>>97410194
have you tried not playing a girl?

>>97410194
Did you try to resolve the conflict in any meaningful way besides conflict? Did your character act like they knew their own limits and try to escape the situation accordingly?

>>97410194
We're you playing Dungeons and Dogshit?

>>97410194
If you're playing D&D, and let's just assume you are, there is literally no reason to trying to engage with anything that isn't combat. All characters are combat machines first and characters 4th, or maybe 5th.

>>97410194
...and? What's next, you're going to bitch when you get assraped by magic because you didn't made a character optimized against magic?

>>97410305
>>97410306
>>97410311
Vampire the Masquerade.

>Try to play a character who is good at things other than fighting FOR ONCE
>Entire party also makes meme characters on the assumption I'm playing a murder brick
>GM has to re do the entire set of encounters
Did we play ourselves?

>>97410203
>>97410352

>>97410352
I didn't ask and my system agnostic point still stands.

>>97410194
Really? I’m playing a utility guy right now and having a bunch of fun, maybe give it another shot

>>97410352
Which version?

>>97410194
Why would you make a character that isn't good for fighting under the pretense you'll be playing a game in which fighting is, or is one of, the major challenges?
>b-but m-muh r-role p-play
Roleplaying is deciding the behavior of someone who isn't yourself. You can easily roleplay a character competent in fighting.

>>97410424
20th anniversary

>>97410471
Never played that one. Is there still "blood buff" mechanic where you can spend blood points to boost physical attributes until end of the scene?

>>97410194
What do you expect us to do about it?

>>97410650
Echo sentiments to each other how the terrible rules lawyer autists force us to make characters for a game, despite the fact that a large percentage of "TTRPG" "discussion" revolves around making shitty voices and incoherent collaborative stories these days.

>>97410194
Did you have big pale undead goth tiddies

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>>97410194
>smart characters in fiction
>basically gods, can do whatever they need to do at any given moment
>smart characters in TTRPGs
>+12 bonus to recalling worthless trivia that never does anything

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>>97411020
>meanwhile, the smart characters in fiction

>>97411050
Now where is that screenshot of a post about smart people being written by stupid people...

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>>97411020
Smart characters in TTRPGs are only as smart as the players piloting them I'm afraid

>>97411119
Smart players don't play smart characters, they minmax for combat because it's the smartest thing to do.

>>97410194
Was this with randoms online or "irl" "friends" "?" Irregardless, my condolences.

>>97411131
The smartest thing to do is optimize? Not sure about that particular piece of bait, anon

>>97410362
Why would you balance encounters around the party?

>>97411119
Smart characters in TTRPGs are only as smart as GM permits.

>>97410352
Could you have reasonably avoided the combat or was the ST treating it like D&D?

>>97411020
substitute half your intellect for knowledge about any talent.

use your intellect rank as baseline for certain types of weapons.

use your intellect rank for performing and defending against certain types of combat stunts, such as Lure, Disarm, Feint, Taunt.

use your intellect rank to defend against or detect certain powers, such as Illusions, Mind Control, Clairvoyance, Mind Blast, or Possession.

use your intellect rank to detect and analyze the presence or after effects of many powers.

use your intellect rank to mimic certain powers, like Master of Disguise, Preparation, Psychometry, Telepathy, or Weakness Detection.

>>97410194
that's a rapist

>>97410352
>My ST runs VtM like it's a dungeon crawler
Many such cases, my condolences.

>>97411020
>>97411119
>t. dumb moron playing smart character under incompetent GM
Even more such cases

>>97410494
It exists but it's not going to save you if you're combat inept. And ironically enough, if you are a combatant, then you'll never have any use for it anyways.

>>97412007
The opinion that I've taken away from my experience with ST games is "you should make sure you can fight a little, even if it's not your focus." Because a dangerous situation will come up eventually, and you don't want to feel useless or extremely vulnerable.

>>97412064
"A little" never actually cuts it.

>>97411020
yep, you won't reply because you know you were wrong.

>>97411154
Why would you not present the party with challenges tailored to their abilities?

>>97412390
Because that would invalidate their choices.

>>97412390
Why should I bother thinking about any character creation decision if every encounter will be identically challenging regardless?

What happens when other people in the world encounter monsters?

If the players and one or more other adventuring parties of varying levels and character types come upon the same creatures at the same time, what happens?

Where are the high level monsters when we're level 1? What are they doing?

>>97412390
If we only encounter traps when there's someone in the party specialized in disarming them, why should we have that character in the party?

If later in the game we hire someone that can disable traps, do traps start existing? Where did they come from? Who built them?

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>>97410194
>can't use the things he's good at to avoid getting into fights in the first place
Unironic skill issue.

>>97412776
Fights are unavoidable though.

>>97411066
>Now where

>>97412007
it kinda does though, WoD combat is garbage (it's a storytelling type of a game, mechanics were afterthought), but dicepool size always helps - go stamina 5, dexterity 5, default to parry or dodge and few mortals can touch you, even with 0 dots in Melee/Brawl

>>97412402
>Giving them challenges that fit their abilities invalidates their choices
It's literally accommodating their choices. And if you're too lazy/uncreative to come up with ways to let characters use their abilities on the fly, you shouldn't be a GM.

>>97412508
>Why should I bother thinking about any character creation decision if every encounter will be identically challenging regardless?
You're being disingenuous, because that isn't what I said and if you think it is, then you're not disingenuous, you're just a retard. I'm not dignifying the rest of your shitpost with a response either way.

>>97412515
>If we only encounter traps when there's someone in the party specialized in disarming them, why should we have that character in the party?
Your order of operations is backwards. There are traps that can be disarmed because you have someone specialized in disarming traps.

It's the same principle as not throwing a group of flying ranged enemies at a party of purely melee characters.


>>97412803
If this is the case your GM is a retard.

>>97413945
You're committing effort replying to a bunch of trolls.

>>97413945
>It's literally accommodating their choices.
No, it's literally the opposite. It doesn't actually matter what they choose because the world will shapeshift into something that suits their skillset.

>>97413945
It's exactly what you said, retard. If you tailor encounters to their characters, then character creation is irrelevant.

That isn't backwards, that's exactly what I said. If there are only traps because I can disarm traps, why should I choose the ability to disarm traps?

If we only encounter flying enemies if we have ranged attacks, why should we choose ranged attacks?

>>97413998
He's the troll, retard.

>>97410194
The weak should fear the strong.

>>97413945
Now respond to the rest of my post, dishonest cunt. What happens if our party has no trap disarming, but another party in the dungeon does?

>>97410352
Last world of darkness game I played in my highest combat stat was drive.

>>97414535
Does being better at diplomacy than fighting mean it’s important to get into fights you can’t win to roleplay being bad at fighting or does it mean that it’s better to talk your way out of fights to roleplay being good at diplomacy?

Fucking retard.

>>97414816
We don't sign our posts here.

>>97414821
I accept your concession.

>>97414816
Why do you keep replying to things no one said instead of what people write in their posts?

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>>97411020
>smart characters in real life
>forced to slave away at new weapons of mass destruction in the government's basement

>>97414760
This is kind of a half-baked take.

Sure, it's reasonable to highlight that it's difficult or impossible to solve problems in the ways that characters are not so capable of performing. But it would also be doing the players at your table a disservice to tailor your games in a way that prevents them from being able to use the skills that they do have as alternatives, even if that makes addressing the problem more difficult at times. And that doesn't necessarily mean that every single player should be holding a clear-cut answer to a problem, just that you aren't boxing them into situations where they have no choice but to lose, because that isn't really fun for the people involved.

Your purpose as a GM is to facilitate the game, and the point of games is to have fun. TTRPGs are cooperative, and that means you take into account the ways your players want to have fun and you craft opportunities for them to do that. That doesn't mean everything has to be a cakewalk, just that you absolutely should let them play the game the way that they've expressed that they wanted to. As you no doubt should have communicated and hashed out a mutual understanding of when you set the game up in the first place, setting expectations so that the way the game is played is more satisfying to all parties.

>>97416236
No, it's not half baked. It's simply correct. If a chest has a trap, it's because someone trapped it. That trap doesn't have any way of knowing about the players, and has no way of deleting itself from existence based on the players' capabilities.

>>97416236
The GM doesn't box players into anything. They encounter things that happen to exist, and they choose how to interact with those things, and every single object and being in the universe exists as the result of a chain of causality.

>>97410194
You need to max out stealth and movement in any game that has combat rules. Then you can do whatever you want.

>>97411263
I like to force VtM games into dungeon crawlers, by making combat monsters that don't hesitate to respond to problems with fists.

>>97419389
Have you tried running an actual dungeon crawler? With rules and mechanics that support combat-centric scenarios, you fucking retard?

>>97410194
Try FATAL or MAID. They have stuff outside of combat and all for you.

>>97416818
ok, then our characters go do something that fits their skillsets :)

>>97419358
No you don't.

>>97420550
Concession accepted.

>>97419358
every time I've made character that could move 1" faster than average monster all the encounters turned into small enclosed arenas, across 3 different GMs

>>97421125
Then you weren't playing with GMs.
Game Masters run games.

>>97412911
Did you think he meant to write "Nowhere is that screenshot"

>>97413945
>It's the same principle as not throwing a group of flying ranged enemies at a party of purely melee characters.
Why did they not bring ranged weapons just in case? They should die as a learning experience and maybe next time they won't be so dumb.

>>97421165
I think there's a certain irony to people who can't properly identify an obvious issue calling others stupid.

>>97416818
>They encounter things that happen to exist, and they choose how to interact with those things, and every single object and being in the universe exists as the result of a chain of causality
your "sandboxes" aren't created in a vacuum

>>97410194
>open rulebook
>skip past character creation
>count up the pages of rules for during gameplay
>if the number of pages for combat rules equals or exceeds all other rules and you choose to not optimize for combat, you are retarded

Coincidentally, this means for D&D you should play a Wizard since the majority of the rules are concerning magic spells.

>>97421354
Actually, they are.

>>97421186
Yes. It's a very funny reply.

>>97421516
>Pages of rules = time spent on activity
Jesus, anon, get a carbon monoxide detector.

>>97422268
>game has a massive subsystem that is the majority of all the content
>NOOOOOOOOO THE GAME ISN'T GOING TO BE ALL ABOUT THAT!!!! THEY JUST MADE MORE OF THAT CONTENT SPECIFICALLY... JUST BECAUSE OKAY??!?

>>97421516
minmaxing for combat is always stupid because 2 guys of your skill level will always beat you

>>97422290
I'm going to let you in on a secret. Many, perhaps most, activities PCs undertake need no rule interactions whatsoever. They can be understood in a natural way by everyone at the table.
Combat tends to have a lot of rules verbiage for a simple reason. It's the part of the game where stakes are high and people naturally wrangle for advantage. If you've ever seen two kids playing pretend and getting into an "I shot you/no you didn't/did so/nu uh" argument, you'll see what I mean.
In D&D specifically (though in 5e it's pretty hard to be deliberately good or bad in combat outside of class tiers) many groups have no more than a single fight per session and could easily get by with one character not contributing to each fight. If that character has an overabundance of other utility abilities then they would be a huge boon to the team even if they hide in a plant pot every time initiative is rolled.

>>97422345
I'm gonna let you in a secret. Most sessions of 5e are a single combat encounter and some chatting. And that combat encounter is going to be more than half the entire session. So minmaxers are prepared to be excellent for the majority of the content.
>nooooooo being able to pass an Arcana check once every three months is way more important than excelling at the main content of every single campaign ever!
Whatever lmao.

>>97422378
Why not just play a video game instead?

>>97422378
Is it really "being excellent" if you're playing a game your opponent lets you win? The GM has an unlimited amount of resources to throw at you and decides all the rules. There's literally no point in expending effort counting to infinity faster.
But also, the "chatting" is literally the gameplay for every other player. That's the content, if you want to use that soulless term. Deciding what the party is doing, who they're doing it with/to, how they get from place to place... These are all much more impactful than making the objective completion number go all the way down in four rounds instead of five.
Even in OSR games where the GM is playing fair and square, the logistics trump the swordplay every time.

>>97422382
It's not really an either/or thing.

>>97422412
Video games are way better at the kind of mind numbing fightfaggotry you seem to enjoy.

Weird how people are assuming this thread is about D&D when you can scroll up and see that it isn't.

It's not that weird, every thread on this board is a thinly veiled excuse to complain about D&D or 40K. Whether the OP intended for that or not.

>>97422321
Sure. But whether that situation happens depends on how the GM runs the game. If the encounters were prepared in advance it's worth to optimize because the bar you're up against is already set. If the GM just ad-hoc asspulls the encounters it's also worth to optimize because the challenge fulctuates and can reach the level where somebody has to die but then you still wanna make sure other PCs perish before your does.

>>97422440
You won't know what the bar is even if it's been prepared in advance.

>>97422476
You might, if it's a module and GM is naive enough to run it exactly as written.
But when you don't you gotta err of the side of overpreparedness and aim for the highest bar you can possibly ever clear. So when the real challenge ends up being lower you'll clear it too.

>>97422520
>module
>>97422382

>>97422568
it's beneficial to spend time way from the screen every once in a while. You should try it sometimes.

>>97422378
>Most sessions of 5e are a single combat encounter and some chatting
Not at my table.

>>97421354
Ok. Do you think that affects anything I've said? Do you understand the difference between applying reasoning and vomiting words that you think sound clever? These are not rhetorical questions.

>>97422345
Wrong.

>>97422476
It doesn't matter. There is never any reason to choose to be less than maximally effective. There is no opportunity cost.

>>97425938
There is no case where being good at combat is maximally effective except after you've maxed out everything else.

>>97411196
In D&D you should also be able to "reasonably avoid combat"
Shit, RAW Gygax would give you xp for escaping the dragon, or tricking it into investing in a Ponzi scheme, as well as slaying it.

>>97425944
False.

>>97410362
This is why good GMs communicate their desired framework to the players in session 0, and don't plan things too ridgedly.

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>>97411066

>>97428621
This is basically the same logic that's continuously applied to combatants and yet it's only ever a problem when the smart guy tries to do it.

>>97431880
Sorry, back up. Are you saying that traditional games have a track record of OVERESTIMATING what physical combatants are capable of?

>>97431907
Yes? They can kill dragons with a sword and shit.

>>97431909
The square-cube law is presumably doing most of the work.

>>97410194
I play characters that suck at combat all the time, and I do not have this problem. I get close calls when I fuck up, but the trick is to actually avoid direct confrontation, and have friends that are better at fighting.

>>97410194
Might makes right.

>>97435029
Thus, the GM is always right.

>>97431909
No, not really. A fighter of level N will almost always lose to a dragon of CR N.

>>97435181
Just build them properly.

>>97439824
Post one that you think is built properly, then. Remember, if he has to rely on magic items to win, you lose the argument.

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>>97440937
>if he has to rely on magic items to win, you lose the argument.
nta but why would that be the case? magic swords have always been the Fighting-man's thing.

>>97441070
Which class feature grants the fighter magic items?

>>97441075
The dungeon master.

>>97441077
That's not a class feature. You lose.

>>97441089
The dungeon master grants the fighter magic items DOE.

>>97441095
That's not a class feature. You lose.

>>97441098
But the dungeon master grants the fighter magic items doebeit.

>>97441105
That's not a class feature. You lose.

>>97441253
The dungeon master provides the magic items doeverbeitmay.

>Decide to go all in on the Courage stat because the idea that you actually have to pay on your character sheet to have balls of steel seems like a novel thing in an RPG
>We can't have a stat where if you don't take it you're a pussy! Pay 1 narrative resource to completely ignore the existence of this stat each time it would come up
>Also if you don't take fightan' stat and backup fightan' stat in the courtly intrigue game you're going to die

>>97441352
Who are you quoting?

>>97441368
In the second line the devs explicitly say they refuse to force characters with no Courage to roleplay as pussies.

>>97441387
What devs? Second line of what?

>>97410194
I used to minmax every character. Eventually it got to the point I was so bored doing more damage than my party that I decided to play fun shit, ignoring DPR or Utility. Right now I'm a melee Summoner with a construct and we just fucking punch stuff. Fun as fuck, boi.

>>97441271
That's not a class feature. You lose.

>>97411119
Smart characters in TTRPGs are as smart as the GM running the campaign. A total fucking idiot playing a smart character can still play a smart character with enough GM support.

I always just pick a part of the system that is underpowered and try to minmax it into working.
I don't want to kill you with the +5 blade of stabbening, I want to do it with this oar I found.

>>97410194
The first fucking thing they teach to glowie intelligence officers is how to shoot guns and drive in extreme conditions like while getting shot at or to shake off pursuit.

Basically it's as >>97411131 said, the smart person learns how to kill people first and foremost.

>>97428621
Thank you.

>>97443127
The dungeon master provides the magic items doeverbeasitmaybehoweverthatitevermightcouldorwouldbe.

>>97443293
These are the most fun characters because of the weird shit you can do just for the fuck of it. Like a rogue who Jackie Chans his way into the tower instead of lying or sneaking. Or a wizard with a strong right hook who's not afraid to throw a punch.

>>97443984
That's not a class feature. You lose.

>>97444210
Providing magic items is a feature of the Dungeon Master class thougheverbeitmaysothatyoumayeverhencelyforthknowsuchthatitis.

lol does buddy think that weapon restrictions based on class aren't class features?

>>97444255
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

>>97444255
Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

The only "smart" skills are the ones that generate the most money.

>>97444229
That's not a class feature. You lose.

>>97447946
The dungeon nigger tongues my magic items doeverbeasitmaybehoweverthatitevermightcouldorwouldbegozaimasu.

>>97448212
That's not a class feature. You lose.

>>97410352
I didn't know it was possible to fight in VtM, I thought it was just Mother May I Play A Theater Kid™

>>97448240
It is.
That other Anon is lying to you.

>>97447946
>>97448237
NTA but spam filter, you idiot?

Make a functioning VtM "smart" character right now.

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>>97454574
any clan with Dominate
Mental > Social > Physical
Flaws: Child, 4x Amputee
freebies from flaws spent on starting at 5 dots Dominate
max Generation, max Willpower
some dots in haven&retainers
settle in orphanage, blood-bind the staff and any number of residents, use mortal orphans as disposable drones (piloted via Possession)
never show yourself in person

lol

>>97410352
>White Wolf
The solution was to suck up to some really strong NPC and have him protect you.

>>97411020
>>97411269
Often the case yes, if you want to RP a smart character you kind of have to actually be a mind reader half the time because foreshadowing is a skill that's often not used

>>97411020
I play smart characters. I build for combat social manipulation. Social manipulation is the most important thing. You can completely solve problems & combat with social manipulation if you are smart. You can find avenues of advantage & non linear power with social manipulation. But you can't just be a social character if you're smart. You can't gather the right soft power without real power. So you've got to be deadly in combat. Versatility & ruthlessness wins every single time. You should always be holding aces to annihilate competition, & never rely on the same trick twice. Mystical, physical, technological, & social weapons are the key to always having aces, never pigeon hole yourself into one gimmick, but advertise one. Make them think you only know how to fight in one way, or to move in certain circles, when really you've got options. Then when they try to remove or block one thing, you still have a loaded gun

>>97442375
Lots of people forget you're making a character to roleplay as interacting with an imaginary world and gamify the fun out of everything. Eventually everyone become min-maxed 1 trick ponies that nuke every encounter just so their guy can do something besides watch all the other min-maxed character do everything and the game becomes a series of monster manual encounters determined by dps checks.