D&D General Doing away with INT/WIS/CHA

Nevvur · Jul 9, 2019

It should go without saying that just because you and your character share the same knowledge doesn't mean you acquired it in the same way. In defense of the 'really bad' idea, I think there's much fun to be had improvising explanations for how Thag the Dumb knows enough astronomy to solve the puzzle, or how Ken the Chaste knows everything about BDSM. It's a different type of role playing, for sure, but not inherently bad.

Tony Vargas · Jul 9, 2019

Nevvur said:
It should go without saying that just because you and your character share the same knowledge doesn't mean you acquired it in the same way.

Prosaically, I figured that if you knew something from reading the books (or experience playing other characters in the past), your character knew it from listening to legends and stories of more experienced adventurers or the like.

In defense of the 'really bad' idea, I think there's much fun to be had improvising explanations for how Thag the Dumb knows enough astronomy to solve the puzzle, It's a different type of role playing, for sure, but not inherently bad.

Hey, just because you don't talk doesn't mean you know nothing about astronomy.

Nevvur · Jul 9, 2019

Unnecessary quote edit. You're fired.

Garthanos · Jul 9, 2019

Greenstone.Walker said:
It also peeves me a little that, "your character can't do that, she's not strong enough.' is seldom objected to, but, "your character can't do that, she's not smart enough." is almost always met with, 'stop blocking my agency!" but that might be an discussion for another thread.

Are you sure blocking of Charisma happens I read even if it's to their own detriment... Your warlord/bard/inspiring leader cannot do that who gets to say if my character is inspired or not.

Aldarc · Jul 9, 2019

Overall, [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION], I don"t think that your point of contention in this thread is that far removed from several of the talking points of the OSR movement that tend to focus on player skill rather than leaning on character mental and social abilities.

Garthanos · Jul 9, 2019

Aldarc said:
Overall, @Tony Vargas, I don"t think that your point of contention in this thread is that far removed from several of the talking points of the OSR movement that tend to focus on player skill rather than leaning on character mental and social abilities.

Oh I am sure that is perhaps some of the inspiration - So, topics that have come up tangentially in other threads have given me a really "bad idea. "

One of the points of playing characters is to play characters who are not you trying to do it better instead of not at all might be the "good idea" which has largely driven game design away from the OSR arena.

Spohedus · Jul 9, 2019

You still have to have INT/WIS/CHA for NPCs and monsters for the DM to properly play them and resolve interactions, so you couldn't truly get rid of these stats. I suppose I could rename them red, white, and blue if it made me feel better, but renaming them doesn't really change the game mechanics or how interactions are resolved.

Jer · Jul 9, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
That's a generally good way of handling checks, but it can be criticized as reducing the player's 'agency' in his character, and any sense of immersion, as the player is left unable to make more choices for the character than general objectives.

I'd like this unpacked a bit, because I don't get that criticism. With an approach of "wait until you see if you succeed or fail at a roll and then narrate why you succeeded or failed" I would argue the player has ALL of the agency. If anything I could see a criticism that it takes the control away from the DM, as the DM has to give up some control over how information flows in their world to give the players room to improvise those kinds of checks.

Of course where actual puzzles are involved I do have to admit that I don't handle things this way - at my table I will generally put the puzzle in front of the players and let them figure it out because one of my players absolutely loves doing that sort of thing and the rest of the group at least tolerates it, even if they don't enjoy it quite as much. So the "die roll" mechanic is replaced with a "which player actually figures out the puzzle" - so the narration is more about why the character being played by that player was able to figure it out first. (Which leads to a lot of fun for me as the DM as the player usually inserts some factoid into their background that we didn't know about before and I take some notes to reflect on later to see if it's worth bringing that in as a plot element...)

Jonathan Tweet · Jul 9, 2019

Tony Vargas said:
Replace INT, WIS, & CHA with:

RES: Resistance. This is your innate resistance to magic and other bad things happening to you little mind. Whenever the game calls for you to make an INT, WIS, or CHA save, you use your RES, instead.

FTH: Faith. This your connection to the divine and spiritual. When spellcasting or other supernatural class abilities call for WIS and/or CHA, use FTH, instead. (Yeah, Paladins should be happy with that.)

POW: Power. This is your innate magical power, When spellcasting or other supernatural class abilities call for INT or CHA, use your POW, instead.

Mechanically this change seems to work for handling supernatural for offense and defense, and it's sure worth a try. As the guy who switched the 3E first-draft sorcerer from Intelligence to Charisma, I would miss the distinction between the bookish wizard and the flashy sorcerer. More generally, Int, Wis, and Cha represent real-world qualities (however imperfectly), and these feel like game-mechanics stats rather than ways to describe a person.

That said, there are real problems with statting up a a character's intellect, intuition, and social ability. Players dump bad scores there, and then the whole table suffers either from a character with low mental abilities or from a player who doesn't roleplay the character's low "mental" stats.

Tony Vargas · Jul 9, 2019

Spohedus said:
You still have to have INT/WIS/CHA for NPCs and monsters for the DM to properly play them and resolve interactions, so you couldn't truly get rid of these stats.

Just as the players provide mental capacities for the PCs, the DM does for the whole world.
Not really any more daunting than DMing in general...