This is a question that's been bothering me for a while now and was made more apperant after I was at a con where pfs run about 120+ games .
I spent a fair amount of time chatting to the refs and listening in on the games now everyone seemed to be having fun and getting into the games but I did notice that there was a lot of "one up manship" going on between players and what appeared to be an over riding concern with being the most powerful character at the table.
Now I have nothing against players wanting there character to do well but I've always played that the party doing well is more important
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The party usually does pretty well if everyone makes a powerful character.
Systems with the capability for higher levels of character customization lead to this kind of thing. The popularity of competiitive online games is part of it too IMHO.
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I blame theory-crafting and message-boards ;)
But, I think some of it comes from everyone wanting to be optimized in PFS vs someone's home game. Also, everyone wants to feel like they "won" despite playing with people they might not know, might not play with again, or care much about. Because of the modular nature of PFS and the large audience and the ability to just jump in a game, some players have probably adopted a mindset that they have to pick up the slack in the group and win the encounter in spite of (rather than because of) their party.
Four well optimized characters will do better than no optimized characters, or a party with one optimized character and three that are not. I don't see why striving to improve your game and contribute to the party to the best of your ability would be a bad thing, so long as you're not a dick about it (and yes, I have known a guy who was a dick about it).
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Just wondered into this thread after being in a thread about AD&D. Back in the day "tournament" play WAS a competition with a scoring system and everything, however, players were scored as a group, not individuals.
I noticed that 3.5 (3?) really introduced a "GM vs. Players Miniatures Battle" feel to the game that wasn't there before. In AD&D basically EVERYTHING was up to the GM (and involved baffling charts), so there wasn't really a sense of competition, or even expectations.
Part of the problem with organized play is that there is no baseline for how much to optimize. Will I be looked down on if I bring a character from the DPR Olympics (especially if he didn't win!)? Will I be considered a munchkin if my wizard starts with a 20 Int? I think some sort of guidance could help people get on the same page for what power level is "normal". It is okay to bring a big knife to a knife fight, but no one wants to bring a knife to a gun fight.
Note: I'm slowly working on a guide for Optimizing Pathfinder for Fun, which I hope could be used for PFS as well, but it is still in the early stages. Click on my profile to see what I have so far.
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My experience is that optimization was never really part of role playing games until the late 90's and the release of 3.5 D&D. People just played their characters and told the story that the group was playing.
I put the blame on two things. One is ease of online discussion. By this time nearly every home has an internet connection and suddenly we were all able to share and talk as a global gaming community. From that players learnt what others had done and things started to click into place. Secondly, I put a lot of the "blame" on newcomers to the hobby. Many have come from computer gaming and MMO's where being the best of the best is paramount. The older role-players are moving on, popping their clogs or just not getting involved, and so the vocal new generation are having things changed to their way of playing. Times have changed.
As both player and especially as GM I loath over-optimization. It is certainly impressive what some players can create for their characters but frankly I find that it ruins game sessions when not everyone at the table is interested in the same level of game.
I'm not talking about how well players build there characters but how much they feel the need to brag about it
Hmmm I don't thing brag is quite the right term...obsess over it..maybe fixate.
Personally my eyes kinda glaze over and I have a ringing in my ear after so much +1 this and +2 that talk..lol :)
and as to the ancient days of tournament games..TSR actually released modules just for that scene..but they were to be used with PREmade characters...now that would cause a player uproar these days. ;)
I think the difference was that 3.0 introduced a build game that really wasn't there before. Back in AD&D days you couldn't really boast about how your fighter was so much tougher than anyone else because you were so clever about designing him.
You could of course boast about the stats you'd rolled and the gear you'd found and how many cool things you'd killed. And people did. Oh, my God, they did.
I suspect the details of the conversations now differ, but the gist is about the same.
That largely matches my experience as well. From the very beginning of the hobby there's been plenty of one-upmanship, bragging, and competition. I recall one old grognard I gamed with back in the AD&D days who would never stop talking about this one character he'd played, and all the cool stuff that character had done.
The only thing that's shifted since 3.0 is how all the bragging and competition is done. In the old days it was more about things your character has accomplished, since the mechanics of the game were a lot looser and far more subject to the whim of the DM. Complex character builds largely didn't exist; You picked race, class, weapon proficiencies, and one or two class features or a kit, then rolled your stats. That was it.
Starting from 3.0, there was a lot more focus on having a single defined ruleset which put far more emphasis on building your character at all levels of the game. One of the most telling differences for me between Pathfinder and AD&D is how many more decisions are involved in leveling up. AD&D Level ups could usually be accomplished in the time it took to check the chart for how your THAC0 and saves changed. Pathfinder leveling up is usually something I tell people to do between sessions, because otherwise it can easily eat up at least half an hour of game time because there are so many decisions to make.
In short, a lot of competitive types focus on builds because that's what 3.X/Pathfinder rewards, but the hobby has always had players who will constantly brag about how badass their character is.
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I don't see nothing wrong about occasionally bragging about my character at the table. If through a combination of good rolls and roleplaying I kick butt at the table during session. Why would I be silent. When people have great productive days in the real world. They tell people about it. As long as one is not always bragging about it.
Not to mention the system rewards a well made character vs one that is not imo. Or to put it another way one can make a Fighter wit low Str and Con. Just don;t expect him to hit as well and last as long as one that has a high Str and Con. One can roleplay some of it. Yet roleplaying can't solve it all. No amount of roleplaying is going to make a character with low Str suddenly acquire to ability lift and carry more equipment.
It can be done with other rpgs like Hero, Gurps and Fate. Not with D&D imo. It was also kind of hard to brag about characters in 2E. Unless one roleplayed a class differently a Fighter was a Fighter was a Fighter. At least with 3E and after one could add more customization in terms of feats, traits, and archtypes. Out of core in 2E everyone got the exact same thing in a class. The only class that could really custom was the Thief imo. With others only if a DM allowed kits from other sources could one get more variety imo. Bragging about stats was the only thing one could do in 2E as dumping stats really hurt characters. Have a low Con good luck coming back from the dead. Dex gave bonuses to AC against Missile weapons.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I'm not talking about how well players build there characters but how much they feel the need to brag about it
Most of the bragging/one-upmanship I've seen at the table has not been about builds, but about that one time 30 years ago that I did such-and-such in an AD&D game and you rolling a 1 reminded me of it so I'm interrupting everyone's game so I can talk about it.
Honestly, most of the build discussion I've seen has been less like bragging and competition and more like compatriots talking shop, much like how fencers might discuss their choice of epee over foil (or whatever).
Perhaps you just assumed it was bragging/competition because of what you already believed about the people you were watching.
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Folks like to talk shop. Some are going to be hyper-competitive about it. I don't have much Con experience but i'm happy to say that the local FLGS societies here in the Twin cities have folks who seem to get along very well. I have seen folks who are dead set on story and RP sit down at tables with folks who only care about combat and mechanics and get along swimmingly. Occasionally, you get a few overzealous types like rules lawyers or hyper-optimizers but it usually resolves itself once everyone has a feel for each others playstyle.
I did see a thread once about a poster asking if PFS players would have a problem sitting at the table with his 2 monk/ 2 cleric. I was surprised to see a number of "not a chance" postings in the thread. It was then I realized there is a belief or attitude that in order to make it in PFS you need to be hyper-optimized. You cant count on the other players to help you succeed at the table and it is a duty to be viable. Given that that ideology exist for some folks there are bound to be hyper-competitive players. I don't think that's a particularly good stance to have but I am encouraged by the cooperative nature of my local scene.
Now I have very little Con experience so take this with a grain of salt but, I think Cons tend to attract the hard core gamer. Obviously not everyone will be hyper-competitive but you will have some in attendance. On top of that many folks don't know each other so the urge to "show your stuff" will often be on display. I think those are just elements your going to have to anticipate when attending a Con. So to answer your question, I don't think gamers are becoming more competitive in general, just in certain context and groups.
I subscribe to the theory that it is worthwhile to optimize my character enough that I can support the table if need be, to some extent. In practice I rarely play characters that can "do everything" now since retiring two full spellcasters (a level 13 druid and a level 12 wizard).
Personally I'm more interested in optimizing characters to do odd or interesting things. My archer alchemist is a Beastmorph instead of a Grenadier, my Witch/Magus is incapable of using spell combat, etc.; I usually try to run things past my friends at the local game store to make sure I hit the right level of "your character does what now?" instead of "oh, your character does THAT..."
MMMMM...Op thread
I'm not talking about how well players build there characters but how much they feel the need to brag about itMost of the bragging/one-upmanship I've seen at the table has not been about builds, but about that one time 30 years ago that I did such-and-such in an AD&D game and you rolling a 1 reminded me of it so I'm interrupting everyone's game so I can talk about it.
Honestly, most of the build discussion I've seen has been less like bragging and competition and more like compatriots talking shop, much like how fencers might discuss their choice of epee over foil (or whatever).
Perhaps you just assumed it was bragging/competition because of what you already believed about the people you were watching.
Yeah a lot of it is just shop talk.
No one's "competing". My personal policy when playing or gming is that unless someoen asks or if there's a general feeling we're getting our asses kicked than to keep my mouth shut and let people play their own characters and make their own mistakes.
Typically I just play my character and work out how to build a good story with interesting development. The mechanics exist so I can enable that progress without the GM's mercy. I like having the satisfaction of having earned this character's development. I've dropped perfectly good characters because I felt their mecahnics just weren't great and failed to meet my expectations (a tactician and this was in a game with generous retraining and WBL) and because the personality and story was just no longer interesting (an alchemist I played as eccentric but really found no way to develop her and grow her as a character).
I don't think it's odd of me to say I enjoy both the roleplaying and storytelling aspect and the mechanical/tactical aspects. One feeds into the other, badass moments happen because I built a badass, and he's only a badass because the story calls for him to be a hard bastard.
This is a question that's been bothering me for a while now and was made more apperant after I was at a con where pfs run about 120+ games .
I spent a fair amount of time chatting to the refs and listening in on the games now everyone seemed to be having fun and getting into the games but I did notice that there was a lot of "one up manship" going on between players and what appeared to be an over riding concern with being the most powerful character at the table.
Now I have nothing against players wanting there character to do well but I've always played that the party doing well is more important
I can't really comment on cons and PFS because I don't get to go to the former and I don't do the latter (too many house rules to keep track of), but I've done a lot of online gaming and used to do a lot of tabletop gaming with different people. All in all, there was only one community I ever interacted with that had people trying to one-up the other players in power. The community was toxic in a number of ways which led to me creating an alternative than ran for a few years, but that community is by no means the standard that I've seen even in lots of online games.
Most of the people I know really only care so far as to not be a log to be carried. Most revel in their shared successes. Perhaps I've merely been lucky to have missed it, but at least in my area and online experiences I've found most gamers fairly cordial, accepting, and I'd dare say helpful (sometimes too helpful).
Well, cultural trends have moved towards vicarious power-fantasy in a big way. The kind of stuff the hero is expected to be able to do in a movie has come a long, long way since the era of Indiana Jones or the original Star Wars trilogy, for example. If someone is in the game for the vicarious experience of power or whatever (and hardly anyone is totally innocent of that), then it's not too difficult to see how someone could start to slip into a "I (through my assumed identity) am more powerful than you (in your assumed identity)" mentality when they're so engaged in it. I'm not saying it's some rampant problem, but as a general cultural thing... well everything feels a bit more aggressive these days, no?
..... did notice that there was a lot of "one up manship" going on between players and what appeared to be an over riding concern with being the most powerful character at the table.
Why do you feel this way? I ask because I have never seen this.
edit: In 3.5 I had player whose goal was to break any system he played, but his goal was not to outdo other players, but to defeat the "system". I never understood it.
I'm not talking about how well players build there characters but how much they feel the need to brag about itMost of the bragging/one-upmanship I've seen at the table has not been about builds, but about that one time 30 years ago that I did such-and-such in an AD&D game and you rolling a 1 reminded me of it so I'm interrupting everyone's game so I can talk about it.
Honestly, most of the build discussion I've seen has been less like bragging and competition and more like compatriots talking shop, much like how fencers might discuss their choice of epee over foil (or whatever).
Perhaps you just assumed it was bragging/competition because of what you already believed about the people you were watching.
This is what I think was happening also. I do see this a lot, but it not bragging. As an example someone might say I took feat X and Y and did _____. Someone else might say why not take ____ instead so you could ___ like I did with character Z. This is a case of presenting an alternative, and probably better solution, not bragging.
Give an example BadBird.
The kind of thing I'm talking about is not just about how powerful there characters are on paper.
But how they did more damage than the other characters and killed the most monsters in the game and even putting other players down for not being able to keep up with there damage output .
to me it doesn't matter who kills what in combat so long as the party is victorious
I can't see soldiers in the real world keeping score , to me what matters is everybody plays there part and supports each other so the party wins the fight
The kind of thing I'm talking about is not just about how powerful there characters are on paper.
But how they did more damage than the other characters and killed the most monsters in the game and even putting other players down for not being able to keep up with there damage output .
to me it doesn't matter who kills what in combat so long as the party is victorious
I can't see soldiers in the real world keeping score , to me what matters is everybody plays there part and supports each other so the party wins the fight
The only part that seems to be a problem to me is putting other players down. I have it at my tables, but it was done jokingly, and everyone knew it was not serious.
As an example the players playing a dwarf and an elf were keeping count of kills, but it was all done in character.With that aside if someone is not pulling their weight it might need to be addressed, but not in a rude manner. I am only saying that it "might" need to be address because the GM may already be handling things behind the screen so that one character does not endanger the other ones.
PS: I also think the party's victory is more important than who did the most hit point damage or got the most kills.
The kind of thing I'm talking about is not just about how powerful there characters are on paper.
But how they did more damage than the other characters and killed the most monsters in the game and even putting other players down for not being able to keep up with there damage output .
to me it doesn't matter who kills what in combat so long as the party is victorious
I can't see soldiers in the real world keeping score , to me what matters is everybody plays there part and supports each other so the party wins the fight
This reminds me of playing World of Warcraft, where after a boss is killed (in a raid or dungeon, or even just a world boss), someone posts the Recount damage meter numbers and gloats about them being either at the #1 spot, or in the top 3 (depending on how many people participated in the kill), and calling anyone near the bottom (or lower than a certain threshold of damage) a loser and should kill themselves.
Glad I don't play PFS, though I have seen something similar in playing over virtual tabletop. It hasn't reached WoW levels, yet. People seem to be all "me me me" and don't care about the other people. In which case I ask why they are playing a cooperative game with other people and not playing Call of Duty or some other pvp-based game instead.
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Wow I did this when I was like 12.
Adults are doing this?
Some of it is the environment. PFS and cons is a mix that will bring out lots of people, so you get a big cross section. They aren't going to all like each other, so you do get some hostility that wouldn't be there at a home game or regular PFS. Most groups self select to the degree they are able and PFS at a convention is not very able to do this.
Some of it is the nature of the game. Many people spend as much time reading and thinking about the game as they do playing it. When I get the chance to talk to someone who knows the rules really well I take it to talk shop. This will go right over the heads of anyone not into rules minutia, and while it might come off as rude it isn't ever done with ill intention.
PFS is a funny animal in that there are people who build very optimized characters and those who build very unoptimized characters at the same table with nobody having the ability to stop this.
My experience with this is mostly on the boards. I had a single comment from a newbie to an already established group I'm in who decried rogues compared to slayers in a somewhat derogatory way. That's the only IRL experience I've had with it. He only showed up to the one session, interestingly.
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I have seen a few do this type of "hey look at the character sheet for my min-maxed character and how great he is" thing. The one locally is a kid (12 - 14 age range) and thus, gets some sort of a pass due to his trying to fit in with adults who have decently built to optimized builds. Most people I play with don't feel the need to fully discuss their character and his/her stats unless somehow it comes up.
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I've had people claim to me what great min/maxers they are.
This sentiment usually doesn't last long.
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I agree. And being competitive usually paints a target on your PC's back.
What gets to me more than the damage competition is those who are competitive about how high certain skills are at specific level. I know you min-maxed your pc to have a +12 in a skill at 1st level but I really do not want to hear it every scenario you play him.
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Very true.
Part oh why most of my characters are optimized in some way is due to the notion that you do not know who you are going to play with every time (especially at conventions). I have seen what people have described as good AP builds but bad pfs builds.
I usually build around a concept or idea in order to make it effective. Sometimes it ends up optimized and sometimes it ends up normal. My vanilla fighter has ended up being optimized while my dwarven crusader cleric will be a healing tin can that has about as good chance to hit you as you do to hit him until 11th level.
I have 25+ yrs as a DM for AD&D2ed. I went to one (1) PFS game.
Only one. I purposely picked Lem as my pre-gen so I could be useful buffing others and see how the game is played.
Part of the reason I did not go back was because of the table one-upmanship, not just the, "lookie-my-build-ain't-my-snowflake-awesome-unique," but anytime ANYTHING occurred, everyone at the table wanted to be "THE MAN," go full-frontal attack and be the guy to claim the kill.
There was so much competition to be first, no one would wait for any suggested buffing ahead of combat to give them the best chance/get protected.
I have 25+ yrs as a DM for AD&D2ed. I went to one (1) PFS game.
Only one. I purposely picked Lem as my pre-gen so I could be useful buffing others and see how the game is played.
Part of the reason I did not go back was because of the table one-upmanship, not just the, "lookie-my-build-ain't-my-snowflake-awesome-unique," but anytime ANYTHING occurred, everyone at the table wanted to be "THE MAN," go full-frontal attack and be the guy to claim the kill.
There was so much competition to be first, no one would wait for any suggested buffing ahead of combat to give them the best chance/get protected.
I love running for individualistic glory fools.
They learn to triumph together.
Four well optimized characters will do better than no optimized characters, or a party with one optimized character and three that are not. I don't see why striving to improve your game and contribute to the party to the best of your ability would be a bad thing, so long as you're not a dick about it (and yes, I have known a guy who was a dick about it).
This is not necessarily true. It depends on how the GM runs the game. If the GM runs a teambased game where different abilities are needed...an optimized group that doesn't work well together could get slaughtered, whilst a group that isn't so well optimized, but synergizes great...might slaughter the scenario.
The problem I see is not enough focus on teamwork in scenarios allowing optimizers (well, most optimizers, the specific types are normally those who focus on one aspect of combat to the detriment of everything else) to try to dominate a game.
Honestly, though I see it on these boards quite a bit, I haven't really seen this culture of optimization at the expense of everything else type scenario IRL.
Normally everyone is there to play the game with others and not to be a one shot glory hound.
Even if there is a one shot glory hound, most GM's I've seen running games have a diverse enough adventure that the focus on that one arena that their character has focused on, isn't enough to hog the limelight from others.
At least from what I've seen thus far. These boards on the otherhand...sometimes with what I see it can actually be depressing to think there are those out there that actually think in the manner that they present.
Not that they can't enjoy it, I hope they do, it's just I would probably not want to play in a game with that type of playstyle that is presented on some portions of these boards quite regularly.
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Nothing has changed but the tint of the glasses.
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Nothing has changed but the tint of the glasses.
Back in my day we couldn't afford tinted glasses and even if we could, they weren't invented yet. Just goes to show what you wee munchkin WoW kids take for granted.
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Four well optimized characters will do better than no optimized characters, or a party with one optimized character and three that are not. I don't see why striving to improve your game and contribute to the party to the best of your ability would be a bad thing, so long as you're not a dick about it (and yes, I have known a guy who was a dick about it).This is not necessarily true. It depends on how the GM runs the game. If the GM runs a teambased game where different abilities are needed...an optimized group that doesn't work well together could get slaughtered, whilst a group that isn't so well optimized, but synergizes great...might slaughter the scenario.
The problem I see is not enough focus on teamwork in scenarios allowing optimizers (well, most optimizers, the specific types are normally those who focus on one aspect of combat to the detriment of everything else) to try to dominate a game.
You're introducing an extra factor that wasn't included in the original argument. If you have two groups of four people, both playing the same set of classes, then the group that optimizes will do better.
In a home game optimizing includes ensuring your party makeup covers the necessary bases. This isn't really possible in PFS, which is why "optimal" loadouts gear more towards builds that are generally good at a lot of things (read: Bards, Investigators, divine casters) rather than builds that are very good at one specific thing and suck at everything else. The Barbarian who starts with a 20 strength and an 8 wisdom isn't optimizing, he's just maxing out his attack power so he can kill the party when he gets dominated.
The Barbarian who starts with a 20 strength and an 8 wisdom isn't optimizing, he's just maxing out his attack power so he can kill the party when he gets dominated.
To be fair if you are high enough level to get dominated then the optimized Barbarian should already have favored class boosted Superstition and maybe even a Furious Courageous weapon. Will is looking pretty fine, 8 wisdom or not.
The Barbarian who starts with a 20 strength and an 8 wisdom isn't optimizing, he's just maxing out his attack power so he can kill the party when he gets dominated.To be fair if you are high enough level to get dominated then the optimized Barbarian should already have favored class boosted Superstition and maybe even a Furious Courageous weapon. Will is looking pretty fine, 8 wisdom or not.
I would have said Fighter with 20 strength and 8 wisdom but an optimizer wouldn't be caught dead playing a Fighter without the Eldritch Guardian archetype.
I would have said Fighter with 20 strength and 8 wisdom but an optimizer wouldn't be caught dead playing a Fighter without the Eldritch Guardian archetype.The Barbarian who starts with a 20 strength and an 8 wisdom isn't optimizing, he's just maxing out his attack power so he can kill the party when he gets dominated.To be fair if you are high enough level to get dominated then the optimized Barbarian should already have favored class boosted Superstition and maybe even a Furious Courageous weapon. Will is looking pretty fine, 8 wisdom or not.
Hey now, Dirty Fighter/Dervish of Dawn is a pretty ballin' for the distinguished dirty trick connoisseur.
The optimized Dirty Fighter wouldn't have an 8 wisdom though!
(I definitely did not forget that archetype exists, nosiree)