>Pun-Pun isn't flexible. Min-Maxing isn't about flexible, it's about
>loophole-chasing and powergaming, and Pun-Pun is min-maxing at its
>very most extreme, something which is already extreme.

I believe the way the terms are used here, a system heavily weighted toward "control" (by and for the DM) would be inclined to prevent, or at least minimize, that kind of thing, whereas one that gives the players the flexibility to do so would not.

I haven't really got a dog in that fight, since I haven't played since before 3.5, but I will say that I had a hell of a lot of fun playing in the one 3E game I was in, in large part because that version of the system allowed for a person to do really silly off-label shit (like the character I played, whose capsule bio sounds like I was completely taking the piss if read at face value) and play it completely straight; but it required a great deal of circumspection on the players' part to make that work, and a lot of house rules and Understandings with the DM. As I read the original post, the point of the "Control" formulations of the game's base rules is to reduce the workload on the DM and the level of discretion required of the players by just barring them from doing silly shit in the first place. Which is, on the one hand, rather anticreative, but on the other, some people crave structure.

To paraphrase a favorite old remark about operating systems, "Unix doesn't stop you from doing silly shit, because that would stop you from doing clever shit." Under this rubric, Third Edition was Unix; it sounds like Fifth Edition is more like MacOS. :)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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