[DM gripe/rant] I'm beginning to notice some trends...

[myrdden]

Again, you're assuming a codified set of mental stats somewhere in the system, and I'm not, which means our arguments don't meet.

If I recall, in the section regarding abilities the PHB does have tables that provide examples for each ability score. They're not codified per se, but they do provide guidance on how a certain score is represented.

You are right though, much of this comes down to interpretation and opinion as to what an ability score truely represents.

Myrdden

 

[myrdden]

I understand how they translate under the current system, but I don't necessarily like the model, you pathetic troll.

That wasn't directed towards you. Actually I find your argument quite persuasive.

It was meant to be an ironic observation in general.

Sorry if I came off otherwise.

Myrdden

 

[rounser]

It was meant to be an ironic observation in general.

I apologise for misinterpreting your meaning.

 

[barsoomcore]

My argument stems from the stance that there's no need to set up this disadvantage based on shackling mental stats - it's arbitrary. You could balance a high strength, high dex, high con character in multiple other ways that have nothing to do with the thinking or social skills parts of roleplaying, like penalising the number of skills they get or impairing their ability to use magic or have luck.

Sure, you could. Now you've got a game where people who actually want to play someone smarter or more charming than themselves can't, since the game won't model that particular bit of personality. Nor do you have a mechanism for the DM to provide NPCs with varying mental abilities.

I'm not saying these are insurmountable problems. But I guess you have a problem either way you go about things. If you model mental stats then you run the risk of players using them as dumping grounds for low scores, since they'll play smart anyway, and if you don't, you offer no way for a less-than-adept-socially person to play a charming rogue if they want.

I'm trying to pick apart your example. I'm just pointing out that you're always going to have one problem or the other.

Your original comment was:

Why should clever people, or charismatic people, or wise people be forced to play dumb by some numbers if they don't want to?

I don't get this whole "Forced to play dumb" thing. IF you're playing in a system that has an Intelligence ranking, AND your character's ranking is low, then surely you have defined your character as dumb. You did it yourself, didn't you?

Why would you assign a low stat to Intelligence if you want to play somebody smart? I don't get that.

Because their strength and dexterity is too high and it wouldn't be fair if they fought that battle tactically from the player's foresight and were charming to the innkeeper through some well chosen words from the player as well? Bzzzt - that's balancing a system advantage with a roleplaying disadvantage, and a restrictive one at that.

Okay, I don't know how you play, but my players can have their characters say or do anything they want. The guy playing the dumb brute can have his character try and sweet-talk the barmaid if he likes, but at some point he's going to have to make a Diplomacy check and his 5 Charisma is going to cost him at that point, no matter how many clever lines he threw out.

If one of my players defines their character as exceptionally stupid or unwise or abrasive, and then plays them as clever or wise or charming, my player and I are going to have a little chat and see if we can't find some way of reimagining this character.

I guess you're dealing with those players that people have been complaining about, but I've never really encountered any so it's never been a problem for me so I've probably just messed the whole thing up with my rambling, haven't I? Hm. Ah well, I'm probably a pathetic troll.

Sorry about that. Carry on then.

 

[eris404]

I just re-read the definition and it still doesn't work sorry. If your character is dumb he shouldn't come up with good plans, and he shouldn't be smooth if he has a bad chr, I could care less how smart or smooth you happen to be. Hey if you want to come up with a plan or a good line and get one of the other players to use it for their smart/charming character go right ahead. But those plans/lines just wont work coming form a dumb uncharismatic guys mouth...To steal a Hero rule a disadvantage that isn't a disadvantage isn't worth any points. And playing smart and smooth and expecting benefits for it when your stats don't match up is just ignoring the penalties that are on your character.

I agree heartily. The player rolled and/or chose the stats his character has and he should have to play by them.

In my group, when the players make plans, they do so out of character and discuss it amongst themselves. That way, someone playing a low intelligence character can still contribute to the planning without technically "breaking character."

But having said that, I think the rules are built to help players stay in character, too. We had a high-charisma player with a low-charisma (his score was 5) character, but he still acted suave and charming even in character. The DM simply made him roll diplomacy checks every time he spoke with an NPC. Generally, the result was that the character thought he was being suave and charming, but everyone else saw him as being rude and disgusting. This didn't necessarily interfere with his enjoyment of playing the character, and it still allowed him to act as he liked.

Alignment is trickier, since it's open to interpretation, but the DM should at some point discuss alignment with the group and they should come up with definitions together that everyone can agree upon. That way, if a player acts in a way that violates his character's alignment, he can't blame it on ignorance or his character's "personality." [Ever notice how often some players will use their characters' personalities as an excuse to act like a jerk?]

 

[rounser]

Sure, you could. Now you've got a game where people who actually want to play someone smarter or more charming than themselves can't, since the game won't model that particular bit of personality.

True, though you could agree with DM and other players that your character was X, and if they agreed then you could do the third person "my character talks to the guard in a persuasive manner" thing. That runs into the obvious problems of someone who wants their character to excel in too many of those areas, and the inability to tell whether NPC X who is charismatic is moreso than PC Y. So yeah, I agree that you do lose that to an extent, so you're right in that it would be inferior to the current system in that respect in particular.

Nor do you have a mechanism for the DM to provide NPCs with varying mental abilities.

You do have a narrative one to resort to - "Gaptooth is slow on the uptake". Sure, there's not as much information in one respect there, but there's more in another - you know the nature of his stupidity rather than just interpreting what 7 INT might mean. It reminds me of Omega World's alignments, where the word "Deceitful" in the alignment box tells me more about the monster than "Chaotic Neutral" ever would...not that I'm implying narrative stats of this sort, although I can see the potential.

You did it yourself, didn't you?

Well, yes. But D&D is innately hostile to smart, effective fighters. You can be smart and a suboptimal fighter, or dumb and an optimal fighter with 20 STR. Sure, I'll cry you a river over that one, but it doesn't necessarily have to be that way.

Okay, I don't know how you play, but my players can have their characters say or do anything they want. The guy playing the dumb brute can have his character try and sweet-talk the barmaid if he likes, but at some point he's going to have to make a Diplomacy check and his 5 Charisma is going to cost him at that point, no matter how many clever lines he threw out.

That's an approach I've played under before as well, but "trying your hardest" as a player under every circumstance will lead to bad roleplaying of a low charisma character, which in turn could lead to suspension of disbelief problems. If you stopped to play your PC abrasively (i.e. roleplay him properly), would the dice then double up on the penalty, in that you chose not to be charismatic and the dice doubled up on that to make it "worse" than the player already simulated? Again, a thought.

Ah well, I'm probably a pathetic troll.

No, you were presenting a good argument up until the point at which you wrote that.

 

[barsoomcore]

True, though you could agree with DM and other players that your character was X, and if they agreed then you could do the third person "my character talks to the guard in a persuasive manner" thing.

Sure, and that's pretty much the way it works in any system, right? I mean you always have players wanting their characters to do cool things or dazzle the yokels or whatever. To a certain degree (a degree that is probably different for each group), that's just good fun.

You do have a narrative one to resort to - "Gaptooth is slow on the uptake".

And again, sometimes that's all I do. Note down an NPC's name and make some comment on their personality. For many situations that's all you need, and of course if you're designing a game so that you don't have any mental stats modelled, then you'd probably give DMs whatever methods they need to differentiate their NPCs. Cause you're a good game designer and think about such things.

I'm sure.

Well, yes. But D&D is innately hostile to smart, effective fighters.

Isn't it just? Barsoom features a whole bunch of changes mostly to make the game innately hostile to big dumb fighters. The guy playing the big dumb fighter hates me.

If you stopped to play your PC abrasively (i.e. roleplay him properly), would the dice then double up on the penalty, in that you chose not to be charismatic and the dice doubled up on that? Again, a thought.

And once more, that's pretty much exactly the way it works on Barsoom. Anyone can TRY to make their characters act suave and debonair, and I'll give bonuses for good efforts and dole out penalties for poor ones (by which I mean players trying to roleplay their character's shortcomings). In the group I play with, most people are more concerned with good story-telling than "winning", so having the abrasive dork irritate the Captain and get himself stuck in jail amuses everyone.

No, you were presenting a good argument up until the point at which you wrote that.

Yeah, well, nerts to you. With bolts on.

 

[rounser]

Cause you're a good game designer and think about such things.

I'm sure.

I claimed just the opposite earlier, maybe you misread? Actually, I'm a lousy game designer because I lack the discipline and persistence to stick with it, the two traits you seem to need most to create something of worth.

Yeah, well, nerts to you. With bolts on.

Right back atcha. Don't let me stop me you from viewing my words in the worst possible light. I made a mistake, and I apologised for it. Feel free to harangue further.

 

[Danzilla]

Roleplaying is harder than it looks. I can play most alignments, and I can play most character classes, but I think that might be because I DM a lot.

I have a rule at my table:

you must play an alignment that you have not already played, when you have played them all (evils dont count) you can start over at any alignment you want, and cycle through them again.

You must play a core class you have not already played. When you have played all core classes, you may play any one you want, but then you must cycle through them again.

You must play all the core races that you have not already played. When you have played them all, you can start over with any core race. Playing non standard races can be done but this makes your standard list longer. This counts for non-standard subraces with ECLs greater than 0. (I know I will have to revise this one for Savage Species.)

So with this, you can play a race, class, or alignment twice in a row, but if you do it will be a while before you can play that alignment again.

so example- a players favorite alignment is CN. So he plays:

CN LG LN NN CG NG | NN LG LN CG NG CN | CN...

The races are different, as the weirder you get the longer it will be before you can play that race again. Lets say we have a Drizzt lover in the group:

Drow Dwarf Elf Gnome Human Halfling Half-Orc Half-Elf |
Duregar Dwarf Gnome Human Halfling Half-Orc Tiefling Elf Half-Elf Drow |
Drow Duregar Dwarf Gnome Halfling Human Tiefling Half-Elf Elf Half Orc | etc....

That keeps everyone playing somthing but not repeating themselves ad nauseum.

Aaron.

I'm not trying to make light of your methods (since I like to make my characters as different from the classes and races I've recently played myself) but do you also make them switch sexes as well...?

ie. I recently played a male gnome barbarian and now I have to be a female duergar Monk...

DanZilla

 

[ReiDuck]

Really?

To start with alignment, our DM finally got tired of people not playing their alignments and did it on a percentage basis - we'd roleplay for a while, and he'd work out our alignments. We'd discover what we actually counted as when we tried to do an alignment-based action. For example, my tiefling rogue racked up some major evil points by finding nothing wrong with armor made from human skin. Later in the session, when the players were taking refuge in a Sanctuary of Good, she barely managed to avoid being smited. Later in the campaign, a paladin joined the party. By this point, we'd developed our characters a good deal more (I usually come up with a general concept to begin with, then come up with details later. It infallably works out into a firm character background, although a few early predictions often turn out to be false) and the paladin wasn't instantly required to kill her for being evil, due to the cause of her anti-lawful sentiments. The DM and I had a very long conversation about how this all worked, and in the end, it worked out beautifully.

Onward to the three "mental" stats. To be honest, I'm a firm believer in playing by those little numbers written on the page. You're the one who put them there, so don't go crying to mama when your 19 Str, 6 Int half-orc barb can't identify a species of shrub, despite the fact that you personally know damn well that it's a blackberry bush.

In fact, we've had a good deal of problems on this topic. I as a person know a vast array of useless (to me) knowledge - everything from the medicinal qualities of chamomile to the wootz method of making watered steel. On the other hand, my characters often know things that I don't.

So, it all works out. My character is unable to tell by looking at a rock formation whether the nearby volcano is going to erupt soon, and I can't tell you the long and dry details of the god Pelor. Still, if my cleric has high ranks in Knowledge (religion), I would certainly expect to know about the god.

I've read the Monster Manual over many times, and when our party was jumped by a bunch of ethereal dogs I knew we'd been attacked by shadow mastiffs. However, my character was unaware of this, so I said nothing. In our group, we draw a very firm line between player knowledge and character knowledge. To give another example, in the campagin I'm currently attempting to DM, one of the people exploring in the sunken volcano crater discovered a patch of shiny glassy rock, that had ripples of green and purple running through it. The character, a fighter, probably had no idea what it was. The character recognized it as being the fairly valuable rainbow obsidian, and brought a few good-sized chunks back with him. Since at that point in the game we'd already introduced a few metagame concepts (like setting up with sunken volcano as being a tropic resort hotel and spa) I let it pass. On the other hand, if one of them tried to manufacture gunpowder, I would have objected.

As I mentioned before, our group once played a game where we translated our real-life selves into D&D characters - aka, into those little numbers on a page. It was quite interesting, because there was no difference between player knowledge and character knowledge. However, our knowledge of the D&D world was quite limited. Eventually, that game lost steam because playing ourselves just wasn't that interesting.

The whole reason why we play D&D is that we can pretend we're doing things that would be impossible in real life. So, if we've admitted that our game-selves are not our real-selves, why are we trying to make them the same? You swapped a cushy life in suburbia for the ability to swing a sword. Deal with it.