Character ability v. player volition: INT, WIS, CHA

[Ariosto]

If you don't want to play a submoron with a 60 word vocabulary and limited ability to even dress themselves, then don't take a 5 as your INT.

If the 3d6 spread approximates the normal population, then about 1 person in 20 has an intelligence score of 5 or lower. Maybe that's not the assumption in 3e or 4e, but based on old D&D I find the severely handicapped characterization bizarre. It's even more so in Original and Basic+, in which 3d6 is the range for adventurers.

Every version of the game has given the mental scores specific game-mechanical effects -- just like the physical ones. I think charisma was given such importance in the original game as to make it not a "dump stat" but the second most critical after hit points.

I am inclined to think those specific factors generally enough. That's how they seem to be treated in relation to the physical scores; I have not seen insistence that because of a low number there a player must be prevented from having a character act with alacrity, determination or courage.

Stats by and large should, in my opinion, be left to inform adjudication of the effects of a course of action -- not to say, "You can't even think of that."

The spirit of another game might demand certain limitations. Call of Cthulhu is different from Champions; and both are different from D&D.

I don't come to the table to play "the Game of &"; the mysteries, puzzles, tricks, traps and negotiations have always been as definitively significant as the fights. In "realistic simulation", the characters would probably have stayed home rather than venturing into the dungeons in the first place! This is first and foremost a game, and a lot of "compromises" and "metagaming" have gone on well before one notices that some runes happen to look like KEEPOUT in English.

 

[Celebrim]

Are low charisma characters...unlikeable?

I decided to simplify this question because you were asking to many things at once and it was going to force me down all sorts of tangents.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but, yes, low charisma characters are unlikeable. That is a pretty large portion of what low charisma means. It isn't everything there is to charisma primarily because 'like' is such a weak and generic word and charisma is such a broad one, but we certainly wouldn't expect low charisma to mean ordinarly 'likeable'.

Of course, not being likeable does not mean everyone will dislike you. Some people may not judge you primarily on your charisma. Some people will like you because they are the sort of people that likes people despite their flaws, and perhaps in some cases you might find yourself liked because of your flaws. Sometimes you'll just get lucky and say the right thing at the right time and make a friend who thereafter is inclined to overlook your basic unlikeability for the sake of your friendship. But, yes, playing a low charisma character certainly implies someone that is unlikeable.

It is plain and simple bad roleplay to have a low charisma character and not signal it in someway through your play. That ought to be obvious.

I can't help but notice the double standard going on here.

Suppose I introduced an NPC and played him as very likeable, attractive, congenial, persuasive, and even magnetic (and a couple of times I've even been told by players I successful pulled that off, which was very flattering considering how unlike myself it is). Then suppose latter you discovered that said NPC had a 4 CHR. You'd almost certainly think to yourself, "What the heck?!?!? Why did the DM stat out a character as having 4 CHR, if he was going to play it as a character with above average charisma? The DM's actions taken together make no sense. He has every right to introduce a high charisma NPC and stat it out, but if he was going to do so, why didn't he just give the NPC a high charisma?" Likewise, if I introduced a character who I played as a cunning mastermind always one step ahead of the players, you'd probably find it ludicrous that I gave the character a 5 INT. How I had played the character did not reflect the stats of the character and did not signal to you anything about the mechanics of that character. I ignored the character's attributes.

Now, in most cases that would just prompt raised eyebrows, but there are circumstances I could do that as DM where the player would have cause to accuse me of - if not cheating exactly - then at least not being a good DM. As DM I have a massive amount of knowledge about, well, everything, and particularly I have a tremendous insight into the tactics, abilities, and defences of the player's characters and into the actions and preparations undertaken by the character's. I'm effectively omniscient. Generally speaking however, it is the understanding of the character's that I won't use my out of game knowledge against them. That is to say, as DM I could play every creature - whether ooze, zombie, wolf, or orc soldier - as having perfect knowledge of the players feats, remaining hitpoints, armor class, combat abilities, magical buffs, and everything else, so that in every situation every monster finds itself in, I as DM always make the strongest and most cunning tactical plan I can thing of using all the knowledge in my possession. But of course, I don't do that, and if I did do that any group of player's I've ever encountered would not be amused at all (I know I wouldn't be). As a DM, I expected to play the character and keep my out of game knowledge from influencing how I play the NPC's as much as possible. If the PC's cast a fire resistance spell over the whole party before facing the red dragon, then I shouldn't have the dragon avoid using its breath weapon. If the PC's storm the castle through the sewers, the castle defenders shouldn't have anticipated this move and put all of their defenses there unless the defenders reasonably could have anticipated the move. And so forth.

In short, I suspect alot of you are demanding that the DM be constrained by RP demands in ways that you are claiming the PC never should be.

 

[NichG]

One has to ask, why are some things stats and others not? You could in principle have stats for Temper, Kindness, Courage, Friendliness, Trust, Greed, etc, etc, which would be roleplay constraints. However that sort of thing is usually left to the player to determine, because by putting them in some sort of point system you might be unable to create the character personality that you want to play (and there's an implicit statement about the inherent value and breakdown of traits - someone cannot be Kind, Friendly, Calm of Temper, but not also be Greedy and Untrusting, because of the point structure).

Generally stats are restricted to things with significant mechanical effect that broadly create various niches for the archetypes that a system wishes to evoke. Thus Strength and Intelligence exist because the game system wants there to be a group of things that martial characters do well and a group of things that spellcasters do well, and wants there to be synergy in those choices (you can always play against type but you sacrifice that mechanical synergy).

As such, it is my preference to always take the reading that stats are basically there for sake of mechanical richness only, and that they should not be balanced against roleplaying constraints. Think of it this way: in a group where someone is okay with playing the low Int, Wis, Cha character - perhaps as a player he only really likes combat and the numbers game - but the other players want to have some modicum of ability to participate in puzzles, etc, then the guy who is okay with dumpstatting the mental stats has an unfair mechanical advantage due to his particular player profile. Or similarly, in a situation where the GM is an unknown factor, people must try to determine ahead of time whether the majority of the game will be roleplay/puzzle solving/etc or combat or risk being stuck with a character who is ineffective most of the time, while another player who made a different guess may end up dominating the spotlight. This issue also crops up in things like the Paladin (though more in older editions, where a class that had more raw power mechanically was balanced against a set of roleplay restrictions that may be unpalatable to some players but palatable to others).

So if I'm designing a system, I always avoid things like Int, replacing it with something that carries the mechanical meanings I want without having a strong roleplay interpretation. In an existing system (e.g. D&D) I would read the mental stats as follows:

Intelligence - Knowledge; This is the rate at which a character can learn, their ability to memorize and recall large bodies of information (as opposed to 'what was the name of that temple again?'), and their ability to work through particular procedures for using what they've learned (the arcane version of doing mathematical computations, basically)

Wisdom - Awareness; This is a person's awareness of their senses and of their environment. In a druid, it controls spellcasting because it is the vehicle in which the character is aware of the nature of their surroundings and what can be brought into a spell - there are some roots poking out through that cobblestone, there is some moss on that rock, etc. In a cleric, it is the awareness of the presence of their deity or creed in everything around them. Why does it affect will saves? Because it indicates the degree to which the character is aware that their mind is being tampered with.

Charisma - Presence; A character with high charisma draws attention to themself automatically (or can deflect it more controllably). They are more 'real' than everything else around them. When they say 'obey me' then even the universe listens (at least, if they're a sorceror or bard). It isn't a person's eloquence, or their ability to know what another person wants to hear (these are roleplay issues).

YMMV of course, but I find that the game is more fun if I can make puzzles and situations to challenge the minds of the players, and not simply to challenge the pre-computed numbers on their sheets. Then the numbers on the sheet represent tools that the intellects of the players can wield to resolve the situation, rather than constraints on that intellect.

 

[Betote]

One has to ask, why are some things stats and others not? You could in principle have stats for Temper, Kindness, Courage, Friendliness, Trust, Greed, etc, etc, which would be roleplay constraints.

There are very good games that use those stats. Pendragon is the first that comes to mind (and probably the best), but it's not the only one.

As for the whole "munchkins dumping mental stats" thing... Pre-4e, that'd be a pretty bad munchkin, as the power classes (wizard, cleric, druid) are based on those mental stats. So go ahead, cheat your way into being a clever guy with a pointy stick while other people play world-shaking archmages

 

[Herremann the Wise]

This question gets at the heart of the roleplaying versus gaming spectrum and divide. I think a character's attributes (in all attributes be they physical/mental/social) set the boundaries of how a character should be played (with obviously a lot of variation in between that is "acceptably believable").

At the same time, there should always be scope for developing characters regardless of their stats and characters should never be excluded from in-game activities because of this. Funnily enough, I think the classic example here is the movie "Forrest Gump". Take an effectively "dumb" character but with the help of circumstances, courage and a set of maxims interestingly applied to situations, you can still play a "dumb" character who gets to "win" and enjoy success. At the same time, roleplaying "losing" or the difficulties of circumstances or being the "fish out of water" can progress the story and action just as much through cleverly applied roleplaying.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Ariosto]

In short, I suspect alot of you are demanding that the DM be constrained by RP demands in ways that you are claiming the PC never should be.

How can the PCs be so "constrained by demands"? They are already constrained by not possessing in the first place the DM's omniscience and omnipotence. You're comparing the incommensurate.

 

[Ariosto]

There are very good games that use those stats. Pendragon is the first that comes to mind (and probably the best), but it's not the only one.

I would note that Pendragon has no Intelligence characteristic. Neither does it use Charisma, although it has Appearance.

 

[FireLance]

I wonder if systems that assume a certain amount of ability score improvement would give the DM another tool to manage the problem: a character who (in the DM's opinion) is consistently operating at a higher level than his ability scores would suggest may be required to improve the low ability score at the next opportunity. It is then incumbent on the player to avoid this by showing, in play, how his character's occasional flashes of insight are still compatible with his personality, interests and ability score.

 

[Dausuul]

I wonder if systems that assume a certain amount of ability score improvement would give the DM another tool to manage the problem: a character who (in the DM's opinion) is consistently operating at a higher level than his ability scores would suggest may be required to improve the low ability score at the next opportunity. It is then incumbent on the player to avoid this by showing, in play, how his character's occasional flashes of insight are still compatible with his personality, interests and ability score.

The minute the DM starts auditing my behavior to decide if I can choose where to put my stat points, I walk away from the gaming table and don't come back.

 

[Celebrim]

If the 3d6 spread approximates the normal population, then about 1 person in 20 has an intelligence score of 5 or lower.

Ok, fine:

"Adults in the bottom 5% of the IQ distribution (below 75) are very difficult to train and are not competitive for any occupation on the basis of ability. Serious problems in training low-IQ military recruits during World War II led Congress to ban enlistment from the lowest 10% (below 80) of the population, and no civilian occupation in modern economies routinely recruits its workers from that below-80 range. Current military enlistment standards exclude any individual whose IQ is below about 85." - Scientific American, 1999

My assertion about the intelligence of INT 5 character may be slightly off in terms of standard distribution (but not that much) from my quick estimate, but the general point about not playing someone stupid if you don't want to play someone stupid I think remains.

My strong suspicion if you think that stating 1:20 people are barely able to function is a huge bizarre exagerration is that you haven't spent alot of time outside the shelter of a gifted and talented classroom. Go spend a few years bumming around the country picking vegetables, staying in homeless shelters, pushing brooms in warehouses, and working fastfood and then get back to the subject. Alot of people are out there with IQ's below 75 - that is to say, not as bright as Forest Gump. Some of them are actually interesting people, even if they literally can't add 5 and 7, cannot be taught what a screwdriver is for, or have vocabularies of under 300 words. Some of them are even talented in specific areas. And I'm not in fact knocking these people. They aren't (well, no more than the rest of us) oafs with no personality. I'm just saying that they are out there - IQ's of 75 or even 50 aren't that unheard of or rare.

I am inclined to think those specific factors generally enough. That's how they seem to be treated in relation to the physical scores; I have not seen insistence that because of a low number there a player must be prevented from having a character act with alacrity, determination or courage.

That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that if you are playing someone with 5 INT, your play should signal that in some way so that I don't have to look at your character sheet to know you have 5 INT. You can be as subtle as you like and make as complex and interesting of a character as you can concieve, and in fact I greatly prefer that. But don't spend your 140 IQ (or whatever you got) investing that character with intellectuality, reasoning ability, and cunning and expect me to be impressed with your role-play. And in general, regardless of the INT of the character you are animating, don't invest it with knowledge and understanding it shouldn't reasonably have.