I think I Min Max my characters too much.

While I've never actually played a Tabletop RPG, I do enjoy creating characters for them in case I ever do get the chance to play them (I'm currently trying to squeeze the Exalted Core Book from my dad).

However, I notice that I have a tendency to make my characters really good in a few things, and really bad at others; i.e, Min-Maxing. While my characters have a good reasons to be like this, I still don't want to get branded a munchkin.

Take the Exlated Character I made (Ignore this if you want); Ema Weiß. She's a daughter of a rich noble, and therefore was raised from birth to be a well-educated, beautiful woman. This results in her being very intelligent, knows a large number of languages and well-versed in lore. However, she chose to learn sword-fighting out of boredom. Due to all her training, she also became ridiculously strong—in the actual campaign, she fights using a massive broadsword and a full set of armor. This came with the steep price of having to study and train constantly, meaning she had very little time to do anything fun.

So she's ridiculously strong, Beautiful, and highly intelligent.

Okay, that was her good points. Now, since she's a sheltered noble, she has very poor social skills, and sometimes underestimates enemies. She also isn't very perceptive at first, since she's not used to combat. In addition, her combat skills are unpolished and her armor makes it difficult to for her to fight for very long periods of time, and she's always tired after a battle. Also, her large compassion means she sometimes suicidally protects her friends, and she has trouble viewing people as evil.

So she's naive and inexperienced to the point of being possibly fatal, and is average at nothing.

Almost all of these flaws have a reason (Her sheltered upbringing and her constantly tight schedule), but someone's going to call me a Munchkin. Almost all of my characters follow this "Very good at some things, Very bad at others, average at none" style, and I don't want my GM endlessly rejecting my characters. Should I just stop worrying and keep doing it, or should I balance them more?

...And I have no way to wrap that one up.

I'm not sure about game balance or anything, but I think your character would be more likable if she was more canny and the beauty and strength were toned down.

But the entire point of Ema is that she's a Genius Bruiser. She's beautiful because she's been living in a mansion all her life. While she's traveling, she's going to lose some of her beauty.

Also, Exalted is basically the DIY version of Beyond the Impossible. You're supposed to make a borderline Mary Sue.

She's beautiful because she's been living in a mansion all her life.

...

That's... not how it works.

What I meant was that she was rich enough to maintain her beauty. Use context clues.

So, she's sheltered, spending a crazy amount of time studying and working out (but for some reason her training still leaves her foolish and naive, and her stamina sucks ???), and she goes through beauty regimens despite a lack of a social life.

Am I understanding this correctly? Because it seems like an unrealistic character. I wouldn't expect a person who went through this to turn out the way you describe.

RE Beauty: It isn't objective, and it isn't something you can just throw money at to get the best results.

edited 19th Oct '10 8:03:55 PM by Gelzo

Her naivety is because she doesn't have much real world experience. She had almost no social life because basically the only people she interacted with where her parents and her tutors. In addition, she wasn't able to train fully because of her already low amount of time due to studying. Her stamina issue is because she over-estimated the size of her armor and bought a very heavy set.

Honestly, what do you think she would actually turn out like. Or, what should I change to make her realistically be like the way I want her?

If the tutors were that good, you'd think she'd have a personal trainer that put some value in aerobics. Shit be important.

Other than that... Hmm... I guess maybe her parents could be really eccentric and opinionated people who really influenced her take on life. And I guess it isn't impossible for someone to be beautiful, smart, and strong.

Maybe a better question would be why you want to play this character.

Well, in any case it might be a pointless discussion unless you know about the DM you'll be playing with.

Well, I just came up with her out of the blue. I've only had her in my mind for about 5 hours at the moment.

I wanted to play as her because I'd like to try playing a Genuis Bruiser, and making her a girl adds an interesting facet (in my opinion, at least) to her character.

edited 19th Oct '10 8:32:42 PM by Chagen46

I'm with Gelzo. Ask you dungeon master!

Isn't the goal of Min-Maxing to maximize bonuses while minimizing weaknesses? Or did I get that wrong?

I tend to min-max as well, but I can have fun while doing it. So meatshields, defend while this Squishy Wizard snipes the everloving shit outta that ogre, kay?

In my group, we tend to all minmax a bit, usually making a balanced group of specialists.

The homebrew Point Buy system we use also discourages un-minmaxing characters with experience: One can have a balanced character from the start or keep a character minmaxed, but trying to change from one way to the other costs a lot more points than staying on your path.

Isn't the goal of Min Maxing to maximize bonuses while minimizing weaknesses? Or did I get that wrong?

That's one definition, and the one I use. However, there is an alternate definition of "devote maximum resources to areas you want to excel at, minimum resources to secondary and tertiary attributes". I believe the first definintion is the older one, derrived from the concept of "minimax" found in game theory. The latter, it seems, is more popular, as the mechanics of D&D 3E, world's most popular RPG for however many years, tended to reward specialization above versitility. Whenever I see the term used, I assume the second definition is intended, myself.

I use the latter, because it always makes more sense in all contexts I've seen the words "minmax" and "minmaxing" in.

Obviously a staple of Point Buy systems, or systems where you can choose after rolling which stat you rolled for. A pure Honest Rolls Character based system such as FATAL can't be minmaxed if you don't get to choose what you max...

It really depends on whether the system can bear it. I don't think there's really anything with minmaxing, it's a natural tendency, just check that it doesn't lead to an overpowered or an unusable character.

It's also a kind of hint to the GM, eg. if you min max for combat then you're telling him that you want incredibly hard fights and not much else to be in the story, and you better check if he and the rest of the group was planning for that kind of game. It's fine if you can fit in challenges like that, but it's no fun if you're stuck on the side for most of the story and steal the rest of the group's fun when you do get a chance to act.

Min-maxing is really only problematic for a game if only one or two players do it. If everyone does it, then it can be great—when all the players choose the same area of specialization, the GM knows exactly what sort of sessions to run, and when they all choose a different one, you get cool Eigen Plots.

Seems like a reasonable Exalt to me. What Caste, out of interest? I'm guessing Dawn, but Twilight wouldn't surprise me. (That assumes Solar).

Also, nitpick: ST, not DM, in Exalted. GM'd be fine, but DM's D&D-specific.

Dawn's are the warriors right (I've only looked through the rulebook twice, I don't own it yet)? If that's true: Yes, she's a Dawn.

edited 20th Oct '10 2:46:08 PM by Chagen46

Yup. Dawn's warrior, Zenith's priet, Twilight is smart, Night is sneaky, and Eclipse is diplomatic.

'Course, there are shades there. I've got one I'd love to play- he aims to be the Greatest Sifu Ever (ultimate martial arts teacher, basically). Dawn'd seem to work- but because he's all about the teaching, I want to do him as a Twilight.

Alright, so she's a Dawn. Gonna get the rulebook tomorrow, but I need to find someone to play it with. I have two friends, and one of them knows some other guys, so hopefully we won't be short on players.

By the way, how many players would you recommend for a good session?

As far as I can tell a good circle in Exalted is four or five players.

If you think you min-max your characters too much you probably do not. Because this a case where "clearly too much" is beyond where any sane person would say "too beaucoup! too beaucoup!"

Can't believe you used FATAL as an example of anything,Medinoc. :-/

Frankly,I was envious of the minmaxers in my group. There was a shaman who'd attack with his bear spirit and a Dual Wielding goliath warden who did ridiculous amounts of damage. But we were nearly undone by a lightning trap because no-one had training in Thievery.

edited 25th Oct '10 7:27:31 AM by AckSed

It's because FATAL is the (il)logical extreme of the Honest Rolls Character trope... "the dice don't lie" indeed.

edited 25th Oct '10 7:40:19 AM by Medinoc