Call for players

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Kije sent more than me? wow. I want to see that history.

[Lieutenant Kije]

I didn't write a novel.  I just answered the questions.  

Um, Sprig₂, why don't you send a template and tell me how to tweak or customize it.  Or direct me to some information that will tell me how to do it.  There's got to be a site out there somewhere that explains the basics of the system (whatever system we're using.)

[Entsuropi]

Since the D6 system is used for the matrix and star craft games, which i linked to somewhere (either in webcomics or RPGs, i forget which) and is explained in full there, i suppose you could read up on it there. There. Yeah.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I have some of them on my hard drive if his site is having problems, as it sometimes does

[Lieutenant Kije]

I couldn;t find that stuff you mentioned, Entropy (but I didn;t search exhaustively.)  I did find a summary on the WEG site.  Are we doing d6 classic or d6 legend?

[Spriggan]

umm....yes.  It's probaly D6 classic since it was about 6 years ago that the last version of the SWRPG game out.

[Lieutenant Kije]

From what I understand classic adds point totals on dice against a difficulty rating from 1 to 30+, and legend makes each die a "success" or "failure," and you have to have enough successes to meet or exceed the difficulty rating (1 to 7+) of the action.

[Spriggan]

yep its classic

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

the essentials on progression: it costs as many CP to get a "pip" (+1 to the die) as you have basic dice in that skill. After you have +2, the next pip gives you another die (and future progression becomes more costly)
This means if you're min/maxing, alter the template itself to give you the most dice in the attribute you want most, then add up 2d of the dice you get for a beginning character to the skills you want, because progression will get slow pretty fast.

(sorry, had to throw that out).

[Lieutenant Kije]

I'v eheard it mentioned before, but what exactly is min/maxing?  Is it spending the least amount of points to get the most benefit?  Or something like that?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

essentially yeah. The reason why it's disparaged is that it focuses on numerical superiority rather than character -- especially as regards to effectiveness in combat. however, if your character is based around being amazing in some area, then your numbers go there and that's normal. Rest assured I'll have a high gun skill.

[EUOL]

Min maxing is far more intricate than that.  It involves conscious spending of points in a clever way, of course, but the true art of Min/Maxing is that of opportunity cost.  You try and focus your character in such a way that you make his strengths very strong and his weaknesses very weak, then you put him in situations where his strengths come into play a lot, but his weaknesses are rarely an issue.

For instance, in D&D, a min-maxed wizard will have a very high intelligence, making is spells extremely powerful, but will have another stat that is very weak (say, charisma) that doesn't come into play very often.  He casts spells all the time, but he doesn't often have to try and persuade people to believe him.  It is more complex than this, of course, but that's a basic example.

Min/Maxing has a poor reputation in gaming, especially amongst those who try to pretend it isn't 'realistic.'  That, of course, is a foolish belief.   In real life, we min/max ourselves to the greatest of our abilities.  Don't let SE chastise you for it, however--he's the only guy I've ever met who's as good at Min/maxing as I am.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I didn't INTEND it to come out as a chastisement. After all, I DID give advice for starting to min/max.

However, I do think it's a problem if you don't make your character conform to your stats (or preferably, vice versa). Making a fighter with really high Strength and Constitution and an incredibly low intelligence is fine, but if you then play him so that he tries to outthink all the opponents .... well... now you're roll-playing...

[Lieutenant Kije]

One thing I like about role playing is working with weaknesses.  If min/max characters are built to succeed all the time by only relying on strengths and never letting weakness come into play I don't think I'm for that, but that's just me.  I think it's just as much fun to fail as it is to succeed, if you play it right.  

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

It definitely can be. Esp. if the gm makes sure he knows your character and plays to your characteristics. Usually I include some kind of weakness or flaw, and hope the gm will see that and play an adventure where it becomes an issue, so I have to do something about my weakness. Note, that this is different than having a lack of skill and then having that be important to the campaign. It takes some skill to negotiate that.