Should personality or mental stats exist?

[loverdrive]

Overall, I think stats that describe what the character can bring themselves to do or stop themselves from doing are ultimately both more important and more immediately useful than stats describing their ability to persuade or solve riddles.

 

[Voadam]

I am generally in the mode of roleplay how you want to play, use stats for mechanics.

Roleplay smart or dumb, charming or obnoxious, whatever. The goal for me is for people to play something interesting and fun, I could care less about fidelity to stats on a sheet.

If you want to use mechanics go with stats. So in downtime if a 5e bard wants to start a smear campaign rumor against a rival and the DM does not just want to say yes but to make it an uncertain outcome then sure, deception roll and go and base results off the mechanics result, success or failure, possible turn failure into success with complication, or effect based on degree of success or failure.

As a DM I tend to go more with less mechanics for most everything but combat. I run 5e and its light skill system works for me with generally one optional skill roll within bound accuracy, particularly the aid another function encouraging tag team participation action for mechanical advantage instead of just everybody but the bard shut up.

 

[overgeeked]

As a DM I tend to go more with less mechanics for most everything but combat. I run 5e and its light skill system works for me with generally one optional skill roll within bound accuracy, particularly the aid another function encouraging tag team participation action for mechanical advantage instead of just everybody but the bard shut up.

One thing related to that I tried was turning social situations into group checks or skill challenges. Everyone can and should help out, and it’s not just social skills that can contribute. If the player can come up with a reasonable way a stat+skill would help, they get to roll it. I’ve tried this as a clock mechanic, which I liked more, or as each success gives advantage to the face character, which I liked less. I’d probably swipe MCDM’s negotiation mechanic as a general social skill challenge mechanic going forward.

 

[GrimCo]

Or take average DC of 15 as a baseline. Yeah, an "average" person has only 25% chance of a successful negotiation!

That said, this isn't an issue with stats themselves, that's an issue of the very specific way D&D stats work that is not universal to all games that have social and mental stats.

Yes, untrained person, going with pure talent (ability) has 25% chance to meet or beat DC 15 if he is average or 50% if he is pinnacle of talent (20 in ability). But both can reliably succeed more often than not by using pure talent even vs average difficulty DC.

Personally, i like WoD better since they are more nuanced. 3 sets of atributes with 3 atributes in each category ( power, finesse, resilience). So Mental has Intelligence(P), Wits(F) and Resolve(R) while Social has Presence (P), Manipulation (F) and Composure (R). D&D lumps all social in one stat- Charisma, while mental are just Int and Wis ( which would be combo of Wits and Resolve from WoD).

As for games, having Int or Cha 8, i don't really look at as dumping that stat. It's on the lower range of average, same as 12-13 is on the higher end of average. One standard deviation from median.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm very much of the opinion that as much as is about the character should be baked into the character traits, so yes.

I mean, yes, distributing points so someone is smart or charismatic can penalize you if you're playing a class or role that doesn't benefit from those. That's just as true making someone strength high because its in character or some other physical attribute on a type that it isn't important for.

Personality traits are more complicated. I think there can be a place for them, but at the very least they should be at the choice of the player, and ideally optional (as in if you really want to play kind of a bland personality you should get to).

 

[MGibster]

If you want to play a smart or charismatic fighter, you'll be punished by being less effective at your role. Of course, you can just roleplay your character that way regardless of stats, and I see this done constantly. Does that mean players roleplay their character "wrong?" Or is the stat wrong?

In recent years, I've come to the conclusion that every player character should be able to talk NPCs during a campaign. They might not all be good at talking to certain people or about certain subjects, but every character should be able to contribute something on the social side of the game.

There's that situation where most of the party is silent, because they're afaid of screwing up some social encounter as they side glance at the party bard.

I've frequently seen that as well where one person is designated to speak on behalf of the party and the others prettyh much remain silent. It drives me a little nuts because I want more than one person to be able to participate. Years ago, I was running an L5R game and the PC's city was besiged. The enemy general gave the city a Mad Max Lord Humungus "Just Walk Away" speech to demoralize their forces. When I gave the PCs the opportunity to give their rebuttal the only thing I heard was crickets. One of the PCs was a monk who finally asked the others, "Are one of you samurai going to say something?"

 

[Lucas Yew]

The way I see it is, if you don't expect to make the Barbarian's player lift weights or swing a real sword, you shouldn't expect a Wizard's player to always have the right answer, or the Bard's player to always know how to be charming.

Lots of people believe they are smart or witty or dashing. If you have a Charisma of 8, and you think you're God's gift to your preferred gender(s), you can roleplay as being as suave as you want to be- the dice will tell the tale- and if you succeed anyways, well, maybe you're a Kavorka Man!

By the same token, maybe your fumbling, tongue-tied Bard with a 20 Charisma is just so plain adorkable that even the mean-hearted BBEG is like "daww, I can't stay mad at you!". Skill at oratory and public speaking =/= being charismatic- it sure helps, but that's being trained in Persuasion, not having high Charisma.

And if a supposedly smart or wise character keeps making bad decisions, well, some of the smartest people I know are morons, lol.

Sure, we all want to shower gifted roleplayers with accolades, but we can't let the game become a series of "persuade the DM" checks. This is what Inspiration is for, IMO. If the Barbarian waxes eloquently, award him Inspiration, and then let his player live with the choices he made. And never force someone to wear a dunce cap- they'll likely make their lives more painful without any help from you!

I cannot agree more than I'd love to. So much this, much better worded than what I'd scramble up...

 

[MGibster]

Personally, i like WoD better since they are more nuanced. 3 sets of atributes with 3 atributes in each category ( power, finesse, resilience). So Mental has Intelligence(P), Wits(F) and Resolve(R) while Social has Presence (P), Manipulation (F) and Composure (R). D&D lumps all social in one stat- Charisma, while mental are just Int and Wis ( which would be combo of Wits and Resolve from WoD).

I've been reading my Legend of the Five Rings 5th edition book, and they've got an interesting set of rules that allows you to handle social situations in a variety of ways. Let's say I've got my character Mirumoto Omi who is at winter court and runs into Kakita Mariko who is a fencer of great reknown as is of a high social status. Omi's goal during this part of the game is to get in Mariko's good graces with the hope of receiving some instruction over the winter. And why not? All he's doing is getting fat while the courtiers spend all winter flattering and stabbing one another from behind their fans.

Omi starts out by demonstrating he's got good manners and the GM has him roll his Courtesy skill and his Water Ring. Another bushi, that jerk Bayushi Seiko, joins the conversation in the hopes of fencing lessons from Mariko and and the topic turns to the preferred weapon for different battle scenarios. Omi decides to argue Seiko's choice of a bow is both cowardly and weak, hopefully to incite him to break face and humiliate himself in front of Mariko. The GM allows him to roll his Martial Arts Ranged with his Fire Ring and he gets several successes. Seiko is faced with either bowing out of the conversation, leaving Omi the clear winner, or staying and losing Honor. Either way, Seiko gains several levels of stress.

 

[Laurefindel]

I’m with @Lanefan on this; mental stats still have a relevance even once you remove the personality aspects from them. It just sounds weird because Intelligence no longer strictly relates to the character’s being smart or not, etc, but it works as a modifier for specific skills/DC/special abilities.

I’m fine with that in the same way that a 18 Dex character doesn’t have to be all slim, or a 18 Str character not being cut like a body-builder.

 

[MGibster]

One other thing I think is useful is to allow players to determine their contacts based on their skills. Let's take a game like Call of Ctulhu. If you have a History skill of 60% you're an expert. Other people probably contact you from time-to-time to ask some questions about whatever history you specialize in. You certainly know other people who work in the same specialization you do and probably even others outside your speciality just because you're going to run into them at conferences, are one of their peers who reviews their research, or something else.

Or let's say you're playing Cyberpunk Red and you've got a Rifle skill of 8. This is a pretty high skill and it means you likely go to the shooting range on a regular basis. You're probably going to get to know people at the range, at least the employees, and on occasion people will probably come to you for advice on a particular firearm. "Man, I've one got 50 eddies to my name but I need a piece. Should I go with the Budget Arms Teen Dream or this Kang Toa pocket pistol?"