Your opinion on "powergaming"

[Warheart]

I have been here a while and I have discovered that most Players enjoy this because of the Rp here (And man the RP is at 120%).. And that is why i'm here too and I have enjoyed every minute of it. BUt I have read some of the post and it seems leveling is a bad thing because of "powergaming".. The problem is that I don't know where the limit for "powergaming" is.. I for one loves to gain a level up because  think it is encouraging and is much more fun to be a bit higher level (I'm not talking epic, but about 10-12 and so)... And I have seen many groups hunting  a lot (killing looting very often) and that is not a bad thing, but also here someone seems to call it "powergaming".. So where exactly does the limit go?

[steverimmer]

This is a much debated subject and I think its one that is difficult to answer mainly because the only person who really knows if they're powergaming is the player him/herself.  The reason I think that its difficult is that I've found that my characters tend to gain XP in spurts and that when they do they get a lot quickly and then relatively nothing for a week or so, so at first glance someone else might say that I've powergamed a character to gain that much xp but honestly its just been a matter of being in the right place at the right time, but then if you look at that character over a longer period you find that overall its advancement through the levels is actually pretty regualar and xp hasn't really been the motivation behind the character at all.  

Your right though about levels 10 - 12 being ideal levels though...for me thats not because the character is really 'any better' but that its usually the lower level limit for the more interesting quests and plot quests.

So my answer to your question is that its very hard to say and although there have been characters on this server who have been created just to level and become more powerful they are not as common as some people seem to think, on the other hand its good that this is always debated and argued about because I think it does act as a safeguard against that sort of character becoming the majority

[trillex]

And sometimes the player him/herself doesn't know if he/she is powergaming. I've been accused of it without knowing that I was doing it.

[cappyra]

In my opinion a powergamer is someone who sits down with a calculator and a leveling tool and works out what kind of character combination would make him/her the most unstoppable.  Then they create that character for the sole purpose of creating the most powerful character possible.  Instead of reading the history and saying, "Wow...  this Paladin of Toran sounds like exactly what I envisioned my character to be like, They go if I make a Druid/Paladin/Cleric/Monk I'll OWN at level 23!  Then they proceed to try and make level 23 as fast as possible.

On the other hand...  even in PnP you set goals and were excited about reaching new milestones in the life of your character.  The difference here is that you don't have to wait for the weekly get together with a DM to get XP for your character's growth.  You can go out into the world alone or in groups and gain experience for your character.  I think here is where there is a fine line between powergaming and just gaming.

For Example:

Your 13 Wizard is 20K XP from level.  At the next level you get a nifty new spell.  From a RP standpoint this represents a long period of study and research in order to master this new spell.  When close to a break through... I think it is normal to press forward and seeing your goal in sight encourages you to try harder. So going out and spending 3 to 4 hours trying to reach your goal...  is that powergaming?  I think it could probably fall into that category.  However depending on the approach I think it could be justified with role playing.  Say... to complete your research/training you need to travel to certian locations and gather certian CNR items.  The travel is sure to be fraught with danger.  By doing this you could justify the experience gained...  rather than doing laps through the Berghan Mountains. . .

I think maybe the real key is can you logically justify your actions with roleplaying. . .  if you can then it isn't powergaming...  if you can't well...

Just my two cp

[RikL]

cappyra - 4/13/2005  5:32 AM

 By doing this you could justify the experience gained...  rather than doing laps through the Berghan Mountains. . .

I think maybe the real key is can you logically justify your actions with roleplaying. . .  if you can then it isn't powergaming...  if you can't well...

Just my two cp

I think these two lines hit it closest. Doing laps is powergaming. When i see a party or characters doing laps/camping a point, then the only reason they are there is for XP. This is what I cant stand seeing as a GM. Parties that I do see doing this will tend to get chase out

Your actions should be justified by RP at all times, so when you go out hunting, what is the reason? if it is just to gain as much XP as possible, being an OOC figure and concept, this tends to be treading close to the line in my books. If you are desperately trying to think of RP justifications for your actions, then you really need to take a step back and consider how you are playing. This is a RP server afterall, and I think L has said many times that he has little interest in players who dont have time for RP. I know I certainly dont.


thats ny thoughts. Note I am speaking for myself, and my view of what Layo is, not the GM team or Leanthar.

[Vyris]

I think powergaming was best described as creating a character with the express intent of doing as much possible damage in the shortest amount of time, and also the practice I have seen on other places where people will weigh time spent vs difficulty of the monsters vs xp/coin gained, that to me is pure powergaming. Fringe aspects of this are also something I try to avoid, like swinging out of my way from Ft. Hope to Velensk to kill Ants because they are easy exp, It always makes me wonder when I see some solo person with a flaming blade that looks 'impossible' running around killing ants.

On the other hand, I've also taken part in 'laps' through areas, there are RP aspects to it as well, if you are with the right party, like a bunch of Dwarves trying to exterminate the giants from the Berhagens. But the simple fact is that though the RP might be the reason for us to be here, and something I genuinely enjoy, strive for and take part in 99% IC all the time. The game mechanics give us levels to designate progress, and we all strive for achievement.
I want to level for the following reasons:
1) More/better skills for my character, I want to be able to craft in my chosen field and RP the new possibilities that come with advancement.
2) I want to be more usefull to my party, and be better able to take care of myself. I want to be able to aid my companions when fighting does occur, and if there is nobody around that my character likes then I like to be able to gather CNR materials without fear of dying to skunks while collecting clay.
3) Higher level characters are more interesting. They are sought out, have a better idea of thier RP and characters goals and motivations, and they get to do a lot of fun things. Higher level characters are more active in the plot quests, which I think a lot of people with lower level characters are interested in, but intimidated by huge groups of higher level people, the low level folks are never (and I know there are exceptions) brought into the conversation much.
I have personally been on the recieving end of this before, when in a quest with higher level folks who are making suggestions... I would make a suggestion and it would get lost in someone elses, repeat the suggestion, have one person in a group of four tell you that it will be better to do it thier way with no discussion of any merits. Go with the high level suggestion and two people end up dead because the rest of us can't keep up with the combat that they can.

So yeah, I still don't have a character above level 9, so I don't think I qualify... but I can see why someone would want to pack on the levels in the early stages so you can participate in the advanced stages. RP is hard to maintain at times, and it is rewarding OUTSIDE the context of the game of NwN, but levels and advancement are the reward INSIDE the game, so without them Bidwick wouldn't really have as much respect for the fellow Ozymandius, Pandora would not be so attentive to learning something from the other mages she encounters and Berdin wouldn't be trying to raise peoples awareness of how important beating Blood is to them.

Bah, I am rambling now. I don't ever think we are going to all agree on what powergaming or power leveling are It's been my experience that if you encounter a group that doesn't fit your play style than avoid them... twice so far members of the group I didn't want to play with have left the world, and the remaining members have joined in the RP a lot more and are a lot of fun to RP with now.

Vyris remembers the last time this topic was broached and hope everyone stays civil.

[Etinfall]

Shut up Vyris!!!!! Hows that for civil *evil grin*      hehe just kidding, and Vy knows this.

So far all the comments on powergaming have been pretty close to what I  believe. The making a character to be the toughest is in my mind powergaming.. Well unless your character rp's that. Ie a fighter wants to be the toughest because that is who they are,. A wizard wants to be powerful because that is a goal in a wizards life. That is a way to melding the nwn mechanics into the rp style.

Then there are, what I call purest rp'ers. Young  master Tom. I think RikL even refuses to lvl him because of his rp, not sure but seems that way. Kudos to him. That is an actor if I have ever seen one. Ozy, who has like 4 hp's to his name, can you say wow? Granted he is very high lvl but not always. He had to rp that as he was growing. And he didn't get to be 20+ in a month or 2.

I see some people that are getting to be high lvl's and started after me and it used to bother me. But then I see some of those same players rp'ing the heck out of their chars too. SOME don't however. I think, or hope the point is to ACT. If you have a power hungry wizard than the other pc's should know that. Through rp'ing that way. Or if you have a fighter type that just wants to kill, then act that out. If you want to gain lvl's faster than everybody else, well rethink what you are trying to achieve here.

Sometimes a person just doesn't want to interact with others. That is ok in my mind. But that person needs to remember that this a community about rp'ing and using NWN to help that out. If you get to lvl 19 and want to go epic, well if the gm team doesnt even know your char it is going to be very difficult to get the go ahead. I have been in a non interactive mood and I will rp that my ranger needs to be alone in the forests. Or if my real life work schedule prevents me from playing I will rp that Cole has been in the forests thinking about things.

The problem with this post is that the people who comment are the ones who view powergaming as a bad thig. The so called powergamers will not care to comment. If you are concerned that you might be a powergamer then you probally are not one. Atleast not flagrently. If you are worried then take the extra time and force your chars personality out. Make m\\y char walk away thinking, "what a powerhungry wizard he/she is. I will need to watch my step around hin/her, as he/she might leave me out for dry if it gives him a chance at gaining more power." If my character says that it is not a bad thing for the PC. It shows that his/her rp is showing and I, as a player, am usually impressed.

as said before these are just our own thoughts on the subject. And I hope that it shows some that are worried that they might be powergaming that they arn't. As long as your pc's personality shows you are doing good.


Etinfall

[Warheart]

Thanks all for good replies.. And etinfall, I'm not worried ... I just wanted to hear (read in this case) what others think pwergaming are.. I RP my characters to the best of my capabilities and build them I feel they would.. But I have seen some extreme cases where just taking power attack feat is powergaming and I was pretty unsure how this server felt about it.

And to take it to that, this is the best server I have ever seen. Plenty to do than just killing monsters and allways players to interact with.. This is what I have been looking for.. So sorry if I brought up a harsh subject guys..'

[Murgleys]

There are so many differing definitions for "powergamer", aren't there?  The players who crunch the numbers and strive to make that perfect character I label as min-maxers.  Powergamers can be and usually are min-maxers, as well as "hoarders", which are players who strive to do anything to have the best equipment, most money through any means possible, including cheating.  Min-maxing, by definition, has to include "hoarding", to get the best possible stats.
Power-gamers, on the other hand, are people who can and often do ruin a good PnP session because of their lust for, ironically enough, more power.  This "power" can come in many forms.  As I said, most power-gamers are also min-maxers and/or hoarders.  That special little item that'll raise your attribute by another point is power manifest.  I had a terrific game PnP campaign of Desert of Desolation ruined because our cleric wanted to level up in an oasis but was denied by the dm since there was no way for him to train that level there.  DoD has a little bit of time constraint and this guy wasn't satisfied with the dm's denial so decided his cleric would go back to the starting city to level up.  Game over.  Leveling up is another expression of power and if abused, like above, then you're powergaming.  It so happens this guy was also a hoarder but not much of a min-maxer.  He made creative enough characters but they were all greedy to the point of absurdity (and suicide).  His roleplaying sucked pretty badly, too.
That's just my take on it.  I agree with others though.  If there is no justifiable way to rp something you've done, then you're abusing the true intent of the game and probably a bad rper to begin with.

[Warheart]

Remember guys, this thread is your opinion.. I am confident in my abilities as a good RP'er, but as said before I have had many run ins with powergaming on other servers and I felt that I had to ask what this lovely community tought of it..

I personally don't see a problem with "powergaming", to a certain extent. I can honestly admit that when I build a character, I do so with full intentions of making a powerbuild. I enjoy being creative in the feats I take, and the specific order of the classes and levels that I take to maximize what i can accomplish. And if another powerbuild were to try to PK me, I would smash them every time, because i'm an incredible character creator (i'm so modest). I have no problem admitting any of this.

However, I am also one of the most serious Role-players around. i do not powerbuild because I want to go around PKing everyone in sight to try to take control, or because i'm a big fan of hack and slash in nwn, I do so because in my opinion, making a great character build gives you more pride in what you're doing, and in my particular situation, it encourages me to be a better role-player. The character that I normally play, Genova, is a spy, among many other things. Knowing that I have built her to have a huge hide skill check much higher then most of the best of rouges and shadowdancers, and the power to take out anyone who tries to get in my way, is a big part of who she is in the RP world. If she were a crappy snoop who got beat up every time she got busted doing what it is that she does, it would be absolutly no fun for me to play her.

Since there is no PKing allowed on this server, I really don't see what the problem with a good powerbuild is. As long as people aren't taking advantage of their power, and their build is relevant to their character personality, then it should be just as fair as the next character.

But hey, that's just my opinion, and it's easily debatable.

[lonnarin]

I dunno, a Hill hound has 2-3 int and must be around 2-300 hp...  Those puppies are power gaming!  I tried to talk to one and you know what it did?  It bit me and tried to take my gold!  Luckily I think it misclicked on my inventory slot, only got half of me shinies.

i stand corrected ^_____^
Down with powergaming!

...wait, what?

[Murgleys]

If any of you get the reference of the next little blurb I'm about to slightly alter... you ARE an old timer to one of the formerly most entertaining gaming mags ever printed...

"We gotta talk to this hellhound!", the fighter says to the cleric.
"Are you nuts!", says the pointy-hatted geek.
"The last monster we tried talking to ate half the party", replied the cleric.
"Still...", answered the fighter, as he neared the hellhound with sword sheathed in a gesture of supplication.

Yes, please regard anything you ever read in any response to a forum question or blog as personal opinion or you're an idiot.  That is, of course of course, another personal  opinion.

[Thunder Pants]

there really isn't anything to say that people who powergame can't roleplay, there are meny people here that it can be said of them that they powergame, but they are also great roleplayers

powergamng has become a bit of a dirty word due to the use of it in the terms of exploitive playing

a person who is only 20 hours a day and is always on the movie either crafting, hunting or gathering can be considered a power gamer, but there isn't anything that says he can't roleplay while he does these things, IDii, GhostWhoWalks, and Ozy are all prime examples of this

[GhostWhoWalks]

I like to consider myself goal oriented. Heh.

[Varka]

(Remember - I didnt read all of the posts........)

I agree with Thunder Pants + remember the outside factors:

Me for instance:
Weeksdays: I can only play 1 or 2 - around 2 hours so if i want to keep up with my mates..well...

Weekends: If I get the change to play in the weekend and more than a few hours..then I REALLY do something about the RP.

So dont judge people right away...

[Meizter]

I would also agree with Thunder Pants. I myself, like Varka wrote about himself, can't play for hours every day, so for me it is really hard to keep up with the people I know, so I join on hunting trips to where-ever. We say we will see what happens here or there or we will cleanse an area and so on (so we have a decent RP reason to go there), but it basically comes down to xp hunting in the end as I see it, so perhaps that makes me a power-gamer, but still I take every opportunity on these trips and when-ever the opportunity arises to do some RP, telling a story, a poem, or just talking (too much talking if you ask some )   anyways what I'm trying to say is that in my opinion powergamers are people who exploits a system and find the loop-holes. Making a good character build or gaining lots of xp (of course depending on how it is done) is not real power-gaming, but things like "i'll take one level of this class so that later I can do this and get this feat and become all-powerful ruler of the universe and all the hells" is of course going too far.   I believe someone wrote earlier that if you make a good build then you will take more pride in you char (correct me if I'm wrong, short term memory not what it used to be ) To this I will just add that also chars with bad builds can be great. From my PnP days I still recall one of my most memorable chars to be a char with not a score above 13 I think, he was not good at anything but he was still my favourite char to play, so stats and feat doesn't always matter, but then again that is a matter of opinion.   Well I think that was all for now hehe  Have a nice weekend Meizter

[Murgleys]

Personally... heh... as I've already stressed, anyone who would override their usual "powergaming" in the name of rping really isn't a powergamer but, simply, just another rper.  If role-playing is more important than other considerations than that person deserves the ultimate benefit of doubt in judgement and should be met with equal glee in the joy of role-playing.  Keep on role-playing no matter what and resistance will whither to your will and role-playing will persevere (sp? too lazy to check now).  Peace out.

[Meizter]

Murgleys - 4/15/2005  2:24 PM

Keep on role-playing no matter what and resistance will whither to your will and role-playing will persevere

Well said