D&D General Alternate "Ability Scores"

[delericho]

My suspicion is that ability scores, and indeed those six ability scores, are probably one of the true sacred cows of D&D, and as such will never be replaced. (Along with classes, levels, and maybe alignment - though I'm kind of hoping that last will finally be dropped next time out.)

 

[Oofta]

Good grief. Do we really need another "what is intelligence" thread? What's next, the 6 int genius?

We know that 1 is the lowest intelligence possible (along the lines of the intelligence of a starfish) and that 20 is as intelligent as us mere mortals can get. Every number between and including those is just a general indicator that only makes sense relative to the other numbers. We know that 3 intelligence is animal, 6 intelligence is an ogre (limited vocabulary, can't count past 10 without taking their shoes off) a 20 is super-genius.

Does it need more definition than that? It's not like D&D doesn't just get "close enough" for dozens of other things.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Good grief. Do we really need another "what is intelligence" thread? What's next, the 6 int genius?

We know that 1 is the lowest intelligence possible (along the lines of the intelligence of a starfish) and that 20 is as intelligent as us mere mortals can get. Every number between and including those is just a general indicator that only makes sense relative to the other numbers. We know that 3 intelligence is animal, 6 intelligence is an ogre (limited vocabulary, can't count past 10 without taking their shoes off) a 20 is super-genius.

Does it need more definition than that? It's not like D&D doesn't just get "close enough" for dozens of other things.

I would agree with you, except that this same argument keeps coming up because a certain group of people keep using Intelligence to argue that the rest of us aren't really roleplaying.

 

[jgsugden]

...
Ok, for argument's sake let's say that 6 Int does accurately describe Ape-like intelligence, and the flaw is in the modifiers, not the scale. Rolling 3d6 for NPCs, that means that nearly 10% of adults would be no more intelligent than an ape.
...

IQ is designed to fit a bell curve - so yep. About 10% of the people out there under the way the scale was designed are thought to be about as smart as an ape.

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realise half of them are stupider than that." - George Carlin

 

[Alzrius]

[citation needed]

The earliest citation I can find for this comes from Brian Blume's "So, You Want Realism in D&D?" article in Dragon #8:

To determine your intelligence, look up the results of the most recent IQ test you have taken and divide the result by ten. This number is your intelligence rating.

To be fair, the entire article is pretty facetious. But the v.3.5 Main D&D FAQ says, "Ten points of IQ per point of Intelligence is a good rule of thumb..."

That said, I find the following article to be a more nuanced take on the subject:

D&D and IQ

I first started playing RPGs about two decades ago with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Back before 4th edition finally defaulted to a point...

simantics.blogspot.com

According to this, a 14 Intelligence is equal to a 117 on the Wechsler test (as opposed to the old Stanford-Binet test). That's just over one standard deviation away from the baseline (100), and while not unimpressive, a "gifted" result is typically 130 and above, which is a D&D Intelligence of 17 and up.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think they're too big a part of how dnd players define their characters to actually get rid of without losing much of the audience's interest.

What I'd do is tie a resource to each stat, so you draw upon strength to boost or salvage an athletics check, but strength isn't otherwise part of rolling an athletics check.

 

[Charlaquin]

Alternatively, the system is not a finely tuned simulation of reality -- for PCs or the other inhabitants of the world. It's all shorthand, and ultimately how a player chooses to portray their character is entirely up to them. They aren't "not roleplaying" because they don't have their 6 Int barbarian throw feces.

No one in this thread can come up with a meaningful definition of "roleplaying" that could not immediately be countered by a different meaningful definition. And, no, "role playing is playing a role" is not a meaningful definition -- it's begging the question.

The most useful definition of roleplaying in my opinion is “imagining yourself as another (possibly fictional) person and/or in a hypothetical (possibly fictional) scenario, and making decisions as you imagine you would if you were that person and/or in that scenario. Which definitely doesn’t require ability scores.

 

[jgsugden]

We know that 1 is the lowest intelligence possible (along the lines of the intelligence of a starfish) and that 20 is as intelligent as us mere mortals can get...

Interestingly, the highest IQ ever determined was 263. He was so smart, that he never participated in a thread like this one.

 

[Oofta]

I would agree with you, except that this same argument keeps coming up because a certain group of people keep using Intelligence to argue that the rest of us aren't really roleplaying.

I would say that's a separate issue/preference/opinion.

I don't play "dumb" PCs because, yes, I would want to play them as dumb. But I know I'm not going to so intelligence is never a dump stat for me. I don't ever enforce my personal preference on players though although I'll sometimes give players with a PC that has a high intelligence an intelligence check if I think a smart player would have thought of something.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The most useful definition of roleplaying in my opinion is “imagining yourself as another (possibly fictional) person and/or in a hypothetical (possibly fictional) scenario, and making decisions as you imagine you would if you were that person and/or in that scenario. Which definitely doesn’t require ability scores.

You are correct. However, it requires you to have an idea of what sort of person that another person you're imagining being is. And in D&D ability scores are a part of determining that. I am really don advocating any one specific rigid interpretation here, merely that the ability scores actually say something about the character.