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First of all: Optimization and Min/Maxing are not the same thing so don't use the terms interchangeably.

Provocative title I know, it doesn't stop it from being true and something that needs to be discussed as it does have a large impact on the game. In my many years of GMing across half a dozen systems I have stumbled on a universe truth when it comes to RPGs. People with better reading comprehension and math skills are innately better at making characters and playing. They don't need to sit down and think about how to make a great character, they do so instinctively in often less time than a non-optimizer takes to make an inferior character.

Now why is this thread worthy you may ask, well there is this perpetuated lie on this board and several other that optimization is a preference and that other play styles exists and are just as valid. Well I am here to challenge that. Not the validity of the other styles but that Optimization is not a style, its just something that automatically happens when a smarter person plays the game. I've never met an optimizer who didn't also fall into one of those other style, the fact that their character was optimized was incidental due to their superior grasp of the rules that comes from having superior language and math abilities. Min/maxing is a style but it is not the same thing as optimization. This has been covered else where, if you don't know what I mean do a Google search. The gist of it is that Min/Maxing is results in one or two trick ponies with a narrow scope of abilities, they may or may not have glaring weaknesses depending on the task they were Min/Maxed to preform. Optimization is just when a character is better at their intended purpose without sacrificing other elements.

Therefor any effort to curb optimization is effectively trying to punish someone for being better at math and reading than you. If you can't handle someone with optimized characters that is a personal failing, not a failing of the system or them and you need to fess up and accept it.

Mar 4, 2012 -- 11:04AM, wrecan wrote:

Chess is a competitive game in which the players are trying to defeat each other.  D&D is supposed to be a friendly game in which the players work as co-equals.  A system that rewards mastery is, in my opinion, not furthering the goal of a cooperative game because it rewards a mindset in which a goal is to be able to contribute more than your fellow teammates.

Obviously there is no way to eliminate system mastery.  Any sufficiently complex system will have some people who are more quickly able to master the intricacies than others and those people will have an advantage.  But the game shoudl try to minimize the disparity between optimized and non-optimized characters to the extent that doing so does not unduly interfere with other enjoyable aspects of play.

I'd like to thank Wrecan from typing my post for me.

Yeah if I could make each option perfectly equal I would.  I just don't want the answer to be - let's get rid of options since invariably they result in system mastery.   I think we can do better but I agree eliminating every last shred of system mastery will probably ruin the game for other reasons.   I mean classes without feats or spells would go a long way to avoid system mastery but do any of us want to play it?

What I do as a DM, is I take the "less gifted optimizers" under my wing and I help them with their characters.  Instead of throwing the book at them I tell them here are some builds and here are the advantages and disadvantages.  If they dislike the builds and want something else I look at what they want and I give them pointers on how to make what they want as good as possible.   This usually works.  I've had kids in a campaign once too.  Father son combo.  The son was 12.  The kid played a simpler class and had great fun.  This might be an argument for some people but not all people.  I'm not saying everyone who is of lesser intelligence should get a simple class.  I'm just saying some might prefer it for that very reason and we should offer them some that are basically optimized well enough right from the start.

The CharOp forums are nothing I've ever frequented for a pnp game.  I have for mmos.  If someone wanted to be a better character builder even if not as bright then I might point them to those forums as well.  I don't want to squelch a new guys concept so hopefully there are ways to make it good.

Also I reiterate that while a tendency, experience also matters.  I'm sure I could take a 140 IQ guy who has never roleplayed and he'll start out bad.  He might learn in time yes.  But he'll start out bad compared to the die hards who've been playing for 30 years.