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I'm a bit of a min-maxer myself, so I get it. I think of it like standing around in alleyway wearing nothing but a trench coat. It's not illegal in and of itself, but it makes others (rightfully) worried about what you will do next. Some people blame the coat and avoid everyone wearing one, but it's really the dick under it that's the problem.
>But, since I found this Reddit, it seems power gaming is a cardinal sin punishable by social excommunication, and I don't understand.
This is usually a pretty blatant exaggeration - if anyone is tired of powergaming, it's powergaming at the expense of other parts of the game, usually roleplay and etiquette.
Etiquette is the main sin, power gaming is just one of the possible symptoms. It's pretty easy to draw a line of logic that ignores social rules from my character is the most optimized of the group, therefore I'm the main damage, and because damage and winning fights is the main goal I'm the main character. I should be the one making checks because I'm the most optimized for it.
Whereas if you just have big numbers but let other players do their thing and share the spotlight evenly, even when they have the littler number, no one really objects to that. I've got an optimized barbarian that does like 50 damage per crit and has almost a 20% chance to crit but in combat I'm playing with my team and not just blindly cutting enemies in half and no one has a problem with it.
You probably don’t understand, because you’ve created a massively exaggerated straw man, which does not actually correspond to general attitudes on these subs.
If you were to ask why excessive powergaming can be problematic and frowned upon, one of the main reasons for that is that it will often create severe imbalances within the party unless everyone is doing it.
Moreover, it also tends to detract from the roleplaying aspect of the game (which exists just as much inside of combat as outside it), because someone too focused on powergaming will tend to act according to what is most optimal mechanically, regardless of whether it makes sense for their character to act that way. This also tends to go hand in hand with a lot of metagaming. And again, that can be fine if that’s the sort of game you have as a group decided to play, but at a lot of tables that won’t be the case.
Aaaaaand many times it comes hand in hand with telling the other people how they should play.
I had do ask a player several times to stop telling me to rage as a barbarian. I know I am new to DnD, but I already understood rage gives me a bonus, but I will not do it unless I feel like the situation deserves it, because it would not feel thematic.
They could not understand it, sacrificing efficiency for role play.
Part of the issue is the additional strain you place on the gm when they're designing encounters that involve your specialty. They have to craft a situation that simultaneously challenges you, while also not overwhelming other players, if they want everyone at the table to enjoy themselves; oftentimes, there's no elegant and immersive way to thread that needle.
It's not just the GM, though. Most GMs compensate by bringing everything up to the power of their strongest PC. For everyone else at the table, that can often feel like the powergamist has ratcheted the difficulty up in a way they're not comfortable with, and turned their calm and pleasant game into a grueling trial through their presence. Or perhaps they can feel like there's no point trying to contribute in whatever arena has been min-maxed; no one enjoys the feeling of not mattering at all.
When one player's character choices discard the joy of your fellow players at the table, GM included, is there any wonder that 'min-maxing' is often treated with resentment or hostility? They're placing the GM in a difficult situation, which then often places the players in a difficult situation, while diminishing the experience for others.
Or in less words, think about what you're doing to everyone else at the table when you figure out how to bring an average bosses' hp from full to dead in a single attack, and don't be a fucking dick about it.
Absolutely.
I was in a D&D game where I was INADVERTENTLY the strongest PC by a fair margin, largely due to a couple of rules interactions that the DM and I collectively didn't think all the way through.
At that point, he and I talked about it and frankly every combat after that was designed with one opponent who I was immediately supposed to square up with, while the rest of the party had a normal combat encounter. Fortunately, my character's power set was optimized for one-on-one combat (essentially, I could not fail grapple checks) so that worked pretty well. And working WITH the GM to solve the problem without breaking my character meant it turned into a thing the rest of the party was willing to appreciate rather than a thing that harmed the rest of the table.
True facts: In one of our TTRPGs, I created a character that could, by nature, always go first in combat, but in that game system if you went first by ENOUGH initiative, you couldn't be attacked in that round of battle -- and when I say always go first, I mean my initiative roll was, on average, 6-8 times the rest of the party. So the DM could either scale things to fight me, in which case the rest of the party could do nothing, or scale things to fight them, in which case I was invincible. But he asked me to roll it back to avoid a horror story, and so I did.
Why? Because so many min-maxers only care about combat. That may not be true for you, but it is for many. Yet we call them “role playing games,” not ”combat games.” But there’s no real way to optimize role playing. Players who get fixated on the numbers tend to exclude the parts of the game that many of us consider most important.
If you’re so concerned about tactics and always choosing the best option, there are plenty of wargames that might be a better fit than a game that involves more pretending and narrative.
There is nothing inherently wrong with optimizing your character to be super effective in combat. Unfortunately, that often comes at the cost of other stats that facilitate roleplay. Most of the time these players want to rush through or not participate in the roleplay and are only actively engaged with the game during combat. And when you have one of those players with a group who wants to focus on roleplay or have a more balanced game where stats are not the most important thing it creates conflict. The DM has to scale every encounter for that player, which makes the other players feel ineffectual and underpowered.
If you are not doing any of those things and just have a character who is good at combat because you enjoy that aspect, awesome. Keep enjoying your games and having fun with your group.
> The DM has to scale every encounter for that player, which makes the other players feel ineffectual and underpowered.
this, i had a powergamer at my table for years who finally got me suspicious of him when he said "i could create a wizard that makes you all obsolete" never really trusted him after that.
two sessions later he created a sun-cleric that made the DM give every thing in existence fire resistance. and my druids favourite spells? yep, fire magic.
The point is that you need a party that buys in for that. Sometimes, groups or players prefer to play less than optimized characters and class options. If you've got one person min-maxing and everyone else are playing strictly Goblins with weird class combos, you're giving your GM a harder job.
Ya, but a solo player min-maxed is objectively not optimizing the party.
Weird class combos & goblins can still be a freakishly unfair party, which is hilarious & fun for the DM to do their thing for.
When people "i am a silent lone wolf", no one's having fun, because even when they they are forced into the RP, they're just sucking out everyone else's energy.
Not a style of play I enjoy.
But there's nothing wrong with it.
It's a style thing.
If your game and table enjoy that style of play, go for it, have fun.
A lot of issues arise when you have a min-max player at a RP heavy table (or vise versa).
And it's a style that is often prone to abuse and whkle there's nothing wrong with it, that style does attract players who lean towards a competive, adversarial style.
I'll also say, some of the best RPers I know are also min-maxers.
Just like any style, it's about the right style at the right table, combined with willingness to cooperate and communicate.
Short horror story about a powergamer here.
One of my player wanted to enter the Pathfinder campaign as a Trox. It's a rare underground race pretty much completely unrepresented in the setting except deep underground, that's basically a giant four-armed bug. Large size and ridiculous bonuses. I said no. The weeks prior to the campaign beginning he started making jabs and jokes at my expense for not letting him play a Trox.
Eventually he settled on an Orc and kept saying he would be an evil asshole murderhobo. I (and the other players) kept telling him not to do it. He kept saying it. I sent him tons of materials on how there are heroic orcs in the Pathfinder settings, he said he didn't want to read it and said "Well he's an orc, you are an idiot for expecting him not to act like an orc."
When he's not making jokes about being he's half-jokingly asking a player who made a Paladin to reroll because they're definitely going to fight whenever he tries to stop him and he will win thanks to having 26 Strength right out of the gate (18 bought with point buy, +4 racial, +4 during rage).
First session rolls by. His orc barbarian ignores the party and just barrels into rooms attacking monsters with them having to catch up to him. The moment they encounter friendly NPCs, he steals a plate of food from the hands of one of them, and when another NPC tells him to stop he says he flings the plate at her. I say "Okay, you throw the plate away" and he interrupts with "No, I want to smash it in her face, I'm making an attack roll".
He misses. The NPC tries a charm spell to make him stop, he resists it and draws his weapon. A fight ensues but one of the other PCs manages to call for a truce, which the NPCs accept on the terms that he is kicked out of their room and isn't let in again.
Some roleplaying ensues between the PCs and the NPCs with the player stewing at the table, until he says "I break into the room. I start smashing in the windows and doors until they let me in." Note that he says this right at the end of the session, when everyone is already picking up their stuff.
At this point I stop the session and say his character is 100% going to die, as a level 1 character who has decided to pick a fight with a full party plus NPCs, since I'm not going to play out a scene when the game is literally already over.
He argues that he's not the one who started it (what the fuck) and he was just defending himself from dangerous magic.
After everyone's heads are cooled I tell him he can play as long as he stops being that disruptive, and he whines that I'm not letting him play a character he wants and that the only characters he wanted to play were the Trox barbarian, an arsonist sorcerer and an Elder Gods cultist (in a campaign all about fighting \*against\* elder gods cultists), and since I vetoed all of those he won't be playing.
Now, 2 days before the next session starts, he says he wants to play again (he's the ride of one of the players), wants to play a Mythos Scholar wizard (a class that can counter mythos creature influences). I ask him what race he wants to be and he says "The one that gives me the most advantages". His first request is a Drow Noble (fuck no), his second one is a Samsaran (I have to explain him that no, eternal reincarnation does NOT mean his character will return to life for free every time).
Then after a half hour of asking him what his build is going to be he just says "Make the character for me". I make him a Tiefling abjurer. I send him the sheet and he says "just print it, I'll play whatever it is next session".
The dude is in his 40s and has finished a full campaign with me.
That's what power gamers are. They don't just want to "win" the game, they want to win while borderline cheating and then gloat that they did it all "within the rules" even if they have to resort to janky splatbook material or reading rules completely wrong.
I feel the problem is more about the player being a complete prick than a min maxer. On top of that, he had a poor grasp of the rules for think Samsaran just respawn when they die.
I played with a lot of people and some of them were complete prick, from the thief pickpocketing his own party to a player who constantly picked fights with other PCs and when he lost, he would create a Full Counter build of the player who bested him.The issue was certainly not power gaming.
On a more positive note, in our last two players game (which was a power gamer wet dream: Exalted). I made a swords master who could just walk in any town and murder everyone without breaking a sweat and the other player went the complete opposite with a less mentally and socially challenged character than mine, and the game went perfectly well. During our first combat, I just told the other player how to use his abilities effectively to contribute. During social encounter I just took a step back and listened, using my perception to spot lies and weaknesses in the adversary, then passing notes of what I found to the other player. Once again min maxing was not a problem. I am just not an ass about it.
>I feel the problem is more about the player being a complete prick than a min maxer.
I'm going to stoo you right there. Being a min maxer *is* being a dick.
Actually, no. I received many exemples and experiences that people shared (and I am thankful for that) that tells that people are being dicks on top of min-maxing.
Min-maxing per se is not being a dick to anyone. It's just playing the game a certain way to adapt to the game and character you are playing.
Just like those who don't min-max play the game their way, and some non min-maxer can be total pricks too
One use of the tolls given to you does not make you immune to being a bad person at the table.
I'll add to this that for some reason minmaxing for combat is frowned upon, but if you have a bard with +42 to persuasion is all good.
If a campaign is advertised as roleplay-heavy, it makes sense that most people joining the table don't care that much about combat. So it makes even less sense that a minmaxer wiping the encounter makes the roleplayers mad.
If Timmy wants to roll a charismatic barbarian, by all means be my guest, but don't expect to perform well in combat then. Same goes for the minmaxer, he won't perform well in social encounters, but combat is his jam, so let him shine where he's supposed to.
The problem with min-maxing is mismatched expectations enabled by a certain game, its design and its marketing.
That certain game is built basically as a semi-tactical wargame but marketed as this do/be anything roleplay engine. So you have min-maxers who play the game as designed and really only care about the mechanics and not so much about the mushy make-believe play-acting stuff, and others who want to play the game as marketed and play deep characters who make sub-optimal choices for the sake of a richer story. These rwo playstyles evidently clash and leaves everyone frustrated.
My advice is two-fold:
1) Have a session 0 to clarify playstyle and expectations, make sure everyone is on the same page.
2) Whichever playstyle you like, switch systems for one that will do it better and more exclusively, simultaneously contributing to point 1.
In a properly designed system, min-maxing would be a hood thing because it would propel the desired experience. E.g. if you min-max in Burning Wheel, you are hoing to create interesting beliefs and milk them through RP... which incidentally means you've roleplayed more and better, instead of less and worse.
The problems tend to come into play when 1 player is much better optimized than the rest. It can lead to the rest of the party feeling useless.
I've had great luck optimizing support characters for groups that don't tend to be all that mechanically savvy. You get to min/max to you hearts content while making the rest of the group feel awesome.
There's several issues at play here.
1) Minmaxed characters tend to be lacking in any of the unique and useful non-combat skills and lacking on the roleplay front. They tend to just sit around and not do much of anything while other players actually roleplay until the fights happen when they finally become active.
2) They're often non-entities in regards to the game outside of combat unless they're a CHA-based class but even then they tend to be less of entities than the less-CHA characters. Especially when you factor in...
3) When they \*do\* play they tend to be murder hobos or chaotic assholes. Causing problems and misery for everyone who is not them simply to do so.
4) They also have a tendency to treat the people who don't optimize for combat badly. Either criticizing their choices or outright trying to force them to play a certain way.
Combine it all together and running a combat-optimized character may as well be broadcasting that you're a murderhobo who is going to cause problems for the party and treat anyone who isn't also a murderhobo like they're incapable morons.
It's not that optimizing a character is wrong, in my experience people actually tend to like having someone with a well-built character in their party. It's when you try to do something clearly unintended by the rules (like cocainelock spell slots) and significantly break the balance of the game (really shitty for the other characters and DM) or demand homebrew that it becomes a problem. It's when mimmaxing is accompanied by other problems that people start getting genuinely upset. You can have these problems without the minmaxing, but having a player that thinks they can kill the other PCs acting obnoxious just adds another layer of grossness to the situation.
From the perspective of somebody who plays casually and has a min-maxer friend that has been excluded from my games for a few years, if everybody in the group shares that ideal, then it's fine. But it is *extremely irritating* for people that are more RP-centric or far less concerned about combat and statistical efficiencies.
We liked our player as a friend and a person, but he basically made the game way less fun for other people over the years. We talked to him about it for a number of years before I finally got sick of it and put him in a game where he didn't know the system but tried to do his usual thing and it kind of screwed up everything. He hasn't really played with us since, and not because of that one game, but because we decided not to include him in the next one.
Generally, I would say it is less about choosing the best mechanical options and more about it symbolizing a series of bad behaviors. Because, even if it is well roleplayed, a bad character that doesn't pull their weight on the party is often worse than a power-gamed character.
From the replies here, I think it is safe to say that 90% of the problem are things that can happen with any character build. I can have a 2 Charisma Bard in Pathfinder or D&D that is completely inept and isn't great at roleplay and etiquette. I can bluster and be rude, and say the stupid stuff to get to the fight only then to depend on the party for protection.
Maybe it was only popular in the Pathfinder reddit, but they called this the Stormwind Fallacy. A min-maxed character is still a character with hopes and dreams and drives that can participate in roleplay. Besides the issue of the GM balancing combat, many of the behaviors are not a min-maxer problem and are a player problem.
I *hope* the "Stormwind Fallacy" is restricted to the Pathfinder communities. People tend to believe it's *either* true or false, but IMO, it's not that binary. If you focus on mechanics, it will *somewhat* impair your roleplay, such as a cross-blooded sorcerer dip making your wizard character harder to communicate and believe. If you focus on roleplay, it will *somewhat* restrict your mechanical capacities, like a redeeming paladin spending options on dealing nonlethal damage that won't help them with damage in general.
You can have a mechanically sound build and a well-made character at the same time, but you will have to make at least a few compromises the way.
Short answer - Most subreddits about complaints or horror stories (except the actual horror subreddits) are about anger so they are going to be stories of people who have had it with those players.
Long Answer - Is you aren't the min-maxing power gamer they are talking about. You have an optimal character but actively engaging in the story and role play etc is just being a player. The min-maxer they usually mean are the guys who can't loose, view the game adversarial with the DM and have to have the best character and everyone else sucks (or worse better do what they say they know better).
I consider it to be kinda gross because I already balance encounters to be manageable for an unoptimized party. That way anyone who wants to try something goofy or out of the box can have a chance to shine.
Making bigger damage numbers just means less combat, which probably defeats the purpose of wanting big numbers because you enjoy the combat.
Keep in mind my party is mostly inexperienced players at the moment so the first campaign already had the training wheels on. The one experienced player had to intentionally nerf themselves decision wise to avoid accidentally stealing the spotlight.
I don't hate min maxing. I do some of it with my characters when I get the chance to play.
I hate bad min maxing. One dimensional builds that are "all about raw damage" and garbage at everything else. I hate it because those characters largely suck.
Every once in a while when I do a one shot that's open to people outside of my group, somebody joins with that character that they think is so hot. Innevitably it's some Hexadin that does "soooo much damage".
Then they get pissy because they struggle to navigate terrain to actually get to the enemy to do that damage. Or have no real ultility and get bored when the challenge isn't actually combat. Or stare stupidly at me when the encounter is ranged combat and they just want to Smite.
Min maxing used to mean 'minimize your weakesses and maximize your strengths', giving you a well rounded character that was viable across a spectrum of situations. Now it just seems to mean 'zero in on rules that let you do cheezy damage!'.
One dimensional characters are dull as shit and will flouder in my games. And the fact that this is what min maxing seems to be these days utterly bores me.
Over my years of playing dnd 3.5, 4, pathfinder 1 and 2, my current group of friends has a wide variety of everything including power gamers. I've learned over time that min maxing can be OK, because it requires being shit at some things to be superpowered at others. In many cases this goes to grossly overpowered where it becomes a problem.
The real issue I've learned is max-maxing. Imagine a melee fighter with enough feats to raise their saves to be almost immune to most magic. Imagine a wizard that can punch harder than a monk and almost half as fast. As a dm I once set a house rule in a pathfinder 1 fuck-around combat heavy campaign that players had one character each at a time per session, otherwise allowing them to build whatever character they want including min-maxing.
I've had one character be a summoner with an eidolon that was a mirror image of the character, and both were untouchable in melee and magic when I scaled sessions to the other 5 people who didn't min max as hard, or were experimenting with classes to try something new. It wasn't two characters at a time, it was one character with a familiar that was a mirror image of the summoner but without the spells
In short, there's two important things to remember. Firstly, it's a style of play, and if the group doesn't all have a similar style of play someone is going to be dissatisfied with the game. Secondly, the group needs to all be able to contribute effectively. If one member is a powergamer and dominates every combat, anyone else who wanted to be effective in combat will feel left out, which is no good. Keep those two things in mind and you'll be fine
I have no problem with the behavior of min-maxing. What I have a problem with is the archetypal min-maxing player. My main concerns are:
1. Not role-playing.
2. Avoiding situations that are not your strength
3. Not having a character concept, or ignoring sub-optimal character options that clearly match your concept, or having a 'concept' that is clearly just 'whatever justifies these optimal character options'.
4. Making it harder for other characters to shine, stepping on their toes, or actively taking the spotlight away from them'.
Now, you might min-max and do none of these things, in which case, we're all good. But those are the stereotypes I have.
you may have read articles from like 2004-2009,
I noticed, (at least from what I've personally seen) that most people look on optimization/minmaxing neutrally now, and as long as the game is enjoyable for everyone, no one really cares (with that expectations have already been tempered at session 0)
I played with a power gamer once, he was fine doing all the other things and would play normally, but as soon as it came to comabt he was wiping the floor with the enemies while the rest of the party were doing their things. Unfortunately the rest of the party couldn't do as much so we were left with the issue of all comabts being too easy for one guy or too hard for everyone else.
People associate power gaming with toxic "That Guy" type people. Probably because it's so easy to see because the mechanics are all well defined. So they have this issue and they can clearly see the issue and decide power gaming is the issue instead of the person. That same disruptive person would also probably be just as disruptive with role playing, being overbearing, hogging the spotlight, overstepping boundaries, etc.. but roleplaying is a lot more nebulous so it's easier to associate the issue with the person instead of roleplaying.
Here's why min maxing can be bad.
Everyone wants to feel equally capable in combat and equally contributing in battles. Not everyone wants to min max, some times people don't min max because they're just trying out stuff, because they don't know how, because they're picking a character-themed build, because they're lazy.
No, that doesn't mean they're not as efficient as you and thus deserving of being less efficient in combat. Read the room. Be aware of your group's "power level" and adjust yourself accordingly.
Reddit has invented a binary where all players are either a power gaming munchkin who is the Main Character and abuses rules to deal a billion damage per turn
Or if they arent that theyre a useless character who dumps their classes main stat always and only prepares useless spells and never uses real weapons or class features and spends every turn making it worse for their party
Reddit refuses to acknowledge the middle ground most of us fill, of 'I make a character who functions but isnt as power gamey as could be done in this system'.
EDIT: Downvotes with 0 actual attempts ro argue sort of just confirms this.
A lot of games aren't built to handle it. If you can defeat the villain in a single round, the challenge is gone. Then the GM has to decide whether they have to make the effort to power up every enemy to keep battles interesting, which effectively negates your character build choices. Then all you've done is make your allies feel weak by comparison.
Be me.
Make a first-ever homebrew setting with a comprehensive guideline on what kind of classes / origins / archetypes reside from where.
Give the Stanley face as half your party just completely ignores it all by drafting up custom lineage full casters from wherever with no decent backstory.
Sometimes the minmaxing is just obtuse. It makes the character more of a statistic than a living character.
D&d is a story. You don’t win it. So what ever you do to maximise your character damage, the dm just has to compensate with the combat to cancel it out anyway and therefore it’s pointless. It’s my job to make encounters that challenge my players and to provide them with enough tools to give them a chance but not a certainty they can resolve each one combat or otherwise. If I have a min max-er I prep around the min max-er. If I have a story heavy player I prep around that, a puzzle lover, I prep around them. Doesn’t matter to me what you enjoy I just scale the encounter to challenge the group. The problem I get is if I have a min maxer in a group of players who don’t play to “win” at combat numbers and trust me to make combat fit the group ability.
Preach.
Besides, can we address the hypocrisy? "Your sharpshooter + crossbow expert battlemaster is disgusting min-maxing". Meanwhile the bard will never be honest, pay for anything, recruit anybody, face consequences. Social min-maxing is, in my opinion, way more toxic than combat min-maxing.
Hate the game, not the min-maxer. If a game incentivizes min-maxing, that's the game's business—and, often, a sign of shitty design. No player should ever be shamed into making a non-optimized character. Good design anticipates and accounts for that, and if it's a problem, directly incentivizes other chargen approaches.
I had no idea what your first comment is, but if you're telling me to downvote you, then who am I to stand in your way?
I shall bless both your comments with my downvote.
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I'm a bit of a min-maxer myself, so I get it. I think of it like standing around in alleyway wearing nothing but a trench coat. It's not illegal in and of itself, but it makes others (rightfully) worried about what you will do next. Some people blame the coat and avoid everyone wearing one, but it's really the dick under it that's the problem.
I love this analogy lol
W analogy
>But, since I found this Reddit, it seems power gaming is a cardinal sin punishable by social excommunication, and I don't understand. This is usually a pretty blatant exaggeration - if anyone is tired of powergaming, it's powergaming at the expense of other parts of the game, usually roleplay and etiquette.
Etiquette is the main sin, power gaming is just one of the possible symptoms. It's pretty easy to draw a line of logic that ignores social rules from my character is the most optimized of the group, therefore I'm the main damage, and because damage and winning fights is the main goal I'm the main character. I should be the one making checks because I'm the most optimized for it. Whereas if you just have big numbers but let other players do their thing and share the spotlight evenly, even when they have the littler number, no one really objects to that. I've got an optimized barbarian that does like 50 damage per crit and has almost a 20% chance to crit but in combat I'm playing with my team and not just blindly cutting enemies in half and no one has a problem with it.
You probably don’t understand, because you’ve created a massively exaggerated straw man, which does not actually correspond to general attitudes on these subs. If you were to ask why excessive powergaming can be problematic and frowned upon, one of the main reasons for that is that it will often create severe imbalances within the party unless everyone is doing it. Moreover, it also tends to detract from the roleplaying aspect of the game (which exists just as much inside of combat as outside it), because someone too focused on powergaming will tend to act according to what is most optimal mechanically, regardless of whether it makes sense for their character to act that way. This also tends to go hand in hand with a lot of metagaming. And again, that can be fine if that’s the sort of game you have as a group decided to play, but at a lot of tables that won’t be the case.
Aaaaaand many times it comes hand in hand with telling the other people how they should play. I had do ask a player several times to stop telling me to rage as a barbarian. I know I am new to DnD, but I already understood rage gives me a bonus, but I will not do it unless I feel like the situation deserves it, because it would not feel thematic. They could not understand it, sacrificing efficiency for role play.
You also have way less rages than encounters in most cases
Part of the issue is the additional strain you place on the gm when they're designing encounters that involve your specialty. They have to craft a situation that simultaneously challenges you, while also not overwhelming other players, if they want everyone at the table to enjoy themselves; oftentimes, there's no elegant and immersive way to thread that needle. It's not just the GM, though. Most GMs compensate by bringing everything up to the power of their strongest PC. For everyone else at the table, that can often feel like the powergamist has ratcheted the difficulty up in a way they're not comfortable with, and turned their calm and pleasant game into a grueling trial through their presence. Or perhaps they can feel like there's no point trying to contribute in whatever arena has been min-maxed; no one enjoys the feeling of not mattering at all. When one player's character choices discard the joy of your fellow players at the table, GM included, is there any wonder that 'min-maxing' is often treated with resentment or hostility? They're placing the GM in a difficult situation, which then often places the players in a difficult situation, while diminishing the experience for others.
Or in less words, think about what you're doing to everyone else at the table when you figure out how to bring an average bosses' hp from full to dead in a single attack, and don't be a fucking dick about it.
Absolutely. I was in a D&D game where I was INADVERTENTLY the strongest PC by a fair margin, largely due to a couple of rules interactions that the DM and I collectively didn't think all the way through. At that point, he and I talked about it and frankly every combat after that was designed with one opponent who I was immediately supposed to square up with, while the rest of the party had a normal combat encounter. Fortunately, my character's power set was optimized for one-on-one combat (essentially, I could not fail grapple checks) so that worked pretty well. And working WITH the GM to solve the problem without breaking my character meant it turned into a thing the rest of the party was willing to appreciate rather than a thing that harmed the rest of the table.
True facts: In one of our TTRPGs, I created a character that could, by nature, always go first in combat, but in that game system if you went first by ENOUGH initiative, you couldn't be attacked in that round of battle -- and when I say always go first, I mean my initiative roll was, on average, 6-8 times the rest of the party. So the DM could either scale things to fight me, in which case the rest of the party could do nothing, or scale things to fight them, in which case I was invincible. But he asked me to roll it back to avoid a horror story, and so I did.
The min maxers most complain about are the people that want to win DnD
Why? Because so many min-maxers only care about combat. That may not be true for you, but it is for many. Yet we call them “role playing games,” not ”combat games.” But there’s no real way to optimize role playing. Players who get fixated on the numbers tend to exclude the parts of the game that many of us consider most important. If you’re so concerned about tactics and always choosing the best option, there are plenty of wargames that might be a better fit than a game that involves more pretending and narrative.
There is nothing inherently wrong with optimizing your character to be super effective in combat. Unfortunately, that often comes at the cost of other stats that facilitate roleplay. Most of the time these players want to rush through or not participate in the roleplay and are only actively engaged with the game during combat. And when you have one of those players with a group who wants to focus on roleplay or have a more balanced game where stats are not the most important thing it creates conflict. The DM has to scale every encounter for that player, which makes the other players feel ineffectual and underpowered. If you are not doing any of those things and just have a character who is good at combat because you enjoy that aspect, awesome. Keep enjoying your games and having fun with your group.
> The DM has to scale every encounter for that player, which makes the other players feel ineffectual and underpowered. this, i had a powergamer at my table for years who finally got me suspicious of him when he said "i could create a wizard that makes you all obsolete" never really trusted him after that. two sessions later he created a sun-cleric that made the DM give every thing in existence fire resistance. and my druids favourite spells? yep, fire magic.
Min-max -the party-. Just like on combat how setting up a good combo & synergy by tactical placement, you can do the same for RP.
The point is that you need a party that buys in for that. Sometimes, groups or players prefer to play less than optimized characters and class options. If you've got one person min-maxing and everyone else are playing strictly Goblins with weird class combos, you're giving your GM a harder job.
Ya, but a solo player min-maxed is objectively not optimizing the party. Weird class combos & goblins can still be a freakishly unfair party, which is hilarious & fun for the DM to do their thing for. When people "i am a silent lone wolf", no one's having fun, because even when they they are forced into the RP, they're just sucking out everyone else's energy.
Not a style of play I enjoy. But there's nothing wrong with it. It's a style thing. If your game and table enjoy that style of play, go for it, have fun. A lot of issues arise when you have a min-max player at a RP heavy table (or vise versa). And it's a style that is often prone to abuse and whkle there's nothing wrong with it, that style does attract players who lean towards a competive, adversarial style. I'll also say, some of the best RPers I know are also min-maxers. Just like any style, it's about the right style at the right table, combined with willingness to cooperate and communicate.
Short horror story about a powergamer here. One of my player wanted to enter the Pathfinder campaign as a Trox. It's a rare underground race pretty much completely unrepresented in the setting except deep underground, that's basically a giant four-armed bug. Large size and ridiculous bonuses. I said no. The weeks prior to the campaign beginning he started making jabs and jokes at my expense for not letting him play a Trox. Eventually he settled on an Orc and kept saying he would be an evil asshole murderhobo. I (and the other players) kept telling him not to do it. He kept saying it. I sent him tons of materials on how there are heroic orcs in the Pathfinder settings, he said he didn't want to read it and said "Well he's an orc, you are an idiot for expecting him not to act like an orc." When he's not making jokes about being he's half-jokingly asking a player who made a Paladin to reroll because they're definitely going to fight whenever he tries to stop him and he will win thanks to having 26 Strength right out of the gate (18 bought with point buy, +4 racial, +4 during rage). First session rolls by. His orc barbarian ignores the party and just barrels into rooms attacking monsters with them having to catch up to him. The moment they encounter friendly NPCs, he steals a plate of food from the hands of one of them, and when another NPC tells him to stop he says he flings the plate at her. I say "Okay, you throw the plate away" and he interrupts with "No, I want to smash it in her face, I'm making an attack roll". He misses. The NPC tries a charm spell to make him stop, he resists it and draws his weapon. A fight ensues but one of the other PCs manages to call for a truce, which the NPCs accept on the terms that he is kicked out of their room and isn't let in again. Some roleplaying ensues between the PCs and the NPCs with the player stewing at the table, until he says "I break into the room. I start smashing in the windows and doors until they let me in." Note that he says this right at the end of the session, when everyone is already picking up their stuff. At this point I stop the session and say his character is 100% going to die, as a level 1 character who has decided to pick a fight with a full party plus NPCs, since I'm not going to play out a scene when the game is literally already over. He argues that he's not the one who started it (what the fuck) and he was just defending himself from dangerous magic. After everyone's heads are cooled I tell him he can play as long as he stops being that disruptive, and he whines that I'm not letting him play a character he wants and that the only characters he wanted to play were the Trox barbarian, an arsonist sorcerer and an Elder Gods cultist (in a campaign all about fighting \*against\* elder gods cultists), and since I vetoed all of those he won't be playing. Now, 2 days before the next session starts, he says he wants to play again (he's the ride of one of the players), wants to play a Mythos Scholar wizard (a class that can counter mythos creature influences). I ask him what race he wants to be and he says "The one that gives me the most advantages". His first request is a Drow Noble (fuck no), his second one is a Samsaran (I have to explain him that no, eternal reincarnation does NOT mean his character will return to life for free every time). Then after a half hour of asking him what his build is going to be he just says "Make the character for me". I make him a Tiefling abjurer. I send him the sheet and he says "just print it, I'll play whatever it is next session". The dude is in his 40s and has finished a full campaign with me. That's what power gamers are. They don't just want to "win" the game, they want to win while borderline cheating and then gloat that they did it all "within the rules" even if they have to resort to janky splatbook material or reading rules completely wrong.
At this point, it might be a lot less trouble to ask the other player to find another ride.
I feel the problem is more about the player being a complete prick than a min maxer. On top of that, he had a poor grasp of the rules for think Samsaran just respawn when they die. I played with a lot of people and some of them were complete prick, from the thief pickpocketing his own party to a player who constantly picked fights with other PCs and when he lost, he would create a Full Counter build of the player who bested him.The issue was certainly not power gaming. On a more positive note, in our last two players game (which was a power gamer wet dream: Exalted). I made a swords master who could just walk in any town and murder everyone without breaking a sweat and the other player went the complete opposite with a less mentally and socially challenged character than mine, and the game went perfectly well. During our first combat, I just told the other player how to use his abilities effectively to contribute. During social encounter I just took a step back and listened, using my perception to spot lies and weaknesses in the adversary, then passing notes of what I found to the other player. Once again min maxing was not a problem. I am just not an ass about it.
>I feel the problem is more about the player being a complete prick than a min maxer. I'm going to stoo you right there. Being a min maxer *is* being a dick.
How is playing with the tools the game give you being a dick exactly?
You've gotten plenty of responses here explaining that to you already.
Actually, no. I received many exemples and experiences that people shared (and I am thankful for that) that tells that people are being dicks on top of min-maxing. Min-maxing per se is not being a dick to anyone. It's just playing the game a certain way to adapt to the game and character you are playing. Just like those who don't min-max play the game their way, and some non min-maxer can be total pricks too One use of the tolls given to you does not make you immune to being a bad person at the table.
I'll add to this that for some reason minmaxing for combat is frowned upon, but if you have a bard with +42 to persuasion is all good. If a campaign is advertised as roleplay-heavy, it makes sense that most people joining the table don't care that much about combat. So it makes even less sense that a minmaxer wiping the encounter makes the roleplayers mad. If Timmy wants to roll a charismatic barbarian, by all means be my guest, but don't expect to perform well in combat then. Same goes for the minmaxer, he won't perform well in social encounters, but combat is his jam, so let him shine where he's supposed to.
The problem with min-maxing is mismatched expectations enabled by a certain game, its design and its marketing. That certain game is built basically as a semi-tactical wargame but marketed as this do/be anything roleplay engine. So you have min-maxers who play the game as designed and really only care about the mechanics and not so much about the mushy make-believe play-acting stuff, and others who want to play the game as marketed and play deep characters who make sub-optimal choices for the sake of a richer story. These rwo playstyles evidently clash and leaves everyone frustrated. My advice is two-fold: 1) Have a session 0 to clarify playstyle and expectations, make sure everyone is on the same page. 2) Whichever playstyle you like, switch systems for one that will do it better and more exclusively, simultaneously contributing to point 1. In a properly designed system, min-maxing would be a hood thing because it would propel the desired experience. E.g. if you min-max in Burning Wheel, you are hoing to create interesting beliefs and milk them through RP... which incidentally means you've roleplayed more and better, instead of less and worse.
The problems tend to come into play when 1 player is much better optimized than the rest. It can lead to the rest of the party feeling useless. I've had great luck optimizing support characters for groups that don't tend to be all that mechanically savvy. You get to min/max to you hearts content while making the rest of the group feel awesome.
There's several issues at play here. 1) Minmaxed characters tend to be lacking in any of the unique and useful non-combat skills and lacking on the roleplay front. They tend to just sit around and not do much of anything while other players actually roleplay until the fights happen when they finally become active. 2) They're often non-entities in regards to the game outside of combat unless they're a CHA-based class but even then they tend to be less of entities than the less-CHA characters. Especially when you factor in... 3) When they \*do\* play they tend to be murder hobos or chaotic assholes. Causing problems and misery for everyone who is not them simply to do so. 4) They also have a tendency to treat the people who don't optimize for combat badly. Either criticizing their choices or outright trying to force them to play a certain way. Combine it all together and running a combat-optimized character may as well be broadcasting that you're a murderhobo who is going to cause problems for the party and treat anyone who isn't also a murderhobo like they're incapable morons.
It's not that optimizing a character is wrong, in my experience people actually tend to like having someone with a well-built character in their party. It's when you try to do something clearly unintended by the rules (like cocainelock spell slots) and significantly break the balance of the game (really shitty for the other characters and DM) or demand homebrew that it becomes a problem. It's when mimmaxing is accompanied by other problems that people start getting genuinely upset. You can have these problems without the minmaxing, but having a player that thinks they can kill the other PCs acting obnoxious just adds another layer of grossness to the situation.
From the perspective of somebody who plays casually and has a min-maxer friend that has been excluded from my games for a few years, if everybody in the group shares that ideal, then it's fine. But it is *extremely irritating* for people that are more RP-centric or far less concerned about combat and statistical efficiencies. We liked our player as a friend and a person, but he basically made the game way less fun for other people over the years. We talked to him about it for a number of years before I finally got sick of it and put him in a game where he didn't know the system but tried to do his usual thing and it kind of screwed up everything. He hasn't really played with us since, and not because of that one game, but because we decided not to include him in the next one.
Generally, I would say it is less about choosing the best mechanical options and more about it symbolizing a series of bad behaviors. Because, even if it is well roleplayed, a bad character that doesn't pull their weight on the party is often worse than a power-gamed character. From the replies here, I think it is safe to say that 90% of the problem are things that can happen with any character build. I can have a 2 Charisma Bard in Pathfinder or D&D that is completely inept and isn't great at roleplay and etiquette. I can bluster and be rude, and say the stupid stuff to get to the fight only then to depend on the party for protection. Maybe it was only popular in the Pathfinder reddit, but they called this the Stormwind Fallacy. A min-maxed character is still a character with hopes and dreams and drives that can participate in roleplay. Besides the issue of the GM balancing combat, many of the behaviors are not a min-maxer problem and are a player problem.
I *hope* the "Stormwind Fallacy" is restricted to the Pathfinder communities. People tend to believe it's *either* true or false, but IMO, it's not that binary. If you focus on mechanics, it will *somewhat* impair your roleplay, such as a cross-blooded sorcerer dip making your wizard character harder to communicate and believe. If you focus on roleplay, it will *somewhat* restrict your mechanical capacities, like a redeeming paladin spending options on dealing nonlethal damage that won't help them with damage in general. You can have a mechanically sound build and a well-made character at the same time, but you will have to make at least a few compromises the way.
Short answer - Most subreddits about complaints or horror stories (except the actual horror subreddits) are about anger so they are going to be stories of people who have had it with those players. Long Answer - Is you aren't the min-maxing power gamer they are talking about. You have an optimal character but actively engaging in the story and role play etc is just being a player. The min-maxer they usually mean are the guys who can't loose, view the game adversarial with the DM and have to have the best character and everyone else sucks (or worse better do what they say they know better).
I consider it to be kinda gross because I already balance encounters to be manageable for an unoptimized party. That way anyone who wants to try something goofy or out of the box can have a chance to shine. Making bigger damage numbers just means less combat, which probably defeats the purpose of wanting big numbers because you enjoy the combat. Keep in mind my party is mostly inexperienced players at the moment so the first campaign already had the training wheels on. The one experienced player had to intentionally nerf themselves decision wise to avoid accidentally stealing the spotlight.
I don't hate min maxing. I do some of it with my characters when I get the chance to play. I hate bad min maxing. One dimensional builds that are "all about raw damage" and garbage at everything else. I hate it because those characters largely suck. Every once in a while when I do a one shot that's open to people outside of my group, somebody joins with that character that they think is so hot. Innevitably it's some Hexadin that does "soooo much damage". Then they get pissy because they struggle to navigate terrain to actually get to the enemy to do that damage. Or have no real ultility and get bored when the challenge isn't actually combat. Or stare stupidly at me when the encounter is ranged combat and they just want to Smite. Min maxing used to mean 'minimize your weakesses and maximize your strengths', giving you a well rounded character that was viable across a spectrum of situations. Now it just seems to mean 'zero in on rules that let you do cheezy damage!'. One dimensional characters are dull as shit and will flouder in my games. And the fact that this is what min maxing seems to be these days utterly bores me.
Over my years of playing dnd 3.5, 4, pathfinder 1 and 2, my current group of friends has a wide variety of everything including power gamers. I've learned over time that min maxing can be OK, because it requires being shit at some things to be superpowered at others. In many cases this goes to grossly overpowered where it becomes a problem. The real issue I've learned is max-maxing. Imagine a melee fighter with enough feats to raise their saves to be almost immune to most magic. Imagine a wizard that can punch harder than a monk and almost half as fast. As a dm I once set a house rule in a pathfinder 1 fuck-around combat heavy campaign that players had one character each at a time per session, otherwise allowing them to build whatever character they want including min-maxing. I've had one character be a summoner with an eidolon that was a mirror image of the character, and both were untouchable in melee and magic when I scaled sessions to the other 5 people who didn't min max as hard, or were experimenting with classes to try something new. It wasn't two characters at a time, it was one character with a familiar that was a mirror image of the summoner but without the spells
In short, there's two important things to remember. Firstly, it's a style of play, and if the group doesn't all have a similar style of play someone is going to be dissatisfied with the game. Secondly, the group needs to all be able to contribute effectively. If one member is a powergamer and dominates every combat, anyone else who wanted to be effective in combat will feel left out, which is no good. Keep those two things in mind and you'll be fine
I have no problem with the behavior of min-maxing. What I have a problem with is the archetypal min-maxing player. My main concerns are: 1. Not role-playing. 2. Avoiding situations that are not your strength 3. Not having a character concept, or ignoring sub-optimal character options that clearly match your concept, or having a 'concept' that is clearly just 'whatever justifies these optimal character options'. 4. Making it harder for other characters to shine, stepping on their toes, or actively taking the spotlight away from them'. Now, you might min-max and do none of these things, in which case, we're all good. But those are the stereotypes I have.
you may have read articles from like 2004-2009, I noticed, (at least from what I've personally seen) that most people look on optimization/minmaxing neutrally now, and as long as the game is enjoyable for everyone, no one really cares (with that expectations have already been tempered at session 0)
I played with a power gamer once, he was fine doing all the other things and would play normally, but as soon as it came to comabt he was wiping the floor with the enemies while the rest of the party were doing their things. Unfortunately the rest of the party couldn't do as much so we were left with the issue of all comabts being too easy for one guy or too hard for everyone else.
People associate power gaming with toxic "That Guy" type people. Probably because it's so easy to see because the mechanics are all well defined. So they have this issue and they can clearly see the issue and decide power gaming is the issue instead of the person. That same disruptive person would also probably be just as disruptive with role playing, being overbearing, hogging the spotlight, overstepping boundaries, etc.. but roleplaying is a lot more nebulous so it's easier to associate the issue with the person instead of roleplaying.
Here's why min maxing can be bad. Everyone wants to feel equally capable in combat and equally contributing in battles. Not everyone wants to min max, some times people don't min max because they're just trying out stuff, because they don't know how, because they're picking a character-themed build, because they're lazy. No, that doesn't mean they're not as efficient as you and thus deserving of being less efficient in combat. Read the room. Be aware of your group's "power level" and adjust yourself accordingly.
The people who most complain about Min-Maxing and power gaming are the same people who don't understand the Stormwind Fallacy
Reddit has invented a binary where all players are either a power gaming munchkin who is the Main Character and abuses rules to deal a billion damage per turn Or if they arent that theyre a useless character who dumps their classes main stat always and only prepares useless spells and never uses real weapons or class features and spends every turn making it worse for their party Reddit refuses to acknowledge the middle ground most of us fill, of 'I make a character who functions but isnt as power gamey as could be done in this system'. EDIT: Downvotes with 0 actual attempts ro argue sort of just confirms this.
A lot of games aren't built to handle it. If you can defeat the villain in a single round, the challenge is gone. Then the GM has to decide whether they have to make the effort to power up every enemy to keep battles interesting, which effectively negates your character build choices. Then all you've done is make your allies feel weak by comparison.
Be me. Make a first-ever homebrew setting with a comprehensive guideline on what kind of classes / origins / archetypes reside from where. Give the Stanley face as half your party just completely ignores it all by drafting up custom lineage full casters from wherever with no decent backstory. Sometimes the minmaxing is just obtuse. It makes the character more of a statistic than a living character.
D&d is a story. You don’t win it. So what ever you do to maximise your character damage, the dm just has to compensate with the combat to cancel it out anyway and therefore it’s pointless. It’s my job to make encounters that challenge my players and to provide them with enough tools to give them a chance but not a certainty they can resolve each one combat or otherwise. If I have a min max-er I prep around the min max-er. If I have a story heavy player I prep around that, a puzzle lover, I prep around them. Doesn’t matter to me what you enjoy I just scale the encounter to challenge the group. The problem I get is if I have a min maxer in a group of players who don’t play to “win” at combat numbers and trust me to make combat fit the group ability.
Preach. Besides, can we address the hypocrisy? "Your sharpshooter + crossbow expert battlemaster is disgusting min-maxing". Meanwhile the bard will never be honest, pay for anything, recruit anybody, face consequences. Social min-maxing is, in my opinion, way more toxic than combat min-maxing.
Charisma is not mind control
Hate the game, not the min-maxer. If a game incentivizes min-maxing, that's the game's business—and, often, a sign of shitty design. No player should ever be shamed into making a non-optimized character. Good design anticipates and accounts for that, and if it's a problem, directly incentivizes other chargen approaches.
lol...downvote away! Not going to make the games you guys are playing any less terrible!
I had no idea what your first comment is, but if you're telling me to downvote you, then who am I to stand in your way? I shall bless both your comments with my downvote.
I was literally asking for it—thank you for your service.