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Powergaming is the act of gaming to gain power. It’s very much related to the competitive edge in sports, job hunting, and video games. During an intense match, it makes sense to use every asset, tip, and advantage you can get to come out victorious; sometimes even cheating. Even though RPGs are technically a team game, the lure of winning and power is often too much to resist. Also, being the best even among teammates is something everyone aspires to. Many players learn to powergame by default. If you haven’t learned to powergame yet, there’s always this article.
1. Always look to get the highest possible
modifier in one thing. For instance, if it’s at all possible to get 53 hp at
first level, +32 in seduction, or attack 17 times with a bow—do it.
2.
Always ignore the intents of the rules. Take things literally. While the game
might think you’re playing a warrior, that shouldn’t stop you from tossing in
magic powers or giving your mage full-plate.
3.
Review all options. If there are 275 feats in the book, you should read them
all and only take the best one. Also be sure to look for little nit-picky rules
which will make you too powerful. Never make any choices about your character
until you read all the books cover to cover.
4.
Interpret
ambiguous rules in your favor. For instance, if a power says you’re
insubstantial and another says you can jump in the way of enemy attacks to take
the hit for allies, there’s nothing stopping you from doing both even though
technically the weapon would pass right through you and hit your buddy.
5.
Get all the books. Yes, this may cost you more than the U.S. Mint. However, if
you don’t have absolutely all the rules you have less options which means less
power. Because most game companies want to make money, you should have no end
of extra rules to abuse.
6.
Argue loudly. The GM will always change his mind if you whine and cry enough
about anything. This is how people get 26’s in all their ability scores.
7.
Rule combat. There’s nothing that says “I’m a Powergamer” better than being
devastating in battle. When it comes time to role-play or do anything else you
can always sleep or count your millions of gold coins in loot.
8.
Seize all magic items. Magic items will make you powerful. It is the right of
the powerful person in the group to take all the magic items and treasures
found.
9.
Forget some rules. Sometimes crucial rules may be forgotten. Then you can punch
enemies and while you’re punching them deliver a touch-spell. Your
interpretation of the rules is probably cooler anyway.
10.
Try to be annoying, loud and obnoxious. This will improve the game for
everyone. Be sure to focus on piddly, irrelevant details to the exclusion of
all else. Cry for hours until the GM lets you re-roll your hit dice. Make it so
much of a pain to catch you cheating that your fellow players would rather just
let you get on with it to shut you up. After all, role-playing games are about
‘rolling’ the dice, right?
How Not to Powergame in Ten Easy Steps
Hark! It’s another article right after the first.
What’s going on here? Well, given that all of your players are now powergamers,
it’s probably in your best interest as a GM to stifle things before they get
way out of hand. Chances are, you probably had a few powergamers even before
reading this article. If that’s so, you’re probably better off burning the
above How-To than sharing it with your players. If you’re crazy enough to burn
articles, then read on and learn, my friend!
1.
Always remember that people powergame because they’re ‘into’ the game. You
don’t want to kill that creativity, merely channel it for your own diabolical
purposes. Kind of like an Unholy energy diverter...uh-hum.
2.
Is it just me, or was there no point to the above step? Anyway, the best way to
encourage role-playing and discourage powergaming is to make it very clear
right off the bat that you’ll have none of that. When people create stupidly
weak characters, hand them sweet magic items and awesome abilities. When people
take any choice because of power rather than what they want to do, frown and
offer them no benefits. When they see that the players ‘doing it wrong’ are
actually doing better than they are they’ll either flip out at you, or relax
and actually play the characters they want to.
3.
Ignore
the rules. If any piddly little rule is giving someone too much power: abolish
it, weaken it, change it, or whatever. Most RPG books say the GM is in charge,
abuse that. If the guy is supposed to be a warrior and he’s somehow managed to
get wizard powers, you can feel free to enforce the ‘intents’ of the rules on
him. If someone has +32 seduction you can flat out say, “There’s no way you
romance the troll.” Or, better yet, “The troll falls in love with you and
carries you off to be its love slave. If you do anything to prevent that, the
effect of your roll wears off.” And lastly (as all good GM’s know) whenever the
players have more hp, it’s a great time to just give all monsters +3d6 to
damage or something else arbitrarily stupid like that.
4.
Train the powergamers. Powergamers do what they do to get power. This makes it
really easy to manipulate them to your evil—I mean narrative purposes. When
people role-play, pick weak powers and skills, and arbitrarily put themselves
into stupid situations which enhance play (like jumping naked and weaponless
into a pit full of diseased zombies) you can hand them out huge bonuses and
loads of experience points. There’s almost nothing a powergamer likes more than
experience points. If you start giving out massive rewards for silly things,
they’ll do just that. Please note that silly things can always include stuff
like: going on your adventures, donating all money to charity, doing noble
deeds, and role-playing.
5.
Reward esoteric conditions. For instance, you can automatically assume that all
wizards are 90-year-old, arrogant, absent-minded, and incredibly weak. Whenever
the ultra-powerful wizard is roaming a forest you can have him constantly
bumbling around, tripping, making stupid mistakes, and otherwise embarrassing
himself. All players think they’re awesome so this is great for discouraging
powerful classes. Also, if there’s an elf in that forest with a weak set of
abilities you can hand out insane things like: stealth, hunting, +1 billion
perception, and so forth making the ‘weak’ elf look a heck of a lot better.
This kind of thing tends to confuse powergamers and make people proud of their
‘weak’ elves.
6.
Encourage
Diversity. Chances are, if there’s at least one powergamer he’ll be training
all the rest if not picking out powers for their characters. Also, because of
how powergaming works, these powers will probably all be the same. This is how
you end up with 5 duplicate warriors all with identical statistics and two
weapon fighting or a band of wizards with fireball spells and invisibility.
Whenever this happens, just chuckle evilly and prepare adventures to their
detriment. Be sure to throw in magical obstacles for the warriors and say stuff
like, “Gee, this would have been a piece of cake for any old 1st
level wizard.” With the wizards you can just put a wall of rubble in their way
and say “Gee, too bad you’re all 90 years old and can’t lift the rocks.” Or,
even better, “Oh, too bad this whole planet is in an anti-magic zone, guess
you’ll have to fight with daggers.” Yes, this is mean and unfair. However, it
does encourage consideration of other ‘options.’
7.
Use the World. Whenever the game concentrates on numerical statistics too much
you’re usually in a bit of trouble. Instead, try to create a world where some
random things could potentially happen. For instance, the stacked warrior could
be turned into a toad and lose access to all his special abilities. The party
wizard could be cursed and lose his mind, thinking he’s a thief. The party
nincompoop could receive a mystical magical sword with such supreme powers he
becomes like a souped-up version of Thor. The point is not to be random, but to
give story consequences more weight than game choices. If the players feel so
powerful they take on evil fortresses, it may help to have them stripped of
some powers or come into possession of different ones. Players can’t usually
powergame GM-assigned powers so this makes the game more ‘interesting’ as they
gain abilities they never would have thought of or used before.
8.
Take
Advantage of Weakling Syndrome. If everyone is so weak they don’t stand a
chance against a goblin, they ‘all’ must role-play. So if you gave massive
experience points awards for being weakling fools and then they were all forced
to role-play, that’s one way of doing things. Another is to let them be awesome
yes, but then throw a jillion ultra-powerful enemies way beyond their level at
them. This forces them to improvise.
9.
Never play treasure or experience points ‘by the book’. This will only
encourage killing monsters and grabbing their treasure. However, if this is
what you wanted anyway, ignore this advice.
10.
Encourage people to make stuff up. When they do, give them the bonuses they’re
looking for. Reward imagination and not ‘rules-lawyering’. Powergaming takes a
lot of creative energy, remember that you can always channel that energy into a
pit of naked zombies.
...More GM Advice
...More GM Advice
