No, not "more." Sometimes tho

Some characters provide good handle to play them and some just don't. Ability scores are one handle on the characters, but they're not the only one.

At the moment I'm enjoying playing a hobbit fighting-man with a WIS of 4, a CON of 4, and one hit point. (She also has exceptional intelligence and charisma.) The WIS 4 gave me the handle I needed to run with her.

i dont need a character to be optimal but i cant enjoy one that is gimped

I see the question in the thread title and the question asked by Pundit as two very different questions.

Optimization is not about whether the stats are high or low it is about min/maxing what stats (skills, spells, etc.) that the PC does have and about making optimal choices tactical, diplomatic, etc. in the game.

• Does the fighter use the most favorable selection of weapons and armor available or do they use a less favorable selection for reasons?
• Does the fighter use the most favorable tactics to defeat their foes or do they use less favorable tactics for reasons?
• Does the player have their character say the clever thing to persuade, coerce, intimidate, or bribe the NPC to do what the player wants or does the player intentionally say something less clever?

These are questions to ask to determine if someone likes playing a sub-optimal character.

Asking do you enjoy playing a character with some stats that are below average or below expectation is a different question. Long term in an RPG, optimal tools, tactics, and words will make a character more successful than will above average stats. For some players running a character with low stats is like a handicap in golf. They want to see if they can keep their PC alive and succeed in the game by making clever decisions despite the low stats?. But to do this they will frequently optimize the hell out of the character and the character's actions.

I enjoy playing characters who I have intentionally chosen not to optimize because that is part of their personality. I had a ton of fun playing a naïve, somewhat too trusting young Jedi in Star Wars. I could have chosen more optimal actions, tactics, etc. but that wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. If I want to focus on tactical optimization I go play a war game, when I play an RPG I want to play the character like a person - and real people, by and large, are sub-optimal in their choices and actions.

As far as stats go, I prefer a contrast in stats. A character who is good in one or more stats and bad in others is more interesting to play than a character who is average or above in all stats. I want to know what the character's strengths are, but also what their weaknesses are.

I enjoy playing suboptimal characters as much as optimized, but not more. I enjoy playing whatever I have unless it doesn't fit the theme of the game.

Almost all the games I work with are hard to create optimized characters, though there are always those who try.

And to your point, all the really legendary PCs were...Well, Sob-optimal would work for a term.  'Broken' is a better term.  But some, like Bard Cucino, lasted for years of real time.

So true.

That was pretty much the story as me, Kefra and Jan went through the playtest of Caves of Chaos several times. We knew the Ogre was in that cave. But our characters didnt and a few times we walked in at low levels and got pounded.

Echoing Bren's response, I generally prefer characters who are competent within their area of expertise but middling-to-weak in other areas. The most fun I've had in a game to date was playing a rogue with a 6 wisdom; the fact he was exceptionally good at being a rogue was often the only reason he was able to get out of the many precarious positions he found himself in (at least half of which were of his own making).

I enjoy playing all sorts of characters, including ones with low scores. Not a fan of the trend towards characters having no weaknesses.

Quote from: cranebump;822617I enjoy playing all sorts of characters, including ones with low scores. Not a fan of the trend towards characters having no weaknesses.

I'm not entirely sure I see a trend where characters don't have weaknesses. I think that it's more likely a trend of DMs specifically not exploiting their PCs weaknesses. I really don't know why considering any selr-proclai bad guy is going to do homework to find out the group's weak spots.

Not a fan of max/min. Except when playing in a superhero game, I don't want to play in the all 16+ game.

Gritty is good, but close to high fantasy is okay as well.  Nice to be competent of better at some things.

Quote from: Batman;822619I'm not entirely sure I see a trend where characters don't have weaknesses.

I do.  It's usually phrased in terms of "competence" rather than "lacking weaknesses", but it's definitely there and it's coming from game designers, not from negligent GMs.  Things like "fail forward" (even if you fail, the GM will throw you a bone that moves you closer to your goal, so you didn't really fail after all!) or the idea that, because PCs are "competent", a blown skill roll has to represent some external factor blocking their success rather than the PC's skill being insufficient for the task.

Quote from: nDervish;822644I do.  It's usually phrased in terms of "competence" rather than "lacking weaknesses", but it's definitely there and it's coming from game designers, not from negligent GMs.

Except the designers aren't there, running your games or forcing you to adhere strictly to the rules. I've never come across a character that didn't have at least a few areas of incompetence and that's both mechanics and player alike. And just because they have good competence doesn't necessar mean the dice will always work in their favor too.


 

Quote from: nDervish;822644Things like "fail forward" (even if you fail, the GM will throw you a bone that moves you closer to your goal, so you didn't really fail after all!) or the idea that, because PCs are "competent", a blown skill roll has to represent some external factor blocking their success rather than the PC's skill being insufficient for the task.

First,  fail forward is merely a tool for DMs to use. It's not an always on sort of thing that's used 100% of the time (at least, that's the way it's always come across to me). Second, it's an alternative to failure= death. For some, TPKs ruin the game and if a DM doesn't want the game to come to a screeching halt, you fail forward. The consequences don't always have to be death.

Quote from: Raven;822548Enjoyment derived from a character depends on circumstances beyond stats. Events of the game itself determine how much fun I have.

That said, I prefer random chargen over point buy or predetermination. Growing a character organically from a given set of stats and a cursory knowledge of the gameworld is preferable to shoehorning a pre-conceived concept into a world that might not support the stories I've already imagined for him.

Strongly agree
=

Curious. For those playing 5E, how many of the characters have a single stat under 10?  How about 2 stats? 3?

We're running BFRPG and every character has at least one stat below the norm. Half the characters have 3 stats that are 10 or less. Pretty sure the same numbers would cause them to be thrown away in 5E.

I'm not sure if I enjoy playing characters like that more but I definitely enjoy experimenting with sub-optimal choices.  A wizard with an 18 Strength and 9 Intelligence?  Interesting.  As I did this, I also found that different for difference sake was also just as cliche and somewhat annoying to fellow players.