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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bullgrit" data-source="post: 2752024" data-attributes="member: 31216">A couple years ago, I joined an ongoing group (at 8th level, D&D3.0). Of the other five Players, the two "planners" (the guys who did all the tactical planning for the group) had PCs with 8 Intelligence. The polite "facewoman" of the group had a PC with 10 Charisma, and no social skills. The barbarian had a PC with 12 Charisma only to support the divine grace class ability he got from a one level dip in paladin (he had 5 classes, including barbarian, paladin, fighter, and two prestige classes -- but acted like a straight battle-hungry "barbarian").I've been in a one-shot "convention" game where the DM never called for a social skill check, even though there were at least two occassions to make a Diplomacy check. When we first entered a "diplomatic" situation, I asked "Who's our face person?" The Player who stepped up was good at diplomacy, but her character had 10 Charisma and no social skills. (She was sitting right beside me, so I could see her character sheet).I was DMing a one-shot for a group in which I normally played a PC. When the greatsword-wielding fighter tried to bluff some sailors to get on their ship, I let him say his spiel, then called for a Bluff check to see how well his character carried it off. His response: "I prefer to roleplay this than roll the dice." Then he went off on a riff about how social skill mechanics ruins a roleplaying game. His character, of course, had a 10 Charisma and no social skills (but he was a kick-ass swordsman).I've seen this, too, so many times. And as I've shown above, not just with Charisma, but Intelligence too. And I agree that this is the core problem.For instance, our party bard was recently Wisdom drained down to 6. Many Players I've seen over the years would play this as no having no real affect. Just a penalty to a couple skills and if a Will save came up. Bards don't need Wisdom (look at Elan <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" />, so a low score wouldn't matter. But fortunately, I play with a good group, and the Player played up the low score -- being incautious, acting/talking on impulse, etc. (Acting on an impulse nearly got my character killed twice.) We *knew* the bard was suffering from the drain. There was a tangible effect in the game.The same with Charisma. Too many people think "roleplaying" means being all theatrical and social and such. They overlook that it actually means "playing the role of the character". And roleplaying a low Charisma/no-social-skills character doesn't mean you get to act above the ability of the character.But, unfortunately, as Crothian mentions, too many Players cheat the scores, and too many DMs let it slide. (Some DMs let encumbrance slide too, and that makes Strength less important for the non-fighters.) Bullgrit</blockquote>

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