Reserving some space for min-maxxers to roam.

[talozin]

You think that it wouldn't, but even in games that are relatively balanced across broad character options like Team Fortress 2 gravitate towards Complacent Gaming Syndrome. Discounting the Demoman of course. Sure, there's occasionally some curiousity over the new geegaw, but long-term players (a year plus or so) tend to resort to the same 1-3 characters.

Heck, that's nothing unique to TF2. Look at the last gaming group you played for any substantial length of time with -- probably at least half of them have tendencies toward playing the same general type of character. One guy always plays the Wizard. One guy always plays a Dwarf. One guy always plays someone who either actually is or has pretensions to being a member of the nobility. Whatever. That's fine. Adding more options isn't just about tempting the Dwarf guy away from playing Dwarfs, although if he sees the Arctic Dwarf in the new expansion pack and goes with it, then bonus. It's also about accommodating the guy who wants to play a Ninja and isn't satisfied with the existing mechanics for that.

Every option you introduce into the game is an option that will make someone happy that they can more accurately represent their concept. It probably isn't you, and it may not be anyone you'll ever meet, but someone out there is happy that they can play a Steampunk Halfling.

[Murtak]

My point was that veterans essentially get more options - even in a hypothetical completely balanced game - because some options are worse for the newbie.

Then you don't have a balanced game. We refer to these as trap options. The fact that some abilities are difficult to figure out how to work them doesn't in of itself to excuse the fact that they're better than the easier stuff.

No, they are not better. But you can bloody well have complicated or subtle abilities that are hard to use well. That does not make them better than simple options. But it does mean you need to have a certain mastery of the game to get the same mileage out of those abilities as anyone can get out of simple abilities.

[tussock]

Every option you introduce into the game is an option that will make someone happy that they can more accurately represent their concept.

If your new option is the Warblade then the guy who likes Fighters, the other guy who likes Rangers, someone who likes Paladins, and all the ones who like the Gish all have to give up on that suddenly useless crap and play Warblades instead.

100 balanced options is beyond awesome. 99 balanced options and 1 that's clearly better is a useless pile of shit.

[talozin]

100 balanced options is beyond awesome. 99 balanced options and 1 that's clearly better is a useless pile of shit.

Yeah, Lago was objecting to the idea of new splatbook options being the same in overall power, so I figured that went without saying in context. But it could have been more clear.

[Roy]

Every option you introduce into the game is an option that will make someone happy that they can more accurately represent their concept.

If your new option is the Warblade then the guy who likes Fighters, the other guy who likes Rangers, someone who likes Paladins, and all the ones who like the Gish all have to give up on that suddenly useless crap and play Warblades instead.

100 balanced options is beyond awesome. 99 balanced options and 1 that's clearly better is a useless pile of shit.

That's nice and all. But what the hell does that have to do with Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins, all of which are full of Fail, and Gishes, which have nothing to do with Warblades?

[shadzar]

There has been a lot of talk over the past few years over making the game more balanced. Fair enough. It is in a way bogus that one player gets screwed over because he picked up a paladin instead of a rogue.

I still don't understand this bolded part, and came to this forum foremost to try to figure it out, but for the life of me nobody has explained, how the hell this happens at the fault of the game?

If it is about DPS, or ROF, etc and competing with the other players, then WTF? That isn't what MOST RPGs are about.

If the DM is hosing you because he doesn't like paladins, then get a new one (DM).

But how is a cooperative game in some way targeting a player when it is made so that multiple players work together for the same goal, rather than each other player trying to outdo the rest?

I would say a better solution is to DESTROY min-maxers, by having the system function so that there can be none, and the player in-fighting may stop in part by doing so.

The fact a min-maxer exists and can in an RPG is a problem with the system, isn't it?

For the cooperative game to work, you would need the entire group of players to min-max or they won't be functioning properly as one has become a unitasker, and expects all others to likewise do the same to cover his ass. Now that sounds a LOT like cooperative play, but in fact isnt making characters, but designing weapons isn't it?

The bow is used there, the sword there, the wand there, and the med-kit there, etc...

Doesn't min-maxing and the ability the game has to allow for it, cause the problem people of old had for the cleric, by pigeon holing them into something, and for a game with min-maxing in it, wouldnt everyone need to and thus use the same short list of characters made best for certain things, so that the party is complete?

Lago, wasn't it you, correct me if i am wrong, talking about the lack of want for a unified balanced power system? Doesn't a system like that PREVENT the ability to min-max, and wouldnt it be in direct opposition to having one do so let alone roam within such a system?

[Roy]

Wall of Text.

Hi Welcome

[talozin]

The fact a min-maxer exists and can in an RPG is a problem with the system, isn't it?

It's a legacy of a system allows you to make meaningful choices. Whether that is a problem is entirely up to the individual to determine.

The only way to avoid people being able to "min-max" is to make it so that the choices players make have no impact on the way their characters function in the context of the game world.

[tzor]

There has been a lot of talk over the past few years over making the game more balanced. Fair enough. It is in a way bogus that one player gets screwed over because he picked up a paladin instead of a rogue.

I still don't understand this bolded part, and came to this forum foremost to try to figure it out, but for the life of me nobody has explained, how the hell this happens at the fault of the game?

I generally don't understand it either, but I do understand where they are comming from. I've played the original AD&D (1E) so I know what bizzarely unblanaced crap is. Yes it is possible to balance classes, (and it is possible to have broken classes) but for the most part race and class choices are like a ski slope, some trails are for beginners and some trails are for experts and you need someone to tell you which ones are which.

A good DM should be able to guide a new player to a class that they can easily handle, and the players too should help as well.

The real problem with min maxers is that most game systems are like untested video games; they look nice and might even work well, but there may be holes where you can literally fall off of the game. Min maxers sometimes tend to exploit those holes and when they do every min maxer gets a bad rap.

You know the old doctor joke so I'll apply it to game design.

"Doctor, the game breaks when I do this."
"Well, don't do this."

But that's the Oberoni fallicy, just because you can say "don't do this" doesn't mean people don't have a right to bitch and moan that the game does break when you do this. Games should be somewhat tested. Clearly they can only be tested so far but very few games these days are tested anywhere near to where the should be tested.

I have come to the exact opposite conclusion of most game designers, in fact I'm starting to embrace my 1E feelings. Character generation should be as simple as possible. "Investment" in a character, makes it harder to part with the character and in turn makes the posibility of character death all the more worrysome for the player. This in turn leads to creating the illusion of possible character death but not actually having the posibility of character death.

To put this in a NASCAR perspective, we come to the race because we like seeing car crashes! When it's only a "character" with minimial investment it's not all that bad. (We always prefer the monster crashing and burning, but that dragon fight was awesome. You do realize that most of the most awesome fights I remember tends to have my character dead somewhere in the process.)

Clearly we need options for expert players, clearly expert players need to help novice players (as they are a TEAM, are they not) and clearly the DM needs to help as well. But while playing the system is good, breaking it is not. If you break it, you pay for it.

[shadzar]

The fact a min-maxer exists and can in an RPG is a problem with the system, isn't it?

It's a legacy of a system allows you to make meaningful choices. Whether that is a problem is entirely up to the individual to determine.

The only way to avoid people being able to "min-max" is to make it so that the choices players make have no impact on the way their characters function in the context of the game world.

Tzor explained some, but a problem is the fact i think it happens strongest in systems like 3rd and 4th where the choices made are those of mechanical rather than during play.

The fact you choose disarm or trip at some level for a certain class/PrC...

That is something that allows for the min-maxing, wherein up front creation of a character, with all choices done, and only some added bonuses, similar to previous editions, didn't lead to much min-maxing outside of grabbing the biggest +X weapon, highest rate of fire to give the DPS, etc.

There was also much less to min-max.

Now I play some games that I min-max the hell out of, but they are competitive, not co-op.

Are the only "meaningful choices" made about the game are those in creating the character rather than playing it?

If the ranger has the highest ROF and most DPS at range to kill, weaken, or cripple most mobs before the fighter gets there, but doesn't do it, does min-maxing really help?

Likewise does the rest of the players WANT the ranger to always do this, rather than being able to do something other than being a one-trick pony, or the ranger player maybe doesnt want to be the one-trick pony?

Min-maxing in a cooperative RPG, always has me hearing that the cleric is a walking first-aid kit being chanted in the background of it.

[Murtak]

I have come to the exact opposite conclusion of most game designers, in fact I'm starting to embrace my 1E feelings. Character generation should be as simple as possible. "Investment" in a character, makes it harder to part with the character and in turn makes the posibility of character death all the more worrysome for the player. This in turn leads to creating the illusion of possible character death but not actually having the posibility of character death.

But doesn't "don't become attached to your character" defeat the very purpose of storytelling, at least for a large part of the stories we want to tell? I don't care whether my peasant hero took 10 minutes or 10 hours to build, I don't want him to die. I want him to live because I like playing him. I want him to live because in addition to building him I spent upwards of 100 hours in actually playing him. And I want him to live because I want to tell a story in which he features.

Deadliness should be tailored to the genre you are playing. Character generation should be short, period. I don't think the two should ever be connected.

[talozin]

Tzor explained some, but a problem is the fact i think it happens strongest in systems like 3rd and 4th where the choices made are those of mechanical rather than during play.

3E allows you to make a larger number of meaningful character design decisions relative to previous editions. (Maybe 4E does, too, I just don't know enough about it.) In general, the trend from OD&D on has been to increase the number of those choices (e.g., having weapons do differing amounts of damage).

I think 3E also has a somewhat larger number of meaningful decision-making opportunities in play. Things like Bull Rush and Disarm and Grapple work better if your character is designed to take advantage of them, but they still work even if he isn't, and there are times when using one of them is the optimal choice even if you aren't a Bull Rush specialist.

I'm not saying earlier editions didn't have any - 1st edition had the Grappling and Pummelling rules, etc. They were harder to adjudicate because they had unique mechanics, so they were used less, but there were choices there.

There was also much less to min-max.

Sure. There were fewer meaningful choices. I mean, if you're playing a PHB fighter, your choices are basically what?

* Your character race (dwarf or half-orc if you expect a standard length 1E campaign, human if you expect to get to very high levels).

* The order your stats go in (Str, Con or Dex, Con or Dex, who cares).

* What weapons you're proficient with (long sword, composite bow, footman's mace for dealing with skeletons, and either short sword, hand axe, or dagger).

* What you spend your starting money on (weapon, best armor you can afford after buying a main weapon, shield, extra weapons, riding horse, whatever).

* Alignment.

That's ... basically it. The only other choices you're ever going to make about your actual character are what weapon proficiencies to add as you level up.

I'm not saying that's bad. I'm also not saying it's good. It's just a fact: more meaningful choices -> more minmaxing. Less meaningful choices -> less minmaxing.

If the ranger has the highest ROF and most DPS at range to kill, weaken, or cripple most mobs before the fighter gets there, but doesn't do it, does min-maxing really help?

Do you mean "if the player doesn't want to do it, does it help?" or "if the player tries and fails, does it help?" The answers are No and Yes, In Aggregate respectively.

Likewise does the rest of the players WANT the ranger to always do this, rather than being able to do something other than being a one-trick pony, or the ranger player maybe doesnt want to be the one-trick pony?

Being a one-trick pony was way more prevalent in earlier editions. Don't you remember what life as a 1E fighter was like until you got your first miscellaneous magic item? "Your turn." "Uh, I attack."

Clerics in 3E are actually less likely to be treated as first aid kits, precisely because they're allowed to make a larger number of meaningful choices (both in character design and in play).

[ScottS]

"My personal bias against 'killer builds' is that I don't like easy games[...] If you can win the game before it even starts via a particular build, that's kind of a boner kill for me." (quoting myself from another conversation I had about this recently)

I guess I can refine that a bit: I realize some nerds love their spreadsheets, and I'm not saying min-maxers aren't roleplayers (whatever fallacy that's called). What I'm saying is that allowing players to "build their way out of danger" pushes RPGs in the direction of something like MtG, where arguably there's a robust/interesting game space for different deck ideas, metagaming etc., but when it comes down to sitting and playing the actual game, it pretty much sucks. I think "occasionally having to run in terror from monsters" is a part of D&D that has to be preserved, and crushing anything that even smells like an IWIN build has to be a part of that. (To some extent that's also an argument against IP proofing as well; I think the "chance of PC death must equal zero" logic is pretty twisted, but that's another thread.)

[Kaelik]

No min max build I`ve ever seen makes the game easy.

All of them just make the game play more complex, and allow them to compete against optimized encounters, or completely break the game into unplayable.

Playing the Wish and the Word is not an easy game, it`s not a game at all. Playing an optimized Tome party isn`t easy, it just means that I have to Bring out the big guns on team monster.

[tzor]

I have come to the exact opposite conclusion of most game designers, in fact I'm starting to embrace my 1E feelings. Character generation should be as simple as possible. "Investment" in a character, makes it harder to part with the character and in turn makes the posibility of character death all the more worrysome for the player. This in turn leads to creating the illusion of possible character death but not actually having the posibility of character death.

But doesn't "don't become attached to your character" defeat the very purpose of storytelling, at least for a large part of the stories we want to tell? I don't care whether my peasant hero took 10 minutes or 10 hours to build, I don't want him to die. I want him to live because I like playing him. I want him to live because in addition to building him I spent upwards of 100 hours in actually playing him. And I want him to live because I want to tell a story in which he features.

Yes and no. I am certainly attracted to the character and to the adventure and I am certainly investing in the story and the character at the time. But the story is on the party and the adventure, not on the character in particular. Sure, I’d like him to live; hell I’d like to roll all 20’s for his attacks, but not to the point where dues ex machina has to be invoked. Role playing games are not stories for this reason; we know that the MC will never die in a story; having that assurance is death for a role playing session. If there is a possibility that the character can die, then they character can die; if not then there was no such possibility. I love my character when I am playing him, but like in that Star Wars movie (Episode 5) “There is another.” The more you invest in terms of generation and future planning (past planning is always good as characters can have commonalities in their backgrounds so all background becomes a part of the communal pool) the more you character becomes your “precious.” And when players turn into Gollum it’s not pretty.

[ScottS]

No min max build I`ve ever seen makes the game easy.

All of them just make the game play more complex, and allow them to compete against optimized encounters, or completely break the game into unplayable.

Playing the Wish and the Word is not an easy game, it`s not a game at all. Playing an optimized Tome party isn`t easy, it just means that I have to Bring out the big guns on team monster.

If you mean "not easy" as in "you still need to understand basic game mechanics and interactions to play the build", then yes I'd say you're correct. I was talking about "easy" in the sense of "turns a very-mildly-threatening standard encounter into a not-threatening-at-all standard encounter via build uberness" (that boner-kill quote was from a 4e discussion).

If you're trying to set an RPG up in such a way that you can talk about a "level-appropriate encounter", but then you give the players the means to completely subvert that idea (by making "level-appropriate" too easy for uber builds), then you're kind of cutting your own throat from a design perspective.

"Bringing out bigger guns on Team Monster" isn't always an option, either. (Again using the 4e example, you have the problem of defenses scaling a lot faster than relative damage, so something 10 levels higher isn't going to so much one-shot PCs as just be impossible to hit by them, which sucks as a way to increase difficulty. Same with setting up a fight that spams ranged daze/immobilize etc. In both cases, Team Monster is "winning" by taking away meaningful actions from the PCs, which is a bad solution.)

[shadzar]

3E allows you to make a larger number of meaningful character design decisions relative to previous editions.

And you had a nice post, but lost me everytime you used that word....or to put it another way.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Replace every occurrence of the word "meaningful" with "mechanical" and your statements hold true. This means then by meaningful you mean mechanical?

Does this help explain why i don't understand the concept a bit?

How does having less mechanical choices, mean having less meaningful choices?

Bull Rush is a term like many other than means accelerating until point of collision. Fighters or barbarians or whatever werent the only ones that could do it in the past, nor truly the only ones that can do it in the current. Wizards could "bull rush" someone, but with a "rule" for it, it actually removes that meaningful choice from the wizard without spells to do so. This is also a factor in my thread about the over-codifying of the rules.

Just having something written out doesnt make it a meaningful choice, only a mechanical one.

Applying the previous term swap to this one particular statement, should make it evident that is IS exactly what is going on:

It's just a fact: more mechanical choices -> more minmaxing. Less mechanical choices -> less minmaxing.

Bull rushing someone wasnt hard in any edition, the problem is rules were obvious to find on the things. Rather than making specific one case, the game should have allowed for things it did in other area...present a formula that all could use to do it, that was based on strength, distance, etc. The problem with this is...people don't want to use those kinds of formulas. They would rather let the singular feat/skill/etc remove things as true meaningful choices during play.

It really dumbfounds me why 4th edition HAS a rogue class, when all the roguish skills as spread acros everyone to give them meaningful choices. It might be better without a single class to do it, but why grandfather the class in when its mechanical choices no longer really belong to it. But it is an example of what I mean with the Bull Rush that you CAN apply things to all characters capable of doing these things. People actually do accept it, so long as they don't have math to do.

For my understanding of minmaxxing, it seems that those wishing to do that much work, wouldn't mind the math to allow a wizard to bull rush with a proper formula as it is a physical maneuver anyone with two legs and a body should be able to do.

So for the sake of minmaxxing persons, as opposed to those lazy gamers that don't really want to do much, why is Bull Rush required and preferred to have that single mechanical option for a single class, as opposed to a system that allows all to do it?

You mention the grapple/unarmed combat/wrestling rules of older editions...and those should have been fixed rather than just the maneuvers spread across feats, or power in 3rd and 4th for minmaxxing. This would have made a more universal game that gave EVERYONE more meaningful choices where it counts...during play.

Murtak mentions character attachment and questions it. The thing is that a character with only 2 bits of info (say name and race) or a full stated out 3rd/4th edition character, should have the same level of attachment, not because the amount of time to make it, but because the character is fun to play.

One enjoying making characters, will not really become attached to playing any one, but wanting to try many of their min-maxxed "builds". Likewise an easy one to make could be easily replaced as Tzor initially mentions, because some don't want to spend long periods of time making something to lose it in 2 minutes of play.

But these are the risks EITHER system has, where death is a possibility be it permanent or temporary death.

So what exact choices are being made and why? Why does only mechanical choices seem to be meaningful ones? Character creation is but a single stepping stone, the first and a big one, to playing the character; but there are many stepping stones to go and paths to choose while playing that are much much more meaningful that could mean the life or death of the character.

[Kaelik]

If you mean "not easy" as in "you still need to understand basic game mechanics and interactions to play the build", then yes I'd say you're correct. I was talking about "easy" in the sense of "turns a very-mildly-threatening standard encounter into a not-threatening-at-all standard encounter via build uberness" (that boner-kill quote was from a 4e discussion).

I don't care whether you agree, because the whole point of my post was to tell you that you are wrong. Build uberness in 3e doesn't make the game easy in any sense. CR appropriate encounters optimized to the same degree as the PCs optimize are still threatening.

If you're trying to set an RPG up in such a way that you can talk about a "level-appropriate encounter", but then you give the players the means to completely subvert that idea (by making "level-appropriate" too easy for uber builds), then you're kind of cutting your own throat from a design perspective.

Level appropriate is defined in relation to player level. If the player optimization exceeds the power of standard characters of their level, then the MC is allowed to optimize "standard encounters" to exceed their usual power level.

An Aboleth can be a fish in the water who tries to dominate the party, or it can be a fish in the water that seems like air, and the party doesn't know it is drowning, and can't move because they are surrounded by illusory walls, and it safely spams enslave from a position of never ever being hurt at all, until the party kills itself.

That's a wide range without even touching all the other stuff you can do to optimize monsters. So if the PCs use Gate, they get enslaved by an Aboleth, and if the PCs are fighters it just full attacks like a loser, and if the PCs are well played and built Wizards it uses some illusions and is modified by some stuff from Lords of Madness, and in all cases, it is a standard encounter for a level 7 party that is threatening, but never a pushover, and never unbeatable.

"Bringing out bigger guns on Team Monster" isn't always an option, either. (Again using the 4e example, you have the problem of defenses scaling a lot faster than relative damage, so something 10 levels higher isn't going to so much one-shot PCs as just be impossible to hit by them, which sucks as a way to increase difficulty. Same with setting up a fight that spams ranged daze/immobilize etc. In both cases, Team Monster is "winning" by taking away meaningful actions from the PCs, which is a bad solution.)

This entire paragraph makes no sense. You were talking about 3e, I was talking about optimizing 3e monsters, because they have toughness 9 times in an actual monster feat set, and that's retarded. If you change monster feats, and use the advancment rules and options from monster books like Libris Mortis, Lords of Madness, or Draconomicon, you will TPK a "standard party" every time, so I only do that when facing optimized PCs.

[talozin]

3E allows you to make a larger number of meaningful character design decisions relative to previous editions.

Replace every occurrence of the word "meaningful" with "mechanical" and your statements hold true.

Decisions in the context of character design are not meaningful unless they have a game mechanical effect. You can decide that your character is an expert with the battleaxe, but if the game does not allow you to take Weapon Specialization: Battleaxe, that is not a "meaningful choice". It may be meaningful in the context of your game, but it is meaningless in discussing the design of the game as a whole.

Naturally, there are non-mechanical decisions you can make about your character that are "meaningful" by some definition of the word. It's meaningful that your character is an orphan and therefore mistrusts authority because the cops used to chase him away from the garbage dumps, but in the context of a game design discussion I don't care about it if it has no game mechanical effect.

How does having less mechanical choices, mean having less meaningful choices?

Playing Mother May I with your MC is not a "having a meaningful choice".

So for the sake of minmaxxing persons, as opposed to those lazy gamers that don't really want to do much, why is Bull Rush required and preferred to have that single mechanical option for a single class, as opposed to a system that allows all to do it?

Anyone can do a Bull Rush in a 3.x game, it's not restricted to fighters only.

You mention the grapple/unarmed combat/wrestling rules of older editions...and those should have been fixed rather than just the maneuvers spread across feats, or power in 3rd and 4th for minmaxxing.

Now, I agree with this to some extent. One of the problems I have with 3.x's feat and combat maneuver system is that it encouraged people to become The X Guy, where X is the maneuver you specialize in, and then do that one thing all the fucking time. See the usual absurd Improved Trip/Spiked Chain specialist builds.

[shadzar]

Decisions in the context of character design are not meaningful unless they have a game mechanical effect.

This is where myself, and MILLIONS of other gamers disagree with you, and probably where min-maxxing is seen as a problem.

Where meaningful is only seen as a mechanical effect, other choose Elf for the flavor. They want the cliche pointy ears, not the +1 bonus to using a bow.

This is where I have a problem with 3rd edition and the multitudes of players it brought in with this very mindset. It is also one of the great divides of the game's editions itself. You have gone form playing the game, to playing a metagame. The metagame is fine for discussing things, but not for playing the game. The meta game is for the armchair discussion, and why many people view it as the armchair general, which is for wargames, not RPGs.

Wargames play the meta game, because of the mechanics knowledge and the metagame is where the game is. You arent the space marine in power armor, but the hive mind for all the space marines, even the scout. You are the armchair general.

The meaningful decisions in an RPG is those made during play, wherein the wargame, they are mostly those made prior to play. You set down with a crappy built army and get mowed down it is because you didn't play the game correctly because you avoided the meta game which is the wargame.

RPGs and wargames are different BECAUSE of this. RPG play the game, wargames play the metagame/rules.

Which brings me back to my signature again. Play the game, not the rules.

Also to my thread it points to a problem in design that is designing RPGs away from the purpose of RPGs, which makes this threads purpose to play the metagame in direct opposition to my own, IF every agrees with the portion of your post I have quoted above.

So it would lead me to this question sete: Is the reason people didnt like early editions of D&D because they didn't like RPGs and playing the game and wanted to play the metagame instead? Is the game losing its uniqueness as an RPG in order to allow the wargamer mindset of playing the metagame?

Remember D&D was created by wargamers trying to break free from the wargaming metagame mindset, but to do something else. The little bit of time making your army/character was no longer the place where "meaningful' play happens, but the HOURS of actual play is what became "meaningful".

[talozin]

This is where I have a problem with 3rd edition and the multitudes of players it brought in with this very mindset. It is also one of the great divides of the game's editions itself. You have gone form playing the game, to playing a metagame.

You're confusing "game design" (and "character design") with "game play". These are not the same things.

FYI, I grew up on 1st edition, and if you offered me a chance to play a 1st or 3rd campaign with the same bunch of people, I'd honestly have to flip a coin to pick.

[shadzar]

This is where I have a problem with 3rd edition and the multitudes of players it brought in with this very mindset. It is also one of the great divides of the game's editions itself. You have gone form playing the game, to playing a metagame.

You're confusing "game design" (and "character design") with "game play". These are not the same things.

FYI, I grew up on 1st edition, and if you offered me a chance to play a 1st or 3rd campaign with the same bunch of people, I'd honestly have to flip a coin to pick.

No i am not. The majority of 3rd edition players design their characters with meaningful to mean mechanical. This is the style of game play.

This style of game play is allowed by the game design.

One allows the other, which in turn creates the problem when the masses promote the metagame over the game.

When I hear characters discussed using 3rd I often here about one was better because Feat X, or was weaker because it didnt have Feat Y.

1st/2nd would have been because of magic item X or decision Y, and the magic item wasn't a choice of the player, but somethnig given by the DM, and not as part of some wishlist or Magic Mart purchase.

It is the metagame being played in 3rd and 4th really. Metagame is the only place you can min-max.

Character design shifted with 3rd to place the meaningful emphasis on the mechanics, rather than the gameplay....again 3rd makes players armchair general's of an army of one, but they are still armchair generals none the less. It is always the metagame being played when the only meaningful choices are seen to be the mechanical ones.

[fectin]

1a) I assert that more mechanical abilities means more player agency.
1b) I assert also that more powerful abilities increase player agency more.
2) I assert that more player agency is equivalent to a wider range of responses to a given situation.
3) I assert that more responses makes a more fun game.
4) I assert that more player agency leads directly to emergent gameplay (aka, out of the box thinking).
5) I assert that emergent gameplay is the most memorable.

The logic that connects these assertions is obvious. So, you must disagree with one of them, right?

[shadzar]

1a) I assert that more mechanical abilities means more player agency.
1b) I assert also that more powerful abilities increase player agency more.
2) I assert that more player agency is equivalent to a wider range of responses to a given situation.
3) I assert that more responses makes a more fun game.
4) I assert that more player agency leads directly to emergent gameplay (aka, out of the box thinking).
5) I assert that emergent gameplay is the most memorable.

The logic that connects these assertions is obvious. So, you must disagree with one of them, right?

Define, in your use, "player agency" first to make sure i am reading your assertions correctly. If it is I who you were addressing that too.