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The problem is not the system it's the players .
They make the characters and if they want to go down that road then it there choice ,most players go through a phase of want to make the hardest character they can but generally grow out of it as one shoting every encounter soon grows boaring .
The only cure is to do what i have done only game with players who are mature enough to want to roleplay not rollplay
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To answer the title question and not the question from the end of the post (which has been discussed plenty in the recent 'gaps in system mastery' thread):
No. System mastery gives the ability to make a powerful character and recognize weaknesses, but you don't have to make the most deadly character possible just because you can.
Well said Matt
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To answer the title question and not the question from the end of the post (which has been discussed plenty in the recent 'gaps in system mastery' thread):
No. System mastery gives the ability to make a powerful character and recognize weaknesses, but you don't have to make the most deadly character possible just because you can.
Sorry, this debate is not going to go away so easily, because it's a big one. The operative words in your statement are "you can." You can make insanely deadly characters, so some people will, and then that will muck with game balance for those who don't. Granted, in home games this can be dealt with in all but the most committed power monsters. It's a much, much bigger issue in organized play, however, where the GM's hands are effectively tied.
how do you address this huge gaping flaw with pathfinder?
Umm... You play another game? Alternatively you work with the system, but that takes system mastery sometimes. Honestly it helps to have a discussion with the new player in your example, or to state how you want your campaign to be.
The problem is not the system it's the players .
They make the characters and if they want to go down that road then it there choice ,most players go through a phase of want to make the hardest character they can but generally grow out of it as one shoting every encounter soon grows boaring .
The only cure is to do what i have done only game with players who are mature enough to want to roleplay not rollplay
The system is void of all sin and incapable of er? Rollplay vs. Roleplay? Talking about maturity? Aww man, this post has it all!
I see the meta game, "hi look, I just created this character because I like the concept, its not as gross as that THW fighter build I saw on the boards, (two feats are different and one is dedicated to a non-combat feature) but I'll adimt it is pretty powerful"
I can recognize a DPR olympian, but what do you say about a player who always brings a character that has been min/maxed in the most favorable way possible towards combat, except for one or two tiny concessions made in the laid out 20th level plan towards non-powergaming.
I'm also sick of a new player who comes in and builds a character based completly around a concept (a prince who became a ranger say) and every character who was based purely on game mechanics makes the player feel his character is pathetic.
how do you address this huge gaping flaw with pathfinder?
I agree with your assessment that this problem is enormous. I made a thread about this very issue before:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pru8?Mods-Too-EasyHard-Misses-the-Point#1
I'm not sure there's much to be done about it though. It's such a foundational problem that it probably could only be fixed at this point in a second edition of the game, and I'm not sure that's even possible based on the way OGL works.
The only minor fix I can see, and that I have been advocating hard for, is variable difficulty settings for at least the Pathfinder Society mods. While this would at least help the problem of tables that are primarily composed of over or under powered characters, however, it still does nothing to address the problem of power balance from one character to another, and admittedly could exacerbate it in some cases.
@ Mr sin the system is just a set of rules and options how people use them is what makes or breaks a game look at it like a car in one persons hands it a way for safely travelling from a to b I n another persons hands it a lethal weapon that can kill
Its not the cars fault how its used
As for maturity when i was young all that mattered was winning now I'm playing the game and having fun are all that matters
And i have gamed entire sessions without rolling a dice its still roleplaying
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The problem is not the system it's the players .
I'd argue that that's not true. Its the system(but not JUST the system). It encourages players to get various bonuses from traits and other places. Its gotten to the point with all the players companions that you can get bonuses and items and feats that you can get bonuses for being an Andorian juggling sheepherder and get +1 for two weapon ombat for spending your youth learning to juggle and +1 HP per level for healthy living outside tending sheep.(Its only a slight exaggeration, but not that far off the mark).
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Remove incentives for players to min/max and increase rewards for roleplaying. You need to remember the key is knowing what your players like to do individually, and provide for them as a GM. Some players really enjoy getting the maximum out of combat cheese, and some enjoy getting into puzzle solving, whodunnits, etc. Provide a little of each, so that players can get a moment of shine. I've said in other threads that I've awarded experience for 'fantastic moments' that have added to the overall group enjoyment.
There's no reason that the guy who just made everyone else laugh 5 minutes straight with a perfectly timed pun shouldn't be awarded as well as the girl smashing her way through the front line of a battle sequence, leaving everyone else to clean up the isle after her.
As a GM, don't focus on one player, focus on detailing the story/campaign to have bits of each, and you'll likely see integration without spotlight hogging that helps solve this question.
And i have gamed entire sessions without rolling a dice its still roleplaying
That's cool, I've played games without any dice involved before. Also still roleplay, also not pathfinder. My point was you made statements that could be considered a little controversial and could bring up problems.
Rollplay vs. Roleplay and maturity for instance, which while its true some people go through phases, there isn't a point of zen where you realize fun is the only point or where you become the pinnacle of what you need to be and forget all that rollplay nonsense. It also makes it look like your stating that you've reached that point and are the superior, but that's just not the case because there are a variety of play styles and some people really hate a full day of roleplay and just want to go kick in doors in a dungeon and other's wouldn't mind spending the whole day without a combat. There's plenty of middle ground too.
Another thing is that when you say the system is at fault, you absolve it of its sins but don't recognize that it can lead to such behavior. 3rd edition for instance had trap options and expected system mastery as part of its design philosophy. Pathfinder has a lot of copy pasta and a lot in common(though its much different, I'm sure). Consumers are responsible for their use, but I would never say that a system is without fault, especially when it purposefully makes some options less successful.
This is viewed from a neutral viewpoint, but that's also why I said discussion was important up thread. You can tell players what to expect. Some people create powerful characters because that's the type of game their used to, and others create purely concept because a GM allowed them to and it worked perfectly fine. By setting forth an expectation people are likely to change their actions and their own expectations of the game. If you tell the guy who plays the prince "Hey, that won't work, but I have ideas on how to make it work" and help him create a viable character that meets that concept, work with the game, then you've shown him a lot of the game and how to work with it and allowed him to stay on par with the rest of the group. Alternatively, telling the guy with the character that smashes everything and is stealing fun from others to tone it down a bit can go a long way if you don't want that to happen. There are other solutions other's have given such as incentives, though results vary no matter what solution you find because of the circumstances and how you follow through with what you do.
System mastery is not power gaming until you use it for that purpose. To expand on Tony's analogy; would you want a police officer to write you a ticket just because you are driving a car capable of breaking the speed limit before you even have a chance to do the crime?
Pathfinder is what I call a toolbox game. They provide you with a class then give you a huge toolbox of feats and options to customize your character with. You kind of have to pick your poison here. Toolbox games are loads of fun to make characters for, but they come fully equipped with a built in unfair advantages from one character to the next based on how well they selected their options. There IS a game available that restricts the size of the toolbox to a little one and builds most of your power into a path already laid down for you. In return that game boasts unusual levels of equality in characters. That game is the dead game 4e. I guess people didn't like their toolbox mostly emptied. BUT it is a good game and worth trying out if you want to see what a very balanced game plays like.
To answer the title question: Nobody can quite agree on the definition of system mastery vs. power gaming vs. optimizing vs. munchkinry. We had a massive thread about it...last month, I think?
To answer your OP question: I DM 4e, where system mastery doesn't matter nearly so much. If I were to DM PF, I'd simply accept and expect that some characters will vastly overshadow others. Maybe I'd nerf or boost the most broken stuff, but even so, system mastery is built into the game.
how do you address this huge gaping flaw with pathfinder?
As others have said, it's not a flaw with the system.
It's not even a flaw with the players, though, unless the flaw is failure to realize when you've joined the wrong group.
Some people like to play one way, some another. I dislike playing the "system mastery" game, but I don't assume people that do that are playing it wrong. I'll tell them why I find a narrative story-telling combat-lite style fun, and hope maybe they'll try it out, but I can't at the end of the day tell someone else they're just doing it wrong (unless they're attempting to tell someone else that)
The rulebook is a toolset for us to build our own games with. Part of that building is deciding on the style we want. Those games can be combat-heavy "building your spec is half the game", roleplay-heavy with barely any use of the rulebook, or anything inbetween the two.
I do agree there can be issues when you clash with players that don't play the game the same way, but the way to deal with that is to stop pretending you're playing the same game just because you happen to have the same rulebook in your hands. Of course, if you can actually coexist in the same game then all the better.
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System mastery is the knowledge and skill to create supremely optimized characters.
Power gaming is the desire and willingness to create supremely optimized characters.
You don't even have to have system mastery to be a power gamer. All you need is an internet connection and a search engine. And having system mastery does not imply that power gaming will necessarily result.
System mastery is the ability to adjust the dial.
Power gaming is leaving the dial on eleven the entire time.
And if the dial won't go below six, then yes, the system is at fault.
System mastery is, IMO, just the ability to avoid obviously bad choices. Of which there are plenty in Pathfinder, especially with the additional splatbooks. Because offering objectively bad feats makes for better roleplaying or something like that. :-/
Powergaming is not only taking the logical stuff for your class, but then trying to exploit the system. Crap like "I take one level of Oracle of Lore for CHA to AC, then totally ignore that I am an Oracle, lol".
I see the meta game, "hi look, I just created this character because I like the concept, its not as gross as that THW fighter build I saw on the boards, (two feats are different and one is dedicated to a non-combat feature) but I'll admit it is pretty powerful"
I can recognize a DPR olympian, but what do you say about a player who always brings a character that has been min/maxed in the most favorable way possible towards combat, except for one or two tiny concessions made in the laid out 20th level plan towards non-powergaming.
Last time I GMed, our campaign end at 20th level. Our Summoner had +55 in diplomacy. That means he could convince anybody of anything, as far as that person is possible to be convinced. (he had like +50 in bluff too). To put things in perspective, a Pit Fiend has Bluff +31, and a Solar has a Diplomacy of +32 and a Sense Motive of +33.
System mastery (or powergaming for that matter), don't have to be combat-centric or combat-related.
I'm also sick of a new player who comes in and builds a character based completly around a concept (a prince who became a ranger say) and every character who was based purely on game mechanics makes the player feel his character is pathetic.how do you address this huge gaping flaw with pathfinder?
I know it's hard to admit for many people, but I think the best solutions is to teach the player who come with a prince who became a ranger idea, how to make it good from a mechanic perspective. Nothing you have said about that character requires him to be bad.
Some people like to play one way, some another. I dislike playing the "system mastery" game, but I don't assume people that do that are playing it wrong. I'll tell them why I find a narrative story-telling combat-lite style fun, and hope maybe they'll try it out, but I can't at the end of the day tell someone else they're just doing it wrong (unless they're attempting to tell someone else that).
I think too many people mistake System Mastery (or even powergaming) with being good at combat.
In a campaign with combat-lite and narrative story-telling with lot of interaction, a person with system mastery would just recognice that Skill focus: Sense Motive is a much better feat than Weapon Focus: Great Axe. Just like he'll understand that, in such game, Detect Thoughts is a much better spell than Scorching Ray.
In the last game I GMed, which I've just mentioned, the Summoner in the party had a just decent Eidolon. It wasn't the most munchkin eidolon that you see winning the DPR olympics here. But the player had +50 and +55 in Bluff and Diplomacy, and Detect Thoughts and Seek Thoughts as spells. In his tight, low number of spells as summoner.
And he was probably the best all-around character in the campaign. Do you know why? Because many, many, many times in the campaign, diplomacy and bluff were meaningful and useful. Because being able to read other people thoughts was a damn powerful ability. Because he spent points in Leadership (without Cohort, I nerfed that), and he used his followers to build a net of spys, charlatans and smugglers.
That's what system mastery is for.
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System Mastery - How to properly utilize the rules to maximize the mechanics while minimizing weaknesses.
Powergaming - Being a jerk about it (opinions may vary).
Some people like to play one way, some another. I dislike playing the "system mastery" game, but I don't assume people that do that are playing it wrong. I'll tell them why I find a narrative story-telling combat-lite style fun, and hope maybe they'll try it out, but I can't at the end of the day tell someone else they're just doing it wrong (unless they're attempting to tell someone else that).I think too many people mistake System Mastery (or even powergaming) with being good at combat.
That's very true. It's probably because the stereotypical RPG power gamer is all about the DPR :)
I should probably have said "rules-lite" rather than combat-lite, as the vast proportion of my games tend to be RP with the rulebooks serving as handy paperweights to keep sheets of paper from being blown off the table. I see the primary goal of a character sheet as defining the character so we can visualize them better, rather than as a collection of numbers to do math with (not that we don't do that, it's just a secondary thing to do in the gaps between the narrative.)
If taken as "knowing and understanding the rules inside-out" then system mastery isn't power gaming, it's just something power gamers need to know that can also be useful for non-power gamers to know.
System mastery is to power gaming as volume is to area.
System mastery is to power gaming as volume is to area.
I'd almost think you're saying powergamers are 2 dimensional.
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I'd like to think I possess a fair degree of system mastery. Comes with GMing for so long. I think a GM ought to be something of a master of the system. So in that sense, system mastery is a good thing because it helps the GM to more smoothly run the game.
Also enables me to help my players (who are not very rules savvy) to build characters that fit their concepts AND stand a chance of surviving.
That said, I do not min-max their characters because that's just not the style we play in. And on rare occasions when I make my own characters, I use a careful balance of effective mechanic and concept. I guess my feeling is that when you possess some mastery of the system, you should not be scared that if you don't min-max your character will somehow die in the first five minutes.
A true master of the system - a truly good player - can play any character effectively (nine-year-old girl, crippled elf wizard, one-armed fighter, whatever), and feel he has had a successful game. He shouldn't have to cram his mastery down everybody's throat by bringing a demi-god to the table every time.
I mean, who are you trying to impress? Imaginary NPCs? The "power" your character has is not real. No more real than the gold he acquires. It's all relative.
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A number of people here site "good" and "bad" characters and this is is where the problem lies in pathfinder, a "good" character is generally perceived as one that is greatly effective, and lacks exploitable weaknesses.
System mastery assures that should you choose to be as effective as possible you will be able to do so.
But if given the choice a "mature" gamer will never choose to make an extremely effective character? I don't buy it, most of the players in my group are over 30 and very mature, but if you ask them "would you prefer to drive a race car or a jelopy?" Few if any would voluntarily choose the jelopy. That has nothing to do with maturity and everything to do with the options being offered.
The system absolutely does favor race car or power gamer type characters, and yes that is a huge gaping flaw in the system and one that only seems to grow and grow as the system bloat increases with every new unnecessary release just like 3.5.
It's not a gaping flaw unless balance amongst all characters is a priority for you. I also don't think it matters unless there are big discrepancies within the same group. What's wrong with some systems allowing system mastery and others not? I agree PF is at the "system mastery matters" end of the spectrum, but I don't think that's necessarily a problem. There's no ideal RPG just ROGs that different people will like.
Removing the ability to build superior characters through study/understanding would take away a lot that many people enjoy about Pathfinder.
Steve- the level of ballence is important, if both characters are 10 th level one should not be a pathetic weakling an the other a minor deity just because of the players levels in system mastery and that is purely a flaw of game design.
And those people that find their ability to make characters that are "more good" than players who did not sit up late at night giggling over a particularly effective feat combination is exactly why I think system mastery is just a thinly veiled excuse for power gaming.
It's impossible such gap does not exist. No matter how well you avoid certain combos that make very good characters, you can't avoid people being dumb and doing bad characters.
Take two examples:
One player decides he wants to build a two handed fighter. So he takes a human, and does just the obvious: he takes a two handed sword, he takes the archetype for two handed fighter, he puts 16 in Str, and the floating +2 from being human in STR too. He doesn't dump anything, just 16-10-14-10-10-10 He selects power attack as his feat, and takes weapon specialization and weapon training in heavy blades. He gets a magic +1 2h sword.
So, at level 5, he is attacking with +12 and doing 2d6+18.
What's wrong with this character? He is the most standard core class, with the most standard race, and using the most standard feats. No fancy combo, no weird feats, no strange combination of classes or magic items. A plain, ol' fighter.
Now we have some other player. He recently read "The three musqueteer" so he decides to build a swashbuckler. He chooses to have leather armor, because it "fits". He uses a rapier. He takes high DEX, and weapon finesse, but STR 10, because, you know, he is a swashbuckler and all of that. So, at level 5, he is doing 1d6+4. He also has low AC compared to a guy in full plate, and he spent a few feats in Disarm, which he wastes a lot because he is fighting owlbears, wolves and giant spiders, which are immune by default to half his feats.
So, how could the system help to avoid this unbalance, between the standard, absolutelly no-cheese fighter who does 2d6+18, and the poor guy who does 1d6+4? With system mastery. There are ways to build swashbucklers that don't suck. But they require system mastery.
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Steve- the level of ballence is important, if both characters are 10 th level one should not be a pathetic weakling an the other a minor deity just because of the players levels in system mastery and that is purely a flaw of game design.
And those people that find their ability to make characters that are "more good" than players who did not sit up late at night giggling over a particularly effective feat combination is exactly why I think system mastery is just a thinly veiled excuse for power gaming.
It's not important to me that people can be of significantly differing effectiveness.
I don't think it's right to characterise people who enjoy developing system mastery as "..those people that find their ability to make characters that are "more good" than players who did not sit up late at night giggling over a particularly effective feat combination..." Some people enjoy it for its' own sake and, as I mentioned, I dont think it's a problem if everyone in the group is on the same page.
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No. System mastery means that the player/GM knows the rules of the system well, and is able to use them and coordinate them. Every group should be lucky to have a player with a high level of system mastery. Plus, its in human nature to optimize things and make them efficient. That is why we don't use wooden tools any more. We've progressed, bu optimizing and perfecting things.
For me, it is an effort not to optimize when we decide to play a RP heavy game.
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Paizo is on the fastest growing companies list in America. I think Pathfinder giving WOTC a run for its money is the best thing to happen to the industry since the internet. Besides if you are not spending money on PF you probably will spend it on any number of other products. Those folks will appreciate it just as much as the good folks at Paizo. Competition is good. The industry does not need to be a single game anymore.
I can state my own anecdotal evidence too. The local PFS here in the twin cities has over 100 players. I am about to finish my second AP and will start the third in the next few months.
You have to be honest here about what you think of PF. If the system is fundamentally flawed do you really think a re-write is going to work for you? You can take this with a grain of salt but WOTC decided to listen to the dissenting voices with their last iteration and it was shut down faster than any other edition. There will be a PF2 someday but I wouldn't count on a huge re-write PF is still very popular. Have you looked at D&D Next?
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Gustavo- again your perfectly outlining the problem in the design, when you give players 300-400+ feats and all the feats vary widely in their effectiveness, and many have unexpected disgustingly gross and overpowered combinations, your going to get extreme imbalance in character creation as you clearly point out.
I agree with that. I'd rather have 50 good feats, than 1000 feats, 900 of them are crap and traps for non-system-mastery savvy players.
Steve- The only "page" I've seen in two years of recent PF play at a weekly open game night with roughly five games and twenty five to thirty different players and DMs, are those who built and took sick glory in their power gamer characters and those who didnt and endlessly complained about those who did.
I want to point to that bolded part as the most important one to the detrimental experience for everybody. Moaning, whining and complaining will always be counterproductive.
I'd give my own personal experience too. Recently we were playing an AP. I had a blaster sorcerer, who was doing quite good damage in most encounters. Some players were b!!%#ing about it, and complained to the GM, mainly the swashbuclker-spring-attack Rogue (who was doing just 1 sneak per turn, because of spring attack), the axe-and-shield dwarf, and the party ranger. The GM asked me to tone down the blasting, so I did, because that's what sensible players do when the GM ask them to do it. But, more important, I offered the other players advice for they characters. I took them, and, with GM aproval, we did a bit of feat-swap, item changes, and so on. The character concept remained the same (except for the ranger, who died before I could help because he was a damn-low AC character in the frontline, and rerolled as cleric). For example, the axe-and-shield dwarven fighter remained as dwarven axe-and-shield fighter. But we changed a few things here and there, we raised STR instead of DEX (which he was raising to do TWF with the shield), we bought a few items, and voila, now that dwarven fighter was good. He had a good share of spotlight and brilliant moments, including crushing a few golems, several end-this-battle-now crits, a lot more of self-reliance for being able to act (with better saves, ability to fly, etc).
I'm absolutelly confident that the players got a lot more fun with that, than with my character using fireball a bit less.
The problem is not that my character does ~100 damage with a fireball at level 10. The problem is that your rogue does 15 damage at level 10. Even if my character does not exists, your character is frustrating anyways. Because he needs TEN ROUNDS to kill an equal level Monster, and that's frustrating, even there is no one in the party that outshines it. When everybody has a decent character, it doesn't really matter if someone is a bit better. You wouldn't care if I can do ~100 with my fireballs, as long as you also do ~90 with your sneaks. Maybe your character isn't as well optimized, but he is capable, he is valuable, he isn't frustrating, and he doesn't suck. That's enough, for most people, as this is a cooperative game, you don't mind if someone else is a bit better, as long as a) your party is winning and b)you are contributing meaningfully to it.
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I have moderate to high system mastery. Does that make me a power gamer? No. It makes me a dude who knows the rules of the game pretty darn well. Now, what i do with those rules is a completely different thing, and that would decide whether i am a powergamer or a roleplayer or something in between.
Plus, what TOZ said.
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I will, again, challenge the notion that power gaming "requires system mastery." It does not. All it requires is an internet connection and a search engine.
The only "page" I've seen in two years of recent PF play at a weekly open game night with roughly five games and twenty five to thirty different players and DMs, are those who built and took sick glory in their power gamer characters and those who didnt and endlessly complained about those who did.
It. Was. Not. Fun.
(Ps. Not one of the games made it to the end of an AP before breaking up and everyone going off to play games other than PF.)
now who do you blame for this; the five DMs? The 20+ players themselves who all just wanted an entertaining game? Or the currently broken system desperately in need of a re-write that encourages all of it?
Solution: Split the players up into groups of high system mastery and low system mastery. Run easier games for the low-system-mastery groups.
Or, if you have to play in a mixed-ability group, help and encourage the low system mastery players to get better until they can match the power gamers.
Or, when overshadowed, accept your sidekick role, allow your comrade to keep you safe and hog the glory, and have fun role-playing your character.
Or use pre-made characters so no-one can be take full advantage of their skills.
Or play something else. There's a game called 'chess' where a novice has literally not one chance in a million of beating an expert. For some reason the players don't seem to think of this as a massive flaw. I'm not so keen on it, so I play other games these days.
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Or play something else. There's a game called 'chess' where a novice has literally not one chance in a million of beating an expert. For some reason the players don't seem to think of this as a massive flaw. I'm not so keen on it, so I play other games these days.
Chess is a directly competitve game where two players are trying to defeat each other.
Pathfinder is generally considered a team oriented game where people are trying to work togehter.
Probably not a good example.