Dice

Interesting. I'd never heard it called the "Stormwind Fallacy" before.

I optimize at least a little all the time when I play a character (more often than not I'm running the game rather than playing), so I've never considered it "bad" to do so. In my view it only becomes bad when you do things that wouldn't make sense in a real world, but do make sense in a gameworld.

Things like stripping every dead orc of all of their weapons and armor so you can go sell it for half price at the next vendor. Yes technically the rules say you can sell gear for half price and they don't care where it comes from or what its condition is like, but does it make sense that there are really hordes of "used orc armor" merchants in every village? We stopped stripping orcs of their armor long ago in our D&D games for that very reason.

If I play a Mandalorian in Saga edition Star Wars (KotOR timeline) and I always carry a grenade launcher built into my armor and tons of concussion grenades for the very reason that a lightsaber-wielding opponent can't block area affect weapons like they can blasters, well yes I'm making a more optimized character, but that's what a sensible Mandalorian who finds himself constantly fighting Sith would do in that setting.

edited 18th Mar '16 7:43:30 AM by Bense

I wasn't familiar with Stormwind's Fallacy, but I certainly am familiar with a more generalized term for it - False Dichotomy.

I will say the minmaxed-versus-solid RP argument is bunk, because I've seen behavior land all over the two axes - everywhere from masterfully-played characters that were munchkin beyond belief, and fatally flawed builds made worse by the fact that the player in question couldn't act if their lives depended on it (I have a great story about that involving the guy I usually call Problem Gamer regarding Pathfinder).