Goodman Games

For either races or classes? I only ask because they were big back in the day and since the feel of this game is obviously very 'old-school...'

Doomwarden wrote:For either races or classes? I only ask because they were big back in the day and since the feel of this game is obviously very 'old-school...'

Not really. If you want to be a smart fighter or a stong wizard, that's okay.

My most recent playtest had a wizard with 4 INT.

finarvyn wrote:

Doomwarden wrote:For either races or classes? I only ask because they were big back in the day and since the feel of this game is obviously very 'old-school...'

Not really. If you want to be a smart fighter or a stong wizard, that's okay.

Good to know, although I think I'd rather be a strong fighter or smart wizard if possible. OTOH I've been in games with where the guys with great stats died horribly and Joe Mediocre never so much as had a hair knocked out of place...

Doomwarden wrote:Good to know, although I think I'd rather be a strong fighter or smart wizard if possible.

Remember the random nature of character generation. Stats are rolled in order, which sort of defines what each character is best at, but later there are certain random traits due to luck or profession which may be at odds with the stat rolls.

For example, your character might not be very smart but get a bonus to spellcasting. So maybe your stats suggest fighter but your bonus would favor magic user.

You might have a low agility but a background of being a pick pocket.

One way or the other, you might not get that "min/max" character you hoped for....

finarvyn wrote:

Doomwarden wrote:Good to know, although I think I'd rather be a strong fighter or smart wizard if possible.

Remember the random nature of character generation. Stats are rolled in order, which sort of defines what each character is best at, but later there are certain random traits due to luck or profession which may be at odds with the stat rolls.

For example, your character might not be very smart but get a bonus to spellcasting. So maybe your stats suggest fighter but your bonus would favor magic user.

You might have a low agility but a background of being a pick pocket.

One way or the other, you might not get that "min/max" character you hoped for....

I've never been a big min/maxer (other than in a tournament-style "build your toughest blah-blah-blah" type of situation) until 4E which IMO all but demands it. Don't get me wrong I enjoy 4E and think it's very good at doing what it was designed for, but I find that more and more the kind of game-experience that it delivers isn't necessarily what I'm in the mood for just now. I'm looking for a game with solid well-designed and thought out rules that allow a lot of player creativity yet ALSO offer the Grim & Gritty yet goofy FUN that OD&D did...and the more I see the more I think that DCC just might scratch that particular itch

Also I wasn't aware of the random traits/profession bonus thing so that sounds like a hoot too...

By the way, I should be more careful in my phrase selection, since "min/max" has been often taken as an insult but most gamers want to get a decent character and look for ways to maximize their strengths.

I didn't mean to imply that you were one of those folks who take "min/max" to an absurd extreme, such as what happens in most recent editions of D&D.

finarvyn wrote:...those folks who take "min/max" to an absurd extreme, such as what happens in most recent editions of D&D.

Referring -- of course -- to Editions First through Fourth.

finarvyn wrote:By the way, I should be more careful in my phrase selection, since "min/max" has been often taken as an insult but most gamers want to get a decent character and look for ways to maximize their strengths.

I didn't mean to imply that you were one of those folks who take "min/max" to an absurd extreme, such as what happens in most recent editions of D&D.

No problem I didn't think you were being snarky, though some folks define 'min/max' as twisting and stretching the rules almost to the breaking point just to make overpowered combat monsters, while others look at it as merely designing an effective character. I'll confess to being somewhere in the middle--but between the 'character funnel,' random stat generation, AND the random bonus chart it doesn't sound like it'll be much of an issue. Especially since the inestimable Mr. Goodwin went back to the old Stat charts of BECMI...

I always thought the "insulting" version of min/maxing was powergaming. There are so many islands of RPG discussion that I don't think one could make a universal dictionary of RPG slang. What's a munchkin? What's a grognard? It's all relative.

And I said islands for a reason: http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=rpgmap

Doomwarden wrote:some folks define 'min/max' as twisting and stretching the rules almost to the breaking point just to make overpowered combat monsters...

Yeah, which is why I thought I should explain myself before you took offense. When I re-read what I had written I could see you taking it totally the other way and thought I'd clarify. That's the problem with internet/e-mail/written communication instead of face-to-face where you can hear another's voice inflection, etc. And posting is so darned fast that sometimes you post something first, think second....

Powergaming as in getting the most out of your character is a good thing IMO. If you are fighting for your survival you should be doing everything you can imagine.

Min/Maxing or building a character to stretch the limit of the rules is a horrible thing and why I am no fan of games where characters are designed.

Really... what was power gaming in AD&D? Using a long sword becuase it did 1d8/1d12 instead of much kewler battle axe becuase it only did 1d8/1d8?

I think the biggest flaw in 3.0+ D&D is that people build 'characters' on models on the internet or power-builds... shouldn't a character be created out of the imagination and grow where adventure takes them? Not be a dual wielding master of the grishnicki-whip-claw as seen in Dragon magazine #724 that due to a typo is the world's most broken weapon when used in combination with a 5 class build using 14 feats that individually no one would ever use?

Random character creation is a HUGE plus for DCC. Heroes shouldn't be stamped out with a cookie-cutter.

Trying to gain an advantage by the book needn't just be about character optimization. It can be something as simple as a 1st level wizard stocking up on oil flasks to bring some mayhem to the underdark.

Powergaming is as old as the Haste spell, which Gygax's players interpreted to their advantage. Oh, and when Polymorph became a way to try out something from the monster manual. When continual light became something you blind the enemy with by casting it on his eyeballs. All the way through the era of the scry/teleport in/timestop/delayed fireball blast/teleport out combo making the high level wizard the ultimate terrorist.

I'm all for players getting creative, coming up with a cool tactic. I hate builds though.

kataskicana wrote:Powergaming as in getting the most out of your character is a good thing IMO. If you are fighting for your survival you should be doing everything you can imagine.

I've never noticed powergaming used in that sense before. As I've seen it, it usually means creating a character that can't be taken down by anyone else at the table -- including the DM, if possible. 'Taken down' could be as simple as killed/captured, or it could be more abstract things, like 'humiliated'.

The bottom line on powergaming/min-maxing is about your goals as a gamer: You can play in some sense 'against' the other people at the table. Or you can play for sake of the ad-libbed collective narrative and development of your character in response to their surroundings. You can also play to emulate something from a movie, book, cartoon, etc. You can also mix these things. But I think that first goal more-or-less defines the powergamer/min-max player.

Personally, I like RPGs because there isn't a win/lose dynamic to the overall game -- but there are those folks who still like to walk away with the feeling they have 'won' on whatever terms they perceive as relevant.

I may also add that I've seen people not want to play a game, because it offered no chance for powergaming...

In old school OD&D, all weapons did a d6 damage. None of that "hunt for an extra advantage" like you found in AD&D weapons.

Amazing how often someone wanted to use a Katana because it had d8+1 (or something like that) instead of d8 damage. And the number of players who tried to defend with a straight face how that's always been their favorite weapon and they never realized it had an extra +1. Honest!

I did say they were no common definitions for these term. Even the handful of us here don't agree on the definitions.

From a DM perspective power gaming was never a problem in and of itself, as I could always find ways to ratchet up the challaneges. What I didn't like was when one player would create a very powerful character that outsines other characters. That would make it tricky for me to creat well balanced encounters that were fun for the players. If I used weaker monsters, the very strong pc would just steam roll them. If I made a more difficult encounter to try to challange the strong player, the weaker players either died or cowered behind the strong character(s) and that is not much fun for them either. But with the random stats, and less dramatic stat modifiers, as well as those random die bonus for each attack based on level that I have heard about, it looks like this won't be a problem in DCCRPG. Hopefully those who want to min/max their characters can and those players that want to break the classic character molds can and it won't throw the game out of whack.

GnomeBoy wrote:

finarvyn wrote:...those folks who take "min/max" to an absurd extreme, such as what happens in most recent editions of D&D.

Referring -- of course -- to Editions First through Fourth.

I missed this post the first time around. Nicely played, GB!

I actually didn't have any particular editions in mind, only the general pattern that characters have slowly been getting more an more powerful as time passes. I guess one could say that Supplement I Grayhawk (1976) was the first true "min/max" rules edition.

moes1980 wrote:From a DM perspective power gaming was never a problem in and of itself,

Well, I disagree. I think power gaming is, in itself, a problem. Not "players using smart tactics and clever stratagems" to out think their foes, or using common gear and items in inventive ways power gaming. But, building your character in such a way as that you are awesome/amazing at one particular thing, and then using that one thing as a hammer to solve any problem.

The problem, for me at least, that this causes is a "cold war" style escalation. As Moe described, the GM can always ratchet up the threat, which the players then power game even more to avoid, until the "min/maxed" characters go from the rare munchkin to the default for a game.

Example--I'm in a 4th Ed game. The party was recently pinned down by a number of Yuan-Ti (we're 20th level) and are facing a TPK (since this is a 4th Ed game, it takes about 2 sessions to resolve one fight). Why? Their foes are ranged. No one in the party is ranged. No one in the party can even try a ranged attack. The only person who fights with a bow is me, and I was out that session. My character is specialized within an inch of his life to fight ranged, and he is just barely able to fight the foes of our level. Since this is 4th Ed (and, as such, more of a board game than anything else) we know the AC of the foe and, by our math, even given powerful magic items (+4 or better) half the party wouldn't be able to hit our foes with anything less than a crit. For everyone else (who's not my character), they'd need to roll a 17 or higher.

Basically, the result to powergaming was to require powergaming--you had to specialize heavily in one particular way of playing, or you weren't able to keep up. The moral of newer versions of the game is, basically, you need to specialize to compete, and don't bother trying anything you aren't specialized in.

This is why I run RC/AD&D--where players "power game" by using brutal tactics, clever ruses, and fighting like down right bastards to win.

And I'm really, really hoping DCC doesn't let players "power game" or "min/max."

talmor wrote:

moes1980 wrote:From a DM perspective power gaming was never a problem in and of itself,

Well, I disagree. I think power gaming is, in itself, a problem. Not "players using smart tactics and clever stratagems" to out think their foes, or using common gear and items in inventive ways power gaming. But, building your character in such a way as that you are awesome/amazing at one particular thing, and then using that one thing as a hammer to solve any problem.

The problem, for me at least, that this causes is a "cold war" style escalation. As Moe described, the GM can always ratchet up the threat, which the players then power game even more to avoid, until the "min/maxed" characters go from the rare munchkin to the default for a game.

Example--I'm in a 4th Ed game. The party was recently pinned down by a number of Yuan-Ti (we're 20th level) and are facing a TPK (since this is a 4th Ed game, it takes about 2 sessions to resolve one fight). Why? Their foes are ranged. No one in the party is ranged. No one in the party can even try a ranged attack. The only person who fights with a bow is me, and I was out that session. My character is specialized within an inch of his life to fight ranged, and he is just barely able to fight the foes of our level. Since this is 4th Ed (and, as such, more of a board game than anything else) we know the AC of the foe and, by our math, even given powerful magic items (+4 or better) half the party wouldn't be able to hit our foes with anything less than a crit. For everyone else (who's not my character), they'd need to roll a 17 or higher.

Basically, the result to powergaming was to require powergaming--you had to specialize heavily in one particular way of playing, or you weren't able to keep up. The moral of newer versions of the game is, basically, you need to specialize to compete, and don't bother trying anything you aren't specialized in.

This is why I run RC/AD&D--where players "power game" by using brutal tactics, clever ruses, and fighting like down right bastards to win.

And I'm really, really hoping DCC doesn't let players "power game" or "min/max."

Unless I am missunderstanding you I think we are basicaly saying the same thing. I was saying that the real problem for me was when one (or a few) players power game, because it will either force all the other players to power game to "keep up" with increased challanges I throw at them, or the power gamed pcs will steam roll the encounters and outshine the non-powergamed players, and that is something I have had trouble dealing with. As a GM I can deal with a party of power gaming min/max characters, and I can deal with a party of non-optimized/powergamed players, but I have trouble keeping the game fun for every one when the parties become mixed.

As for your example, I am not sure I understand because it is not clear to me if your party is powergamed or not. Do you mean that your party powergamed, and so the DM incrased the challanges, making you feel like you need to power game in order to keep up? If so, that is the same problem I am talking about. But, if your talking about being annoyed that your power gamed party with its specialists got stuck in a tight spot because no one bothered to specialize in ranged (except for you, who missed that session), well, to me, thats a great way to handle a party of powergamed players (again, assuming that every one in the party was powergamed). I dont think its possible in any edition of DnD to powergame in a way to be awsome at everything, and so if a party has such a weakness, you can bet a DM worth his salt will exploit it as a way to teach the a group of powergamers a lesson.

And I agree, I prefer games were powergaming and min/maxing is not really possible by the way the rules are (but instead, smart tacticts, wise use of resources, and clever ideas is what wins the day instead of a min maxed states, feat selection, and rules loop hole exploitation).

I think my reply was eaten, but since I have to wait to have all my posts approved, I'm not sure. Is there a way I can check?

moes1980 wrote:...As a GM I can deal with a party of power gaming min/max characters, and I can deal with a party of non-optimized/powergamed players, but I have trouble keeping the game fun for every one when the parties become mixed....

I've had success dealing with mixed power levels of PCs using mixed power levels of NPCs/monsters. If one member of the group can handle tougher stuff than the rest of them, he gets tougher stuff coming at him (but with the threat 'valued' at the same level of XP as the other obstacles; no extra XP for being min/maxed). It's not perfect, but it has worked pretty well overall.

Though keep in mind that from a playtesting point of view, min/maxing is definitely a good thing. Part of the point of playtesting is to try to break the game.