if you min/max it, they will roleplay [Archive] - Wizards Community

if you min/max it, they will roleplay [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Mancer
10-26-03, 02:10 AM Opening disclaimer: this post is just a fit of whimsy I'm trying to work through, and is aimed at hardcore min/maxers and roleplaying purists as food for thought. It is not meant to attack anyone's style of play, or to malign either the character development or character optimization boards. As with third party material, if you don't like it, ignore it!

That having been said...

I have always been a roleplayer, first and foremost. I picked up my first d20 about ten years ago, but I picked up a copy of the Hobbit about five years bfore that. And one could hardly describe Bilbo as min/maxed. :)

In playing D&D and other fine games, I have found a simple secret, which I have used as the title of this post. It sounds odd to say that the secret to good roleplaying is min/maxing, but I have found this to be the case. Perhaps this epiphany is unique to my experience, but I have played with several groups, so I do not believe this to be the case.

The reason I feel this way is because I have seen too many friends become frustrated from standing idly by as some min/maxed, templated, rules lawyered monstrousity dominates combat. The real problem is that the PC with the Paragon Stirge Assassin (or whatever) knows that he shines in combat (this was, afer all, the whole POINT of his character,) so he takes steps to initiate combat whenever possible, thus monopolizing even more time than would normally be the case.

Now I love D&D, but I love my friends more, and I'm not going to tell someone they can't play just because they want to make a really good character.

The second aspect of the problem doesn't as often, but its effect is even worse: sometimes a min/maxed PC will become tired of doing nothing but fighting all the time (even if he initiates it), and the game will stagnate. This can occansionally be remedied by a bit of deft DMing, but more often the players will just give up and let the session (and possibly the entire campaign) burn out. Or worse yet, the non min/maxed PCs will complain that its was all the Paragon Stirge Assassin's fault the game ended, and fighting erupts.

I have achieved a balance in my characters by actively min/maxing them out of game (i.e., when I create them, when I level up,) but staying true to my natural instinct to advance the plot, stay in character, and gererally play my part in the story.

If you're lucky enough to find a group of all roleplayers or all door-kickers, this really isn't a problem, but every group I have played with was a mix of the two. As such, my advice to roleplayers: min/max. I know you want you fighter to have skill focus in diplomacy, isn't that really just min/maxing the non-combat aspect of your PC? You can play your character exactly as you would normally, but by giving game mechanics more than a passing glance, I think you will find that your game experience is enhanced. As for all you min/maxers out there: do you really need to attack/dispel/pickpocket/charm every random NPC you see? Part of the allure of power is NOT using it. Wish is certainly a neat spell, and if you have the wherewithal to discover a way to do it at will without experience loss, good for you, but it will get really old really quickly if all you ever do is run around casting wish. For instance, I am very glad that the United States thinks its cooler to just HAVE thousands of nukes than to actually use them on everyone. Americans think the rest of the world doesn't like them NOW...

If you made it all the way through this, thank you for reading the entirety of my little rant. If you found anything useful (somehow) in here, or have any other thoughts, post away...

:)
MalakiTyrel
10-26-03, 03:56 AM I would agree with you. Everyone min/maxes to some extent (any choice made to improve a pc at something is min/maxing by definition).

I am a min/maxer and always have been. I also like deep imersion campaigns and both play and GM one. Whatever type of character I choose to play, whether a combat junkie or a diplomat, is min/maxed so they can do their job well. That doesn't mean that I focus solely on their job. I will spend ranks on Profession or Knowledge or Craft: Art just for flavor and spend the occasional feat on something which won't help them in their job (say Skill Emphasis: Survival for a diplomat on Coruscant in my SW game) if it fits the character.

I have found that the best way to bridge the gap between a min/maxer and a deep imersion roleplayer is to combine the elements. You can show the min/maxer how to roleplay and a roleplayer how to min/max with great success.

Personally I have found that those who focus on their characters' "uberness" eventually get bored and move on to something else more "uber" whereas the imersive roleplayers tend to stick with a character much longer and derive more enjoyment out of playing the character (because they have more invested in it emotionally than just a collection of stats) but may grow frustrated with the characters ineffectiveness over time.

Neither is wrong but the ones who seem to enjoy a character the most combine the two elements and fall somewhere in between the two extremes. Personally I like both. I can min/max very well but the character is what I like to play. I can adapt pretty easily to any type of campaign but heavy combat games (with no reason for the combat) will bore me quickly just as interaction only campaigns will (a political intrigue type campaign).

I do think that most people fall somewhere in the middle of the too extremes. They may lean towards one of the two extremes but most aren't strictly one or the other.
dafrca
10-27-03, 02:38 AM Originally posted by Mancer
If you made it all the way through this, thank you for reading the entirety of my little rant. If you found anything useful (somehow) in here, or have any other thoughts, post away...

:) I think it is an interesting idea that does have value. In my experiance you are correct. In my present group there are three Role players and four Door Kickers. As we role players have all done as you suggested (min/maxed for survival) we have also had an effect on the door kickers. One has started to give his combat monster some real character, quarks that offer no real value to combat. I see a role player being born.

So for the most part I agree with your observations and idea.

dafrca
Trydan
10-27-03, 03:14 AM Nice exposé, Mancer.

The only thing that I would add to this, is that the DM needs to play to the "überness" ("überheit"?) of each character, so that every player feels needed and useful at something. If someone min/maxes a druid, then give them a chance to use those maxed-out wilderness skills.

In short, if someone tries to min/max, let it work for them, and don't try to thwart it immediately.
Kolo
10-27-03, 10:01 AM I am quite a bit of a min/maxer, and I must say that the most fun of min/maxing I have is roleplaying the characters that result. Sure, some über-build may have a strange combo of prestige classes that result in a combat machine, but he might suffer from a lack of identity. In my experience, when a character that is incredibly min/maxed is roleplayed so as to make him entertaining to be with or so that his friends feel an attachment towards him in some way, that character will not be whined about in combat.

A friend of mine played an ultra-powerful cleric, but we never complained that he was kicking more ass than the rest of us because he was funny, he was charming and he had the uncanny ability to make our lights shine. I once had a mage that never used his min/maxed ultra combos of spells unless it was an emergency and there was no other recourse. The biggest thing about power is to know when not to use it, and that alone can make for good roleplaying.

I've also been at the other end of the stick, with a weak character who really couldn't do a lot, but he was just as fun to play, because he always did SOMETHING, no matter how badly thought out, with some hilarious results.

Min/Maxing? make sure to min/max your roleplaying as well.:)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Mancer 10-26-03, 02:10 AM	Opening disclaimer: this post is just a fit of whimsy I'm trying to work through, and is aimed at hardcore min/maxers and roleplaying purists as food for thought. It is not meant to attack anyone's style of play, or to malign either the character development or character optimization boards. As with third party material, if you don't like it, ignore it! That having been said... I have always been a roleplayer, first and foremost. I picked up my first d20 about ten years ago, but I picked up a copy of the Hobbit about five years bfore that. And one could hardly describe Bilbo as min/maxed. :) In playing D&D and other fine games, I have found a simple secret, which I have used as the title of this post. It sounds odd to say that the secret to good roleplaying is min/maxing, but I have found this to be the case. Perhaps this epiphany is unique to my experience, but I have played with several groups, so I do not believe this to be the case. The reason I feel this way is because I have seen too many friends become frustrated from standing idly by as some min/maxed, templated, rules lawyered monstrousity dominates combat. The real problem is that the PC with the Paragon Stirge Assassin (or whatever) knows that he shines in combat (this was, afer all, the whole POINT of his character,) so he takes steps to initiate combat whenever possible, thus monopolizing even more time than would normally be the case. Now I love D&D, but I love my friends more, and I'm not going to tell someone they can't play just because they want to make a really good character. The second aspect of the problem doesn't as often, but its effect is even worse: sometimes a min/maxed PC will become tired of doing nothing but fighting all the time (even if he initiates it), and the game will stagnate. This can occansionally be remedied by a bit of deft DMing, but more often the players will just give up and let the session (and possibly the entire campaign) burn out. Or worse yet, the non min/maxed PCs will complain that its was all the Paragon Stirge Assassin's fault the game ended, and fighting erupts. I have achieved a balance in my characters by actively min/maxing them out of game (i.e., when I create them, when I level up,) but staying true to my natural instinct to advance the plot, stay in character, and gererally play my part in the story. If you're lucky enough to find a group of all roleplayers or all door-kickers, this really isn't a problem, but every group I have played with was a mix of the two. As such, my advice to roleplayers: min/max. I know you want you fighter to have skill focus in diplomacy, isn't that really just min/maxing the non-combat aspect of your PC? You can play your character exactly as you would normally, but by giving game mechanics more than a passing glance, I think you will find that your game experience is enhanced. As for all you min/maxers out there: do you really need to attack/dispel/pickpocket/charm every random NPC you see? Part of the allure of power is NOT using it. Wish is certainly a neat spell, and if you have the wherewithal to discover a way to do it at will without experience loss, good for you, but it will get really old really quickly if all you ever do is run around casting wish. For instance, I am very glad that the United States thinks its cooler to just HAVE thousands of nukes than to actually use them on everyone. Americans think the rest of the world doesn't like them NOW... If you made it all the way through this, thank you for reading the entirety of my little rant. If you found anything useful (somehow) in here, or have any other thoughts, post away... :)
MalakiTyrel 10-26-03, 03:56 AM	I would agree with you. Everyone min/maxes to some extent (any choice made to improve a pc at something is min/maxing by definition). I am a min/maxer and always have been. I also like deep imersion campaigns and both play and GM one. Whatever type of character I choose to play, whether a combat junkie or a diplomat, is min/maxed so they can do their job well. That doesn't mean that I focus solely on their job. I will spend ranks on Profession or Knowledge or Craft: Art just for flavor and spend the occasional feat on something which won't help them in their job (say Skill Emphasis: Survival for a diplomat on Coruscant in my SW game) if it fits the character. I have found that the best way to bridge the gap between a min/maxer and a deep imersion roleplayer is to combine the elements. You can show the min/maxer how to roleplay and a roleplayer how to min/max with great success. Personally I have found that those who focus on their characters' "uberness" eventually get bored and move on to something else more "uber" whereas the imersive roleplayers tend to stick with a character much longer and derive more enjoyment out of playing the character (because they have more invested in it emotionally than just a collection of stats) but may grow frustrated with the characters ineffectiveness over time. Neither is wrong but the ones who seem to enjoy a character the most combine the two elements and fall somewhere in between the two extremes. Personally I like both. I can min/max very well but the character is what I like to play. I can adapt pretty easily to any type of campaign but heavy combat games (with no reason for the combat) will bore me quickly just as interaction only campaigns will (a political intrigue type campaign). I do think that most people fall somewhere in the middle of the too extremes. They may lean towards one of the two extremes but most aren't strictly one or the other.
dafrca 10-27-03, 02:38 AM	Originally posted by Mancer If you made it all the way through this, thank you for reading the entirety of my little rant. If you found anything useful (somehow) in here, or have any other thoughts, post away... :) I think it is an interesting idea that does have value. In my experiance you are correct. In my present group there are three Role players and four Door Kickers. As we role players have all done as you suggested (min/maxed for survival) we have also had an effect on the door kickers. One has started to give his combat monster some real character, quarks that offer no real value to combat. I see a role player being born. So for the most part I agree with your observations and idea. dafrca
Trydan 10-27-03, 03:14 AM	Nice exposé, Mancer. The only thing that I would add to this, is that the DM needs to play to the "überness" ("überheit"?) of each character, so that every player feels needed and useful at something. If someone min/maxes a druid, then give them a chance to use those maxed-out wilderness skills. In short, if someone tries to min/max, let it work for them, and don't try to thwart it immediately.
Kolo 10-27-03, 10:01 AM	I am quite a bit of a min/maxer, and I must say that the most fun of min/maxing I have is roleplaying the characters that result. Sure, some über-build may have a strange combo of prestige classes that result in a combat machine, but he might suffer from a lack of identity. In my experience, when a character that is incredibly min/maxed is roleplayed so as to make him entertaining to be with or so that his friends feel an attachment towards him in some way, that character will not be whined about in combat. A friend of mine played an ultra-powerful cleric, but we never complained that he was kicking more ass than the rest of us because he was funny, he was charming and he had the uncanny ability to make our lights shine. I once had a mage that never used his min/maxed ultra combos of spells unless it was an emergency and there was no other recourse. The biggest thing about power is to know when not to use it, and that alone can make for good roleplaying. I've also been at the other end of the stick, with a weak character who really couldn't do a lot, but he was just as fun to play, because he always did SOMETHING, no matter how badly thought out, with some hilarious results. Min/Maxing? make sure to min/max your roleplaying as well.:)