It's a min-maxing that guy keeps complaining my build isn't optimized enough during the entire game episode

>it's a min-maxing that guy keeps complaining my build isn't optimized enough during the entire game episode

>its a guy who tries to make a build to do everything by himself
worse than any other kind of player, trust me

>DUDE, your optimization sucks man, here's ho-
>Shut the fuck up and try to get involved in playing an actual character for once, you human calculator
>*Grins like a fucking idiot at my response*

He stopped grinning when I ran a campaign.

>It's a "Guy makes a minmaxed build then gets angry every time the GM includes monsters that work around his specialization" episode.
For fucks sake, you can stride blindly into combat against 95% of enemies without being in any danger, stop bitching and crying every time we face something that does more than swing at your most heavily armored location.

Forgot pic like a scrub.

...

It's honestly tiring, and I'm glad I kicked him out.

It's as annoying for him as it is for you. He's not in the right but neither are you, suck it up and keep playing.

Well, why aren't you fixing it?

>it's a "that guy who skimmed the book insists on playing a non-viable character" episode

Try playing a game where you don't have to spend multiple semesters scouring online advice just to make a workable PC.

>>It's a "Guy makes a minmaxed build then gets angry every time the GM includes monsters that work around his specialization" episode.
Maybe don't be a cunt GM and realize what that player actually wants out of a campaign. He wants to make a build that does something great, then experience it performing greatly. Either let him have his moments or don't play with him, undermining him is unenjoyable for everyone. This "GM vs the players" mentality is gross.
He clearly doesn't want to experience challenge to begin with. He wants a power fantasy and sensation of invincibility from "masterfully creating" something-or-other. And that's a perfectly valid way to roleplay, if rather immature.
Understand your common man or you're just as immature.

it's not the games fault. chargen in D&D isn't more complicated than in WoD or GURPS. it's less complicated than Shadowrun or Rifts.

it's just that part of the D&D community are cancerous pieces of shit that have infected the rest with their character optimization mentality

>non-viable
I've been playing this character for months before the new guy joined and decided to go full autist on playing like a video game instead of a role playing game. Don't bring your sad projections to this house.

>cater to the stupid desires of every single player or you're a bad GM
that's terrible advice if the rest of the group rather wants to be challenged and you should feel bad.

>DM shouldn't listen to the desires of one player.
>And yet, everyone should be perfectly fine following along with the powergaming fantasies of one player.

Yeah nah, you're a cunt and probably the guy the OP is talking about.

You should cater to the desires of every player or just remove the people you won't cater to. You're wasting your time, and theirs.

You're a fucking idiot.

Well done chap, ya got me. Clearly I must leave with my head hung in shame.

>guy who thinks a 10 charisma warlock makes a greater character concept

I've experienced both ends of the spectrum with this shitty dilemma.

>Me playing Pathfinder
>Want to use spiritual ally because it fits my oracle's haunted flavor and does force damage and flanks because I figured we needed to deal with that shadow devil eventually (even though we were high enough level to blow it off at that point).
>All the other players say "no" because they want me to stack buffs instead.

>Me playing DnD 5e
>See another player stuck with the absolute worst combo of barbarian and homebrew engineer class in the world (like, REALLY bad, straight up crippled. He spent several fights "passed out" or "on watch back at camp" because scheduling is FUCKED with over 10 players).
>Having the worst time trying to help him with
>I finally find a fighter with the perfect subclass with augments as milestones which he can combine with his barbarian levels to make himself a worthwhile fighter.
>After his reluctance before, botched engibarb player is actually very eager with the option I give him.
>DM says no even though player wants to switch.

You must have not read the whole post that said that player performed well against 95% of the enemies they faced but complained about the few times their "build" was "countered".

Is being illiterate and kind of simple no longer part of the barbarian flavor in 5e? Engineering seems like the furthest thing from barbarianism I can think of.

Personally, I don't like that warlocks need charisma. I want to play a warlock who's just kind of an ugly unlikable dude who doesn't have much going for him beside the dubious privilege of having mortgaged his soul for power.

Like I just have a concept of being this wretched little man stalking through shadows, popping out to blast people with lightning in hopes of someday getting rich and achieving a vague unsatisfying notion of things he might want. Almost like if Mr. Bean could use force lightning.

No, he said 95% of enemies, not that 95% of the game's encounters were comprised of said enemies. The implication is that the GM deliberately chose to undermine the player with the remaining 5% instead of giving him those "95% of encounters" which he clearly would have preferred.

Except it is the games fault. More specifically the fault of the designers for including 90% trash options on purpose. There are so many people who never realize the choices they make are complete garbage, and those players bring every one else down.

You can't make concentration checks during rage, I know that much. But 5e barbarians are mostly tribal in nature with the totems and the unearthed arcana supplements. None of them support engineering shit in the slightest, especially not multiclassing into classes based on INT.

This is also the reason why I don't like DnD all that much. I find that in several other systems, MnM being my current top system, a rage-ineer would be no problem to create.

This is only the implication if you're an idiot who doesn't want to admit you misread the original post, or if you're a pedant who doesn't want to admit that nobody else pays attention to the distinction between "encounter" and "enemy."

Then talk to your GM about your character concept and see if you can homebrew something, like making it so your warlock's casting stat is intelligence or something.

Literally every wizard ever?

>that player actually wants out of the game
>He wants a power fantasy and a sensation of invincibility
Maybe he should go play a video game instead. We're trying to tell a collaborative story and his unwillingness to cooperate with the GM and the rest of the party is disruptive. He is his own worst enemy, and is looking in entirely the wrong place for that sort of experience.

>All the other players say "no" because-
Well it's a good thing they're not playing your character, huh.

>t. someone who's never GMed before
Fuck this shit. The GM needs to have fun too, and watching someone eliminate all the encounters you've put together on his first turn isn't fun.

t. freeform fag
I've GMed a'plenty. I derive no enjoyment out of encounters dragging on or beating down players, actually, so watching someone eliminate them all is actually pretty fun. It means the game moves quickly. Where exactly does your mentality spring from?

Probably the idea that if one member of the party can just Insta-gib every threat that pops up it makes for a boring story. There's no danger, no suspense, in combat encounters.

Does there need to be? I don't know about you, but in my experience when the players are "imperiled", things go slowly. Whatever sense of danger or suspense you may have is burdened by the fact that nothing is going to progress until they're back on their feet anyway. They'll either fight unto death (and unless this a notable fight scene, that's not nearly as glorious as it sounds) or quite sensibly beat a retreat, which themselves are both "boring stories".
When combat moves quickly from one to another, there's more time for roleplay. What story are you writing in combat encounters, anyway? Fightsword and shieldguy hit their enemies for twenty minutes until they die. Combat in nearly all RPGs is shit and should be dealt with as swiftly as humanly possible.

Maybe if it were the latter game, I would. I wasn't too eager to peeve my friends at the table though.

My Bard plays a song of inspiration
>DM "you literally play Through the Fire and Flames."
>every player at the table is clapping and slapping each others ass
>someone plays the song on their smartphone
Every fucking time.

>Not everyone spending the next 15 cycling through songs saying shit like "nah this is what he REALLY plays XDDDDDDD"
Count yourself lucky mi amigo.

>it's a minmaxing that guy keeps complaining we're not playing D&D because he has to use his single digit IQ to it's maximum to build a character and can't go use the online handbook guide how to use the tiered classes.

Battles can contribute to a story plenty, as long as it isn't just killing rats in the sewer. Look at a book that has combat: it's usually pivotal to the story in some way. Even if the heroes have to fall back amd regroup it adds a sense of narrative. They were bested, so now they need tobreasses their plans and come up with a new plan.

I agree combat in most RPGs sucks, but a story really is no good if the main characters never face any sort of threat. In a fantasy adventure with swords and Orcs and shit it'd be real boring if the main character just killed every enemy with zero effort. He'd be labeled a Mary Sue so fucking fast.

>Start new campaign
>Have to explain to players that no, I'm not going to enact rocks fall on them
>Or make the paladin fall via a catch-22 scenario
>Or have the story revolve around a DMPC
>Or force the party to optimize to the point where campaigns become an arms race
>Or make characters instantly die if they forget to buy food/water for a voyage
>Or kill characters for accidentally metagaming

De-programming people from shitty game mastering is suffering. Easier to just run an entirely different game so people can go in with fresh expectations.

nope. and did get my implication.

You need to work on encounter design, my man. A well crafted encounter can be genuinely thrilling. Dynamic battlefields and time limits are a good step in the right direction.

Same, always liked CONlocks in 4e

>Dynamic battlefields
example

Y'know, I don't really MIND when a player builds an optimized/min-maxed character, as long as their ability to RP is also really good.
But the guys who deride other players for NOT optimizing like posted, infuriate me to no end, and will be kicked if they continue to detract from the group.
This one also got me, considering I just had it happen like two sessions ago.
>Player optimizes his mentalist to deal crazy amounts of damage with a psychic railgun(talking a base of 590-600 damage in a 3000ft line every turn)
>D&D Murderhobo mindset - Out of combat, does nothing. Combat joins, he slaughters the foe, usually without taking a single scratch. After combat, he's looking for loot.
>Neglects his perceptive abilities
>Salty as fuck whenever a stealthy foe shows up because they actually manage to harm his character.
>Meanwhile, the Warrior Summoner's combat tactics are "do everything I can to not die, knowing that any dice I handle WILL try to betray me", or The DareDevil tactic of "get the shit kicked out of me, but somehow survive".

Not him, but an island crumbling as no less than three supermassive dragons(2km in length), while the players try to battle through enemy forces to escape.
Or fighting atop one of those dragons while it dogfights another dragon.
Or fighting on logs floating down a river towards a waterfall.

>Imblying he only online group I can stand would ever play something other than d&d

>He stopped grinning when I ran a campaign.
That could just mean you're a bad DM.

>over 10 players
lol

>play a game with a group of people
>throw a fit when it doesnt go his way
>your running the game wrong if your not making it always go his way because thats what he wants

this is some "We are catering to a wider audience" type bullshit. Maybe the rest of the party actually want a challenge and not a 2 hour long ego jerk off for one guy?

This. I had players steamrolling encounters, so I bumped up the difficulty. Now they actually have to get creative to resolve the situations their overconfidence puts them in, and they've been enjoying it a lot more.

>And that's a perfectly valid way to roleplay

I was with you until this part.

>Continually play in fantasy games
>Fantasy names
>Players continually mess up each other's character names
>Cannot remember the pronunciation even when it's stated several times
>Shitty 1-syllable nicknames
>Eventually they give up and use very common American names for further characters

I get that this is roll20, but either learn to fucking read or don't insist on playing Tolkienesque fantasy.

Fuck off I'm not a min maxer and it would've been nice of you to pick something besides intimidation as our party face.

Are you playing with actual little kids or what?

I wish they had that excuse.

>food/water mattering
>in a non-post-apocalyptic scenario

I hate this shit so much and one of my friends (that guy) always demands it being recorded and being important. When I got to DM a D&D campaign for them the first item they found was a fucking homebrew picnic"Everlasting Rations" bag for 5 people.

>game episode

the fuck?

>It's the "user doesn't know that "it's the X episode" is a common phrase used to sum up a session" episode

this guy gets it

for redditfags maybe

"Episode" in reference to a period of time in which you play a game, makes no sense whatsoever.

If you're not going to cater to your players you probably shouldn't have them as your players. In such a case, kick 'em out.

>pretending 80% of the cockmongers here dont' have at least one subreddit they subscribe to
lurk more

You call your characters "toons" don't you?

fuck I hate your kind

>"gross"
>"perfectly valid"
>idiot opinions
>>>/tumblr/

>pretending what cockmongers do makes it ok to engage in redditfag behaviour

KYS

I'm running a campaign based on the odyssey where running out of food and water is going to be my motivator for making the players stop at islands with obviously threatening features. I don't expect any player characters to die from it, but I've given them a large amount of followers so that I can kill them with hunger.

To be fair I hear it about situations in general, not just campaign sessions.

Well the issue is when you have ungodly shit like
>R'zleafalog de'zeakdmaufstis Ubnferi the third of the kf'cplaufh house choose of prefftttproofta.

>It's a prissy nu-gamer who will cry mope and throw a literal tantrum that one character dies in maybe four months of play and I have to waste my time watching the DM try to console his chapped ass, and he's not the only one episode

I'll be honest, I'm guilty of min-maxing, but it's always so I can run a character gimmick. Thankfully the gimmick is usually mostly enjoyable rather than game breaking, but I've had to chop off stats mid-campaigns a few times.

requiring players to keep track of food and water is a good way to make the world feel fleshed out, you just need to make sure that you remind the players of how much food they will need to buy and to be forgiving if they are in a situation where they lose their food. Even in a desert you can occasionally find water if you know where to look.

>first time playing dnd
>friend is DM and insists on helping me create a character
>want to create a balanced fighter
>he recommends I put everything into str and con
>'but then I will have awful int and wis'
>'oh that won't be a problem'
>first session: a massive clusterfuck of blundering around, unable to do anything due to continuously failing perception checks
>mfw

Fortunately that campaign never continued but I still don't know if he was trolling me or just a bad DM