I have been playing games of various types since the mid 80s. The last three years have mainly been D&D 5E. I generally didn't visit online forums for D&D before this site launched. Okay, now that the TMI stuff is out of the way, I have a question about something that has been bugging me about Players.
Why do some players map out level builds for their characters? Seriously? I have read reputable posts that most campaigns collapse at the Gygax Point (9-13th level). Given that salient detail: why do people plan out 1-20 progressions for their PCs? They choose which feats or ASI they will take when, they even day dream up scenarios about when they will have access to a particular item in the game. Why the heck do they do this?
To me, both as a player and as a DM, I see character development as fluid. What events have occurred that shape your character? Those events should be taken into account far more than some player's plan. If your Fighter 7 has a strong encounter with the priests of Waukeen and comes away with a new perspective, I'd rather see you take a dip into Cleric or even shift your Background to Acolyte, than progress down the path to "Polearm Fighter Supremacy". It just makes for a better story.
It's just a matter of personal taste, I think. Some people find the game is most fun when they carefully build and optimize characters and make the exact thing they want to be at level 20. If they enjoy that, I'm happy for them to do that. They aren't wrong for doing it any more than I'm wrong for not doing it.
My personal taste is closer to your's. I usually plan to level 3 (or to the point you pick your archetype) because knowing your archetype ahead of time allows you to build those pieces into your character from the start. My Horizon Walker Ranger may have only become a Horizon Walker at level 3, but she was raised by a conclave to understand their teaching and developed a strong opinion on extraplanar beings and her duty as a sheriff of those beings. My Inquisitive Rogue didn't get her placement until level 3, but she was already a Holmesian character who focused on investigation and deductions.
Beyond that, I also like to shift with the tides of the campaign. I'm a heavy RPer, and enjoy campaigns where you can make decisions that are bad strategically for the sake of being honest to your character. That's what I find fun -- but others will certainly cringe when they read that. Everyone has their own style of fun, especially with D&D, and it's better to find people who enjoy your playstyle than to worry about why other people don't enjoy your playstyle and enjoy something else instead.
I’m between the two of you and the people who plan their characters to level 20. I tend to plan 1-2 levels ahead of where my character is now most of the time. I agree, planning any further ahead than that results in changing my plans as he campaign evolves.
I’m in a campaign with a DM who is heavy into role playing right now though, and I’m planning on taking a feat for my next ASI, and we’re role playing him learning the feat between now and then. He’s 4th level, so it’s going to take a while which makes sense since he’s taking Magic Initiate Wizard and he’s a Druid.
I would find it extremely odd and unnatural to find someone who didn't, to some extent, plan out their characters. You know what higher levels bring, you know how those features interact, why wouldn't you plan it out? Do people pick university majors on a whim, based on what's happened to them recently? Or do they plan out what they want to do for a living, where they want to work, even? Do people not plan at what age they want to retire? That's not to say that should be a hard, inflexible path (in either circumstance)... if you plan to take War Caster as a caster to help with Concentration checks, but notice you haven't been rolling Concentration very often (maybe your DM isn't targeting concentrated casters as much, or maybe you've been doing fine positioning yourself tactically), then sure, change your original plan, You had planned on working at Initech, but they went bankrupt? Of course, check with Intertrode, maybe they've got a job for you. But just "going with the flow" can lead to suboptimal choices, in some cases choices you can end up regretting.
I think central to the discussion here is "why" do the players pre-plan. I have played with players who plan to min-max. I have also played with characters who plan, then write a complex backstory to justify that plan. I have played with people who write a backstory and then create the character based on the backstory. All are valid as long as the player is having fun.
If you find that you are the only one in your group who is doing it a certain way AND said group hassles you about it, time to find a different group. If you are the one bothered by it again; time to find another group - you are not having fun. Otherwise just roll with it and relax.
I create new character concepts constantly and fully flesh out their backstory and also their level progressions, ASI choices etc. all the way to level 20. I do it because it's what I enjoy. I love taking an idea and then progressing it through the levels, many of which I will likely never see in game, to see how the character develops. I have two versions of my characters here on DNDB a first level one and a max level copy. This is just so I can see how they grow and change over the course of leveling. Often times by doing this I discover a better path for my characters and it's unrealistic to think I'll ever play most of my characters let alone level them that high but it's what I enjoy doing.
I very much ascribe to the philosophy that everyone should play, and this is a part of gameplay to me, whatever way brings them the most joy.
Your post sounds a little bit like you're telling others they're playing wrong.
Agreed, and who knows you might really enjoy playing a certain character (low lvl) and you get invited to play in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. You can take your lowbie, level them up, and take them for a spin.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
I don't know why other people do this, but for me, I learned as a kid from video games that if you don't have a plan, you'll pick something that doesn't do a thing for you and then he stuck permanently in a build that just isn't fun to play anymore.
I'm trying to move to a more fluid system of choice and adaptation, but it's hard to shake old habits. At the very least, I know roughly the flavor of class I want. For instance, I am making a druid and will be following the Circle of the Moon. I've never played a druid in D&D before, so I've been toying with several different builds just to see what feels comfortable, and what would work better depending on the setting we eventually play.
It's aspirational - of course you want to look ahead to plan what you may grow into, what you may need, and the pitfalls you may end up in.
Personally, I try not to go to far ahead, because I like to try to stay in the current flow. If the adventure takes me in a different path than I planned, then you gotta adjust. Maybe you need more necrotic spells - or more radiant - and you need to adapt. For example, my character is going to do a 3 level Rogue dip, so I needed to try to figure out when that would be most advantageous, as well as work with my DM so he can work that into the storyline fluidly.
What I sort of hate is the focus on "Ultimate _______ Build" where people seem to be only concerned with creating the most powerful, highest damage per round, feat-focused, whatever. And, they seem to forget that all the DM has to do is add more monsters...
I have let this thread lay fallow for a bit. Looking back I can see I failed to make my point clear. There is a difference between knowing what a character class does, what levels are required to do certain things, and the like. There is literally no problem with saying "I want to play a Paladin because I want to be super resistant on my Saving Throws and Smite things when I want." That is cool.
The problem I see is Players that build 1-20 progressions, before any campaign starts, before any Session Zeroes, before consulting any DMs, complete characters with a min maxed variety of power ups. Yeah, I get the "this is how I have my fun argument." Not the point. The carefully crafted 16 Knowledge Bard/2 Level Warlock (Hexblade [of course ])/2 Paladin or whatever (Honestly I don't care if this is a SUPER DUPER build ;P ) that a player inserts into the campaign is just a much of a Railroad to the game as the DM deciding that the Party must enter the Tower of Thorns...or he'll just have his NPCs teleport the Party into the Tower of Thorns. They both display lack of flexibility and understanding that RPGs are supposed to be fluid. Worse is when the Player of the character in question sulks because hey they never.. say encountered a chance to make a Pact with the Otherworlds, or the DM denied them the +3 Rapier of Wounding they had their little hearts set on acquiring by 15th level.
So back to my original argument. I advocate for the Players to take a more organic approach to character leveling.
I'm in my mid 40s. We NEVER planned out character growth like that back in the day. But we didn't have World of Warcraft teaching us you had to theorycraft your character or wind up super ******. I had a multi-class thief/cleric back in the day because my character kept arguing about whose gods were better with everyone for so long that the GM suggested that I take the multi-class because I was already literally role-playing it. This was 2e, and it was a 'disallowed' multiclass, but what the heck! We still had 'min/max' guys, and it was fun to do that, but it wasn't nearly geared around late game builds. Just min/maxing your beginning stats and equipment to fit your chosen character.
So, yah. I'm honestly surprised that people who are in their 20s DON'T have a build they're working towards, since games have been training them for that for years. Heck, the new spider man game on the ps4 has 'best build' arguments. Totally SP, and what you pick is what you like doing, but people still need to min/max.
I don't see anything wrong with a player that has their full progression mapped out. That's how they want to do it. From a GM perspective, it's nice to ask the players ahead of time for 'backstory' to explain where they're going. My current char is almost 3rd level, and our DM asked us to pick some role playing hooks to explain our subclass choice. I'm going Scout (playing a tabaxi) so I suggested we find a map. My char will never have seen one and become INSANELY amazed that things on the paper represent things in real life. And will spend a lot of time pointing this out to other members of the party, and collecting maps, and using them to draw out insanely complicated attack plans. He also asked us what feats or ASIs we want at 4th to start planning out RP effects around it. I knew I wanted Find Familiar, so I suggested Ritual Caster and that I 'find' a ritual book very soon, and spend a lot of time trying to read it/execute the spells (with Neville Longbottom type results) until I hit 4th and can take the feat.
So... even though I have ROUGHLY planned out my Thief, the DM is asking for reasons to work INTO the campaign so that we can have our characters learn from experience/etc, instead of just 'poof' you're now a Magic Initiate. So if you have a planner (or lots of them) asking them to think about how and why their min/max build is coming into fruition ahead of time is great. They can give you help making hooks for them to make the experience great for everyone. A character wants Sharp Shooter? You have them run into an old man in town who notices their bow and challenges them to an archery contest. After he thrashes them, he compliments them and suggests that if they're in the area clearing out a dungeon anyway, they should spend their down time with him and he'll help them pick up a few handy tricks.
Oh.... Well that's whiny entitlement, not people crafting a char they want to play. :D And I get being annoyed at them, both from a player stand point and a GM standpoint. We have a player who has a VERY particular build she wanted to import from another system, and the GM is working with her on building something similar using the 5e framework, but she's very willing to work with things, RP things, and deal with the compromises, which makes it okay, and even rewarding. People wanting 'godmode' characters, though... ugh.
But we didn't have World of Warcraft teaching us you had to theorycraft your character or wind up super ******.
Its a bit unfair to blame MMOs for this trend, when I know people who were doing it before MMOs came out. And, even then, you can't really blame MMO on the matter, because the overwhelming majority of gamers even on other games don't always use optimized builds either. Sure, the top percentage of gamers do, the ones most successful at PvP and farming raids or the like, but the majority of gamers actually are pretty laid back and just want a solid build that can get them through the story, or to do achievements, or the occasional dungeon.
MMOs have the same issue that table top D&D does - it has your devoted min-max types, who spend hours memorize the appropriate timing of skills and how to eck out every last stat, and you have your far more common people just looking for a casual game to blow off steam after a long day. And its also the same thing with card games like Magic the Gathering, or competitive board games like chess, or even games like poker. We're talking about planning out games back in the 1960s, and probably even earlier for various other games.
There's no teaching to theorycraft involved here. Its just how some people play; you'll find similar types of players no matter the game.
Thank you Scrubbo. I get it, what I am not seeing is Players wanting to "work" towards their dream builds, but instead want them handed to them.
Well, that's an entirely different argument, though. Bear in mind, older editions weren't limited to a certain level, and/or there weren't really much choices you could make that would have permanent effects, after you'd created your character. Now, with 5e, if you don't take certain feats, or certain multi-class dips, at certain points in your progression, you may never get to have them, because of the level 20 cap. So there is a valid concern regarding when I should take my 2-level dip into Hexblade Warlock, for example. Whereas in earlier editions, you either could never do that (2e and before, if not human), or it didn't matter when, since you always has time (3e, and 2e if human). In 1e, IIRC, to be a druid, or a bard, you had to have certain levels in certain classes, so there probably was some of this.
Regarding players wanting to "work for their builds" versus "having them handed to them", you're assuming everybody enjoys developing their character. Some people enjoy just playing. Some people enjoy developing characters more than actually playing them. Some people don't enjoy roleplaying at all, and would rather just hack and slash and kill bad guys. Some people would rather go session after session of non-combat roleplaying. D&D caters to all of those people. The ones that particularly enjoy character building have crafted optimized guides. The ones who don't enjoy it often find those guides very helpful, and might even get turned off the game if they weren't available. I'm glad more people are enjoying D&D, and a big part of that is how people who just want to play a min-maxed, optimized destroyer can just google up a build and implement it. If that bothers you, ask yourself why it bother you. They're not affecting your enjoyment of the game at all, are they?
Additionally, don't confuse wanting a fully optimized (min-maxed) build with not wanting to roleplay, or with an exclusive focus on the mechanics. I enjoy both, for example. And don't assume that because I came up with an optimized build, it will lack coherence or "real life" justification. Sure, a Paladin/Warlock/Sorcerer mix might sound odd, and you might consider it a nonsensical optimization, but part of the fun some people derive from such exercises is coming up with why this seemingly absurd mix makes sense. Maybe that guy started out being wronged severely, so swore an oath and became a Paladin, eventually encountered an evil entity, and in trying to vanquish it, formed a connection to it, which he now uses to glean knowledge about such entities (and hence became his Patron -- which, if you'll remember, does not imply a friendly relationship between Patron and Warlock), and said knowledge eventually unlocked the power that had been latent in him all along (and therefore a Sorcerer).
There is no one "right" way to play this game, and suggesting otherwise is not only ignorant, but can be offensive to those that enjoy it differently. I'm sure you didn't mean any offense, and I'm not trying to imply you did, but it's a theme I'm read about often enough that it's become somewhat of a pet peeve of mine. "Hardcore" min-maxer, hack-n-slash, combat-is-all types shouldn't except "hardcore" roleplayers to enjoy combat mechanics more, nor vice versa. Heavy homebrewers shouldn't expect rules purists to change rules willy-nilly, and purists shouldn't expect homebrewers to adhere to rules they don't find fun. That's why we play D&D, after all, isn't it? To have fun? =)
But we didn't have World of Warcraft teaching us you had to theorycraft your character or wind up super ******.
Its a bit unfair to blame MMOs for this trend, when I know people who were doing it before MMOs came out. And, even then, you can't really blame MMO on the matter, because the overwhelming majority of gamers even on other games don't always use optimized builds either. Sure, the top percentage of gamers do, the ones most successful at PvP and farming raids or the like, but the majority of gamers actually are pretty laid back and just want a solid build that can get them through the story, or to do achievements, or the occasional dungeon.
Oh, I know that. I'm just saying that with MMOs, where you're seeing literally hundreds of Clerics running around, it can become readily apparent to the casual player that there definitely ARE ways to gimp their characters. And seeing dozens of FoTM builds getting pulled into dungeons/etc while their whimsical build is told 'no thanks, we need a competent X' when they try to join is disheartening. That lesson can carry over into games where it really doesn't matter so much. With a real RPG, I don't think any character is truly broken by "subpar" choices. The prevelance and frequency of min/maxing has gone up significantly in my experience with the advent of computerized RPGS. Heck, the original Fallout game had min/max builds. And I created one for my second play-through for sure! MMOs, however, unless you have a forgiving group of friends or a very casual guild, certainly punishes you for not min/maxing.
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Hiya,
I have been playing games of various types since the mid 80s. The last three years have mainly been D&D 5E. I generally didn't visit online forums for D&D before this site launched. Okay, now that the TMI stuff is out of the way, I have a question about something that has been bugging me about Players.
Why do some players map out level builds for their characters? Seriously? I have read reputable posts that most campaigns collapse at the Gygax Point (9-13th level). Given that salient detail: why do people plan out 1-20 progressions for their PCs? They choose which feats or ASI they will take when, they even day dream up scenarios about when they will have access to a particular item in the game. Why the heck do they do this?
To me, both as a player and as a DM, I see character development as fluid. What events have occurred that shape your character? Those events should be taken into account far more than some player's plan. If your Fighter 7 has a strong encounter with the priests of Waukeen and comes away with a new perspective, I'd rather see you take a dip into Cleric or even shift your Background to Acolyte, than progress down the path to "Polearm Fighter Supremacy". It just makes for a better story.
Talk me down.
Hawk
It's just a matter of personal taste, I think. Some people find the game is most fun when they carefully build and optimize characters and make the exact thing they want to be at level 20. If they enjoy that, I'm happy for them to do that. They aren't wrong for doing it any more than I'm wrong for not doing it.
My personal taste is closer to your's. I usually plan to level 3 (or to the point you pick your archetype) because knowing your archetype ahead of time allows you to build those pieces into your character from the start. My Horizon Walker Ranger may have only become a Horizon Walker at level 3, but she was raised by a conclave to understand their teaching and developed a strong opinion on extraplanar beings and her duty as a sheriff of those beings. My Inquisitive Rogue didn't get her placement until level 3, but she was already a Holmesian character who focused on investigation and deductions.
Beyond that, I also like to shift with the tides of the campaign. I'm a heavy RPer, and enjoy campaigns where you can make decisions that are bad strategically for the sake of being honest to your character. That's what I find fun -- but others will certainly cringe when they read that. Everyone has their own style of fun, especially with D&D, and it's better to find people who enjoy your playstyle than to worry about why other people don't enjoy your playstyle and enjoy something else instead.
I’m between the two of you and the people who plan their characters to level 20. I tend to plan 1-2 levels ahead of where my character is now most of the time. I agree, planning any further ahead than that results in changing my plans as he campaign evolves.
I’m in a campaign with a DM who is heavy into role playing right now though, and I’m planning on taking a feat for my next ASI, and we’re role playing him learning the feat between now and then. He’s 4th level, so it’s going to take a while which makes sense since he’s taking Magic Initiate Wizard and he’s a Druid.
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I would find it extremely odd and unnatural to find someone who didn't, to some extent, plan out their characters. You know what higher levels bring, you know how those features interact, why wouldn't you plan it out? Do people pick university majors on a whim, based on what's happened to them recently? Or do they plan out what they want to do for a living, where they want to work, even? Do people not plan at what age they want to retire? That's not to say that should be a hard, inflexible path (in either circumstance)... if you plan to take War Caster as a caster to help with Concentration checks, but notice you haven't been rolling Concentration very often (maybe your DM isn't targeting concentrated casters as much, or maybe you've been doing fine positioning yourself tactically), then sure, change your original plan, You had planned on working at Initech, but they went bankrupt? Of course, check with Intertrode, maybe they've got a job for you. But just "going with the flow" can lead to suboptimal choices, in some cases choices you can end up regretting.
I do it as a form of wish fulfilment, as I've never played in a game past the 9th level.
Because while I may be rolling up a level 1 character I have a vision of what that character will be, the path it will take.
It's gamer nature to look at what you can "unlock".
Player rolls Fighter, "When do I get my spells? I'm lvl 5"
GM: "You don't get any, fighter types that cast spells are Rangers and Paladins"
Player: "Oh, OK." multiclass to Paladin or rolls new character Paladin "When can I cast Fireballs?"
GM: "You'll never do that, Wizards get Fireball."
Player: "Fine, I'll roll a Warlock, they get Fireball right?"
GM: "Yup"
Player: "OK, I can cast 9th lvl spells give me Meteor Swarm."
GM: "You don't get that."
Player: wtf
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
There is no way you didn't look at lvl 9 spells or lvl 20 abilities.
That right there is pre-planning.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I think central to the discussion here is "why" do the players pre-plan. I have played with players who plan to min-max. I have also played with characters who plan, then write a complex backstory to justify that plan. I have played with people who write a backstory and then create the character based on the backstory. All are valid as long as the player is having fun.
If you find that you are the only one in your group who is doing it a certain way AND said group hassles you about it, time to find a different group. If you are the one bothered by it again; time to find another group - you are not having fun. Otherwise just roll with it and relax.
I create new character concepts constantly and fully flesh out their backstory and also their level progressions, ASI choices etc. all the way to level 20. I do it because it's what I enjoy. I love taking an idea and then progressing it through the levels, many of which I will likely never see in game, to see how the character develops. I have two versions of my characters here on DNDB a first level one and a max level copy. This is just so I can see how they grow and change over the course of leveling. Often times by doing this I discover a better path for my characters and it's unrealistic to think I'll ever play most of my characters let alone level them that high but it's what I enjoy doing.
I very much ascribe to the philosophy that everyone should play, and this is a part of gameplay to me, whatever way brings them the most joy.
Your post sounds a little bit like you're telling others they're playing wrong.
Agreed, and who knows you might really enjoy playing a certain character (low lvl) and you get invited to play in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. You can take your lowbie, level them up, and take them for a spin.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I don't know why other people do this, but for me, I learned as a kid from video games that if you don't have a plan, you'll pick something that doesn't do a thing for you and then he stuck permanently in a build that just isn't fun to play anymore.
I'm trying to move to a more fluid system of choice and adaptation, but it's hard to shake old habits. At the very least, I know roughly the flavor of class I want. For instance, I am making a druid and will be following the Circle of the Moon. I've never played a druid in D&D before, so I've been toying with several different builds just to see what feels comfortable, and what would work better depending on the setting we eventually play.
It's aspirational - of course you want to look ahead to plan what you may grow into, what you may need, and the pitfalls you may end up in.
Personally, I try not to go to far ahead, because I like to try to stay in the current flow. If the adventure takes me in a different path than I planned, then you gotta adjust. Maybe you need more necrotic spells - or more radiant - and you need to adapt. For example, my character is going to do a 3 level Rogue dip, so I needed to try to figure out when that would be most advantageous, as well as work with my DM so he can work that into the storyline fluidly.
What I sort of hate is the focus on "Ultimate _______ Build" where people seem to be only concerned with creating the most powerful, highest damage per round, feat-focused, whatever. And, they seem to forget that all the DM has to do is add more monsters...
I have let this thread lay fallow for a bit. Looking back I can see I failed to make my point clear. There is a difference between knowing what a character class does, what levels are required to do certain things, and the like. There is literally no problem with saying "I want to play a Paladin because I want to be super resistant on my Saving Throws and Smite things when I want." That is cool.
The problem I see is Players that build 1-20 progressions, before any campaign starts, before any Session Zeroes, before consulting any DMs, complete characters with a min maxed variety of power ups. Yeah, I get the "this is how I have my fun argument." Not the point. The carefully crafted 16 Knowledge Bard/2 Level Warlock (Hexblade [of course ])/2 Paladin or whatever (Honestly I don't care if this is a SUPER DUPER build ;P ) that a player inserts into the campaign is just a much of a Railroad to the game as the DM deciding that the Party must enter the Tower of Thorns...or he'll just have his NPCs teleport the Party into the Tower of Thorns. They both display lack of flexibility and understanding that RPGs are supposed to be fluid. Worse is when the Player of the character in question sulks because hey they never.. say encountered a chance to make a Pact with the Otherworlds, or the DM denied them the +3 Rapier of Wounding they had their little hearts set on acquiring by 15th level.
So back to my original argument. I advocate for the Players to take a more organic approach to character leveling.
I'm in my mid 40s. We NEVER planned out character growth like that back in the day. But we didn't have World of Warcraft teaching us you had to theorycraft your character or wind up super ******. I had a multi-class thief/cleric back in the day because my character kept arguing about whose gods were better with everyone for so long that the GM suggested that I take the multi-class because I was already literally role-playing it. This was 2e, and it was a 'disallowed' multiclass, but what the heck! We still had 'min/max' guys, and it was fun to do that, but it wasn't nearly geared around late game builds. Just min/maxing your beginning stats and equipment to fit your chosen character.
So, yah. I'm honestly surprised that people who are in their 20s DON'T have a build they're working towards, since games have been training them for that for years. Heck, the new spider man game on the ps4 has 'best build' arguments. Totally SP, and what you pick is what you like doing, but people still need to min/max.
I don't see anything wrong with a player that has their full progression mapped out. That's how they want to do it. From a GM perspective, it's nice to ask the players ahead of time for 'backstory' to explain where they're going. My current char is almost 3rd level, and our DM asked us to pick some role playing hooks to explain our subclass choice. I'm going Scout (playing a tabaxi) so I suggested we find a map. My char will never have seen one and become INSANELY amazed that things on the paper represent things in real life. And will spend a lot of time pointing this out to other members of the party, and collecting maps, and using them to draw out insanely complicated attack plans. He also asked us what feats or ASIs we want at 4th to start planning out RP effects around it. I knew I wanted Find Familiar, so I suggested Ritual Caster and that I 'find' a ritual book very soon, and spend a lot of time trying to read it/execute the spells (with Neville Longbottom type results) until I hit 4th and can take the feat.
So... even though I have ROUGHLY planned out my Thief, the DM is asking for reasons to work INTO the campaign so that we can have our characters learn from experience/etc, instead of just 'poof' you're now a Magic Initiate. So if you have a planner (or lots of them) asking them to think about how and why their min/max build is coming into fruition ahead of time is great. They can give you help making hooks for them to make the experience great for everyone. A character wants Sharp Shooter? You have them run into an old man in town who notices their bow and challenges them to an archery contest. After he thrashes them, he compliments them and suggests that if they're in the area clearing out a dungeon anyway, they should spend their down time with him and he'll help them pick up a few handy tricks.
Thank you Scrubbo. I get it, what I am not seeing is Players wanting to "work" towards their dream builds, but instead want them handed to them.
Oh.... Well that's whiny entitlement, not people crafting a char they want to play. :D And I get being annoyed at them, both from a player stand point and a GM standpoint. We have a player who has a VERY particular build she wanted to import from another system, and the GM is working with her on building something similar using the 5e framework, but she's very willing to work with things, RP things, and deal with the compromises, which makes it okay, and even rewarding. People wanting 'godmode' characters, though... ugh.
Its a bit unfair to blame MMOs for this trend, when I know people who were doing it before MMOs came out. And, even then, you can't really blame MMO on the matter, because the overwhelming majority of gamers even on other games don't always use optimized builds either. Sure, the top percentage of gamers do, the ones most successful at PvP and farming raids or the like, but the majority of gamers actually are pretty laid back and just want a solid build that can get them through the story, or to do achievements, or the occasional dungeon.
MMOs have the same issue that table top D&D does - it has your devoted min-max types, who spend hours memorize the appropriate timing of skills and how to eck out every last stat, and you have your far more common people just looking for a casual game to blow off steam after a long day. And its also the same thing with card games like Magic the Gathering, or competitive board games like chess, or even games like poker. We're talking about planning out games back in the 1960s, and probably even earlier for various other games.
There's no teaching to theorycraft involved here. Its just how some people play; you'll find similar types of players no matter the game.
Well, that's an entirely different argument, though. Bear in mind, older editions weren't limited to a certain level, and/or there weren't really much choices you could make that would have permanent effects, after you'd created your character. Now, with 5e, if you don't take certain feats, or certain multi-class dips, at certain points in your progression, you may never get to have them, because of the level 20 cap. So there is a valid concern regarding when I should take my 2-level dip into Hexblade Warlock, for example. Whereas in earlier editions, you either could never do that (2e and before, if not human), or it didn't matter when, since you always has time (3e, and 2e if human). In 1e, IIRC, to be a druid, or a bard, you had to have certain levels in certain classes, so there probably was some of this.
Regarding players wanting to "work for their builds" versus "having them handed to them", you're assuming everybody enjoys developing their character. Some people enjoy just playing. Some people enjoy developing characters more than actually playing them. Some people don't enjoy roleplaying at all, and would rather just hack and slash and kill bad guys. Some people would rather go session after session of non-combat roleplaying. D&D caters to all of those people. The ones that particularly enjoy character building have crafted optimized guides. The ones who don't enjoy it often find those guides very helpful, and might even get turned off the game if they weren't available. I'm glad more people are enjoying D&D, and a big part of that is how people who just want to play a min-maxed, optimized destroyer can just google up a build and implement it. If that bothers you, ask yourself why it bother you. They're not affecting your enjoyment of the game at all, are they?
Additionally, don't confuse wanting a fully optimized (min-maxed) build with not wanting to roleplay, or with an exclusive focus on the mechanics. I enjoy both, for example. And don't assume that because I came up with an optimized build, it will lack coherence or "real life" justification. Sure, a Paladin/Warlock/Sorcerer mix might sound odd, and you might consider it a nonsensical optimization, but part of the fun some people derive from such exercises is coming up with why this seemingly absurd mix makes sense. Maybe that guy started out being wronged severely, so swore an oath and became a Paladin, eventually encountered an evil entity, and in trying to vanquish it, formed a connection to it, which he now uses to glean knowledge about such entities (and hence became his Patron -- which, if you'll remember, does not imply a friendly relationship between Patron and Warlock), and said knowledge eventually unlocked the power that had been latent in him all along (and therefore a Sorcerer).
There is no one "right" way to play this game, and suggesting otherwise is not only ignorant, but can be offensive to those that enjoy it differently. I'm sure you didn't mean any offense, and I'm not trying to imply you did, but it's a theme I'm read about often enough that it's become somewhat of a pet peeve of mine. "Hardcore" min-maxer, hack-n-slash, combat-is-all types shouldn't except "hardcore" roleplayers to enjoy combat mechanics more, nor vice versa. Heavy homebrewers shouldn't expect rules purists to change rules willy-nilly, and purists shouldn't expect homebrewers to adhere to rules they don't find fun. That's why we play D&D, after all, isn't it? To have fun? =)
Oh, I know that. I'm just saying that with MMOs, where you're seeing literally hundreds of Clerics running around, it can become readily apparent to the casual player that there definitely ARE ways to gimp their characters. And seeing dozens of FoTM builds getting pulled into dungeons/etc while their whimsical build is told 'no thanks, we need a competent X' when they try to join is disheartening. That lesson can carry over into games where it really doesn't matter so much. With a real RPG, I don't think any character is truly broken by "subpar" choices. The prevelance and frequency of min/maxing has gone up significantly in my experience with the advent of computerized RPGS. Heck, the original Fallout game had min/max builds. And I created one for my second play-through for sure! MMOs, however, unless you have a forgiving group of friends or a very casual guild, certainly punishes you for not min/maxing.