In the Favorite Build thread, there had been some irritation about quality of build where on one hand, someone could have a straight Fighter character using only Core Feats and weapons or a character who's taken a number of Feats from other books and dipped into other Classes or PrCs.

Now, I'm a guy that likes to make characters. I think it's fun to do, and when the mechanics mimic my ideas in a fun and effective way, it's even more fun for me to play. I'm also a designer. When there's no Prestige Class to fit my concept, or on Feat that does what I want, I make one. No, they're not always allowed in games I play (some DMs I've met are very staunchly No Homebrew, generally alluding to the idea that I'm probably trying to get away with something), but it's fun.

In that thread I mentioned, I said that in D&D (and really, all class-based games), there's a certain amount of inherent character capability that not all game share.  In D&D, a Fighter 10 will always have at least +10 BaB and 10d10 HP.  

I think that's great, except there's so much that can go wrong. Fighter power and, very importantly, character concept are really hinging on player choice of Feats. If the book says "We've got Swordsman Feats and Throwing Knife Feats, and we invite you to choose either." then I want both to have pros and cons, but be mostly even.

I say mostly, because I think that mastery of the system (especially a system like D&D) should provide benefits, but not at the exclusion of players who can't or are unwilling to game the system. I don't mind a gulf, but I don't want it to be too wide.

Know what I mean?

I think balance is a difficult goal to obtain in any 3.5 game utilizing all WOTC or extensive third party material for the very reasons you mention.  I don't see a solution to this other than having an active, experienced DM looking over the character builds or responsible players who know when to stop increasing their character's power.

Even restricted to core material, some players will take a Druid or Cleric and go nuts with character optimization that, at mid to high levels, can result in serious balance problems.

Quote from: Thanatos02[...]I think that mastery of the system (especially a system like D&D) should provide benefits, but not at the exclusion of players who can't or are unwilling to game the system. I don't mind a gulf, but I don't want it to be too wide.[...]

This is an unresolved problem in all game systems which allow some player choice in character generation and development. Point-buy systems are notorious for it, so it's not just class and level-based systems like D&D.

Unfortunately, the only solution anyone seems to have found is a helpful GM. The helpful GM can restrain the minimaxers to some extent, while giving helpful hints to the players who don't care about such details - helping them enough that their character can survive to do the stuff they do care about, whatever that is. The danger here is that it's becomes the GM's game, the GM handing out little bits of paper, "here's the feats I think your guy should take next level... and with this bit of armour, if you buy it, that's a good combination."

Really the gulf is a gulf between player styles, between those who love to minimax and those who don't care. It's always difficult to match up different wants in players...

Quote from: JimBobOzThis is an unresolved problem in all game systems which allow some player choice in character generation and development. Point-buy systems are notorious for it, so it's not just class and level-based systems like D&D.

My original post, I have to admit, is a little clumsily worded. Probably because I wasn't sure exactly what I was going for, not having a mission statement or anything. ^_^;

I brought up D&D in particular because it's got a lot of player's options in the form of Feats and choosable skills which don't automatically cap every level but it's also got a variable minimum level of competancy. I was specifically thinking of games like GURPS also, which really don't have a minimum level (or a very low one) because, despite having (theoretically) an equal number of points, the only limit to spending them is that they'll eventually cap themselves meaning there's a lot of oppertunity to scew up the character.

I also brought up D&D because it's a game specifically designed to be as available to as many players as possible. While many gamers I know love the trappings of game mastery that D&D affords, there are quite a few I know personally that wish that the available options existed more as individualizers and not strict quality limiters.

I used to play Magic before my cards got lifted (forever styming my professional bid, since it was hard for me to raise money). I remember a big part of the game was cards that looked like good choices, but really wern't. Because Magic was a game that was played on a professional level with large cash prizes, there was a good incentive for Wizards to add cards whose very choice was an indicator of player skill, making skill a larger part of the game.

However, D&D doesn't need to worry about that. I seriously doubt that the difference in Feat power, for example, is a purposeful design but rather a split  in design mentality. On one hand, Feats seemed to exist to give your character a mechanical difference from another while others seem to give a character a mechanical advantage.  The difference is pretty slim, but it seems the path Wizards eventually chose is a kind of 'build' model. It would be far more indicitive of a flavor model if Feats were stronger in and of themselves and didn't rely so heavily on trees but a build model is also the best way to give Fighters an edge when they seem so crummy to so many players.

And don't even get me started on the design hoops I had to jump through to make a Fighter/Wizard...

Quote from: Thanatos02I remember a big part of [Magic: the Gathering] was cards that looked like good choices, but really wern't. Because Magic was a game that was played on a professional level with large cash prizes, there was a good incentive for Wizards to add cards whose very choice was an indicator of player skill, making skill a larger part of the game.

However, D&D doesn't need to worry about that. I seriously doubt that the difference in Feat power, for example, is a purposeful design but rather a split  in design mentality.

I believe you've put your finger on the issue that galled me so earlier this week in the build thread -- the notion that feats and class progression were designed to be played as an integral and essential part of the game.

When M:tG was introduced in 1994, my friends and I were on it like stink on a monkey.  However, within 6 months, a weird and obvious division began to form among us.  One of us was a newlywed, one of us was a full time student, and two of us were bachelors with good jobs.  The bachelors with jobs were spending more on boosters than the other two, and the single student was spending more than the newlywed.  Consistently, the one who was buying the most cards was winning the most games, and it quickly ceased to be fun for the ones who were being outspent.  I heard all the arguments that a player with superior skill could still consistently beat an inferior player with a larger stable of cards.  In practical experience, though, this was not true.

I was troubled to hear this mentality was being proclaimed and perpetuated in 3.x, and that the roleplaying aspect of the game somehow hinged on resource management.  I can clearly see how this aspect of the game can be super-managed and played, but not how it's integral and essential to having a successful character and game.

Er, so, what exactly is the question?  Is it that characters should measure up to a certain standard at intervals during play?  I think that's an issue for the GM to address.  The challenge of the game should be gauged to the characters' abilities.

!i!

Than> I'm of the opinion that poor mechanical play should fuck over players mechanically, no matter how much they talk in character or whatever.

An analogy would be to sports. People often claim sports rely heavily on psychological features of the players and their interactions, and this may or may be true. But even if it is true, all the psychological tricks and preparation in the world won't make up for shitty play - a baseball player who can't hit or catch for shit, no matter how self-confident he is and how heroic or intimidating he appears to others, is a poor baseball player and does not deserve to beat his opponents.

Now, this doesn't mean everyone needs to play builds from the Wizards CharOp forums when they play D&D, but players should strive to constantly improve their mechanical play skills - learning how to exploit AoOs, what kinds of combinations of feats are most effective at certain tasks, how the spell systems work, etc. To avoid doing this because you're more interested in talking in character or whatever is like being that baseball player who relies on psychological tricks.

@ Pseudoephedrine:

I'm sure everyone understands how you win a game of baseball.

How do you win a game of D&D?*

Individual success in combat encounters?
Team success in strategic approach to the dungeon?
Maximum gains of XP and GP for the individual?
Best improvisation and roleplaying?
Most memorable character?
Completing the GM's story?
Character Survival?

(* Not including people who aren't playing to "win" but just like the social aspects, etc)

Unless you have everyone in the group pursuing the same idea of what "winning" the game means... you're all pursuing different goals, and in effect playing different games while you all play the same RPG.

I think in D&D that you don't have to completely max out, or worry to such a high degree, about your character's ability.  It's true that your character may not be at the topof the power curve, but I think a lot of the monsters assume a kind of average player build ability.

Plus, since the system tends to assume a four player party, there's even more wiggle room if you're in a six player group.

That all said, I personally find it fun to look through books and find new combinations to play with.

See, I don't think anyone should get fucked. Why should they? What purpose does that serve?

I think that there *should* be a difference between a system expert in a game like D&D and someone who's not interested in system expertise, but I think that the system ought to have a fairly small varience between the minimum level of competance and the maximum level.

Stuart> D&D doesn't have a fixed end point like baseball does, but it does have conditions of success and failure. The overall goal is having fun, but one has fun in D&D by overcoming challenges, whether by killing monsters or interacting with NPCs or moving forward your PC's plans, or whatever. To be successful at one thing demands different emphases in play, but they are not mutually exclusive, and they all operate according to an encompassing structure of rules and habits of interaction between the players.

You're not playing different games just because one person likes talking in character and another person likes casting spells. You're playing the same game, and are interested in different features of it. There's nothing wrong with being more interested in one part than another, but that doesn't mean that one should ignore the other parts of the game.

An example of what I'm talking about, that came up in the other thread, was Ian's shitty build for a Halfling Axe-Thrower. I suggested another Halfing Axe-Thrower build that was more optimised, and Ian claimed that he wasn't interested in figuring out how to improve the build because he was more interested in "playing", and "playing" the character properly involved "sacrifice" of some sort, which basically translated into sticking with poor feat choices taken at inappropriate levels. I think his use of the word "playing" there was wrong-headed and poorly reasoned.

Quote from: Thanatos02See, I don't think anyone should get fucked. Why should they? What purpose does that serve?

The risk of failure makes it challenging. Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, a famous psychologist who studies enjoyment and accomplishment, tried to establish what kinds of activities people most enjoyed, and what was going on cognitively in those states. He found that people most enjoyed themselves when they were performing a task they were interested in that tested them to the very limits of their competence. That is, they had to use all their skill, talent and resources to overcome the challenge (and they succeeded at doing so, obviously). The state they entered into, a "flow" state, was the most satisfied and enjoyable state that the vast majority of the study participants had.

QuoteI think that there *should* be a difference between a system expert in a game like D&D and someone who's not interested in system expertise, but I think that the system ought to have a fairly small varience between the minimum level of competance and the maximum level.

I don't. I think people who are uninterested in complex mechanical systems should not play games with complex mechanical systems, or else they should become interested in these systems. I'm not dictating which they do, but it's somewhat ridiculous to choose to suck at something you want to do just because you're not interested in mastering it.

I'm interested in defending my reputation only so far as to say that my position on issues mentioned above was, at best, misunderstood and misrepresented.

!i!

Then advance a counter-argument instead of whining about how mean I am.

Quote from: jcfialaI think in D&D that you don't have to completely max out, or worry to such a high degree, about your character's ability.  It's true that your character may not be at the topof the power curve, but I think a lot of the monsters assume a kind of average player build ability.

Plus, since the system tends to assume a four player party, there's even more wiggle room if you're in a six player group.

That all said, I personally find it fun to look through books and find new combinations to play with.

As I understand it, the ECL and CR systems are explicitly written to assume that the players are, in fact, running suboptimal characters.  So a shitty Sorceror with a bunch of melee feats and a very bizarre assortment of spells, will still have some chance of surviving the encounter regardless.  

Optimzation only serves to aid in ensuring that encounters go smoothly for the characters, and overoptimization can extend far enough beyond the assmuptions of the ECL and CR systems as to break them, and thus render them almost meaningless, as character ability has exceeding expected levels.  

As for you, Pseudo, I can provide myself with just as much challenge and strain on my intellect by deliberately playing a sub-optimal character.  I knew a guy who was so notorious for powergaming, that the GM forced him to make the weakest character he could, ending up with what amounted to a tadpole in a jar inspired by Woody Allen, complete with crippling neuroses.  He still tore the GM's encounter apart, he just had to use his brains instead of his character's brute force.

You're creating a silly dichotomy and investing too much importance on one aspect of the whole.

Not to mention sounding a lot like the arsehole raid leaders in WoW who start dictating exact talent builds for member's characters . . .

J Arcane> I'm actually trying to break down the dichotomy of "roleplaying" vs. "rollplaying" that's underlying the idea that you can prioritise mechanics or roleplaying. I think both are important, and that it's important to have a good grip on how both work, and to constantly strive to improve both, rather than just one or the other.

As well, there's a difference between choosing a suboptimal character as a specific challenge and simply badly designing a character without intending to. In the former, the handicapping keeps things challenging, and is done so that the player must work even harder than they would normally to overcome it. It's like a daredevil jumping a bunch of cars while blindfolded. The purpose of the handicap is to make things even more challenging because lesser challenges won't demand enough of the player.

In the second instance, the player is just fucking up. An analogy would be trying to ski down a hill and then realising that you forgot to do up the bindings on your skis. To get to the end of the hill in that state doesn't mean you've overcome some great challenge and accomplished something really great, it just means you avoided suffering severely for your screw-up.

The course I'm suggesting is simply not to coddle people when they do that. One can make allowances for beginners and pass on useful advice to others, but if someone doesn't care to improve their play, then it's silly just to give them a pass. It's like saying someone should've won a chess match just because they're a nice guy.