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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5001820" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, to even describe people in terms of intelligence, wisdom, and charisma is to take a modern perspective.  If we were to try to capture the greek perspective in a way that we wouldn't have to ask this question, we'd create a game system were characters were rated according to things like virtue, cunning, and learning - and even those we'd leave untranslated because 'arete' and 'metis' don't exactly mean what the English words 'virtue' and 'cunning' mean.The thing to keep in mind is that the Greek myths and legends in particular don't have to obey the fundamental law of role playing because they aren't roleplaying games and the purpose of those myths and legends is fundamentally different from the purpose of game mechanics.  The Greek myths and legends fall into a category of didactic literature - something like the stories we call 'boys stories' - and are meant to be morally and ethically instructive to the reader.  It is a Hero centered morality that is on display in them.  The Hero has supernatural excellence.  He is a demi-god.  He has the blood of the divine in his veins.  He is worshipful.  He is meant to inspire.  Herecles isn't merely strong enough to lift the sky off Atlas' shoulders, he's beautiful enough to win the approval of Hipplyta, and cunning enough to outwit any foe.  Heracles isn't meant to lose at any contest ever.Beyond being a Hero centered ethical systems, the greek myths establish a national identity.  For most cultures, there are really only so many negative qualities you want to attribute to your founding king and really for many cultures attributing anything negative to the founding king is considered treacherous if not outright blasphemous.  Theseus is the founder-king of Athens.  Of course he has all manner of positive qualities in the stories, although the modern reader may flinch at seeing "great virtue at kidnapping women and carrying them off to be his wife" as a positive quality.On the other hand, if you wanted to make a point about ancient heros being hypercompotent, I would have thought you'd have referenced something other than Greek myth, because read from a modern perspective the Greek hero generally seems to have low 'Wisdom'.  The Greeks didn't believe in giving all 18's to their heros - not even their Gods.  The Greeks felt alot more comfortable with their heroes if the heroes generally had some glaring flaw - even Athena for all her wisdom is vain and subject to flattery.  For the mortal heroes, this flaw usually manifests itself as either hubris or being a poor judge of women or both.Hyper specialization may or may not be a thing of the modern world, but even if it wasn't it would perforce be a thing of the game world.As I've said before, the game part of 'role playing game' is entirely dedicated to resolving the great play ground role playing game challenge.  One player says, "Bang!  I shot you!", and the other says, "No you didn't, you missed.  Bang! I shot you!"   From this conflict, the once great pasttime is ultimately ruined as most players are unable to invent a way out of it.  Some try to arbitrate the conflict by taking turns, but this makes the game too predictable.  Some try to arbitrate the conflict by making no one ever miss, and thus turning the game into a contest of who can see the other and say 'Bang!' first.  Some try to arbitrate the conflict by playing 'rock paper scissors' whenever there is a dispute.  Others by simple toy weaponry and use that, or play the game with sticks were parry and whack can resolve just who killed who.  As a kid, I tried all of these things; I suspect, since you are gamers, that many of you did as well.But the fundamental way that they are all in common is that they prevent someone from always winning.  Heracles doesn't have this limitation.  He's supposed to always win - that's the point of the story.  Heracles might or might not be great myth, but he's certainly a poor game.  To resolve the conflict, all role playing games must obey a fundamental law: "Thou shalt not be good at everything."  As such, in role playing games the specialist is always favored over the generalist.  The jack-of-all-trades must perforce be a master of none.  Everyone plays both a 'role' (character) in the improv drama and a 'role' (speciality) within the cooperative play.  Consciously or unconsciously, that is how games are designed because if we built them any other way - even if we didn't know about the fundamental law of RPGs - they would feel wrong to us in the same way that it felt wrong when Billy always dodged our bullets.Sure.  And Väinämöinen was both the mightiest swordsman in the world and the greatest worker of magic.  But the ancients generally were trying to teach young men a lesson about what they should inspire to be in life.  I fully agree with them in as much (and probably only in as much) that in life the well-rounded person lives a happier life than the one who sacrifices his health, or his atheletic ability, or his learning, or his spiritual growth.  Such a person rapidly becomes grotesque as well as unhappy.   But I should hope that we aren't trying to much to be our characters, because for one thing, in real life you shall never be a master of blood magic nor cast fireballs or any other such thing.</blockquote>

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