Miscellany: Power-gaming vs. Role-playing

In nearly every RPG, there is a conflict between the "role-playing" and "game" portions. Take "Fallout," for instance, the classic post-apocalyptic computer game. When creating your character, you inevitably lay down the character's concept - is he or she a tough, no holds-barred type who shoots first? A master manipulator? Skilled in repairing and troubleshooting things?

Few people, though, would choose to play a complete wimp, since that kind of character would die quickly in the game, even though he or she might be fun to role-play. Players are even loathe to have their characters have weaknesses of any kind - I'm reminded of the constant rolling and rerolling of stats that some of my friends employed, just so they could play a paladin in AD&D 2nd Edition. Between these two extremes, there's the normal optimization that most players like in their characters, called "min-maxing."

I'm creating a new character for Dave's "plain vanilla" D&D campaign (he's just running some published adventures, so no splatbooks and no craziness). She's Jillian Underthorn, a halfling wizard specializing in transmutation, so she has a set number of spells that she can dish out. To be honest, I found myself min-maxing when looking at the spell list - "This sounds like a cool spell, and Jillian may have learned it in her travels, but it doesn't do as much damage as the good old fireball."

Oh well. I guess it's better than *gasp* dying in the campaign.