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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 4982448" data-attributes="member: 15538">On the contrary, your expectations were violated and you failed to recognize who the character actually was. It is a "good" portrayal of the character in that it was exactly the portrayal of that character. Short of a retcon, no other interpretation can be more accurate than how the character actually conducted themselves.While I can understand the impulse toward realism, I cannot reconcile an imperative to "play a stat" with claiming something is inherently "out of character." Realistic people are very complex. What is the goal? A realistic portrayal? If so, as I have already mentioned, there is little grounding in realism for insisting one numeric stat should define a characterization. Likewise, real people are capable of very amazing contradictions.While playing broad stereotypes is a useful way of giving a character a definable personality in game, I do not consider that "good role-playing." It is the first step in moving from no personality to some personality. Even the most punitive AD&D rules for alignment changes did not strictly prevent a paladin from slaughtering children at an orphanage. However unlikely, such an action is conceivable. In the circumstances under which it makes sense, it is not bad role-playing. Is it possible for an Int 5, Wis 5, Cha 5 character to have some acumen as a battle strategist or an expert in riddles? I think clearly it is. There are plenty of people with inadequate social skills and poor memory and logic who are nonetheless very competent at certain kinds of puzzles. While I haven't met too many people that extreme, I've met computer science majors who probably qualified for straight 9s.  There is also a very peculier psychological disorder that leaves a person with an extraverted personality, great imagination, and verbal ability, but gifts them with an IQ in the severely impaired range. Setting aside modern psychology, though, I think it's clear that in movies and literature, characters are capable of great variability. The poor sap gives an inspiring speech. The barbarian mercenary perceives treachery among his advisors. The wise king fails to rein in his own intemperate impulses or those of his loved ones. The pious man takes for granted the gifts of the gods and uses them selfishly or even profanely. The hero, mad with grief, becomes a slaughterer. The simpleton sees what the wise and cunning cannot bring themselves to acknowledge. The gallant finds himself disbelieved and despised.</blockquote>

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