Twinking.

[Jono]

I'm doing an essay, so i need to procrastinate.

What does everyone think of twinking within the campaigns we're playing? The topic has come up in ours, thanks largely to Phil's druid and his Augment summon feat that's lead to him summoning an army of virtually unbeatable badgers that have dominated every single battle thus far.
Where does Tactical character development end, and twinking begin? In the sense of most video game RPG's Twinking usually dervies from players giving overpowered items to their alt characters, or guilds pawning off overpowered starting equipment. Is there really an equivalent in D&D or whatever everyone else is playing?

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Don't mention the Nazi's!

[Darth Fanboy]

I would be of the opinion that whether it's a problem or not depends entirley on the game you and the rest of the group have set out to play.

If my hodge-podge entertaining Witch Hunters go up against an army of six-marine squads with lascannon and plasma everywhere backed up by every twinkin' combination in the book, I will be annoyed. If myself and my oponent have both spent a good two hours twinkin' ouit beforehand, both sides have parity and there is no problem.

In the same manner, if I've spent three days on my D&D character's history and payed only lip service to optimising for twink, and all but one of the other party members has done the same, we will be vexed by the one munchkin. However, if I'm the only one not so twinked, everyone else will be rightly annoyed at my character not pulling his/her weight.

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Nobody wants to read about a single mom trying to raise a kid and keep a job. People want to read about explosions, monsters, and exploding monsters.

Ever had a day when you saw someone being torn apart in a zombie movie and you envy them?

[Rawling 4851]

How to win D&D, the easy way: Be a cleric or druid. Min-maxing is fun, but abusing infinite loops is beyond the pale.

[Brother Munro]

If you want to maximise you characters effectiveness then go ahead, it is up to the DM to keep you awake all night and iterrupt your praying/preperation time, have ninjas steal you spellbook, and generally make things more difficult. As for wargames I'd say characterful armies are far more fun to play, but if I went to a tournament I'd expect twinked out armies of killy death.

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[Telinar]

It does depend on group dynamic as said above. I personally prefer not to twink as it leads to rollplaying not roleplaying. DnD is more than just rolling dice, it's about developing a character, like my boozy cleric or ice queen rogue or half-elf fighter who found Pelor. In computer games cough Neverwinter cough, it's a different kettle of fish, as the only person you're pissing off is an AI. Unless it's mulitplayer in which case the same argument for PnP applies. However, there are many people who do prefer the roll the dice and add big numbers to it approach and I don't begrudge them this at all. Agreed, it can make you feel a little inadequate if you're only adding +4 to a roll and someone else is adding +9 and yes I do realise that class limitations come into it as well. But that is by and large nothing more than jealousy. The real point of DnD is to have fun, as I consistantly do, whether in or out of character.

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[Fedoraccoon]

Phil's Badgers are not nearly as effective as they seem at first glance. They actually don't really dominate so much as they mop up the wounded orcs that the other PCs have weakened. They only survive because its more fun to chop away at PCs than it is to plink off annoying rodents. In any case, I think twinking is a myth, a creative DM is fully capable of overpowering PCs who target their characters capabilities too specifically.

[Jono]

I dunno... All I'm seeing is Augment summoned badgers, With + whatever to Con. and Str. that rage if you touch them.

Whereas my Knoll has, in this entire campaign managed to kill a grand total of ONE orc! And that includes from back when he was a human!

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Don't mention the Nazi's!

[Spadge Mince]

Just be glad that you didn't have to put up with his character in the last campaign. That was Phil at his best. I don't think he'll ever forgive me for healing him of his lycanthropy.

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If a tree falls down in a forest and no-one's around to hear it, does anyone care?

[Wooly]

About the only time I came to Gamesoc with serious roleplaying intentions (my stealthy bounty hunter with rapier and dagger), I ended up having made a mockery of the character by the end of the night (she became a lesbian named Freyja who appreciated equestrian dominance and who'd had an affair with Phil's paladin before the campaign started).

And, quite frankly, that was fine. I went to Gamesoc wanting a good time and I got it. Sure, my character did a couple of things in-game, such as saving Andrew and Steve while destroying a pirate ship, but, mostly, she was just played for laughs. Obviously, if you go along to Gamesoc looking to min-max your character, then you'll be competing against other min-maxers. However, if you simply go with the flow, such things don't matter.

Not a lot, anyway...

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