergame. Try to find a new strategy with every fight. Use the environment to your advantage. Hold off an army single-handedly at a choke point. You'll transform from a boring OP isekai protagonist to someone others will look forward to, wanting to see whatever new strategy you pull off this time.