For the gamers...

Those of you who are fellow RPGers might enjoy this piece about the nature of role-playing games. The rest of you probably won't be interested.

I think it's fair to say that roleplaying is about making suboptimal choices, and that a good RPG should reward those. And I think it's also fair to say that a number of current-generation RPGs provide strong disincentives against that style of gaming. It's very easy to fall into the trap of optimizing your character instead of making a character interesting, especially when an interesting character may not be capable of handling standard encounters. A character who is strongly invested in languages, for instance, is unlikely to be rewarded in most d20-based games; yes, he's fluent in five languages, but can he cast a spell or bash somebody in the head?

It's a tough problem. In any case, the article is a good read if you're into that sort of thing. If not, 's'okay. Move along. Nothing to see here.