This is just plain false. If I make the conscious decision to be a Human Ranger, and let’s say Elves are better at being Rangers, then my decision is clearly not min-maxing because it would be better and more efficient to choose a different race.

As for Fatespinner, from what I can recall, the ability to juice up the difficulty classes of saving throws, force a -10 on one, and force a reroll on old 3.5 insta kill seems pretty good to me…

Also, if you are choosing feats, classes, races in any way other than completely random, you are min-maxing. Any time you make a choice based on what you want to do, you’re min-maxing.

Whenever I hear an argument for or against min-maxing/munchkinism, I’m reminded of the Role-Playing Game Manifesto included in many of Gaurdians of Order’s RPG products…

One point in particular: “Min/maxing and munchkinism aren’t problems with the game; they’e problems with the player.”

Anyway, I think my character almost 16 years ago in Role Master was min-maxed to the brim; a barbarian that was so strong that he hit criticals all the time, and way too good reasoning. Some skills were superfluous (like midwifery, which I thought would be in character, as his mother had been a midwife for the clan), but most were for min-maxing in battles. Especially a moment where character’s father’s sword was traded in for a better one. The GM asked me twice “but it’s your father’s sword!” but reasoning took over, what good is a piece of steel anyway, if it’s not good enough? It was in character, but I think stretching a bit. With a suit of dragon-mail (yeah, on a barbarian) the character became near invincible.

“There is no ‘minimum’ necessary to be considered min/maxing.” – The first part of MIN/Max stands for minimum, I’d say most people take that to mean there has to be some minimizing going on.

You seem to be applying a different definition than I’ve heard.

“If you try to reduce your weaknesses and increase your strengths, but you still have a lot of weaknesses then you haven’t really done any MINIMIZING at all”

Eh? If I eliminate one weakness out of several than I have minimized my overall weaknesses to a certain degree. If I have two positives and three negatives, then I eliminate one negative, I am overall a more positive character.

By the very definition of Min-Maxing, if you are “only doing it a small amount” then you aren’t min-maxing at all. If you try to reduce your weaknesses and increase your strengths, but you still have a lot of weaknesses then you haven’t really done any MINIMIZING at all, and most likely because of the rules and the fact that you have weaknesses you probably haven’t MAXIMIZED your strengths either.

Thus the statement: “Everyone min-maxes to a degree” is incorrect.

Doesn’t necessarily fit with min/maxing…if the player wants the character to have flaws, rather than being forced to accept some in order to maximize another more “effective” ability, ’tain’t min/maxing…

Never heard of munchkining before…but I suppose gnomes ARE bad to have in a game…especially a whole partyful…*shudders*…

Got the general idea of what you mean…just making a slight argument…

Fun is entirely subjective, and also subject to change even with the same player.

I think that people are mistaking min/maxing for “munchkining”, which is the steroid popping unibrow extreme of min/maxing. Munchkinism can suck the fun right out of a game, assuming that game is based more on social interaction and role playing than on combat. Munchkins tend to dwarf other PC’s relavant to combat or magic or whatever their specialty is (combat is the choice taken most often by munchkins), and they tend to try to make every situation a combat situation regardless of play. In an entire game dedicated to munchkins, this character is not unwelcome and is rewarded for playing “properly”. Much like the social roleplayer is rewarded when playing within his/her accepted game vision.

I would submit that anyone that plays a character radically outside the accepted vision shared by the PC’s and the GM would be disruptive, whether munchkin in a social game or a social RPer in a munchkin game.

I’m a lazy bum of a player (reading all that rules stuff seems tedious), so min/maxing has never been my thing, not for a lack of trying sometimes. I just want someone to tell me a good story that I can participate in.

Through one campaign my character concept started off pretty single minded, but as I got worked over by different things I would take levels in whatever killed me last, or gave me the hardest time (mage hunter, dragon killer type stuff). By the end I was pretty ineffective against much of anything.

On the other side of it though, the DM knew I wasn’t the min/maxer to have to worry about in each encounter, and that I wasn’t overly attached to my character (I wasn’t going to storm out if suddenly everything was resistent to me, or my alignment changed). This meant he could screw with me to make the story and game more fun. The curses and situations that plagued my character would have any other player at the table crying as they slammed the door on the way out. Because it was me, the DM and myself had a great time having my character be an actual part of the story.

I did get overpowered weapons/items from time to time (I think he did this as compensation), which would later screw me over, or get taken away (again, something most roll-players get upset about).