D&D 5E Roleplaying in D&D 5E: It’s How You Play the Game

Voadam

Legend
Super hard disagree on this one. To me the main purpose (I could almost say the sole purpose) of the mechanics is to represent the things that are true in the fiction (at least in somewhat vague and abstract way.) I have no use for rules that are disconnected from the fiction.
That's a different playstyle preference than mine, which is fine.

I have never had a strong need for the ability stats in the game, I think D&D would be fine without them. If I were designing D&D I might have skipped them entirely. But since they are there and have mechanics attached I generally go with the mechanics.
 

log in or register to remove this ad


Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
Ah, so it's another one of those things that's meant to prevent "cheating", like requiring somebody to act intimidated if an NPC "uses intimidate" on them.
Perhaps for some. I don't think most people would do it for some sort of "cheating" advantage. For me it's because if someone at the table is playing something so jarringly incongruous, it yanks me out of immersion and I enjoy the game less. That style of play is just not for me.
Imagine a game in which you (as a player) don't see other players' character sheets, and you also don't see their dice rolls. All you know is whether they succeed or fail when they do roll dice.

Now imagine that you're playing a character with a low attribute, but you describe (and roleplay) your character as being exceptional in the associated areas...but with some kind of restriction or limitation. So you have Strength 6, but you describe yourself as being a hulking, muscle-bound brute, but when you were a child you accidentally killed your puppy, so you are hesitant to use your strength and went to wizard school. Or....well, you get the idea.

Then, in play, the goal is to maintain that illusion. Let's say the party needs to climb over something, so everybody makes an Athletics roll. (Maybe you're proficient in Athletics, maybe not?). If you succeed in your roll, you narrate how easy it was. If you fail in your roll, you get an astonished look on your face, as if the RNG gods have just betrayed you, and narrate some reason why you were just incredibly unlucky on that climb, and mutter something about "should have taken Athletics".

The thought experiment I'm pondering is how long you can maintain the illusion before the other players realize you don't really have a high Strength score that you're hesitant to use.

Would be kind of fun, and possibly illustrative.
My thoughts on that are as follows.

1. It would probably be an experiment that would last a long time. Constant "bad luck" when making strength checks would eventually become unbelievable, though. Or it could happen quickly if encumbrance is used. "We want to keep this suit of plate mail to sell, but it's heavy. Let's let Janveer hold it. He's strong as an ox." Cut to Janveer barely able to move while being visibly yoked.

2. I'm not sure how illustrative it would be. Even if it went unnoticed for months, when it was finally noticed it would taint(for me) everything that came before in the game dealing with that PC's strength, and everything after.
 

Bill Zebub

“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
Super hard disagree on this one. To me the main purpose (I could almost say the sole purpose) of the mechanics is to represent the things that are true in the fiction (at least in somewhat vague and abstract way.) I have no use for rules that are disconnected from the fiction.
Again, I get that. And really it’s how I typically play.

I just want to challenge some assumptions. If we think of attributes as measuring not innate capacity but instead measuring effectiveness at related tasks, which really is what the rules do, it opens up narrative possibility.

As for the argument, “what happens when the player who is just pretending to be weak changes their mind?” So what? Their character sheet says they get -2 on Strength rolls: changing their mind won’t change that reality. It’s on them to maintain the narrative.

The specific fear seems to be that characters with low Int will do intelligent things. We don’t have the same fear about dumping Strength because the only way to use Str is through mechanics.

As @iserith describes, if you DM in a way that Int is useful/necessary for all classes, it’s not a dump stat. Players who still dump it will pay a price for that decision, so there’s no need to police their roleplaying.
 

Bill Zebub

“It’s probably Matt Mercer’s fault.”
Perhaps for some. I don't think most people would do it for some sort of "cheating" advantage. For me it's because if someone at the table is playing something so jarringly incongruous, it yanks me out of immersion and I enjoy the game less. That style of play is just not for me.

My thoughts on that are as follows.

1. It would probably be an experiment that would last a long time. Constant "bad luck" when making strength checks would eventually become unbelievable, though. Or it could happen quickly if encumbrance is used. "We want to keep this suit of plate mail to sell, but it's heavy. Let's let Janveer hold it. He's strong as an ox." Cut to Janveer barely able to move while being visibly yoked.

Janveer’s player would have some tricky to weasel out of it.
2. I'm not sure how illustrative it would be. Even if it went unnoticed for months, when it was finally noticed it would taint(for me) everything that came before in the game dealing with that PC's strength, and everything after.

I meant illustrative in demonstrating that attributes are really just modifiers.
 

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus
Janveer’s player would have some tricky to weasel out of it.

I meant illustrative in demonstrating that attributes are really just modifiers.
That isn't what that would illustrate to me, though. It would just illustrate to me that a deception can be gotten away with for a while. Strength is clearly defined, as are the concepts of high and low. When you put those together, you get low strength = scrawny, small, etc., and high strength = brawny, muscular, etc.
 

That's a different playstyle preference than mine, which is fine.

I have never had a strong need for the ability stats in the game, I think D&D would be fine without them. If I were designing D&D I might have skipped them entirely. But since they are there and have mechanics attached I generally go with the mechanics.
I mean, yeah, at this point it is questionable whether ability scores serve a reasonable purpose. But as long as they exist, I want them to actually represent something; if they don't, I have no need for them.
 

I just set up dilemmas like your warehouse and then leave it the players to figure out. How I would run it would depend on their proposed solution. It might auto succeed, auto fail, or there might be rolls/combat involved.

Without a specific solution offered like the one I came up with and the silence/knock combo, I have nothing to adjudicate.
I have to agree with you, at least if I understand your point correctly. There's NOTHING that can happen in a game unless the players drive it. If they ask for nothing, they will get nothing, lol. I mean, I guess we could play silliness and they could just stand in the street until dawn and then get picked up by the watch... ;)
 

Play your character, it's that simple. You made it, so play it. If your fighter has INT 6 because you want to min-max and look like John Wick in hand to hand, maybe take a back seat on the clever plans. This isn't so much telling people how to play as it is telling people not to dump stats they personally, as players, possess in some quantity, with the idea that they'll just RP their way past their stats.
More than that, I would say that if the game you are playing requires you to trade smarts for strength, and that isn't what you want, then you are not playing the right game. Go find a game that doesn't define things in that kind of way, they exist in plenty.
 

iserith

Magic Wordsmith
I have to agree with you, at least if I understand your point correctly. There's NOTHING that can happen in a game unless the players drive it. If they ask for nothing, they will get nothing, lol. I mean, I guess we could play silliness and they could just stand in the street until dawn and then get picked up by the watch... ;)
Loitering and spending too much time shopping or in taverns are cause for arrest in all my games.
 

Remove ads

Top