Words by Richard Jansen-Parkes | Image courtesy of Wizards of the Coast
Does min-maxing your character’s ghting
prowess suck the fun out of the tale you’re telling?
We weigh up the challenge of juggling story and skill
tabletopgaming.co.uk 91W
hen you looked at
Wrath, it was hard to
see anything beyond
a warrior – a creature
built for the beating,
bloody heart of battle and very little else.
His skills and training were all guided by
the need to excel in combat, and his natural
abilities were further enhanced by a carefully
curated selection of equipment. Enchanted
armour boosted his strength to superhuman
levels, while the maul he wielded crackled and
zzed with magical force.
is image of the consummate ghter was
only enhanced when he entered the battle eld,
with every attack, manoeuvre and charge
dictated by cold, tactical logic. Wrath would
ignore the taunts of armoured brutes in favour
of closing to close quarters with spellcasters
and leaders, crashing through their paltry
defences like a half-tonne of steel thunder.
He was, quite obviously, a creature
optimised for battle.
And yet there was more to him than
that. He lacked the silver tongue that some
of his fellow party members used to talk
rings around their foes, but that didn’t stop
him from letting his voice be heard. It was
a blunt tool that relied on plain logic and
simple honesty rather than cunningly crafted
combinations of attery and threat, and it was
well-respected by those that knew him.
ough at rst glance he seemed erce
frosty as a mountain, over the course of Wrath’s
adventures he grew to become the grudging
leader of his band of mis ts – in large part
because he was a solid point of sense in a
tide of chaotic schemes. He reconnected with
friends who had once thought him dead,
regained a shattered sense of honour and after
many battles took down the wizards who had
once bought his pride with gold and magic.
Yes, he was an optimal warrior. But he
was also a leader, a lover and an all-round
incredible character.
THE STORMWIND FALLACY
In RPG circles people occasionally talk about
something known as ‘ e Stormwind Fallacy’,
named after the person who got the idea down
in digital ink on an old D&D message board.
e fallacy revolves around an assumption
that many people seem to hold – namely that
roleplaying and character optimisation are
somehow mutually exclusive. It’s the belief if you
create a mechanically e ective character, they’ll be
boring when it comes to the story, and vice versa.
Like the two aspects sit at opposite ends of a see-
saw, with one naturally falling as the other rises.
Like all fallacies, the point of the Stormwind
Fallacy is that once you examine it for any time at
all it quickly reveals itself to be absolute nonsense.
ere is no reason, for example, that a
player’s ability to piece together the rulebook
should somehow be linked to their storytelling
skills. We aren’t RPG characters ourselves, after
all, with only so many skill points to assign. It’s
entirely possible to craft a world-boiling hero
one minute and play out a nifty conversation
with a shopkeeper the next.
is becomes even more obvious if we
consider the counter-example. Just because
someone insists on playing that negative-INT
wizard or the Jedi who refuses to use Force
powers, for example, they don’t instantly become
the most nuanced, fascinating character going.
And yet there still seems to be a feeling
among many RPG communities that character
optimisation is anathema to creativity.
Which is weird, because people don’t
seem to mind heroes in other forms of media.
Nobody looks at Aragorn from e Lord of the
Rings or Luke from Star Wars and rolls their
eyes at they way they put so many points into
swordsmanship. When John Wick blasts his
way through an entire nightclub of gangsters
we don’t get hu y because he trivialised what
should have been a deadly encounter.
No, we clap and cheer and nod appreciatively.
Because it turns out that characters kicking
ungodly amounts of arse is fun.OPTIMISED FOR FUN
is is the point in the tale where I have to admit
that I have skin in the game, so to speak. While
I wouldn’t like to think of myself as a win-at-all-
costs, nothing-counts-but-damage kind of player,
I will freely admit that when I’m on the far side
of the GM’s screen I love playing mechanically
powerful – or at least interesting – characters.
Whether in video games, card games or
RPGs, few things bring a smile to my face quiteso reliably as having a meticulously planned
combo go o just the way I want it. In Diablo
III this might mean crafting equipment that
causes enemies to explode the moment they
attack me, while in D&D it rst manifested in
a warlock who endlessly exploited their ability
to see in magical darkness using a spell that
summoned an inky sphere of night.
Even when I’m not pushing the boundaries
of balance, I still struggle with the idea of
controlling a character who isn’t at least
e ective at what they set out to do. If I’m
playing a pilot in Star Wars I want to be good
at ying ships. If I’m the muscle in an ill-fated
band of Call of Cthulhu investigators I want
to be able to at least glance over at a cultist
without losing my mind.
And if I’m being entirely honest, sometimes
I have to bite my tongue when folks I’m
playing with don’t feel the same way. No
matter how much I try to bury it, there’s
always part of my brain that knows that their
character could be so much more e ective is
they just picked this feat over that one, or that
they wouldn’t be complaining about missing
so much if they just boosted their core stats
instead of ddling with minor alterations
to things that only crop up once every nine
sessions and... well, as you can see, I nd it
rather hard to switch it o .ALL FOR ONE
Over the years, however, that’s exactly what
I’ve made myself do. Because I also know that
people play RPGs for di erent reasons; I know
that people nd their enjoyment in di erent
aspects of the games.
Some folks get their kicks from taking out
entire rooms full of bad guys in one move,
others couldn’t care less about whing every
roll so long as their death scene is on point.
Part of playing RPGs with other people is
recognising the fact that other people are
there to have fun too and trying to enable that.
So, the next time that someone turns up at
your table with a shiny new character sheet
with more numbers than words, try to avoid
dismissing them as some kind of fun-sucking
munchkin. Instead, try and work with them
to craft an experience that everyone can enjoy.
And if you’re like me, try to bear in mind
the fact that not everybody is so invested in
the mechanical aspects of RPGs, and that
unsolicited advice often comes across as
patronising rather than helpful.
Finally, remember Wrath – living(ish) proof
that just because you’re a sleekly designed
slab of murder there’s nothing stopping you
from being a fascinating character too.