No Such Thing As Toxic Evil D&D Players? Hot Takes & More | I'd Crit That: A Couples D&D Podcast

[@Hynesight2020]

My first character ever was a LE duergar Oath of Conquest paladin in an Out of the Abyss campaign. Still my favorite character to this day. My DM was skeptical at first and laid out some stipulations (if it doesn't work out I'm going to ask you to change your character type thing, which I agreed to/with) as we'd just met for the game. It ended up creating a great dynamic friction in the group as he saw himself as the leader and his (yes, I use *his* and not *the* intentionally) party were simply useful tools, to be disposed of or cast away when they stopped being useful. He ended up being the group's favorite character too until he met an unfortunately abrupt end. Ah Thorgal, RIP lil buddy...

[@IdCritThat]

that's great that you and the DM really talked about it though!!! that's how to do it

[@roccoruscitti910]

I feel like there needs to be a mechanic for spellcasters that incentivises balancing CC and other utility spells with blasty spells. Like, for instance, maybe for every utility spell cast adds 1 spell level to a metamagic-point pool that can be used on blasting spells. But I think that needs to be balanced the other way too. Maybe for every blast spell cast, it lowers the spell level cost by 1 for the next utility spell (maybe up to a maximum of 3 spell levels in either direction).

[@IdCritThat]

maybe? but also I think if people really took character creation to like,,,,the next level it would be easier to not just pick all of the ~powerful spells~ and to go with your character's vibe. But this is coming from Vic, a literal writer so it might be easy for me to say

[@roccoruscitti910]

@IdCritThat in a perfect world you are right it would be easier if gamers just didn't minmax. But they are under pressure socially to 'pull their own weight' in a party and it's hard to not optimize for that. I'm coming from the perspective of a game designer where I have to take minmaxing as a universal constant and balance around that by providing the right incentives that don't also imbalance the game just in a different way. They also have to feel equally viable to minmax one way or the other. Essentially it's hijacking the urge to minmax towards other optional desired methods of play.