Now my question is, what kind of game build would you do?
Edit: The world doesn't matter only the power for this discussion.
The world that I find myself in really
does matter for the purposes of the discussion.
The Gamer power, at the core, provides the following abilities:
- Gamer's Mind: Allows (arguably forces) me to disassociate from what I'm experiencing, the same way I can disassociate from the experiences of my avatar in a video game.
- Gamer's Body: My body functions at full capacity up until the moment of my death (nothing to sneeze at). If something interferes with my abilities, (a 'status effect') I can invariably shake it off by taking a nap.
- Grinding: All practice is effective, and I know exactly how effective it is. I can improve by brute force repetition, without needing to identify 'how' to improve (this is huge, I essentially will never need a teacher to help me move from 'beginner' to 'expert').
- Skills & Stats: 'Use it or lose it' never applies (this is also huge, I never need to waste time on upkeep of my abilities).
- Skill Books: I can instantly become a beginner at almost any skill, so long as instructions are written down or recorded physically (also important, I don't even need a teacher to instruct me in the basics of a skill).
- Status Screen: I know exactly what is going on with me and my capabilities, qualitatively and quantitatively.
- Level Ups: I can improve my core capabilities (my stats) just by collecting XP. That is to say, I can improve my core capabilities by doing things that are completely unrelated; e.g. I could improve my STR by completing social quests with little physical interaction, or I could improve my INT by physically fighting my enemies.
- Observe: I can grasp the essential use and nature of any item I look at, I can grasp the basic capabilities, identity, and life story of anyone that I look at, and I can objectively evaluate the 'power' of other people and entities relative to me.
- Loot: I can obtain surplus physical wealth, items, and skill books by defeating my enemies.
Altogether, this is an incredibly powerful set of abilities, but it's still limited. Jee-Han can use Mana and create Instant Dungeons, but that's not part of his Gamer ability. That's a part of the world he finds himself in; in his world,
anyone can use Mana and anyone can create Instant Dungeons. His Gamer ability just allows himself to learn much more quickly.
If I found myself in our world as The Gamer, increasing my INT and WIS would not allow me to become a powerful mystic or a wizard. I would be impressively intelligent, possibly able to emulate fictional geniuses and Thinkers, but I could not apply my intellect to learning magical powers. In our world, no-one can learn magical powers, so being super-intelligent and super-enlightened would not allow me to warp reality with a thought. It would just make me very smart and very self-aware.
In a no-magic low-threat world like our own, where I would have few opportunities to level up and no supernatural abilities to learn, my best options would be to either focus on my physical stats and make a difference with brute force, or focus on my mental stats and go into the sciences.
The first option, focusing on becoming physically superhuman, is a gamble. The best-case scenario would be becoming so strong that no-one could touch me, strong enough to suppress anyone who awakens with supernatural abilities (I suddenly have the power of The Gamer, why assume I am the only one empowered?) and uses them for destruction, and possibly strong enough to suppress international conflict. But I think that's unlikely. I would be more likely to end up merely
very strong, but not strong enough to escape being pushed around as a strategic asset.
The second option, focusing on becoming mentally superhuman, is also a gamble, but I think it's still a better bet, even without magic. The best-case scenario would be becoming a friendly super-intelligent being (high INT and WIS), or at least becoming intelligent enough to
create a friendly super-intelligent AI (something which would be unimaginably useful, but I think is unlikely to happen any time soon without supernatural powers). I also think that this best-case is unlikely to happen, and I would only be merely very smart, able to make great contributions to intellectual fields or solve a few
wicked problems, but ultimately not a new renaissance woman.
The option of focusing on mental stats rather than physical stats is also the better way to go because intelligence is a 'black box' of sorts. If I display physically superhuman abilities, then it could get a lot of attention. If I display mentally superhuman abilities, then I'm just a freak of nature and a natural outlier genius, rather than someone visibly violating the laws of human biology and/or physics.
But on the other hand, absolutely everything changes if I find myself with the Gamer ability in another world, where it is possible to learn things such as magic, psionics, ki abilities, or what have you. In that case, I would almost certainly focus my build on whatever learned supernatural ability I had access to, just because it would give me that many more options. Magic will almost always have much greater power scaling than my mundane skills, unless The Gamer can make even my mundane abilities into abstract supernatural powers (a la the Solar Exalted).
