Powergamer: The Descension
Since gaming days of yore, “powergaming” was generally understood to be a bad approach to playing RPGs and the term “powergamer” was associated with an undesirable type of player to have in your group. Despite the hobby having some of its earliest roots in wargaming, many classic games include disclaimers that there is no way to win or lose at an RPG, and that they are a different sort of game from what players may be used to. They go on to explain that the players and GM were not in competition with each other, and even the death of a character did not represent “losing” the game.
Despite this, some players (and GMs) have had a hard time with the non-competitive nature of roleplaying games and powergamers have been a concern of game groups from virtually the beginning days of the hobby. A player’s failure to understand the implications of participating in a non-competitive game without win/lose conditions can be very disruptive to the enjoyment of the other players at the table. By creating an over-powered character compared to those of non-powergamers they can make it harder for the GM to present the group with appropriate challenges. Their actions may disrupt the suspension of disbelief of the other players, or lead to other players feeling they are less able to participate in the game as well.
A powergamer approaches the game by studying the mechanics behind the rules and looking for imbalances or errors in the system that can be exploited to give them a statistical advantage in some parts of the game compared to what they normally would have. This is often combat, but depending on the game or the players strategy it could also be other mechanics such as magic, skills, or diplomacy.
Powergamer strategies can be so disruptive their use is sometimes prevented/corrected in errata by a game publisher. This month Wizards of the Coast published another set of updates for 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons to deal with character builds they felt were “abusive” and “eclipsing other build options”. This is very similar to how videogame publishers will publish patches to their games to prevent players from using exploits in various online games.
Ironically the recent editions of D&D are partly responsible for the increase in the number of powergamers, and an advocacy of this approach to RPGs in general. By making Magic: the Gathering style “system mastery” an aspect of the game’s design and encouraging character “builds” via a detailed point-buy character generation system, it’s not surprising that many people fall into a powergamer type approach. By encouraging players to focus more on the rules system and less on the shared fiction of the game world, many people can understandably think an RPG works like a wargame or boardgame and approach it from that perspective.
In a truly competitive dungeon crawl type game like Descent, the powergaming approach would make sense. The game master is actively trying to beat the players and everyone is doing their best to “win” the game. However in all RPGs, even a game with a nominally adversarial GM like Hackmaster or Paranoia, this isn’t the case. If the Dungeon Master wanted to defeat the players, it would be trivially easy for them to do so. In an RPG showdown between Powergamers and Killer GMs, there is no real competition.
While it is usually a bad approach to RPGs for a group with mixed interests and approaches, if everyone at the table enjoys powergaming or finds that including a powergamer in their game doesn’t disrupt their enjoyment of the game then it isn’t a problem. The goal of an RPG may vary from group to group, but it certainly should include everyone having a good time. As the old saying goes “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” and if your group doesn’t have a problem with powergaming then you shouldn’t feel the need to change your approach to your hobby.
If your players find powergaming doesn’t fit with their approach to RPGs (which is not that uncommon), it’s probably a good idea for the group to make it clear that they want to exclude that particular style of gaming. Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean a person you would otherwise invite to your game needs to be left out. The best solution is not to think of oneself as a “powergamer” or “non-powergamer” but rather acknowledge that it’s a style of gaming suited for some games and groups and not for others. Costumes and dramatic monologues might not be appropriate for a game of Battletech. Similarly detailed rule analysis with an eye for deficiencies and loop-holes to build the most powerful character possible in an attempt to “win” the RPG… in short, Powergaming, might be something that’s not welcome either.
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I have a long and opposing viewpoint to this, but I find myself questioning if long and lengthy reply is a better option than typing it up and reviewing it a few times to make sure things are coherent. Either way, this is a well written post on an interesting topic.
A game is badly designed to the extent that powergaming can be a problem.
Game can be designed so that powergaming is not possible. Game can be designed so that powergaming is irrelevant. Game can be designed so that powergaming makes it work all the better. Game can be designed to be self-balancing.
Or game can be designed so that it assumes all characters to be of roughly comparable power level and further encourages accumulating personal power for one’s character. Further, one needs to build sufficient structure to make powergaming possible and non-trivial. Only in this situation is powergaming potentially a problem.
Many RPGs due to the complexity of their rules and the requirement for things like “Rule Zero” where a GM can add/remove/modify the rules to suit the situation are “badly designed” from a boardgame / wargame point of view. It’s the reason Dungeons & Dragons and other RPGs are excluded from inclusion on Board Game Geek.
This is only a problem is you’re trying to approach them like a boardgame/wargame though. If you approach them like an RPG it’s not an issue.
A very interesting if narrow article.
A few things I’ve noticed that tend to be muddled in this discussion is again rules- How much of the rules of the system of choice should all participants know or be aware of to be a fair “game”?
Is a person a powergamer for taking the time to read the system rules and use what’s unique in the game? I’ve heard many stories and seen it happen where players feel like jerks because the GM keeps mixing up rules from previous systems or thinking there are rules that do not exist (this is excluding previously stated house rules) and they have to correct them for the sake of fair play. Doubly so for the gamer who just isn’t that great at doing fast talking, but is playing a character who is a social butterfly.
After all, if all players agreed to use a system, why be afraid to use the system outside of clear exploits and errors?
What’s your take on all this?
There’s nothing wrong with being familiar with the game. Powergamers step past simple rules familiarity and actively look for rule imbalances to give them an unfair advantage.
There is the potential for much debate with a powergamer over whether something is simply “using the system” or an actual “exploit”. Was this article on Battlerager Fighter builds for 4e a clear exploit? A lot of powergaming players certainly didn’t think so… but less than a month later Wizards of the Coast changes the rules of the game to prevent this strategy and calls it “abusive”.
I think it’s a better approach to not debate things on a rule by rule basis and instead talk about what style of game your group wants to play and what sort of approaches make sense for that. If someone simply can’t approach an RPG from a non-powergaming perspective your choices are: accept their powergaming, play something else, play your RPG without the powergamer.
The Battlerager was certainly overpowered in the low levels, I can verify this fact first hand, but the enemies hit harder in higher levels and the scaling doesn’t go up high enough for its overpowered quality to work.
But this is a poor model of powergaming as D&D is not every other RPG out there. Player death has a minor penalty and one can bring him back easily. The game focuses on fighting things that use all kinds of cheap tricks and problems on the players who play heroes clearly capable of overcoming those problems. What might be overpowered for most games is just another day at the office for D&D. I’d throw out that kind of hijinx in a CoC game in a heart beat because it breaks the mood and ideas behind the game core. Same if someone found some kind of loop hole for Bliss Stage.
I think the specter of powergaming is just as dangerous as a real powergamer itself to many games in the same way a person might feel worried he may be labeled something derogatory, and therefor his point being invalid, for legitimately speaking his mind without any real harm intended.
I don’t think it is quite that simple. Consider a game where people feel the need to make choices between staying true to their character and being effective (whatever that means in the game in question, but typically character being successful is being effective). Would you like to do that trade-off? Maybe it will cause no problems, because all the players (and the GM) expect the same reaction and react as expected; everyone of course ignores character or everyone of course ignores effectiveness. But in the general case this should not be assumed, and therein lives a potential problem.
For example: I was playing in a convention game set in Glorantha (the rules don’t really matter in this case). I made a choice consistent with how my character had acted, which basically meant bigoted and not very smart. Surprisingly my character ended up dying, but the GM wouldn’t have any of it and (to my view) destroyed the suspension of disbelief by not having my character die after being strangled to death with a sharp wire, essentially.
That’s the sort of problem you can get when people expect different reactions in a given situation.
Rules that force one to make a choice between effectiveness and whatever else are one such case. Forcing the GM to make a choice between sticking to the rules or breaking the story (as much as I dislike “the story” existing) is another; if GM ever has to break rules, then the rules are not ideal. Use a better ruleset or houserule to improve them.
I don’t think it’s a choice between effective or incompetent though. You can play a game within the rules without needing to analyze them and look for exploits, or play by the rule but against the *spirit* of the rules.
eg. (from the Wikipedia link):
And then we’ll get to the business of defining powergaming, which is not of great interest to me.
I think I’ll restate my position: System should resist the negative effects of powergaming by one of the following methods (or in some other way): By making it impossible, by making it trivial and hence boring, by making it very obvious, or by channeling it to a positive end.
The reason is, that even if someone powergames, the negative effects it will have on play are minimised (or even turned positive). Powergaming is a natural impulse; when given scarce resources in a controllable environment, many people will have the urge to make most of their resources. I don’t think that should be demonised.
3rd edition multiclassing system is an example of the trade-off existing. I think it is a design flaw. (Also, the paladin save bonus is not worth two caster levels, most of the time.)
It’s a natural impulse for some people (aka Powergamers) but not for everyone. Or if it IS a natural impulse for everyone, lots of people (not Powergamers) can keep that impulse under control.
If you have a game that you want to play that is not Powergamer proof in the ways you outlined, and you have someone in your group who *can not* reign in those natural impulses so that they can play the game in a compatible way with everyone else your choices are:
* Play something else
* Accept the Powergamer can’t control themselves and go with it
* Play without them
I think all 3 of those are valid choices. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that a group has to *always* choose #2 though and can’t ever play a game like D&D (not powergamer proof) in a non-powergaming way just because they have a friend who won’t keep their impulses under control.
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