On Why I Min-Max

As a GM, I am stridently against min-maxing. I don't even give bonuses for stats anymore. I avoid plus ones as if they had wronged my family. I'll let you shapeshift into a dragon, but you can say goodbye to the concept of a +3 sword. In my games nothing stacks.

As a player, I min-max the crap out of every character I play.

● My Star Wars d6 wookie can shrug off a direct hit from blaster rifle. With 7 dice in martial arts, he can easily rip off the arms of 4 mooks a turn.

● My fighter from Swords of the Inner Sea taught himself ventriloquism, fire breathing and stilt walking, skills our wizards can't pull off, and he also hits like a truck. 

● My Delta Green guy has 70 in Craft: Anarchist's Cookbook. It lets me get away with anything.

● A few days ago I played a Flailsnails game where my level 1 character had 23 HP, dealt 1d4+4 with her bare hands, and could turn into an owl. 

I don't cheat. I just ask the GM nicely, and then grab the system by the throat. 

It began pretty early; one of my first consistent games was 3.5, and my GM was an unabashed munchkin. I spent two months accomplishing nothing much. This was still the most fun playing D&D I'd ever had; friends count for a lot. But my skill rolls were weak and my damage weaker. The plot was too confusing for me to ever have a firm grasp on. I just contented myself to being silly while eating chips.

Then we fought the adamantine golem. We had excellent tactics; I was using stone shape to immobilize the thing. The bard was singing his song of unmaking, doubling damage against constructs. Spells were flying. But the damn thing was healing too fast, and none of our damage stuck. Then I realized we had an NPC paladin with us. I asked her to attack the golem. 

Her full attack dealt over 400 damage, and killed it in one round.

So I asked the GM to borrow her character sheet and copied her build. And then I improved it. This process took 3 days of scouring splat books and learning the intricacies of 3.5. Doing my taxes is literally easier. But my next characters did 3000 damage a turn.  Many of our foes ignored normal damage, but it was a damn good start.

Moral of the story: when your GM is a munchkin, everyone needs to be a munchkin.

That fear of powerlessness hangs with me, I think. To want to do but be unable. Death by my own foolishness is fine and usually hilarious, but death by powerlessness demoralizes me. I leave the game sad and defeated.  

Powerless and afraid. I feel those emotions enough in the real world. I have no need of them in my games. My players don't either: by taking away everyone's high numbers, I level the playing field. The thing stopping you from being a hero won't be your to hit score.

I guess that's why I min max.