Low ability scores -- more fun?

[jbear]

The only thing fun I can remember about dropping ability scores was raising other ones in exchange. I might be thick as two bricks, but damn I'm strong.

But then again when I rolled, I always rolled 4 dropping the lowest, so there were never any 3's.

 

[Crothian]

Role playing characters with faults and weaknesses like low abilitie scores is more enjoyable then role playing characters that are good at everything or who's weaknesses don't matter.

 

[Garthanos]

Another possibility of a high dex character in game terms who is a clutz D'Artagnan the 4th Musketeer. In most everyday activities he stumbles he bumps etc.. but put a blade in his hand and he is almost like magic.. It can be like a stutterer who sings awesome... a mode they enter mentally that makes what are seemingly connected activities distinct.

 

[pawsplay]

Either low scores or high can be fun. Trying to figure out what to do with a poor or quirky set of random scores and/or abilities is almost a mini-game in itself. The character Raistlin is a product of a bad Constitution score.

I don't think it's true that players won't accept penalties, I personally have played a number of characters with discernible Achilles' heels even in freeform or point-buy systems.

 

[Woas]

How about one more step: No ability scores -- more fun?

 

[Garthanos]

Most low stat characters I've seen seemed fun because of flamboyant interesting failure descriptions that they inspired... this is something else not actually impaired by having good stats.

 

[Storminator]

We played an epic 3e game where I made a PC with an 8 WIS. This was a game where you could buy the stat bump tomes and +6 items. I paid for the +6 WIS item, but didn't take it. I figured ol' Roland got suckered, what with the buying custom built magic items in Hell.

He was awesome due to his appallingly low Will save. After 2 sessions every spell caster had Break Enchantment and 2 of them had it Quickened.

PS

 

[Garthanos]

It's more about creating a character concept that fits the ability scores you rolled - that can be fun.

Creative character design can be either inspired by or impaired by die rolling elements of the character whatever they might be and whatever the results achieved. Stormbringer/RuneQuest had a version where you randomly die rolled nationalities and professional backgrounds... sometimes this resulted in players reading about or focusing on a "race/nationality" and professions that they might not have explored otherwise and enjoying it.. and but often it resulted in a sort of meh, who wants to play a farmer sort of dissatisfaction.

 

[Mercurius]

It depends upon what your starting point is in creating a character concept. It seems that many roll ability scores and use them as inspiration for a character concept; I always go about it the other way: come up with a character concept and then roll (or assign) ability scores to fit that. It also depends upon the tone of the campaign, whether it is low or high fantasy, to what degree it is epic, etc. Being the comic relief character with a 6 DEX and INT in an epic campaign gets old awfully fast, for all those involved.

So do you start with fluff or crunch? If you start with fluff then low ability scores may not be all that fun if they don't fit your concept.

 

[malkav666]

I don't think low ability scores in and of themselves make a character more memorable, fun to roleplay, or any other nostalgic element of measure that that they often get, when referenced to characters with high scores (or more often when compared to characters that are tuned to a razors edge with point buy).

I think much of the feelings players have about these low scores is not the low score in and of itself, but rather its the memory of characters that started play with lemon stats, and the players went on and made lemonade out of them, and made a character that somehow managed to survive despite its flaws or even succeed. All the while the deficient stats are almost like big signs that read "PLEASE USE ME FOR ROLEPLAY". And IMO those low stats would be just as much a part of the character concept, as say, something like alignment.

So the short of it is IMO, its not the lows scores themselves that get that nostalgia rumbling. Its the possibility of getting low scores. And the challenge of making them work if you do get them. It sre is fun to kick ass and take names with a decked out toon, but its equally fun (and IMO sometimes moreso) to make a character do it with stats that are less than optimal.

Do I look for low stats to define my fun? Absolutely not; I would much rather roll an above average character. Have I had characters that have had a few low stats that were among my favorites? Sure have, and I enjoyed the challenge of getting them to succeed with those low stats.

Its realy in the hands of the fate. Some characters are not meant to live, regardless of stats. I play each toon like its my favorite. If it dies I make a new one. Whether or not they have high or low stats is not as important to me as the chance of having either.

But thats just my own view, YMMV.


love,

malkav