RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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It's funny- this whole "pull your weight!" stuff never comes up in my game or any game I have been in. Usually characters that suck on their own merits die on their own merits.
I saw it every now and then back when I played PFS. There was a rogue with 9 STR and high DEX who didn't know Weapon Finesse existed but fought in melee anyway. There was a gunslinger at like 9th level or so still managing only one shot per round, with no other contributions to speak of other than a high Perception skill. A few others.
And in organized play, you're contributing to the math that determines which subtier you play, which in turn determines how tough the encounters are. Which kind of goes back to your "die on your own merits" thing, except then the other players are still stuck in a math'd up difficulty without you, and possibly get pressured into helping pay for your raise with resources they can never get back. So... yeah.
Makes me glad I don't do organized play. With a handful of noted exceptions, only the most tightly wound people seem into it.
It's funny- this whole "pull your weight!" stuff never comes up in my game or any game I have been in. Usually characters that suck on their own merits die on their own merits.
Most average-difficulty campaigns can accommodate one or two weak links -- the other PCs cover for them, or else they get weeded out, as you've alluded to. But some of the real deadly meat-grinder campaigns (like the aforementioned Age of Worms) aren't that forgiving. Unless the weaker character is a 5th party member and the DM is running the modules as written (for a party of 4, and ignoring the adjustments for larger parties), the whole campaign will end in maybe the 3rd adventure at the latest when the whole party gets wiped out because the one guy dropped the ball and there's no room at all for error. Hell, we lost two moderately well-optimized parties to Spire of Long Shadows.
It's funny- this whole "pull your weight!" stuff never comes up in my game or any game I have been in. Usually characters that suck on their own merits die on their own merits.Most average-difficulty campaigns can accommodate one or two weak links -- the other PCs cover for them, or else they get weeded out, as you've alluded to. But some of the real deadly meat-grinder campaigns (like the aforementioned Age of Worms) aren't that forgiving. Unless the weaker character is a 5th party member and the DM is running the modules as written (for a party of 4, and ignoring the adjustments for larger parties), the whole campaign will end in maybe the 3rd adventure at the latest when the whole party gets wiped out because the one guy dropped the ball and there's no room at all for error. Hell, we lost two moderately well-optimized parties to Spire of Long Shadows.
mm. Interesting.
Is it possible to "win" in these campaigns through sheer numbers?
I feel like alot of this rollplay/roleplay distinction is in the eye of the beholder. If two people have equally powerful characters but an observer hates one person's character and likes the other one's character, he or she is more likely to say one is a roleplayer and the other is a rollplayer.
I tend to play mechanically solid characters with strong personalities. This GM I used to play with constantly called me a powergamer, optimizer, and a bunch of similar names. However, I never had the most powerful character in our group, I was usually in third place actually. We had two other players who consistently made horrifically broken characters who dominated the game, but this GM always praised their roleplaying while insulting mine.
Eye of the beholder.
It's funny- this whole "pull your weight!" stuff never comes up in my game or any game I have been in. Usually characters that suck on their own merits die on their own merits.I saw it every now and then back when I played PFS. There was a rogue with 9 STR and high DEX who didn't know Weapon Finesse existed but fought in melee anyway. There was a gunslinger at like 9th level or so still managing only one shot per round, with no other contributions to speak of other than a high Perception skill. A few others.
And in organized play, you're contributing to the math that determines which subtier you play, which in turn determines how tough the encounters are. Which kind of goes back to your "die on your own merits" thing, except then the other players are still stuck in a math'd up difficulty without you, and possibly get pressured into helping pay for your raise with resources they can never get back. So... yeah.
That is likely where a lot of the forum disconnect comes from. PFS and other organized play requires a different way of approaching the game than one that is less bound by the restrictions of subtiers and requirements to hold your side of the table up.
That isn't to say that you should be an untalented slug in your home game, but there isn't the pressing need from strangers (usually) to explain why your character is not tricked out and ready to dominate in some way.
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I have definitely run into "pull your weight" people in conventions... a lot of them. In one game I had a magic item which enhanced my basic attacks but not my special attacks, so I was using a lot of basic attacks during the scenario. I swear these people were going to have an aneurysm. They were constantly trying to tell me what I was supposed to do next. Chill out and let me play my own character, please! One even had the temerity to say I was holding the team back... but I was running a higher DPR than any of them; and doing it with mostly basic attacks. I honestly don't see how any of these guys have any fun playing the game like it's some kind of SWAT exercise.
I like to create a character who is useful in combat, but has a good, interesting, backstory.
At conventions, me and some friends tried to create some dwarves to adventure together. Backpack Meoff was a cleric designed to heal and buff the other characters. When he adventured with other characters, he had to swap out sanctuary for magic stone or something. A concept doesn't always work with every group. He had no disguise skill so I refused to play one module that involved going into an enemy nation. I refuse to play the character that gets the whole group caught.
I GM'd Age of Worms and everyone knew I only let stupid characters die. Everyone, including npcs pulled their weight.
I have definitely run into "pull your weight" people in conventions... a lot of them. In one game I had a magic item which enhanced my basic attacks but not my special attacks, so I was using a lot of basic attacks during the scenario. I swear these people were going to have an aneurysm. They were constantly trying to tell me what I was supposed to do next. Chill out and let me play my own character, please! One even had the temerity to say I was holding the team back... but I was running a higher DPR than any of them; and doing it with mostly basic attacks. I honestly don't see how any of these guys have any fun playing the game like it's some kind of SWAT exercise.
They were being stupid in that case because your character was obviously not being a problem, but that attitude is common in organized play for a reason. Far too often, someone using just basic attacks is genuinely holding the party back in an adventure that is written under the assumption that everyone is pretty much Superman. Part of this is the module writers, who in my experience tend to make combat either really easy or really hard, with virtually no middle ground experienced in the few years I played Living Greyhawk, and the nature of organized play itself. Characters that aren't at least partially optimized really do not work at all in organized play, and that's something a lot of people don't get and/or like. It's one of many reasons why now that my schedule has calmed down and I have other options, I tend to avoid organized play. It really is a setting where "roleplaying" has very little room as the DM pretty much has to follow the script and focus on the "rollplaying" aspect because that's the only part that carries over from session to session.
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I'm both a casual roleplayer and a casual rollplayer.
For the first character I ever played, not really knowing what I was getting into I tried to take roleplaying very seriously and wrote an elaborate backstory, but all of that went down the drain as I discovered that I was bad at both roleplaying and rollplaying a paladin. GM suggested the class to me; later he sensed that I wasn't exactly having fun with the class and gave me the option to reroll my character, but at the time I stubbornly refused to admit even to myself that I wasn't having fun playing paladin and continued with the character. In retrospect, paladin might not be a good class for someone playing pathfinder/d20 for the first time, especially someone who was used to the magic points style casting of vg rpg's and had not encountered Vancian casting in a game before.
Now when I write characters, I generally start with a roleplaying oriented concept. For example my most recent character was going to be a deliberate morally unfettered chaotic neutral parody of myself, and I have fun putting together the character concept, and only elaborate on the back story in pieces as needed or it comes to me. This character also brought the fun back into dnd for me, leading me to want to try my hand again at GMing and is thus indirectly the reason why I became an active member of this site.
My style of roleplaying in game turns out to be rather understated as the folks in my group are rather impulsive and quick to shout out their actions, and thus I get frequently shouted over. The result is most of my characters tend to be quiet, standoffish, and annoyed with everyone around them, expressing their disapproval in ways like facepalming or mumbling. I don't really like this and would like to work on it (hence the larger-than-life druid-barbarian).
I might also start with a rollplaying concept, for example, for the same character I wanted to try a druid/barbarian multiclass. I want also to have a decent character who is able to carry their corner of the party so I then focus on a build that works in combat. I don't go crazy with optimization though because I don't want to be held back by indecision, perfectionistic tendencies and rules research, especially when the session is coming up in a few days. (for example i might have been able to buy a set of ironwood armor for my druid who was not high enough level to cast the spell, but i was running late fenagling with the rules for buying such a set of armor and ended up just getting hide instead because d12 hit die) The slowest part of this process is picking feats for the reason that there are so many of them.
I also have fun with optimization; for example, I discovered that I could stack some bonuses onto intimidate with my dwarf barbarian character, so I built her intimidate as high as I could without compromising the integrity of the build, and her master of intimidation became a part of her roleplaying character concept.
So yeah, that is how I roleplay and rollplay casually.
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I don't see why one can't be both optimized and be a roleplayer. Building a character with one of the character creation guides does not suddenly remove my ability to roleplay. I can contribute both at the table with my character and roleplay as well.
The main problem is that while one can build a character the way the want and roleplay the same as well. One also has to accept that the character can be flawed at the table. If one is going to build a 7 STr character. First off your not going to be carrying much. Standard weight is going to be between 24-46 pounds. Leather armor is 15lbs, a armored quilt 10. That's not counting weapons and a shield as well as other stuff a character wants to buy. In the games I run if a BBEG is wearing magical heavy armor it suddenly does not turn into a suit of light armor. As well one takes a penalty granted a small penalty to damage.
If one is alright with the shortcomings of a character then such a character can work. Yet more often than not. A player who builds a weaker character than the others also wants to do the same as other built optimized or even normally. Which cannot be done with the system as is imo. Only with the help of a kind DM. To use the above fighter he is not going to be able to carry much in terms of equipment let alone treasure unless he gets a haversack or asks help from his teammates.
That's the thing though one wants to help a fellow player only so many times before it becomes annoying. After a point if I have a high str fighter and I'm also part pack mule for another player. I'm going to start charging a player a fee to carry his stuff. Nor do I see the reason to downplay or build a weaker character simply because a player insists on building a character with lower ability scores. I'm doing more damage with the higher str fighter. How about building him with a better str next time. As I said build a character the way you want. Don't complain if he is not as effective at the table. Nor begrudge players who do.
As long as attributes are tied so strongly to character classes it's just how the system is. One can build a Bard with both a 12 another with 18 cha. Yet the one with the higher score spell DCs will be higher. No amount of roleplaying can change that imo. The rules also reward those who optimize or at the very least take the bread and butter feats for their characters. A Rogue that has low str but high Dex and Weapon Finesse. Just hits more often than one without. A fighter that takes all the weapon style feats does more damage than one that decides to say focus on skill based or crafting feats.
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The reason I think people think of them as opposites is because people tend to focus more on the side of the game they like more. So a guy who loves optimizing is going to spend more time developing his Roll play skill and less time on his Role play skill, or vice versa for the Fluff guy.That makes logical sense, but the overall time that people spend on the game varies wildly. In general, what I see is that some people devote a lot of time to the hobby -- when they're not playing, they read rulebooks, and they make up a bunch of characters that they may never play, and maybe they draw sketches and work up backgrounds, etc. The proportions might differ slightly, but in general, the total amount of time they devote to the hobby is large, and they therefore develop both skills a lot.
Other people are far more casual -- the ones who are in it just to hang out or whatever. They devote comparatively little time to developing either skill, and therefore tend to be lackluster at both.
Say a group of 4 players spends 8 hours/week playing together (assume half and half "role" and "roll"). But Player A also spends another 4 hours at home on rulebooks and another 12 on characters. Maybe Player B has no life; he spends 12 hours on rulebooks and 8 on characters. And maybe Players C and D spend 0 hours outside of the game.
Player A might have developed his "role-playing" more than anyone (16 hrs/wk), but his rules-savvy is also quite good (8 hrs/wk). Player B is way ahead on "roll-playing" (16 hrs/wk), but really isn't too far behind on "role-playing" (12 hrs/wk) either! And they're both far, far better at BOTH aspects than either of the other players who spend very time on either skill (4 hrs/wk).
I have an observation to add to this. The rules for role playing are rarely changing, yet the rules for roll playing are always changing. Say this group was playing 3.5e and a lot of time building both skills then 3.5e ends and they start 4e and recruit a newbe... Then they will ALL seem pretty good at role playing to the newbe while everyone is starting at square one with zero roll playing experience in the new system. I suspect when people get older and they lose that fire to optimize the 10th new system, they can still pull out decades of skill at role playing and wow the table even if they are not slaughtering their opponents anymore.
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Then they will ALL seem pretty good at role playing to the newbe while everyone is starting at square one with zero roll playing experience in the new system. I suspect when people get older and they lose that fire to optimize the 10th new system, they can still pull out decades of skill at role playing and wow the table even if they are not slaughtering their opponents anymore.
To some extent that's true... but again, only to an extent. My brother plays the piano, the drums, the bass, the cello, the guitar. I play nothing. We once found a flute-like recorder somewhere -- an instrument neither of us was familiar with. He could play it, after a fashion, after about a minute. I was totally unable to get it to produce recognizable sounds.
On the other hand, I've played 1e, 2e, Basic, 3.0, 3.5, and 5e D&D; plus Gamma World, Boot Hill, Top Secret, Traveller, James Bond 007, Amber Diceless, and a number of other systems. Houstonderek at one point wanted to start a Shadowrun game, and he lent me the rules. I had never played or read them before, but after skimming them once, it was pretty clear to me what combinations would work and which ones would totally gimp my character -- and that's without consciously trying to figure that out. Someone with less experience with different systems would probably not know what to even look for.
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I've found when playing a rogue who is skill focused, it's good to multiclass as a bard. The bard song and use magic device are good in combat, often better than a surprise attack which works once. Does that change with Pathfinder or 5th edition? It's not looking like it.
Non Vancian might not have wands of cure light wounds, but switching that radically warrants more pre game GM time. If I suddenly wanted to play gurps, I would want some pre game GM time to discuss my character.
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I think the roll player Vs role player argument is over blown
There are always players who want the most powerful character they can make so make all there choices based on the mechanics of the rules and then try to think of a way to explain all there choices with a bizarre back story that often never works
And total role players will often make choices based purely on some strange background that they have dreamed up for there character in an effort to make a unique character which again often doesn't work
Finding the balance is the trick solid choices in Feats and skills are needed but they shouldn't have to be the absolute best they can be
And just because a character idea has been used before doesn't make it a bad one its all down to the player and how they play the game
Because all said and done it is only a game
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I've found when playing a rogue who is skill focused, it's good to multiclass as a bard. The bard song and use magic device are good in combat, often better than a surprise attack which works once. Does that change with Pathfinder or 5th edition? It's not looking like it.
Disagree. The 5E rogue is as accurate with his attacks as anybody, and Sneak Attack is REALLY easy to get consistently from round to round. If you think the rogue plays out the same in 5E as it does in 3.X, you haven't looked close enough at 5E. They are worlds apart.
I've found when playing a rogue who is skill focused, it's good to multiclass as a bard. The bard song and use magic device are good in combat, often better than a surprise attack which works once. Does that change with Pathfinder or 5th edition? It's not looking like it.Disagree. The 5E rogue is as accurate with his attacks as anybody, and Sneak Attack is REALLY easy to get consistently from round to round. If you think the rogue plays out the same in 5E as it does in 3.X, you haven't looked close enough at 5E. They are worlds apart.
OH yeah. Rogue dpr is the metric you hold other dpr too. They are versatile and have good action economy. Their flaws are poor AOE damage and strength saves/checks.
No one talks about rogues being bad in 5e unless they are an angry 4e purist.
I just got the 5E players handbook about a week ago. I was going to make a halfling wizard with a bat familiar, but now I'm going to take another look at the rogue. Thanks.
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I mean, what does it hurt if your charavters DOESNT suck at everything AND has character.By restricting your characters only to the hypercompetant you close off at least as many character types as you open up. Thus good characters are sacrificed on the altar of optimization in order to feed your own ego trip.
Wrong.
Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.
Also, wrong.
You do not close off character types by choosing to only play hypercompetent or competent characters.
You choose to play competent characters. That's it. You only chose to play those types.
No "good" characters are sacrificed because if you did not want to play them they never existed to be sacrificed. To say otherwise is contradictory to the very fundamental reason you even picked up the dice.
A million Bilbo's don't suddenly die because you want to play Legolas. Bilbo was never an option because you wanted to play Legolas.
If you don't want to play a concept it's not a good concept. Calling it an ego trip is insulting.
With that off my chest...
All "rollplayer" and "roleplayer" means to me is that one guy likes the mechanics more than the acting and the other guy likes the acting more than the mechanics.
But you require both to play the game.
Mechanics without the acting is just a tactical boardgame.
Acting without mechanics is just freeform.
Some skew one way, some skew the other.
Ultimately optimization exists for two reasons.
First, because the game has consequences.
It's really cute that people love to play flawed characters with dump stats in wisdom and quirky choices in weapons and tactics. They have a super complex and deep backstory that you'd love to get published one day but...
Nevermind the firegiant magus critted him dead.
It's very difficult and not all that fun to tell stories about dead characters. Particularly when you take the time to invest a lot of personality and history into that character.
And that's just you.
Consider for a minute that maybe even your quirky walking fly food might actually be a contributing member of the group if for no other reason that the damage you take isn't being taken by another character.
And the moment you go down that damage switches to another character, and then another. And now you have a pile of dead sheets and columns of salt where players once sat.
Is that the story you want?
Chances are no.
The second reason optimization exists is because if you want to play a character that is competent, or hypercompetent in a roleplaying sense than you need to be able to express that through your mechanics.
Because claiming to be a good swordsman or cunning sorcerer sounds great right up until the numbers prove you a liar.
There's more I want to get into but, ultimately the point being is that there is no right or wrong here. Ther's only jerk players, and non-jerk players.
It's wrong to purposely overshadow the group with a hyper optimized character. But if that same character is often literally carrying the group from one encounter to another than the blame cannot fall entirely upon them.
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Really awesome post
*Golf Clap*
All this talk about Hype-this, and competent-that, and characters that must be specialized, makes me wonder how many players, today, would ever consider a scenario like "Treasure Hunt", module N4
Way of The Wicked actually starts off way worse.
Skull and Shackles also starts off similiarly.
People just make things competent within the context of the scenario.
No. You do not close off character types by choosing to only play hypercompetent or competent characters.
You close off character types when the standard for the group requires hypercompetent or competent characters. Particularly the hypercompetent case. If your GM has chosen to escalate the difficulty of the game such that only hypercompetent characters have a reasonable chance of success or survival, then all sorts of other fun characters have been closed out.
Bilbo isn't an option because the party will TPK if everyone isn't up to Legolas standards.
Now if the rest of the group really does want to play hypercompetent characters, then I'll go along. I don't want to be "that guy". If everyone is just doing it to have a chance to stay alive, then maybe
we can all back off a notch and have fun with just the competent types.
The point is there is a trade off. As you ramp up the difficulty and the needed power level, various character archetypes stop being viable. Not just in builds, but in play as well. No playing anyone who's over confident or impulsive or anything other than tactically perfect because any errors get you killed.
Yes, there is a trade off. But that's a table issue, not one with the concept itself.
Consent and expectation is what matters here. If the group doesn't want the hypercompetent character than dialing it back isn't a huge deal but does crimp on the fun of the one who wants to play that character.
As far as never playing an impulsive cor overconfident character that too is a lie except in the most extreme circumstances (Gygaxian dungeons for example) the key there is that the first time your character realizes "huh, maybe I really ought to back it down a bit."
Or maybe that characters over confidence is because they understand necessary caution, have seen the results of foolhardiness and plan accordingly. Muhammad Ali didn't bad mouth George Foreman and acted like the greatest than ran in and started wailing on the guy. He ran in and fought defensively until Mr. Foreman dripped to the mat like grease off a burger.
So maybe your character runs in, gets her ass kicked because that four armed undead alien was way quicker and way more dangerous than he looked and suddenly she decides her typical modus operandi might not be the best approach for the future.
That's growth. That's development. That's letting the story flow.
That's also what happened to my hunter the other night. Still kind of bummed about that.
In any case adaptation is a part of the human experience.
I can't stand characters that remain the same from the first part of the AP to the 6th. It's like, so all those murders, wars, and lovely ladies you met did nothing for you? Are you even real?
But regardless, no those concepts don't go away, they just change and adapt differently.
I don't have a problem with a character learning not to be impulsive or overconfident from their mistakes. I have a problem with a player learning not to play impulsive or overconfident character because their mistakes get them (or the whole party) killed.
That's still not character growth.
No, that's not anything. That's player incentive.
And frankly, that's kind of the same way even in a pure roleplaying setting if you think about it.
Would you ever play a paladin in a group where the GM had very strict views on the code for example?
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Now if the rest of the group really does want to play hypercompetent characters, then I'll go along. I don't want to be "that guy". If everyone is just doing it to have a chance to stay alive, then maybe we can all back off a notch and have fun with just the competent types.
Speaking from experience, that's not even a group thing.
In my last home game, we had two sets of PCs with two totally different sets of expectations.
The "A Team" were competent-to-hypercompetent characters who worked well together: Jess Door's invincible genius fighter; houstonderek's face rogue with solid connections to the criminal underworld; Andostre's controller wizard; Silverhair's relic-collecting cleric "saint" -- plus assorted cohorts and so on. When they wanted to play those characters, I wrote adventures with organized, ruthless antagonists, and I pulled out the stops, tactically. We ended up with some character deaths and some near TPKs, and we had a lot of fun.
But then, for the next adventure, we'd pull out the "B Team." Different set of characters, most of them with wacky concepts -- Jess Door's orphan monk who wasn't sure what race she actually was and just wanted nice blankets; houstonderek's wizard who was crippled both emotionally and physically; Andostre's archivist who worshiped his god out of fear rather than veneration; silverhair's half-orc with anger management issues. The adventures I wrote for that group tended towards the off-beat and wacky, and I eased off on the throttle in terms of enemy tactics. We all had a ball with them, as well.
Switching a character from one group to the other would have been a disaster for either group, but everyone playing enjoyed the change of pace, and the chance to switch "modes" back and forth.
I don't think any one playing style is better than the other, personally. Also, I think terms like "rollplayer" are useless because there's no standard that defines which players are "rollplayers" and which are "roleplayers". One person's moderately competent character is another person's hideously broken mess. It's all perspective.
I tend towards specialized characters myself, not necessarily powerful but good at what they do; whether it's being the stealth guy, the melee guy, the knowledge guy, face guy, whatever. I used to play with a GM who constantly criticized me for powergaming, even when I played characters whose main contribution wasn't combat related. Meanwhile, there were 2 other players in the group who always played horrendously broken, even outright illegal characters who dominated every combat. But the GM always praised their roleplaying while calling me a munchkin.
Crap like that is why terms like "rollplayer" are meaningless. It translates to "I don't like you, your playing style or your character so I'm gonna call you a bad name".
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No HeHateMe, that was just a bad GM.
I mean, what does it hurt if your charavters DOESNT suck at everything AND has character.By restricting your characters only to the hypercompetant you close off at least as many character types as you open up. Thus good characters are sacrificed on the altar of optimization in order to feed your own ego trip.Wrong.
Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.
Also, wrong.
You do not close off character types by choosing to only play hypercompetent or competent characters.
You choose to play competent characters. That's it. You only chose to play those types.
No "good" characters are sacrificed because if you did not want to play them they never existed to be sacrificed. To say otherwise is contradictory to the very fundamental reason you even picked up the dice.
A million Bilbo's don't suddenly die because you want to play Legolas. Bilbo was never an option because you wanted to play Legolas.
If you don't want to play a concept it's not a good concept. Calling it an ego trip is insulting.
With that off my chest...
All "rollplayer" and "roleplayer" means to me is that one guy likes the mechanics more than the acting and the other guy likes the acting more than the mechanics.
But you require both to play the game.
Mechanics without the acting is just a tactical boardgame.
Acting without mechanics is just freeform.
Some skew one way, some skew the other.
Ultimately optimization exists for two reasons.
First, because the game has consequences.
It's really cute that people love to play flawed characters with dump stats in wisdom and quirky choices in weapons and tactics. They have a super complex and deep backstory that you'd love to get published one day but...
Nevermind the firegiant magus critted him dead...
preach it, thejeff.
You do not close off character types by choosing to only play hypercompetent or competent characters.
That bolded part is to me the big key. The assertion that limiting yourself to merely hypercompetent concepts limits a lot of perfectly viable concepts is one I fully agree with, but most of the concepts one would actually consider using as a PC become perfectly acceptable when one adds that bolded part of your statement. A character doesn't have to be the absolute best in their chosen field, which a great many people on the boards tend to argue for, and that argument does have a lot of problems. Still, I also don't see many players making characters that completely suck in their primary focus either. Even in the old days when stats and abilities were a lot more restricted, most people still generally tried to play characters that had a reasonable chance of success in most typical scenarios. So it's a case of finding that sweet spot where the mechanics are balanced with and support the non-mechanics aspects of the character. Too much of either, and the character usually doesn't work too well for more than an adventure or two.
It's funny- this whole "pull your weight!" stuff never comes up in my game or any game I have been in. Usually characters that suck on their own merits die on their own merits.Most average-difficulty campaigns can accommodate one or two weak links -- the other PCs cover for them, or else they get weeded out, as you've alluded to. But some of the real deadly meat-grinder campaigns (like the aforementioned Age of Worms) aren't that forgiving. Unless the weaker character is a 5th party member and the DM is running the modules as written (for a party of 4, and ignoring the adjustments for larger parties), the whole campaign will end in maybe the 3rd adventure at the latest when the whole party gets wiped out because the one guy dropped the ball and there's no room at all for error. Hell, we lost two moderately well-optimized parties to Spire of Long Shadows.
Honestly, if "pull your weight" is your mantra - we won't play together long. I find I don't enjoy playing with powergamers that are more interested in numbers crunching than anything else.
I think the powergaming generation is ruining the game for everyone else.
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Honestly, if "pull your weight" is your mantra - we won't play together long.
Are we playing together at all?
I find I don't enjoy playing with powergamers that are more interested in numbers crunching than anything else.
Stormwind again.
I think the powergaming generation is ruining the game for everyone else.
I started with AD&D around 1979 or 1980... is that the generation you mean?
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Seriously, though, sometimes I enjoy a game in which all the adventurers are bumblingly inept, and we face nothing worse than a mean schnauser during our quest for more beer. Sometimes I enjoy playing in a more standard AP. Sometimes I enjoy making a super-optimized hunter-killer for an Age of Worms-style campaign. They're ALL fun for me, at different times. And that means you can't even generalize play style within one single person, much less a "generation."
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The way I see it, optimization is what happens in character generation and between game sessions and roleplaying is what happens during game sessions, so there's no reason one should take time and effort away from the other.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Stromwind? really? So somebody expresses an opinion
I don't like playing with player "X"
(Player "X" here is one who puts numbers above all other things, a real kind of player, not withstanding that there are players who can, and do, make numbers very important, and can be a lot of fun to play with - that is not the point, the person here says, I don't like playing with player "X")
And you think somehow that is a Stormwind argument of some kind.
Man, that's really reaching
really reaching
I don't think he was calling "Stormwind" against the "I don't like playing with" part. I think Kirth took his sentence as stating that to be a powergamer means to love number-crunching above all else. Brother Fen's sentence is only a punctuation mark or two from literally saying that, and he's never been Grammar-Nazi-level precise with his punctuation, so he may well have meant that. (It would also fit with the context of the rest of his post, and his history around here.)
But who knows, I could be full of crap. :)
There is no right or wrong way to play this game, only your way, and other people's way.
Still not quite correct. As I said:
sometimes I enjoy a game in which all the adventurers are bumblingly inept, and we face nothing worse than a mean schnauser during our quest for more beer. Sometimes I enjoy playing in a more standard AP. Sometimes I enjoy making a super-optimized hunter-killer for an Age of Worms-style campaign. They're ALL fun for me, at different times. And that means you can't even generalize play style within one single person.
Each person doesn't even have to pick "a way" to play this game.
"Just don't play like you need to win."I play my characters like they need to survive... because they kind of do... if they want to live and all.
do they slit the throats of the other PCs and steal their items at the first opportunity?