Originally Posted by Ixal
Originally Posted by Darth_Trethon
Originally Posted by Ixal
What you described is a wargame like Warhammer AoS/40K, not a role playing game.
What I described is literally what every tabletop RPG is...D&D, Pathfinder, etc...whatever your favorite is. If there are dice involved your main task is creating a character with the best chance to land its attacks and spells, and the best chance to negate damage coming your way. If it's a game of chance you are ALWAYS playing the odds...no matter how much or how little you think you are min-maxing, no matter how much you think should be optimized, the game forces you to play the odds and to optimize to some extent...the entire game is literally ALL about your odds. Every action is about your odds of success vs odds of failure.

You are literally not allowed to play until you created a character...and that entire process is optimization...what's your role in the party, what abilities do you take, how do you attack, what are your odds of success and how much damage do you do, etc. etc. etc.

And here we have the problem. This is the attitude currently catered to which leads to the decline of rpgs. Reducing role playing games to war games where "the main task" is to create optimized combat character for combat encounters. Immersing you into the world? Experience a story with interesting characters? Playing a role in a fantasy world? All of this is playing wrong, unless your role is +5 attack 2d6 damage DD/off-tank.

Attitudes like this ate literally destroying the very core of rogs and should be opposed instead of catered to by butchering the immersion of settings to make m7nmaxer haooy like with the ASI change.
Combat has always been a central pillar of rpgs, but it's not necessarily all they've been about throughout the years. To paraphrase the very video that kicked off this entire thread, war gaming is literally the root from which ttrpgs as we know them today sprouted, even if they're about something else today and focus much more on roleplaying and narrative. No "core" is being destroyed here. The purpose may differ, but the underlying mechanical principles are still there. To create a character is to decide what you want to be good at and then finding out how to be good at it. This is technically optimizing. It may not always be a priority, but setting your starting Charisma to 16 because you envision your character as a diplomatic smooth-talker who's good at defusing conflict is a kind of optimizing (as opposed to just making a talkative character with average charisma). Interesting characters have memorable strengths and weaknesses and in a game I would expect the mechanics to reflect them.

In fact, I'll go as far as to say that min-maxing your ability scores is fantastic for roleplaying and creating memorable characters, because it gives them both prominent strengths and weaknesses. Take Minsc, for example - the pinnacle of physical perfection with a hamster-sized brain.