Players talk extensively about "Builds"

Who said anything about punishing players?

I've ended up with overpowered characters before, generally by accident or not knowing what level of optimisation the group is at. Sometimes I've realised it myself, other times the GM has come to me with it, but either way I'm always happy to talk to them about toning the character down to fit in with the rest of the group or helping the other players characters be stronger, whichever works best with the system we're currently using.

If you actively want your character to be more powerful than everyone else you're just a selfish douchebag.

Well, shit systems like DnD live on crap like builds and min maxing.

It's called ensuring everyone has fun by not letting one player dictate the pace of the game. Tabletop RPGs aren't meant to be competitive, even if they can be played that way.

So let's say we're playing D&D 3.5 (god forbid) and one player's planning to play some optimized pile of four/five prestige classes he got off the internet, while everyone else is playing an ordinary character. It's fair to tell a player like that to tone it down and try to match the power level of the rest of the group.

>If you actively want your character to be more powerful than everyone else you're just a selfish douchebag.

Sounds like you just have a cuckold beta mindset I guess. Sorry buddy.

I still stand by the idea a good GM works with the less-skilled players to build them up instead of trying to convince a skilled player to not use the tools the GM provided. If you don't want players cheesing then you as the GM shouldn't be playing a system which is apparently so easy to break.

We're not talking about a munchkin playing to win. We're talking about how you apparently expect someone to feel guilty about making a competent character.

Roleplaying games are a cooperative experience. If the GM says 'Don't use these overpowered mechanical options/keep characters to this level of power', that's legitimate and a good player will follow it.

Even without that pre-established discussion, if there isn't really an option to make other characters more powerful, if the options they want to use cap out at a certain degree of power, it's still entirely okay for the GM to talk with the player about toning their character down. It's not about guilt or punishment, it's about everyone working together to make sure the game is fun for everyone.

It's time once again to remind Veeky Forums that the word "Moderation" exists. Creating a character to fit a persona, perform well at a specific task, or fill a certain role is fine.

What's not fine is when the game begins to form a meta based around power of character builds, organizing a tier of player options based on their utility, and any coherent discussion(When not about which fantasy race you want to fuck, besided Kitsune) is exclusively about creating a character the same way one discusses MTG competitive builds.

If someone being better than you at the game actually hinders your fun it means one of two things: you are incredibly insecure or that player is a huge asshole about it. Either way, those aren't things you can fix just by forcing the better player to gimp himself.

Yeah, it's annoying when the high level Wizard throws every monster through a dimensional door but you can remedy that by not playing a system where that's even an option. I don't want to turn this into a "have you tried not playing D&D thread" but choosing a system you feel works is a far better tool for ensuring fun than choosing one which doesn't work and telling your players not to do X Y or Z because it's "unfair".

Why is 'Player skill' a thing you keep bringing up?

I enjoy game mechanics, I enjoy playing with them and seeing what they can do, but I don't think that entitles me to any more ability to interact with a game than a less 'skilled' player. If anything, it obliges me to use my greater knowledge of the system to help them.

There's a player in my group who just won't shut up about the most recent numbers on his character sheet. Whenever he levels up, he starts rattling off his saves and bonuses and average damage per round that he now does. But we're always playing at his house, so everybody just listens and nods politely.

It's not even "Have you tried not playing D&D>" it's "Have you tried playing 5e?"

Yeah, Yeah, you don't like 5e because of lack of options, or bounded accuracy, or a myriad of other reasons that we could argue incessantly about. Bottom line is that the latest edition seems to have hit most of the right notes.

Aside from that, even when looking at things from the perspective of narrative, you'll probably want to make sure your character is actually suited for telling the kinds of stories you have in mind. Playing, like, a kung fu monk who's spent his entire life in some distant monastery kicking things, an who is pretty good at kicking things but just starting to learn things others consider common sense, might be cool. It'd be less cool if it turned out that your character wasn't actually any good at kicking things, or if he was more skilled at some things than he should be. Mechanics and narrative should ideally work together.

>Players are having "fun"

If being asked to exhibit a little self-control and not snatch the spotlight actually hinders your fun, the same can be said about you.

It's not even a case of the smartest player gimping himself. Sometimes, it's just someone printing out a cookie cutter build and slapping it on a sheet, while more intelligent players are playing more balanced, sensible characters that aren't just piles of statistics. If expressing your superior knowledge and understanding of the system is fundamental to your enjoyment of a game, consider getting into wargaming or CCGs.

If a game has combat resolution mechanics, players will optimize to beat those combat resolution mechanics. Munchkin's law.

>Tabletop RPGs aren't meant to be competitive
Do you have a few minutes to talk about Friend Computer?

>Anything that keeps me from trying to prove my 'superiority' over others is communism!

Every time. It is like they are playing Diablo or something. Why can't they just use stats that best represent their character?

>it's your duty to make sure that everyone has fun during the course of the game

that's an umbrella phrase that directly includes what the person you were quoting says, you faggot.

also not letting players walk into obvious idiot traps. if you see somebody about to make a stupid decision which you think could impact their enjoyment, you talk to them about it.

letting your players hang themselves on whatever shitty system you are playing isn't good gming. helping your players organise and balance their party is gming 101, since you want everyone to be enjoying themselves to a roughly equal level, even if 'fun' can't really be measured.

>cuck

wew lad

Not everyone is in this to play out their obnoxious power fantasy

Eh, user is retarded

>Most tabletop RPGs aren't meant to be competitive

Fixed

At least they don't call them "toons"

>Players talk extensively about "Builds"
>But, once the game is going, they mostly stay in-character when they aren't laughing at cross-campaign references and running jokes
>They also make sure to include elements in their "Builds" that you can spin into plot hooks of varying sizes

No one ever said something about communism your new is showing.

>Kon talks extensively about "Marriage"

>Koume talks extensively about something we can't understand because it is in French
Why do exotic escorts do this?

>Players call their back-up characters extra marios

Better than calling any of their characters "toons".

>players calling buffs mushrooms

>>players calling buffs mushrooms

>"I'm playing a D.P.S. fighter"

I agree, there's no excuse for not using the proper terminology of DPR.

>besides kitsune
fuck you kitsunes are nice and
>besided

>Players get into a friendly battle
>One wins as normal
>Other takes the loss in stride but you can see it in his eyes that he is brewing something up
>A level later they fight again
>The second player wins this time
>This kicks off an arms race that leaves the other two players behind
>The two constantly fighting each other end up as gods that shred CR's 10 levels ahead of them

I really want to ban all player fights because this shit always happens. Its not even the same two guys. But the second two players decided to test their PC's against each other I know what is coming. But every time I try they just do it anyway behind my back. I cant even just kill the characters off because they come back with a fresh char that is PERFECTLY geared to do their thing now since they can now optimize the low levels before they decided to start one upping each other.

youre one of those fags that gets pissy over not having a detailed explanation as to why a character would have every single skill that he/she has arent you?

It depends on the system. D&D and its ilk suck for PvP, but I've actually had some amazing PvP happen in Legends of the Wulin games I've ran and played, which added to the experience rather than distracting from it.

>Roleplay every Wednesday night with 5 close friends.
>Used to only play Dark Heresy, but decided to try Pathfinder.
>Only one guy knows the system, but he knows it well and makes an awesome campaign as our GM helping us build our characters and learn rules as we have fun.
>The barbarian rages, the Ranger shoots, the cleric supports, the fighter trips and the inquisitor is a useless piece of shit smug-talker. We're a simple group.
>When the campaign ends he hints that he wants to play as well so both me and another guy makes a one-nighter each to try GMing.
>The first is my friends session. Retired GM brings a Wizard- Zen of this reality! A bald elf with tribal-tattooed skin, samurai armor and a red, teddybear hanging from his belt.
>Pretty cool shit honestly.
>New GM takes us on a simple dungeon crawl trough a kobold mine with a small dragon at the end.
>MFW Zen of this reality starts to fly, summons 4 hellhounds with firebreath then throws 3 explosive fireballs the next round. When badly needed kobold reinforcements arrive he creates a spiked pit beneath them.
>Their helpless now and just as horrifed as the other players around the table.
>Next session I'm GM and make the players chase a group of slaver orcs across a mountain ridge.
>MFW the teddybear is actually an Imp with touch attacks that can fly and turn invisible with more than 40 stealth on a good roll. He can even ask questions to Satan himself.

Zen of this reality broke the game so bad everyone else in the party felt redundant, but apparently his wizard wasn't nearly as broken as what he could've been.

How can anything be more broken than that?!

Divination spells, for one.

....i think you just sold me on pathfinder friendo

Well, I enjoy different builds and unintended interactions between countless classes, feats and spells. It is one the aspect of tabletop rpgs I enjoy greatly. So, I pick a concept and optimize it as much as possible and in the end I probably have at least one gamebreaking stuff on my character sheet. However, instead of stealing spotlight, gamebreaking options stay on my character sheet like big red emergency buttons.

I simply break the game - hopefully in a reasonable way - in case of severe tpk risk. And instead of stealing spotlight, it just becomes my time to shine. And party is happy because I just saved us all.

>Nono talks extensively but nobody can hear her

>Players are excited about potential builds and thus discuss said builds.

>If you're playing games that aren't rules-light and narrative-focused
or new school. Builds are cancer, always have been, always will be. Learn to play your character, not your sheet.

What an asshole.

>Bottom line is that the latest edition seems to have hit most of the right notes.
Yea, and the original games hit all the right notes, it's no surprise the only elements 5e got right were the parts they shat on WotC's old design motivations in a return the old school. Stop settling for only half-garbage and just play the real stuff.

>players have fun in a way that isn't the same as mine

REEEE

I for one am fully in favor of throwing communists out of helicopters

'Fun' is codeword for STOP CRITICIZING ANYTHING I LIKE

>STOP HAVING BADWRONGFUN, YOU MAY ONLY HAVE GOODRIGHTFUN

Shooting them before throwing them out, I presume?

>he doesn't have goodrightfun

>Lot of loyalty for a commie thug

No, this isn't a bane meme

Pinochet my dude, check that shit out

>Learn to play your character, not your sheet.

Except this makes no sense. Your sheet is a representation of your character, and the rules present there act as your frame of reference for interacting with the world.

Not really nothing as they are either talking about engineering related stuff, MMOs/vidya, or D&Dfinder as no one else really talks about builds. Seeing as this is Veeky Forums it is likely they are engineers.

>it's only possible to criticize something on the level of a single subjective emotion

Your character sheet represents some mechanical details of your character. It does not at all represent the entire PC as he exists in the shared imaginary nor his ability to interact with the game system. If you think it does, reread the sentence you quoted and realize it's directed at you.

Trying to draw an arbitrary line between the two makes no sense. The rules present on the sheet are mechanical representations of aspects of your character, their personality, skills and capabilities.

If you roleplay a character completely different to the one you have represented on your sheet, you're doing it just as wrong as if you only roll dice and don't roleplay at all.

Stop reading it so literally, it's just a saying describing two distinct approaches to play, like roleplay vs. rollplay. It doesn't literally mean you can only have one or the other, that there's no cross pollination or blurred lines between the two approaches, but they two group two recognizably different schools of play that people to naturally gravitate towards. Likewise, there's a school of play that's "playing your PC" vs. "playing your character sheet," and build-oriented design (skills+feats) ala 3e strongly encouraged players towards the latter by nature of its mechanics.

In other games, you would see a wall and then describe climbing it, in a build style game, you'd look down at your sheet, evaluate your skill level in climb and then declare what you'll do, telling the DM what your skill level and letting him evaluate. A roll might be required in both scenarios, but in the latter, you're playing your sheet. In the former, you don't need to look at the sheet to know your PC's skills (beyond the fundamental 6 abilities that your character would be presumably built on), personality, history, capabilities.

The distinction you're drawing still doesn't make sense to me.

When you want to accomplish a task in an RPG, you refer to your sheet for the mechanical side, and then describe the actions your character takes in pursuit of it. The only reason you wouldn't refer to your sheet is if you knew it by heart, whether due to the system being simple or having memorised it as a player, but neither of those is particularly connected to playstyle.

This doesn't account for things which aren't directly represented in the rules, of course, but that just adds a simple extra step- First you talk to the GM. Maybe it just happens without a roll, maybe it's not possible, most of the time they tell you which particular mechanical bit is most appropriate and the process proceeds as normal.

He's arguing the stormwind fallacy, just ignore him.

>The distinction you're drawing still doesn't make sense to me.
You haven't played a pre-millenial RPG, have you?

>When you want to accomplish a task in an RPG, you refer to your sheet for the mechanical side
Only with skills & feats and their kind, mate. What I'm trying to tell you is this isn't true in games not designed around builds. It doesn't mean the system is simple, it just means the game mechanics isn't oriented around your character sheet or even player-facing in general.

I literally clarified the opposite:
>it's just a saying describing two distinct approaches to play, like roleplay vs. rollplay. It doesn't literally mean you can only have one or the other, that there's no cross pollination or blurred lines between the two approaches
faggot

I don't see how 'builds' are relevant at all to my core point, or how pointing at older games changes things unless they operate on such a completely different paradigm as to be unrecognisable.

You posted a sheet. There will have been numbers on that sheet, and there will have been rules that created a number of reliable, mechanical effects based on those numbers. And that's all there needs to be for my prior point to apply.

The point is it demonstrates fundamental difference in game design

>The only reason you wouldn't refer to your sheet is if you knew it by heart, whether due to the system being simple or having memorised it as a player, but neither of those is particularly connected to playstyle.
The B/X sheet posted does not contain the entirety of mechanics you can engage with yet despite that, you can engage with them without having memorized all of them. The difference in design demonstrates the difference in playstyle. Most every skill in the PF sheet are also built into B/X, but it's something that exists in roleplay tied to your PC, his stats, equipment, life story - running him as a realistic agent in the world - not the numbers on the sheet.

>This doesn't account for things which aren't directly represented in the rules, of course, but that just adds a simple extra step- First you talk to the GM
It does in fact account for many things represented in the rules, and the solution is still talking to the GM - not your character sheet or your personal copy of the rules.

I feel you, user. But you're not going to get through to autistic rollplayers who just can't imagine any other way of doing things.

I never said you were arguing it well.

So... Large amounts of the game are obfuscated from the players? And this is a good thing?

Basic D&D is designed such that a new player can show up, learn what a "dee twenty" is, choose a class, and start playing, all within about ten minutes. There's no charop or buildfagging when there's no mechanical decisions to make during character creation.

Well, yes, to both questions, but that's besides the point. Just because mechanics aren't on your character sheet doesn't mean they're obfuscated or non-existent as rules. They're just not on your character sheet.

Again:
>Learn to play your character, not your sheet.

Poor souls

In B/X, your class chooses you.

For some games, it is, yes. One of the reasons old school games have seen some resurgence (and even influenced the design of 5e) is because it makes player skill and attention to the game environment more important than sifting through the rulebook(s) for the combination of choices that makes the numbers on the sheet go up.

Not him, but you're on Veeky Forums arguing about D&D. Nerd culture aside, you're so far from being an alpha anything that actually matters that you can't even see what one looks like from where you're standing.

I'm not trying to be insulting or anything, I just think you should keep it in perspective.

But what benefit is there to the mechanics not being on your sheet? Isn't having a comprehensive quick reference a good and useful thing?

This isn't true, there are totally "nerd alphas", in the sense that they're alpha in their context. For example, that guy that was DM in Freaks & Geeks, I've known a few people just like him. Tends to be the leader of the group, seat of knowledge, doesn't get talked over, generally most world-experienced, etc. Still a total nerd, but it's usually the kind of nerd that's fully unashamed and impressive at it - though not autistic-impressive; rather than the kind that just kind of got into nerd things because they're losers seeking friends.

I know you said 'anything that actually matters' but nerdlife at a certain level of commitment is essentially the same, just a bit grotesquely distorted of a mirror world of real social life.

>DM doesn't say a word about our builds until in-game

It's not just omitting things from the sheet, it's a difference in design. Skills are on 3e's sheet because skills are in the game. This isn't true of B/X (besides thieves, which were a mistake), anything that might've been a "skill" is able to be done by anyone as long as it's realistically feasible in context, which is true of all actions you declare in roleplay.

To define a skill for craft, for example, suddenly limits everyone else's ability to do it while also making the action of crafting not based on a player's creative description (filling a flask of liquor with a torn off piece of shirt, then lighting the end on fire and throwing it) to a mechanical skill roll (I roll to craft molotov cocktail). When the latter is the scenario, and you're faced with a situation that could use a creative solution, you look to your list of pre-defined skills to see what you're capable of in the situation. While without 'character sheet gameplay', the only thing you really have to engage with is the shared imaginary and understanding of your character as an agent with in it - where is he, what's the situation, what does he have on him? Playing your character, not your sheet.

Also, in general, the mechanics are "DM-facing," not "player-facing." You'll roll to attack & to do saves and maybe ability checks, that's about it. The DM did almost all the rolling back then, and there will still a lot of mechanics and a lot of rolls, but they were hidden because D&D is about exploring the dangerous unknown and obfuscation & mystery is a key part of that feeling. It's also why it was important to give players so much freedom in their ability to engage with the environment, they'd need a lot more than a little checklist to survive.

But that doesn't seem like roleplaying a character though. It's more like... Playing a version of yourself, tossed into the context.

Skills provide creative restriction. You aren't capable of whatever you can think of at the time, you're capable of what the character you're playing would be capable of. I guess that's the fundamental difference?

No, you're still limited to what your PC is capable of. As I said, it's engaging with a shared imaginary that your character is an agent acting within it. He's beholden to all the realistic trappings of his background, stats, personality, etc.

>Skills provide creative restriction.
No, just mechanical restriction.
>you're capable of what the character you're playing would be capable of.
No, you're capable of what the character sheet says he's capable of.

Kitsune are trash-tier. Barely a step above Merfolk, and that's only because mermaids have allow for less positions.

>He's beholden to all the realistic trappings of his background, stats, personality, etc.

How is this any different to skills? They, and other mechanical representations you might list on a sheet, are just a reflection of those elements and provide the same kind of creative limitation and storytelling prompts, just in a more tangible way.

>No, you're capable of what the character sheet says he's capable of.

No? You have a reliable set of capabilities you can fall back on, giving you a frame of reference, but every system under the sun also has guidance for GMs for taking actions outside the rules or things that would explicitly appear on your sheet.

Whether it's an ephemeral background you need to keep in mind or a mechanical framework based on it, it's exactly the same kind of creative restriction but expressed in different ways.

>trash-tier
kek nice b8, its wrong, but still nice

kys, kitsune are way fuckin better than Mermaids
You're a centaur degenerate aren't you

>How is this any different to skills?
Because they're not mechanical restrictions. As I pointed out, including a skill for craft, for example, now means anyone who doesn't have it cannot craft. It's not adding an ability to the game, it's isolating it to a specific few.

>but every system under the sun also has guidance for GMs for taking actions outside the rules or things that would explicitly appear on your sheet.
Sure, but if you're regularly taking complicated actions that fall outside of skill checks, then you're not playing your character sheet. You don't look to your sheet to see what you're capable, and not capable of doing. You're not forced to play like that, it's just that some game encourages it more, just as some games will be more 'clear all monsters in the dungeon,' and others discourage combat.

Do people who play the original games "talk about builds" less than 5e players do? In 5e, pretty much anyone who has to discuss how to optimize their character is actually looking for ways to exploit the game, since the game doesn't give you a ton of options to begin with and just about anything works out fine. "How can I play my character efficiently," does not mean the same thing as it would in Trapfinder.

In OD&D & B/X, player-facing mechanics in chargen are extremely limited. You roll stats 3d6 straight down the line, picking a class is usually as simple as whichever of the class-abilities (STR, INT, WIS) you have the highest in unless you're considering playing a fantasy race - basically the only chance of optimization possible, people would still choose to play classes they weren't exactly best started for just cause they wanted to (OD&D's example character Xylarthen was like this). MU's got starter spells randomly rolled for. Then you rolled for gold and bought equipment, and here, yeah, you "optimize" as best as possible but everyone always optimizes when it comes to money in literally anything. In general, you were beholden to the dice. Chargen wasn't about options, there weren't builds until around AD&D 2e which had a lot of the characteristics that 3e went full throttle with.

Exception is some tables have the attitude where the DM'll class you up for whatever concept you might have (if it's cool enough), for example, you want to be a space dolphin. Usually this will be the rule that you have to accept whatever stats the DM comes up for you. Optimization is not really a possibility here either.

Also, play was all about what you did, not what you were. Legendary stats were rolled but it still always came down to the player. It think it's a similar subtle shift in how PC stories are understood. An old school character barely had any backstory, "only son of a landless knight" is one I stole from some old grognard and use all the time - that doesn't mean PC's don't have any character or story, but it comes from the story you forged playing him, which I think is far more interesting and exciting than penning a 'fictional' backstory.

Oh, except for tourneys. This is actually probably where builds first came about. They were usually very tough with winners being whichever group made it furthest in the dungeon, and they usually started high level. So there was room to exploit and create OP builds with MU's spell selections. I think stacking a bunch of Sleep was common, it didn't have a save roll in OD&D.

There was also making firebombs with oil, you often see them banned in home-brews because they're a bit too easy and powerful. Nothing major, I think just banning firebombs and spell stacking as well as placing reasonable restrictions on Wish is the extent of what I've seen of balancing exploits in people's home-brews.

I think players will always do what they can to run up against the limits of the system, I can see why some love the munchkin side of things, but I also think D&D was specifically designed to mitigate it and put all emphasis on good play and keep players on the reactive side.

I have to agree with this guy's sentiment. OD&D really shines because the playstyle is what matters rather then anything front loaded. A good player can get past things like rolling badly by getting everyone to play smartly.

Thank you for the bait. Now, please, go back to /pol/

>players discuss builds and tiers and demand full raw no homebrew
>but are dogshit minmaxers that play 'tier 1' with misdunderstood rules and grt mad when you shoe them the raw

PICK A SIDE YOU SCALLOPS.