Do you agree with the philosophy of AD&D?

Do you agree with the philosophy of AD&D?

>this reduces the character to a collection of combat modifiers
surely the rules of D&D do that anyway given that's what the character sheet almost entirely consists of

>He will discover the drawback of min/maxing
No, he will discover that no matter how much you min/max you canĀ“t beat the master.

I disagree with any philosophy to GMing where the solution to a problem is "be passive aggressive" instead of "Talk to the player like an adult"

it's not passive aggressive, it's making encounters where perhaps having heavy armor is not the best option, climbing is a useful skill to have, or maybe your magic sword isn't great against a skeleton's DR.

There has to be some practical limit to this. Thieves should be walking around with great swords and heavy armour, barbarians shouldn't be using a staff and a knight shouldn't have leather armour and a dagger.

don't straw man the argument, you can clearly see it says some min maxing is good and no where does it say that everyone has to be an incompetent buffoon. The message of this snippet is to say "don't let min maxing be the point of the game."

>Making the game challenging is passive aggression
You sound like the type to whine about personal vindication the second the GM tries to do anything where your min-maxed character is at a disadvantage.
>barbarians shouldn't be using a staff and a knight shouldn't have leather armour and a dagger.
Why? Sometimes all Conan had around was a stick to bash someone's face in with. Sometimes the brave knight is falsely imprisoned and can break out wearing only simple leather and a handmade shank. There's plenty of reasons why those things you said could happen in ways that make sense to the story they're in.

Sure but a lot of times there are builds that are objectively better in all situations than normal builds

>drawback
If you call DM fiat drawback, this is like saying that being a good football player has a drawback beng the referee can bullshit him the whole game.

>The message of this snippet is to say "don't let min maxing be the point of the game."

But that is the point of the game. Or to put it another way, the point of any game is to win. You win at D&D through survival against life-threatening challenges. If you aren't min-maxed, you can't win. Therefore, min-maxing is the key to victory in the game. QED

>Bro, don't try to survive, that's being a munchkin, don't pick the options that let you survive

>But that is the point of the game
You must be absolutely no fun to play with rules lawyer min/max faggot

I prefer to doff the armor and climb once in a campaign, than face 1001 enemies and always be underarmored

Also that's a problem with shit like Fighter who only has 2 skill points, other classes can wear a fullplate and climb just fine due having more skill points to spend around or class features like spells

Maybe balance the weapons so these drawbacks are obvious instead of the only difference between them being the DPR.

I once played a Rogue who used light mace and sickle, people asked me why, and it was because I thought it was fun. Then they stole my equipment and had to use daggers, shit was so obverwhelmingly better I never went back. When you make an option better in 99.999999% of the cases and people play it you can't yell "minmaxer", is not their fault, it's yours.

D&D isn't a competitive game though

You sound like someone who loses a lot. I don't play with losers. I only like playing with people who win.

lol no one fucking min-maxed weapon proficiencies in AD&D, everyone went with longswords, maces, bows etc because you're more likely to find magical versions of those, how many AD&D modules have magic halberds or whatever at the end of the dungeon?

>I enjoy Pathfinder

This is you

Wait, you compete against your team? because in football there're teams, and you want yours to win, in this case, to survive. This isn't a "everybody wins just for playing", this is "you're adventurers and if you fuck up you die", I'll pick the non fuck up choices, thank you, and I expect my friends to do the same.

If Billy the useless commoner wants to join I'll tell him no, nomatter how "that's why my character would do!" is

>Wtf? why can't I be a firefighter just because I'm quadriplegic? you're all minmaxed fuckers, I'm the only roleplayer in here

Generally, if someone minmaxes, it's almost your duty to put them in an uncomfortable situation and make them think up a solution.

A murder machine could be thrown ass-first into a noble love triangle where he can't strongarm the opposition, a bard might get thrown in a dungeon filled with skeletons, an assassin versus constructs or ghosts... You have to throw diverse obstacles and let everyone shine and once in a while let someone get fucked and have to overcome their weakness.
Don't fuck up and leave them 100% powerless and useless, and don't overdo it, player characters shouldn't be fucked over more than once per 3 sessions.

Everybody wins if they have fun. Are you not able to abstract yourself from your characters?

>a bard might get thrown in a dungeon filled with skeletons
grease and web work incredible fine against zombies and skeletons. I talk from experience

>skill points

I agree completely.

Literally not what that guy said. DnD isn't a competitive game, there are no teams, and you don't win DnD. Everybody literally "wins" just for playing. Maybe you'd rather play an actual sport?

Story time
>GM invites me to a game
>Ask him about the setting
>"You know, your typical medieval fantasy setting..."
>Refuses to be more specific
>Ok, what does the team need?
>Seems the team needs a outdoorsy skill monkey with disable device
>Decide to go Scout (a rangery rogue)
>Due bad rolls I have to go Dex archer build
>Focus on precision damage (like I could do focus on other stuff, kek) and pick a feat to spot and disable better
>Session 1
>Game is Eberron meets Ravenloft. Literally every enemy ever is either a construct, an undead, an elemental, an ooze or a plant
>Deal 0 damage, literally 0. So I can't do shit in combat
>Even with +7 to Spot and +9 to disable device traps (that are at the bare minimum DC 21) elude me 25% of the time
>Die in 1st session
>Brought back unwillingly, so I ate -2 to Con and turned into a dwarf who reduces my movement and fucks up my defining class feature
>Die in 4th session
>Brought back again unwillingly
>Rinse and repeat till 7th session
>Decide to reroll even though the GM forbids it and enter with a wizard just to spite him
Sorry, throwing impossible scenarios in where players can't do shit is not being a good GM

>Thre aren't teams
Oh, so you're one of those rogues who stab their teammates because "there aren't teams lol"
>You don't win
I already said that, can you read?. You survive, if you choose stupid options because you think you're funny you die, you might like to die, but most people don't.

Sounds like you been in bad games buddy. Feel bad for you.
> of course you should have high stats your heros

>Pick bard
>Refuse to use insipire courague
>Pick whip even though I'm not proficient
>Don't deal damage because whip
>Have 9 Cha so I don't cast spells
>People get mad
Why though? I'm just playing my character concept

He's just baiting, don't mind him

Not impossible, sometimes challenge a player character that's specialized in something.
What you had was a shit-show of a DM and a shitshow of a game, I'd have left by session 1.
As a GM, I don't allow players making characters that can't hold their own in the setting and let them reroll if they don't like their dude. I'm sorry you were so fucked over.

This boi gets it, you have to overcome with different tools. Though, you also can not throw the bard into construct/skeleton/vermin dungeons 3-4 sessions in a row.

Fuck D&D, srly, fuck that shit. You can't get to tell me that I'm a munchkin to pick certain option when you make the rest of options literally shit.

Also, fuck you, when you put orcs with falchions as goddamn 1st level player killers and then handwave a "pick whatever you want, bro, this is a game"

>Due bad rolls I have to go Dex archer build
Well, there's your problem really. You were already playing something you didn't want to play.
Rolling for stats is one of the reasons min-maxing is so common anyway, people treat the game like high-stakes gambling where you have to squeeze out every advantage, even now that point-buy exists, because of experiences where the game was constructed as an obstacle course rather than a storytelling session with a randomness element.

>This boi gets it, you have to overcome with different tools
Same dude.
Except Bard is a bad example, as are all casters because they have tons of tools, when most martials don't are forced into a single concept like precision damage in here I wasn't being smart, I simply was playing an easy mode class

Yes I'm sure that's the only alternative to being a munchkin. QED man

I rolled 14, 12, 10, 10, 9, 8. I couldn't do much else

Also
>obstacle course
That's literally D&D, that's what the game is about, is a dungeoncrawling. You might have a point in other games, but in D&D minmaxing is almost recommendable because you're a group of adventurers going to beat a dungeon and survive in the process. "Muh story" is that, beating the dungeon.

>Must survive no matter what mentality
Literally better for sports, desu. This is DnD, sometimes you gotta die. Minmaxing your way out of it means you just don't get it.
Are you sure? He sounds like some people I know.

Your job in the party is to be good at a certain role. If there's a fighter in the party I want him to be as good at fighting as possible, not use a single dagger just because it's fun and flavorful. If the greataxe is the single best weapon is mostly every situation explain to me why your character is so idiotic that they aren't using the greataxe. You're an adventurer in a fantasy world filled with numerous dangers, not playing Party Princess Play-Along 3. "What if there's a situation my character isn't able to handle because I focused to much on one thing?" That's why you're in an adventuring party, so that you have people around you who can cover for your weaknesses and you cam cover theirs. If my bard is putting out more damage than your barbarian I don't want your barbarian around.

Seems that user was tricked into being shit, GM l iterally refused to tell him that his class was going to be nigh useless.

Sounds like a shit story man, you might as well play old vidya.

No, dungeon crawling is just a part of the game. The point emphasized by 5e is storytelling

This, this, this this this.
In other games? sure, play whatever concept you like that serves better the story you have in mind, but D&D is a game about beating a dungeon, the story is beating the dungeon.

That might be the point in new D&D, old D&D (and that user was mentioning 3.5) wasn't like that.
Also in 5e undead, constructs, plants, oozes and elementals aren't immune to sneak attack, nor have DR so high a Dex character can't do shit. So he would be really useful in 5e as that concept.

Items can really pick up the slack, such as Rogues using tanglefoot bags and alchemist's fires, scouting ahead or >5e giving advantage to an ally's attack roll or something.
A martial can do things that aren't hitting, tripping, bullrushes, graples and so on, and also item-usage.

A good martial guy should stock up on magical items that can get him out of shitty situations (eternal wizard vs. fighter debate is solved with the fighter having magical items that make him a budget wizard).


As for Weapon Specializations, I'd prefer every weapon having a cool thing, such as morningstars/sabres inflicting small bleed DoTs while doing a bit less damage, axes doing more damage than swords but can't block attacks, and so on.
The D&D weapons always have a clear "winner" meta-weapon that is always the best option, and every other choice is objectively worse, instead of having more differing weapons that do different things. Though D&D isn't so complex as to require specific weapons. Even Mordheim's weapons and combat is more complex than D&D's.

Jokes on you, the game was a preconstructed game in Eberron. So what you think the game is isn't what the actual devs thought the game should be.

Wow, every game is immediately predictable by plotting a set of random variables through a distribution of dice once and applying some exact condition the DM has set for this "unique" dungeon. Do the players have to be there or can this adventuring party maybe roll their own dice?

Yes, 100%, though I accept that my opinion is just an opinion and shouldn't be forced upon others. I make it pretty clear when I run a game that I have a certain stance on things, so no one is caught by surprise.

I make certain creatures immune or resistant to certain types of attacks on the regular. I try to make these intuitive, so players can predict them. At first, this got certain players quite annoyed with me. They had characters that were the best at (thing) and tried to clobber every problem with it. Met with something that their specialty could not deal with, they became irate. Spell/weapon didn't work - therefore my character is useless and should re-roll, was the feedback I got at first. Or someone heavily invested in a skill who simply could not succeed at a task related to it. My response to them was that no matter what they re-rolled to, their new characters would encounter the same sort of difficulties, just of different flavors, and helping with weaknesses was part of being in a team and relying upon them.

It took some time, but they warmed to the idea. When met with encounters their skill set cannot deal with well, now they change gears. They carry backup weapons, scrolls, and have tactics in mind that work in other ways. The marksman keeps a melee weapon just in case he gets pinned. The fire mage keeps a few buffs in mind in case they meet something that fire just isn't going to work on. We recently met a ghost the fighter couldn't scratch - so he disarmed its very corporeal weapon instead, and blocked a few hits after.

Min/Maxing doesn't work for me because every problem becomes a nail that the players can hammer down. It becomes predictable and almost routine. It boils down to numbers and odds. Throwing wrenches into things really gets players thinking. But you really need the right type of players to make this work, because not everyone is interested. The min/maxer is not such a player.

Old D&D really gloated over tricking players

The dev's suck and that's why we have DM's, is that your point?

Is this for real? are you telling me there're people who don't have a backup weapon? wizards who don't have scrolls and who focus on dealing fire damage? the fuck?

Is people mistaking minmaxing who being a retard? You can be a melee beast and still have a back up seeking adaptable bow, doesn't cost much. Boots of flight, right of water breating, etc

If AD&D didn't want minmaxers it wouldn't be designed like that. People who want DnD to walk like an actual RPG are retarded, thankfully not as retarded as people who want 3.5 to walk like anything and everything they want to run.

>The marksman keeps a melee weapon just in case he gets pinned
Tell that to Mr better commit sudoku with those stats in here .

Congratulations on getting your players in the right.

Boy you have no idea what kinds of retards wind up on anyone's table, you'd think their only guide to bringing equipment is a torchless, foodless and shovelless darkest dungeon run.

t. dwarf rogue with a backpack holding half a hardware store's stock just in case

How does a fight bypass a social problem though? he has no skill ranks, diplomacy isn't even a class skill, etc. How does he bypass that problem? some classes are shit and are nothing but railroaded into being good at an unique thing. Then you have casters. D&D is shit.

>years ago
>think you unlocked the potential on fighter
>"Why should I focus so much on combat? I'm already good at it by virtue of being a fighter, so instead of starting with 18 on Str and 10 on Int and Cha I'll start with 14 on all three!!. I'm so smart. I'll also ignore weapon focus, and power attack and pick stuff like +2 and +3 to Skills!. Srly, I'm the smartest"
>realize you now are shit at everything
I feel you

No I believe that game that presents options that are equally valid imagination- wisae as possibilities for a character to be like, but makes them unequal in terms or mechanical value is a shit game.

This "philosophy" can be basically summarized as "yes, we know our game has gaping flaws, but here, grab this shitty, lazy and essentially unfair way of mitigating them to a degree".

Tl:DR

Rocks fall everyone dies should not be the solution to powergaming players?

Oh sure, lots. For example, a fire mage. The first fire-immune creature he encountered, the player panicked and wanted to re-roll because his very best stuff was ineffective. No different with skills. Can't charm my way out of this impossible situation? Social skills are 'worthless' I guess. I've had multiple people outright leave my game because their character concepts couldn't use their best skills against every problem, including that fire mage. Over time I've cultivated a pretty good crew, but it took some doing.

Anyone can try to be a reasonable person and avoid a fight. More modern systems like 5e D&D give you some latitude in skill mechanics, so that you can be a persuasive fighter if you care to, and any decent GM should at least give you a chance to make your case. The fighter in my campaign is a personable fellow who often manages to disarm his opponents with words, but is equally able to put a hole in anyone unreasonable. Casters are potent, sure, but I think the perception of them is overblown. If you're calling skill checks often, an in ways unpredictable, spells get exposed to their greatest weakness, which is their limited use.

Powergamer =/= Minmaxer
You can see monks being minmaxed, you can't see monks being powergamed. Powergamers will always pick the best options (aka full casters), minmaxers will make the best out of what they picked (aka making a competent monk).

Why would you waste time building a character if you're just going to make them suck ass for the sake of "roleplay."

You're just doing yourself, your party, and your DM a disservice by playing a sub-optimal character, because the weight that you're character is unable/unwilling to carry just puts more weight on the party to stay at default while forcing the DM to balance the game around your inability to participate in combat effectively.

What I want to play trumps over what others expect from me. Rpgs are about having fun, not about being good.

They recognize the problem, but their solution is no solution at all.

These people just don't learn.

>What I want to play trumps over what others expect from me.
And yet if someone came in with a loli kitsune sorcerer who tries to force ERP with dominate spells on a whim, you'd probably be one of the first people asking them to change their character.

This is a social activity user, and one of the first things that you learn when being a part of any team based activity is that you're expected to always act in the best interests of the group.

I guess you play pathfinder.

I disagree with the "solution".

If it disrupts the fun of the group, talk to him about it like an adult. If he can't have fun without making it all about his numbers, he's not in a group that does things the way he does and is better off finding another, so he can have fun the way he likes and not drag other people out of the way they like to have fun for his sake.

Oh, but see, and this is where you're dead wrong, what I want doesn't harm others and neither goes against the setting and game, while the kitsune sorcerer magical real does.

Eh, that's a distinction that I don't respect.

... Like the difference between a geek and a nerd.

Kek, I'm having a problem with my GM right now that is tangentially related to this thread
>PF game
>Be Bloodrager
>Focus on damage
>"user, why you focus on damage? don't"
>Kay, focus on stay alive
>"user, why you focus on stay alive? don't"
>kay, focus on magic
>"user, why you focus on magic? don't"
>kay, focus on party faceing
>"user, why you focus on party faceing? don't"
>Kay, spend resources on two of each
>"user, why you focus on these two? don't"
>So what do you want me to do with all these options?
>"Dunno, I'm not the one making your toon"
Can I not pick spells and spend feats? because that seems to be what my GM wants

Hahahaha holy fuck you're still copypasting this story outright. Let it go, dude. I've seen this like, four times.

I thought I was on /5eg/ was all

>I don't like the definition of these words so I come up with new ones
?
>Minmaxer
>Someone who attempts to understand the nuances of a role-playing system in order to tweak their character to be highly optimized, usually for a single task such as combat.
A monk for example can be minmaxed
>Powergamer
>A gamer who learnes the rules of a game inside and out to perfection in order to become the best at that game
You can't be the best with a monk, so you'll avoid it if you want to powergame

Minmaxers are usually called optimizers too

Being Scrappy Doo is not fun for anyone else.

What minmaxers find fun is meaningless

... I'll be blunt.

I consider those words synonyms.

>what I want doesn't harm others and neither goes against the setting and game
That's where you're wrong.

Playing a sub-optimal choice puts the burden that would've gone to you towards everyone else around you, including the DM.

Also, your sub-optimal choice is going against the setting because you're generally a part of a team that deals with bullshit that your average person does not.

Doesn't matter if we're talking D&D, CoC, WoD, Shadowrun, or whatever, your character is a part of a group that generally does dangerous shit as a JOB, and the last thing you want watching your back is some spastic who you're not even sure is capable of tying his own shoelaces, let alone protect his allies when shit hits the fan.

What you find fun is ultimately meaningless when it's weighed against the enjoyment of the rest of the group.

Then you're an idiot.

It would be synonyms in this case if all classes had the potential to be equally powerful

I see powergamer as less pejorative than minmaxer, but both have positive connotations and as well as negative.

A powergamer could be an asshole who brings out the big guns during a casual as fuck campaign, thus making the rest of the party feel useless, or just a guy who likes playing optimized characters in a party with other optimized characters, for high-challenge dungeons.

A minmaxer could be a guy who has fun trying to come up with unorthodox or bizarre builds, or someone who just cares about stats and generally just runs the best possible version of the best possible class/race combo, with the same feats, skills, and minimal roleplaying.

It sounds like you have trouble not understanding every group isn't your group. If it's just a fun game with storytelling and manageable-with-unoptimized-choices dungeon crawling, there's no real reason to not play what you want. Does that mean you should play a completely useless clown? No. But, it's cool if you play, let's say a rogue or a fighter over a mage, druid, or cleric in the context of 3.5.

No it doesn't, go back to league and reddit. This isn't a moba. Go back to your shitty moba games where all games are the same and hope that your autistic fantasy of 10,000 twitch viewers comes about.

Fucking threeaboo scum.

I can't be wrong, you see, because I'm not a minmaxer faggot.

Eh, the choice you make to have minmaxing assume some class combo and try to make the best of it, vs. trying to make the best of the system.

I'd rather not my RPG game terms assume classes exist in a given system ... thanks a bunch GURPS.

I don't have an issue with players working within the rules to make their character good at his job. It's one thing when they powergame to the point of overshadowing or invalidating the other party members, but making a character competent in one field, often to the exclusion of other fields, is perfectly legitimate. The whole "reducing to dice rolls" thing is bullshit. Having big numbers on your character sheet does prevent you from roleplaying. Building a character around the stats and building stats around a character are both reasonable ways to make a character. The advice is bullshit too. By all means, have different kinds of challenges that not every PC may be able to face, you can even build challenges around specific weaknesses every once in awhile, but you do that because having a wide array of challenges if fun and keeps the game interesting- not because you're trying to punish a specific person for playing the wrong way.

The funny thing is that even question of which term is more pejorative is up for debate.

At least you recognize that terms aren't literally set in stone.... And that people care about that theoretical stone.

Don't let anyone see you're focusing.

... It might be too late.

It's hard to shoplift immediately after you accidently walk out without paying.... I think

Well, I mean. I've seen ads for 'powergaming campaigns', and people unironically describe themselves as powergamers. I've seen people describe themselves as minmaxers, and fun thought experiments as minmaxing (like Punpun).

It's a dumb niche internet term, of course the meaning of it is going to change a lot. Consider all the navelgazing, autism, and general weirdness around the term 'Mary Sue'.

Bitch my group loves me as a person and would gladly kill off their characters if it meant mine could thrive and take center stage despite being underpowered, that's the power of friendship and unquestioning loyalty. Social activity isn't the same as team activity, there is no team in "I and my underlings". You need to learn how to run a clique bro.

Wondeful thing about PF, feat trees, if you want to do something you need lots of feats because that something has requirements out of its ass

Also I only have 3 feats, whatever I pick would be considered "focusing". But I smell that my GM meant "pick stuff that doesn't help you in the slighless"

>"user, stop focusing!"
>Pick Skill Focus (Peform: drums)"
>GM is ok
Irony

Pick something you like, if he asks why you focused on it say you rolled a die for it and there was no deliberate focus. If he still doesn't acknowledge, silently nod and agree to let him pick your feats. Then, a week later, steal his books and leave them on a bus or subway somewhere.

Show this post to him. Ask him what he wants from you. If he denies having said any of that then go back to focusing on whatever it is you want to do, and then build evidence that he's saying these things so he's unable to deny it when confronted again.

...

You can be wrong, because you're focusing on your own enjoyment to the detriment of the group as a whole.

No different than the dude who plays a loli kitsune just because, except you're a tad more subtle in your attempts to undermine the premise of the game.

...