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No, one is not better than the other.
Also this topic is done very much to death.
I think having a balance of both is good. Making sure that you can face stronger oppenents and not die is fun. Also being able to play an interesting character is also cool as well.
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1) Neither is "better" - it all depends on what you prefer. Which is "better", Indian food or British food?
2) The "tabletop community" does not, as far as I've been able to tell, have an established feeling on the matter.
3) Play with people you know and like, and who share your interests in play style. If you prefer story and character driven play, find players whose preferences match your own. If you are a character driven player, and you play with a bunch of players who only care about combat, you are going to be unhappy.
I personally like interesting concepts, with the numbers that match. There is no wrong way to play, as long as everyone is having fun.
I cannot stress that last part enough, having fun is the absolute most important thing, period.
Black trow speaks wisely... I also believe in fun concepts that are constructed with the numbers as "meat on the bones" if you will.
Both role and roll have their place, and both are just instruments of fun as my fellow black monickered friend rightly pointed out.
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Personally, I think that the two should work together in harmony, and think that's very possible, and in two ways:
1. Come up with an awesome concept, make a mechanically effective character based on it. This is really pretty doable with any concept you'd care to name one way or another.
2. Come up with a cool idea for a character mechanically, work out an awesome concept to explain this and how it works. Again, almost always doable.
I've done both many times. And helped others with the mechanical portion of the first on even more occasions (since I do so for my players when GMing). And I think that those two methods are how all characters should be built.
I think that the two elements work best in harmony of this sort with each other, with min-maxing to the exclusion of concept being distasteful and immersion breaking, while creating thematically good but mechanically sub-par characters tends to frustrate somebody (either the player in question or the rest of the PCs), and be ineffective at large portions of the challenges the game presents.
Which of the mechanical or the thematic is more important for an individual person has never struck me as relevant as long as they do both, and do them well. Or are willing to accept some help on one if they struggle with it (notably, the one they struggle with is not necessarily the one they care less about, IME).
I didn't mean to start a argument or anything. I understand they are both acceptable style of play. I have been in groups before where one or 2 MinMaxer has over shadowed other players making the game less fun for them. I have had a experience where the 1 minmaxer gets on the field kills almost everything taking away the joy of it from others. I was just curious if it was a common. I m a strong supporter for tabletop gaming that increases the use of imagination over MMOs. I do play MMOs, but prefer the tabletop experience. Having everyone sit around and enjoy time has always top over sitting in front of a screen hitting mouse punched abilities.
I'm of the school of thought that if there are some characters that don't do well in combat, I'd rather help the weaker characters with their build rather than nerf the 'minmaxers'. Of course, if you built your character to be more of the face than a warrior and your friend built their fighter to be a killing machine, then you cannot complain when he is out performing you in combat because that was your decision.
On the flipside, I've had the wannabe thespian hog the spotlight in any RP situation. He'd dominate any talks that we'd make with anyone and didn't trust anyone else to speak to any NPC no matter how mundane they were. The DM didn't do much to stop our little diva and as such, roleplaying become "Hey, let's grab some popcorn while this guy overacts his half celestial, half dragon kender". Of course, when it came to combat, he'd complain the entire time and would rarely assist us. The game wasn't very fun to us and it ended rather badly.
Anyone can ruin a game, not just a minmaxer.
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I didn't mean to start a argument or anything. I understand they are both acceptable style of play. I have been in groups before where one or 2 MinMaxer has over shadowed other players making the game less fun for them. I have had a experience where the 1 minmaxer gets on the field kills almost everything taking away the joy of it from others.
This is indeed a problem, but the problem isn't optimization, it's inequality. A good GM*, in my opinion, always works to ensure a certain level of similarity in the levels of optimization he allows at his table. Both by looking at certain characters and politely suggesting they not have three dump stats at 7 and by helping the less mechanically inclined to create effective characters. And possibly by ensuring a certain level of niche protection.
To put it another way, the problem wasn't that someone was min-maxed, it was that he was a lot more so than everyone else. A conflict in playstyle, in other words, not an inherent problem with maximizing characters.
*Outside something like PFS where this isn't an option.
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So, it sounds like you would like to seem some balance on the two. First thing, talk to the dm, and talk to the player. You can work out a great balance of the two, but it will never happen if no one talks about it. Never forget, everyone is there to have fun, you just need to find out what that means for everyone, and include it.
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1) Neither is "better" - it all depends on what you prefer. Which is "better", Indian food or British food?
Indian. Definitely Indian. :)
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There is no vs.
Roleplay to me is getting into a character and trying to build a concept from a back story of your character and not going through and gather every single feat and point that maxes out your character.
Why can't you put together a concept from a back story AND every single feat and point that makes your character effective at what they want to do? Play them off of each other.
1) Neither is "better" - it all depends on what you prefer. Which is "better", Indian food or British food?Indian. Definitely Indian. :)
Spanish food clearly :P
Dammit, I'm hungry now...
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Or since we're doing food analogy...
You're asking "what do you want, bread or cheese"
To which i respond "pizza"
Grilled cheese with bacon
Bacon Burger. mmm
Roleplay to me is getting into a character and trying to build a concept from a back story of your character and not going through and gather every single feat and point that maxes out your character.
Roleplay is about a character. Whether or not you build the character from a backstory, or built a backstory from a character. I could take a generic character from Final Fantasy Tactics (old PS1 game) and come up with a backstory, family, and so forth; even though the mechanics very clearly came first. EDIT: In other words, there is no shame in thinking "Hm, I want to play a wizard specializing in buffing the party, because I think that would be fun", then build the wizard you wish to play, and then come up with who he or she is, their family, their history, what brought them to this point; etc.
Characters with low stats can be just as fun as high ones. Why would someone want to play something where they can over take other characters stealing spotlight from others.
This is a weak gamer thing. I've played in groups of all X classes (all clerics, all arcane casters, all fighter types, etc) and people just need to learn to grow up. Hogging spotlight has nothing to do with role or roll play; because you can be just as much of an ass by being a ham as you can by trying to kill everything yourself.
Off course Rollplay is basicly min-maxing every aspect of your character through out any concept of why your character even adventures. I notice that Min-Maxers like to show off and take the feats and such to ensure highest damage.
If that's your definition of min/max, you've not been with people doing it right. Roll-play is the game aspect of the game. Knowing how to do something well, or just enjoying the actual game aspect of rolling dice and getting XP points. You can enjoy roll-play even if you absolutely suck at optimization. This is proven by the guys who love getting sneak attacks with their 1d4+0 dagger in melee.
Is one form better than the other? How does the tabletop community feel about roll-playing.
What would you all suggest to do about keeping it back at roleplaying and preventing this in a game.
I can't speak for the community, but I think this sort of thing is stupid. It's misleading and it drives a wedge in the community that shouldn't exist. It's entirely fine to have fun killing orcs, and it's entirely fine to have a five page backstory. All this does is create an illusion of two sides where non exist, with both sides camped with elitist jerks who think their one-true way is the correct one; with both just following false illusions.
Except moaning, of course.
Depends on how cute she is ;)
I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the Stormwind Fallacy yet.
fixed :P
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I once had a very simillar situation. I've received an invitation for a game which consisted of a veteran GM and 2 new players. We started at 5th level which was quite strange considering that 2/3 of the party didn't knew the rules very well to properly utilise their abilities even with GM and my help. My cleric despite being only above avarage was overwhelmingly good. He was Jesus, Hulk and Zhuge Liang in a single body. After few sessions when it was cleary that I will probably end up as a messiah I had a talk with my GM that I need to focus on my primary goal which was supporting my fellow players rather than doing stuff for them. And I started to multiclass into a Sorccerer and it really helped because with time I started to be less and less of a badass and allowed others to shine.
But not every player will be so generous and downgrade his character to let others take the glory and you shouldn't force anyone to do it. Most logical way is as others said to requier that the characters stats shoudl be backed up with their background, plot hooks etc. Most of the really bizzare and powerful combinations can be avoided this way and if the player is bold enough to give you some lame excuse just send him home. You aren't obliged to agree on a character if you don;t like it but it might be seen as impolite if you don't like it due to stats.
I personally have no problem with min-maxing, as long as there is the story to back it up. We have one character who has a wisdom of 8. He explains this by saying "The character is 16. He's huge for his age (6'2") and he goes around sleeping with succubi and drawing genitalia on every book in the wizard's library. He hasn't learned what is appropriate behavior, his hormones are raging, and nothing has come along yet that can properly smack him into reality. He's just a big dumb kid."
However, I feel if you take a low stat simply to get a higher one elsewhere on the sheet, and then do nothing to explain yourself other than "I needed the boost here..." then I'd rather not play with you.
I'm a firm believer in using everything that is written on the sheet. Why would your character have developed it in the first place if you never use it? And like some of the earlier posts said, nearly every concept based on role-play can be backed up mechanically. Rather than making it Role vs Roll, honor the Roll with the Game part, thus: Role Playing Game.
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I reject the premise of the title. It's as though one is being asked which leg they'd rather have. I view this as a false dichotomy. Obviously, better mobility is preserved by using both legs well. One should try to do well with both concepts of role-play or roll-play, not pick one and condemn the other. They are not exclusive concepts. Sure, some might favor one of the other, but I tend to not respect characterless murder machines and ineffective drama seekers. It is in character for a person living in a fantastical setting that routinely encounters mortal peril to want to perfect their particular survival methods, but not so much to the point where they forget their origins or lack basic social interaction capabilities.
That said, I tend to be very creative with character concepts, then attempt to optimize them as much as possible while staying true to the concept. I will also deviate off of my mechanically envisioned path in terms of feats or levels in response to the events of the campaign.
They are not opposite ends of a gaming spectrum. They are each gaming dimensions of their own which are theoretically orthogonal to each other, but due to the sheer physical reality of the lack of infinite time and energy, those who focus on one as their preference have less time and energy to invest in the other, which creates an appearance of correlation.
I enjoy both aspects.
My only "beef" with either approach is when the player pursues one or the other goal so single-mindedly that it interferes with the game itself. For every min-maxer who drives the numerical aspects of the game to their limit, there is a role abuser who uses "role play" as an excuse to ignore their character's actual mechanical limits.
Today in my 4e game I came dangerously close to that sort of role abuse when my combat-oriented charisma challenged half-orc found himself forced into the role of negotiator for the party. It was quite tempting to simply negotiate as well as I could personally manage, but I fought that temptation and did my best to have my character behave true to his stats and abilities, meaning he was gruff, direct and presented the case to the NPC as a simple case of "change is coming, you can be with us, or against us. You won't like being against us."
It worked.
You should both role play and roll-play. The game is about doing both. You have a responsibility to help people have fun at the table. For that to happen, you have to have an entertaining character who plays well with others AND a character that helps other PCs stay alive. You can't role play if your character gets cut in half.
Now go eat some bacon, you little scamp!
I'm offended! Who do I complain to?! Quick, someone lock this thread before it becomes a flame war!