Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing

[bored]

@The-Sands Actually, speak for yourself about what words are being used for, because you're not the only one here.

You can absolutely make the strict theoretical 'the two people buy all the same stuff in different orders' as a math exercise (which was my initial point), and it's worth doing because it shows the fundamental flaws to how the linear/exponential thing works out.

However, @ThatGuyThere is talking about what people play and include in RP, and I think in actual play its not really a lot of Sword 6/Polearm 6 vs Swords 8 people, but more like Swords 8 people vs. Stealth 5 Disguise 5 Climbing 5 etc etc people, or various other flavors of support-ish characters who tend to have wide skill slates. These characters are actually useful and utilized, but they get pushed out if the XP works out so that the Sword 8 guy can also buy all those skills. It's why you see some games that have variable costs make something like Healing cost extra alongside combat skills, as a form of niche protection.

[faraday]

Man, I don't know what kinds of games you guys are playing on, but I don't have "brain-damaged idiot savants who only know one skill" coming out of chargen on my games. The overwhelming majority of characters are perfectly reasonable and balanced. Then again, I run PvE games where people aren't at each others' throats all the time, so there isn't this insane one-ups-manship you seem to envision going on. There are no cross-functional glory hogs running around stealing the spotlight from everyone else. And with very rare exceptions, nobody gets bent out of shape that Bob the Expert started off with more points than they did. Heck, I've got a large percentage of players who don't even bother to spend their XP and are perfectly content because chargen let them make the character they wanted.

I'm not saying my games are perfect or that they're for everyone. They're not. They have issues too, just not those issues.

You're describing a doomsday scenario that doesn't exist if you have a halfway competent staff. There are lots of different ways to solve problems, and refusing to acknowledge that is either willful ignorance or a failure of imagination.

@Sockmonkey - Good luck with your system. Seriously. I shared those same goals once. My advice now? Make the system you like and then never share it with anyone.

[bored]

@faraday said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

Man, I don't know what kinds of games you guys are playing on, but I don't have "brain-damaged idiot savants who only know one skill" coming out of chargen on my games.

WoD, of course!

...

Obviously its a bit of hyperbole for effect because its easier to understand the math when the numbers are more extreme, but it applies in the middle values too. WoD also probably exaggerates the effect because its CG defaults to 1 or 0 versus FS3 where its 2 or .. some adjective higher than 0.

[Seraphim73]

@surreality said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

@seraphim73 Yup. (And at some point I am going to try to borrow you and @faraday or something because y'all and math are friends and math's mean to me, she won't let me sit at the cool kids' table. )

Any time, I'm happy to talk game design, even if most of what I do is by feel and brute force, rather than crunching the numbers super-hard.

"Oh, honey. That's why you don't play with people that stupid, it's not good for you."

Observe the complete lack of any actual clarification in this answer, and... <clink> ...cheers.

Yeah, that's not just a bad game designer, that's a bad listener and a bad person. Cheers. And yes, bottoms up.

@packrat said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

It is really hard to balance both character generation and system though to make a non specialist viable without turning everyone into some kind of omnicompetent demigod.

It shouldn't be hard though, should it? Just use XP in Chargen. Everyone is on the same footing. You can make a Specialist, but they won't have the same supporting skills as the Generalist. But since chargen uses the same system as in-game advancement, if the Generalist wants to match the Specialist, they can, right about the same time the Specialist matches them.

Then it's just a question of whether you want to do that, or you want to enable different starting points so that people can tell different stories.

@faraday said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

Make the system you like and then never share it with anyone.

Noooooo!

[surreality]

@seraphim73 said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

@surreality said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

@seraphim73 Yup. (And at some point I am going to try to borrow you and @faraday or something because y'all and math are friends and math's mean to me, she won't let me sit at the cool kids' table. )

Any time, I'm happy to talk game design, even if most of what I do is by feel and brute force, rather than crunching the numbers super-hard.

"Oh, honey. That's why you don't play with people that stupid, it's not good for you."

Observe the complete lack of any actual clarification in this answer, and... <clink> ...cheers.

Yeah, that's not just a bad game designer, that's a bad listener and a bad person. Cheers. And yes, bottoms up.

The funny thing is -- from a totally different perspective -- it's one of those 'differences between tabletop and online' examples that's huge. Like, he's not actually wrong? 'Don't play with utter wankers' is definitely good advice, and it's advice that works at a table, but we're really only coming back around to 'ousting the wankers from a game is not a sign of a psychotic dictator PHB' mentality in MUville.

It was just so not helpful. (It does show just how much oWoD was designed for tabletop, though, as that was a stock answer for many issues: "don't invite that person back," etc. There's a reason I've been saying that for like... ever.)

[Misadventure]

@faraday In the context of WoD online games, especially larger ones, yes this sort of min-maxing exists. It tends to be allowed because the staff or the coders don't want to house rule character generation, and that characters tend to grow so much that in a few weeks the min-maxer can make up deficits they actually didn't want to keep. Staffers also don't want to say no to players.

The problem and the solution in WoD based games is just simple math. If you min-max your starting dots, there is a point down the road where you have the exact same stats as someone who did not min-max at chargen, but you have 50 xp more to spend.

So you can use that to have 1s in a bunch of things you'd like to have, or be even more razor focussed on some aspect of the game stats.

The Reach allowed respecs, which is a fine practice when characters realize they weren't built with the right things for the concept they had and it got past staff over view (which on large places doesn't really get done). So at respec people learn to rebuild their characters, and they just come out better off over all.

I think that this should just be solved by fixing the math: don't make dots, just use xp, so the build costs the same no matter how you approach it. Likewise if you want to see a bunch of 1s and 2s, then give people 1s and 2s that have to stay that way at approval time.

---

That's just one aspect of the issue, and there are many partial solutions.
Don't have very many places to spend xp, and make sure they are all important. Some players will find this way to simple, bland, and so on.
Separate out the critical from the less critical, and keep them separate. Players will try to make anything IMPORTANT if they have it,.
Make peoples characters for them. This means that only the character designer are doing the power gaming or unfairness. many players resent this.

So my final though for ME is I want my players to represent their character as much as needs be via the stats, simple or complex as that list may be. I want them to understand how that will act in the rules. And I want it to be equal opportunity, without hidden interactions or means to get ahead without a truly balancing cost.

---

This is the most interesting part of this threads topic to me.

Then there are issues of player competitiveness, the genre being represented, the issue with 5 players with niches and starring roles vs 100s of characters who come and go and may never see spotlight time, or even want it.

[The Sands]

@misadventure said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

The problem and the solution in WoD based games is just simple math. If you min-max your starting dots, there is a point down the road where you have the exact same stats as someone who did not min-max at chargen, but you have 50 xp more to spend.

At that point though do you really have the same stats? That's like saying I have the same net worth as Bill Gates except he's got $91.6 billion more than me.

[kitteh]

I have to say, I hate hate hate this kind of stuff and I wish games wouldn't do it.

It's a terrible feeling sitting there knowing every point you spend building a realistic character you're essentially just missing out down the road. And you can say, 'it doesn't matter, just RP,' but often other people are doing it and you do get frozen out of RP or quietly ignored or just plain frustrated when you suck so badly compared to everyone else down the line.

It's much worse in WoD, though I feel it in FS3 too. The combination of XP stuff and kind of overall high stats where everyone is OK at most things means that not being a super pro just means... yeah, you're behind forever, at everything, even the quirky things you're supposed to be relatively good at

[faraday]

@kitteh said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

I have to say, I hate hate hate this kind of stuff and I wish games wouldn't do it.

Everything's a tradeoff.

Look, it's easy to say, as @Misadventure and @Seraphim73 have, "Just make chargen use XP"

Mathematically that's easy, but there's a people-cost to that. The #1 thing that people love about FS3 (and its #1 design goal) is "Wow chargen is so fast and easy!" Guess what - if you make chargen use XP costs? It won't be. I've played systems that have tiered costs in chargen. It's a PITA to figure out how to spend your points, and personally I've found that it penalizes people who want to be expert at something. They end up having to spend all their points in that and have nothing for the basic "human being" type stuff. I've seen more min-maxing in those systems, not less.

With FS3, I choose not to penalize people for being experts. Yes, that means that a min-maxer can end up with a few more "dots" than a non-min-maxer. But guess what again? Mathematically, those extra dots don't matter very much. Seriously, the difference between 8 dice (someone who took good/good for attribute + skill) and 12 dice (someone who took exceptional / legendary) is 3% on an unopposed roll and 17% on an opposed roll. On a PVE game, those differences are nigh-irrelevant, and even on a PVP game 17% is hardly "OMG I'm going to be left in the dust and be completely irrelevant in plots."

ETA: You can argue those differences "should" be greater, but again that's a design choice. And the extra dice do come into play when there are wound modifiers and whatnot. The legendary guy won't be slowed down as much by the bullet in his shoulder, can make the hit at super-long range, etc.

Again, there are different ways to solve problems, but first you have to decide what problems are most important to you. Different people have different ideas about what those should be.

[Arkandel]

@faraday said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

Guess what - if you make chargen use XP costs? It won't be. I've played systems that have tiered costs in chargen. It's a PITA to figure out how to spend your points, and personally I've found that it penalizes people who want to be expert at something.

The true cost to this for many games - which you wouldn't have encountered while implementing your own system - is that the original mechanics use something different, and each time you depart from it there is an adaptation cost your players have to pay in terms of ease of use.

The main reason to using, say, nWoD 1.0 is that people are already familiar with it. You don't need to explain how it works too much, you can just point out which books your MUSH will use and... that's it. You can then count on veteran players to guide others right from the moment you open your doors, something home-grown systems don't have - no one's a veteran. But open a nWoD 1.0 game and you'll get a bunch right up front.

Obviously not every house rule or diversion from the material-as-is will ruin this effect, but the more you depart from it the less useful it is. And when it's right at the first time a new character is being rolled it's even more emphatic.

[insomniac7809]

@d-bone said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

@Faraday Except isn't that like a standard trope.. of literally every bit of fiction that has existed? Like isn't all media based on the idea that is breaking your 'suspension of disbelief'?

Not... really?

I mean, there's a lot of stories where the hero starts out as some nobody and becomes Awesome mcBadass, but there's plenty where they don't. Sherlock Holmes shows up as a genius detective/prizefighter, and basically stays there through 130 years of storytelling. Unless you're doing a "Batman Begins/Year One" story specifically, Batman generally starts the story as Batman and remains Batman. Starbuck doesn't really "level up" her shooting/brawling/Viper piloting/attituding skills through the BG run. Even in Star Wars, Luke goes from farm boy to Jedi master, but Han shows up as a scoundrel/gunfighter/pilot whiz in Ep4 and is still a scoundrel/gunfighter/pilot whiz in Ep7.

And while some of the fun of XP and stat-building can be "I'm developing and improving!", it can also be "I'm getting incrementally closer to having the character I actually wanted to be playing from the start!"

[D-bone]

@insomniac7809 The Sherlocke holmes analogy fails a little bit because there is also Watson, who is the lens with which the book exists.. and is receiving training basically from Holmes throughout the entire series.. even if he never really gets any better. That isn't to say that Watson is the protagonist, but the trope exists in the literature.

There is the first movie sure for batman, but then you can have your deathstroke.. you know where batman meets super batman? And Batman has to learn to be a better batman to beat super batman?

The problem with your comparison to Han is that like.. character growth can occur both in a skill level, but also emotionally as well. Character development is a sign of character depth, in your Han analogy, Han doesn't grow as a thief, but he grows as a person. He goes against his princples of money first and goes back to save luke, and more.

[faraday]

@d-bone Nobody's saying that there shouldn't be character advancement. We're just saying that not all stories require dramatic and fast changes to a character's stats. It is a trope, yes, and even a common one - but not all game systems need to respect every trope in existence.

ETA to your edit: And character growth can be completely independent from stat growth, as in the Han example you mentioned.

[D-bone]

But like.. I'm not advocating for fast advancement, I never advocated for that, I advocated for a realistically time frame for advancement to occur. If your game has 4 to 1 time dilation, 2 IG years seems pretty adequate amount of time to acquire a level of mastery that should be feasible... and not just 'expert', especially if that character is participating in .adventures or situations that test their mettle a lot. A game with a multiplicative system really makes such advancement infeasible.

[faraday]

@d-bone said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

2 IG years seems pretty adequate amount of time to acquire a level of mastery that should be feasible ... A game with a multiplicative system really makes such advancement infeasible.

Does it? In FS3 3rd ed (using the stock configuration) you can go from "Fair" to "Extraordinary" in 2 years. That seems pretty comparable to what you're suggesting, even with an exponential advancement curve.

[Roz]

@arkandel said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

The main reason to using, say, nWoD 1.0 is that people are already familiar with it. You don't need to explain how it works too much, you can just point out which books your MUSH will use and... that's it. You can then count on veteran players to guide others right from the moment you open your doors, something home-grown systems don't have - no one's a veteran. But open a nWoD 1.0 game and you'll get a bunch right up front.

Speaking as someone who went through the process of trying to learn nWoD stuff in the past year, I actually find this to be a bit of a damaging assumption to make. My experience is more that you can count on veterans to not actually have a great handle on how to talk about the system to someone who's just started to learn it.

@d-bone said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

But like.. I'm not advocating for fast advancement, I never advocated for that, I advocated for a realistically time frame for advancement to occur. If your game has 4 to 1 time dilation, 2 IG years seems pretty adequate amount of time to acquire a level of mastery that should be feasible... and not just 'expert', especially if that character is participating in .adventures or situations that test their mettle a lot. A game with a multiplicative system really makes such advancement infeasible.

If a game using FS3 were on 4:1 time, I imagine they'd adjust the amount of weekly XP that went out. (Because, like, you can adjust all of that?) But games running 4:1 seem super uncommon. Like, I hear that Firan used 4:1 at least at some point, but I've never come across it in the wild of any game I've checked out.

But the larger point is that game runners could adjust the amount of weekly XP super easily if they were running a super-fast game like that.

[kitteh]

@faraday I get that you have your reasons and that's certainly your prerogative, but the negative experiences are real too. And I've run across them on most of the FS3 games I've played, both the new system and old. Even on games that are otherwise wonderful and well-run (like yours!). It's been a contributing factor to me giving up on a few of them, too (like yours :/)

Just like you want to play experts and think they should be the best, some people like playing lesser experienced characters and growing them, but it doesn't work well in that system. That's really what hurts my RP the most.

There's other problems too, like the issues I ran into on Pirate Game, where stats tended to bunch and everyone had most things at Good... but then you get argued with for wanting to raise thing one pip to 'Great' (or whatever, I'm not great with the names) because suddenly 'Great' is too good but... Good isn't really good, its actually average, you know? Bleh.

[faraday]

@kitteh I can’t argue with perceptions because they are, of course, in the eye of the beholder. I can only speak to the math. Dice suck sometimes, whether you’re Good or Great, and different situations can contribute to negative experiences.

But yes, if your goal is to come in at poor and get to Expert in 6 months then FS3 isn’t the system for you. Just as D20 isn’t the system for me for very different reasons.

[kitteh]

@faraday The idea that anyone is complaining about not being able to go from total noob to expert in no time flat is an obvious and egregious strawman that no one but you is raising. It's dismissive and nasty and shame on you for that.

The issue is limited progression from the middle tiers, as well as the problem that you also end up equal or worse at the other stuff while remaining behind said experts. Many people have explained it clearly. You've said you want it that way. Don't pretend it's our unreasonable expectations.

[Ganymede]

@kitteh said in Game Design: Avoiding Min-Maxing:

The idea that anyone is complaining about not being able to go from total noob to expert in no time flat is an obvious and egregious strawman that no one but you is raising.

Actually, you're the one that brought it up. Unless I'm misreading things, your criticism prior to Faraday's last was that FS3 hurts your RP because you like playing lesser-experienced PCs and growing them over time. This implies that you have an issue with the progression in FS3.

Frankly, I like FS3 because the experts don't always win. I can't tell you how many times I saw Spectre missing or not damaging Cylons, and Trash Panda miraculously made it through a frontal assault. It does what Faraday wants it to: simulate a modern combat situation. And it does it really well.

It's much worse in WoD[.]

As stated before, WoD 2E adjusts this and makes everything more-or-less on equal footing. The benefit to min-maxing rests only in the dice, not on the XP costs, due to linear progression.