What is your stance on the “power gamer” archetype?
As a self admitted one I want my character to be good at their job, and if a game system interests me I’ll plan tactics and combos that complement my build in order to be as effective as possible. I do roleplay still and interact with the game and all that, but I REFUSE to play in a way that would make me useless or on the backfoot
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I think they are missing the point but I also think that in some games (those where the rulebooks are mostly spells and combat) the point is easy to miss.
But also I don't really play those games anymore so they also aren't my problem.
The point of a game is to complete objectives, whether those are provided by the game or by your character's goals. Effective characters are better at achieving objectives than ineffective characters.
The point of a role playing game is to have fun with a medium that is a unique blend of game, acting, and narrative art. Naturally everyone has a preference for one of the legs of the tripod, and some games have a clear emphasis on one, as well. A preference for one shouldn't preclude participation in other core activities, but of the archetypes who are obsessed with one of the legs of the stool to the detriment of the others, it is only the rules obsessed power gamer that claims to be doing it right while others are doing it wrong.
Obviously you can power game and still do the other elements of a role playing game, but asked to judge the archetype in general, my standard impression is of a person who prefers combat mechanics to the point of excluding all other interactions. Having a character that is mechanically strong is not typically the definition if a "power gamer". There are generally other implications that go along with that term, such as being a rules lawyer or being generally unpleasant to deal with. No one uses "power gamer" as a compliment, after all, it has a negative connotation that isnt applied to anyone who happened to distribute their stats effectively.
The combat rules are the easiest part of any system, they require less creativity and less courage to pretend to be Falstaff the wizard, so it makes sense that there is an archetype of gamer drawn to that.
I can't be bothered doing the next 200 posts where you claim that acting and storytelling aren't part of rpgs, so I'll skip it and point out that Gygax clearly describes acting in character in the AD&D handbook, and Mentzer describes role playing as acting without a script. "Role playing" was never well explained by early books but Gygax did not consider combat to be role playing, but part if the overall structure of the role playing game experience. The lack of explanation in the earliest d&d rulebooks has been fodder for people who would rather play a combat board game for decades.
No. The point of a game is what I said it is, and not what you said it is. Stop arguing.
Gary told me the point is to have fun.
That's OK anon. As someone who actually read all the old rulebooks and things the designers of rpgs wrote and said about them, I know they're on my side. I don't actually need him to acknowledge that.
Some people just need a procedure to follow when they don't know what to do. Early RPG designers didn't know that people needed the concept of role playing explained to them. They thought that what people needed was rules procedures for resolving conflict while roleplaying, so that is what they wrote. It wasn't until Mentzer that a D&D book had a "what is a role playing game" section that actually explained clearly what the designers thought role playing meant, but later writing and interviews with people like gygax and wesley show that it didn't mean "following rule procedures for dungeon crawling". The issue is that nerds like to follow procedures. If Gary had had the foresight to know that the 10 year old kids who would be playing the game years later would need role playing procedures he might have written some down, but as it stands the pioneer in the field was not a particularly good writer; He had a lot of interesting ideas, but he was never good at clearly discussing game design, and he never attempted to put in one place his thoughts about rpg design until his book "role playing mastery". As such nerds were left with dozens of pages of rules describing how to move through dungeons and steal treasure, and a few lines of text telling them to "role play". It shouldn't surprise anyone how that played out.
Obsessing over combat rules is the easiest thing about rpgs because it is usually the only thing with a proper step by step procedure for executing properly. You just follow the steps. Anything after that is a mini game in optimising. The failure of early designers to provide similar procedures for role playing has lead to, among some players, the wholesale denial of what the designers meant by it.
Gary is wrong and fun is a buzzword. Developers don't know anything about their games.
>Developers don't know anything about their games.
Maybe you're playing it wrong : 3
Wrong.
I don't care enough about you to fight about it. Have a nice life.
You lose and my life is better than yours.
K : 3
seethe 🙂
Acting and storytelling aren't part of RPGs. If the developers disagree, they're wrong.
The problem with all these well considered things you said that I only sorta read is that there's a lot of people who very genuinely approach the topic like this
and that's just the end of it with them, they cannot be dissuaded or worked with
You can't dissuade me because my opinion is the correct one and I'm more intelligent, attractive, successful, and charismatic than you.
none of this matters if you aren't whiter than him
No. Frick off with that. We're playing a game, not crowd-sourcing a book. The GM is setting up a situation, and the players get to navigate it within the rules. If anything, it's a puzzle.
If you don't like setting up puzzles, and watching players solve your puzzles, you shouldn't be a GM.
Acting and story-telling are all much appreciated window dressing, but they are not the game. The game is the mechanics. Players have a list of things they can do according to the rules, and the GM has all the rules available to craft an encounter with, such that it challenges the players to apply what they can do in fun and creative ways to solve the encounter.
The moment you mistake the story as being more important than the mechanics, you cease to play the game. Now you're just wanking.
Imagine you're playing a game of Monopoly and everyone decides that the game would be more interesting if squatters took over the top player's properties and he had to wait ten turns before he could evict them and gain any benefits from the property. What the frick are you doing? Why are you playing Monopoly if you're going to make up bullshit?
>B-but the designers said they meant this!
>The designers meant that!
I don't care. It's feel-good bullshit. If they really believed that the game was about cooperative storytelling, they wouldn't have made rules to begin with. That doesn't NEED rules. You can just sit down with your mates and talk about what you think would be interesting in various scenarios.
If I sit down to play D&D, or GURPS, or Rogue Trader, or whatever the frick, then I'm here to play a game. If there's a good story attached to the game, that's ideal, but I want the rules to matter. If they didn't, I wouldn't have bought the rulebook. I would have just bought a normal book, written by someone way more talented than the GM, and read it. Then I would have laid on my couch and imagined myself doing cool shit in that story instead.
>we aren't telling a story we are
>*describes things that happen on his story*
Ahuh.
i think you're missing the point if you think there's one single point to miss, different people, different games
I find they range from "someone I disagree with but dont mind as a player" to "someone I find actively tiresome to deal with and who reduces my enjoyment of the game", depending mostly on how hard they insist on never being at a disadvantage and what constitutes a disadvantage to them
Any advantage you don't take is one you hand to your opposition. What do you accomplish by doing that?
since as GM i am omnipotent, uh, no.
Wrong.
you're only an omnipotent gm if you're playing a solo rpg
It depends on the extent and how it fits in with the rest of the group, right? A lot of the time, someone powergaming will end up being someone tiring to deal with, as in
A big part of the fun for me in a game is playing around with unusual rules interactions or edge cases, whether that ends up being efficient or inefficient, but I think it's important to balance something like that against what the other people in the group are like and what they're trying to get out of the game.
spbp
I've played with power gamers I didn't dislike playing with. I'm married to one. When the power of the character is a character trait and a means to engage with the game, rather than an end all of its own; it's fine. Playing experts can be fun and appropriate. But the vast majority of power games I've met are obnoxious.
They'll engage with the game purely from their mechanical POV and treat roleplaying as a necessary evil to do what they really enjoy, which is theory craft. Players who couldn't tell you what their character's surname is but will go on at lengths about how taking an extra point in some deadass skill is going to let their build come online, like it's a fricking mmo. Doubly bad if they are powergamers because of a defect of character: low self-esteem, narcissism, social anxiety, daddy never told them he was proud of them, etc. The former group I have conflicts with, and they tend to make me enjoy the game less. But the latter group reduce my enjoyment to zero, they are not welcome at my table, I do not play at theirs.
In a perfect world there'd be a dating app for power gamers so they could all play in each others games. It'd be in everyone's self-interest, as no one enjoys the company of a power gamer more than another power gamer, except if they're the aforementioned compensating type.
Real people don't set out to be bad at things. Making an ineffective character is poor roleplaying.
So you've never made a mistake or a poor decision, huh anon?
Where did I say that? Please screenshot the post.
You're either arguing this in bad faith or terminally autistic, and either way I'm glad I dont play games with you
So I didn't actually say that I've never made a mistake or a poor decision? You admit you were lying?
No autistanon, I was trying to make a point about how real people very commonly do sub-optimal things whether they like it or not, because real life isn't a perfect simulation where everyone can be assumed to act as efficiently as possible at all times
Right, but no one intentionally does suboptimal things. So you shouldn't in a game, either.
NTA but...
>no one intentionally does suboptimal things
>he says while sitting on an underwater Indian basket weaving forum instead of being productive getting skills/exercising/cleaning/reading/literally ANYTHING else would be more optimal than this.
So I mean, you are intentionally doing a sub optimal thing...
>he doesn't know
>he doesn't know that I don't know
Answer me.
I was doing something IRL you fricking turbo sperg, not everyone spends every waking moment here
Apology not accepted. Do not keep me waiting again. Final warning.
The point is that the in-universe character does not have nearly as much knowledge of what works and how well as the player, especially as the game distances itself from the in-universe processes. Quite often, power gamer tricks are insane non-sequiturs and require sometimes-literally divine luck from an in-universe perspective.
In D&D 5e, the Warlock/Sorcerer requires an immensely magical creature as an ancestor and a deal with another immensely magical creature. Then the "Coffeelock" case requires you to REFUSE TO SLEEP PROPERLY indefinitely, which is only practical for Elves who don't truly sleep and only "rest" four hours.
Only a few people are capable of it, you have to FIND a valid patron, then bet your life and often afterlife on that POTENTIAL patron being what they proclaim and appear to be.
No, the point of a game is what the makers said it is, and as such Gygax's description holds primacy over your autism. And I say this as a 3.5aboo who habitually works backward from the mechanics!
Your reaction to coffeelock complete with an all caps spergout tells me you're a limp wristed b***h. Literally none of the roleplay is an issue if you're remotely creative. And if they're abusing the mechanics and you don't like it have a conversation like a grown adult instead of seething on /tg/. Or stop making long rests rare if the issue is they can still function without sleep unlike the rest of the party.
>Your reaction to coffeelock complete with an all caps spergout tells me you're a limp wristed b***h. Literally none of the roleplay is an issue if you're remotely creative.
Not if you started as a single-class Sorcerer and the DM is not giving you a patron. And it's massive risk-taking behavior with a side of snowflakism. Gets even worse with a Paladin dip to unload Smites in bulk.
>And if they're abusing the mechanics and you don't like it have a conversation like a grown adult instead of seething on /tg/.
The point is that the power gamer move strains believability for an in-universe actor.
>Or stop making long rests rare if the issue is they can still function without sleep unlike the rest of the party.
It's not about functioning without sleep, it's about stockpiling spell slots. A Sorcerer 2/Warlock 1 Elf Coffeelock can generate 19 1st-level spell slots on a downtime day that stick until expended.
Out-of-universe rational decisions. A much harder example of the problem is the Trollblooded Gheden in D&D 3.5, the former giving a small bit of Regeneration which works by converting damage to Nonlethal on the basis that the wound can't "stick", while the latter confers immunity to Nonlethal damage by not feeling pain. The mechanics only result in immunity to any HP damage but Fire and Acid because of exact autistic rules adherence, when it makes absolutely no sense to be completely unaffected by a sixty-pound hammer to the head by the in-universe basis of the mechanics.
Level 1 spells at character level 3 aren't worth being scared shitless and being b***hmade about roleplaying. It's entirely possible to pull this off and you thinking it's insane and snowflakey that an outer power may take interest and offer a deal to a talented individual to get them under their wing makes me wonder if you actually play games.
This is enough for a leveled spell for every round of every fight with a Bonus Action spell on some by the explicitly-stated expectations of the game. More damage against more targets, or no-questions-asked mook removal with Sleep. Every time there's leftovers, you bank more Sorcery Points to turn into more spells later.
It completely rewrites the attrition expectations, and it only gets worse over time. If either side is Celestial, these slots can be used on Cure Wounds to extend the warping with an arbitrarily large stockpile of HP, though even without False Life and eventually Vampiric Touch make the Coffeelock themselves absurdly more durable than they're remotely supposed to be.
No, they are not. The game rules are an abstraction, not the actual in-universe process. Especially in games like Exalted where exactly what numbers apply is openly up for fudging and all the official npcs are terrible. To say nothing of the unspeakable horrors that mechanics like XP by combat do to a setting.
Yes they are.
Characters are aware of game mechanics.
If that were true no PC would ever make it past 1st level, let alone one who goes out of their way to contact any entity powerful enough to be a Warlock patron.
Plenty would, actually.
Nope. 0. If the other characters in the world also know how the mechanics work, then they won't be stupid enough to let any PC get past level 1.
Nope, all of them.
No, power gaming is just making rational decisions based on your knowledge of the game systems.
No, the point of the game is what I said it is, and my authority supersedes all others.
>The point is that the in-universe character does not have nearly as much knowledge of what works and how well as the player
On the contrary, the character lives in the game world 24/7/365 for their entire life while the player inhabits the character for only a few hours a week (if you're lucky and nobody cancelled the session and had to reschedule....)
A competent character in-universe knows what they're capable of and should have an accurate estimation of their own abilities as well as what's possible. They know what options they have available to them as a character, the idea you'd purposefully make somebody bad at their job when the consequences for this character failing are DEATH or DISMEMBERMENT is ridiculous. For a Player you can just roll up a new character, who cares lol haha so funny, but for the CHARACTER the stakes are life and death and they're motivated to be as absolutely effective as possible because they don't have mario 1-ups and spare character sheets like a player does.
You live in the real world 24/7/365 for your entire life.
If 10-year-old you was informed that they'd need to face an unknown monster in 15 years, what would you do to prepare yourself? What's the optimal training and weapon choice? Do you suddenly become the best soldier alive just because your life is on the line?
Yes.
Based
If I was told I was to face a terrible a creature in the future, you bet your ass I would prepare
>you bet your ass I would prepare
No shit. I didn't ask if you would prepare. I asked what you would do in order to prepare. What's the optimal training and weapon choice?
You tag gun and fellowship skills so you can recruit your trap shooting club to kill the monster
Certainly not a bad option, but it's also not the best option.
Your answer was to get join a group of hobbyists who shoot clay pidgeons with shotguns, and then work on your social skills to the degree that you can convince them that your prophetic vision is true, or otherwise deceive them into having all their guns loaded at the right place at the right time.
But you'll notice that military forces on Earth tend to use weapons that aren't shotguns. There are many more powerful weapons out there that might exist, but your answer was to pick one that was within your means and seemed sufficient for what sort of threat you thought you might face in the future.
It also didn't require you to become an Olympic trap shooter in order to achieve something so relatively straightforward. Nor would it require dedicating your entire life to train to that level. And that's the point I'm making. A character being as effective as possible is in the context of what's possible for them as a person, not in the context of being as effective as possible in the entire world.
You didn't need to become the best soldier alive in order to try to deal with a monster. You just needed to become the best version of you.
What the frick are you even rambling about? Have you ever even played a game? Almost none of them lets you be the best ever or start with the best weapon right off the bat.
>What the frick are you even rambling about?
The reply chain, in which there was a dispute about how much the characters themselves know about the game world. Specifically this post
which implied that characters should be absolutely as effective as possible, in response to this post
which questioned the ease of which someone with an innate magical bloodline would seek out and make a deal with some nefarious patron for the sake of a highly specific mechanical upside.
Which is obviously just psychotic. In the analogy of recruiting your local trap shooting club, this is winning the lottery, and rather than buy a team of bodyguards, and instead deciding to seek out the leader of a cartel and ask for a favor.
>Go wizard,
Failed at step 1, unless you don't live on Earth.
If we're on Earth there are no monsters, so your thought experiment is a waste of time. Good job.
Well, you're the one who wasted the time of typing up an optimized Wizard build without actually reading what was being discussed.
But you're welcome to substitute 'monster' with 'lethal threat' if you think that'll be more of a fun challenge.
I read every post. You said "monster". If you didn't mean monster, you shouldn't have written that. You're in the wrong, and you will not pretend otherwise.
>I read every post.
And yet you missed 'Earth'.
>You said "monster"
Yes, and other people answered without issue, understanding that for the purposes of the hypothetical, they were on Earth and would be facing a terrible creature.
>If you didn't mean monster
I gave you an alternative because you complained. If you didn't complain so that you could get the question changed, then you shouldn't have complained.
There aren't any monsters on Earth.
You said I couldn't be a wizard since there are no wizards on Earth.
Therefore, if something doesn't exist on Earth, it's not valid for the thought experiment.
QED.
You are dismissed.
>You said I couldn't be a wizard since there are no wizards on Earth.
Fair enough. You can be a Wizard if you explain how your 10 year old self learns how to become a Wizard.
The same way any character does, obviously. They kill a sufficient number of creatures to gain XP to reach the first class level.
Right. So why didn't you decide to do that when you were 10? Seems like it'd be pretty easy for you to kill a bunch of weasels like you proposed and then become a Wizard.
I did.
But not spending 15 years of your life to train and kill a monster isn’t psychotic?
Each charter you make is going to try and be “the best x”
What if I said in charter creation I took the high class background and then spent a term getting criminal connections to hire said body guards?
>What if I said in charter creation I took the high class background
Then that's not the character using their knowledge to become become the best X. That's the point, and it's why the hypothetical used the idea of you at 10. A character is trying to do the best they have with what they're given. What they're given isn't always the most optimal thing.
Go wizard, start gaining levels. One weasel is worth 19 XP, and they're cheap. Take the following spells as you level.
Cantrips : detect magic, daze, prestidigitation, mage hand
1st : alarm, protection from alignment, mage armor, obscuring mist, sleep, expeditious retreat
2nd : hideous laughter, glitterdust, fog cloud, hypnotic pattern, rope trick
3rd : dispel magic, explosive runes, suggestion, shrink item, fly
4th : dimensional anchor, charm monster, black tentacles, polymorph, phantasmal killer
5th : teleport, wall of stone, hold monster, overland flight, permanency
6th : antimagic field, greater dispel magic, true seeing, contingency, create undead
7th : plane shift, greater teleport, force cage, reverse gravity
8th : prismatic wall, greater planar binding, mass charm monster, create greater undead
9th : imprisonment, gate, dominate monster, shapechange
Obviously you'll fill out the few other useful spells with wands and scrolls per wealth by level. You should be accumulating body guards with your charm / summon / create undead spells as soon as they come online. You'll want to craft CHA boosters when able so you can ensure you have permanent companions that don't consume items or spell slots. Take leadership as well. Your spells like polymorph and shapechange should be reserved as last resort panic buttons when only brute force will work. Most monsters can be trivialized or bypassed using one or two spells from this list without a single drop of blood being shed.
Also, explosive runes are permanent, and there's no restriction on how large or small they have to be. You can fill a book with hundreds of copies, hand it to a summoned creature, command it to run at the enemy, read the book, and voluntarily fail its save for an unavoidable nuke.
Not only would I become the best human, I'd become the best monster as well. Every living thing on the planet would flee from me in terror. I'd be the thing hiding under the monster's bed.
He's equating making poor choices in life to a character not being perfect at their chosen profession. Fricking duh.
oh so he's a moron
If he's a moron, what does that make you for completely missing his incredibly obvious point?
Didn't miss the point, and you're the moron.
Anon, people don't make mistakes on purpose, and they don't make poor decisions for laughs.
Mistakes are represented just fine by failing a check.
A poor decision happens when you have incorrect information, or poor self-control.
It's not my job to screw up for the narrative. If the GM wants me to make a poor decision, he should set up a tricky situation.
It's also not my job to act stupid. If he wants me to make a short-sighted decision for immediate gain, he should offer something tempting.
If you want people to screw up for the sake of the story, don't ask them to frick up for you. It's not my fault if the GM is too stupid to trick me.
>they don't make poor decisions for laughs.
People get high and drunk for fun anon
An ineffective character has nothing to do with role-playing. 0%
I have no respect whatsoever for power gamers
I wholly understand where you get your enjoyment, though I'm the opposite kind of player. I'd hate to play with you, but I hope you can find a group that allows you to have tons of fun.
You don't enjoy dying.
I think people only consider it power gaming when it's annoying. Someone who just likes to be good at the game but still acts social is fine. But someone who acts anti-social is just annoying.
This.
I'm currently dealing with a powergamer and even tho he's OP who roleplays and help other players, he starts nagging everytime something doesn't go the way his combo dictates to work or when put in a spot that exploits his tertiary abilities.
Like most things it depends on the group. One powergamer can easily unbalance a group making everyone but him worthless as he either blows through encounters or the entire party gets slaughtered as the GM tries to give him a challenge. However a party of powergamers can be very fun as the GM has to think of ways to challenge them without being too bullshit “lmao you didn’t find this trap because I didn’t describe the room well enough so you die.” Some of my most fun games were PCs being bullshit murder machines who were fighting shit well above their sipposed capability, for example an Dark Heresy party who managed to take down an entire squad of Chaos Space Marines. A hell of a fight that they barely survived but it required clever tactics and them pulling out all the bullshit to win.
Why are we having so many threads about this all of a sudden?
It depends on the people you're playing with and the game as a whole. Sometimes it feels like the friends that I play with are terminal morons when it comes to character creation. They have often said that my "optimised" builds (I max out the relevant stat for my class, maybe take a relevant feat or two) are the only reason we make it through fights. But our DM isn't the type of person to let us fail forward so it feels needed to continue playing.
If you fail and die all the time you cannot have an engaging roleplaying experience because your characters are not around long enough for anyone to get interested in them.
I think this is really the sort of mindset that fuels powergaming. Or more specifically, games often end up accidentally encouraging the mindset, because the consequences the game provides for failure are death or things that make death more likely, and the players are only rewarded for things like defeating enemies and finding treasure.
There's not a reason for the players to decide to have their characters do something like surrender or hand over all their money rather than fighting, because fighting would gain them XP and levels, and having their things stolen would make it harder to buy the gear they use to fight.
>put your highest number into your main stat
>pick items, skills and traits that make your main thing in combat better
>this makes GM's shit their pants in rage and bewilderment
Why is this?
They want you to be weak so they can tell you exactly what your character can or can't do.
Only genuinely terrible GMs do this. Basically every GM I've ever played with has if anything given me help in making an effective character or respeccing a character who isn't really working properly into something that does even if it's not RAW. "Build a bad character that's true roleplay" homosexuals are always no games.
I'm with it, if you're actually using tactics and being as synergetic as possible with the party, even better if you have narrative explaintions for your dips and feats and shit. Most power gamers I've played with are whiteroom homosexuals who only look at increasing their damage in the most ideal circumstances only to get face rolled when the DM throws anything not a horde of grunts at them
No, most power gamers are far better at roleplaying and character fluff than everyone else.
If you're reading comprehension is anything to go off of, I doubt it.
Nope, I'm right.
maybe you should learn to write before you throw stones like that
>throw stones
Yeah, maybe you should learn to read. You should also invest in learning how to blink and breathe through your nose at the same time.
Maybe you should learn what "you're" means before talking shit, mongoloid
>typo
vs
>literally unable to read
Only mongoloid here is you
that guy isn't even me, moron
Don’t bother responding
This guy has been shitting up the thread
No, he has.
Literally changes nothing
wrong, it makes you look even dumber than you already did
nope
Nope, it's you.
I accept your concession
No, you're still comparing a typo to schizo reading comprehension, that anon or not you're still equally moronic.
wrong
No, sir
wrong
Nope, I accept your concession.
In the age of the video game I don't see the point of playing a more free-form medium as if it was a video game.
It depends on what they optimize. Optimization, in and of itself, is fine. But there's a difference between
>optimizing to be as powerful as the system allows
and
>optimizing to bring a normally suboptimal build or concept to a similar level of effectiveness as the rest of the party
Enlightened powergamers go for sillier builds when the rest of the party is playing lower-tier characters, and only break out the big guns when it's that type of game.
I love roleplaying and the like but when I get a good system I feel like it would be disingenuous of me to just build a shitty character. My typical party we tend to get our roles squared away so I fill my niche and fill it well. Sometimes I do stupid damage in combat and then my party and GM have a chuckle and call me a monster. It's great
You can't roleplay if you're dead.
My character should have strengths as well as weaknesses.
Nobody cares about your character's personality or backstory if they suck. They'll probably die too.
I like to power game with bad options. Like making the best 3.5 Fighter I can. Even if you go all in on bullshit, a caster still outclasses you.
The best way you can apply yourself is to take a sub-optimal concept and optimize it to the fullest. Pour over obscure supplements just to know how to dual wield whips the best possible way, or use a generally mediocre spell school.
Enjoy dying in the first fight
The hell you talking about?
Even inside of ttrpgs with “builds” your not gonna melt like the witch from Oz if you choose something “sub optimal”
Honestly choosing a concept and optimizing it into a build is part of the fun.
How else am I gonna make a warlock with 2 football fields of range?
Yes you are.
Sorry your within “the length of two Big Bens” range of me, take 2d10+5+5+3+3 of force damage for me
immune to force damage
>pulls out “nuh uh” card
Yeah I won, literally outclassed by a lv 5 warlock pathetic
You couldn’t even say totem barb for resistance
Absolute no games energy
Nope I win 🙂
>t. nogames
Clearly you've never played a game, I agree
Doesn't happen in the games I DM or play, so.
Yes it does.
Broke: powergaming to get an advantage over other players with an op character
Woke: powergaming to make a weird / suboptimal / interesting but weaker build on par with normal builds and be one the same level of power as the rest of the group.
A powergamer (assuming they are much more of a powergamer than their compatriots) presents the rest of the group with a problem. If the group plays as they would usually like, then the game will break down due to mechanical problems. If they put in the effort to match the powergamer then they will be having a bad time AND the powergamer will escalate.
So the question really boils down to whether they want to kick the powergamer out of the game, or murder him and make it look like suicide.
>What is your stance on the “power gamer” archetype?
Depends on how you answer the following questions:
1) let's say for the sake of argument we're playing a 3.5e game with the following arbitrary lineup: core only minus druid, paladin, ranger and sorcerer. Clerics can only pick alignment domains and spell list is heavily curated. Each choice comes also with defined lore you have to use for defining the character background and personality. Would you play or start b***hing?
2) It's a GURPS historical game. You can only pick from a list of predetermined templates and a very tight list of traits. Same question.
3) It's a Primetime Adventures game, period. Same question.
>minus druid, paladin, ranger and sorcerer
why are you removing those while keeping wizard and cleric
It's not about balancing, i said that's arbitrary, also i clearly specified "heavily curated spell lists".
so is it connected to the setting or is the dm just being an idiot about pre-railroading the plot even before it even starts
>Starts b***hing
Ok, you answered the first question, what about number 2 and 3?
if this were an actual audition for a game you'd have already proven to be below my standards by making arbitrary decisions without explanation and then acting defensive about it, so there'd be no point in continuing
Do you realise there's no sensible difference between
>Connected to the setting
And
>Pre-loading the plot even before it starts
Hence the "start b***hing" bit. You're obviously nitpicking because you don't like the idea of being restricted in chargen options.
no, i've made it perfectly clear that i find one of those two options acceptable but the other not, if you don't think there's any difference while at the same time acting defensively then my default assumption is going to be that the real answer is the less flattering one
Read my first post:
>Each choice comes also with defined lore you have to use for defining the character background and personality
Make of this what you believe is the case, then answer.
that was part of the reason why i asked those questions in the first place
Fine, let's say each choice is connected to the setting, for example taking the fighter class i give you a list of typical fighter inserts to pick from like pit fighter from [arena], mercenary bands, standing militias from [city], knight orders, etc...
that's fine
I like how powegamers immediately showed, only a few posts in, why they are insufferable.
Frick them sideways, they have no place at my table and I will actively kneecap their abilities to bring them in line with everyone else. The only time they're worth having is during playtesting so you know what needs to be kneecapped.
you won't do shit pussy
>WAHHH I GOT MY butthole BLOWN OUT IN THE OTHER THREAD I HAVE TO DRAG IT HERE
have a nice day subhuman.
The system shouldn't rely on you to have to cripple yourself in order to function. Sadly, RPG writers are frequently as innumerate as they are generally incompetent, so how much you can powergame depends on the system.
I assume that, given the option of two guns, you will choose the better one. I will not assume that you will capitalize on the fact that a barrel of gasoline is (thanks to moronic math) stronger than a plasma torpedo, and spend the campaign throwing those at the enemy.
I think that in most systems, at least every one I tried, there's a big difference between a competent build and a completely powergamed build that aims to trivialize or straight up break the game. Personally I only consider the second powergaming since you usually have to go out of your way to use some obscure shit and weird system interactions. It's still a spectrum but unless it's very high on the broken end I don't see a problem with competently built characters unless your group is going for something very specific where that doesn't fit.
I despise powergamers, but what you're describing is just general optimizing, which is A-okay, you don't need to gimp yourself to have fun, no one likes being the guy who whiffs every turn.
No, powergaming is the absolute bullshittery that happens when a player hands in a sheet that is built purely around some single, asinine combination of rules and nothing else. As an example, I've seen a character that was optimized to hurl, draw, and prepare multiple knives per turn for a huge stealth crit combo, but doing anything else breaks the setup he went for. After multiple sessions, this player kept complaining that I wasn't giving him enough magical artifacts to compensate for lost dps as we started to level up.
Every other player moved on, found better equipment, branched out their builds, and adapted when I rolled a random magical item that they ended up taking and building around, but this fricknut was still tossing basic daggers around. I ended up releneting and did give him some magical daggers, so, sue me, but the fact that I had to give him personal loot to fit his build, and not his character, is just annoying.
I stress all the time to other DMs that you are in no way obligated to allow all the splatbooks if you don't want to. My general rule is, I'll allow it if I've read the book myself, if I don't own it, gimme a pdf waaaay before we start, but if you expect me to simply allow something because you read it in a theorycrafting once and it's officially licensed, nah senpai.
>I ended up releneting and did give him some magical daggers, so, sue me, but the fact that I had to give him personal loot to fit his build, and not his character, is just annoying.
i mean, it feels like your basic assumption is that the only way to get a magical item is through a random table, but couldn't he have gone out and found or commissioned the stuff he needs somehow?
Yes and no. I'm pretty generous when it comes to magical items, I do roll for them, but I try to make sure every session has a few to be gained, think Dark Souls, and how there's chest literally everywhere. I use a combination of what the DM guide provides, and a bit of my own stuff. The Dagger Rogue had a cloak of invisibility, a gemstone of true seeing he put into an eye patch, and even a magical bag of never-ending sleep dust. The issue is he never used anything except the cloak, because the other two items didn't feed directly into his crit combo.
Meanwhile, our fighter who started out as Not-Guts, ended up really liking this magic jug that could fire out a huge burst of wind if opened. He used it to blow doors off their hinges and such.
I suffered through a powergamer like this. Told the group we were using THESE specific splatbooks while THOSE over there were not appropriate for the game due to the setting. The resident powergamer kept b***hing and pleading for the banned books because without them he could not build the functionally invincible character he "needed." He also wanted to take a literal legendary magical item at character creation because, frick the lore, if he didn't have a broke dick avatar he would shiver and whine like a Chihuahua.
The flame wars on /tg/ are so much more fun than other boards. It's got a hint of older internet silliness.
Has anybody called someone a Black person and/or a homosexual yet? If not I wish to that whoever posted the post directly above mine is a Black person, while the person who made the post directly below mine is a homosexual. I also wish to state that I am the only heterosexual white male in this thread and I have a twelve inch long, four inch wide penis.
You're a monster. We have to stop you.
Depends on the severity.
If the player engages with the rules in an educated manner and actively chooses to better his character into a desired direction then I'm absolutely there for it. I'll know I didn't upload all the rule-books for nothing and situations that arise in the game can get more and more challenging.
But if he just minmaxes into a broken build he grabbed from the net somewhere then I'm not really impressed.
I'd rather take a competent character though than some sort of gimmick character that fumbles through the world.
I don't like powergamers, but can run a campaign for them if that's all the players want to do.
It's when there's an imbalance – a group of players and only one or two powergamers – that it becomes a problem. Then to give a challenge to the tooled up characters, you just destroy the other people. Or you present a situation where the powergamers are weak (ie, have no ability whatsoever) and so can't do anything. Either option ends in a poor gaming experience for everyone.
Power gaming is just being good at the game. Using powerful mechanics or player-facing options or strategies is an obvious behavior that's going to emerge in any kind of game involving competitive elements. Players using strong classes or weapons or spells or whatever is both expected and totally normal, and I don't think the phrase "power gamer" should have any stigma attached to it at all.
There's still poor sports, of course. Players who are huffy to deal with or who metagame (using strong abilities is wholly within the expected realm of player-behavior, but googling monster stats as they appear at the table or using meta-game knowledge to influence your decision making typically are not). Those are not power gamers, though. That's a completely different genre of player.
Still, having everyone in the party using the same player options because they're "meta" is boring, as is having one guy use those options and outshining everyone else. Both of these are bad outcomes. This is where I place the blame firmly at the feet of the game developers, who I feel TTRPG players have given WAY too much slack when it comes to making balanced, functional games. Can you imagine if half of the munchkin shit in your typical crunchy TTRPG was in a multiplayer video game? The b***hing would be INSANE, and it would be directed at the developers, not other players. Larian recently took it upon themselves to basically rebalance all of D&D 5e for WotC for this exact reason. Power gamers are not bad players, they're good players, and the only systems they break are ones that are breakable to begin with. It is far more fair to trash the system than the player. Power gaming is a system issue.