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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4981162" data-attributes="member: 4937">Indeed.  And even when the character's mental faculties are defined, there is often significant overlap between the areas of the game that the character's abilities can reach and that the players abilities can reach.  A character that is good at searching isn't as good at searching as a player who is good at searching who also has a character good at searching.  A character that has a high knowledge skill, isn't as knowledgable in practice as a character with a high knowledge skill who is also played by a player with a lot of knowledge in that area.  The hypothetical 5 INT Barbarian faced with a cliched chess board puzzle or a difficult riddle, probably can't solve it through a skill check, but might be able to solve it without even having a skill check simply by having a player who is an expert in chess or who is good at solving riddles.To a certain extent, that can't be helped and 'so what?'.  In many cases its more important that the game keep moving.  But if the player doesn't role play the situation, then in my opinion the story suffers.  Ok, so you are playing a 5 INT barbarian, and not only can you solve the chess puzzle (as a player) but you need to - the whole rest of the party is looking to you for help.  You have several options now.  You can play the big dumb oaf and do nothing, which is good roleplaying but maybe not good gaming.   Or, you can solve the puzzle which is good gaming but probably not good roleplaying.  Or you can invent some clever excuse for how are why your Barbarian got around the problem, in which case its both good gaming and good roleplaying.This last option is superior in my mind because when we recount the story to each other, when we set it down to relate to other people, when we 'novelize it' or 'turn it into the movie of the game', the story makes more sense and is more enjoyable than the one where the dumb Barbarian easily solves the chess puzzle against expectation and without any explanation.  But, there is an even worse option available to the player in my opinion.  That worse option is that he role play the Barbarian as being highly intelligent, knowledgable, clever, and so forth - even though and despite the fact that nothing about the barbarians attributes reflect this.  This is neither good gaming nor good roleplay.  It is poor roleplay because if the character's intelligence has any mechanical role in the game at all, it will create inconsistancies in the story.  It is poor gaming because the player is trying to hog the spotlight and the glory to the detriment of others.  He is attempting to subvert the fundamental intention of the rules of all RPG's and the soul reason we have rules for them at all, which is, "Thou shall not be good at everything and always win."   This is the fundamental meta-rule: the rule that even preexists and informs rule #0.All RPG rules exist solely to resolve the following core conflict in role-playing: Player #1: "BANG! I shot you."Player #2: "No you didn't, you missed.  BANG! I shot you."Back on the playground, we either resolved this by taking a fair number of turns were each player got 'the glory', or we developed some other rule, or else we gave up in frustration and stopped role-playing.  When a player dumps mental stats and then ignores this in his role-playing, he's playing (or trying to play) exactly like the kid who insists that he never misses and conversely that he's never hit.</blockquote>

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