Optimized, unoptimized, counteroptimized

That's a classic.

While we are talking about classics, I know this player who minmaxed Rolemaster, stacking all he could find for mounted charge with lance, getting an attack score about twice what a normal fighter would have (whatever that was in RM, I can't remember).

Mounted lance attack was all that character could do.

GM set the first story onboard a ship.

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:grinning: That GM is my soulmate.

Ah, Rolemaster! We played that one so much back in the 90's that we actually didn't need the combat book anymore, we were pretty good guessing damage and critical results. I was quite a minmaxer in that game, oh yes. I remember I had an archer that killed someone at 50 yards with a single shot while blinded. Combat became so boring that my archer just became a pacifist and refused to fight. I remember the GM was quite confused about that.

i would simply give a simple assertion here.

virtue could be optimized and probably should so than character is coherent.
vice shouldn't be "optimized".

If you know you will play a short campaign of 10 year duration with a young mage and you take difficult longevity ritual as a major hermetic vice... that's a very bad optimization.

There is a quote from several point based games 'A disadvantage which is not a disadvantage is worth no points'. So if you take a flaw which you know will have no impact on the Saga or Character , the SG is entirely within the realms of reason to say pick another one.
Of course if you want to take Difficult longevity ritual for thematic reasons in a game which will only be short then you can always take it as an extra flaw with no benefit

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