Never seen this one before, but I have seen people making the claim that it always is (those are the times I've mainly seen the fallacy mentioned).
Let's face it, Powergaming
is always bad when it's causing a disruption in the game. Does that mean it's always bad? No. If the entire group is set and ready to go Powergaming, then it's just as viable a way to play as any other, everyone's having fun, everything is kosher.
If it's causing issues, then everyone obviously isn't set to Powergame. If the GM is having issues with a player/some players Powergaming, then the GM is obviously not set to run a game at that level, or most of his players aren't. Otherwise, the GM would be asking for advice on
getting players to Powergame up to par rather than how to deal with the Powergaming issue.
Nothing to do with Roleplaying at all, yet the Fallacy always gets thrown in as though it's some sort of magical shield to hide the real issue behind.
I've written highly involved characters, complete with detailed personal history, family ties, a Character Questions writeup, 3x3 contact grid, a well-researched cultural identity, and their own set of personal agendas that don't have anything to do with the mission at hand. Characters that I knew, inside and out, like they were a real person.
You're jumping right into the same pool here. Putting background work into a character does not make the character any better roleplayed than a character with no background work put in. Roleplaying occurs
after the game starts. Background just helps you better define the role you'll be playing.
I've seen players write a twenty page story, do the friend/enemy matrix, and even plot out their address on Google Maps only to spend the entire campaign roleplaying slightly worse than the dead bugs in my porch light. Could have replaced them with some cardboard standups and things couldn't have been much worse.
On that same note. Giving a character a flaw does not immediately make them roleplayed either. Like a background, it's just another tool for creating that role that the player wants to play. Both Flaws and Backgrounds help keep the game interesting and personal, but the players have to continue to make them relevant in the game through roleplaying.
My interpretation is that it's aimed at the false idea that a "weak", "flawed", or "sub-optimal" character is somehow better for RP than one that is mechanically optimal... as if somehow actually being well-suited for the line of work you're pursuing is going to diminish your ability to role-play... when, of course, it's actually quite the opposite.
By that I mean that big, glaring flaws are crutches used by RPers who want nice, easy hooks so they don't have to think too hard about their characters. To make an optimized character "pop," you actually have to dig into the little details to bring them to life.
And we can see where you completely jumped in. Again, competency mechanically has nothing to do with ability to be roleplayed. Now, matching ratings to your story to make things make sense should be heavily encouraged (or required depending on the GM), but there is no reason that a four year runner is better roleplayed than a green runner that hasn't really figured out what he's doing yet.
Flaws are no more crutches than optimization is, to any degree. They are simply a tool to develop a character, and are vital to the fiction process (which roleplaying is a part of). Every single lead fiction character I can think of (from good fiction at least) has big gaping flaws
and a rich backstory. To argue that one is better than the other is no different than the argument the Stormwind Fallacy disproves. Gaping flaws and juicy though out backstories are not mutually exclusive.
Also, flawed characters can be optimized just as well as non-flawed characters. They just can't be min/maxed since that requires minimizing cost and flaws are a cost.
If you already have a good character concept that will be fun to roleplay, that concept will not be negatively affected by making your character more powerful in game terms. Alternately, if you have a weak character concept that concept is neither going to be improved nor hindered by your level of optimization. If your concept is based around certain flaws to enhance roleplaying, you should still be able to create a strong, viable character despite those flaws.
Key pretty much summed it up perfectly here. Optimizing your
character based on your concept does not cause you to lose anything from optimization. Where loss begins to occur is when you begin optimizing your
concept to make your character more optimal and it doesn't resemble what it began as. Sure, it can still be roleplayed perfectly, and I haven't seen anyone say otherwise, but once you begin this process it leads to a narrowing of concepts that are viable to be played. On a similar note, it usually winds up causing the player to look down on those unwilling to optimize their concept rather than their character.
Where optimization of a character crosses into optimization of a concept is a blurry line that leaps and bounds back and forth depending on the character, the concept, and the player. One player making an operative from the middle east may consider augmentations to break his concept, while another may not. Similarly one player may consider augmenting his adept to break his concept, while another may not.
The key is to not force
your beliefs based on the concepts
you usually build onto players that have a considerably different concept for their characters. This happens quite constantly (every augmented adept thread for instance).
Wonderful thing about english and slang... It evolves with every generation, the meaning of words change as the (general) educational level of the population slides/progresses/changes (however you want to view it)
Shhh now...you're getting dangerously close to magazine vs...uhm...that other word people use.
