Min Maxing

"I have a 3 intelligence? Outrageous!" Rogar the Barbarian.

After our test character generation exercise, I became slightly worried as a recovering Min/Max gamer. All For One doesn't do anything to protect against creating the swashbuckling fighting machine, and as demonstrated by some of the characters created, it is actually easy to do. In game, if everyone is playing a Min/Maxed character, it works fine. If some are and some are not, it causes problems for both the GM and everyone else in the group. It becomes two different games being played. In order for a GM to challenge the Min/Max character, the bad guys have to be able to stand up to him. The problem becomes, the rest of the character now have no chance against the bad guys. On the other hand, if the GM keeps the villains reasonable, the Min/Max character wades through them like they are mooks.

Additionally, outside of combat, the Min/Max character has nothing to do, so to keep everyone engaged in the game the GM has to hand out lots of fighting. While this isn't a blog about GMing (I leave that to the experts at Gnome Stew) players and their characters definitely have an effect on the GM, his style and how the game plays. I personally don't want to create a well balanced character and be useless in combat. Nor do I want to invest in a lot of skills and abilities I either never get to use, or only get to use them to get to combat I am useless in.

Determining the play style of the group for a specific game can be very important for you during character generation. You don't want to come up with a character that isn't fun to play because he doesn't fit with the groups plays style. Also, players have a certain responsibility to the Game Master and their fellow players to make a character that fits so the game is fun for everyone.

The GM for this game is a long time, very experienced GM. He is usually excellent at bring all players and characters into the story, playing towards their strengths. There is a large group for this game however, and a fractured group of characters will mean more times when players are out of the mix if their characters don't fit the situation. I spoke with him about the Min/Max concerns with this game right after our test run. While he shares some of those concerns, he has not yet come up with specifically what he plans to do if it happens. 

Upon further investigation into the game and rules, I came to the conclusion that he really won't have to do much beyond encouraging players to not Min/Max.

All For One doesn't do anything about Min/Maxing characters for several reasons. The setting/game assumes that game style will reflect a cohesive group and that, if players are playing this game, they won't take the Min/Max route. All For One is not a combat heavy game and as such, the super awesome fighting machine character is pointless to play. Furthermore the super awesome fighting machine character is useless in All For One. In most combat situations killing is not the objective. Trying to create alter the game to make it combat heavy or creating situations where multiple killings doesn't equal multiple murders will quickly destroy the games overall base setting and tone.

All For One is a game designed for balanced characters. Without classes as such, the game, on a basic level, does away with the traditional character roles. Roles that have been further refined and defined by MMOs. There are no strikers, no tanks, no DPS, no leaders, no support character roles in this game system. They are not there for a reason. The game assumes that each character can and should be able to function in almost every situation. You are playing a Musketeer. When you have to fight, you can fight. When you have to dance and impress the nobles, you can dance. When you want to woo the court ladies, you can woo. When you have to search for clues, you know what to look for and who to talk to. Style Points and the die pool play a big part in this. For the most part, having too many dice available for a situation is far worse than not having enough. If a player thinks they need more dice, they can get them. If a player has too many dice, they are wasted. It is assumed that all character will be good enough in everything that they will only need a few more dice to compensate for their poorer skills and attributes to overcome a situation. If the player spent too much in one area, they will need far more Style Points than they could reasonably be expected to have to compensate for their poorer skills and while they will dominate in the area they spent too much in, they do so by wasting dice!

In Summary, All For One doesn't discourage players from Min/Maxing, the Ubiquity system punishes players foolish enough to do it.

Keep rolling my friends.