Amongst my traditional play group, Min-Maxing was an art. Ever seen a Vow of Poverty Cleric/Monk/Divine Fist? How about a Werebaboon Fighter/Warshaper/Exotic Weapon Master/Kensai Spiked Chain user? It’s good you have not. Some us were actually role-players too (but not all) and some chose not to Min-Max either because of a concept (yeah, right) or because they were too busy and/or ineffective to devote the time to Min-Maxing well. In general, being ineffective was the greatest sin as a player. Someone would drive the non-combat moments forward (roleplay), but when the goblins stormed the castle or the dragon pwned the King it was showtime. What follows is a cause and effect analysis of how that affected play:
The Times of High Adventure: (2nd Edition). With a premium placed on usefulness, woe to the rogue. Some of our DMs would always use traps, so the party would forgive the existence of a rogue despite their relative ineffectiveness in combat (good luck making more than one backstab each encounter following 2E rules). Other DMs (myself included) would tailor adventures to parties, so unless they were feeling especially vindictive a party with no rogue would have few traps to deal with, unless they opted to go off course (metagame punishment anyone?). At any rate, with everyone Min-Maxing, spellcasters became very common. Wizards ruled- although clerics and psionicists had their uses. You could always count on our parties of this era to have an overabundance of spell users and custom house rules to beef up fighter-types. Meanwhile the roguish classes languished as generally pointless (with a few exceptions that had accommodating DMs). Encounters and campaign difficultly varied wildly. In one notable game before my time, a sprawling party of more than 10+ Players had only two of their characters survive from start to finish. This was both because of the prevalence of instant-kill spells and the problems of balance in the system.
Bronze Age: (3rd Edition). Suddenly a host of new character classes came into existence and Wizards were supplanted by Clerics as the most effective class. Even so, multiple Clerics created a diminishing returns scenario, and class diversity was achieved (to some extent). As new prestige classes were released, the death of characters or start of new campaigns gave everyone the opportunity to use (and abuse) their latest character concept. Most DMs, to encourage party balance, created scenarios where each class would have a time to shine (and even be necessary) that never felt too forced. The rogue (except against immune to critical hit monsters) and most other classes had stuff to do in combat. Even so, the occasionally unbalanced party existed just because there was no great way to make the overpowered cleric fun (being the last guy standing but relegated to casting heals all the time loses its luster). Despite this, certain classes languished (I’m looking at you, bards) until an abusive concept or prestige class was released. Encounters and campaigns were generally challenging and satisfying.
Silver Age: (3.5 Edition). The revision eliminated some of the most absurd prestige classes (particular the magic-item eating Forsaker and the ‘choose your domains wisely’ Cleric buffing Verdant Lord) but game play continued largely as before with emphasis still placed on effectiveness. Some poor design choices were made (Vow of Poverty anyone?!), as game play changed in name but not in practice. Bards still sucked, even with prestige classes, and the new expanded classes gave more options for making abusive combos with prestige classes. Very few mages were not Fatespinners. Encounter difficulty remained about the same regardless.
Conclusions: In the end, most campaigns after 2nd Edition had consistent ‘tone’ in their difficulty level regardless of player Min-Maxing efforts (or lack thereof). So, what did Min-Maxing accomplish? At first glance, people may be inclined to say ‘nothing’ as the challenge the players experienced against the DM/Monsters remained the same. However, amongst players, being Min-Maxed mattered, not just for bragging rights and for being ‘a part of the team’ but relevancy. The powerful characters inevitably were the focus of the DM because unless they were paid proper attention they would absolutely run roughshod on encounters. As such, when a player began to shine brighter than his fellow PCs gaining both attention and a campaign world more suited to him it is only natural that other players would Min-Max to share that limelight. Min-Maxing was irrelevant in terms of a campaign challenge, good DMs adjusted, but the undeniable effect on the DM’s story, encounters, and player relationships make Min-Maxing far from irrelevant.
Postscript Dawn of a Golden Age?: (4th Edition) With the impending release of 4th edition it is not my hope to eliminate Min-Maxing, for it is impossible. Instead, it is my hope that all classes will have viable and worthwhile directions to take.
What about RPGs other than DnD? Did the same attitudes hold sway?
I tend to like to play “useless” characters. They’re fun in a strange way. E5-A1, the grumpy little insulting droid, was great fun to play, though he sucked majorly in combat (unless evil and put into the body of an X-Wing).
Yes, I even played a 3rd edition bard. That was also fun. Prestidigitation was great, and being able to identify Ancient Chinese Secrets that the other characters couldn’t was also pretty nice.
Yea…I min/max unconsciously whenever I make a character…always have…my characters always seem to be ridiculously sturdy in combat…
I once ran into a room, only to be quickly surrounded my ghouls…my allies ran on their turns, but when mine came, great cleave and some lucky hits allowed me to take them all out in a single round…
Not to mention Dredo Deathkill, my Lv. 55 Goatfolk Knight/Fighter/Legendary Leader/Legendary Dreadnaught…’course he was made for a competition on who could make the strongest character…so min/maxing was inherent in the design…I can proudly say I was undefeated in the PvP arena, even in matches where I was up against multiple opponents…
Honestly, though…I love playing useless characters as well, because rping is my big thing…I love bards, but I’ve never played a cleric…
I never have been any good at min/maxing, though I’ve always preferred playing combat-oriented characters. It’s probably because unlike the rest of you, I never got around to reading/memorizing all the core books and class handbooks front to back :).
Done a lot of memorizing, but also used a lot of intuition to assume rules correctly…especially when it comes to spells which I almost never use…
We did play other RPGs to different extents such as: GURPS, World of Darkness, Star Wars (d20 and d6). However, a large portion of our play group would tend to try to learn the rules and then summarily abuse them as much as possible. I can think of a number of starting vampire characters that really… bent… the credibility of the system…
Everyone min-maxes to some degree. Given two choices where choice A is more effective than choice B, most people would go for A. Everyone likes to get the most bang for their buck.
And no… spellcasters in 2nd edition AD&D were not better than their counterparts in 3rd Ed. Ever played a 1st level wizard… with only one 1st level spell per day???? “Okay, I shot my magic missile… and since I can’t use any weapons worth a damn, I’m gonna go hide until the combat is over…. cya!”
“I need HOW MUCH xp to get to 2nd level? I only get XP by killing things and I suck at killing things???”
Rekres: For God’s sakes, stop trolling. Also directed at you: Only lousy DMs give experience ONLY for killing things. Somehow I think you play too many roll-playing games and not enough role-playing games.
As for the rest of the article: I too have high hopes for 4th Edition. We can all hope. Until then, there’s some good supplemental material on developing your own classes, prestige classes, and races. So… Being a man infected with world builder’s disease, I try to remove underpowered classes, beef them up, or nerf more powerful classes. Etc, etc.
Another great thing about this: It eliminates players’ abilities to focus so much on what they already know. Instead, it gets my players to slow down, think about their characters and their reactions, and try to pick skills as they get to them based on what has proved useful during the campaign.
Words cannot describe how sickening it gets to hear, at the first adventure, 1st level, how all of my players plan their characters up to 20th level. Out of spite, I make sure their plans are always useless and completely thwarted. If they don’t change course, they will be punished for not paying attention to the game at hand. Such is the irrelevancy of those who don’t evolve.
@Rekres: 1st level Wizards did suck, touche’. However, in a campaign setting where XP is divided evenly high level Wizards blew everyone out of the water. And since we played campaigns, and they tended to last a while, toughing it out with a couple of lousy spells and a Thac0 of 20 was well worth it.
Planning ain’t fun…it’s good to build as you go…
My CG half-giant barbarian, Lars, was very naive and unaware of the fact that he became CE in rage (with Berserker Rage from PH2, it’s plausible)…but when a town under his protection was burnt to the ground and he had to witness his favorite priest cleaved in two, he lost that air about him…my DM allowed me to start taking levels in Gray Guard after that…’twas a sad but awesome day…
Who the heck is trolling? I saw a rant, and I posted an opposing opinion. To be more accurate, I saw a rant on another website and followed the link back here, where there was a similar article (albeit expressed more eloquently)
Is it trolling to disagree with someone and post that disagreement? If so, then everyone on the ‘net is a troll… 😉
Anyways, what I posted about 2nd Ed AD&D was based on actual play experience. It may have been a lousy DM, but I seem to recall that XP for non-combat situations was rare.
I still stand by my comments. Everyone min-maxes to some degree and it is not bad in and of itself. It is only a problem when taken to extreme. Thank you, that is all…. ::D
“Planning ain’t fun…it’s good to build as you go…”
Well, it may not be fun for you, but it is for some people. I’ve played characters both ways… plan ahead from 1 to 20 and make it up as you go. Both have their charms and both can be fun. D&D 3.5 almost requires planning sometimes. Especially when dealing with long feat-chains and prestige classes with high requirements.
Just playing Devil’s Advocate:
“Out of spite, I make sure their plans are always useless and completely thwarted. If they don’t change course, they will be punished for not paying attention to the game at hand. Such is the irrelevancy of those who don’t evolve.”
This strikes me of more of a lousy GM than the one who only gives out XP for combat. You’re playing one game and your players are playing something different. If I was one of these players, I’d be looking for a new GM.
Part of the art of Gamemastering means figuring out what everyone at the table considers fun. By everyone I mean the players AND the GM. What you described sounds like it is fun for you, but not fun for your players. Before starting the 1st adventure of the campaign, before even starting character creation, the GM and the players should sit down and talk about what they want to play, what they expect from the game, and what assumptions everyone is bringing to the table. It’ll save a lot of time and frustration later on.
Example: I’m going to starting in a new campaign with someone else as DM. He asked me what kind of character I wanted to play. I told him a dwarven Mystic Theurge. That requires some planning ahead of time in order to meet the requirements. I planned out which classes I would take until I took 1st level in MT… after that, I see what comes down the road. Basically its gonna be wizard, cleric, wizard, cleric, wizard, cleric, mystic theurge,____ ?
I walked down the planning path once…ended up investing some feats towards a particular spinning strike only to have to change venues so the party would have an effective caster…which we didn’t have at the time for some reason…so sorcerer it was…I prefer not to have to plan…
Never played a wizard…never will…I’d prefer to have decent innate power than spectacular power relying on a book…
Sounds like a failure on the part of the rest of the party (and possibly the DM), forcing you into a class you didn’t originally want. They have a name for that…. ‘railroading’
One of the rumors of 4e is allowing for characters to ‘retool’ so you can undo feat/skill/levels or whatever. PHB II has rules for that, and, in general, most DMs I played with were pretty liberal about that kind of stuff. Nothing is less fun than having a bunch of pointless feats or other unchangeable choices that for, whatever reason, don’t pan out.
Being from the same gaming group as The Main Event, I can attest to the truth of everything he says. Part of the reason so much emphasis was placed on effectiveness was because combat was essentially the focus of all campaigns. Sure, there were important non-combat portions of every campaign, but the bulk of almost every campaign was combat-based. That, of course, was partially a product of the D&D system, but also (I think) a product of our playing preferences. Combat, it seemed, was just more fun and more exciting than other stuff.
We did play other games, as mentioned, but those campaigns tended to not last as long as the D&D campaigns, for a variety of reasons. Even in those other systems, the focus seemed to be on combat more often than not. Thus, effectiveness and min-maxing continued to prevail in other systems also. And we were pretty creative at min-maxing in other systems too (Wookie who ‘soaked’ lasers rather than dodging them [Star Wars d6]; futuristic ‘shaman’ who got around otherwise limiting rules on psychic powers using rules for ‘faith’ [Alternity]; etc.).
You know, it probably wasn’t intended as such, Rekres…but that railroading bit sounded like a bit of an insult to my gaming group…
It wasn’t so much an issue of being forced into playing a caster and leaving my track behind, but rather I wanted us to adapt to the campaign more effectively so the DM could unleash what he had planned rather than having to limit his options because we lacked a party element…it may have brought about some creative solutions out of game, but having a sorcerer around really helped the campaign thrive…
Point is, planning out a character’s development shouldn’t be done in advance, but rather level by level so one can adapt to newly presented situations…
The point I’m trying to make is that planning and adaptation aren’t mutually exclusive. I can figure out where my character should go from level 1 to level 20, and STILL be able to adapt if say, at level 8, something different is needed.
It’s like getting in the car and driving. I have a specific destination in mind, but if en-route I discover a traffic jam, I can take a different route.
“ended up investing some feats towards a particular spinning strike only to have to change venues so the party would have an effective caster…which we didn’t have at the time for some reason…so sorcerer it was”
Sounds an awful lot like real-life to me, changing your plans based on what’s around you and what’s needed of you. These are the sorts of things that I love about Roleplaying Games!
It’s not railroading because there’s absolutely NO rule in D&D that says every party must have a spellcaster, it’s Mike’s decision to fill a void that he perceived in the party. If he wouldn’t have fun doing it then he wouldn’t care so much about it, and hopefully in filling that role he feels like a very valued member of the party and has fun consequently!
For the record The Main Event is a very good DM, we all just used to hang out with a lot of numbers / roll players. 😀 That really just served to make the genuine RP moments really shine, so I can’t complain too much.
@Rekres:
“Everyone min-maxes to some degree. Given two choices where choice A is more effective than choice B, most people would go for A. Everyone likes to get the most bang for their buck.”
This is, obviously, an over generalization and assumption. The counter point is that while choice A is more effective than choice B, let’s say it’s a high Constitution vs. Charisma (definitely true), if a person would rather play a frail character who’s good with people t hey will go the less “effective” route.
I’d love to a see a Diplomacy min-maxed character, except I imagine that’d be just as fun-sucking as any other min-maxed character. Also, by the definition of Min-Max, if a character is ‘just a little’ min-maxed then they really aren’t min-maxed at all.
Who said my name is Mike?…
Yea…diplomacy min-maxed is pretty fun sucking…
A buddy of mine did that once…thing is, I’m just generally better in talking situations, despite the crudeness my character displayed…’twas kind of funny when I won a crowd favor with a round of drinks when he failed with a bribe…but I suppose that’s faulty roleplaying on his part…
Point is, min-maxing bad, but probably will happen and can be good, blah blah blah…
Rev. Mike: I typically refer to people by their posting names, so you = Mike. 😛
Being the non-min/maxer may be more fun.
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).
If I recall correctly, one player in our group (K-dawg) played a minmaxed Diplomacy character. His race was secretly Doppleganger, so he got a bajillion racial bonuses to diplomacy, bluff, and disguise.
Of course, being that he was a Min-Maxed diplomatic monster of a bard when he ran over to heal someone during an assault on a ballista heavy fortification one too many random die rolls killed him. That, of course, ushered in his utterly abusive Verdant Lord Cleric… a PrC meant for Rangers/Druids but that he managed to snag through creative domain selections…
Final point: ‘Fun’ is subjective. What Player A defines as fun may not be what Player B defines as fun. Opinion does not equal fact. Have fun! 😀
Min/Maxing is quite relative, and Rekres is right: everyone does it to a degree. If the most effective option is A instead of B for a given character, then option A is more likely to be taken. “Effective” in this case is defined as “that which most approximates the player’s vision of the character”. If it is for high combat effectiveness, then that’s what the player will most likely take given that his perception is of A being most effective. If it is for better roleplaying and interesting character development, then THAT is what is perceived as most “effective” and thus will be taken in lieu of B.
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.
‘“Effective” in this case is defined as “that which most approximates the player’s vision of the character.”‘
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…
I on the other hand will make a huge argument, rather then a slight one:
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.
“By the very definition of Min-Maxing, if you are ‘only doing it a small amount’ then you aren’t min-maxing at all.”
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.
Precisely. I am surprised, however, that the term “munchkin” isn’t more widely known. Again, I believe folks are confusing min/maxing with its steroid popping cousin, munchkining. There is no “minimum” necessary to be considered min/maxing. As Rekres said, if you eliminate one negative, or conversely accentuate one positive, you have min/maxed a small amount. It’s not the small amounts that are the issue, it’s when it is taken to the extreme, possibly bordering on munchkin, that min/maxing becomes a serious problem. Kinda like alcohol, if you think about it.
Rekres and Gun Nut: You can definitely define min/maxing in different ways, but the most common when you call someone a min/maxer doesn’t just mean they’ve gotten rid of one weakness or improved one strength of their character. That’s just a good use of the system, but if you’re a min/maxer then you usually have taken both aspects to a greater level.
“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.
What do you mean by “most common”? I’ve been playing for years (26 by last count) and “min/maxer” is in no way as negative a term as “munchkin” by my experience. But is my experience “most common”? Is yours? To be honest, I’ve only heard min/maxing as a severe negative term (and I do mean severe) within the context of a few posts online. I’ve seen it used with some disdain, to be sure, but never with the venom that I’ve heard (or read, to be precise) within just a pair of articles. So “most common” is, by my reckoning, a bit of a stretch.
When I lead AD&D campaings (yes, 2nd edition) I tweaked the rules to allow rogue characters to be more useful (and of course threw in stuff for them to shine at), but combat was never a priority in our games. I streamlined combat a lot to allow more story developement in a session, so much so that I ran out of material more than once in a long session (I planned only one session ahead, with the arc in mind of course). I don’t think any of my players were into min-maxing because of my lenient take on the rules, which allowed for more roleplaying.
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.
Woo… exactly one year after the last post… good job Outsider! 😀
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.”
Lol, those are some pretty lousy builds. Fatespinner is lousy, a VoP cleric can’t even cast spells because they’re not allowed to own a holy symbol, Forsaker was a sub-par PrC. You didn’t hang out with the CO crowd when you played, it seems.
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.
Nice to see some constructive criticism over a year after the post is up. When it comes to the 3.5/3.0 ruleset, you have me at an advantage as it seems you actually remember them with clarity after 4E or care about them. What I can say, is that there doesn’t seem to be any reason why a VOP cleric couldn’t have a holy symbol that was worth nothing (despite them being have an assigned value in the PHB, a god of povery would quite plausibly have such a thing) or have been given a tattoo or some such thing in a temple.
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…
Arioch: “Any time you make a choice based on what you want to do, you’re min-maxing.”
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.