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suppenhuhn
QUOTE (b1ffov3rfl0w @ Mar 7 2008, 08:39 AM) *
Well, just think about the disproportionate number of Academy Awards that go to actors playing characters who are crazy, retarded, addicted, paralyzed or self-destructive.


Because its so hard to play a kinesics 6 adept aka charles bronson. grinbig.gif
Maelwys
I think the main difference people are seeing in the characters is simply an issue of mechanics. People aren't more or less likely to munch with SR4, its just that in SR4, everything works together moreso than in SR3. With SR3 if you wanted to be decent with a pistol, you really only needed the skill. Combat pool was sorta necessary, but it wouldn't kill the character concept if you were running around with 6 skill, but only 2 in quickness...you paid for it, but it wasn't that bad, because the two weren't directly linked.

In SR4 with everything being directly linked I think it causes characters to be created in a different manner, which is where some of the fears/views of tweaking come in to play.

Another possibility is the relatively limited advancement in some cases. As far as I can tell, unless the character has Aptitude for a skill, the max ever (not just at chargen) is 6. Even bonuses to the skill are limited, (x1.5), so really if someone wants to improve after a certain point, they're going to have to look for tweaks and esoteric dice pool modifiers (instead of skill modifier), where as before they were simply able to shrug, and pay alot of karma and just raise the skill again.

And since some of the tweaks have to be tricky to get around the dice pool/skill modifier problem, the forums are a a good place to see where tweaks are possible.
ElFenrir
QUOTE (Maelwys @ Mar 7 2008, 07:52 AM) *
I think the main difference people are seeing in the characters is simply an issue of mechanics. People aren't more or less likely to munch with SR4, its just that in SR4, everything works together moreso than in SR3. With SR3 if you wanted to be decent with a pistol, you really only needed the skill. Combat pool was sorta necessary, but it wouldn't kill the character concept if you were running around with 6 skill, but only 2 in quickness...you paid for it, but it wasn't that bad, because the two weren't directly linked.

In SR4 with everything being directly linked I think it causes characters to be created in a different manner, which is where some of the fears/views of tweaking come in to play.

Another possibility is the relatively limited advancement in some cases. As far as I can tell, unless the character has Aptitude for a skill, the max ever (not just at chargen) is 6. Even bonuses to the skill are limited, (x1.5), so really if someone wants to improve after a certain point, they're going to have to look for tweaks and esoteric dice pool modifiers (instead of skill modifier), where as before they were simply able to shrug, and pay alot of karma and just raise the skill again.

And since some of the tweaks have to be tricky to get around the dice pool/skill modifier problem, the forums are a a good place to see where tweaks are possible.


This reminds me of the older SR's, indeed.

In SR3, if i wanted to make a mainly melee-fighter, with some firearms, i didn't have to do too much minmaxing. It gave you sufficient points to not have to worry too much. As usual when i create a character, i got the framework in mind and a couple of background bulletpoints, crunched the numbers, and then went back to fill in more(many times filling things in as i went along). A melee-heavy character i wanted to of course have a good melee skill/skills(say, Edged Weapon and Unarmed Combat), and a decent combat pool(fair scores in Quickness, Intelligence and Willpower. This is where it got a little hazy, many times ending up in what i call the Mensa Samurai Syndrome...but it wasn't too terrible). I didn't want to go overboard; but decent(skills of 4 in mental and 5 in Quickness, with some Quickness ware), was believable. Strength got a fair amount(it was a little more useful in those days. A firearm skill of choice and i had plenty of points to play around with to fully flesh out the character, with very little min-maxing needed.

The less you give, the more likely people are to minmax, on average. Im not saying everyone will. But when you allow 200 attribute points(and you dont want to spend that much), and 2 attributes that link to an amazing amount of skills(Agility and Logic), with very limited maxes, and hard caps on skills(making it rather tempting to max out a couple as high as you can at chargen and buying the rest later) IMO, you are more likely to see this minmax going on. Add this to your survivability(rounding up to get Physical and Stun tracks...Body affecting how much armor one can wear), and it's a recipie for Twinkie Stew. If you are a combat-oriented character, why not hard-max Agility and the Agility based skills and get it over with? Likewise with a face, just go ahead and grab all the Charisma and Influence skills with specializations that you can. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but im saying it can be damned tempting for some people.

Im not saying SR3 was free from this. Most instances, again, that i saw were the Super genius and Willfull samurai...ways to twink Initative were very popular, and people saw it was very cost effective to go ahead and max the skill at chargen-though you could go above 6 and keep going-than it was to get a couple lesser scores and support skills. One thing i loved about BeCKs was how it rewarded going that lesser route to have a balanced skillset..it was a system made to actually be more cost effective to go balanced.

But i tend to see these effective ''build practices' a bit more in SR4. Again, when you can pump 3 Attributes(Agility, Logic, Charisma), and basically be linked to 80% of the skills, it's pretty glaring.

It's funny, i actually enjoy all types of gaming, as ive said...from action to low key to everything in between, from gangers with novacoke habits and holdouts to cool professionals, i don't care. No matter what type is played though, a good character and personality is always fun to make. Just because im playing in a campaign that makes a John Woo movie look like the Carebears it doesn't mean i'm going to skimp on my background. And i think it's safe to say there are many gamers out there that are the same.


Moon-Hawk
On the topic of min-maxing and mechanics, I wonder if there is a bit of a psychological effect from the hard caps on things. In SR3, skills could go arbitrarily high, but each point cost more and more karma, so eventually you got to the point where it just wasn't worth it to you to raise it anymore.
Apart from the hard cap, SR4 is exactly the same, and while that cap might've been above what people would otherwise strive for, putting that hard cap there is saying to the player, "This number right here, if you can get this, you'll be the BEST."
To put it another way, does the existence of the hard cap make some players want to achieve it, whereas if the hard cap had not been there they would've stopped attempting to raise that skill at a lower level, because there is no "goal"?
jago668
I'm going to go with ElFenrir on this. When you limit what a character can start with, then you will see more min-maxing. People generally are not going to spread their points out and be average to subpar across the board. They will just buy up one or two things and pick the rest up on the cheap as they play. However if you give them enough points to be above average in a couple places, and average elsewhere that is what you will get more often.

On powergaming aspect. I will powergame, min/max like crazy. While I can write up extensive character backgrounds, that are coherent and reflect the character stats. I like to play a character a couple times, get a feel in for it and how it syncs up with the campaign first. As to why I min/max powergame, there are several reasons that go into it. First and foremost is, I tend to roll poorly, so I need to stack a couple extra bonuses or dice. Secondly I've had brutal GMs. Thirdly, I just enjoy making a guy that is really good at something. So if I'm going to make the character really good at something, I might as well go all out for it.

"Balanced" characters for us are the swinging two-handed swords around one handed able to fight off 6 people at once, and blasting holes through mountains. However you always had to take investigation in a white-wolf game. Because you had to roll it for everything. Tracking someone through the woods, investigation. Want to hotwire a car, investigation. Want to tail that guy through the crowd, investigation. As an example for an Exalted game we were told to make balanced characters. So everyone writes up an assortment of characters, the combat monkey had a dicepool of 6 I believe (about the same as a 7 or 8 for SR4). With charms all over the place etc. The GM promptly steals everyones gear, has us get into fights WAY over our heads, and has to make up weird off the wall stuff to keep us from dieing.

ElFenrir
QUOTE (Moon-Hawk @ Mar 7 2008, 12:15 PM) *
On the topic of min-maxing and mechanics, I wonder if there is a bit of a psychological effect from the hard caps on things. In SR3, skills could go arbitrarily high, but each point cost more and more karma, so eventually you got to the point where it just wasn't worth it to you to raise it anymore.
Apart from the hard cap, SR4 is exactly the same, and while that cap might've been above what people would otherwise strive for, putting that hard cap there is saying to the player, "This number right here, if you can get this, you'll be the BEST."
To put it another way, does the existence of the hard cap make some players want to achieve it, whereas if the hard cap had not been there they would've stopped attempting to raise that skill at a lower level, because there is no "goal"?


Psychological impact, indeed. I totally see what you are talking about here. Hell, i manage to fall into it myself sometimes.

As far as i know you can only have one Aptitude. Since even the super-hotshot classic prime runners also fall under here(ok, so maybe they can have multiple 7's), i mean, telling someone ''yeah, take your Hacking to 7...and you're Fastjack. How does that feel?'' Well, damn tempting to alot of people.

Thinking back to the old days, i think i can count on one hand the amount of times we actually pushed a natural skill past 6. I think a couple of times we may have started with 5(7), upped the 5 to a 6 and the 7 to an 8...and MAYBE the Specialization to a 9(still 1.5 times base skill), but that was it. And not often. Usually once we had the 6, we left it well alone.

But yeah, now that those hard caps are there...and for the record, we have a houserule that does away with them. We just made it more expensive, as the old one, and it gets more and more expensive. Somehow, removing that hard cap makes it more likely that people won't go nuts trying to hit it. Sure, you'll see 5's and 6's at chargen, but only for certain skills. These days we have alot of 4(+2)'s for the high skills.

I also think there's a psychological impact of the attribute limitation. Now, they were always there. You were limited by your priority. Take a high one, get lots of points. Take a low one, get less. Even in the old points system, you were limited to i think 30 total attribute points. Which was a crapload, i mean, that was a 5 down the line(equivalent of a 4 down the line now). But you can't even get a 4 down the line anymore. With karma costs of those low Attributes not too hard to raise(start with a 1, 6 karma gets it to 2 and 9 to 3...that's 15 karma, as opposed to the 20 BPs you'd have to spend of a precious limited resource). If you have 30, or even 27 attributes, you just didnt have to worry. You could easily get what you wanted. Again, i saw 1's rarely...and that was when folks ended up taking Attributes at priority D or E, and then again if they had the ol' Troll or Ork Mage and dumped 1's to their physical attributes(since the minuses on their mental ones required them to be pumped if they wanted a decent casting stat.)

Honestly, I would say Attributes are the things that it's easier to get high rather than Skills.

Take a healthy 15 year old human male. Ok, put him in school, regular, from 8 to 3 or whatever. Also, give him 2 hours per night, 5 nights a week, where he does a regular regiment of workout. Strength, Agility, Reaction and Body..endurance training, exercises. Give him healthy food. He studies, and he still even has free time at night, and his weekends are free to do whatever he wants; so he even has a life through this. By the time he's 18, he's going to have some impressive physical stats, and having studied hard, probably a good Logic score. He could easily run over the 200 limited BPs at chargen. And that's in 3 years. IMO, Attributes are easy to develop, and to me, that was what the old system sort of showed.

Skills take longer. That now rather vigorous 18 year old decides to go study engineering(read; Mechanics Group). It's going to take him alot longer than 3 years to get to a 4 Mechanics Group. That's veteran level. Now, perhaps a combat skill might be quicker, i think 4 years of good unarmed combat training can probably get him there, but those mental skills(Medicine and Surgery, anyone?) are going to take a hell of a lot longer to develop.

Hmm...i guess what im trying to say is that I don't get why they have to cap Attributes so much. Technically, while skills have a numerical cap...they don't have a number cap. You can leave your stats at all 1's(technically), get 50 resources of cyber to boost them, and spend 300 points on skills. Well, ok...i can see the mild point(since they are linked, there could be problems with folks gunning up all the attributes and just putting alot of low skills)...but isn't that the same thing as just leaving low Attributes, buying them up, and blowing 300 BPs on skills?

I also think if you removed many of the caps(let's say..keep a 6 costing 25 BP. Keep skills limited to 1 6 and rest 4 or less, or 2 5's with the same at chargen. Keep 50 BP limit on Resources.) But remove the 200 BP attribute limit and remove the hard cap to skills, going back to the old systems by making them cost more and more, to the point they REALLY have to want it. Im almost willing to bet there would be less minmaxing. I could be wrong and it could make the minmaxing explode..but i don't think so for some reason. That psychological limit would be gone.

EDIT:

I noticed this quote in the post above:

QUOTE
Secondly I've had brutal GMs.


This is probably the number one reason i've seen for powergaming. Get used to a playstyle, it's hard to break it.

And yeah, when i do my minmaxing, I just want someone to be effective at what they do, and be able to help the party as well. If the party has no gunbunny, and is relying on me if something goes horribly wrong(as it likes to do), then i want to be able to pull myself...AND their butts off the fire.
Fuchs
In my experience, it wasn't usually the GM, but the other players who caused people to raise ratings. People wanted their character to be equal or better than the other PCs. The GM was often just adapting the opposition to the new "base level", after the players had raised the bar.

So, gunbunny 1 has a firearms skill of 6, and feels good. Along comes Gunbunny 2, with firearms 7 and a reflex recorder. After a few runs during which Gunbunny 1 saw GB2 rolling more dice (remember, more pool too, to use on such tests, since those were capped at the base skill) Gunbunny 1 feels the need to raise his firearms, and if he's at it, maybe boost it past Gunbunny 2. Now it's GB2's turn to feel the need to keep up...

If a character had a speciality, like decking, they did not feel that need too much, but in combat, everyone got a bit of that. Even the mage might have gotten some stronger magic after the sammy played with the latest greande launcher and higher skills.

SR3 was pretty easy to fall into that trap, since the differences were often very brutal.

GB1: 6 firearms, can use 6 combat pool (of his 9 or so total) on it.
GB2: 7 firearms, can use 7 combat pool (of his 9) on it. +1 for reflex recorder.

The lower the target numbers were for the tests, the more effective those 3 more dice were. If one had a point blank shot (i.e., TN2), 3 more dice often meant the difference between a serious or a deadly wound.
Vegetaman
I really need to read my SR4 handbook before I continue this conversation. SR3 is all I know. I try to min/max for some games, and I try to make a well balanced character for others. If it's role-play heavy, then I want balance, because it won't be a bunch of dice rolls where I have to shoot stuff. I need more fast-talking and recreation time.
Stahlseele
in SR3 a 6 in any skill was good enough, because of combat and other pools to help with the important ones and knowledge skills being useable as bonus dice on those where the pools do not help . . and artwinkulation did give +1 dice to MANY skills . . and don't forget the very important difference of adjustable TARGET NUMBER . . even with a skill of 1, if you can drop the target number to, let's say 2 . . you can use 2 dice with an appropriate pool to roll one frigging 2 . . and that's pretty much likely i think . . if you are required to roll 3 successes with the TN of 2? well, crap . . no way if you ain't got no karma to spend/use . . another thing . . people complain about players making their characters up to bee GOOD at what they do . . one COULD consider this as good roleplaying more or less, because in the shadows, you are good at what you do, or you are nothing pretty soon . . from an in character point of view it STILL makes sense to get every last ounce of use out of available ressources, because it might mean that you get to live another day . .
Fuchs
All the logical reasons and plausibility usually went out of the window once the other players started to pass you. And once everyone had 8 in firearms, the world started to pass you too if the GM was scaling the challenges.
Vegetaman
I usually buy Alphaware cyberware and just hold off getting the real combat beast upgrades until I get some in-game money to get more cyberware. The extra essence helps me down the line. But then I usually take the next nuyen block down in the money department, so I have a handful of extra BP to distribute to my character to make the most of things.

And you never know when that 1 or 2 points in Troll Thrash Metal Bands, Fine Elven Wines, Draconic Lore, or whatever you have - will come in handy.
Stahlseele
ah yes, the time when the GM had me go:"WTF?" when he let me roll on my Knowledge of Troll Thrash-Metal Bands in the middle of Combat . . and yes, i rolled really well and identified that troll-adept making our lives a living hell right then and there . . all combat(in and out of character) came to a screeching halt when i announced loudly:"i know that guy! . . his music ain't THAT bad . ."
Vegetaman
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Mar 7 2008, 07:26 PM) *
ah yes, the time when the GM had me go:"WTF?" when he let me roll on my Knowledge of Troll Thrash-Metal Bands in the middle of Combat . . and yes, i rolled really well and identified that troll-adept making our lives a living hell right then and there . . all combat(in and out of character) came to a screeching halt when i announced loudly:"i know that guy! . . his music ain't THAT bad . ."


Now that is awesome. Mine got us out of a similar scrape when two of our team were about to be face-pounded by some large trolls. One of them was wearing a familiar jacket, and it happened to be of a troll thrash metal band. Turns out they were in the band (or were roadies of some sort, at any rate). They ended up letting me go, and they chucked both guys of our team out the front door on their face like beach balls.
It trolls!
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Mar 7 2008, 07:17 PM) *
. . another thing . . people complain about players making their characters up to bee GOOD at what they do . . one COULD consider this as good roleplaying more or less, because in the shadows, you are good at what you do, or you are nothing pretty soon . . from an in character point of view it STILL makes sense to get every last ounce of use out of available ressources, because it might mean that you get to live another day . .


I know I might sound repetitive, but good roleplaying is not tied to how good a character is at his job, but rather that his sheet is plausible and he's well-played. There are certain standards that I find apply universally, like "Don't squeeze BP from Allergies to Mars rocks or Incompetence: Nautic Mechanic in a desert campaign" and some details that vary from GM to GM. But people who tell you that your character has to be severely gimped for good roleplaying to ensue, are just elitist jerks. No more, no less.
Vegetaman
QUOTE (It trolls! @ Mar 7 2008, 01:15 PM) *
I know I might sound repetitive, but good roleplaying is not tied to how good a character is at his job, but rather that his sheet is plausible and he's well-played. There are certain standards that I find apply universally, like "Don't squeeze BP from Allergies to Mars rocks or Incompetence: Nautic Mechanic in a desert campaign" and some details that vary from GM to GM. But people who tell you that your character has to be severely gimped for good roleplaying to ensue, are just elitist jerks. No more, no less.


Severely gimped? No way. But everything in moderation. You have to find the balance between ultimate killing machine and fun to role play. Generic mass murderer elite #9013483843 has been run into the ground. Everybody tries to be a badass, but how many badasses are there really? It takes some good planning and role playing to make a truly badass character. IMO. cyber.gif
Stahlseele
nah, i usually squeeze my points from things like bad karma, Cursed karma and allergy/phobia medium/light to dogs *g*
But if i write into a Character Background that he's grown up being a hunter, using a Rifle since hes been a boy, having had FUN with those Weapons, doind a little bit of competetive shooting then by the gods, i will max out anything shooty related . . well, not heavy weapons and the such, but certainly long-arms and pistols . .
I don't play Badasses . . i play general asses because i am an ass and thus feel i can do a convincing ass-character *g*
My characters may be fighting machines, but i generally don't want them to be cool elitist killers . . even if i can headshot somebody at 1000m in 9 out of 10 cases, i'll more likely treat it as a sport then assassination <.< . .
Vegetaman
QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Mar 7 2008, 01:25 PM) *
nah, i usually squeeze my points from things like bad karma, Cursed karma and allergy/phobia medium/light to dogs *g*
But if i write into a Character Background that he's grown up being a hunter, using a Rifle since hes been a boy, having had FUN with those Weapons, doind a little bit of competetive shooting then by the gods, i will max out anything shooty related . . well, not heavy weapons and the such, but certainly long-arms and pistols . .
I don't play Badasses . . i play general asses because i am an ass and thus feel i can do a convincing ass-character *g*
My characters may be fighting machines, but i generally don't want them to be cool elitist killers . . even if i can headshot somebody at 1000m in 9 out of 10 cases, i'll more likely treat it as a sport then assassination <.< . .


Exactly. I only ever played one character who was a "badass" and he was just a cold blooded killer who did shadowrunning as a bloodsport. But he used melee weapons mostly (knives and polearms). It was a cool character at least. Other than that, just your typical street samurai, and despite their core being generic you can specialize them in so many ways. There's really a lot of potential for great role playing. cyber.gif
ElFenrir
QUOTE (Vegetaman @ Mar 7 2008, 02:22 PM) *
Severely gimped? No way. But everything in moderation. You have to find the balance between ultimate killing machine and fun to role play. Generic mass murderer elite #9013483843 has been run into the ground. Everybody tries to be a badass, but how many badasses are there really? It takes some good planning and role playing to make a truly badass character. IMO. cyber.gif



But then again, what is a badass exactly?

There is the 'classic' example of the dual-pistol wielding, sword slinging, trenchcoat wearing badasses. Your John Prestons and the like.

You have the accidental badasses. The ones who always manage to pull something out of their asses at the last minute to save the day.

Your suave, James Bond-esque badasses....gentleman assassins, and the like. Also considered badass, but not as 'in your face' as the first option.

Some might consider a variant of Character A, only using magic, a badass.

Hell, you can think to fast car driving drone rigging badasses.

There are many types of badasses. Thing is, there's nothing, IMO, inherently wrong with wanting to play a badass. And let's face it...many concepts have been done before. Many, many, concepts. Happy go lucky characters. Sad angsty ones. In between. Happy guys with a tragic past. Tragic people with a happy past. Physical badasses. Magical badasses. Physical and magical badasses. Gun badasses. Sword badasses. They've all been done.

It's really tough to come up with a 110% original idea. I mean, mixing and matching them work. But if someone can inject a decently original background into an existing archetype, and it's cool and they have fun, i don't see anything wrong with that.

I think its natural that folks like to play badasses. I mean, tabletop is a game. Many people find it more fun to play someone higher on the food chain. And hell, some love the underdogs too. But without the badasses, the underdogs, and everyone in between...well, there would be less character types. smile.gif

EDIT: I also wanted to point out that 'badass' isn't as much a skill or attribute set as much as it is attitude. Not all combat characters are badasses, after all. You can be excellent in a fight or a shootout but not be 'a badass' so to speak.
Vegetaman
The 110% original thing is where I strain to get to with my own campaigns and GM. I take a seemingly generic mission and add all sorts of oddities and bad guys with weird quirks and styles that really spices the game up. And every now and again I throw in an off the wall run or introduce them to other teams of Shadowrunners that are completely off the wall. Of all the characters I have ever made, I only give two of them credit for being original. I commonly use them as bad guys in other games I run as they're very powerful min/max'd characters who make good standalone bosses or targets. And they're both badasses.

To me, it's all about the little flair. Like, say you have a troll mage... Well, that's bland. But then let's give him a Hawaiian Shirt. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. What next? Well, how about a street samurai whose plain clothes over his armor have the text "HAVE A NICE DAY." on them (or the back of them)? It's the little things you do to spruce it up that make the difference, I believe.
Rasumichin
QUOTE (Larme @ Mar 6 2008, 04:19 PM) *
I see, the whole "if you don't play the game my way, you're wrong" argument.


In fact, it's even worse than that.
Synner 667's claim comes down to "if you play the game using the rules as written, you are cheating".
This statement is so utterly and fundamentally wrong that i still fail to imagine how he came up with that gem.
Priceless.

Don't get me wrong, if you're all "i as a GM have to break the rules to make the game work" and "I'm god, we could as well just throw the rulebook out of the window and play freeform, but i'm too stuck in traditional roleplaying to do that", fine.
Wouldn't want to play in a group like that, but i'm not going to tell anyone else how to practise our hobby.

But assuming that someone who has built a character completely within the limits of the rules, using only material allowed in his group (oh, i forgot it's a huge mistake to grant players access to anything, they'll just abuse it and screw their potential to roleplay convincingly) is actually cheating...that's just amazing.




As far as three line backstories are concerned...yeah, i do write longer backstories than that, everybody i play with does, and that does not even begin to take into account how much thought i put in fleshing out connections, development possibilities and potential plot hooks for my PCs...excuse me, soulless numbercrunchy munching exercises.

But that's not the point.
It's not about the backstory, just as playing to win is not only about having high stats.

It's about bringing the character to life at the actual gaming table.
That's where the action takes part.
Good roleplaying is not as foreseeable as all the backstory fictionists sometimes seem to think.

It's about developing a feel for your interpretation of the character and, like all creative processes, finding what you where not looking for.
What you couldn't look for, as you didn't even know it existed beforehand.
It's about coming up with ideas that challenge your basic assumptions, about spontaneity and good improvisation.
It's about not sticking to the note sheet, but going out to jam.
A communicative, surprising and thought-provoking activity.

As you see, i love roleplaying.
The whole storytelling and method acting thing.
I'm really, really into that aspect of the game.

Does that mean i'm not interested in winning?
As in "being able to succeed at the task my character will be confronted with"?
Of course it doesn't.
When the dice come out, i want to kick some serious ass.
I want opportunities to influence the game, to do something.
To plan and scheme and rock and roll.

For that, i need good builds.
And statting them up is tons of fun to me, as i'm an enthusiast about all aspects of RPGs, including the rules systems.

I want to take the system apart, take a look at the very gears that make it up and reassemble them in new, imaginative ways.
I don't give a damn about taking some ultraoptimized forum build and putting everybody to shame with my obscenely high dice pools.
I minmax as a play of thought, as a design challenge.

I want characters who surprise me in how they actually work out.

And i find an aesthetic fulfillment in good builds.
There is a unique elegance in the efficiency of a minmaxed character.
It's like a perfectly functional piece of industrial design.

And just like you can put a high performance engine under the hood of a stylistically superior Aston Martin V8 Vantage or in a squat-ugly, midlife-crisis-shouting Lamborghini, you can, roleplay-wise, go in any direction with such a build, just as you can do with a "suboptimal" concept.

Some might argue that this feels different than a character who started as a background concept and was statted out afterwards, but such before-after ways of designing are not my cup of tea, anyway.

It's a dynamic process.
I see a certain rule, a piece of gear, a magical tradition or whatever, that inspires me, i start mentally making a rough sketch of the character, then i go on with further elaborating the mechanical aspects and so on.

It's a constant feedback between two parts of the design process and in the end, i have something i could never have thought of.
And that's what i am always looking for, be it in roleplaying, when making music or when i try out a new cooking recipe for the first time.
Finding what i could not have expected and expanding my experiences.

Damn, now i am sounding elitist.
Sorry.
Vegetaman
To be fair, in my group it usually works out that the number crunchers are bad at role playing. Granted, that's not to say the other guys are good at it, but they usually are more open to learning or going with the flow. The number crunchers usually don't give two craps about the game unless it consists of rolling dice to crush stuff and blow things away. They like me to have all the important story and descriptive stuff to say so they just go "I shoot him." or "I leave.". No imagination at all. Though it may because I'm at college and there's an age gap (meaning I'm dealing with the teenage mindset). Things they have to think out or act out, they fail miserably at. And when said people GM games, they usually play the "I am god, the universe is mine, bow to me fools!" card. I try to go more freeform, and I am guilty of min-maxing certain aspects of my character (namely the ones that make other people end up in a world of hurt), but I leave some leftover points for specializations I think are cool or would flesh my character out. But really it just boils down to personal preference.
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