Is min/maxing a flaw of a game, or the players?

[Archbio]

If we're talking roleplaying games in the mold of ye olde Dungeons and Dragons, I think it can mostly be a flaw of the gamemaster.

If in their adventures the player with 3 Charisma never gets shunned as they are allowed to exist in a social vacuum without any ill-effects, there's something pretty weak about how the NPCs are being portrayed, which is the gamemaster's job. Sometimes it could just be a matter of applying the integrality of the rules (like, taking Charisma as an example again, those NPC reaction tables that I mostly recall as having been considered optional.)

A game in which not all stats are equally encompassed by cold hard mechanics isn't automatically an unbalanced game, it's just a game made to accomodate more roleplay.

There's an obvious flipside there of the players having the flaw of having to be dragged ass backwards into portraying how the stats affect the personality of their characters, but the gamemaster should really keep unrepentant gamebreakers out of that kind of game altogether.

But then, I suppose some stats can just be the right combination of being mechanically useless and hard to define in roleplay terms. That'd be a real balance problem.

[Krylo]

I'd mostly say Arch has it on the head, though with Exalted there are definitely serious issues that go beyond simple GM compensation and right down to 'you have to alter the core mechanics in serious ways to make putting any physical stat points into anything but dexterity not retarded.' Or 'Sorcery is made out to be magnificently powerful in the lore of the game but is basically terrible in practice.' This makes it the Dev's fault as well. As it does whenever GM compensation involves gutting and house ruling the hell out of the core.

I wouldn't ever really blame the players, though. Twinks are pretty irritating, but they're usually easily handled by a decent GM. Requiring in character justification for their stats is a good start. Granted, in exalted it's pretty easy to justify an invincible sword princess, but at that point it's just a matter of presenting challenges that can't be sworded to death. Same goes for any other ridiculous builds. Someone wants to bring a warstrider? Ride their ass about that upkeep, and drop the wyld hunt on them every time they get anywhere near civilization with it, etc.

[Loyal]

The flaw lies with the GM, for approving the character in the first place and allowing it to exist.

[Azisien]

The players, obviously. You can take a power gamer to any game under the sun and they'll power game. It's just what they like to do.

In some circumstances that method of play is incompatible with others (other PCs, DMs, etc), but sometimes they thrive as well. From my DM point of view, I would just give the power gamer increased challenges to either sate his lust for glory, or break his spirit.

[Aerozord]

Originally Posted by Arhra

Its fine unless its hurting peoples' enjoyment of the game.

The probably archetypal case is when you have one character who is so much more powerful than the others that you need to throw things at him which would paint the room with the other players' blood. Makes it a bit rough on the GM to come up with a game that keeps everyone engaged.

this is the main issue I have, its basically impossible to balance challenges when the DV and attack pools of one character is twice that of the second highest. But there is another issue

Originally Posted by Krylo

I wouldn't ever really blame the players, though. Twinks are pretty irritating, but they're usually easily handled by a decent GM. Requiring in character justification for their stats is a good start. Granted, in exalted it's pretty easy to justify an invincible sword princess, but at that point it's just a matter of presenting challenges that can't be sworded to death. Same goes for any other ridiculous builds. Someone wants to bring a warstrider? Ride their ass about that upkeep, and drop the wyld hunt on them every time they get anywhere near civilization with it, etc.

which is this. Yes thats a good way to punish them, in fact its often what happens because I normally toss various threats at the players. Like I had an abyssal that attacked with pure social attacks. However this is the opposite of the above. Min/maxed characters have giant gaping holes that can be exploited and its very hard to not kill them. In my RL game I used to run I had one player that always twinked a character, and he ended up dying or completely useless every few sessions. He was very relaxed about it, not like he quit or got upset that I made him pay for neglecting entire aspects of the game, but he also never changed and made more well rounded characters

[Fifthfiend]

or the game for allowing it in the first place.

Literally no system exists that won't be gamed by someone who perceives a benefit to be gained by doing so.

If they can't figure out how to prevent it in armies and corporations they sure as fuck aren't going to stop it happening in Goblins and Dragonhammers.

EDIT: crafts

EDIT:

Originally Posted by Krylo

I wouldn't ever really blame the players, though. Twinks are pretty irritating, but they're usually easily handled by a decent GM.

Being able to handle them doesn't exactly exclude blaming them for the shit that causes you to need to handle them.

Like sure you could spend a whole lot of your game punishing your player for his decision to play a shitty imbalanced totally unrealistic character, but man I'm just saying, as someone with zero experience mastering dungeons, it sure seems like it might be fun for a lot of people to like... not have to do any of that shit, and instead, get on with just like playing their game.

[Fifthfiend]

Like I'm not going to say there isn't a certain vicious pleasure to be derived from deviously punishing people for their determined stupidity but I'd still generally call it a distant second to the pleasure of not having to punish anybody because nobody's being stupid.

[Krylo]

I don't know if I'd really call it stupid, either, in a lot of cases (like, okay, the warstrider would be pretty stupid, as is taking tons of flaws usually), but rather that this is just how a lot of people get their primary enjoyment out of a game. And it should only ever really cause balancing issues in cases where the game isn't very diverse either because of the developers making the mechanics focus only on one narrow area (like combat) or because the other players were all trying to do the same thing but weren't as good at it OR because the GM just sees no need to put more than one kind of challenge in a game.

I also don't really consider it punishing them, in most cases, to present situations they can't deal with--so long as you inform them that this will be the case ahead of time. That is to say I don't really see any problem if the guy who is supposed to be the super juggernaut warrior who also has social problems crushes all physical opponents with the other players not doing much, so long as one of the other players is a social guru who gets to talk the group out of certain death at the hands of a despot king, and/or another is focused more on studying ancient cultures and finds the location of an ancient weapon for the party as well as helping them to navigate the traps in the ruins it is in, etc.

If everyone focused entirely on combat (or anything else) to the exclusion of all else, and/or the system/specific game only relies on that, then, yeah it's a problem and maybe you need to talk to your players and see whether they'd all like to take lessons from Mr./Mrs. Twinklytoes to be on equal footing, or if they'd just rather the power level be ratcheted back a little in which case that player has to control themselves and make something reasonable (or maybe, if so much of their enjoyment comes from making the system their bitch, see how good they can be with a set of pre-determined weaknesses they've chosen).

[Professor Smarmiarty]

If the player wants to minmax and the the other player/GM wants to like roleplay and shit you should just find different groups. Cause you want different thigs out of the game.
THIS MESSAGE BROUGHT TO YOU FROM A FOREST

[TDK]

I disagree that it is a case of enjoying different things out of the game, and suggest instead that the minmaxers are doing it wrong. It is a roleplaying game. Not roleplaying, while it can be enjoyable, is not an equally valid way to play the game. It is an incorrect one.