General Discussion

[TerribleSorcery]

But is it expressively terse??

Yeah this is good. Easy things to say, but hard to remember when you're writing things down, and even harder in the thick of the game.

 

[bryce0lynch]

I'm putting this here because I don't want to sully the "Bryce Said" thread. There was a bit of solid advice on DM David's blog today on evocative narration, it is worth checking out.

yeah, that's pretty good. I'll reference it for the bibliography

 

[squeen]

I'm putting this here because I don't want to sully the "Bryce Said" thread. There was a bit of solid advice on DM David's blog today on evocative narration, it is worth checking out.

Solid advice. The 3 of 5 sense might be a bit formulaic if followed religiously.

 

[TerribleSorcery]

Sure, but it's good advice because most of us so often forget that stuff at all. Better to have 3 senses every time than just 1 every time, right?

 

[squeen]

Maybe. Less can be more.

 

[Beoric]

So I had another random thought. The character options in 4e, and from what I can see 3e, have a really strongly implied setting associated with them. For example in 4e, wizards gain their powers from studying books, their primary ability is Intelligence, they are versatile in that they can collect a great variety of spells and rituals, but are reliant on their books, and they generally pass through a period of hard work via apprenticeship, or arcane schools, if the setting allows.

By contrast, sorcerers are born with sorcerous ability, which may come from exposure to strange forces or having fiends or dragons in their ancestry, their primary ability is Charisma, they are mush more limited in the sorts of spells they can cast, but are not reliant on spellbooks, and gaining power is a different kind of hard work from studying books.

Warlocks don't need any knack for magic, and may not have to lift a finger to get it. Instead, they make pacts with powerful beings - demons, devils, fallen gods, archfey, or sorcerer-kings, for example - who grant them magic. Their primary ability can be either Constitution or Charisma, and are quite limited in the sorts of spells they can cast, which are limited by their primary ability and by their choice of patron. No studying or hard work, in theory, but they may have their patron asking favours and meddling in their lives.

The mechanics of those different spellcasters are different from each other in ways that enforce the implied setting. And outside of class there are other ways the setting is implied. For another example, new options are often stated or implied to have been developed by a particular group - a band of outlaws or a circle of wizards, for instance - with the implication that one might need to make a connection with those groups to learn the spell (or whatever).

And then, WotC turns around and says, ignore all that, just use the mechanics, pick up the options from wherever you want on the fly whenever you level, and reflavour it to your heart's content so that it matches your character concept. So if you prefer the mechanics of a wizard but the backstory of a warlock, for instance, then you build a wizard, with all of its flexibility, and pretend your character is a warlock. Or if your character has claws, for whatever reason, you choose to be proficient with daggers and pretend they are claws.

Which is fine as an option, of course, the DM can do whatever he wants. But what drives me nuts is the option of actually running with the implied setting, and limiting your players by its implied limitations, is never discussed. In fact, I think it is actually discouraged (although I would have to review the DMGs to be sure it isn't just a 4e culture thing that I absorbed). There are discussions about limiting character options if the DM thinks a particular combination is too powerful, or if there are just too many options to keep track of, but there is no discussion about limiting options based on who the PC's potential teachers are in the game. There is no discussion about how to run a campaign where there are gatekeepers for knowledge.

So if a fighter wants to pick up a warlock option, we are told the player should just pick a multiclass feat when he moves up a level. There is no discussion of the fighter finding a patron and convincing it to grant him power.

I get that OC is very in, and catering to that crowd makes economic sense. But it seems to me they could broaden their appeal to other types of gamers if they broadened their discussion of how to integrate character options into the game.

Yes, there are a thousand options that a fighter character could have, but your character does not have unlimited choice at first level. Or really many choices at all. In your village the only fighter skilled enough to teach you is a washed up duelist who practices the Midnight Blade style, fights with a rapier and smallsword, and knows a limited number of moves, some of which are good and some not so good. The place is lousy with rangers, but the local tradition is to focus on archery, and your dex isn't so good. And don't even think about talking to that alcoholic hedge witch who claims he was a grand wizard until he lost his spellbooks in a fire; he probably set it himself, the old drunk.

If you stay in the village, those are your options; if you want to learn other techniques, you are going to have to go off into the wide world and find a new teacher, or join the military, or scrape up some cash and enroll in a military academy. There's no sense whining about it, we can't all be candy-class paladins.

 

[Malrex]

@Beoric I'm just getting off work as its grant season with deadlines....so I may misunderstand your post as I'm exhausted.

But there are adventure hooks twisted in all that which I love. It's one of the reasons I created Special Area: The Ranger's Hideout and my druid one that I haven't published yet (still needs work) and bard....and umm..fighter one....ya, been thinking of all the classes. The idea of finding a trainer or going back to your trainer to learn different skills or going on a mini adventure to practice the new skills instead of things being handwaved. Awe-inspiring adventures are great, but sometimes little bits like this can be fun too in my opinion.

Sure, I've been hollering to have 1st level characters be gladiators or whatever...but that's just part of the base. Learning new skills as they level up from a trainer or even better, hearing about a competitor that they should face/or steal from in order to learn something new is great. To me, it's like hearing about that magical sword you go on a quest for, but instead, it's to learn that new spell after leveling, or ability, or to do something so your god isn't pissed off at you, or quest to find your paladin mount (Red Prophet Rises). PCs are ALWAYS doing quests for others....but I see players get very engaged when its a quest for their specific character, especially if there is a chance to be better or become more powerful.

Way back in the day, I had a DM who would run little stuff like this when not everyone could show up for gaming night and as a player, it was a complete blast. We would meet our trainers or whatever...then like months later when Ive jumped up a few levels and only 1-2 showed up to play, I'd have a summons to visit my trainer again or someone else did and we would go help.

After reading above, a cool warlock adventure to me would be an adventure to find your demon/devil/whatever.

 

[EOTB]

I think this ties in to whether training montages in movies amp you up or cheese you out.

Granted, I come from an edition where classes have fewer options. I'm not against what people are saying in concept, but I'd only employ it for "exotic". If a character wants to learn some unusual weapon known by a certain sect, yes, we'll play gaining access to that opportunity out as an adventure. If the character wants to pick up battle ax as a WP I'm not going to spend precious table time in figuring out whether this village has someone, and if not, how far away is it really? I'm here for what Indy does with his whip after he learns it, but not really playing out learning it. I feel like it's begging for 45 minutes of the most basic bitch roleplaying, right up there with "now let's haggle with the merchant".

 

[The1True]

I think this ties in to whether training montages in movies amp you up or cheese you out.

Granted, I come from an edition where classes have fewer options. I'm not against what people are saying in concept, but I'd only employ it for "exotic". If a character wants to learn some unusual weapon known by a certain sect, yes, we'll play gaining access to that opportunity out as an adventure. If the character wants to pick up battle ax as a WP I'm not going to spend precious table time in figuring out whether this village has someone, and if not, how far away is it really? I'm here for what Indy does with his whip after he learns it, but not really playing out learning it. I feel like it's begging for 45 minutes of the most basic bitch roleplaying, right up there with "now let's haggle with the merchant".

I think Malrex nails it by doing the training side-quests when there's an opening in the schedule or if the DM and player have sufficient enthusiasm to schedule an extra couple of hours outside of group time. That way it doesn't become a precedent that needs to be dealt with every time someone wants to level up/learn a new skill.

Similarly, my group usually gets experience between adventures and uses the requisite downtime to train, but sometimes we're ten torches deep and 1 lvl too low to face the bbeg, at which point, if we've got enough XP, we'll level up unceremoniously like a video game. We tried to rationalize it for a while by saying that if we wanted to take a previously unknown skill/feat/proficiency we should actively show our character practicing it in-game leading up to the level advancement, but there were numerous technical issues and it was a pain in the ass and it fell by the wayside...

 

[squeen]

For me this waivers between the line of abstraction and campaign content. There will be times when an element is fun to play out and others where it would be tedious. Again, my preference is a very small number of generic/bland basic classes which become flavored-to-taste through play. All of the above class-options are just kernels for game-development to me, which of course assumes you have a decent DM to execute them.

It think the place where @Beoric diverges from my habit and thinking is implying WotC (or some other entity) should provide this content or give direction on how to generate it. I'm not saying that to be disparging, but out of genuine curiosity as to his actionable-intent. What is the missing or broken link?

 

[Beoric]

My core inspiration for the mechanics the AD&D training rules, and most of the time it is not more complicated than that; when it is time to level, you expend the requisite cash, and you are presumed to have learned what you need to learn. It is only if you want to learn the Dance of Blades that you need to go questing for it.

"Training montage" is not what I am going for. I had a DM once who made us roleplay the entire of the training process, rather than having it occur during downtime. It was painful.

Knowing what options are available when it comes time for training is not an issue for the common classes, like fighter and rogue. I make options regionally based, so they will likely have already been fighting NPCs trained in the regional style. Coming up with those styles is not a chore because (a) I like the worldbuilding, it is part of the reason I am a DM; and (b) without going into a lot of explanation as to how it works, 4e already has themes it is possible to identify and build around.

Which brings me to @squeen's point. I didn't expect WotC to generate all this, but they did. What baffles me is that, having generated this content, why do they then discouraging DMs from using it?

I would also point out that, as with the 1e DMG, this content implies a setting, it does not impose a setting. Just like AD&D implies a setting by the description of its monsters, the spells available, the content of random encounter lists, the treasure tables, etc. Interpreting those implications and incorporating them into your campaign is up to you. It is a restriction that helps inspire, the same way people use random tables. Note I probably wouldn't be able to do this efficiently, except that all of the options are digitized and searchable.

Say I want to generate a combat style for a human barbarian tribe, and I decide that their primary weapon of war is the spear. There are 8 different combat styles that use spears, so I pick one more or less randomly. Hunting Spear style uses any kind of spear, focuses on athletics, and gives damage bonuses for attacks on large creatures; it also has a list of combat maneuvers that, while not mandatory, are modified by the style. Fighters, rangers (which in 4e are less mystical nature warriors and more skirmishing fighters), and warlords (a variant "leader" type of fighter) can use the style; rogues cannot. All of the associated maneuvers are melee attacks, not ranged attacks, so that tells me something about how they wage war and probably how they hunt. The fact that they do more damage to large creatures may indicate the kind of prey they go after, maybe mastadons, and/or there might be a tribe of ettins nearby. Since no specialized spear is specified they probably use a variety of spears, likely including javalins even though thrown weapons is clearly not their forte.

The list of ranger maneuvers includes maneuvers that can only be used by beastmaster rangers. I hadn't really thought about this being a tribe that keeps pets, but now I decide they have long been allied with a wolf pack. Beastmaster's aren't the strongest type of ranger; I will think about what that means in terms of the tribe's priorities.

There are going to be some gaps in the list of options, so I think about how I want to fill it. Do I focus on options relating to spears, or options relating to humans, or options relating to fighters? I pick one and fill out the list.

Now I look at what options have been selected and make an assessment as to how many of them are good options, and haw many are bad options. And I think about what that says about the tribe, and what they value. Are their strengths in their fighters, or their rangers, or their leaders, and why? Since the three classes would obviously be trained separately, I make three warrior septs or factions in the tribe, and think about what their major areas of responsibility would be, and how they would interact.

Now I want to create a spiritual leader, and maybe an elite warrior to two. The Sentinel Druid has an option for a wolf beast companion, so I go with that. Sentinels are not particularly good fighters, and can't shapeshift like other druids, but they are stronger healers; this tells me something about what the tribe values; this isn't a tribe of reavers, they are a kinder, gentler people, likely with a strong gathering tradition in addition to hunting, and a real "work with nature" approach to both. Going with the wolf theme, I see there are a few barbarian options that are wolf-flavoured, so I make an elite spear-using barbarian character based on those options, and the non-class specific options that I picked for the fighter types. I also pick the less aggressive options for the barbarian; one of those revolves around the barbarian's war cry. I like the idea of howling wolves, and communicating with wolves, so I add the warcry to their warrior culture.

So now I have a tribe of hunters and gatherers who have a close relationship with a wolf pack. They live in harmony with nature, and respect those who embody that connection at least as much as their best hunters. They kill for food, not for sport or for loot, and they take only what they need. Their preferred weapon is the spear with which they kill their prey; ranged javelins are used to drive very large game into a killing zone populated by heavy spear wielders. They war often enough with a nearby tribe of ettins that they have developed specialized tactics for dealing with them. Their war cry, and the way they signal each other in battle, is based on the howls and baying of wolves. Their spiritual leaders are druids, and their elite warriors are those who can channel the spirit of the wolf.

 

[squeen]

I totally like where you ended up, even if I don't understand how you got there.

For me, the creative process would be reversed---I'd know where I wanted to end up and I would create situationally-specific mechanics that work within the general framework of AD&D mechanics to achieve that result---but wouldn't have focused much on "options" since it's not clear to me if those are player-options or game-mechanic-options. Who is selecting?

FWIW, Finch often made the point in S&W that class-rules don't apply to NPCs, so don't let that hamper your creativity.

In the end, it sounds like you've got all you need. Was your original post (above) mainly about the cognitive-disconnect of WotC's presented material and their indications that you should feel free to ignore it? I'm just trying to understand what you think was "wrong", poorly executed, or missing in the 4e presentation.

One last stray thought that also occurred to me while I was reading your thought process (which I think is world-building, right?), is that I think it's important to always remember "How is this player-facing?". I believe it should be in someway player-actionable to be fun (i.e. challenging-fun, not Monte Haul fun). In this case, you are thinking training, right? So while you've built up something consistent (milieu!), but what does all that mean for the player getting trained. Is it better for all the detail added or just window dressing? Just an open-ended question.

 

[Beoric]

An NPC doesn't have to be created using class rules, in fact there are express guidelines for creating NPCs in 4e that are much simpler than what I am doing here. I use PC rules to create NPCs because if I do:

1. They are a potential source of training for PCs.
2. They are a potential source of henchmen.
3. They are a potential source of replacement characters.
4. They are a source of pregens for pickup games.
5. I get to use the implied setting information from the options as inspiration.

As for how it works in play, maybe the PCs are nowhere near their mentor when they level and don't want to wait to pick up some skills, so they look for somebody locally. Same as using the AD&D rules in Hommlet, if you are a fighter and you level you probably need to approach Rufus for training. And then maybe they get back to the city and need training from their old mentor again, and the mentor does things a bit differently, and the PC decides whether he wants to focus on the mentor's style, or pursue a different path, or integrate what he has learned with other things the mentor can teach. From the player's point of view he now has a larger menus of options from which to choose, if he want to pay for what he believes to be an upgrade. From a purely mechanical standpoint I guess finding new mentors "unlocks" additional options, although I never really thought of it that way until you asked the question.

Or maybe the mentor is still in play when he levels, but the player sees something an NPC can do that he really likes, so he wants to see if someone will teach it to him.

If you have a player who is really motivated by this sort of thing, you can start spinning rumors about masters of the craft who can do amazing things, like Robin Hood splitting an arrow, or of exotic weapons and their use, like Cu Chulainn's technique with the gae bolga, and they are off to find the masters. Different techniques have existed in fiction and in real life forever, complete with colourful names (Tiger Claw martial arts style, or the Butterfly kick, for example). Or just read this page on the Italian style of swordsmanship, which lists not just its famous practitioners, but also points to a long list of published manuals illustrating techniques for 20 different weapon combinations.

Or maybe the player knows the options in the PHB and is going for a particular combination of techniques; my rule is that you can optimize your character, but you have to do so in game. I should mention that the first time I thought of doing it this way was when a player was playing a monk, and decided he wanted to wander the world learning from different martial arts masters. So it isn't just player facing, it's player inspired.

And yes, my original post was about the disconnect between WotC making this thing, and then discouraging players from using it instead of leaning into it. It was there with 3e as well, but whereas 3e seemed to ignore it, 4e actively discouraged it. I think it is one more example of why the world thinks 4e is a tactical miniatures game, when in fact it offers a much richer experience.

 

[Malrex]

One last stray thought that also occurred to me while I was reading your thought process (which I think is world-building, right?), is that I think it's important to always remember "How is this player-facing?". I believe it should be in someway player-actionable to be fun (i.e. challenging-fun, not Monte Haul fun). In this case, you are thinking training, right? So while you've built up something consistent (milieu!), but what does all that mean for the player getting trained. Is it better for all the detail added or just window dressing? Just an open-ended question.

Player-facing---"player-facing refers to game elements that require the player to roll dice, react, or make decisions instead of the gamemaster." Is that correct? I feel like Beoric's example totally enhances the 'player-facing' experience--when the PCs arrive there.

I won't speak for Beoric, but feel like we may have some similar traits when DMing. Personally I love the detail, because I view them as tools, and now I can DM as smooth as honey, completely stress free and make solid decisions when needed. I may not even need to open the adventure book up--it's all in my head now and I can adapt easily, ridiculously easy. DMing becomes more fun for me because I feel prepared. I feel more comfortable 'winging it' off of player actions/decisions cause I got all the bases covered. The players will still make choices I haven't thought of but it's ok, cause I got the details and now have an idea of how some of the NPCs will react because I know a bit of their background. This is why I prefer to DM my own stuff because I got the bases covered--Unlike Bryce and some others, I like to (have to) read over an adventure first and think about the details to feel like it's a successful DMing night, instead of just opening the book and being able to run it immediately--which I can do, but I don't think I personally do as good of a job. Some DMs can do that amazingly well though. Sometimes I can still read a module and it's 'dry' to me, meaning it lacks details for me to riff off of, which I promptly return to the shelf if given the option.

When the players arrive at this wolf tribe for training and ready to do some 'player-facing'....NOW it's not just for training even though that may be their intent. Now its full on 'player-actionable' fun. With all the detail bases covered---I can make this into an 'adventure' or set off a series of situations, add rumors, add hooks, add problems (the prized wolf is sick, maybe the PC druid can help), add a rivalry to the PC from one of the warrior factions within the tribe, have the ettins do a surprise attack,---make the world feel more alive and to make players feel like their decisions have consequences or that they can change things for better or worse.

This is also where details from players about their own characters can pop in and even assist me as a DM. One of the PC's is from the elk clan? great...can add some past, historic drama when they are visiting the wolf clan. Or maybe a gladiator? great...can get some brawls going. I got some of their background to riff off of to make situations make more sense, make the player feel more empowered because it may be something specific to their character, and overall it makes everything a richer experience for the player (in my opinion).

Is this a full on campaign? hell no...a 1-2 play session experience to break up dungeon delving, and usually better when not everyone can make it to play. But it could certainly be a springboard to lead PCs to more adventure.

I'd find haggling/roleplaying (longer than 3-5 minutes) with a merchant and swinging a sword to train pretty boring too.

 

[squeen]

Or just read this page on the Italian style of swordsmanship, which lists not just its famous practitioners, but also points to a long list of published manuals illustrating techniques for 20 different weapon combinations.

Heh. I like how the artist drew the elephant like a dog.

 

[TerribleSorcery]

And yes, my original post was about the disconnect between WotC making this thing, and then discouraging players from using it instead of leaning into it. It was there with 3e as well, but whereas 3e seemed to ignore it, 4e actively discouraged it. I think it is one more example of why the world thinks 4e is a tactical miniatures game, when in fact it offers a much richer experience.

Isn't this the same conversation we had in that other thread a week ago? When Squeen and I said 2nd edition kits were bullshit, and Malrex said we were control-freak DMs. This is that exact problem from the other direction.

The whole point of creating a list of character options that can be picked from is that it takes power *out* of the hands of the DM, right? If you want to put it back there by placing teachers in your game world, so that the players actually have to play the fucking game instead of perusing a list - that's an unequivocal good! But surely you can see why they didn't tell you to do that in the rulebooks, because then we would be back to the days of "control freak DMing," and that's exactly what they were trying to avoid.

 

[Beoric]

Isn't this the same conversation we had in that other thread a week ago? When Squeen and I said 2nd edition kits were bullshit, and Malrex said we were control-freak DMs. This is that exact problem from the other direction.

The whole point of creating a list of character options that can be picked from is that it takes power *out* of the hands of the DM, right? If you want to put it back there by placing teachers in your game world, so that the players actually have to play the fucking game instead of perusing a list - that's an unequivocal good! But surely you can see why they didn't tell you to do that in the rulebooks, because then we would be back to the days of "control freak DMing," and that's exactly what they were trying to avoid.

That may be it, although you give them more credit for doing things consciously than I would. That might also account for the structure of skill challenges, which take the resolution of out-of-combat scenarios entirely out of the hands of the DM, to the point that they generally ended up reminding people of why DMs were necessary in the first place.

But it still seems misplaced. Even the most hard core OC dudes on the CharOp boards are clearly in favour of a more involved DM than this would suggest. With respect to this topic especially, disallowing overpowered character builds is considered to be fundamental to running a table well, because they take the view that everyone needs to have more or less the same level of optimization or people get left out. So unless everyone at the table was heavily optimized, nobody should be. Nobody ever criticizes people for choosing not to use particular options if it doesn't fit the campaign or the DM's preferences.

And in the end it backfired, didn't it? IIRC, one of the design goals of 5e was to put more power back into the hands of the DM, because taking it away had been one of the criticisms of 4e. And people though that, not because the system actually removed that power, but because it was portrayed by the designers as doing so.

 

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[TerribleSorcery]

Even the most hard core OC dudes on the CharOp boards are clearly in favour of a more involved DM than this would suggest. With respect to this topic especially, disallowing overpowered character builds is considered to be fundamental to running a table well, because they take the view that everyone needs to have more or less the same level of optimization or people get left out. So unless everyone at the table was heavily optimized, nobody should be. Nobody ever criticizes people for choosing not to use particular options if it doesn't fit the campaign or the DM's preferences.

And in the end it backfired, didn't it? IIRC, one of the design goals of 5e was to put more power back into the hands of the DM, because taking it away had been one of the criticisms of 4e. And people though that, not because the system actually removed that power, but because it was portrayed by the designers as doing so.

Well those charop guys are saying that stuff *now*... but those guys on the boards are hardcore, they have delved into the system and they know that without a DM to hold the reins, they could break the game in half in 5 seconds. What was the reaction to these changes at the time, when 3e and 4e came out? (I wasn't keeping track due to playing Vampire at the time... not my finest hour) If some of the comments in the other thread are anything to go by, a fair number of people were pumped that they could now pick their abilities from a list, instead of playing "mother-may-I" with the DM when they wanted their character to have some special ability.

And... given the existence of Rule 0 and the fact that the DM still has to create and stock his game world - what is the difference in this case between what the system permits and what it is portrayed as permitting, I wonder.

 

[Beoric]

Well those charop guys are saying that stuff *now*... but those guys on the boards are hardcore, they have delved into the system and they know that without a DM to hold the reins, they could break the game in half in 5 seconds. What was the reaction to these changes at the time, when 3e and 4e came out? (I wasn't keeping track due to playing Vampire at the time... not my finest hour) If some of the comments in the other thread are anything to go by, a fair number of people were pumped that they could now pick their abilities from a list, instead of playing "mother-may-I" with the DM when they wanted their character to have some special ability.

And... given the existence of Rule 0 and the fact that the DM still has to create and stock his game world - what is the difference in this case between what the system permits and what it is portrayed as permitting, I wonder.

No, this was back in 4e's heyday, when there were still WotC obards; TBH the 4e CharOp boards are pretty quiet now. The crazy builds were treated as sort of a proof of concept, bunch of thought experiments that were not supposed to be played, because they pretty much took the fun out of the game.

Rather, the focus was on building characters that were able to do their jobs as expected for their level, and ensuring balanced parties. Given the 4e assumption that if a module said it was designed for level n, characters of level n ought to be able to finish it, they called out substandard options that would cause characters to struggle. There are a lot of options in 4e that suck, and they wanted to warn players against taking them. I estimate that about a third of the options in the game are useless enough that they shouldn't even exist.

This approach was reflected in the rating system. "Gold" was effectively an option tax; it was difficult to see why you wouldn't take it. In some cases this was because the option was that good, but most of the time it was because it was a necessary fix to a flaw in the system. "Sky blue" was good enough that you should take it unless you have a reason not to - with the understanding that you could, in fact, have a reason not to. "Blue" was above par in most situations. "Black" was baseline efficient in most circumstances. "Purple" was generally subpar except for certain corner cases when if could be worth taking. "Red" was one of (a) a "trap" that did not in fact do what it appeared to do, (b) clearly outclassed by another option that did the same thing at the same level, or (c) was subpar in all circumstances. "Green" was an option that was either entirely campaign dependent, or was only relevant to nonmechanical roleplay, and therefore impossible to evaluate without reference to the particular campaign and group. Note that an option could be sky blue for one class, and red for another.

They also called out combinations that would cause fights to drag (for example, a character with high defences and HP that was effectively unkillable, but did poor damage so it took forever to kill off team monster) or were not team friendly (like "permastealth" builds that were deadly but untargetable, so that the remainder of the party took the brunt of the damage; this was seen not just as unfair to the other players, but inefficient since the adventuring day only lasts until the first character runs out of HP). It was also considered courteous to ensure your character was not more optimized than the rest of the party.

Now, this is not as important if you are using the early edition "choose your danger level" adventure design principles; in that case you can just spend longer on the upper levels of the dungeon if your character ain't so good at combat. But if you accept the premise that encounters should be tailored to your level, and that PCs should be expected to win every encounter, then these are all relevant considerations.

All that being said, it was also an assumption on the boards that you could just pick your options from the list of non-banned options allowed by the DM. There was no waiting for a DM to hand them out for you. The only (partial) exception is with respect to magic items but even then (a) DMs were encouraged by the official rules to get a list of their players' preferences and dole out items from that list, and (b) most of the CharOp guys played Living Forgotten Realms (an official organized play event) that IIRC allowed you to chose your own items.

I was never on the 3e boards, so I can't speak to them.

And yes, everything I have described above is a matter of game culture and not actually required by the rules.