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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RyvenCedrylle" data-source="post: 4505562" data-attributes="member: 66726">Part of the issue, I believe, lies in the way statistics are defined. Strength, Dexterity, Health, Body, whatever – this is never a roleplaying problem. The player’s physical body does not interact with the in-game portcullis, and so we don’t have a problem adjudicating this with a die roll. It DOES become a problem with Wisdom, Intelligence, IQ, Mind, etc as the player’s physical mind IS interacting with the in-game puzzle. It’s easier to play a character dumber, more foolish or less charismatic than yourself. It’s a LOT harder to play one more intelligent, diplomatic or broad-minded than yourself. Sure, that’s why we do this in the first place – to tell stories about people who aren’t us – but at some point, the character’s mental and social capacity must be accounted for mechanically. I have two ways of dealing with this disconnect. The first is to allow checks to gain hints. The player must solve the puzzle, but his 18 INT character can make a skill check to get a hint, given some period of time. Remember, geniuses don’t always understand everything instantly! The high INT score just means they get there, and is not indicative of the speed in which they get there. Similarly, the high CHA character making a Diplomacy check doesn’t bribe the guard off the bat, but the player may be nudged toward the amount of money needed to actually bribe the guard. The other option is fact introduction. Here, the player makes a skill check against an abstract difficulty to actually create an in-game fact. Let’s use the old ‘we need troops from the Duke’ example. The PCs are stuck; they have no idea what to say or do to get what they need. At some point, a player says ‘I bring up the safety of the illegitimate son he’s got hidden with a peasant woman out on a frontier town.’ Did I, as a DM, know the duke had an illegitimate son? No, but the player’s bard DID in fact know that regardless of player or DM intent! I set a DC for the probability of that even being true and the player rolls Bardic Knowledge. Bam – instant solution! Both the player’s mind and the character’s statistics were used to solve the problem at hand. Obviously, you need mature players that aren’t going to try to make every NPC into a lich and threaten to blow his cover, but given a good set of players, this is a great way to involve both the player’s imagination and the characters’ mental statistics in a positive and memorable way.</blockquote>

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