There are many different types of RPG players. There have been many different attempts to categorize them, often reflecting the culture of gaming at the time. One category of gamer which has been around since at least the 1980’s and proven remarkably durable is the concept of the power gamer.
The power gamer seeks to make their character as powerful as possible. They analyze the rules and seek optimization: Character builds, mechanical tactics, party synergies — whatever it takes. Or, to flip that around, whatever will make them more powerful, they’ll take it.
Why does the power gamer exist?
Roleplaying games are fundamentally about exploring player choices. By creating characters who are powerful within the game system — i.e., who are more likely to succeed more frequently and/or at a larger range of tasks — the power gamer:
- Maximizes the odds that their choice will be meaningful instead of being negated by failure.
- Diversifies the number of game situations in which they can participate, thus increasing the number of meaningful choices they’re making.
- Reduces the chances of their character being killed, which would result in a complete loss of agency for the character and often results in wiping out the significance of past choices.
Various factors can vary the importance of these motivations — for example, #3 is a lot more significant in lethal old school games — but a lot of this is fairly fundamental to virtually all RPGs, which is why the behavior so reliably crops up across different games and different GMs.
Another factor here is that the power gamer effectively turns an RPG system into a puzzle, which they solve by maximizing power. Solving a puzzle, of course, is an incredibly satisfying experience, and is a fundamental part of what makes games fun. In a game like Chess, the puzzle is usually, “How do I win?” RPGs, of course, usually don’t have winners or losers, and so the power gamer creates their own challenge.
DEGENERATE POWER GAMERS
There’s nothing wrong with power gamers. After all, a lot of RPGs — including the vast majority of the most popular ones — are built around the acquisition of power, which would be really weird if there was something fundamentally wrong with players seeking power in the game.
In some cases, however, a power game can degenerate into behaviors that are disruptive or debilitating to the group and the game.
For example, there are leeches. These are gamers who try to make their character the most powerful at the table by preventing the other players from having any power of their own. This might mean hogging the spotlight, stealing magic items, or even killing other PCs.
There are also munchkins. These are power gamers who want the power, but don’t want to work for it. What they want is for the DM to hand their 1st-level character a +5 holy avenger. Or they’ll want to play a clearly broken homebrew sub-class. Munchkins are mostly harmless and can often have a ton of fun in a campaign with other munchkins, but they can be problematic in other campaigns if they feel entitled and become toxic when their wish-fulfillment isn’t granted.
(Munchkin campaigns also tend to have a lot of ire directed at them from gamers who are affronted that they didn’t “earn” their power or who believe that there’s a “right” or “balanced” way to play the game and that the munchkins are somehow “cheating” because they’re more powerful than they’re “supposed to be.” This tension, of course, can cause other interpersonal issues.)
Some power gamers will also become rules lawyers. There are a lot of different types of rules lawyers and a bunch of different reasons that people become rules lawyers, and I’m not going to dive into that here. A rules lawyer, though, is different than a rules expert. A rules expert is great: They have a mastery of the system, and that mastery can enhance both their play and the quality of play at the whole table.
A rules lawyer, on the other hand, is constantly trying to interpret the rules in whatever way gives them an advantage. (This will often include interpreting the same rule in different ways at different times, depending on which interpretation would be best for them in each situation.) Mild rules lawyering isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it can quickly degenerate into a situation where the game becomes overwhelmed without constant squabbles over the legalese of the rules, creating a bad experience for the entire table.
Finally, there are monomaniacal theorycrafters. Theorycrafting is when you’re building characters, experimenting with rules, or otherwise analyzing the mechanics of a game in the abstract (rather than in relation to actual play). There’s nothing wrong with theorycrafting — it’s a great way to explore and appreciate a game — but the monomaniacal theorycrafter becomes fixated on the idea that there’s a single “right” way to play the game, to the detriment of the actual game.
The root of the problem is that, in order to have the most powerful character in theory, you first have to nail down the key question of: Powerful at doing what? Because a character who’s optimized for solving mysteries is going to look very different from a character who’s optimized for running a Thieves’ Guild.
The most common answer monomaniacal theorycrafters tend to land on is combat, and it’s pretty typical for this to degenerate even further into a very specific type of combat encounter. I talk about this more in On the Slaying of Spherical Cows.
These degenerate forms of power gaming, unfortunately, can give all power gamers a bad rep. In my experience, though, having a good power gamer in your group is far more likely to improve your game than hurt it.
