Is it just me, or have there been more and more people who simply 'roll-play' their RPG's instead of role playing them? Like, they only sit down to play in order to minmax a character and make him as broken as possible as soon as possible instead of trying to enjoy the game it seems.
A friend on my steam list that got me into GMing a few games for a pretty cool group has spent more time than I care to count just drawing up cheese characters to use in future games. Another one that has some concept of role playing still works tirelessly towards reaching that broken point of no return (although he's a wizard, so it's probably entirely in character).
Is this a result of MMO's having become more mainstream? A result of 'competitive' gaming (which I absolutely abhor)? Or has it just been around for a while, and I've been blind to it?
>>46346388
I should also add, that if just crunching numbers is what makes a game fun for you, then why play RPG's? Several other game types do this much better.
It's more of a problem on imageboards and forums, especially in places like /tg/ and GITPG's fascination for 'white room theorycraft' builds and scenarios. Anything less than optimal is automatically decried as useless and unplayable, regardless of the fact that there are GM's who tailor their games for the players and know how to spread the limelight around and can cope with games like RIFTS, D&D, and other unbalanced and supposedly unplayable systems.
>>46346406
Do they? I love character theory crafting and unless my GM pushed for more role play I'd be happy crawling dungeons and grabbing loot. That's not to say I don't enjoy myself in his games, I really do, but I love min maxing, although u don't bring it to the table because I'm aware other people don't.
You just do you.
>>46346416
yeah, i got to thinking that it might just be I'm getting in different crowds instead of a creeping onset. that probably makes more sense
Obviously an issue with retarded millennials who never learned to read anything longer than a magic card. No reading no imagination, no imagination no creativity, no creativity no role-playing.
Essentially everyone who talks about "builds" in RPGs is functionally retarded.
>>46346445
well, i mean making a dude who's good at bows, or a dude who uses a hammer and shield, or a dude who is good at magic is one thing. I'm all about characters having flair in how they fight and being good at it.
obsessively spending hours trying to distill your character into a grain alcohol of numbers is kind of what I'm talking about.
>>46346462
worst case scenario, you're probably right. this is kind of what I had on the back of my mind, this just being a recent influx of a different type of gamer, but I always try to think positively first.
>>46346482
Yep. Cancer caused by a lifetime of simple shitty games where you ride along the plot coaster until you need to equip new shit with very little choice besides choosing to equip the better new thing. I like to think of it as final fantasy syndrome.
/tg/ is overwhelmingly in support of the "Roleplaying and doing character voices and acting is for losers. I should be able to just roll a dice to convince the NPC to do what I want, I shouldn't have to really have a conversation"
/tg/ is shit.
>>46346388
As far as I have seen, there have never been fewer rollplaying shitlords than at the present day. Narrativist theory has never before been stronger relative to gamist theories than right goddamn now, or like, 1 or 2 years ago. You only have to look at what is selling.
To be honest I just try to optimize my character as best I can while also playing out their character as best I can. The optimization of the character's numbers is sort of subconscious to me now while "what" the character is is more important to me than "how" or "why" the character is.
>In a PTU game
>Game is balanced for every class to be useful/contributive in some way
>Besides that, the game is designed around having fun
>Newer player to tabletop asks if they should take Poison Ace because it "looks cool and fits their character"
>Other player tells them that focusing on one type is shit, and that they are writing themselves into a hole.
>This is the same person who runs a character designed to poke holes in the GM's puzzles in new and different ways every week
this is why we can't have nice things
>>46346388
> Is it just me, or have there been more and more people who simply 'roll-play' their RPG's instead of role playing them?
That's what you get for using rules-heavy systems as a measuring stick for RPGs.
The crunch aspects overpower the fluff aspects and the game turns into an optimization exercise.
Keep it simple, stupid.
t. rules-light cultist
>>46346462
Unless you were born in the bloody 70's you are a millennial yourself.
>>46346783
>Geddoe with the Fire and Lightning Runes.gif
>>46346948
I was born in the 70s.
>>46346853
The rules-light cult is a fair and just brotherhood. Join now and receive a free lovingly hand knitted tunic and a reservation for your own seat on the mothership.
>>46346462
>reeeee dem kids get off my lawn, they don't know how to do real roleplay
lol 'k
If you don't want "muh builds" don't play shit systems with trap options, it really is that simple
i've had a gm who was not interested in role playing in the least
>didnt know the rules
>used only pop culture games for his material
>only let us fight
>made little to no story line
>just made up shit rules as we went along
>rarely enforced them for his own DMPCs
>rail roads through no content
>dosnt care about world or enhabidence
we were kicked out of a cave by DM. Everything is frozen and dead and the wizard, sorcerer, paladin cant use magic, cause we're in an aria of no magic. first enemies we run across are alive and wreck us with cone of cold. we half to make it across the map to safety. all the while the LG dorf fighter is stealing from everyone he can. never explained any of it. we also had to go against our characters personalities alignments and everything else. ended up leaving the group
it is less fun when the DM is the idot roll player instead of the PCs.
>>46347255
But, anon, I am a rules-light cultist.
Honestly, rules-heavy games are better off as cRPGs.
>>46346462
I'm pretty sure that learning to read a system that's written in what might as well be legalese so you can figure out the exact function of mechanics is a lot more difficult than reading and comprehending games like B/X or BECMI.
>>46346416
>It's more of a problem on imageboards and forums
No, not really. "Let the dice fall where they may" while the players do everything within their power was a pretty common approach to RPGs, and when you take that approach to 3E some extremely bad things happen. Not to mention that there are a lot of DMs who won't admit that a system has problems and won't take steps to correct them because they assume that the player is bitching about nothing. Getting stuck playing under a DM like that with a sword and board fighter and having no skills while doling out 1d8+9 a swing when HP is in the 70-100 range is a really, really fucking terrible experience.
>>46346388
It's because of 3.X and Pathfinder and the internet.
Those systems are so riddled with trap options, underpowered classes, overpowered classes, useless feats, broken feats and lopsided maths that a lot of people got into theory crafting to try and figure out if they could make certain concepts work or to see how easily they could break the game.
Unfortunately people put that shit on the internet so shithead gamers started copying it down and trying to use those ideas in games. Then people started writing guide books to classes, specific builds for classes, feat guides so now anyone can be a powergamer of the Nth degree just by googling 'wizard build' or 'cleric build' and reading through someone else's theory crafting or minmax guide book.
It isn't a result of MMO's becoming more mainstream, its a combination of accessible information and the weakness of 3.PF which created a culture where it was totally acceptable to powergame at the table rather than in theory. I'd never heard people argue for RAW rather than RAI (or those acronyms) before 3.PF, everybody ran rules as intended because why would you want to use a broken rule?
As >>46347470 indicated, a lot of weight is on the game and the DM. You can't roleplay much if you're stuck in a dungeon.
You need a diverse story to have diverse characters.
ITT: useless basketweavers commit Stormwind Fallacy, whine about people who can make effective characters
>>46346388
>competitive gaming
How does one play RPG's 'competitively'?
It's a ridiculous assessment that a well-optimized character can't be roleplayed well. You don't need to make a shit character to do that.
>>46347738
What about people who deliberately cripple their characters for the sake of more roleplaying opportunities?
>>46346688
Kickstarter is not sales
>>46347295
>>46347645
Gaming culture and systems are making this feel really chicken and egg, but if anything I'm going to side with the systems manipulating culture.
If >>46347541 "let the dice fall where they may" was truly a mantra of GMs, you're going to need to aggressively build characters yourself to survive the clusterfuck as your fellow build-oriented players force the GM to increase combat difficulty.
>>46346388
When your business model is based on selling books filled with cool powers, the game will attract the type of player that likes to build optimized characters from that cool powers. I think it's that simple.
It's not a new problem. What do you think it was like for the first group, switching from Chainmail to proto-DnD?
You can plan mechanics on your own, but you can only really roleplay with friends. So, people who have been thinking about games but haven't had a good group will be heavy on mechanics, light on roleplay. I had this problem when I started my current group last year, and it's totally smoothed over now. The biggest powergamer has evolved into a great roleplayer, while still using spells in unexpected ways that fuck with what I (the GM) have planned. I love it!
>>46346388
It's not the world, it's the people you play with.
Keep in mind this whole roll playing vs Role-playing thing is kind of inherently asinine as optimization and role-playing aren't mutually exclusive in the slightest.
As a GM and as a player I've dealt with people who just build characters to kick ass and take names from a strictly mechanics standpoint, I've had players who's idea of good role-playing is to create underwater basket weavers whose tier ranking would be somewhere several levels below commoner, and the blessed few who just pick interesting character concepts and execute them well without me having to create horrible monsters that secretly have 1/2 CR stats while I Bluff through my teeth.
While it can be annoying to have only one variety of these people in your play group, especially if it's something you don't enjoy catering to as a GM, it's important to remember that there is something in DnD for everyone.
Usually you can work with all player archetypes that are just that guy asshats as a well run dnd campaign has plenty of opertunities for in character intraparty bickering, solving mysteries, combat, skill challenges, and so on.
As a side note, one place this does seem common is with really new players from the last year or three. Probably because MMO players ARE an active target audience for recent tabletop like 5e and other newer editions of various systems.
>>46346388
You got like, everything backwards.
RPGs literally grew out of competitive wargaming, and in turn had a very heavy competitive element (the infamous Tomb of Horrors for example was one such module), vidya RPGs, which were the predecessors to MMORPGs in turn took heavy inspiration from the tabletop (even the proto JRPG, Final Fantasy 1 is really, really heavily D&D inspired for example).
Every bad* influence videogames have on tabletops can be linked back to old school RPGs.
*bad in this case refers to what OP considers bad.
>>46346388
It's only you. Maybe you should stop playing D&D
>>46346986
I wa born in 1997 and I'll say this surprise: RETARDS ARE NUMEROUS IN EVERY FUCKING AGE, ERA, COUNTRY, RELIGION OR RACE.
You can't pin the problem on the generation, but rather how the hobby and stuff similar to it has changed for better or worse.
To answer OP's question, min/maxing isn't that bad as long as the player prioritizes role playing and being in character rather than combat/looting/powerplay. There is nothing wrong with strategizing and optimizing for the best performance.
DnD isn't a monopolist like Microsoft, there's plenty of other games. Are they also have "I WIN" buttons in form of munchkinned characters?
>>46351652
>>46352905
So?
Unlike Microsoft there is no monopoly. No one forces you to use DnD just because it's the only platform that can run certain applications, unlike Windows. There is no Embrace, Extend, Extinguish practice, unlike Microsoft, and that practice killed a lot of good shit.
Honestly, don't compare anything to Microsoft. If there is one corporation that can be compared to Hitler, it's Microsoft.
>>46352905
DnD is still the Lion's share - and most open to Normies
Don't get me wrong i've played a lot of FFG titles but really finding people wanting to play those Universes is impossible
I would love to play a Shadowrun or WoD
>>46350359
>t.minmaxing shitbag
>>46346388
I would think that that's a bit of confirmation bias. Most people probably fall somewhere in the middle between the two extremes of 'your character only consists of the numbers on the sheet, so why would you get attached to them', and 'the dice are more of a ritual than anything else, this is mainly Shakespeare in the round.' The reason it seems as though so many people exist only at each extreme is because those are the only situations that ever get brought up here, because those are what start arguments.
>>46346388
People wouldn't muchkin , twink so much in games if shitty DMs didn't make every single actionable encounter require perfect rolls, and high stats in order to win.
Blame shitty DMs
The fault of this lies solely on the competitive mentality people take to a cooperative story telling game. It's not "fun" unless their character is better than everyone else's, even though if everyone gimped their characters the GM would still have the plot lead them wherever they would have gone regardless.
>>46354356
I don't want my character to be better than everybody else. I just want him (or her) to be competent at what he (or she) is supposed to have been doing for so long, especially if that thing is actually dangerous.
>>46352905
>40,000 players on Roll20
What is this I don't even ...
5e = 12k games w/ 17k players?
That's fewer than 2 players per game.
That 17k divided by the 40k total = 43%?
It's more like 35%.
"Other" is listed twice with different values.
The DRR Group evidently sucks at statistical analysis - and its presentation.
>>46356133
Is it possible they don't list the games anymore once they've started?
So this would be only games still waiting for players.
>>46354651
>I want to hit every time even though trained warriors in real life miss hundreds of times
>>46346388
>Or has it just been around for a while, and I've been blind to it?
You've been blind, for a long time. RPGs are an offshoot from wargames, so... What is your problem again?
>>46357704
The first RPG I played gave fresh MCs a 25% chance of successfully hitting a human-sized target that was not moving. Not with a bow. With a sword.
In the very first battle the DM (against fucking BATS) the DM had to introduce a super-powered NPC just avoid a TPK.
That's the sort of thing I find stupid.
>>46356133
>That's fewer than 2 players per game.
No. That is counting the number of 5e games and the number of players who have played 5e, meaning multiple people played multiple games.
http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/22250/what-is-the-stormwind-fallacy
>>46357785
>extreme example that sounds really retarded means i'm right
>>46358377
Right in what?
In my desire to build characters that have a sensible chance at succeeding what is their profession?
>>46351228
You've demonstrated your point.
>>46346388
>Like, they only sit down to play in order to minmax a character and make him as broken as possible as soon as possible instead of trying to enjoy the game it seems.
Yes, my group has played Star Wars way too much for my taste so the only fun I can get out of it anymore is to make a character who is stupidly broken.
>>46346388
I've seen less of it. Old school gamers are the worst for lack of roleplaying. Unless they think they can wheedle an unfair bonus out of it.
>>46356133
Players play multiple games.
>>46346388
I've seen roughly the same number of "roll-players" now, at least in a percentage sense, as there have been for decades.
Some people are just not interested in play-acting their characters for large periods of time. Perhaps they are shy, or they are unfamiliar with the group. Perhaps they don't know how to do it, or are afraid of stepping on other players' toes by grandstanding. Perhaps they are playing for a social activity, or (GASP!) because they enjoy the game system. Perhaps they are just tired, and don't necessarily have the energy for roleplaying for several hours after the 8-hour work shift.
Also, don't automatically assume that every "roll-player" is a minmaxer. Some people enjoy creating unusual or interesting concepts. Some people have fun with the character builder in these games. Just because somebody put together a character concept of a PC wielding four boomerangs, and just because D&D3e is broken enough to make the concept lethal, does not automatically mean the player will be running such a character.
>>46346388
I've fallen into this pattern thanks to a really shitty experience I had a few years ago with one of the other players in my party going full CURAZY MURDERHOBO, and my social character being virtually unable to do anything about it.
Since then, whenever I start building a character, even if I really like something on a conceptual level, I get this nagging feeling of "What if I have to deal with a totally out of line party member again, and don't have people to back me up?" and then I'm back on the optimization train before I even notice leaving.
