In the wonderful world of role play, there are many types of people you are likely to come across. People like myself, who take role play very seriously, tend to become their character for the duration of the session and sometimes even beyond, such as if you ask what my character would do in a given situation (I live with my Dungeon master, so I get these kinds of questions, and I do indeed become my character in order to answer the question).
To a certain extent, one expects most players to attempt to maximise their character's utility, by giving them good weapons, armour (if they use it) an other items. This helps to make characters just that little bit more uber and helps to differentiate the higher level characters from the lower (XP aside). It is a generally accepted thing that your character will have weaknesses, just like real people and that is the fun of role play - you take on the quirks of your character in order to play them as a unique and flawed individual. This is the heart and soul of role play.
Yet every now and then (and increasingly more often) you play a campaign with someone who just sucks balls. These people I call 'Power Players' and their sole goal in role play is to 'Kill shit and get stuff'. Now i have a number of issues with this mentality and style of role playing, and I will outline them now.
1)They have no respect for the versatility or subtitles of class. They normally play characters like Fighters, and will only be satisfied with that character if his strength is really high; completely ignoring the concept of being a martial warrior who's abilities lay in their speed and accuracy, or even giving them a quirky history, such as they always wanted to be a fighter, but childhood infirmity has made them weak, so they normally try and avoid combat - even though they are a fighter (bahaha!). Power players will sometimes play other classes (particularly if they are an 'experienced' power player) but generally, they lean towards the same sort of rule :- max'd out prime requisites or the character is 'shit'.
2) They apply a stock standard scaffold of 'what a fighter does' or 'what a mage does'to their characters, often ignoring the fact that their character has a history, a personality, and alignment...these things contribute to how you should play your character...they help you to determine what your character would do in a given situation. It also leads a lot of them to become hostile towards more subtle classes like Bards and Druids, because their mentality disallows them to conceive of the possibility that a character's strengths might actually lay in the ability of the player to STAY IN CHARACTER. Now some power players will occasionally call on some of their character's quirks and oddities and personality aspects at different times, but mostly, they are just them, playing a character on a sheet, and they rarely become their characters or expend any real effort in the playing of the role. This is irritating for the following reason.
3) Power players are without exception, the loudest and most obnoxious players in any given campaign. They are the ones who gloat when they kill something, or throw their dice across the table when they roll badly or get injured. Consequently they are normally the ones who eat all the Dorritos and drink all the Coke too. They make the game not fun for other people, and you never even get the benefit of meeting their characters...except in the rare instance when the person in question is forced to role play out of a sticky situation, in which case they are normally the arrogant one, attempting to use their charisma of 17 to influence someone, but doesn't actually know how to be charismatic and so expects the DM to just give it to them on the basis of them having a charisma of 17 (because apparently it doesn't matter what you say..its HOW you say it....)
In conclusion..power players suck.
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