What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

[hawkeyefan]

Also, there’s the chance that the low-Charisma character could conceivably succeed on every Charisma-based check they ever have to make.

How would the people of the game world describe such a person? They’s describe them as Persuasive or maybe Intimidating or Deceptive. Perhaps as… Charismatic?

Likewise, if I have a high-Charisma character and somehow botch every roll… it’s hard imagine the other characters thinking of mine as being highly charismatic.

Doesn’t it then stand that the stats don’t define the character so much as they give us an idea on what comes easily and what comes hard to them?

 

[Bill Zebub]

Also, there’s the chance that the low-Charisma character could conceivably succeed on every Charisma-based check they ever have to make.

How would the people of the game world describe such a person? They’s describe them as Persuasive or maybe Intimidating or Deceptive. Perhaps as… Charismatic?

Likewise, if I have a high-Charisma character and somehow botch every roll… it’s hard imagine the other characters thinking of mine as being highly charismatic.

Doesn’t it then stand that the stats don’t define the character so much as they give us an idea on what comes easily and what comes hard to them?

I like the idea that it's emergent.

If you look at the definitions/descriptions of the attributes some of them cover a LOT of different, mostly unrelated aspects. What is the probability that a person is exactly as good at (for example) not catching colds, hiking long distances, fighting off poison, holding their breath, recovering from injuries, resisting certain spells, and winning drinking competitions?

And that the same is true for all the things covered by the other five attributres?

And the same is true for every other single person in the game world?

No, it makes more sense to me that you start playing the game, start rolling the dice, and then use the outcomes to start defining that character. "Ha! I may be super sensitive to pollen...at least the magical, extra-planar sort...but I can hold my breath like a dolphin!"

 

[Fenris-77]

Also, in a lot of games, there are various ways for stats to improve, and in some games that's an expectation. Not that many folks would choose to drop an improvement into that 3 CHA, but there are lots of ways that stats change.

 

[Bill Zebub]

@Micah Sweet By the way, despite how we butt heads on this (and related topics) all the time, you're one of the people here that I'd love to game with sometime. I suspect in practice our differences are not as wide as they appear in theory.

 

[Maxperson]

From the perspective of mental attributes, a character is only what the player decides to play them as. Most of the time, a PC is exactly as smart as the player, for obvious reasons. On some occassions, they are dumber than the player. They cannot, by definition, be smarter than the player.

That's not true. I'll often give extra information or rolls for things the player wouldn't think about because his PC is smarter or wiser than any of us are. Just because the player can't roleplay a smarter or wiser character, doesn't mean that you can't represent that extra in the fiction.

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah, but "One True Way" doesn't limit it to just you.

His use of the word "my" did limit it to just him, though. If he had said that Sandbox play is THE One True Way, he'd be saying it broadly.

 

[Fenris-77]

On our list of unstated premises...

 

[Maxperson]

How you play your character. Not how the DM thinks you should play your character.

The game sets what the stats are for. If someone with a mentally slow character, say an 8 intelligence, is constantly roleplaying as quick witted and smart, he is roleplaying badly. He's ignoring what the game tells him intelligence represents, and the low stat, to roleplay something his character is not.

A slow individual might quickly come up with something once in a while, but not regularly. If a player in my game doesn't want to roleplay a low intelligence, he shouldn't have a character with a low intelligence.

 

[Fenris-77]

A slow individual might quickly come up with something once in a while, but not regularly. If a player in my game doesn't want to roleplay a low intelligence, he shouldn't have a character with a low intelligence.

Some games give 3d6 down the line with no do-overs. I'm not busting a nut to lean into being an idiot when that idiotness was randomly assigned. If someone picks the low INT number that's different, then we're probably talking about an annoying white-room optimizer type.

 

[Maxperson]

Some games give 3d6 down the line with no do-overs. I'm not busting a nut to lean into being an idiot when that idiotness was randomly assigned. If someone picks the low INT number that's different, then we're probably talking about an annoying white-room optimizer type.

There's a reason I specified my game. After all rolls are said and done, the player can swap any two stat numbers. The only way for a PC to end up with a low intelligence in my game is to pick it, and if he picks it, I expect him to roleplay it.

Speaking for myself, I will never play a character with below average intelligence. I can't stand to roleplay someone slow witted and I'm not going to ignore a low stat and fail to roleplay it.