When people on the forums are referring to min/maxing, is it related to using your class, race, feats to super-specialize/optimize  dps (dpr) or can the term be applied to optimize skills for instance a half-elf, bard, actor background etc. to reach max persuasion/diplomacy to be the face of the group ?  What are some other common archetypes beside damage and diplomacy that would fit as min/maxing ?

That sensible subject intrigues me as it is a dividing topic that seems hard to discuss without triggering passions.

* I'm not mastering written English yet so I'm not looking for a debate, just a discussion to understand.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I use min/maxing only for trying to create the “best” possible mechanical builds overall (resulting in only a select few options being considered), as opposed to optimizing which refers to looking for the mechanically strongest option of any given idea. A min/maxer probably won’t even consider the Ranger class at all, but an optimizer looking for a ranged combat specialist will arguably at least consider putting a bit of Ranger in there.

Traditionally the term is used for such a build that minimizes weaknesses and maximizes strengths in order to boost the effectiveness. So technically the term shouldn't be used in situations where you put everything in one basket and sacrifice everything else.

For instance, a glass canon (classic archetype) is not really min-maxed if only dpr is boosted because it has a glaring weakness that has not been addressed. If you can take a glass canon build and tweak it in such a way that no one would call it glass anymore - now that is a min/maxed character.

Same thing goes for non combat skills. You can really optimize everything - from social skills to something like Hide or become a Perception monster. The thing is that if only the one thing is boosted, it's not really a min/maxed character. 

More like a one trick pony ;-)

My take is this: 

There is literally no way to play D&D correctly if everyone at the table is having fun. 

That's it. I don't care if you're playing in a campaign where Druids use Dexterity as their casting stat or where you are literally all murder hoboes. If you and everyone else at the table are having fun, you're not playing the game wrong. 

There are many different definitions for the term "min-maxing".

Traditionally, the term arose from point-buy systems in older games wherein one could "buy down" an attribute, skill or ability - i.e. 'minimize' that attribute, skill, or ability - to free up points that could then be spent on 'maximizing' the attribute, skill or ability the player wanted to specialize in.  "Min-Max" became shorthand for this practice of using penalties, negative modifiers, and quirks to generate enough character creation credit, as it were, to start with absurdly high numbers in the thing you were aiming to maximize.  You may also hear of it being referred to as munchkinning or munchkinism; both the characters produced by old-style minmaxing and the players who do so are referred to as munchkins by some, with the term "munchkin" almost always being negative/derisive.

For many RPG players, this is simply the natural way they want to play.  Character creation resources are usually extremely limited, you can only be exceptionally awesome at one, maybe two things.  Being Exceptionally Awesome at one or two things and leaving everything else to your party members is not only what they're used to, but in many cases, they consider it how you define team play - everybody has their roles, everybody respects each other's roles, and the team uses its maximized strengths to cover for each other's minimized weaknesses.

For other players, doing this to excess creates a one-dimensional caricature of a character who is so dysfunctional, so absolutely terrible at everything but its one narrowly focused specialization, that it's kind of a miracle the character lived long enough to become and adventurer in the first place.  It detracts sharply from verisimilitude and creates one-trick-pony characters that are absolutely helpless when taken out of their comfort zone, or in any situation where the party can't throw the appropriate minmaxed monster beast at a check.

The 5e equivalent would be using Point Buy to get three 15s and three 8s, picking a species that gives you bonus points in your most important scores, and ignoring any skill, proficiency, ability, or anything else that corresponds to one of the 'dumped' scores.  Even then, that really doesn't speak to just how polarizing min-maxing was in older editions of the game, or in other games.  Imagine a barbarian that could start with 25 Strength and 25 Con at level 1, with double proficiency to weapon attacks and the ability to attack as a bonus action every turn...with a 3 in every score that isn't Strength or Con and no skill proficiencies whatsoever.  That's what a lot of folks think of/remember when they hear 'min/maxing', and people have reactions to that sort of minmaxing as extreme as the minmax itself is.

Usually, when someone uses the term "minmaxing" in conversation, they're talking about minmaxing for combat.  Combat has always been the most rules-intensive portion of D&D, everything else runs looser and requires less devotion to squeezing every possible bonus out of the game to work - and in many cases, the minmaxer will say that being exceptionally good at the part of D&D most likely to kill you is the best place to specialize.  It's perfectly possible to minmax for diplomacy, though in 5e it's less possible to minmax for much of anything beyond those two.  Nor is it really possible to 'minmax' the way the term is classically understood to work in 5e at all - the 15/15/15/8/8/8 spread is much smoother than the typical 30/30/3/3/3/3 spread a minmaxer of old would dig for.

As Pangurjan pointed out, there's a related but very distinct philosophy generally more commonly (though not universally) known as optimization.  Usually, optimization refers to creating the strongest character you can within a given theme or a given set of design goals, without compromising everything other than a single narrow focus.  Optimizers are often lumped in with, and derided as, minmaxers/munchkins by players who prefer a more rules-light approach to the game.  There's no similar descriptive, categorical label for players who either don't remotely care about mechanical effectiveness or who actively avoid it.  Some players simply want to play what they think will be fun, whether it's mechanically effective or not.  Other players actively desire for both their own character and everyone else in the party to be poorly designed or mechanically conflicted or inefficient, often because they feel that the story of a bunch of total ****-ups who have no business being heroes managing to be heroes anyways to be more fun/interesting than the story of Heroic People Doing Heroic Things.

In short, and very crudely:

A min-maxer will be upset if they can't start the game with a 20 in their primary stat at level 1, and also find a way to get their most important combat feat to boot.  They don't give a shit what the rest of their numbers look like, so long as they can take down small dragons in single combat by level 3 and big ones by level 6.

An optimizer will be annoyed if she can't start the game with at least a 16 in her primary stat at level 1, though anything beyond that 16 is gravy.  She usually doesn't want any cripplingly low numbers, though many optimizers enjoy leaving a single heavy weakness (7 or lower) in a character as a roleplaying tool.

A Don't-Carer doesn't care what his numbers are, good or bad, so long as his character fits the idea he wants to play or scratches some other itch he's got for the game.  If his numbers are good, great!  If not, ehh.  Who cares, that stuff's not what he's here for.

And a Bohemian will be upset if anyone in the party has a score higher than 13, proficiency in any useful skills, any useful spells, or any gear worth having.  The Bohemian is at his absolute happiest when every single session is a four-hour rolling train wreck of incompetence and failure that the party only just barely manages to scrape through by the skin of their teeth.

Quote from Third_Sundering >>

My take is this: 

There is literally no way to play D&D correctly if everyone at the table is having fun. 

That's it. I don't care if you're playing in a campaign where Druids use Dexterity as their casting stat or where you are literally all murder hoboes. If you and everyone else at the table are having fun, you're not playing the game wrong. 

 Yeah, that's the goal but within a group, min/maxer have an impact on the dynamic of the group where there are non-min-maxers.

Example: a "min/maxer" (definition unclear) that is a power house for damage might have "neglected" social skills to specialize. That could make him/her over/very confident that brute force will overcome fail social checks. In a group, that player brings that "biais" (not necessarily by intent or by bad team work skills).

My opinion is that a character optimized for dps/dpr has more "potential" to disrupt/ruin a social encounter and bring the group in a fight (the build he/she is specalized for) more than a super min/maxer charisma skills player can "impose" a social encounter on a damage oriented character.

What I want to say is, damage oriented characters come with a biais and min/maxing dps (dpr) magnifies that more than other min/maxed areas or non-min/maxers.

I'm trying to understand why it sometimes creates such a tense debat, trying to reduce the gap between min-maxers and those who hate/despize it.

It's not about telling how to play the game, it's about acknowledging unforseen impact that playing the game in a certain way might have on other members of the group.

Not to criticize it but to appeal to the sensitivity of those players with no obligation of there part.

We could do the same exercise for "absurd builds" but that's not the topic of this post.

So this boils down to table dynamics, right.  Session 0 should hopefully minimize this thing, and honestly I’m really hoping Tashas encourages players to create characters with more freedom than ever before from a roleplay standpoint, but the flipside to this is its going to give more freedom to said min-maxer. 

The DM should be addressing this.  While I understand in D&D the concept of a party face, if there is a combat focused character there are going to be times for them to fail socially.  If its a pure social character there are going to be times when they get walloped in combat.   That’s how you balance out min maxers.  You don’t flatten them but you do show the table that they aren’t the end all be all.  DM can give the other characters additional opportunities to shine with asks for additional skill checks or social opportunities.    I also subscribe to the concept of “Not every monster has the same HP, even though they are the same monster”.  Maybe the not combat focused character gets that final hit on a boss a few hp early, give the big win to that person.

I'll propose my own example to counter yours. 

Imagine a table where everyone is a powergamer/minmaxer/optimizer/whateveryouwanttocallus. They're all doing fine, having fun making outrageous builds, and all of them can kill several tarrasques every round if they need to. Then, a new player comes in, one who is not a powergamer/minmaxer. This player, though they mean no harm and have done nothing wrong, is a heavy roleplayer, and they want to spend hours upon hours, session after session, and game after game roleplaying, and only roleplaying. This is not a bad desire and it is not incorrect for them to want to play this way, but at this table where everyone else wants to only do combat and kill powerful monsters it is a problem. This disparity between the players at the table is the issue, not the player themselves or their playstyle. Before this player came to this table, everything was going fine, everyone was having fun, and D&D was as close to perfect as it could be for them. 

As I stated in my first post, there is absolutely no way that you can play the game incorrectly if everyone was having fun. Before this new player came it, they were playing the game correctly, everyone was having fun, and no one was not having fun because of minmaxing. However, when you introduce someone to the campaign who has a different playstyle, that can mess up the fun of the game and the point of playing it in the first place for everyone at the table. It's not the fault of the person who came to the table, and it isn't the fault of the table. No one is at fault, but people are not having fun. 

(As a side point, please do not misunderstand my argument above. I am definitely, 100% not saying optimizers can't roleplay and roleplayers can't optimize. I am merely using examples to prove my point.)

The reason they are not having fun is the same reason you cannot fit a circle into a triangular hole. It's no one's fault that it doesn't work out, but it is just incompatible. A triangle is not an incorrect shape for allowing the circle to fit, and a circle isn't an incorrect shape for not fitting into the triangle. The same thing applies to when optimizers have less fun because of roleplayers or vice versa. If you blame the circle or the triangle for not fitting, or if you blame the powergamer or roleplayer for messing up the game, you are wasting your breath. It is futile. You cannot force someone to have fun playing in your playstyle, and if you blame them for this disparity at the table, you are being a jerk (not calling anyone out in particular, just saying as a general rule). 

Powergaming/minmaxing/optimizing isn't a problem, and neither is roleplaying.

Play what makes you have fun. If that is a OSR hack and slash, or a four dimensional dynastic intrigue campaign, all are viable ways to play D&D. I might not personally enjoy it, but that doesn't matter to me. 

My understanding of the term min/maxing has always been "getting the maximum power for the minimum cost" out of a character. This term was used in Champions a lot, to describe someone who tried to "always get the round-off" (in Champions, half-points always rounded in the player's favor). For example, Combat Value was based on DEX/3. You could have a 23, 24, or 25 DEX to give you an 8 Combat Value (CV). So the "min maxer" would take a 23 DEX, and never, ever, consider a 24 or 25 because those would be "wasted" points. Similarly, your Energy Defense was figured as CON/5, so you wanted an odd CON (again, 23 was very effective, as it gave a 5 ED). The way round-offs worked, in Champions, characteristics that ended in 3 and 8 were particularly effective. Consequently, a min-maxer in Champions would be someone who made every single characteristic end in 3 or 8. So you would see people with character sheets like this: STR-18, DEX-23, CON-23, BODY-13, INT-18, EGO-13, PRE-13, COM-18. Such a character could save something on the order of 8-10 character points over someone who had last-pace digits other than 3/8, and would be just as effective. That is how we always defined min-maxing -- maximum gain for minimum cost. I have never heard the "buy down one thing to buy up another" idea used as "min maxing" but then, in Champions, almost nobody ever bought anything down. 

The term min-maxing is also used interchangeably with other related terms, such as "Powergaming" and "munchkining" -- although to me they are not quite the same.

A min-maxer, as I say, has always meant someone who maximized character effectiveness for minimum cost.  However, the min-maxer generally does this while staying in concept. The min-maxer usually won't take skills or abilities or feats that don't make sense for the concept, just to get the effectiveness. 

A Powergamer is someone who min-maxes but does so without regard to concept. They take skills, abilities, feats, etc., that make absolutely no sense for their character but dramatically increase effectiveness. One of my best friends was a powergamer, and he did crazy things like giving his mind-whip a "healing" ability just because it would be useful in combat, even though he never could articulate why a neurological weapon would "heal" someone just because he felt like it. But it made him more effective in combat so he wanted it. The whip itself made little sense for his character, who was as straight classical ninja/martial artist with throwing stars. That's all he had initially. But after he had squeezed every other ounce of effectiveness out of his character, he decided he wanted an "Ego Whip" so he could make mental attacks on enemies -- for use against enemies who had such high physical defenses that his already-OP martial kicks couldn't get through. Again, there was no good in-character justification for this whip. He wanted it because it made him more effective. A straight min-maxer would not propose such powers, because they make no sense for his or her character. But a Powergamer is all over such things.

Then there is the "munchkin." This is actually a mis-read of the original term, and I know for a fact this one came from the old usenet Champions group, because I used to be friendly with the person who originated it. The actual term was "muchkin" -- M-U-C-H-kin. As in someone who wants "too much." A muchkin is not about efficiency or effectiveness but about power, and having more of it. This player wants more and more for his or her character. Efficiency rarely matters to them -- they just want more. I had another friend like this. He routinely snuck in abilities that would allow his characters to violate our group house rule about max damage in Champions, so he was "overpowered." But his characters were Endurance hogs and would run out of Endurance halfway through the battle, and then be unable to use those big powers. The term changed to "munchkin" because the words look so similar, and people mis-read it, and the "munchkin" term stuck. But the whole idea is someone who wants "too much" -- usually, more than the other party members, so as to outshine them. To be THE BEST. Min-maxers and Powergamers don't necessarily want to be better than anyone else... they just want their character to be (in their view) effective. Often they will help other people make their characters equally efficient. They like doing that -- often they see it as a challenge, how to make a character, anyone's character, "more effective". But a muchkin would NEVER help you make your character better, lest it might outshine theirs.

Of the three types, the only one who is a likely problem at the table is the muchkin, because outshining everyone else is a no-no in RPGs. It is selfish and unfair to the rest of the table. 

Powergaming can be an issue if people want to strictly stay in character. I have to admit I found the ninja's neuro whip immersion breaking each and every time he used it, because I knew it did not fit the concept and there was no good reason for it to be there.

Min-maxing... is only a problem if it makes the character game-breakingly effective. This is possible, so you have to be on guard as a GM to make sure nothing breaks the game. However, in my experience both powergamers and min-maxers will back down if they find out their build is breaking things. Muchkins will rarely back down, because in a sense, their whole purpose is to break the game (for everyone else).

Quote from Spideycloned >>

So this boils down to table dynamics, right.  Session 0 should hopefully minimize this thing, and honestly I’m really hoping Tashas encourages players to create characters with more freedom than ever before from a roleplay standpoint, but the flipside to this is its going to give more freedom to said min-maxer. 

 

 

 At low levels, the disparity can be minimal. Sometimes is way after the first game that the dynamic manifests. As the players level and specialize, it can be more apprent. To keep up in damage (fun of rolling dice and spotlight) you renounce to colorful spells for more traditional or "internet" validated optimal damage spells. That can make some players regret originality and instead adopt a mathematically optimized recipe to keep up. Only then you get to have the discussion.

I would like to see more diversified builds but the appeal of say, Fireball (flashiness, damage and dice all in one) makes it hard to try other damaging spells even higher level ones like cone of cold. One doesn't prevent the other tho.

But I agree, either a session 0 or even a session 9.5 can be had if needed be.

The discussions can serve as creating some space for players to make informed choices instead of "feeling" that he/she has to keep up by chosing optimal options.

I too, can't wait for Tashas content.

Quote from Mithrilbee >>

Quote from Spideycloned >>

So this boils down to table dynamics, right.  Session 0 should hopefully minimize this thing, and honestly I’m really hoping Tashas encourages players to create characters with more freedom than ever before from a roleplay standpoint, but the flipside to this is its going to give more freedom to said min-maxer. 

 

 

 At low levels, the disparity can be minimal. Sometimes is way after the first game that the dynamic manifests. As the players level and specialize, it can be more apprent. To keep up in damage (fun of rolling dice and spotlight) you renounce to colorful spells for more traditional or "internet" validated optimal damage spells. That can make some players regret originality and instead adopt a mathematically optimized recipe to keep up. Only then you get to have the discussion.

I would like to see more diversified builds but the appeal of say, Fireball (flashiness, damage and dice all in one) makes it hard to try other damaging spells even higher level ones like cone of cold. One doesn't prevent the other tho.

But I agree, either a session 0 or even a session 9.5 can be had if needed be.

The discussions can serve as creating some space for players to make informed choices instead of "feeling" that he/she has to keep up by chosing optimal options.

I too, can't wait for Tashas content.

Right, neither are wrong.  It's just about expectations when you start a new campaign or even when someone joins, which is probably the biggest social miss of most groups.  Play whatever is fun is what was said earlier, and 100% agree.  Just make sure all your players are on the same page in terms of what that fun may include.  

I'm currently studying how to min/max, intending to play around with RP-heavy back/forestories to support their development. I convinced myself that it's possible and possibly easy to RP a min/maxed character, but it's the min/max part that's new to me. So many numbers.😖

There was a time when I was quite the min-maxer, in Champions. I learned from the Powergamer I mentioned, but I stayed mostly in-character with it.

However, what I discovered after many years of ultra-min-maxing, was that I didn't seem to get any more out of the min-maxed PCs than the non-maxed ones. I don't think they contributed any more to the scenarios, either in combat or out. They didn't feel any more powerful than the non-maxed characters. They didn't seem to get KO'ed any less (nor any more). There was no noticeable difference between them and the other PCs who were not min-maxed (or who were run by people incapable of min-maxing because they did not fully appreciate the nuances of the game). In summary, I found that although the inner statistician in me did have fun solving the character build "problem" of min-maxing, it wasn't actually any more fun to play once the character was built. The min-maxed characters were also (in Champions, anyway) less interesting to increase using experience points. As they were already maxed out and ultra-efficient, and frequently already built to the campaign power level limit (because of the efficiency of the build), I had nothing to do with the xp and often they just sat there, unused. (In Champions, XP are used directly to buy new skills, powers, etc.)

And so after a while I just stopped trying to max out my characters. I found that I had just as much fun with them during play... I didn't really have any less fun creating them, because there is so much more to char gen than just being efficient with the build... and they were a lot more fun to "level up" afterwards because I got to really improve them with XP rather than them already being so good they needed no improvement.

But that's just me.. and some of it is specific to Champions (in D&D, no 1st level character is ever "maxed out" in anything like you can be in Champions when you start). I don't suggest this is true of anyone else -- it's just my own personal experience with min-maxing.

I do not see anything wrong with min/maxing just to the fact if your a wizard and you put your ASI's into something other then Intelligence or your spellcasting you are not being optimal. But if you boost Int and your spell casting via feats then your called a min/maxer and that just wrong on so many ways. If the game was real life and you didn't try to max out you would be killed off in an adventure if you was crazy enough to go on one. Same thing with meta gaming and being called out on that. Again if the game was real life folks would talk about monsters and how they were killed and so on. I just don't worry about labels, make your character good at what they do if your going to get your car fixed you going to the pro-mechanic that knows everything or the guy that says hey I can look up on how to rebuild your motor on youtube.

Quote from Mithrilbee >>

When people on the forums are referring to min/maxing, is it related to using your class, race, feats to super-specialize/optimize  dps (dpr) or can the term be applied to optimize skills for instance a half-elf, bard, actor background etc. to reach max persuasion/diplomacy to be the face of the group ?  What are some other common archetypes beside damage and diplomacy that would fit as min/maxing ?

 Besides Damage and Diplomacy, we often see builds that might min/max to optimize things like:

• Healing
• Buffing
• Defense
• Flexibly
• Stealth
• Enjoyment

Quote from Jacqsynn >>

I do not see anything wrong with min/maxing just to the fact if your a wizard and you put your ASI's into something other then Intelligence or your spellcasting you are not being optimal. But if you boost Int and your spell casting via feats then your called a min/maxer and that just wrong on so many ways. 

Just putting all your stat bonuses into INT to max it out is not min-maxing. Probably most Wizard players prioritize raising their intelligence.

Min-maxing happens when every single choice you make for your character maxes out the character in every possible way. And I don't think anyone said there was really anything wrong with that in any case. Some people like to have a "perfected" character build.