D&D 5E Weird Interpretations for High/Low Ability Scores

[Ruin Explorer]

Letting the player decide how they want to play their own character is how I play. Nobody's hiding here.

I mean, I'll give you this man, you are making me laugh IRL so this was not an entirely wasted discussion but that is some evasive circular-logic nonsense.

I'm all for calling out bad behavior when it happens. Characterizing skilled play as necessarily problematic or divorced from good roleplay or consistent character portrayal is not something I can sign on to.

ROFL this seems pretty evasive. I'd love to see how you actually played in person.

 

[iserith]

I mean, I'll give you this man, you are making me laugh IRL so this was not an entirely wasted discussion but that is some evasive circular-logic nonsense.

What about it is circular or nonsense? It seems to me players determining how their own character think, and what they do and say is what is expected and laid out in the rules.

ROFL this seems pretty evasive. I'd love to see how you actually played in person.

How is it evasive? I agree bad behavior is bad. You just think that certain behaviors are bad, with nothing in the rules to support your position, and I don't think they necessarily are bad.

 

[Maxperson]

We've addressed this in other threads. Enough times that it's a wonder why it keeps getting trotted out only to be swatted down (though to be fair, it's usually about gunpowder, not lasers). So, once again: If the player is outright stepping beyond the bounds of genre expectations, then that is a problem to be addressed outside the context of the game.

It's little different than the PC just spontaneously coming up with the ability to do something else it would have no idea how to do without player knowledge.

But given that, as I recall, D&D has had lasers in it before (and there are rules for it in the DMG), the player still has to run actions through the DM who decides the outcome. If the DM doesn't want lasers in his or her game, then the action fails.

Which is why I both used it, and said most settings. I know they exist, which is why it should work according to you.

As for the verity of the definition, we're playing a game. The game has rules. The rules are found in the rules books. If you think the rules books are wrong, that's not my problem and you can always address what you consider to be false definitions via table rules.

What is or is not roleplaying is not a rule. There isn't a game that has been written or will be written that has the authority to define what roleplay is. In the case of 5e, yes, it leaves out part of it. That's an omission, not a rule.

 

[iserith]

It's little different than the PC just spontaneously coming up with the ability to do something else it would have no idea how to do without player knowledge.

For every reason why you think a character wouldn't know something, I can come up with good reasons how they could.

Which is why I both used it, and said most settings. I know they exist, which is why it should work according to you.

It's up to the DM to decide. Just like it's up to the player to decide how to portray their own character.

What is or is not roleplaying is not a rule. There isn't a game that has been written or will be written that has the authority to define what roleplay is. In the case of 5e, yes, it leaves out part of it. That's an omission, not a rule.

The rules book are the authority where D&D 5e is concerned. Sorry that it doesn't include a definition that you prefer. You can always table rule whatever you believe was omitted.

 

[Todd Roybark]

Dude, let's stay in the real world here, instead of this fanciful realm where anything is possible, at least re: chargen. Every larger-scale survey of 5E players that I'm aware of suggests a minority of people roll their stats as their main method for playing 5E (specifically - OSR is a different story). Whilst I haven't seen many surveys about it, those who do roll, when it is discussed, seem to indicate they use pretty generous methods.

Sigh, alas...I and the gaming groups I participate in are in "The Real World".

So much for inclusivity. Perhaps you should re-read your post and underline the instances where you Think You might be being Dismissive and Closed Minded?

If your total is 0-1 instances, politely I suggest trying it again...with feeling this time.

Most persons on the planet have a small chance of inheriting Tay Sacs disease or Sickle Cell Anemia, but even given this might be a small percentage of the total population, this also still counts as a "REAL WORLD CONCERN".

Ruin Explorer, there is no need to respond, it is clear you can only acknowledge phenomena that match your experience or pre-conceived notion of what constitutes reality.
Since according to your post, most of the world already shares your vision of reality, your voice is redundant, your views are better represented by other posters.

I lose out on nothing, by putting you on Ignore.....millions of people share your views, afterall...

Man, you must have a hot air machine with sanitary hose in your chair....the size of your Head and the size of your Presumption, cannot be explained without a constant supply of hot air entering your body from somewhere. ✌

 

[Cadence]

For every reason why you think a character wouldn't know something, I can come up with good reasons how they could.

If a character in your game proclaimed that the universe existed in the minds of a small group of humans (naming you and your players) and the attempted actions of everyone in it were adjudicated by you, sometimes with the aid of dice, would you have the gods of knowledge and truth in your game judge that as essentially true, essentially false, or unknowable?

 

[Maxperson]

For every reason why you think a character wouldn't know something, I can come up with good reasons how they could.

Sure. You could spontaneously add in college degrees, aliens beaming the info in, and all kinds of things that weren't in the PCs history and would have affected prior play had they been there. I view that sort of retconning as a flaw, not a feature.

The rules book are the authority where D&D 5e is concerned. Sorry that it doesn't include a definition that you prefer. You can always table rule whatever you believe was omitted.

It's not a table or house rule to use the definition of roleplay.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:

@Todd Roybark and @Ruin Explorer - how about we cut the escalation off now, hm? Keep it respectful, or just drop it, folks.

 

[Todd Roybark]

That is totally fair Umbran....I could not resist, a mocking response.

What I wish Ruin Explorer had explored more in his post, rather then dismissing the reality of games with rolled stats.. was instead we examined the difference between the two stat generation styles.

In a Point Buy system taking a 5 in an Attribute is most likely a sign of power gaming.
In a Rolled Stats game it is just bad luck.

More importantly if Crazy Sherlock in Sharn, has taken Expertise- Investigation with a 5 INT score, I would argue the player is backing up the character conception via means of their mechanical choice.

Crazy Sherlock by this choice is showing that they are trying to learn the system of the world for Eberron....unfortunately deep down, they just don't believe in it, or truly understand it.

Crazy Sherlock with 5 INT and Expertise in Investigation is just faking it to the world.
Sounds Roguish...and is a plausible game table explanation.

 

[Maxperson]

In a Point Buy system taking a 5 in an Attribute is most likely a sign of power gaming.
In a Rolled Stats game it is just bad luck.

In rolled stats it can be both. If you can assign stats, which many rolled stats games allow, then you can power game that 5 into a dump area. In straight rolls take em where they are rolled, it would be purely bad luck.