Author Topic: Role-Play: how and whys and stuff  (Read 5608 times)

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Orion

  • Bi-Curious George
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Re: Role-Play: how and whys and stuff
« Reply #40 on: November 10, 2008, 11:05:46 PM »
I think that's a lop-sided description that once again, valorises one group and denigrates the other. Nobody is stalwartly refusing to optimise on principle. This is why that "deliberate moron" description bugs me so much. It's as if optimisers think that anybody who doesn't enjoy optimising is doing it just to spite them, which is actually a really self-absorbed position (as any persecution complex is).

People who don't go for optimising usually just aren't particularly interested in it. It's not their kind of fun. By and large (and again, my examples are just as anecdotal as yours, so big grain of salt, there) they want a game where the threat level is relatively low (low on tactics, low on optimised NPCs) so that they can concentrate on character/plot and play through the fights in-character rather than using tactics. These two things are not mutually exclusive, of course, and there are lots of people who happily do both, but many people concentrate on one because the other just isn't all that fun for them.

Now, certainly, when someone comes looking for optimisation, there's no shortage of people willing to help and make suggestions. That's a wonderful thing about this board. I've benefited from that, let's call it "crunchiness" on a few occasions. The kinds of covert hostility I'm talking about comes in different forms, but I don't want to beat that horse so I'll just let the examples I've already mentioned stand.

And as you say, though, there might be "harsh criticism" of the build, and that criticism often takes the form of personal attacks. I've seen it, repeatedly. It's often subtler that, too: a patronising tone that clearly says "if you don't already understand optimising, we choose to treat you like crap until such time as you do." I'm exaggerating for the sake of clarity, here, but that's the tone. It's an illogical practise: pretend to educate someone while in fact berating them for their ignorance before such time as you have even begun the education. It's also a common way to prise a certain specific knowledge and (a) refute entrance to people don't have that knowledge and/or (b) force anyone who wants to be part of a community to absorb that knowledge in order to as it were "prove themselves." Almost every closed sub-culture does this: music snobs, comic geeks, sports junkies, etc. I'd like to see us rise above that because I really love D&D as a game, and RPGs in general, and I think that it can be a welcoming kind of group-oriented fun that we don't often get in other circumstances.

As for badassery, that is an interesting index, I think. There are certainly a lot of people who want to be badass, but don't have any other vision for their character. "Badass" for them means "kills everything in sight and ignore the story." Similarly, there are a lot of players who, as you say, make characters who act like they're badass but don't have the numbers to back it up. Anyone who does, in fact, "rant" about powergaming at the mention of multi-classing is a schmuck, but has anyone actually done that? Seriously, is it for no reason or were they reacting to something subtle and covert that was done to provoke them? People don't usually get upset for no reason at all. They might do it for an exceedingly dumb reason, but there's usually a reason of some kind. Conflict resolution is about addressing that reason instead of merely placing blame. But I digress, now.

I think I've kind of made my basic point, eh? It's now really just a matter of holding people to a certain level of maturity and respect, and not letting them get away with getting pissy about other people who don't happen to play in a different style (and that most definitely goes both ways). Make sense?