>It's fair and balanced! >I just chose the strongest

>>44584137
How are minmaxing and netlisting not legitimate? One of the things that makes them so bad is the fact that they are legitimate.

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>>44584137
I love it when my players do this. I always make them not the only people who have discovered this power. Or, if they are, they begin attracting adherents. Disciples who want to learn the skills which make the PC so powerful

Imagine that the Sith was started by some power gamer
>holy shit, if I combine these two feats, I can draw on my anger AND use telekinesis to choke someone to death
>fuck yes

>>44584154
Netlisting I'll agree with; it's making the best of what there is, often with the goal to win prizes/money.

But TTRPGs? You're basically playing cooperative make believe. Most people grew out of the "nuh-uh I have super special anti-bullet shield I can deflect anything" by 5th grade. Minmaxing is like inheriting a fortune, then berating all your friends for being poor. Like sure, you got the money through legitimate means, but that doesn't excuse your behaviour.

>>44584154
>legitimate

Following the letter of the law is not the same as following the spirit of the law. The rules are put into place not so that you can figure out how to exploit them, but to help and try to maintain balance between the players.

>>44584219
That analogy doesn't really work. Everyone in the game has access to optimization. If someone chooses not to take the best options, that's not anyone else's fault but theirs.

It'd be like having a big pile of money everyone can reach into and take however much they want. But then everyone bitches at one guy because her took the biggest handful.

>>44584310
Again, something being legitimate doesn't necessarily mean it's following the spirit of the game.

>>44584310
The problem is that optimization typically falls into a narrow set of builds, often without any leeway for preference.

You either pick the best, or fall behind. That basically makes anyone who wants to pick something that isn't optimal, say using a favorite card or a class, penalized because the other player ignores their personal preferences and instead chooses based entirely on power.

Also, with a small number of sets of optimized builds, there's going to be friction with people stepping on each other's toes. By instead encouraging people to try and balance their characters around example decks or characters provided by the game designers, players are given a much larger field of builds that they can come up with.

If you're in a tournament playing for money, that's a different story, but when it comes to casual play, the goal should be to create a deck that not only enables your own preferred style of play, but doesn't prohibit the way other people want to play.

>>44584365
What is the spirit of the game, then?

>>44584365
Who cares?

>>44584554
>>44584562
Found those guys.

>>44584137
>playing with people who try to "win" TTRPGs
You've no one to blame but yourself.

>>44584611
There is no spirit of the game

>>44584644
I have fun optimizing and role-playing. So far having "fun" is supposedly the way to win. So win-win?

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>>44584204
>>holy shit, if I combine these two feats, I can draw on my anger AND use telekinesis to choke someone to death
>>fuck yes

>>44584675
Having fun at the expense of others means you have to find a new group.

>>44584554
>>44584562
The problem with a one highly optimized character raises when it can solve challenges mostly by itself, leaving the other players to the sidelines, or when the conflict challenging enough for it leaves the other characters unable to contribute. Now, in a social pastime like rpgs this is obviously not a workable situation. The other players could optimize too which is one solution, but if they are not interested in that aspect of the game then the odd man out needs to either tone it down or step out, simple as that.

>>44584701
I am not. I am optimizing MY character for what it should do. Nowhere is this even implied.

>>44584204
>Yeah, but it kinda tanks your Charisma into the floor.

>>44584137
>I just chose the strongest options available within the rule set! That means it's legitimate!
"-and yet, the DM still said "no", what a shock, now put on your 'big-boy pants' and roll-up a different character."

baby

>>44584701
You shouldn't make assumptions like that.

>>44584701
>having a non shitty character is having fun at the expense of others
What I take from this is that you make half dragon otherkin 12 year old loli characters and get mad when your character is shit but the others aren't

>>44584675
>optimizing

Optimizing to what end?
To beat your opponents as quickly and efficiently as possible? The secret is, that's all really just up to the GM, and that goal is meaningless.
To be stronger than the other players? If that's your goal, you're really just being senseless.

Have you ever considered that the true meaning of "optimization" means creating a character that fits in best with the other party members? That the degree of skill involved in creating a character that meshes with the designs of the other players while making the game more enjoyable is far more impressive than just googling "strongest builds" and then performing the mental gymnastics to pretend that your character is built on your own ideas?

>>44584784
>googling "strongest builds"
The people that actually do that are shit, but you're also shit for trying to attribute it to everyone that optimizes.

>>44584784
>all really up to the GM
Unless he's pulling the stats for the monsters out of his ass it's not
>"optimization" means creating a character that fits in best with the other party members
and how do you propose anyone do that when people don't know what kind of characters others are creating?

You're just mad at people for the same exact reason that you blame them for, ie. people aren't playing the game the way you want to so it's their fault somehow. Get fucked.

>>44584759
It's fairly easy assumption to make when the others stop inviting you to games, you know?

>>44584722
It depends on how you optimize. Hypercompetence in one or two fields seems more common than omnicompetence.

>>44584835
Please. You're free to tell yourself that you're a very clever person who only reads the books and forms all of their opinions themselves, but please don't try to lie to us.

>>44584846
>when people don't know what kind of characters others are creating
>not all creating your characters in the same room so they actually mesh together

>>44584846
You don't make characters together? How do you get their backgrounds and goals to match then?

>>44584752
>>implying vader has a low charisma

>>44584846
>Unless he's pulling the stats for the monsters out of his ass it's not

The numbers of monsters, when you encounter them, even whether they hit you or not, all are up to the GM.

And, even if he's rolling straight from the book, what is the meaning of defeating a set of stats placed by a designer who is really not quite as omniscient as you want to pretend they are?

>and how do you propose anyone do that when people don't know what kind of characters others are creating?

Communication. Really, have you never even considered the idea of actually playing with other people?

Also, erring on the side of preference, rather than optimization.

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>>44584899
>implying he doesn't

>>44584928
>>charisma

>>appearance

Oh you're one of THOSE people

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>>44584928
>ugly
>low charisma
oh boy, here we go again

>>44584895
It's more fun when backgrounds and goals conflict for some groups.

>>44584883
>>44584895
>>44584917
I'm not saying anything on how I do things, just that there are a shitload of people who do not create characters together, either willfully or through circumstance, the point being: stop fucking assuming that everybody does things the same way as you do (especially when complaining about people)

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one solution fits all needs

>>44584562
You are that guy.

Have you tried not playing D&D caster edition.

>>44584554
Fun?

>>44584973
I'm not assuming anything about how people play, I'm pointing out the obviously good way to play.

>>44584991
Being That Guy usually requires the other players or GM to have a problem with it.

>>44584989
>>44584993
>this level of dumb

If you're going to be stupid, at least try to do it without trying to resurrect dead memes.

>>44584941
>>44584947
Okay, I'll give a more serious answer.
Why would you think Vader has high Charisma. Sure, he has a bitchin' pimp cape.
But does he ever actually convince anyone of anything? Does he ever do ANYTHING Charisma based at any point in the films?
FUCK no. He relies on using Force Choke to stack up circumstance bonuses just to use Intimidate.

>>44584752
>Yeah, but it kinda tanks your Charisma into the floor.
Yeah, ask Palpatine about his charisma. Dude got a republic to applaud their transition to empire.

>but he's old and ugly!
Charismatic means persuasive, not pretty. People who aren't good-looking get things done all the time.

>>44585048
Use The Force is charisma-based.

>>44584941
>>44584947
There's a relation, whether you want to accept it or not. Same with strong people looking strong. Not always the case, but much more often than not.

>>44585065
The d20 based Star Wars RPGs sucked ass.

>>44585018
0/10

>>44585048
>the power of this battle station is nothing compared with the power of the force
>tell me the location of the secret rebel base
>don't drop out of hyperspace until the fleet arrives
>join me and we will rule the galaxy as father and son
>the emperor is too powerful u can't beat him

Your story checks out. He probably dumped points into intimidate and that's it

>>44585040
butthurt d&d drone detected

>>44585010
People have fun optimizing their character and making them good at what they do.

Or are you saying that I should intentionally gimp my character for the sake of everyone else at the table? Because that doesn't sound very fun at all.

>>44585091
Discussing about your characters beforehand is better than not, anon. That is trivially true.

>>44585152
Only for certain games and certain groups.

>>44585146
Either that, or find another group who is comfortable with the levels of optimization you want. Simple as that.

>>44585173
>Everyone else's fun matters
>Yours doesn't. Go find another group

I'm sure you're an absolute joy to game with.

>>44585162
Actually for every group. Agreeing beforehand what kind of play experience you are looking for reduces clashes rising from playstyles.

>>44585203
Well, yes? If you're the only one that makes the game unfun for the others then it's you who needs to deal with the repercussions.

Once played with a min-maxer who made a super fire sorcerer. Would use overpowered fireballs to wipe out entire battles and we didn't have to lift a finger.

The DM just gave everything fire resist.

So I don't see why min-maxing is an issue, when it's on the DM to make sure the min-maxer has a challenge.

>>44585078

this tbqh senpai

leveling up and traits were awesome and well designed, but d20 resolution ruined all of it.

>>44585203
Fun is like Utilitarianism.
The most Fun course is the one that maximizes Fun.
If the choice is between one person's Fun, and four other people's Fun, the four other people's Fun is more important, because the path that produces their Fun produces four times more Fun than the path that produces the one person's Fun.
The MOST ideal path is of course the one that produces Fun for all five people, but such a path does not always exist.

>>44585146
>intentionally gimp my character

You're too far gone if anything other than an optimized character seems "gimped" to you.

Even pro MTG players have pet decks built around mechanics they like that aren't necessarily the strongest.

>for the sake of everyone else at the table?

Yes. If the question is "your fun vs. theirs", you should always pick their fun, outside of bizarre circumstances like your mother will get a bullet to her head if the other players have fun.

>>44585208
Discussing playstyle isn't quite the same as discussing character concept.

>>44584846
Do you sincerely not understand that a DM balances players around the power of the party, rather than their level or level-equivalent? Do you think that because you made a super-strong character, you'll only run into easy fights from now on?

Even if all players optimize the shit out of their characters, encounter difficulty will simply go up accordingly.

When a four-PC party has one character which is twice as strong as the others, the GM will simply creates encounters scaled for a five-PC party. This, in turn, causes the party to rely on the optimizer to pull their weight, making the rest (rightly) feel less important and useful.

>>44585223
Picking the best options available to my character does not automatically invalidate anyone else's fun, especially if the exact same option is available to all players.

>>44585279
No, but the archetypes you are interested in playing is included under that.

>>44585331
And if somebody wants to play a character concept that involves not taking those options?

>>44585331
Not automatically no, but see the previous posts.

>>44584204
i'm not savvy on star wars, but isn't this scene just a dune ripoff?
Yu know, ftom the infinite jihad visions paul had?

>>44585391
Then the system is at fault and if they can't play with how their character ends up underwhelming that is THEIR fault.

>>44585276
>You're too far gone if anything other than an optimized character seems "gimped" to you.

The few mighty min-maxing optimisation junkies I've met have this problem; if it could potentially be defeated by something else in the game (even though, quite clearly, there's nothing stopping That DM being a jerk and throwing something way out of the league of the players at them...), it's considered gimped and not worth doing. While this certainly doesn't hold true for everyone, these people I've met have all got very involved in playing very combat focused games, with the commensurate high character turnover rate, early on in their gaming lives. It follows, then, that they'd always try and make characters that can survive or deal with whatever they expect their DM to throw at them.

What's odd is that they don't ever stop to question the role of the DM in the first place; they want to put challenges in front of the player characters. Whether or not you make a giant-slaying monster or a pillow-fisted fighter, you're always going to be facing against things that are challenging to the player characters, because overcoming that challenge is pretty much what most games are going to end up being about.

>>44584137
So should I let the rest of the group design my character?

>>44584310
>fuck people who want to roleplay a less-than-perfect character
>fuck people who don't pick the strongest options everytime, and dictate their characters not on fluff, but on stats alone

>>44584365
that's a game design problem then, blame wizards of the coast, not wizard players that use coasters.

>>44585391
They're free to do that, I'm not saying they can't.

What's bullshit is someone making a conscious decision to not take that option, and then bitching when someone does take that option with complaints that they're ruining everyone else's good time and that they should find another group because of it.

>>44585472
Nice strawman bro.

>>44585483
this post was meant to reply to >>44584485

>>44585331
Let me give you the following analogy. I'm sincerely interested what you think about it.

>Fighter A takes a buckler because he likes the look
>Fighter B takes a spiked shield because it counts as a melee weapon, so that he can take a weapon enchantment boosting his defences, and claim further defence bonuses because he is considered to be fighting with two melee weapons.

Now, similar things happen more often in character creation. Fighter A is, objectively, a lot worse than fighter B in combat. As encounter difficulty is scaled by total power of the party, fighter A now has to rely on fighter B since he is up against enemies which are slightly too difficult for him, even though they have the exact same class. Player A is annoyed by this, and wants player B to tone down his character a bit.

Do you think player A is at fault for not taking the 'best' options over what he thought was cool?

>>44585331
>does not automatically

Who cares? You'd need to be some kind of rules lawyer to pretend that's even the topic of discussion.

You seem to think that extreme exceptions somehow permit and excuse any and all kinds of behavior.

Does stealing automatically make you a terrible person? No, but it's certainly not worth defending in a general sense.

>>44584310
>Everyone in the game has access to optimization. If someone chooses not to take the best options, that's not anyone else's fault but theirs.

It depends what you're optimising for. Minmaxed builds tend to be pretty narrow and don't necessarily mesh well with a group of lower powered characters built for more authentic roleplaying.

>>44585444
>>44585471
It's a communal hobby, not solitary one.

So basically yes, if you want them to keep you around. Being a bro is an alien concept to you?

>>44585483
That's just the nature of optimization, regardless of what game you play. Pretending otherwise is just showing you don't know the game as well as you pretend you do.

>>44585537
Then they are not a bro and it is a full circle. This is a stupid 3.PF issue. I have NEVER even heard of such an issue in 4E and GURPS, and 5E is basically just magic still > everything, just less and "monks not master grapple/trip" whine.

It is the SYSTEM.

I play fully optimized characters regularly with my groups and even strangers in games. I don't hog spotlight like a bitch, I don't one-shot any encounters and I love to work with my team. I don't see why optimization has such a bad rep from personal experience.

>>44584899
Nigga, he's not that high up because charisma, but because powers. The emperor could still be a threat without any strenght because he has high cha, but take the force and anything else from Vader and given enough time they'd kick him from his post.

>>44585433
Not really. That scene is actually going on. It's Dark Empire, a comic series from the '90s notable for having a bunch of really cool ideas, beautiful "acid trip" artwork, and an absolutely terrible plot trying to hold it all together.
Basically, Palpatine has clones of himself that his "soul" bodyjumps to when he dies, Luke falls to the Dark Side, all kinds of goofy shit.

>>44585600
Again, optimization is only a problem when it sidelines the other players and they don't like it.

>>44585537
If I wanted someone else to dictate what my character is, I'd just go play vidya.

>tfw you like to pick underpowered options and minmax them till they're actually effective

>>44585600
>I have NEVER even heard of such an issue in 4E and GURPS, and 5E is basically just magic still > everything, just less and "monks not master grapple/trip" whine.

You just don't have the same experience or breadth of gaming. Revealing your ignorance isn't exactly useful to your argument.

Having played my share of systems, I can easily say that regardless of the game, there will always be people who strive to figure out how to break it, and people who try to avoid breaking it.

>It is the SYSTEM.

No, it's the players. 3.5 was simply the most popular game, and the most popular game is typically what attracts these kind of people, alongside attracting everyone else.

Thinking GURPS, 4e, or 5e have some inherent quality about them that makes breaking them impossible or even difficult is just being silly.

>>44585641
yep, definitely a troll.

I've seen actual autists with a better grasp of group dynamics and social interaction.

this person is either an impossibly huge prick, or pretending to be an impossibly huge prick to get people mad because... it's funny?... I don't know...

>>44584219
>So I'm going to be the rogue
>Cool anon, this way you can find traps, disable them, spot danger and help people in combat
>Suuure
>First session starts
>Everybody dies to the first time because the rogue thought on not spending in stuff that might make them better than others in a certain field so no spot, disable device, search, etc

Yep, seems right.

>>44585522
Player A is at fault of getting mad that their cool thing wasn't as cool as they thought it'd be. He made a conscious decision using knowledge available to both A and B. Player B also made a decision under the same guidelines. A doesn't have the right to get mad at B, because, essentially, they've done the same exact thing. They both decided to take an option based upon their own reasons.

If player A decided to play a one armed character and player B didn't, A doesn't have the right to get mad at B because he can use a two-handed weapon.

>>44585641
>what is the GM?

Do you really think you have ANY power?
That's just an illusion the GM provides you with, permissions granted as long as they don't displease him.

Summing shit up:
If you pick 2hd weapons, power attack, cleave, rise your Str beyond 13, rise your Dex beyond 13, have more than 14 in AC, deal extra damage of any kind (looking at you rogue), etc you're a minmaxer faggot.

>>44585789
No, I think it's just you who is a faggot anon.

>>44585761
Does it matter if free will is an illusion if the illusion is perfect?

>>44585789
Funny thing, in more groups than not people screamed minmaxer/munchkin/powergamer when someone doesn't do any of that...but they were ok with druids, clerics having 18 on wis, wizards having 18 on int and stuff like that

Why the fandom is so awful with d20 system?

>>44585509
thanks breh. I tried to be as ludicrous as him.

>>44585010
F is for feats from twelve different books,
U is for undead template,
N is for no survivors when I-

>>44584562
>Hookers
I wish that would be the spirit of my games

>>44585909
Shit, now I really want the fun song as sung by a roleplayer and a rollplayer.

>>44585266
Screen capped this shit

>>44585522
he's at fault fot demanding the game to cater to his sense of style.
If both players went out at night and only B took a coat because A thought a coat would hide his cool shirt, A will get a cold and B won't.
You could add charisma bonuses if any character saw A's buckler as a cool thing, but imho a spiked shield is way cooler than a buckler and A just has shitty taste and is entitled.

>>44585552
you clearly have only played 3.PF
And no, you don't need to memorize every splatbook to see it's massively broken in comparison to many other systems.

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>>44585718
>it's the players, not the system

Not that guy, but caster edition famously began the video-gamified trend of creating a sub-game within the RPG about customizing (and optimizing) character "builds." Before that, characters were almost 100% homogenized in D&D and the only difference between them was their Ability scores, which end up random if you roll, or always end up about the same for each class if you don't.

While it's true THAT GUY exacerbates any game balance situation, the system is at fault as well for promoting this.

I'm not saying character stat customization is badwrongfun, but some people don't like it because it inherently introduces the balance problems people like to complain about.

You see, 4e and other versions of the game fixed this issue by letting characters have lots of options but making all options the same power level, and therefore meaningless. This causes complaints of everything being "samey."

There IS a legit crowd of munchkin players. The problems start when you mix munchkins with other kinds of players in the same group.

>>44584137

Do it for support and no will notice or care

optimize a bard's inspire courage and no one is going to complain about hitting harder

>>44586084
>by letting characters have lots of options but making all options the same power level, and therefore meaningless

That makes no sense, how the hell does making all the options the same powerlevel make those options useless.
The complaint with the samey bit is that all of the powers had the same format, which is retarded.

>>44586346
I did this once, I added like a +7 at 6th level and nobody said a chirp

>>44585266
>Fun is like Utilitarianism.
>The most Fun course is the one that maximizes Fun.
So the maximum Fun outcome is to convert all matter in the universe into a blob of immortal cancer cells containing innumerable minds having a small amount of Fun each, because it adds up to a higher Fun total than the population of one planet having as much Fun as they realistically can?

>>44585266
So minmaxing Fun is ok, but minmaxing PCs isn't, fuck you.

>>44585621
Fuck, was that shit terrible. Thanks for reminding me, asshole.

>>44586552
Utilitarianism is the raddest.

>>44587295
The story was terrible, but so many scenes were cool as fuck, and the art was so neat in its weirdness, that I can't help but love it anyway.
I'm aware that makes my taste shit, but I honestly don't care because if you don't think the E-Wing is the tightest shit you can just want to go home and rethink your life.

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There's nothing inherently wrong with optimization; the real issue is spotlight-hogging, which people can do just as easily (albeit in a different way) with a gimped character. Just because your wizard can select spells that completely nullify the rogue's role in the party doesn't mean you should.

>but it's the system's fault
No system with any character freedom is going to be perfectly balanced. Have your fun but be mindful of whether everyone else is. It's easy unless you're autistic or something.

>it's not my responsibility to ensure others have fun
Enjoy your shitty, socially-inept groups.

>>44585718
I am horribly slow at responding, sadly.

I do honestly believe 4E minimizes optimization ISSUES rather than the fact it happens. Each class has a different set of duties and things they do well so unless you have two of the same class or two players trying to inflict the exact same thing it is hard for the issue of overshadowing to appear.

GURPS actually blatantly shows how to make overpowered stuff but GMs know all theit tricks and again they are OBVIOUS. They are also not fun most of the time even for the optimizer. It also provides so many fields to be good at with limited resources and a really hard time to overshadow anyone focusing on something if you're trying to do everything.

5E simply has less apparent powerlevels. No one truly outshadows anyone. People do more damage, do more things but you're never really blown out the water. (Except rangers being fucked by full Dex bards stealing their end-game spell before they get it.)

>>44584219

Life isn't a competition of comparing wealth. RPGs aren't PvP. Think of some better arguments.