35 minutes ago, atama2 said:

Wait... Where in Seattle was this? Which store? (I live in Auburn and game in Kent.)

Mox Ballard. Pathfinder organized play is also centered around the various game stores in the area but have moved online, Mox Ballard, Mox Bellevue, the Dreaming, Phoenix games, Around the table games, Zulus (it was always semi-drop in for lodge members, thought its now organized on warhorn and discord for roll20 tables).

3 hours ago, False God said:

And it's worth noting, there isn't really a way to build or even optimize for role-play. Sure you can write backstories and use the stats as guidance, but there's really no "decision making" in the same sense of mechanical build choices. You're free to role-play your character as an amazing warrior, even if the stats don't have your RPs back. You're free to RP your character as not all that confident in their fighting skills, even if they're rocking max combat scores. And frankly, a warrior who is highly trained but doesn't act like their skills have much value could be great RP, and similarly a warrior who is not great learning to be humble could be great RP, provided that the player is interested and willing, and able to understand that their RP does not translate into mechanical roll-play. (unless you're in a system that does that)

Well, depending on how you understand "optimise" - as some in this thread operates, I'm sure there's a way to optimise roleplaying through opportunity and taking advantages somehow. The way you want to present your smuggler character, or Jedi, or soldier - on one level is as you say, but then there are other levels to the acting out of the character and the role. These decisions, either "hard" (system) or "soft" (type-role) are not made at one point, but continuously through playing, exploring, and developing the character along both dimensions. The RP or Type-role decisions are not "hard" choices no, but these are or can be "soft" choices, which are - I think - as important, and sometimes more important to the experience, including the table-dynamics. Sure, you are free to RP as you want, but I don't think we do (in a measured and consistent manner - which doesn't have to be a goal, no). We usually roleplay according to our "style" or call it indiosynracies if you will. This is also taught behaviour, based on experience and table-dynamics from early games, good game experiences, bad game experiences, choices of gaming group, and games to play (do we stick to one system, one genre, one type of game, or do we spread out?). So, while technically (or hypothetically), we may be free to RP as we want, I don't think we necessarily do or allow ourselves to (enough), or each other (as some of the discussions in this thread has given both brief and extended insight into). Because it is both the character, but also how we interact with and through our character - as the video in suggested: interview your character. It's an odd exercise, but it can elucidate new avenues of the character, and ourselves as roleplayers (not necessarily in a deep existential way, but perhaps - not that this is needed or anything).

So, I do think it is possible to "optimise" this part of it too, but it works quite differently, as it does not - necessarily - boil down to numbers (but surely it can, if we connect out type-role choice very closely to the system choice).

2 hours ago, Eoen said:

Mox Ballard. Pathfinder organized play is also centered around the various game stores in the area but have moved online, Mox Ballard, Mox Bellevue, the Dreaming, Phoenix games, Around the table games, Zulus (it was always semi-drop in for lodge members, thought its now organized on warhorn and discord for roll20 tables).

Ah, Mox, I didn’t know they were doing that there. I’ve been to the Ballard store multiple times (they have good supplies for minis there) and ate at the Bellevue location a couple of times. I don’t remember seeing that advertised there.

I will say though that Mox is definitely not a typical game store.

I’m not familiar with the other stores you mentioned. The one time that I was in a drop-in game (again it was a demo and I played a premade PC) was at Games Matrix in Tacoma. That’s the store I probably visit most often when I go to one.

On 12/9/2020 at 10:28 AM, Tramp Graphics said:

Three? There have only been two, and in both games, the trouble didn’t start until you joined in.

Secondly, I never used the term “Ginsu with a lightsaber” to describe him. Was he lightsaber focused? Yes, to a point. He was above average with a lightsaber, but not an “ubermensch” with one. For that he’d need over 15D+. He was the best in our D6 group with a lightsaber, but probably the weakest with the Force, even though he had a lot of powers, and that is because every time you added a pip to any Force skill, you also learned a new power. That adds up to a lot of Force powers over time, even with only a few dice each in your Force skills.

As for demanding respect? He’s the Captain of the ship . He was the person responsible for everyone’s safety and the running of the ship. That is what demanded respect. It had nothing to do with his “power level” or “Uber skill” with a lightsaber.

If you have a starting XP “nobody” with his own ship, guess what, he’s the captain , he deserves the respect due the captain of that ship. That means he makes the rules on that ship for that ship because he is 100% responsible for everyone and everything on that ship .

Third, it was you who insisted on “my way or the highway” even after the GM at the time had said to take the discussion out of the thread, and you were reminded repeatedly to do so, but you still pushed the issue in the thread. You broke the table rules by initially bringing in two related characters even though you knew that wasn’t allowed for that campaign. You knew going in that a player’s two characters could have no relationship whatsoever with each other. You knew that my ship could not accommodate another ship docking with it, but you pushed for another player to have a ship because you didn’t want Korath to have any “authority”, and you weren’t even in the campaign yet. And you insisted on dragging another player’s character with you in your huff when Rei called your character out for her inaction, never even giving that player any agency in that decision. Lastly, You insisted I scrap my starting character entirely. That is what I refused to do. You killed that game. You were the one metagaming .

You did the same thing in the first game. You came in decided you were going to take over as GM against my wishes, and tried to push me into a no win situation against a Star Destroyer. No thank you. You don’t like how I built Korath, you don’t like how I play him. You never even really got to know how I was going to play my starting character because you quit in a huff all because my character got angry with your character (and everyone else in the bar) over your character’s (and their) lack of action in the situation with the bullies .

Whether or not you remember saying "Korath is a real ginsu with a lightsaber" you're the only person I've ever heard say "ginsu with a lightsaber" with the exception of me quoting you so yeah you said it.

There were 3 batches of players you drove away, whether you want to call it 2 or 3 campaigns

I only offered to GM a solo campaign for you to finish of Korath's story after you drove every other player out of that game that I wasn't part of and it was just you and the GM and you were on the third GM who you were arguing with because you were insisting against RAW that a chase scene with ties ended when you got to short range because the ties had close range sensors and that GM said he was going to quit if you didn't stop arguing, I offered to GM and that GM handed the reigns over to me because he didn't want to deal with you anymore. I never tried to force you into a no win confrontation with a star destroyer and flat out told you that you could jump to the safety of hyperspace after you cleared the atmosphere, but you refused to do so until you were on the other side of the planet from all imperials so they couldn't see you jump to hyperspace and calculate your likely destination. But seriously, you can't expect to outrun multiple groups of ties which have speed 5 and 2 pilot only maneuvers per round in a speed 3 ship with one pilot only maneuver per round especially on Kamino which is a featureless ball of water with nothing for you to hide behind. So to accommodate you I said you could fly into a hurricane to escape the ties but if you rolled a despair on your pilot check you would crash the ship and drown because those are realistic consequences.

Now tying this back to the topic of this thread... i.e. the merits of optimized vs optimized characters, you turned the hurricane escape plan down and insisted that you could use the full throttle chain of talents to boost your ship's speed to 5 and thereby escape them despite having only 2 cunning so it would only last 2 rounds and you'd have spend at least one of those rounds accelerating because sil 5 ships can't punch it and only get 1 pilot only maneuver per round. You insisted (against RAW) that full throttle didn't just boost your top speed but also boosted your speed because if it didn't the talents were worthless so they couldn't work that way, I told you that you should not infer RAI from whether talents make sense for a character not optimized to take advantage of them. When I refused to let you break the RAW chase rules and the RAW full throttle talents rules, you refused to play with me as the GM, that was an, i think, 2 days span of time, and you used that as an excuse to blame me for that particular death of the campaign.

I didn't get involved in round 3 until you insisted KathyKitten change her character concept and lose her ship which the GM had already approved of and said could dock with your ship and be pulled through hyperspace without a problem, becausethe GM said there was no problem. You insisted there was a problem, where there was none, so that you would have a "logical reason" for you to insist for Korath to be the only one with a ship, which by your logic means everyone has to defer to your character or be forced out of the game. Which I corrected called because you are eminently predictable, and you proved me right when you threatened to boot KathyKitten's master character out of the game for not showing Korath the proper respect IC, that IC conflict ended with her OPTIMIZED character one shotting the UNOPTIMIZED Korath dead, which the GM retconned to Korath being stunned unconscious in response to which KathyKitten quit the game.

Regarding the Rei v Aris Wren fiasco

1) turnabout is fair play (you forfeited your right to complain about one of your characters being booted from the campaign IC when you did that to another player's character).

2) if you're going to claim that good roleplaying justifies d!ckish IC behavior, you've got nothing to complain about when I roleplayed how my character would respond to unprovoked verbal assault IC, because after all that was just good roleplaying.

3) I gave you the courtesy of telling you that Aris' IC response to being immediately berated by a stranger upon entering a cantina would be to leave, resulting with Rei having no connection to the party, and you still insisted that I respond in character, so I IC did exactly what you told me you wanted me to do OOC and then you got upset OOC after Rei ended up with no connection to the party when you had already been told what Aris' in character/roleplay response would be.

4) I only refused to play/round Robin GM in a game with Rei, after out of character you announced your intent to roleplay an antagonistic rivalry between Rei and Aris. That's what I refused to be a part of. You refused to give up the rivalry and I quit the game, THEN and only then did you go back and edit the, out of the blue, berating post to something that was only mildly offensive IC, in an attempt to get me to rejoin the campaign, while still insisting on being able to roleplay an antagonistic rivalry between Rei and Aris. But for me no gaming is better than bad gaming and I wasn't about to sign on for perpetual in character arguments involving a character I was emotionally invested in. And you blamed my refusal to roleplay an antagonistic rivalry between Aris and Rei for killing the campaign, without accepting responsibility for you insisting on roleplaying an antagonistic rivalry between Aris and Rei.

5) I only created Chemdat as a starting character in order for him to be Korath's padawan, and to so bear the brunt of the in character verbal abuse being dispensed by Korath, to shield the other players and extend the life of the campaign, which I could only do because I had no emotional investment in the character. But you OOC refused to have Chemdat as Korath's apprentice because violated some arbitrary campaign guideline (namely he knew/was the problem child younger brother of my master character Elias) you made up and insisted on even though you weren't the GM and despite the GM having approved Chemdat. So at your insistence (you made a big stink about it, and keep bringing up how Chemdat violated campaign guidelines as if it were a huge offense instead of being intended to help you get the rp experience you desired) I dropped Chemdat from the campaign and created Aris, a starting character I was invested in playing. So you are directly responsible for Aris being there to be a recipient of Rei's unprovoked verbal assault, which for some "unknown reason" (your later announced intent to instigate an antagonistic rivalry between Rei and Aris) you directed at Aris who had walked in the door only moments before Rei (close enough that Rei could have reasonably seen her walk in, as REI was walking down the street, and a blue skinned pantoran would have been hard to miss) instead of any other character in the cantina.

17 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

You are not wrong but I simply went with shooting instead of social-fu or crafting or whatever because Eoen had already strongly implied he was talking about combat ("when the drenn hits the fan, all his prctical examples were combat-related...)

I really love playing jack-of-all-trades characters and most of my characters are, but they are by definition not optimised. To be optimised, you need to be optimised at something.

Jack of all trades aren't min maxed but they can be optimized... min maxed and optimized are not synonymous, min maxing is a very narrow subset of optimization.

As the number of ranks increase, the per rank cost increases. Also 4 green is statistically indistinguishable from 3 yellow in terms of scoring success. And increasing an attribute affects multiple skills. So if you want to to be good at a lot of things you want to boost attributes and not spend much xp on skills. There are force powers (e.g. enhance,influence, farsight) that allow you add force dice to skills or commit force dice to boost an attribute, since there are a lot of agility stuff you can add force dice to and commit force die to boost

A human could start with 3's in brawn, intellect, cunning, and willpower, with the jedi career:padawan/knight/niman-disciple (sentry master and padawan survivor works in place of niman) could have a 3 in brawn, 4's in intellect, cunning, and willpower with 4 force dice using the enhance power to compensate for low agility and a lesser extent low brawn, and influence to compensate for low presence and be able to succeed at most skill checks without having spent a lot of xp on skills, and the combo would give you a good number of ranks in parry, reflect, improved reflect, improved parry making you a decent lightsaber duelist as well. That's not the only well rounded combo but it's an easy one. And you don't have to buy much of the padawan tree to get to the force rating and dedication.

So you can design a character to be good at a lot of things, a specialist will be better than you in their are of focus, but you'll actually be pretty good at a lot of things.

3 hours ago, Jegergryte said:

Well, depending on how you understand "optimise" - as some in this thread operates, I'm sure there's a way to optimise roleplaying through opportunity and taking advantages somehow. The way you want to present your smuggler character, or Jedi, or soldier - on one level is as you say, but then there are other levels to the acting out of the character and the role. These decisions, either "hard" (system) or "soft" (type-role) are not made at one point, but continuously through playing, exploring, and developing the character along both dimensions. The RP or Type-role decisions are not "hard" choices no, but these are or can be "soft" choices, which are - I think - as important, and sometimes more important to the experience, including the table-dynamics. Sure, you are free to RP as you want, but I don't think we do (in a measured and consistent manner - which doesn't have to be a goal, no). We usually roleplay according to our "style" or call it indiosynracies if you will. This is also taught behaviour, based on experience and table-dynamics from early games, good game experiences, bad game experiences, choices of gaming group, and games to play (do we stick to one system, one genre, one type of game, or do we spread out?). So, while technically (or hypothetically), we may be free to RP as we want, I don't think we necessarily do or allow ourselves to (enough), or each other (as some of the discussions in this thread has given both brief and extended insight into). Because it is both the character, but also how we interact with and through our character - as the video in suggested: interview your character. It's an odd exercise, but it can elucidate new avenues of the character, and ourselves as roleplayers (not necessarily in a deep existential way, but perhaps - not that this is needed or anything).

So, I do think it is possible to "optimise" this part of it too, but it works quite differently, as it does not - necessarily - boil down to numbers (but surely it can, if we connect out type-role choice very closely to the system choice).

I think that's a fair analysis. It's sometimes unfortunate that we can see what lies ahead for us in trees and classes and mechanics. It can limit our vision.

7 hours ago, False God said:

And it's worth noting, there isn't really a way to build or even optimize for role-play. Sure you can write backstories and use the stats as guidance, but there's really no "decision making" in the same sense of mechanical build choices. You're free to role-play your character as an amazing warrior, even if the stats don't have your RPs back. You're free to RP your character as not all that confident in their fighting skills, even if they're rocking max combat scores. And frankly, a warrior who is highly trained but doesn't act like their skills have much value could be great RP, and similarly a warrior who is not great learning to be humble could be great RP, provided that the player is interested and willing, and able to understand that their RP does not translate into mechanical roll-play. (unless you're in a system that does that)

If you "roleplay" as being an awesome warrior and have trouble fighting mooks.... the narrative coming out of the roles is you have trouble fighting mooks (i.e. the resulting narrative won't be that you're an awesome warrior). To get the roleplay/narrative experience of being good at something you have to stats to give you opportunity to being successful.

1 minute ago, EliasWindrider said:

If you "roleplay" as being an awesome warrior and have trouble fighting mooks.... the narrative coming out of the roles is you have trouble fighting mooks (i.e. the resulting narrative won't be that you're an awesome warrior). To get the roleplay/narrative experience of being good at something you have to stats to give you opportunity to being successful.

Again, that's why the second part of my post was included, about the character coming to terms with the fact that they're not actually good at what they are acting like they are. If there are creative and engaging backstory reasons for this (perhaps the wookiee was raised by ugnaughts or something and so comparativly, even a weak and unskilled wookiee appears to be an impressive warrior) and the player is interested in playing through this coming to terms with their lack of power and skill, it can be enjoyable roleplay.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just trying to clarify that this isn't about a player/character being 1 or 2 dimension and unchanging. This about coming to the realization that what you thought isn't true.

Remember, it's always true... from a certain point of view.

31 minutes ago, False God said:

Again, that's why the second part of my post was included, about the character coming to terms with the fact that they're not actually good at what they are acting like they are. If there are creative and engaging backstory reasons for this (perhaps the wookiee was raised by ugnaughts or something and so comparativly, even a weak and unskilled wookiee appears to be an impressive warrior) and the player is interested in playing through this coming to terms with their lack of power and skill, it can be enjoyable roleplay.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just trying to clarify that this isn't about a player/character being 1 or 2 dimension and unchanging. This about coming to the realization that what you thought isn't true.

Remember, it's always true... from a certain point of view.

An unoptimized character isn't good at anything... an optimized character is good at something but not usually everything, you can still choose to be bad at something have the roleplaying experience you just described, but then have a self discovery arc and find/realize what you're actually good at and pivot to it.

Not being good at anything leaves roleplaying a farce as the only entertaining option... Korath Lorren is the only character I've seen who wasn't really good at anything (which is kind of impressive in a bass ackward way considering he had about 1800 xp).

15 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

An unoptimized character isn't good at anything... an optimized character is good at something but not usually everything, you can still choose to be bad at something have the roleplaying experience you just described, but then have a self discovery arc and find/realize what you're actually good at and pivot to it.

Not being good at anything leaves roleplaying a farce as the only entertaining option... Korath Lorren is the only character I've seen who wasn't really good at anything (which is kind of impressive in a bass ackward way considering he had about 1800 xp).

Gonna have to disagree with that first line right there. May be hair splitting, but there's more room to RPGs than being "good" and "bad". You don't need to be optimized to be good at something. To be a 7/10 is still being good at it, and within the realms of happening naturally through building a character, without any particular optimization. "Oh he's a brawler, he needs to be strong." isn't really optimization. "Oh, he's a brawler, so he has to have at least a +5 strength and 5 ranks in brawling." is optimization. You can brawl just fine with 3 strength and 2 ranks in brawling. You might not be the best, but you're far from the worst, and you're certainly not optimized either.

11 hours ago, False God said:

Gonna have to disagree with that first line right there. May be hair splitting, but there's more room to RPGs than being "good" and "bad". You don't need to be optimized to be good at something. To be a 7/10 is still being good at it, and within the realms of happening naturally through building a character, without any particular optimization. "Oh he's a brawler, he needs to be strong." isn't really optimization. "Oh, he's a brawler, so he has to have at least a +5 strength and 5 ranks in brawling." is optimization. You can brawl just fine with 3 strength and 2 ranks in brawling. You might not be the best, but you're far from the worst, and you're certainly not optimized either.

A generalist starting character can have four 3's and two 2's for attributes and 2 ranks in brawl, if a character never advances significantly beyond starting character capabilities in any area they're going to be overshadowed in every area by someone else in the party and it won't even be close. And someone who efficiently built a jack of all trades character can overshadow them in everything.

This is essentially what happened with Tramp's 1800 xp signature character Korath Lorren, 4 attributes at 3, two at 2, no more than 3 ranks in any skill (and the there's were rarer), at least 1 rank in most skills, many had two, few had 3, had a wide variety of talents and force powers but didn't have the attributes or skills to make good use of almost any of them. E.g. The full throttle chain of talents was useless for him because he only had 2 cunning and he flew a sil 5 ship that couldn't punch it and only got 1 pilot only maneuver per round. He drained the destiny pool fighting what for any other master character in the game was a mook. About the only thing he had going for him was 4 force dice but he didn't have the depth in any force power tree to take advantage of it... that and he had super tricked out gear that he added to his sheet for free when converting to the system.

Edit: how such a character came to be was he wasn't built/designed to fulfill the espoused character concept, he didn't even grow adaptively in response to feedback from the campaign (which by nature of being adaptive design can be considered optimization under an evolutionary algorithm), Tramp devised a formula which he used to convert the character from another system without respect to or consideration of the mechanics of this system, Korath is the only non starting character I've ever seen that couldn't be considered optimized under any definition. New players to the system might not know the developers expected players to put most of their starting xp into raising attribute (which I think is plainly stated in at least core book), tramp made that "mistake"/violation of conventions with Korath.

Circling around to the point... a character who doesn't shine at anything mechanically, not even at being a jack of all trades, relative to other players does NOT mechanically generate spotlight/center stage opportunities .

Maybe he did it in response, maybe he would have done it anyway, but he metagamed the narrative/story to place his character at the center of the story/spotlight virtually all of the time, which created enough friction with 3 batches of other players to kill the campaign 3 times. Twice (the second and third times) when the campaign was just about dead, I tried to step in either as GM or joining as a player to prolong the life of the campaign, both times he rebuffed my efforts to extend the life of the campaign and blamed me for the campaign dying. This is the explanation behind his grievances with me regarding the character. Maybe if he had the stats to mechanically generate the center stage opportunities (and he apparently holds a grudge against me for recommending a character build that would have generated center stage opportunities consistent with his espoused character concept), he wouldn't have killed the game by causing interplayer conflict by meta gaming the narrative.

Generating center stage/spot light opportunities of the type you desire to roleplay is how optimizing stats can enhance roleplaying .

Those bolded few sentences was the point I was trying to get at since the beginning of the thread.

13 hours ago, False God said:

I think that's a fair analysis. It's sometimes unfortunate that we can see what lies ahead for us in trees and classes and mechanics. It can limit our vision.

It is a very basic and rudimentary (i.e. really bad) Habermasian model (with input from Freud and others) I'm basically foreshadowing the colonisation of the type-role by the system dimension ... reminiscient to Max Weber's "Iron Cage of Rationality," or Habermas' "Colonisation of the Life-world"... except in a gaming context, where numeric/mechnical logics replace type-role logic ... I should be grading method exams ...

I think that this limitation of our vision is interesting, both on the individual level, but also in relation to group dynamics and even the specific campaign. It is clear to me that potential system-optimisation can overrule and limit the options and optimisation opportunities as they relate to the type-role.

The increasingly annoying discussion between two of the forum's members in this thread potentially stands out as a good case - perhaps an extreme case, I don't know, because frankly I haven't been bothered to read the regurgitated faecal flotsam they throw at each other. But it shows, perhaps, the potential conflict between players that have different premises and ideas about "how to play" a game, a character, whatever, "correctly" or "optimised" or whatever else buzz-words and empasising-technique they choose in "support" of their muddled stances. The blindspots we all have, to some degree or another, is ballooned for all of us to see in these instances (regardless of who we may or may not agree with - that part is largely irrelevant to me). This limits our vision where it concers both specific character realisation potentials, but also how this is contingent upon group dynamics, pride, and blinder or blinkers (the horse thing that limits their peripheral vision - perhaps a Stormtrooper helmet or TIE fighter cockpit is as good an analogy).

This isn't always a problem, at least not to the degree our two turtle doves portray it. In my experience it usually works well and is generative of an improve experience for everyone around the table.

On 12/9/2020 at 4:34 PM, atama2 said:

That’s unusual, have you seen this done elsewhere? Again, I’ve never seen this before or heard of it. You might have a unique concept there. How many people participate? (A lot of people struggle to find enough players for even a scheduled game among regulars.)

Most of the gaming stores in Buffalo, also have walk-in games. In fact, I’d say that’s the norm here.

On 12/9/2020 at 11:56 PM, EliasWindrider said:

An unoptimized character isn't good at anything... an optimized character is good at something but not usually everything, you can still choose to be bad at something have the roleplaying experience you just described, but then have a self discovery arc and find/realize what you're actually good at and pivot to it.

Not being good at anything leaves roleplaying a farce as the only entertaining option... Korath Lorren is the only character I've seen who wasn't really good at anything (which is kind of impressive in a bass ackward way considering he had about 1800 xp).

Wrong. As per Ginny Di’s video, an “unoptimized” character is one that doesn’t take the “best”, most powerful spells, talents, or maxed out skills, to always win, or absolutely destroy every adversary, her example being a D&D Warlock without the typical Warlock destructive spells such as Eldridge Blast.

On 12/10/2020 at 1:13 AM, EliasWindrider said:

A generalist starting character can have four 3's and two 2's for attributes and 2 ranks in brawl, if a character never advances significantly beyond starting character capabilities in any area they're going to be overshadowed in every area by someone else in the party and it won't even be close. And someone who efficiently built a jack of all trades character can overshadow them in everything.

This is essentially what happened with Tramp's 1800 xp signature character Korath Lorren, 4 attributes at 3, two at 2, no more than 3 ranks in any skill (and the there's were rarer), at least 1 rank in most skills, many had two, few had 3, had a wide variety of talents and force powers but didn't have the attributes or skills to make good use of almost any of them. E.g. The full throttle chain of talents was useless for him because he only had 2 cunning and he flew a sil 5 ship that couldn't punch it and only got 1 pilot only maneuver per round. He drained the destiny pool fighting what for any other master character in the game was a mook. About the only thing he had going for him was 4 force dice but he didn't have the depth in any force power tree to take advantage of it... that and he had super tricked out gear that he added to his sheet for free when converting to the system.

Edit: how such a character came to be was he wasn't built/designed to fulfill the espoused character concept, he didn't even grow adaptively in response to feedback from the campaign (which by nature of being adaptive design can be considered optimization under an evolutionary algorithm), Tramp devised a formula which he used to convert the character from another system without respect to or consideration of the mechanics of this system, Korath is the only non starting character I've ever seen that couldn't be considered optimized under any definition. New players to the system might not know the developers expected players to put most of their starting xp into raising attribute (which I think is plainly stated in at least core book), tramp made that "mistake"/violation of conventions with Korath.

Circling around to the point... a character who doesn't shine at anything mechanically, not even at being a jack of all trades, relative to other players does NOT mechanically generate spotlight/center stage opportunities .

Maybe he did it in response, maybe he would have done it anyway, but he metagamed the narrative/story to place his character at the center of the story/spotlight virtually all of the time, which created enough friction with 3 batches of other players to kill the campaign 3 times. Twice (the second and third times) when the campaign was just about dead, I tried to step in either as GM or joining as a player to prolong the life of the campaign, both times he rebuffed my efforts to extend the life of the campaign and blamed me for the campaign dying. This is the explanation behind his grievances with me regarding the character. Maybe if he had the stats to mechanically generate the center stage opportunities (and he apparently holds a grudge against me for recommending a character build that would have generated center stage opportunities consistent with his espoused character concept), he wouldn't have killed the game by causing interplayer conflict by meta gaming the narrative.

Generating center stage/spot light opportunities of the type you desire to roleplay is how optimizing stats can enhance roleplaying .

Those bolded few sentences was the point I was trying to get at since the beginning of the thread.

Three ranks in a skill or ability is above average , according to the rules themselves. In D6, an attribute of 3D-4D was “above average”, and a skill of 5D-7D above the attribute was above average. Korath only had one skill that fit within that range: Lightsaber . At 9D+1, it was 5D+2 over his Dexterity of 3D+2 (his highest attribute). The only other skill that came close to that was Hide/Sneak at 7D ( which was 3D+2 over his base attribute of 3D+1 in Perception ), with basic proficiency in a lot of other skills he picked up as needed over time. This means his proficiency in most skills was average at best .

So, yes, his skill set did grow adaptively over time, just not in this system. He did so in WEG D6 . And no, he’s not optimized, nor was he ever intended to be, nor has he ever been “optimized”. Even in D6, his XP was never pumped only into a handful of skills. It was spread around into whatever skills were actually used in any given adventure. This is because, in D6, XP was often specifically earned for a specific skill that you used, and had to be applied accordingly to that skill . If you used a skill, you earned XP for that skill specifically.

The “formula” I used to convert him compared the dice values from WEG D6 with the ranks in F&D and how they correlated. Abilities pretty much worked out to be one-to-one. One full die in D6 (rounded down) equals one rank in F&D. For skills, it was three-to-one. Every three dice in a skill (rounded up) in D6 equals one rank in a skill in F&D. This is because ranks in skills FFG top out at five, while they top out at fifteen in D6 after subtracting the attributes. This is particularly evident in Force skills, which top out at fifteen dice.

If you round up Lightsaber from 9D+1 to 10D, and round down Dexterity from 3D+2 to 3D (which converts to 3 ranks in Agility ) then subtract the latter from the former, then divide by three (rounding up) that’s three ranks in Lightsaber . If you apply that same formula to his other skills they all top out at 1-2 ranks each. That’s basic to average proficiency in most of his skills. Is that “optimized”? No, it’s not. But he never was “optimized” not even in WEG . This is because that system did not favor “optimization”. It favored putting XP where you used a skill. So, in order to “optimize” a character, you’d need to use a specific handful of skills a lot, and not use other skills to any significant degree.

The hardest part of converting WEG to F&D was talents and Force powers, and figuring out how to determine how much XP every pip in each of the three Force skills was worth. WEG didn’t use talents, but D20 RCRB did, and several WEG Force powers become talents in both D20 and in F&D. The problem with talents, and the only reason why Korath ended up with a huge XP count was a consequence of how talent trees are laid out . In order to reach many talents the character should have, you have to go through several other talents within a given specialization to get to it. This means you can end up with a lot of “extra” talents you wouldn’t have otherwise had. That’s what happened with Korath. If he were built in Genesis , or if you could just buy whatever talents you wished, his XP value would probably be significantly lower, probably less than 1,000 XP, or even 700.

My latest reworking of him cuts over 100XP from him, bringing his XP down to 1760 XP, of which 1650 is “Earned” XP. That’s 150 XP for Knight (or Heroic) level, and an additional 1500 XP for “Master” (or “Epic”) level. It also replaces Sentry with Knight, which is more in line with his original character sheet in D6. This is also what will be the standard for any other “Epic” level characters in the future, if (and when) I ever decide to try a game at that level again.

Secondly, starting a human character with four threes in attributes would have required I take the +10 XP at character creation option. This is contrary to his concept, as a character strongly adherent to the Light Side of the Force . This was a character who in WEG, never got even a single Dark Side Point. He was the epitome of a Light Side Paragon . So that is the option I chose for his rebuild. That means that there was no way to put all of his beginning XP into attributes, even if I wanted to. It should also be noted that even in D6, none of his Attributes hit the 4D mark, and only three of his attributes were in the 3D range, and two of the six D6 attributes ( Mechanical and Technical ) have no F&D equivalent, and one F&D attribute (Willpower) being an average of two WEG attributes (Intelligence and Perception, as was the case with the D20 Wisdom attribute). His highest attribute in WEG was 3D+2 in Dexterity .

Every choice I made in converting him was to recreate this character as faithfully as possible with as few XP as possible, it was not to “optimize” him by this system’s standards, nor by any system’s standards, because he was never optimized to begin with .

On 12/9/2020 at 9:25 AM, atama2 said:

So I'm not the only one completely uninterested in two people bickering about a personal dispute? That's good to hear. Half the thread is taken up by a petty squabble.

And it’s a petty squabble that has been seen on many many different pages repeated ad nauseum.

@Tramp Graphics

2 is average for who?

a typical human noncombatant minion npc has 2 for an attribute if you're trying to use that as a baseline....well you're not going to shine quite as brightly when compared to generalist starting character PCs, or when your tango with a nemesis pirate chief who is in the story as filler/a bridge to the important stuff.

3 yellow or 4 green, is the jack of all trades in an area they mostly ignore level of proficiency for experienced PCs... or a slightly specialized starting character.

You're welcome for this years December birthday and Christmas gifts (rise of the separatists and collapse of the republic), not sure if your latest reworking was before our after you got them on Oct 29 this year. So to everyone out there.... we're good friends In real life and arguing like an old married couple is just our thing... don't mistake it for a flame war or ill intent towards each other.

But "converting' characters between dissimilar systems is an oxymoron, if you don't rebuild with respect to the new system, then whatever adaptive design optimization achieved through organic growth in the source system is lost before you get to the new system.

You're good at seeing minute difference but have trouble seeing large scale similarities. The "best" you can hope for when transitioning between dissimilar systems is to keep the major theme of the character.

I agree that you could convert from d6 to genesys, you can't convert between d6 and ffg star wars. D6 is a la carte, genesys is a la carte, ffg star wars is not a la carte. That's the fundamental reason why if you try to covert from d6 into ffg star wars, the resulting ffg character won't be comparable to characters homegrown in the ffg star wars system.

Your dice conversion formula don't work either... expecting there to to be a clean linear conversion formula is a fool's errand.

2 hours ago, EliasWindrider said:

@Tramp Graphics

2 is average for who?

a typical human noncombatant minion npc has 2 for an attribute if you're trying to use that as a baseline....well you're not going to shine quite as brightly when compared to generalist starting character PCs, or when your tango with a nemesis pirate chief who is in the story as filler/a bridge to the important stuff.

3 yellow or 4 green, is the jack of all trades in an area they mostly ignore level of proficiency for experienced PCs... or a slightly specialized starting character.

You're welcome for this years December birthday and Christmas gifts (rise of the separatists and collapse of the republic), not sure if your latest reworking was before our after you got them on Oct 29 this year. So to everyone out there.... we're good friends In real life and arguing like an old married couple is just our thing... don't mistake it for a flame war or ill intent towards each other.

But "converting' characters between dissimilar systems is an oxymoron, if you don't rebuild with respect to the new system, then whatever adaptive design optimization achieved through organic growth in the source system is lost before you get to the new system.

You're good at seeing minute difference but have trouble seeing large scale similarities. The "best" you can hope for when transitioning between dissimilar systems is to keep the major theme of the character.

I agree that you could convert from d6 to genesys, you can't convert between d6 and ffg star wars. D6 is a la carte, genesys is a la carte, ffg star wars is not a la carte. That's the fundamental reason why if you try to covert from d6 into ffg star wars, the resulting ffg character won't be comparable to characters homegrown in the ffg star wars system.

Your dice conversion formula don't work either... expecting there to to be a clean linear conversion formula is a fool's errand.

No, it isn’t. The highest number of dice seen in any skill, without any Attributes added is fifteen dice. That’s Emperor Palpatine’s most powerful Force skill in the Movie Trilogy Sourcebook, which was Sense at 15D. The only time I’ve seen it higher was in the Dark Empire SB , which put that skill at 17D, which is beyond the normal scope of F&D. However, that technically does work since dice pools can go up to 6 ranks of at least Green dice. Either way, one rank in F&D equals three dice in D6 for skills, and one F&D rank equals one die in D6 for attributes. It is a direct linear conversion. It’s far more linear than going from D6 to D20 RCRB, and much easier to do. D6 has more in common with the FFG narrative dice system than it ever did with D20. The only real difference is that F&D is not “a laCarte when it comes to talents, which didn’t exist in D6, but were introduced in D20.

So all of the actual skill dice do convert and are comparable to F&D skill ranks. Attribute dice also convert linearly as well, and are comparable, with only two attributes in each system which have no counterpart in the other. It’s only the talents which are problematic, and that only results in excess XP to fill in the gaps to get to the necessary talents.

So, yes, it is possible to do, it’s just not easy to do, and does require some trial and error . As seen here:

As for when I did the update, it was before I got the books. I did it using the talent trees posted on these forums. I just need to update his SWSheets page.

As for only keeping the “major theme” of the character, if the skills and abilities don’t line up it’s not the same character. For that, you need to match the details as closely as possible within the limits of the system. The details matter just as much as the “major theme”. Details matter. They cannot be overlooked. Otherwise it’s not the same character. It’s name-slapping and window dressing.
Regardless, how he was converted is irrelevant. The point is that not even his original D6 version was “optimized” by your standards, nor by what Ginny Di called “optimized”, as seen below:

Korath Lorren D6 Stats:

Type: Jedi Knight

DEXTERITY 3D+2

Blaster 8D, Brawling Parry 3D+2, Dodge 6D+1, Grenade 5D, Heavy Weapons 3D+2, Melee Parry 6D+2, Melee 6D+2, Lightsaber 9D+1,

KNOWLEDGE 3D+1

Alien Species 5D, Bureaucracy 6D, Cultures 5D, Languages 3D+2, Planetary Systems 4D+2, Streetwise 4D+2, Technology 3D+1, Value 5D, Scholar: Jedi Lore 4D

MECHANICAL 2D

Astrogation 4D+2, Beast Riding 4D, Repulsor Operation 6D+1, Starship Gunnery 2D, Space Transports 2D+1, Starship Shields 2D+1

PERCEPTION 3D+1

Bargain 5D, Command 6D, Con 5D+1, Gambling 5D+2, Hide/Sneak 7D, Search 5D+1

STRENGTH 2D+2

Brawling 4D, Climbing/Jumping 5D, Lifting 3D+1, Stamina 6D+2, Swimming 2D+2

TECHNICAL 2D

Computer Program/Repair 5D+2, Demolition 5D, Droid Program/Repair 5D+1, First Aid 2D, Repulsor Repair 4D+2, Security 4D+1, Starship repair 2D, Lightsaber Repair 6D+1

Special Abilities:

Force Skills: Control 6D+1, Sense 6D+2, Alter 5D

Control: Absorb Dissipate Energy, Accelerate Healing, Concentration, Contort/Escape, Control Pain, Detoxify Poison, Enhance Attribute, Emptiness, Force Of Will, Reduce Injury, Remain Conscious

Sense: Danger Sense, Instinctive Astrogation, Life Detection, Life Sense, Magnify Senses, Receptive Telepathy, Sense Force, Sense Path, Shift Senses

Alter: Telekinesis

Control & Sense: Lightsaber Combat, Projective Telepathy, Farseeing

Control & Alter: Control Another’s Pain, Accelerate Another’s Healing, Transfer Force,

Control, Sense, & Alter: Affect Mind, Battle Meditation, Enhance Coordination, Force Harmony, Projective Fighting

Sense & Alter: Dim Another’s Senses

Look, can't the two of you just take the whole Korath discussion to PMs where it belongs? Or create your own thread for it in the Star Wars D6 board that this site actually has?

5 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

Look, can't the two of you just take the whole Korath discussion to PMs where it belongs? Or create your own thread for it in the Star Wars D6 board that this site actually has?

Ignore, Ignore...you must learn Ignore!

6 hours ago, micheldebruyn said:

Look, can't the two of you just take the whole Korath discussion to PMs where it belongs? Or create your own thread for it in the Star Wars D6 board that this site actually has?

Hey now we're talking about optimization as it pertain to Korath.

@Tramp Graphics . In ffg npcs are built with high attributes and low skill ranks.... look at obiwan's stat block on page 93 of rise of the separatists and tell me if your "system" even comes close to converting him (granted he's built as an npc... but I'm talking skill ranks and attributes). The problem with designing a system to linear interpolate from extreme edge cases is it doesn't capture the stuff in the middle. How does it do with Lando? He has stats in the jewel of yavin. If you're going to try to reverse engineer a linear fit... you should be doing a least squares fit to a whole lot off data in the middle and drawing the best line through the center of the cloud. However what you should really be doing is looking for the official d6 stat block, which also has an ffg stat block, which is closest to Korath's d6 stat block and deltaing away from that in ffg... because that potentially accounts for non linear effects in the "conversion" (and you don't have use just 1 character, you can find individual stats that match and just convert them)

But as we've discussed in our other hotly debated topic, the "conversion" of star ships, for the most part (paraphrasing you) ffg made up stats out of "whole cloth", because ffg didn't get their stats by converting from another system... why would you expect that you could generate consistent ffg stats by converting stats? It's a fundamentally I'll posed problem.

D6 obiwan in movie trilogy sourcebook (stat block pages 29-30) had

Dexterity 3D

Knowledge 3D+2

Mechanical 2D

Perception 3D+1

Strength 3D

Technical 3D

Rise of separatists (page 93) obiwan has

Brawn 3

Agility 3

Intellect 5

Cunning 5

Willpower 4

Presence 4

I don't know how you're getting from 3D+2 knowledge and 3D technical round down to 5 intellect, or from 3D+1 perception to 5 cunning and 4 presence using a 1 Die to 1Die conversion.

@Tramp Graphics , @EliasWindrider , please kindly redirect all further replies here:

Lest you exhibit concern that no one will see your magnificent rebuttals of your mortal foe's terrible arguments, believe me, we would all like that. Any who are so inclined as to seek it out will certainly find what they are looking for, whether they find they want it or not. Meanwhile, the rest of us can make use of this thread for its intended purpose.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

@Tramp Graphics , @EliasWindrider , please kindly redirect all further replies here:

Lest you exhibit concern that no one will see your magnificent rebuttals of your mortal foe's terrible arguments, believe me, we would all like that. Any who are so inclined as to seek it out will certainly find what they are looking for, whether they find they want it or not. Meanwhile, the rest of us can make use of this thread for its intended purpose.

Either these guys are best friends or they hate each other so much , if given the opportunity, they'd poop in each other's pillows.

25 minutes ago, FuriousGreg said:

Either these guys are best friends or they hate each other so much , if given the opportunity, they'd poop in each other's pillows.

I think it's both.

3 hours ago, FuriousGreg said:

Either these guys are best friends or they hate each other so much , if given the opportunity, they'd poop in each other's pillows.

2 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I think it's both.

As a 40 thousand foot view @P-47 Thunderbolt summaries it adequately (minus the poop in the pillows)... we're good friends who disagree on almost everything except star wars is cool, and arguing like an old married couple is just our thing.

45 minutes ago, EliasWindrider said:

As a 40 thousand foot view @P-47 Thunderbolt summaries it adequately (minus the poop in the pillows)... we're good friends who disagree on basically everything except star wars is cool, and arguing like an old married couple is just our thing.

No wonder this felt so awkward to witness.