Actually, "My world doesn't have Elves". Running two settings at the moment, both have no elves. One is highly non-Tolkien.
Us elf haters are out there. Ke ke ke.
Varisians are also pretty boring so it is good that wasn't enforced as a requirement.
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Varisians are also pretty boring so it is good that wasn't enforced as a requirement.
Oh I beg to differ. When played as a combination of Spanish and Italian gypsy culture, the Varisians come alive quite nicely. We're having a great time with it.
No Elves - if that's what floats your boat, go for it. As a player, it would frustrate me a bit (I'd see it as heavy-handed and arbitrary.)
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Actually, "My world doesn't have Elves". Running two settings at the moment, both have no elves. One is highly non-Tolkien.
Us elf haters are out there. Ke ke ke.
Varisians are also pretty boring so it is good that wasn't enforced as a requirement.
sounds like your setting is a dwarf's dream of a perfect world
Actually I cut them, dwarves and orcs for one main reason: it opened up space for other monster cultures and civs, and for them to be player races, without putting in the often copy pasted elf and dwarf areas/cultures/stereotypes.
I've been doing this a while, and I've got quite tired of Tolkien.
So no elves but more fey, no orcs but more lizardmen, no dwarves but minotaurs and centaurs and otyugh democracy.
Varisians are also pretty boring so it is good that wasn't enforced as a requirement.Oh I beg to differ. When played as a combination of Spanish and Italian gypsy culture, the Varisians come alive quite nicely. We're having a great time with it.
No Elves - if that's what floats your boat, go for it. As a player, it would frustrate me a bit (I'd see it as heavy-handed and arbitrary.)
"Italians" have been in almost every one of my games.
Varisians are also pretty boring so it is good that wasn't enforced as a requirement.Oh I beg to differ. When played as a combination of Spanish and Italian gypsy culture, the Varisians come alive quite nicely. We're having a great time with it.
No Elves - if that's what floats your boat, go for it. As a player, it would frustrate me a bit (I'd see it as heavy-handed and arbitrary.)
Forget elves, try a wood woad, you are a sturdy plant that can teleport through trees. Commando options are high.
On powergaming, the important thing with monsters monsters everywhere is to ensure balance. ECL modifiers, special abilities having a high cost, the dm fashioning a medium size young otyugh (pup?) for players to play as.
We had problems balancing the centaur (which also leave elves in the forest of un-cool and sprints into the plains of awesomeness), but it is all good.
Power gamers are more focused on being good at roll-playing than role-playing; they try to be best at the mechanical aspects of the game (tactical combat, skills/checks/saves, etc.) and like to make "progress" towards the objective (killing a boss or reaching a town.) They aren't necessarily min-maxers, but they would probably take a +1 to damage over something with roleplay benefits.
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It wasn't uncommon with rolling systems for the DM to houserule and allow you to tweak them i.e. if you roll a 15 and a 12 to allow someone to modify it to 16 and 11. Usually you could only do it a ponit or two for like 1 or 2 stats. (loaba beat me to it)So again, after the system was changed (e.g. houseruled) THEN you could dump a stat.
It is also no coincidence that once women were allowed to enlist, you saw more enlisted women.
Stop getting your logic in my peanut butter!!!
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Min/Maxing: The art of maximizing your strengths while minimizing the impact of your weaknesses. This term was born with point buy style games like GURPs or Hero System where a min/maxer would buy as many flaws as he could to gain the maximum amount of points to build the strongest hero possible at the point level given. He would place those flaws of course in places that in would either never harm his play style or into areas that turn into benefits to his style during play. Like getting a ton of enemy flaws so that there is always someone showing up in the game looking for a fight with you. And since all you really want to do is fight this trick is win win for you. In Pathfinder this is only available as the stat buy down option in point buy games. Where a min/maxer buys down stats that he never expects to need during play like Charisma on most characters.
Optimizing: This is the focus on the mechanical aspects of the game. It involves making a concept as mechanically efficient as possible. It is a broad term and encompasses many different levels of play style.
Role Playing: This is the focus on the 'fluff' side of the game. It involves making a living breathing personality, a detailed background that fits perfectly into the setting, and focuses on things like acting, character's emotional development, and motivation. It is also a broad term that encompasses many different levels of play style.
Special Note: While it isn't common, it IS possible to have an Optimizing Role Player. This just takes a bigger investment in time than being a pure optimizer or pure role player.
Power Gaming: This is high order optimizing. At this point you have moved past the simple optimization of a concept and begun to treat the selection of concept itself as something that needs optimizing. These are the people who create what people refer to as 'broken' builds. Concepts are synergized and honed to the degree that CRs are not useful at all in estimating what this character is capable of. These guys follow the rules and are truly amazing at finding the soft points in the mechanical side of the rules.
Munchkin: This is a power gamer who ignores the rules as much as his GM will let him. This guy will conveniently forget a rule that harms his build while making note of any rule that boosts it.
Special Note 2: Any of the above can be a problem player when they abuse their focus... the munchkin is someone who is always a problem player in my book.
"To me it" would be someone who does not role-play but roll-play.
An Optimizer and mini-maxer, IMHO, can still role-play. While the term power gamer implies that they don't care about the role they are playing.
They look upon "fluff" with disdain, and don't care for much else other than higher stats, power, and more magic items/spells.
Accountants with no appreciation of the arts, basically.
They look upon "fluff" with disdain, and don't care for much else other than higher stats, power, and more magic items/spells.
Accountants with no appreciation of the arts, basically.
We sound very familiar. Maybe there is a growing consensus.