Sprigg wrote:To be honest I'm not even sure what the Stormwind fallacy is....
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Named after (Perhaps not originally opined, but most notoriously opined by) screenname Tempest Stormwind on Wizards of the Coast message forums that....
The gist of the phrase speaks to the assertion (assumption) by many judgmental people, that "playing an optimized (min/maxed) character is the opposite of Roleplaying" Thus the belief that one can only do one or the other well and that they are mutually exclusive.
Which led to an issue of people saying you're either one or the other. Such as "you're either for us or against us." When in truth, you can being neither for or against. Thus the fallacy is that you believe IF you're playing a character that has optimized aspects or choices in game, you are not a good (valid) roleplayer, and thus if you are a good roleplayer, then your character is useless and under-utilized. This then leads to many players making the jump to conclusion that if you're coming to the table with a character that is optimized that you're ONLY a powergamer and incapable of roleplaying.
Claiming this a fallacy more aptly (in my opinion) poses that most people can and do both inclusively. That they are not mutually exclusive. In truth, So long as you are playing a roleplaying game with RULES that exist, you are in some fashion "optimizing" your choices. Even in TOR, if you choose to Fight on Defensive stance because your weapon skill is enough to hit, and you're wearing too much armor that any hit will drop you to WEARY, this is in effect an "optimized" situation for the character/player. We make "optimized" choices in TOR all the time; it does not mean we cannot Roleplay.
In life, and in games with rules, we all "optimize" ourselves regardless. Whether its our education, our income, our jobs, our family, our investment porfolio, our Cable TV/phone/Internet package, our gas-economy, bills, lifestyle, or dating, or gaming in the world of RPGs with rules - we optimize. The more rules that exist, the EASIER and more apparent optimizing becomes. Thus it is often regarded that later editions of D&D fall easily into the Stormwind Fallacy as opposed to earlier editions because quite frankly there are simply too many damn rules in existent with which to use to one's benefit in later editions. Thus it leads to the fallacious assumption that newer editions prevent roleplaying while early editions do not. It's simply easier and more obvious that the optimization occurred - because there's more rules to negotiate.
Those of us who disagree w/ Stormwind, believe a good DM can make a game fun with plenty of roleplaying (note "roleplaying is more than just talking in a foreign accent - it's taking on the role of another an doing what they would do in a given situation or in a role among a fellowship/party of adventurers) and players who use the rules of the game to make their characters better in the world that they exist (if they're in a world notorious for undead, and you learn to better fight undead - you're optimizing) are potentially just as capable of good roleplaying as someone playing a deafened blinded one-armed archer assassin with a fear of psychotic fear of darkness, specialized in all combat feats in the use of a rolling pins made out of paper-mache'.
As Elfcrusher humorously pointed out - the coined "Stormwind Fallacy" has now taken on a life of its own and now being used by many who it does not apply to, are simply not interested in roleplaying for real and are truly only interested in powergaming, thus misusing the philosophy in defense of themselves to throw it back out that "I can be completely optimized and still roleplay", in order to save face and in-so-doing, giving the philosophy a bad rapp. Which I do agree with. So now the fallacy is the fallacy, because now it's assumed due to the "stormwind Fallacy" comment, that they are mutually inclusive" in many peoples mind because now "if you optimize, it's always a fallacy if you believe I am not roleplaying". When in truth the fallacy applies to many but not all. Most people lie somewhere in the middle between "roleplayer" and "optimizer". Like I said, the problem with later editions is there's far too many rules in play - and it makes it easier and more obvious to optimize, and in the end it's assumed that it robs the roleplaying.
In my actual experience, however, it's not the optimization that removes the roleplaying, it's the constant "meta-game mechanics discussions" that permeate those games ad nauseum just to adjudicate something that winds up killing momentum of the story, the roleplaying, etc, and they get in the way, and by the time its all hashed out, you simply skip the flowery part that makes it more robustly fun to get on with things.
Case in point: I'm playing my semi-weekly Pathfinder Rise of the Runelords campaign last Friday which is a wonderful game and story, so far; we are all now 12th level and it's getting way complicated on the spells/rules/combat, etc, and with six players, it takes a good 15 minutes between my turn in round 1 and my turn in round 2 to resolve all the adjudications and number crunching. 15 minutes waiting for your turn is an awful long time to twiddle fingers; if everyone took an exorbitant amount of time to truly engage in flowery descriptions and narration to coincide with the numbers in a round of combat, the combat would last 3 freakin hours! And I would say 4 out of the 7 people at that table are extremely good, talented, old-school roleplayers. The other three are no rookies to it either. It's not that we can't or the edition doesn't allow it, it's just exhausting to handle it all.
Robert
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